GUNS, COPS, AND THE HOOD

When I was growing up my mother and father taught me to respect the law and police officers because they had a dangerous job and they were there to protect us and our interests. Pretty much that was the mindset of everyone in my community back in Tarrytown (Gary, Indiana) as a preteen back in the mid sixties, but as time went on, the climate changed as I became more politically informed, and the police became part-time occupiers of our communities. I couldn’t understand how was it that the agency that you were supposed to call when something bad happened was the very organization that we young warriors despised deeply with an intensity that bordered on hate. Hate. Whenever an organization has an “us verses them” mentality, it can’t help but spread onto the streets where those who are classified as “them” begin to feel the same way. Back when I was in junior high at Tolleston High School in Gary, Indiana, there was a police officer that was stationed at the community office at Patcher Park in Tarrytown, his name I could never forget, it was Mr. White, and he lived in Tarrytown. He was so friendly and explained things to us in a simplistic manner. He was firm, but he believed we could be anything we wanted in life. We were in amazement at the realities that he shared with our young minds. Whenever we would see him in the streets, we would bend over backwards to speak to him. “Hello Mr. White!” He would always say hello. He spoke to us and made us realize that he was a normal man who had a job to do, a very demanding job that could cost an officer their life. But we children were no threat back in those days, all we wanted to do was to get good grades in school, play ball, and play more ball. Life was so simple back then…….the difference between us then, when we were kids, and the kids nowadays is that we wouldn’t dare do anything that would bring shame and disgrace to our parents and family name. Today, it seems as though many of our Black youth are trying to do just that! Children now are growing up faster, not in a physical sense per se’, well, let me correct that; they are getting developed faster. Maybe from the hormone laced meat and dairy products? Some of these young teenage girls are definitely not prepared emotionally for the adult scenarios that their premature bodies are introducing them to, but that’s another blog now isn’t it? But yes, they are growing up faster and they are realizing that all cops aren’t the “Officer White” of my glorious upbringing. It works both ways though, because kids these days have juvenile rap sheets that would make career criminals flinch with embarrassment! Young girls brag about their special abilities in mastering certain acts that bring them lots of money from men who could be their grandfathers. Young boys barely out of middle school fathering children themselves and becoming street hardened criminals long before they graduate high school. Many welcome the hood “rights of passage” of manhood by getting into the lower level drug trade and few get a chance to ever enjoy becoming the legal age of twenty-one because of their early funerals. So imagine what the police have to go through when they must deal with youngsters who are unfortunate because of their dreadful circumstances, and the bleak environment that breeds them to be the criminals of tomorrow in a hopeless economy and oftentimes a hopeless world from their personal point of view. They don’t grow up with respect for the law; they embrace a strong distaste for it. And while my generation would try to live in harmony with the police officers of my day, it is a cultural expectancy today to sneer publicly at any law enforcement officer, even if you had absolutely no reason to do so. It’s not popular to be the “Po-Po” anymore. It used to be a common thing to hear a young man say that he wanted to be a police officer when he grew up, now you hardly hear any young men say this. And young Black men? Don’t waste your time; you’ll probably have a better chance of finding a naked Barack Obama taking a leisurely stroll down at the mall. This is how drastic our culture has changed toward law enforcement. Now granted, the dirty cops are becoming more and more of a common fixture in the Black neighborhoods, and I can stretch my imagination a bit to say that I can understand an occasional heavy handed “off the record” tactic that may have to be employed by the cops when the situation calls for it because I know what’s out there. I feel that both sides are being fooled badly. On the one hand, you have these bad ass wayward kids from broken homes that usually have no father present in their life to guide them along the correct path, and when you do what kind of example is it? How can a child have a strong desire to learn and grow when their father is on the corner bumming nickels for a beer or blatantly bed hopping with every woman in sight? Imagine the resentment that is manifested from within as these youngsters get older? I’ve noticed in my personal/professional life that I get mixed reactions on how I carry myself when in close proximity to many of these wayward young men. Many times while I’m out and about, having already cultivated a friendly and sometimes not so friendly dialogue with them, I have found that the young men who have no strong father figure at home will react to me in either one of two ways. They will embrace who I am and grow to open up and confide in me as a surrogate father or they will reject me on sight because of the resentment built up over the years from knowing that they didn’t have a father figure in their lives. I would not attempt to explain away everything in my statements as every situation is completely different. We as Black men carry a lot of our frustrations hidden and brewing below the surface like a pressure cooker waiting to blow. We just don’t talk about what stresses us until it’s too late. We have feelings behind the strong visuals and athletic strut that captures the attention of all who drink in our awe inspiring and sometimes intimidating presence. But truth be told for many of us, that’s all we have, sorry to spill that secret brothers, it’s not all of us, but way too many. This world can be frightening for anyone, I mean anyone, because as fast as its evolving, it seems like as soon as you learn the rules to this life and settle into a somewhat stable existence, some evil power comes along to rip you out of your comfort zone and change the rules forcing you to start all over again. Think it’s easy? This is the norm in the everyday life of the Black man. Not every Black man, but too many of us. It’s not an excuse. Not at all! I am merely painting a colorful picture with my words to bring you into a mindset that you may not have been privy to or may have misunderstood. The uncertainty can be a bitch! Why do you think that so many of us are dropping dead from heart attacks while at the same time appearing to be the perfect picture of health? Don’t let the good looks fool you…….as usual, I’ve strayed far from my intended direction but allow me to bring it back into focus. The bottom line is that many of our Black youth have been programmed with the wrong agenda, the wrong data, and the hijacked culture that I often speak of. The video games make murder and death fair. The disconnect created from broken families only amplifies this isolated condition. The lack of the barest of necessities in such a materialistic world is nothing short of an embarrassment. Opportunities are there, but for some it appears that they are further away than they really are. With no one around who thinks positive to encourage them, they succumb to the mentality of doom. STD’s are alive and well, but that’s not enough to dissuade our kids from experimenting with each other, as illicit sex has not only become a casual recreation, but it has also become a means of yielding a false sense of power to bring a rush of superiority for a short time to the powerless. Wow….slow down Phil! You hear how our young Black men speak to each other in public, “When I finally laid this dick to that bitch, she couldn’t help but call me daddy and give me that check every week because she know that she don’t want to lose this!” How can our young men become men when the only men that they are around speak like that? So here they are, frustrated, misinformed, non-motivated, morally bankrupt, pissed off at the world, unemployed, hopeless with no plan, and no dream or goals to strive for, living in what can only be described as a pre-hell. Now here comes a cop with an attitude telling these young brothers on the corner that they have to move it along or else. This is no reason to shoot an officer of the law, but when these confrontations are an almost daily happening, it doesn’t take long for an opinion to get formed on who is not the most well like person in the hood. You see, from what I’ve observed, there may be no place for these young men to go. The police may reminisce about their younger days in little league baseball, hockey practice or the trips out of state over the summer with their family. But there is nothing like that in the hood except the basketball court where bullets usually fly on a regular basis and where drugs can be purchased with ease as well as the companionship of a crack whore. Damn, did I say that? The tensions are always building. Not all of the time but with so many factors involved, is it a wonder that it isn’t too hard for these young men to take out their frustrations on an authority figure with a gun? We need more “Mr. Whites” in the world today don’t we? My words weren’t meant to excuse anyone for breaking the law, or bringing harm to a law enforcement officer. It was shared to ponder the many factors that bring a person to the point where they do not care about pulling the trigger of a gun on another human being. Until we see ourselves collectively as proud Black folk, no matter what the pedigree, political affiliation, lifestyle preference, background or financial portfolio, look for it to happen time and time again! Is this the type of world that we deserve to live in?

