Written for and Dedicated to Ex-Offender Re-Entry
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, September 16, 2010
When a man is not prepared to meet the morning, he has a tendency to oversleep. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands together to take a nap, so shall a man’s poverty come upon him like an armed robbery.
Lazy people are generally poor. But poor people are not generally lazy. Most poor people do not have the luxury of rest and sweet dreams. They cannot afford to slumber, lest they sleep the sleep of death. But the slothful is always looking for a spot to rest, fold his hand, nod off into slumber land, and sleep the sweet sleep of ease. His wake-up is a surprise, as sudden and as shocking as an “armed robber”.
Speaking from experience, nobody likes to be roused out of their sleep by an armed robber or murderer.
One morning in my prison cell, I was paid a visit by Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost. They called him Casper, because he had killed 10 men in Atlanta Federal Prison. Nobody ever saw him. He left no evidence, other than the slit throat of his victims. Over a period of years, during the 1970s, the FBI never caught him. That is how he got the nickname Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost.
Doing time in a super-maximum security prison can be draining. There was always tension in the air and threats of violence all around. And every night, when I returned to my cell, I was totally fatigue and exhausted. My only reprieve was sleep, an escape for the mind, into a painless abyss. But even in the twilight world, there is the dragon.
Out of another world, I was called out of my sleep at the touch of a sharp object at my throat, and immediately I tumbled out of bed clutching the arm of a hand with eagle claws. It was the hand of a man who had sharpened his fingernails into hardened talons like that of an eagle or a falcon.
The dawn had not yet broken. It was chow time. All the cell doors were open. And, I had overslept. Now I was wrestling for my life against a man with a claw for a hand, a convicted murderer.
To make a long story short, we wrestled to an exhausted standoff. He warned me to never oversleep again. And, that was when he told me the story of Casper. He was the infamous killer of 10 inmates who all overslept, and was attacked early in the morning before men emerged from their cells for breakfast.
Strange that we would become friends and he would become one of my trainers. Every morning thereafter, before day, he appeared at my cell door, checking to see if I was awake and alert. From there, we would drink honey, run 10 miles around the track, barefooted on jagged rocks, lift weights, and punch the punching bag until our knuckles bled. And, after all this, he would come at me in fury, and say, “Stop me from killing you.”
He had a killer’s instinct and he thirst for it. And, there was little doubt in my mind that he would kill me, if I slacked off one bit, if I slumbered just a little, got too comfortable, or folded my arms to get some rest. He would kill me at the drop of a hat pin.
So, this is how I learned not to oversleep.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall poverty come upon you like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:33)
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Man on a Chain Gang
By Eddie Griffin
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang, sang Sam Cooke. The year was 1960. As listen to this oldie, and watch the video, there is a point in the song that hits close to home and I shed tears.
Can’t you hear them saying, “I’m going home. One of these days, I’m going home. See my woman whom I love so dear. But in the meanwhile I got to work right here.” That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang.
Chained together, by iron shackles, feet to feet, ankle to ankle, hip to hip, wrist to wrist, and yoked together at the neck. From the slave ships to the cotton fields of Texas, some never came home again.
I weep for them, because the spirit of their memories haunts me, day and night. I can still hear the cries of Brother Herman, a prisoner, set to be released within days, stabbed to death by his best friend and running buddy, who could not bear to see him go free. Jealousy is a brutal killer.
Give me water, I’m thirsty. My, my, my, my work is so hard.
Shoot me, Boss. I just can’t do this kind of work no more. Cursed was the ground before I was introduced to the aggie. And, cursed it will be when I return to the dust thereof. So, shoot me now, Boss, before I recover my senses and want to live.
I wasn’t cut out for the ole plantation fields of Texas, with prison guards on horseback riding shotgun over me. I never saw a cloud in the sky, nor a shade tree, and the water wagon only came at the turn-row. And, fields stretched miles and miles, forever, and there was no end in sight, except death.
How many times the thought entertained my mind?
“Griffin, you’re chopping the Captain’s corn,” the man on horseback shouted. “Don’t you know the difference between corn and Johnson grass?”
Really, to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference, even unto the very day.
Somewhere out there is a cemetery for all the nameless inmates that never saw the light of day again. Nobody knows their number. Nobody cares to inquire. Neither the end, nor the means, concerns the public. Death is death, whether by execute or a thousand cuts.
Except for a little red bible, I would have been out there with them, among the dead and forgotten. My end was beyond pain. I had endured entombment in solitary cages, behind steel doors, in refrigerated strip cells, and padded psyche ward cells. And, at last, in the twelfth year of my captivity, I baste to death in the Texas 110-degree heat.
