- Facebook closure... CHECK
- Twitter logout... CHECK
- Blog wrap-up... CHECK
Saturday, March 06, 2010
I Think I'm Done
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Where The Last Shall Be First
I came across this article in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday. I thought it was worth a re-print sort to speak. I never got Black History Week when I was a kid and I didn't get it when they made it into a month, so let's hear it from black history herself...
Throughout this month, we asked Chicagoans and prominent visitors their thoughts on Black History Month. Most said it is still relevant, though many questioned relegating the celebration of a people's history to any specific period.
(Courtesy/John J. Kim~Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Ethel Darden's 110th birthday
Born in Dallas, Texas, on Feb. 17, 1900, to Ella Mary Allen and Charles Boswell, two schoolteachers, she is a pioneering educator who helped establish the city's first private, nonsectarian school for blacks, the Howalton Day School.
Founded in 1947 by her sister Doris Allen-Anderson and two other women, the school operated until 1986. It was responsible for educating many of Chicago's black elite, including the children of boxer Joe Louis, U.S. Rep. Ralph Metcalfe, historian Timuel Black, Judge R. Eugene Pincham and Mayor Eugene Sawyer.
In 1996, she donated the school's archives to the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library's Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection.
"There were five of us girls. The whole darn family became educators," said Darden, laughing as she smoothed out a brown ruffled dress with her long, slender rhinestone-ringed fingers.
"She's sweet as pie, always full of smiles and laughter," said her caretaker and close friend, Betty Miller. "She still has that southern genteel. Occasionally, she'll ask me, 'Honey, is he colored or white?' "
Darden outlived her siblings and husband, Lloyd Darden, a successful accountant she married in 1942 before the couple moved here. She lives at Montgomery Place, a retirement home staffed by University of Chicago Medical Center physicians.
Her doctor, William Dale, said he's in awe at the health of Darden, who occasionally enjoys a glass of wine.
"She has no diseases, takes no prescriptions and looks decades younger," he gushed. "And while her short-term memory is poor, her long-term memory is very intact." Darden attended Dallas Colored High School, graduated in 1921 from the historically black Wiley College in Marshall, Texas -- featured in the 2007 movie "The Great Debaters" -- taught 20 years in Dallas schools, then 40 years here.
Here's what she had to say:
"You know, sometimes I don't like to look back. It's hard enough to look front. When I think about the past too much, it knocks me down. "I came up with Jim Crow. But I didn't let it bother me. I was just living. We didn't have money, anyway, to go places they didn't want us. In the South, we knew where we could go and couldn't. Didn't have to hear them say it. It was written loud and clear, 'Whites Only.' 'For Colored.' "It was terrible what they did to black folks those days. Lynched them. Burned them. I don't want to talk too much about that.
"Dr. [Martin Luther] King came to our church. My twin sister and I sang a duet for him. I liked him. He wasn't afraid of anybody. Marched up to Washington. He asked our help. We collected money in jars at school. I did march. One time, we put on buttons to protest, marched right downtown and had breakfast. I wasn't scared.
"I honor all those who tried to make it good for us, so we could come downtown and have lunch if we wanted to. The Civil Rights Act was a great day because I felt free at last. That I could walk with my head up, that we were free to go to any school at last. I did feel good.
"Black president? Didn't think so soon, but I felt we'd eventually have a black everything. I don't like to say 'black' history. It's just history.
"I don't know why I lived so long. I never thought of it. Just tried to do my work and treat people the right way. There's a road you have to take, and you take it. It's been a good life. I wouldn't say a 'fine' life, just 'good.' Could have been worse.
"A white man is a white man. Let him be white. A black man is a black man. Let him be black. Just watch the way they treat you as a human being. Treat folks right, and respect them the way God would have you do. Let history take care of itself."
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
You Delight A Satellite
Keep them watchful eyes to corner skies
2010 Hassan Ntimbanjayo (I just made that up) - Ya Dig?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
When White Privilege Just Isn't Enough
When White Privilege Just Isn't Enough - 2/19/2010
I've been black my whole life.
