How Long Oh Lord, How Long?

Juror B37's interview on CNN brought forth memories that lie deep down embedded in me.  They were memories of an era when Blacks freedom of movement was obstructed and certain areas and public places in the United States were off limits to them.  Not only that, it could mean a life or death situation.

Before I begin, here's a link to someone's honest opinion on went wrong.  After you read it, I'm asking you to bear with me because I have a lot to say.  Some of it I've said before in the past, but feel that it applies today as well.

Her comments also reminded me of something that Richard Wright once wrote in his book Uncle Tom's Children. The first sentence he wrote in his book was, “My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small.” That first sentence in the book struck me as sort of odd. I was like why would a black man make a statement like that? However, when I thought about it, it made a lot of sense.

Then it dawned on me. He had to learn how to survive in order to live in a world where black men were endangered species trapped in second-class citizenship because of the racist attitudes of most that did not want to see him get ahead in life or recognize him as a man or a human being. In order to survive he had to shift between two different personas and play by those in power set of rules or it could cost him his life. 

Wright’s story mirrored that of many black men living in the South and a few other states during that era. Most of the rules were aimed at stripping black men of their manhood and filled with constant humiliation. A black man had to play one role for those in power and another role which was his true self for his friends and family. 

Wright sacrificed who he was as an individual—a man and human being in order to feed his family and provide a roof over their head. Staying alive played a definite major part in his decision. His life and being able to live it to a ripe old age was of the utmost importance to him, but the main deciding factor in why he chose to play the game by their set of rules—he was powerless to do otherwise. 

Richard Wright’s story took place during an era when there was no such thing as Civil Rights for minorities. Blacks had no rights! Black men in the past were lynched at the drop of a hat for trivial so-called offenses and many of those so-called offenses were "created falsehoods" because of their thirst for black men’s blood. Their lust and racism demon watched strange fruit hanging from a tree for sadistic entertainment purposes. 

Here it is 2013 and the death of Travyon mirrors those same created falsehoods and entertainment for some with the evil of hatred in their heart. His dead body was desecrated with photo-shopped pictures of him hanging in a noose and his lifeless body lying next to gorillas in a safari hunt. To people with that mindset and juror B37, he was just another "subhuman darkie" dead instead of another human being or a child who had every right to live and a right to freedom of movement.  

B37 said it in her own words when she said, "I believed Trayvon played a huge role in his death."  The problem with her statement is that she could not bring herself to visualize Trayvon as an unarmed child minding his own business.  She did not see him as human. In fact, she saw him as some white Americans saw him...a dangerous black male. Never mind that he wasn't a dangerous thug and that he was just an innocent kid trying to get back home.  Nor could she see the humanity in Rachel. She saw Rachel as that "other". Yet, she saw the humanity in Zimmerman who has a violent past. So did those who celebrated and passed whiskey around at public lynchings of black males, they only saw a color coded humanity...whites only.

Let me make one thing clear.  The history of the stereotype "dangerous male" did not only apply to Black males.  In fact, throughout history that label has been applied to American Indians, Asian males, Hispanic/Latinos, Arabs, Iranians, and practically every male of color. While whites are portrayed as knights in shining armor...heroes...the good guy.   It's a pattern used to marginalize and control other human beings. My mission has always been to destroy stereotypes.  I recognize the danger in them, the destructiveness, divisiveness, and seeds of hate in stereotypes.

To those who want to bring up black on black crime, let's not forget or try to erase the fact that whites also have white on white crime.   Every race that has ever walked the earth has committed crimes within their own race. That still does not justify murder.  Murder is murder plain and simple. It started when Cain killed Abel and brothers been killing each other every since.  There are no if, but's, or maybe's in taking  the life of another human being. Just as there is no justification in Zimmerman taking Trayvon's life.  There is good and bad seeds in all races and that's the God's heaven truth!

So yes, let's have a real discussion about race and racism.  I mean a real hope-to-die, get it all out in the open discussion.  It's times to drain the poison off, so that this nation can heal.  The whole world is watching.  I don't know about you people, but I don't plan to set my clock back, I plan to set it forward.

HLN Court TV Treats Trayvon Martin's Death Like A Joke

As I watched HLN broadcast the trial of George Zimmerman it occurred to me that the folks over at HLN must think that the death of a black child is a joke.  It troubles me that the trial of George Zimmerman appears to be a game show and the prize is TV ratings on HLN.  