SLIPPIN INTO DARKNESS

They've become the subject of dozens of films - those lazy ass young Black men and boys who spend most of their time playing video games, smoking Kush, and refusing to get a job. Hey, you know and I know it’s a very unsettling trend. Black America is now producing a generation of 'lost boys' who lack the drive to go to school, get a job, respect their elders, and end up languishing on the street corners, and their mommas couch in the living room. Talk about stuck in adolescence! Damn! They are struggling with not feeling passionate about anything. Committing to any damn thing is a waste of time to them. They're almost saying it's cool to be rude, stupid, dumb, oafish, destructive, and not very productive. It’s an epidemic. I've spoken with many boys in Grades 1 to 5 here in Indianapolis, and they've told me that school is a stupid waste of time. Wow! When I ask them why, they say, "I don’t like reading," or "because I wouldn't sit still," or "on account of I drew a picture of me shooting my daddy.” Real stuff people! Part of the problem is that our young Black boys feel bored at school, and about the only thing momma can do is encourage them to set themselves small, achievable goals. I said small…This means they take on small challenges to begin with, then; maybe they will see that happiness comes from a sense that you're making progress toward goals. Hum? You young Black mothers and sometimes fathers have to understand that parenting is not about being best friends with your son. Black parents coddle these wayward souls too much, and spare the rod too often. They coddle them. They lie for them. They co-sign for them. Parents cover for their kids, even when their kids are dead wrong. And that's where the problems come in. These young Black mothers always say they want to give their kids more than what they had. But sometimes more is not always better. Hell, teachers quit because they can't teach these bad ass kids. Police officers that patrol the streets damn near have to be a child psychologist. We've dropped the ball, me included. One thing we had when I was a kid was respect for our elders. No matter what we did, we respected our elders, and we told the truth, or tried (smile at that). Black parenting has now become warfare. I mean guerrilla warfare! It's adult versus kid, old school versus young, wise versus naive. Who wins the battle many times boils down to who's the craziest, who scares whom, who waves the white flag first, or in some instances, who dies first. When I say I want to kill kids, you know what I mean. I don't have to explain. I just say what frustrated Black parents want to say, but can't. That's all right. I'm the bad guy. I'll be the bad guy. Remember, I am the Angry Black Man! I got my ass whooped, not whipped, every day when I was growing up. I was disciplined not so much for being disrespectful, but for doing crazy things around the house. Sometimes I got two or three in one day, some from my sisters. I got whipped so much that I became immune to the pain. I cried my ass off, but I could take the pain. Mothers, get in your sons ear. Always ask them about their day. And always make them look in your eyes. They might think it’s hard and cold, but….oh well. Be a fan of the truth. Tell it like it is! Young Black men should have control of their lives by the age of 25. By then they should have came to the realization that there ain’t anything in the streets for them but death! The one thing that missing fathers teach their sons, that they don’t even know that they teach them, is that the sons don’t want to be like them. Now that’s real talk…..meanwhile, did you know that we now have grandmothers who are 33, and have more drama in their lives than their grandkids……..another story for another day.

Dr. Cornel West…..Subliminally Speaking?