I've been a witness to a lot of travesty.
I've had to live in a world... No, a country where folk are shunned from keeping it real. I mean it's looked down upon and for some, it's downright disrespectful to bring certain stuff up in conversation. I would have never made it growing up in the Jim Crow or Civil Rights Era.
The truth is the truth and unfair is unfair.
This country was founded on rebellion, slavery and developing stolen land from the native peoples. This country has also thrived on military might, racism and a class based system that pits the middle against the lower, leaving the upper to prosper in the brokering of the class wars. To watch the utter arrogance of the American people as we speak against the development of other nations... To watch how we police the world so no other nation can gain equal footing burns my ass when just a few days ago the men who murdered Sean Bell...
Never mind about that.
What we're all witnessing these days is not the elimination, but the decline of white privilege. The country as a whole is taking a new shape by the numbers and those who had the unspoken privileges and graces in the past are getting balanced out in more ways that one.
I cannot finish this because of how I feel right now. There is an anger that I feel coming from parts known that feel like the stuff I've seen from the horrid past. Fear, trepidation xenophobia and finger pointing because there is someone else sitting in the office of power and certain folk just can't stand it.
They are angry and upset because for a few scant hours in their lives they have almost been made to live like we have for ages. It ain't everybody but... It's enough to take notice.
You know:
None of my family ever brought guns to a health care rally.
No one I know flew an airplane into a Federal use building.
I've used the N-word before, but to my knowledge, I haven't replaced it with the word 'Socialist'
incomplete 2/19
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Ask Yourself
I really enjoyed my weekend.
My sister and brother in law brought the kids in from Dallas and we all gathered together to celebrate my brother's twin son's birthday by hanging out at an indoor water park. Good times were had and great, laughable stories were made this weekend. I can't wait to hang out again with my sibs this summer when we trek to Disney in Florida.
This past weekend was a pre-vacation for my other half and I. I think I mentioned that we're headed to the Bayou in a bit for a real two weeker of alligator, coffee and beignets as well as a whole bunch of etouffee. Lord, I can't wait for that. Things have been real busy around here and it would be nice to just get to a nice spot and experience a little slow and quiet. Chicago will tax your friggin' brain and overrun you with business if you let it.
I have absolutely nothing to say about Chris Matthews, Dick Cheney or John Mayer. I need folks to ask themselves a few real questions that actually matter like:
- Why are black and brown folk so damn affected by the so-called recession?
- Why are black and brown folk seemingly 'just taking' the negative results of current opinion polls as well as managing the negative outcomes of labor employment statistics?
- Is it just me or does it feel like there is some stagnant waiting period going on right now in minority communities?
- Why isn't there more reactionary activity taking place in our communities?
- Where the hell are the proactive lobbies, and why aren't they addressing congress?
- Why exactly did we wait for so-called black leadership to address the president last week when the pressing socio-economic elephant in the room has always been there?
Instead of placing blame on all things external (like calling John Mayer racist last week), where are the ideas and actions that would bring forth the necessary change to actually move people ahead? I'm seeing a lot of folk sitting on their hands right now and I don't understand why.
There seems to be a lot of folk running and hiding from the issues when it seems to be the time to asses and reassess what seats need to be filled in congress both on the federal and state levels. If folks like Senator Evan Bayh have become totally discouraged in the federal legislative process, then who should become candidate to fill that seat?
From Gary to Indianapolis to Evansville and all parts between, the state of Indiana has tons to lose in funding, jobs and farm support if the wrong person is chosen to rep there. I mean, from the steel, iron and manufacturing personnel needed for the bridge and road repair that our president's administration got off the ground to the high speed rail project, Indiana has a lot to loose...
And there are 10 other states that can use the right candidate to get the job done with job creation and with repositioning federal dollars to provide for workforce payroll instead of unemployment benefits and the like.