I was beyond pain. I begged for death. I pleaded for death. But first I needed to set things right between me and my Maker. I had to finish reading the little red bible. It was a friend to me, having survived, from solitary cell to solitary cell, throughout all my dilemmas and rebellions. After this, I would take my stand: Shoot me, Boss. Take me out of my misery.
From the beginning of my captivity, I never expected to survive a 50-year sentence. I was unreasonable to even hope. And, I didn’t want to build my hopes up too high.
Every man pays for his sins, and there is an exactor that comes due. With a total of 50-, 20-, and 10-year sentences, I felt the burden of my sins. If I were to survive, I would have to walk through hell on earth. Only about seven men have gone into the dungeon of the abyss, and survived to reemerge. I am one, favored and bless.
I guess Sam Cooke conveys the spirit of my feelings in his soulful rendition of Stand By Me. The song tells of how the Lord delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den. “Do me like you did Daniel,” the singer sings, “Stand by me, Lord.”
[To be continued]
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang, sang Sam Cooke. The year was 1960. As listen to this oldie, and watch the video, there is a point in the song that hits close to home and I shed tears.
Can’t you hear them saying, “I’m going home. One of these days, I’m going home. See my woman whom I love so dear. But in the meanwhile I got to work right here.” That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang.
Chained together, by iron shackles, feet to feet, ankle to ankle, hip to hip, wrist to wrist, and yoked together at the neck. From the slave ships to the cotton fields of Texas, some never came home again.
I weep for them, because the spirit of their memories haunts me, day and night. I can still hear the cries of Brother Herman, a prisoner, set to be released within days, stabbed to death by his best friend and running buddy, who could not bear to see him go free. Jealousy is a brutal killer.
Give me water, I’m thirsty. My, my, my, my work is so hard.
Shoot me, Boss. I just can’t do this kind of work no more. Cursed was the ground before I was introduced to the aggie. And, cursed it will be when I return to the dust thereof. So, shoot me now, Boss, before I recover my senses and want to live.
I wasn’t cut out for the ole plantation fields of Texas, with prison guards on horseback riding shotgun over me. I never saw a cloud in the sky, nor a shade tree, and the water wagon only came at the turn-row. And, fields stretched miles and miles, forever, and there was no end in sight, except death.
How many times the thought entertained my mind?
“Griffin, you’re chopping the Captain’s corn,” the man on horseback shouted. “Don’t you know the difference between corn and Johnson grass?”
Really, to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference, even unto the very day.
Somewhere out there is a cemetery for all the nameless inmates that never saw the light of day again. Nobody knows their number. Nobody cares to inquire. Neither the end, nor the means, concerns the public. Death is death, whether by execute or a thousand cuts.
Except for a little red bible, I would have been out there with them, among the dead and forgotten. My end was beyond pain. I had endured entombment in solitary cages, behind steel doors, in refrigerated strip cells, and padded psyche ward cells. And, at last, in the twelfth year of my captivity, I baste to death in the Texas 110-degree heat.
I was beyond pain. I begged for death. I pleaded for death. But first I needed to set things right between me and my Maker. I had to finish reading the little red bible. It was a friend to me, having survived, from solitary cell to solitary cell, throughout all my dilemmas and rebellions. After this, I would take my stand: Shoot me, Boss. Take me out of my misery.
From the beginning of my captivity, I never expected to survive a 50-year sentence. I was unreasonable to even hope. And, I didn’t want to build my hopes up too high.
Every man pays for his sins, and there is an exactor that comes due. With a total of 50-, 20-, and 10-year sentences, I felt the burden of my sins. If I were to survive, I would have to walk through hell on earth. Only about seven men have gone into the dungeon of the abyss, and survived to reemerge. I am one, favored and bless.
I guess Sam Cooke conveys the spirit of my feelings in his soulful rendition of Stand By Me. The song tells of how the Lord delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den. “Do me like you did Daniel,” the singer sings, “Stand by me, Lord.”
[To be continued]
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Dr. Schlessinger: Free Speech or Racist Psychology
Why must we learn the same lesson over and over again? I thought radio talk show hosts had learned from the Don Imus affair. There are some things radio personalities should not broadcast over the airways. People are sensitive in the area of bruised nerves, and racial sensitivities are on edge as it is.
Don Imus’ blurt about “nappy-headed whores” set off a flurry of outrage and allegations of racism across the nation, forcing him briefly off the air. Where was talk show host and psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger at the time? Didn’t she know that racial epithets were taboo over the airways? Nevertheless, her racial tirade in repeatedly using the N-word to a call-in listener was an unwanted and unwelcome attempted to force acceptance of a loathed word we have all since rejected.
As in the case of Don Imus, Dr. Schlessinger claimed impunity because she heard black hip-hop artists use the N-word on the airways all the time. And after being rebuked, she plans to end her radio program and become a martyr for free speech.