I’ll say it again and again, and again one more time, Dr.Cornel West is right. His criticisms of Obama are not a personal indictment of the President; I think they’re actually more of a jab at a racist system. Subliminal... hum? He’s just saying what many of us feel and won’t say, or are scared to say? Michael Corleone, in the God Father, said it best, “every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.” You simply can’t fix the damn mob from the inside. Once you get in, you are sucked into their thing. There’s no way to change their thing into our thing. That simply ain’t ever gonna happen. You know what I mean? So Dr. West is just saying what a lot of us thoughtful Black folks are saying. That’s all. Shit, I try to make a difference every fuckin day, and it’s extremely hard tryin to make that difference within the totally corrupted system to which we Black folks find ourselves subjected. It’s hard out here in these dark ghettos, brothers and sisters. Our Black truths hide in the darkest corners. Simply put, once you become part of that system, you become part of the problem. See what I mean? At the least, Barack has made is blatantly obvious that there is no real change to be expected from the white folks who benefit from the status quo. Each and every member of our elected government, all of them who lie, beg, and pander for campaign money to keep their office, has re-election as their number one priority, not us Black folks. That’s the problem again. Why would they have any motivation to change a system that has elevated them to such grandeur? It’s like expecting a king to overthrow his own people. I cannot understand why more of us Black folk can’t seem to grasp these simple truths. Too many in the Black blogosphere don’t seem to understand that Black folks issues are everybody’s issues. I certainly hear many people, Black and white, who are rightfully upset that the promise of change are now being deferred to a later time and place. Dreams of hope deferred. Hum….again. I see people complaining that America is still acting in an imperialist fashion in Black countries all over the world. Now I see the occupy folks complaining that the corporate interests who drove all the bad policies of the last three years, are still in place, and still free to do what they’ve always done; put big ass profits over the general welfare of the country. Have you heard anything from “occupy” that focuses on our inner-city inequities? I don’t care if Barack was the Blackest man on this planet, his actions in these and other respects is plainly and simply a 180 degree turn from the hopeful rhetoric of his 2008 campaign. Few intelligent Black people thought Obama would be a back-to-Africa, Black Nationalist radical. Come on! Another thing I just can’t understand is why white folks fail to comprehend that many of the issues that we Black people love are issues they love too; those of fundamental fairness for the betterment of the entire country. Now, we need new and bold policies that will bring about a much needed redistribution of the ill-gotten wealth in this country, and that could act as a catalyst and model for the improved delivery of social, educational, health, and economic programs for all of the impoverished Black people in this so called land of milk and honey. We should never be afraid to speak the truth to power, no matter how that power looks. If Barack was my blood brother, I would be kicking his ass out behind the house for being such a disappointment. Certainly he deserves, and will receive, no free pass, just because he is our Black face in a high place. He still has my support, but only because the alternative is nuclear winter. You know what that means, don’t cha!

MYTHOLOGY 101 ARE WHITE MEN SMARTER?