We must eliminate the thought process that we must continue along with the status quo. There are a ton os 'isms' that are still in effect if we continue thinking along these lines. What is happening with the thinking process and how we're coping with them is NOT okay.
What am I talikg about? Ask Keith Olbermann and then ask yourself.
You got an answer?
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Water
I thought I'd be sad or something seeing that I lost my beloved MacBook Sunday morning. I was mixing up my herbs, playing with my juicer (spirulina primarily - I gets my greens in son!) and I was adding some crushed L-Arginine to a glass of water when I tipped the liquids right on on the keyboard.
Damn!
And then I realized...
The only thing I fried was the logic board. I noticed that this was my chance to have an opportunity to upgrade to something bigger and better like a titanium MacBook Pro.
An UPGRADE!
GLORY!!!
It's a better feeling than the Saints winning on Sunday night. My water moment was funnier than the Sarah Palin comedy hour the night previous.
I mean, I think I am the only one watching this stuff? I know that I can't be. Everyone seems to be a little too pre-occupied doing other stuff to be concerned about their health and well being, and I mean 'the process' IS about our health and welfare. The marginalization of our current leadership is moving into a third phase and no one seems to care.
Enough about that. The missus and I are packing up for our NOLA trek next week but first... Indoor water park activities with the nieces and the nephews.
I guess this past and next weekend's theme is all about water.
Friday, February 05, 2010
The Long Walk Home
It's impossible to think that I walk this path alone.
I just cannot be.
It is very impossible for my mind to contemplate
But for some strange reason if this is to be
I truly understand
Even if I don't wanna.
Even if I'm headed home, being away for so long
that I can't even remember
There were times upon time itself as I traveled where when I looked around
all I saw was the endless trail of my own footsteps
And it's shameful because I've come this far
No water
No pause
uninterrupted, without a single hitch in my step
and then I realize...
A lot kinfolk and those I held dear
let me walk right past them
without even lifting their head
Acknowledgements meaningless
unfocused energies
unfettered emotion
lack of eye contact, not even giving me a simple walker's hello
Hey stranger!
never lifting an arm to wave into the distance
Offering sanctuary
extending shelter
sharing overabundant libations
or even
a drop
of kindness
So my next thought is to not even look back
as I travel over blazing sands
their worth in this moment of my extreme thirst and fatigue
is the value of a pillar or salt.
So I never lose pace
I just keep walking.
Might as well then, right?
There's more for me to indulge when I get home.
whenever that will be
if it'll ever happen
however I might try to continue
I just keep telling myself:
keep walking. I'm almost there.
2010 Hassan Olumoroti Ntimbanjayo - Ya' Dig?
I remember telling myself that things would be different when it happened back then. I just didn't know how much. It seems the trade off is a bit scathing if you ask me. Folks aren't afraid to let you know that they tolerate this as just a temporary measure, that 100,000 people have set an agenda that will topple the current political power structure.
I think that's a bunch of bullshit.
I also think that folk that say things just to get you to regurgitate it so that the other guy will believe it is an old and tired practice but we still fall for it anyway. After all of the years of struggle to get free it seems like the being free part wasn't what we really bargained for. Most folk that look like, related to and fraternize with me really wanted to be validated. It's good enough for all of us now so sleep is a necessity.
Also bullshit.
I bet you President Obama is feeling like a broke-ass Nino Brown eight now because nobody is putting in any work. With all of the unemployed folk out there right now, you'd think that folks would get constructive and start bartering and creating some sort of grass-roots economy.
Sheeeeyit. That's socialism.
Idiots!
I read about whole societies that were lazy, uninterested and unmotivated. They fell quickly.
And to think... These obstructionist bastids actually think they'll get their country back the same way they had it by doing nothing, keeping the ball away from the change guy and then doing the exact same things that got us in this rut in the first place.
And we extend a hand to them because we need to remain cordial.
The same folks that brought guns and rifles to rallies and have utter contempt for cats like me. Luckily, I still have a few field manuals and some recent range training.
And now, I go back to doing my thing.