Zimmerman's racist friend Frank Taafe stars as one of their TV panel guests.  The rules of the game are to let Taafe disrespect,  interrupt and drown out anyone on the panel who points out Zimmerman's lies or sheds any unfavorable light on Taafe's buddy.  These rules even apply to those who call in.  The rules are rigged in Taafe's favor who gets to say whatever he pleases, while the other guests are disrespected. 

The whole trial ordeal has been a display of disrespect and insensitivity towards the memory of Trayvon, his grieving parents, and friends.  It mirrors in some ways back in the day when Black males were lynched. When they hung a Black male the lynch mobs celebrated, took pictures next to the dead body, cut off pieces of the body to keep as souvenirs. They desecrated Black males' dead body and disrespected their family and friends. 

Trayvon's body has been dehumanized and desecrated.  The cruelty of some has been sick, disgusting and pathetic who posted pictures of his dead body Photoshop with no thought or concern for the grief of his parents or friends.  The death of a child is not a joke or funny in no shape, form, or fashion. Regardless, of color, creed, nationality, etc.  Children are our future, but some folks don't seem to get that.  

Btw, Don West's daughter Molly West shouldn't be so quick to act like she is all that and a bag of chips.  Molly, did you show your daddy that picture of what else you love to lick?   Molly is definitely not camera shy with her licking and  loves to lick on more than ice cream in front of an audience.  No telling where Molly's tongue has been. 

Bye for now, I got to disinfect my  computer screen.  

Mitt Romney the Plastic Puppet

 

Have you  noticed how people watching a tennis match, head constantly turns left to right and right to left following the tennis ball as it goes back and forth between the players?  Well, that's how I feel whenever I hear Mitt Romney tell Americans where he stands on issues.  Because the problem is he changes where he stands on issues like the weather and lies. 

 

Romney has a habit of being indecisive when it comes to where he stands.  And there is a little war button in the Oval Office that I don't think I'd want to trust him with because he is too fickle. In addition, he's just a little too anxious to go to war with certain foreign countries and views war as an opportunity.  Well, war is not an opportunity.  It is filled with blood shed and is unfortunate because young people lose their lives, limbs, and minds!

 

For Romney to have been a successful business man, he sure does have a  problem with basic Arithmetic.  Because last time I did a math problem, if you subtract 47 from 100, it leaves 53, NOT 100.  I understand that the methods in doing math have changed somewhat, but the answers to the problems haven't.  The answers still remain the same.  Maybe, Mitt means that the Republican Party intends to scrub 47% from the voter registration list.  Sorta has me wondering if he was one of those students that paid someone to do his schoolwork.  How can we trust him?  We know without a doubt that he has a habit of stretching the truth a mile long. 

 

Don't be fooled by his sudden revised 47% story to 100%.  Romney wants to bring in a serfdom system!  He wants to model Americas' labor force after China. With Romney it's about spreadsheets and accountant ledgers and the profits.  He does not care about all Americans having affordable health care, or food on the table, or shelter.  Romney is strictly about profits and profits only.  He cannot relate to an average ordinary citizen because he has been catered to and waited on all his life.  I doubt if he wipes his own ass. 

 

I don't care how  Republicans try to rig the vote with voter suppression. President Barack Obama will be re-elected!  There are still many seniors,  in the black community that were delivered by midwifes, especially in rural areas due to poverty and Jim Crow.  For most of them, the census, bible, and church records serve as their birth certificate.  Before the Civil Rights Movement, hospitals did not exactly have an open arms policy towards minorities in the south or north and denied blacks admission.  Many blacks used home remedies for whatever ailed them.

It is important that we help get those people registered to vote.  What you can do to help:

 

Provide transportation to those who have none.

 

Get the word out that it is important that they vote because much is at stake.

 

Make sure you vote. 

 

 





Pictures Do Speak A Million Words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hide Without Seek!

I sure hope when the Presidential debates take place that one of the commentators will ask Romney why he erased computer hard drives that were the State government property when he left the governor's office in Mass. And $97,000 sure was an awful lot of money to spend on making sure they were wiped clean. What did he have on them that he didn't want anyone to see?

The computers sold to his staff  ONLY raised my eyebrow a little bit too. Let's see he doesn't want to show his tax returns, erased computer hard drives that were the State's government property when he left the governor's office in Mass, and appears to be a habitual liar. Sneaky+liar+destroying evidence + something to hide = crooked as the crooked road in San Francisco. Smh!