I know that this post will anger a few of my readers….say what, but through my intimate conversations with assorted Black folks, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are some Black people who believe that white men have super powers that are genetically-inherited with superior intellectual mind-control techniques that they use to oppress/control Black people in America. If I choose to believe these lost fools, it is their belief that white men are capable of controlling the minds of Black people, and we aren’t able to resist their mind control, and nobody can control them because everybody else is under their spell too, hypnotized by their . . . whiteness I guess. Hum….? It is beginning to seem to me that this small percentage of Black people believes that white men possess the proper genetics to rule the world. These same white men believe that they will accomplish their mission because of their superior intellect, secret societies, and agendas passed down from white folk to white folk, and know the minds of Black folks and to beat us at our own game. This is some sad shit, because most Black people believe in the myth of white supremacy but they don’t have a clue that they do. Most Black people say color doesn’t matter and sign on hook, line, and sinker for any cliché that white people throw at them. Most Black people wouldn’t know how to question the status quo if you paid them. That’s not because we are inherently stupid, it’s a byproduct of our enslavement where we were taught not to question white people or anything they tell us. White folks want us Black people to believe in the myth of white supremacy, or they might get those pesky ass Niggers like me who try to buck the system and talk about racism and the privileges white people have simply by virtue of their skin color! They don’t want that do they? Check this out….white people (the smallest population of people on the earth), have been able to order, control, dominate, oppress, and manipulate the earth’s resources so that they control and own damn near everything. I say the myth of white supremacy discreetly because it is nothing more than illusion. It’s a myth that they are superior; it’s not a myth that they have been able to take their overblown belief in self and transform that into global domination. Does average white Joe or Sally believe that they are better than Black people? Yes, that’s how the game is made to last. White Joe or Sally has to believe that history started with their appearance on this planet, and that white people are the originators of the arts and sciences. They have to believe that whites made every last technological advancement. If they don’t sign on for the belief that whites were smarter, stronger, more capable, more civilized, more refined,
more God-like than any other people, then their whole house of cards starts to fall. I really don’t give a personal damn what you think of me or my posts, but I’m gonna keep tellin the truths other Black folk are scared to say. I ain’t scared! I actually watched FOX NEWS this morning for two painfully consecutive hours and ….. white folks actually believe that there is something inbred about them that makes them better, that makes them more deserving of peace, justice, and liberty than anyone else on the planet. They think God is a white man, therefore white men have more insight, more leadership ability, more spiritual stuff, right? The air white people breathe has to be more sacred, the land they live on has to be more consecrated, more blessed, and more protected than anyone else’s land. Greece has to be the birthplace of the humanities, Columbus has to be the greatest explorer, Shakespeare has to be the best composer, Rocky has to be the best fighter, and Jesus has to have blue eyes and blonde hair. White people believe this shit to be true from the time they are born in order for the myth of white supremacy to thrive. White has to be right or the entire myth of white supremacy crumbles like a crunchy taco shell at an all you can eat Mexican buffet. Ever watch the news right after some white person has gone on a killing spree and killed everyone they could? The neighbors all say the same thing. “Oh, he was so nice. You just don’t think something like that can happen in our neighborhood.” That, my Black friends, is the myth of white supremacy at work. It is the belief that crime only happens in Black neighborhoods. It’s the belief that Crazy Herman, as everyone in the neighborhood calls him, is a good ole boy regardless of the fact that he kills the neighborhood cats, and drinks their blood because he has white blood. You see, whiteness equals good in this society. It’s what our Black children are taught in school, it’s what’s reflected in the media, it’s the thread that’s woven into the very fabric of our lives. Hum..? White men who get to decide what is and what isn’t racist comes purely from the myth of white supremacy. It’s the notion that they don’t have to consider anyone else’s experience or perspective because what they see, and think, and believe has to be right. Are there secret societies that have been formed to keep Black people oppressed? Hell yes! Do those men have super abilities, do they have access to mind control techniques that keep Black people hypnotized? Not exactly! What these secret societies have are members who are egotistical, greedy, racist, and intent on keeping their illegitimate power. Their ego comes from the belief that white men are special, that they have rights and privileges no one else is deserving of. Their ego is what drives them to steal, rape, kill, and oppress. These white guys are narcissistic bastards who sit around and try to figure out ways to control the money and power so it doesn’t get in the hands of Black people. It’s their ego that makes white men think that they have more fundamental value than Blacks, and that’s created their false sense of superiority. Where did this sick sense of self originate? How did white people come to believe that they had authority over the Black people of the planet? I have no idea. I can’t even begin to speculate. I do know that it has infected every country, every place white people have been for thousands of years. What I can do,
however, is tell you how the myth of white supremacy has been able to flourish and spread in this country over the last 400 years. There’s no magic to it, there’s no genetics involved, there’s no secret social agenda, its purely psychological. Understanding the mind and how it works holds the key to understanding how and why white people in this country have been able to dictate and dominate the minds of Black people for over four centuries. Europeans saw the beautiful black skin of the people, of the land that is now known as Africa, and believed that Black Africans were inferior savages. These white men assumed they were basically superior to the African’s, and that is was their right to capture, kill, kidnap, enslave, and own our people. Those beliefs and what they thought was truth, knowledge, and undisputable fact, is what created the system of slavery in America that has been unmatched in the world before or since. They believed that their skin was better, their hair was better, their features were more attractive; they believed that their language, arts, customs, religion, and practices had more legitimacy than anything our ancestors could contribute. They had, and still have a deep-seated need to control, subjugate, and crush the will of Black people. Africans who were enslaved, survived the middle passage, and were and transported to the United States, were emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually healthy people. They were capable of making choices and decisions on their own, had wonderful lives, formed their own opinions, and knew what it was to be a human being. Slaves born in this country, those who never knew freedom, were never privileged enough to know anything other than what the system of slavery taught them. Slaves born into a racist system believed from birth that whites were superior, that Blacks were inferior, and that anything and everything that was good was white. Every Black child born into slavery learned the same lessons, that white was right and that Black was equivalent to the most vile evil. Every white child born in this country is the beneficiary of being born in a system that tells them that every thing about their life, their world, their entire existence that they are superior to Black people. The popularity of racism, the system, laws, and beliefs allowed during slavery set the stage for every white child to not only believe they were superior but it was confirmed (at least in their minds) because anything and everything of accomplishment was achieved by white people. Hold on now…. let me fast forward; the beliefs held by the children of slave owners and the children of white people in general, whether they owned slaves or not, have been passed down from generation to generation. The key tools in building a child’s self esteem are to shower them with praise and reinforce to them that they have worth. Having books, and TV shows and movies that show white children people that look like them builds a sense of self. Reading children stories where all the heroes are white preserves the myth of white supremacy. Teaching children that God in heaven looks like them validates that white is the standard by which everything else has to be measured. White children, never having to read a book about Black people, never having to hear a story of Black accomplishment, never conceiving that anyone other than white people contributes anything to society, grow up with an inherited and false
sense of superiority. White children never have to wait until the one night of the week when the “white shows” are on, they never have to wait for the latest Tyler Perry blackface to come out. Hum? So while Blacks have inherited and passed down a slave mentality (even though we don’t acknowledge or admit it), whites have passed down a slave master mentality. Slave master mentality is the mindset of white people who have never once had to question that people like them have been the masters of finance, industry, medicine and the arts. Slave master mentality is the mindset of people who have never once in their lives felt that their skin color was a liability, something that they had to denounce in order to be accepted. Slave master mentality is the systems passed down from generation to generation that allows white people to accept that the final authority, the last word, is going to come from a person who looks like them. It’s that diseased sense of self, that inflated racist super ego that has created Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck, etc. It’s what lead ol school racist Pat Buchanan to say, and believe, that this country was built by white men. It’s that isolation from a world where Black people are equal, which creates the ego of white people who think that it’s okay to be racist, that they can say whatever they want, to whomever they want, without repercussion, without criticism because they have a birthright to do so. The myth of white supremacy is maintained on the beliefs of white men who think that they have more right to money, power, and control than anyone else. While I recognize and acknowledge that the mindset of white people in this society, even those who claim to not have a racist bone in their body, is based on the myth of white supremacy, it is just that . . . a myth. White people are not truly superior; they have no super ability to understand the minds of Black people and mastermind techniques to keep us oppressed. What keeps us oppressed is our inability to understand and comprehend our history, our inability to be thoughtful and examine our dysfunctions and their origins, and our fear of admitting that we might be flawed. It is far easier for us to worship a blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus, than to change the belief that we’ve learned from childhood, passed down to us from our parents, and their parents and their parents before them, that Black is ugly and bad. What keeps the white boys in power is their belief that they are superior. They believe it, so they behave in ways that reflect their beliefs. They start wars, they dictate and manipulate, and they work diligently to keep Black people from taking their power. They stop us from becoming equal partners because their parents taught them that white people have more value. Even if the message isn’t overt, even if the message doesn’t come from behind the softness of a white sheet, the result is the same. Any white child born in this society is the beneficiary of an educational, medical, judicial, legal, and social system that has placed whiteness on a pedestal, deserving of worship and praise. When white people try to silence any discussion of racism, it’s because they believe that they have a right to say what’s valid, what’s true, what’s right in the world, that no other experience other than their own has weight. They see the world through white colored glasses. In that world, everything comes back to the fact that they have been validated, reinforced,
and reminded every single solitary day of their lives that white people are great. They’ve never once had to live in a time or place where white people are not seen as the origin of everything good in the world. So in order for white people, the few elites who do have global power and control, to remain in power, for them to maintain the status quo, Black people have to be complicit. There has to be a population of Black people who believe that there are white men who possess super-human, secret powers to control and dominate Black people. (Listen to the Black contributors on FOX NEWS) Once we accept that the myth of white supremacy is based on nothing more than the self-centered and childlike behaviors of men with inflated egos who have the same flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities as everyone else, then and only then can we start restructuring a world where everyone is equal. Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney will no longer be secret society masterminds, but be outed as the bad ass little boys who were told over and over that the Lone Ranger was good and that the injuns were bad. It is in truth and understanding that we see them as individuals who were told that God was a white man and that they were literally created in his image and likeness. Understanding that illusion is the key to our liberation, the myth of white supremacy can be dismantled and destroyed with knowledge of self, re-writing our stories to include Black people, and dismantling the notion that white men are somehow in possession of tools that will allow them to control us.

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

I really thought the election of the first Black president would be a giant step forward for us Black folks and American racial politics. The future however, may remember the Obama administration as being a giant step backwards for Black America during a period of alienation, anger and despair, in America’s dark ghettos. Not since the 60’s, when Black neighborhoods were demoralized by one riot after another, have Black folks faced such deadly conditions: high expectations and hopes, going up against the reality of no jobs, increased racial tension, dwindling budgets, and broken leadership. If we don’t have an unlikely change in our economic condition, we probably will soon face a new period of explosive anger and even violence, and eventually Black folks could fall prey to a new kind of despair, as hope dies on one Ghetto Street after another. Either way, the mainstream media’s fading drunkenness with the Obama administration has led it to miss the urban crisis now stalking Black America. Many white Americans will be shocked at the urban crisis that quietly took shape while the main stream media sang about the hope and the change that was coming our way. Our new Black folk crisis has four points: a still-deepening recession, competition for jobs, resources, and power between Blacks and mostly Spanish speaking immigrants; the increased disintegration of Black political leadership; and the contrast between the high hopes of election night 2008, and the grim truths that have unfolded. Tension between Blacks and Hispanics is a way of life in some cities, and fights over a shrinking pie are nastier than fights over a growing one. Hum? It doesn’t matter who controls Washington and most state capitals, spending at all levels is going to shrink, leaving Blacks and immigrants in a scramble for the crumbs that are left over. Meanwhile, as I have stated many times in my posts, Black political leadership today is divided and poorly equipped to lead. This is partly for reasons I discussed in my recent posts on the decline of our race; while many poor Blacks still live in a race-dominated world, talented and educated Blacks have options today that their parents and grandparents lacked. Black baseball players were once forced to play for the Negro Leagues; when Major League Baseball opened the doors to Black players, the Negro Leagues lost their best talent, and their fan base.1947 was the year when Black hero Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball; fifteen years later both Negro Leagues were gone. The same thing is happening right now to some race-oriented civic groups and political movements; Black politicians who can break out of the race market get to be governors, senators and President; those who identify as race politicians get to be local council members, or at most members of the House of
Representatives. Do you know what I mean? This means that these politicians must focus less on issues like racial equality and urban poverty, and address issues of more, general interest. This is the approach President Obama took as both a candidate and as President. Candidate Obama talked more about the war in Iraq than about Hurricane Katrina, and as President he has avoided any sense of special support for us Blacks. Now that Blacks have more opportunities to succeed in the general economy, less of our top Black talent goes to work for Black businesses or organizations, leaving a big brain gap in Black communities. Just look at the recent gigantic cheating scandal in Atlanta, teachers and school administrators have one set of priorities; Black parents have another. Black parents want better schools; teachers (some of them, anyway) want better contracts. We need to build a coalition between those who think they have it made and those who need government services, and that wedge is driving Black politics into a dead end. Most times Black politicians end up fighting to get more money for poorly run organizations, then add in the back door dealing, and Black politicians lose the moral authority and dignity that would make true advocacy for poor Blacks more effective. New look Black politicians like President Obama cuddle with liberal good government whites, and push our specific Black demands off to one side, while old school Black politicians voice the emotions and aspirations of their constituents but are never able to deliver the schools, investment, and health care their districts need. Black America, never philosophically solid, is divided in complicated and evolving ways, and many of the traditional civil rights organizations and Black community groups are not equipped to cope with this changing America. These same problems also reflect the state of our Black media; the same trends making life difficult for historic white newspapers are also present in the Black media, where some media were already going broke! At the same time, the pull of main stream media is starting to attract the best of the best Black writers and thinkers away from historically Black media. Below all of this is a dangerous deepening frustration on the street, and a growing alienation between low income, less educated Blacks and the well integrated, well heeled and cosmopolitan elite Blacks. The election of the first Black President was not just a triumph for Black America; it also reflected a deepening crisis of Black politics and Black leadership. As I look at the Black community as a whole, I see that the right-wing forces reshaping American life are also affecting Black folks. The top Blacks are doing pretty well and becoming increasingly cosmopolitan elite not only in white America but in the world as a whole. The bottom end of Black life is facing much bleaker prospects with falling income and disappearing opportunities. The Black middle class is stressed out, divided between those on assistance and those in the private sector, as many Black families face the loss of middle class status and income as the recession grinds on. It’s really unsettling, as the educated, intellectual, and politically elite Blacks are out of touch with the realities, values, and emotions of the poor, lower and middle class Blacks. The institutions that have traditionally helped to bridge that divide (churches, and historically Black colleges) are under stress,
and in most cases have lower caliber leadership than in the past. It’s a fact we constantly ignore! When I talk to the youngsters in the “hoods”, and all I hear is escalating frustration about the failure of “hope and change”, we are starting to have an explosive mix. Conditions are bad, leadership struggles to rise to the times, and hope has soured into disillusion. Now it continues to look like the recovery will continue to move like a turtle, especially for us Blacks. Remember this; “I am saying this in this post, out of frustration and economic need, our internal Black politics will start to slowly shift away from establishment liberalism, going more left wing or initiating Black Nationalist options, as whites continue moving toward the right. If that’s where are headed, then President Obama’s election will prove that ordinary politics can’t, won’t, and didn’t change our lives! Those old established Black leaders who always urge us to keep calm and be patient will not have our confidence or trust anymore. Worst case scenario; some very hot times could loom not too far ahead

WHY EDUCATION IS NOT THE ANSWER!