Hmmm...you know his wife mentioned he cooked a Thanksgiving Dinner in her speech. Well, I call that a fowl cooked by a foul because it's some foul incidents that make Romney seem a little bit on the shady side. I wonder did he wash the foul. He likes to play hide and seek, but without the seek part a little bit too much for granny's taste.

Y'all know my spiritual eye is telling me that something, something ain't right like Keith Sweat use to say. I'm just saying! Those speeches he and his wife gave, well, they were just a little too plastic for me. For a minute, I started shivering like I was sitting down at the North Pole instead of in my bed trying to listen to their speech. His and her speech lacked warmth and seemed well...phoney.

Zimmerman's attorney is subpoenaing Trayvon's school records on their quest to make Martin out of a thug.  Nothing new there.  It is just as much as part of America's history as apple pie and war.  The only thing that has changed is the label rapist to thug.  Whenever murder involves a black victim, stereotype labels are thrown in to justify murder.  Murder of black folks is justifiable, but murder of any of group of people is not.

Tricks Are For Kids

I haven't blogged in a few months for various reasons.  However, today I felt like exercising my rights to freedom of speech.  Does anyone remember back in 2011 of May when I wrote this  topic?    I was reminded of it when Clint Eastwood spoke at the RNC and illustrated my point regarding the President being invisible to them when he spoke to an invisible President in an empty chair.

Did Clint call the President Mr.?  I guess calling him Mr. Obama instead of boy is what the Republicans consider progress. Those on the right have a very bad habit of addressing him as Obama and Mr.  Nevertheless, it is so disrespectful that those folks on the right insist on not addressing him as President Obama or Mr. President as they did all of the Presidents before him who were white.  After all, he does hold the highest office in America and whether they like it or not he is America's Commander in Chief and President.

For the last few months, I've been keeping up with the Trayvon Martin case.  His case is just as important right now as the coming elections.  The reason being that if Zimmerman gets away with his cold blooded act of murder, it sets the stage for copycats to surely follow and innocent young black males to be labeled thug as an excuse to kill them at random and get away with it.  All black males are not thugs.  Neither was Trayvon! 

Nevertheless, check out the video above that is a reenactment with a written argument following each scene which; challenges everything Zimmerman claims and then check out this one too. 


BTW, First Lady Michelle Obama gave an excellent speech last night.  And Lily Ledbetter gave a heartfelt speech that was moving as well.  All of the speeches given last night were great!  One thing Mitt Romney did right was picking his VP.  Yep, they're a perfect match because both of them are skilled in lying and revisionist.

Anyway, stay tuned, I'm not promising topics on a regular basis because I've been babysitting my two year old great-granddaughter who is full of energy and wears me out by the end of the day.  Yet, she is a bundle of joy and I enjoy watching her grow.

Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy and Greedy Folks,

Well, I wonder how many folks are free of debt that donated to George Zimmerman.    Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy are free of debt and have plans of living large once Zimmerman gets out of jail.  Yep, Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy do nothave a care in the world according to transcripts of their jail conversations.  Everything is all under control and according to them; it’s a cinch that he’ll go free.  Alrighty!

Thanks to all of Zimmerman’s generous monetary donors Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy have paid off all their bills and have plans to move into a six bedroom home, buy a couple of cars, and live large for the rest of their lives.   Included in the list of things to buy were some bullet proof vests for Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy and their Attorney.  Yep, he played his donors like a piano. 

Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Sleazy got it all mapped out.  Nowadays, it is rewarding to kill an unarmed young black male at least that is Zimmerman’s way of thinking.   People like him love that “Stand Your Ground Law,” which in reality apparently means kill a black person, because it and gets them out of jail free.  It is a means of justification.  However, the law does not apply if it is a black person when they feel their life is threatened.

Mr. Sleazy even had plans to buy Mrs. Sleazy a scarf out the deal.  How generous of him.  Mrs. Sleazy went to jail behind her hubby’s game plan and to show his appreciation he wants to buy her a scarf.  Wow!  I hate to be the one to tell Mrs. Sleazy, but that is cheap. I mean since perjury in Florida is a felony and I do not know too many states that let you get or keep a nursing license with a felony, but that’s Florida we’re talking about.  They’re a little abnormal down in Florida.

The Republican Congress has their heart set on starving the poor.  They want to cut billions from the foodstamp program.  But what they won't tell you is how Banks and big corporations made a killing off of foodstamps.  Why does the Republican party fail to acknowledge that real "Welfare Queens" are Corporations and Banks?