Black folk say: “We need to get educated, that’s our problem! Yea, we don’t get the resources the white schools get, but if our children would only study harder and if we would do a better job at turning off the television more often, then they could learn and get ahead.” To me, this mixes up some important truths with some very wrong conclusions. The truth is that this system has consistently denied a good education to Black children and continues to do so today, beginning with the execution of slaves who taught other slaves to read. Today, the majority of our Black children are confined to prison-like inner city schools which get much fewer resources, the true history and dynamics of our society are covered up, and this leads to little or no attempt to instill critical or creative thinking. These schools send Black children the message, in ways spoken and unspoken, that there is no real future for them in this society. And the real crime is that many Black youth then end up buying into the system’s lies that they are inferior, leading our youth to turn off their own potential to learn, and in doing so, turn away from the wider world of knowledge and science. Just suppose every single Black child somehow did get an education that enabled them to think critically and to master the skills involved in different kinds of mental labor. Would millions of today’s Black’s then be able to get good jobs and climb out of poverty? Hell no! Even if you could somehow eliminate discrimination, so long as the system of capitalism is in effect, people are employed only if some capitalist can make money off their employment. By that standard, there is not a demand for that many technical jobs and even many of those jobs are being shifted to parts of the world where people are forced to work for even lower wages. The capitalists know this of course, and that is one big reason that they are not providing a good education for the Black children in the inner cities. In essence, they don’t want to raise the expectations of Black people too high. They fear a world in which millions of Black people have knowledge and skills, and therefore expect to get a decent job and a better life. Many old school political operatives of the ruling class recall very well the experience of the 60’s, when Black people’s hopes and expectations were raised, and then largely dashed. This resulted in a massive explosion of righteous anger and rebellion among Black people, particularly our youth, and today the ruling class has a deep fear that again raising expectations would be far too socially explosive. Still, unless and until there is a concentrated effort, backed up by Federal power, to actually overcome inequality and white supremacy in every scope of society, not only will educational systems themselves continue to reinforce this, but no amount of education will overcome and destroy it. Even today, when someone Black succeeds against all odds in getting a good education, the discrimination remains. Education alone is not enough; it will take a revolution, in which the rule of the exploiters and oppressors is broken and state power is put into the hands of our people, to thoroughly uproot white supremacy. One of the key features, and necessities, of our new society will be to encourage this creativity and critical thinking among our people, developing their potential and enabling them to increasingly contribute, in many diverse ways, to the development of society, and the emancipation of humanity. As part of building the revolutionary movement, we must fight non-stop against the savage inequalities of today’s education system. And the revolutionary movement itself must educate our people in the real history and dynamics of society, in science, and in the scientific method of critical thinking. But education alone, of whatever kind, cannot solve the problem. Education as “the way out” turns people’s eyes away from the real problem and even leads them to blame themselves when it turns out to be yet another false hope.

FOOD STAMPS...SNAP, CRACKLE, POP

Did you know that there are 16.1 million Black folks receiving SNAP assistance? For those of you still in the dark, or just don’t give a damn, SNAP is the acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…commonly known as Food Stamps. SNAP does sound kinda sexy doesn’t it? In some ways SNAP or Food Stamps is really a stimulus program for the hood. I’ll explain that later. But now, since we have a Black President and the right wingers have blocked or tore apart every program proposed by this President, they have now began to zero in on SNAP like a predator drone in Afghanistan. Why not? They know you ain’t gonna fight back because you don’t keep up with current events, only Stepper sets, and Rap concerts. They know that you’re sitting at O’ Charlie’s sippin on Hennessy paid for with the cash you got for the stamps you traded. Ouch! Hurt didn’t it! Poor Black folk please wake up! What I’m going to do is give you something that you are sorely lacking; a lesson on why you are in the early stages of getting thoroughly fucked! The racist right wingers will say that the SNAP program is exploding the budget, regardless of the wars that Bush started or the tax cuts for the rich. Here’s what they’re sayin in those whites only closed door secret meetings; “we can't be wasting any more of our money on those poor niggers who just want to live off the government, that's the real cause of our problems, they shouldn’t get any food assistance unless they turn their cannibalism on us.” That’s what they think of you! A damn cannibal! They think it ain’t no starving people in America, because people haven’t resorted to cannibalism yet. There’s that word again. Hum? Did you Black people know that there was a time when it was actually considered a matter of serious national security that you don't allow your citizens to be starving on the streets? But now, here comes the right wing crazies using their racial code words trying to fuel resentment against our people. These motherfuckers long for the day of yesteryear when no social programs existed. They mock Black folk as unemployable lazy ass freeloaders, saying that there is a new division in their America that says: “those that pay a double fare, and those who forever ride free.” By turning Food Stamps into a Black issue, this makes racial scapegoating easy and allows them to use old over-used stereotypes, like “welfare queen” to go unchallenged. Right-wingers portray whites as deserving good people who are legitimately unable to pay their own way, and Blacks as undeserving low-lives who are looking for the feds to subsidize their laziness. I keep asking myself why the right wingers hate America. I don’t think they hate America; they just hate the part that’s not white. Get this; we have government employed members of the racist right, secretly searching the Social Security rolls for people getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Medicaid and Food Stamps, the relief programs with the most Black clients. But I know that whites not Blacks make up most the of clients on these public aid programs; a fact that dismisses the notion that Blacks are scheming for a free lunch courtesy of Uncle Sam. The way I see it, if Black folk in the hood are able to buy a little bit more in the grocery store, then somebody's got to stock it, shelve it, package it, process it, ship it; all of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get into the hood during tough times. And most of our Black sisters are not necessarily on cash welfare. A majority of white folk think that every Black person who is receiving Food Stamps is a cash welfare recipient. Only ten percent of SNAP recipients receive cash benefits. Now for the mathematical figures that will blow your fuckin mind: The population of the United states is approximately 310 million, with the Black population an estimated 36 million. Let’s see, that’s roughly 12 % of the total population. There are 43.3 million people receiving Food Stamp benefits. Are you following me? The amount of Black folks receiving Food Stamp assistance is 37.2% of those 43.3 million people. Still with me? That equals to an estimated 16.1 million Black folk receiving Food Stamp benefits. If my 2nd grade math is correct, that means a staggering 44.4% of our total population is receiving Food Stamp assistance. The 2011 budget total for SNAP is 59 billion dollars. That means that Black folks are receiving direct aid of 21 billion dollars. Wow! Fuck the right wingers; we need to do a better job of getting the word out about the program so more of our people who are eligible sign up for it and help stimulate their local hood economy. I’m Phillip Norton and I’m an angry Black man!!

FADE TO BLACK

We need to have the complete, total annihilation white supremacy in America. We should not vote for one more white candidate! After decades of growth in our communities, we are now being moved like pawns on a worn out chess board. We are being controlled daily by forces that do not have our best interests at heart. I do not see it any other way now. I know that by writing this document I will probably loose friends and readers but this has to be said. We have to become mean again. We have to fight our oppression with force. By manipulation of statistics, the government reports Black unemployment at 16.9%, but we in the trenches know it to be around 30%.The reason Black people are not getting jobs is pure, unadulterated racism. With the election of Obama, this sparked the pure racists to jump right out of their business suits, and black robes led by the Tea Party crazies. This very out in the open racism is keeping us enslaved and entrenched in our communities. It is the bases for our high unemployment. This new out-in the open racism was the founding principle of the Tea Party. As I see it now; singing, marching, praying, speaking in tongues, protesting, and check this out; voting will not get us out of our dark ghettos of destruction. We are going to have to become just as vile with this monster, just as savage, if not more. We have to go to war with these racist. The new right wingers are always quoting, carrying, and displaying the Constitution. Hell, the Constitution wasn’t written with us in mind. In reality, the Constitution is actually a slave document. We should have retained our tribal instincts from our African ancestors over all other factors and in the face of all other logic. We have to get back to being Black! If we don’t, we will keep on being controlled, and he who controls the way you think, controls the way you act. That’s’ exactly where we are right now. There is, and always will be, a consistent internal thread of neglect that runs through most of our community. Even though a high percentage of our people receive government assistance, there is still a fundamental skepticism of the government’s ability to protect us, and provide for us, and that comes from the new right wing who don’t believe in government, or radical Black folk like myself who have witnessed history and have seen where we’ve been. I’m playing a game of high stakes poker by writing this piece, and this is the kind of revolutionary, grassroots caring that will certainly cost me some my so called material advantages. But it can also restore our moral force that will be the heart of our new civil rights movement, and ensure that we finally listen, and truly advocate for our future.

LIFE AFTER TROY DAVIS

The Egyptians’ effective use of Facebook should give us added energy in our new consciousness movement spurred by the State sponsored murder of Troy Davis. This makes sense: Facebook, when combined with our collective message, the right environment, and our dedicated brothers and sisters, can indeed help to spark the awareness, energy, and the massive crowds we will need. Unfortunately, the quicker we mobilize, the less time there is for us to plan. It’s more important than ever for us to prepare for the day after. While it’s essential to reach our goals of full employment, renewed investment in our communities, more educational opportunities, and inclusiveness, it’s even more important to build on Troy Davis’ legacy and regroup. We need to act fast, capitalizing on increased visibility and heightened awareness to get more resources to our campaign. We need to solicit strategic advice from outsiders with more experience at civil protest, and bring in more foot soldiers and thousands of volunteers. We will need massive funding, so now is our time to get it. Troy’s state sponsored murder agitated lots of folks that were not really agitated about anything, but that doesn’t mean they’re organized. It’s up to us to organize them. We should start getting in touch with everybody we can. Whenever possible, we should collect emails, mobile phone numbers, Twitter handles, and Facebook URLs, and save them in documents that are stored in a few different places only known to us. We have to remember; why’d this thing start anyway? We should reconcile our original goals of full employment, renewed investment in our communities, more educational opportunities, and inclusiveness with Troy’s murder and identify a new long-term vision for the change we want. Our new campaign will succeed only if we involve all of the people. That’s why it’s so important to ask the people who got involved with Troy’s protests, what the next step should be. We should take a cue from Wael Ghonim, one of the administrators of the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, who, when asked what was next for a post-Mubarak Egypt, said: “Ask Facebook.” This is easier said than done, but the attitude is right on. As the Egyptian demonstrators have shown us, it’s a lot easier to complete the first day of a revolution than the second. Holding together a large coalition is simpler when everyone is on board and our goals are obvious. If we build support with a strong strategy, and long-term thinking, then the chances are a lot higher that all of our demands will be met — and will stay met.

Fed up with Section 8 and you should be Too!

Section 8 is supposed to decentralize poverty, but it actually centralizes it, in struggling Black neighborhoods. At best, all section 8 does is destabilize Black communities. At worst, it drives hard working and responsible middle-class neighbors out and turns entire areas into slums. Once a Black neighborhood starts having problems, Section 8 accelerates those problems. In some cities where public housing is in transition, residents with vouchers have clustered in working-class Black neighborhoods. Section 8 will always seeks out the worst housing markets, and it will often be in transitional or poor Black neighborhoods. With the vouchers, thousands of poor Black families each year do exactly what the program should not: They move out of poor neighborhoods and into poorer neighborhoods with failing schools, and no job opportunities. And this is where the patterns of concentration come together. I know and you know there are thousands of Black folks that abuse the program. Some on Section 8 think they are being victimized. They think they have been intensely wronged by the system for not wanting to do better, or having baby after baby. Some have become what I call, Section 8 crazies, playing the victim of ever changing government housing policies. I know a friend of a friend who has spent 57 or her 58 years dedicated to Section 8 and Section 8 only, and has nothing to show for her dedicated years of service to this humble program. She has lived in Section 8 housing all but 1 of her 58 years. It is an honored legacy passed down from her parents who moved into Section 8 housing when she was six months old. She has passed the honored legacy down to her children, but now fears they may have to get up off of their asses and get jobs to pay for their own utilities and deposits. She actually mourns about her one year away from the comfort of her Section 8 wonderland. She told me, “I tried it for a year, you know, working and all. It's not anything I would want to go through again, or wish on anyone in my family.” If you read my writings, you should know that I fight for our people on a day to day basis, but I’m damn sick of our people demanding free handouts, and refusing to make something of their lives. As long as they keep receiving free stuff, why not be lazy? They're probably all happy as can be. I'm sure between Section 8 and their assistance check; it buys em enough liquor and dope to keep em feeling pretty good. Too bad they don't
use some of that money to buy a large supply of condoms, because the majority of Section 8 families seem to have 4, 5, even 6 and 7 kids running around. Have you ever seen who and what hangs out on the streets where Section 8 vouchers dominate? The people look like hell! The most undesirable people follow Section 8. Drive through a housing complex or neighborhood with a high percentage of Section 8 renters in the early evening, and at night; take a look at the cars parked there. If there are a lot of older cars, or if there are average looking cars with a few expensive/tricked out cars, beware! You will also see young thugs loitering non stop. Housing and Urban Development also affords landlords to treat Section 8 renters better than renters who pay their own bills. Housing and Urban Development states that landlords can require only a $50 security deposit from Section 8 renters — instead of the usual full month's rent deposit required for unsubsidized renters. Section 8 tenants usually don't have anything to lose. If you have a little more to lose, then you are more likely to make it clean when you move out or to take a little better care of it when there. Some Section 8 renters live in homes owned by absentee landlords who won’t even evict tenants, even for the most flagrant lease violations. For landlords, the guaranteed subsidy payment is a strong ass incentive. I think that we Black folks are expected to put up with this dysfunctional way of life because of the idea that all Black people are tied together in our struggle. This concept was absolutely cool when we battled just to be recognized as humans and citizens worthy of treatment equal to that of white people. But while our country still fights with racial equality, gains have been made, so much that a self-identified Black man became leader of the free world. In other words, (some Black people don't like to hear this, but) personal responsibility is now the determination of our progress. Once it’s ingrained in a person that they can’t get out of the hood and they’re just like Shameequa and them, then they start to believe it. Should they want more? Yes. Will they get more? Only if they move past the negative, (institutionalized racism, classism, sexism, and other isms), will they ever reach the positive (a life that isn’t dependent upon governmental handouts). I, like many other like-minded Black people, do not like to be broke. That’s why I write my ass off to get where I need to be. However, some Black people don’t have shame and instead, look for a damn handout

CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NOT FOR ME, HERE IS WHY

I just don’t agree with the premise that charter schools are the savior of the Black community. Why do charter schools have curriculums not available in our ordinary public schools? If such demanding curriculums are needed for our children’s future, why not offer it to everybody? When you allow parents to enroll their children into charter schools, while leaving most other students to a less-challenging curriculum, only proves that the system of unequal educational will live on. Go and visit the home of a Black parent who is hell bent on getting their kid into a certain charter school! They may or may not have had a formal education, but they sure as hell know the value of an education. Where is this insane passion for public schools? Why didn’t you join the PTO then? Why didn’t you participate at the public school? If they only they had that same passion when their child was in public school. On the other hand, there are some Black parents who never had a formal education, and they just don’t understand the value of an education, so in essence they really don’t give a damn. Way too many of our children come from these families. Nowadays, in the United States, the re-structuring of education is really racialized. Ground zero is centered right smack dab in the middle of Black communities, where public schools are being closed, taken over, privatized, and driven by a cut-rate curriculum of preparing lil Black kids for standardized tests. Public and private are racialized code-words. Private is equal to being good and white, and public with being bad and Black. Marginalized low investment in our public schools, closing them, and opening privately operated charter schools in our Black communities is made easier by racist attitudes towards our communities and our public institutions. But you know what? Our failing schools are the product of a history of educational, economic, lack of parental involvement, discipline, and social injustices experienced by us Black folk. Schools serving Black communities continually face deeply unfair opportunities to learn, including unequal funding, curriculum, educational resources, facilities, and teacher experience. The new school and teacher accountability rules has often created these injustices by limiting the curriculum to only test preparation—producing an exit of some of the strongest teachers from schools in Black communities. We need to change the heart and soul of our children’s education, redefining the purpose of education and what it means to teach, learn, and participate in school in Black communities. The education that our youth are now receiving leaves them capable of performing a function within the system, but they will be ignorant of how the system they will eventually work for is structured or operated. This ignorance is a direct result of our mis-education. We should start measuring the quality of our children’s education not by what they learn, but by what was excluded from the educational process. Also, teachers are being driven by standardized tests and performance outcome measures; principals are managers, and school superintendents are now CEOs; and learning now equals the students performance on the tests, with teachers, the student, and parents held responsible for failure. Education, which should be seen as a public good, is being converted into a private good, which is an investment you make in your child or yourself to add value in order to better compete in the labor market. Schools in the inner-cities are no longer seen as part of the bigger picture of advancing individual and social development, but are merely the means to rise above others. Neighborhood schools are being replaced with charter schools or selective enrollment schools that most neighborhood children are unable to attend. School closings have spawned increased mobility, a rise in violence, and neighborhood instability as children are transferred to schools out of Black neighborhoods. This coded policy erases schools that are anchors in our Black communities, contributing to an ongoing economic boycott. In gentrifying areas, closing neighborhood schools and replacing them with schools branded for the middle class makes it easier for the displacement of Black working-class families. I just don’t like the charter concept. I believe in community neighborhood schools. I just remember walking with my childhood friends to Locke Elementary, Tolleston, and West Side High, laughing all the way, knowing that the homework better had been done!!