Schlessinger can have her free speech, but she must realize that speech brings with it a consequence. That is to say, can she accept the consequences provoked by her chosen words, seeing that nobody forced her to say what she said?
The U.S. Supreme Court also recognizes a person’s free speech right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre. But the Court also holds that person responsible for whatever harm caused if someone is trampled in a stampede to the exit.
But the real question is this: Does Schlessinger have the right to free speech, considering the that she is a professional psychologist, and her on-the-air responses to callers actually constitutes psychological advice?
The caller in this case was an African-American woman, grappling with an interracial marriage problem. Dr. Schlessinger’s response was like the drill sergeant therapist on the GEICO television commercial who calls his patient a “Jack-wagon” and suggests that maybe he ought to chug on down to “Namby Pamby Land” where we can find some self-confidence.
The commercial commentator asks: Does a former drilling sergeant make a terrible therapist? Maybe the same should be asked of Dr. Schlessinger who suggests to her on-air patient that if she is so “hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor” then she should not marry out of her race.”
What’s love got to do it?
When the caller attempts to explain or clarify, but Schlessinger rudely cuts her off and chides the woman not to “NAACP” her. [I wonder what NAACP means as a verb. I wonder where “out of your race” is. What race, if not the human race?]
I do not have a problem with Schlessinger’s freedom of speech. I have a problem with the psychology that she studied in school. We have always contended that psychology, as a pseudo-science, was never created with African-Americans in mind.
Also, we contend that racial categories are artificial, and identification by skin color is more a psychosis than a fact.
If Schlessinger wants to be a martyr, it would not be for free speech, but for a faulty psychology for which we are all enslaved. If she wants to be Joan of Arc, then go ahead and light her butt up.
Don Imus’ blurt about “nappy-headed whores” set off a flurry of outrage and allegations of racism across the nation, forcing him briefly off the air. Where was talk show host and psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger at the time? Didn’t she know that racial epithets were taboo over the airways? Nevertheless, her racial tirade in repeatedly using the N-word to a call-in listener was an unwanted and unwelcome attempted to force acceptance of a loathed word we have all since rejected.
As in the case of Don Imus, Dr. Schlessinger claimed impunity because she heard black hip-hop artists use the N-word on the airways all the time. And after being rebuked, she plans to end her radio program and become a martyr for free speech.
Schlessinger can have her free speech, but she must realize that speech brings with it a consequence. That is to say, can she accept the consequences provoked by her chosen words, seeing that nobody forced her to say what she said?
The U.S. Supreme Court also recognizes a person’s free speech right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre. But the Court also holds that person responsible for whatever harm caused if someone is trampled in a stampede to the exit.
But the real question is this: Does Schlessinger have the right to free speech, considering the that she is a professional psychologist, and her on-the-air responses to callers actually constitutes psychological advice?
The caller in this case was an African-American woman, grappling with an interracial marriage problem. Dr. Schlessinger’s response was like the drill sergeant therapist on the GEICO television commercial who calls his patient a “Jack-wagon” and suggests that maybe he ought to chug on down to “Namby Pamby Land” where we can find some self-confidence.
The commercial commentator asks: Does a former drilling sergeant make a terrible therapist? Maybe the same should be asked of Dr. Schlessinger who suggests to her on-air patient that if she is so “hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor” then she should not marry out of her race.”
What’s love got to do it?
When the caller attempts to explain or clarify, but Schlessinger rudely cuts her off and chides the woman not to “NAACP” her. [I wonder what NAACP means as a verb. I wonder where “out of your race” is. What race, if not the human race?]
I do not have a problem with Schlessinger’s freedom of speech. I have a problem with the psychology that she studied in school. We have always contended that psychology, as a pseudo-science, was never created with African-Americans in mind.
Also, we contend that racial categories are artificial, and identification by skin color is more a psychosis than a fact.
If Schlessinger wants to be a martyr, it would not be for free speech, but for a faulty psychology for which we are all enslaved. If she wants to be Joan of Arc, then go ahead and light her butt up.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Turning My 10-Year Old Grandson into a Man
By Eddie Griffin
Monday, August 16, 2010
As I sit on a park bench, hedged about, I am unperturbed by the bees and wasps that came to gather nectar among the bushes. I meditate, remembering Sunday with my 10-year old grandson. He has recently attempted suicide, on several occasions. It makes me pondered why a child is so miserable that he would attempt to take his own life at such a tender age.
Maybe I already know.
He, and his two sisters, were taken away from their mother by the courts and given to their father, my son, who already has three kids, two of which are stepsons, ages 7 and 9. The baby girl is one. Altogether, there are now eight of them living in a two-bedroom apartment, and it is hard to find larger accommodations on a single low-income budget. Grandpa’s fixed income covers some of the gaps, but not the whole.
I sense that there is something void in his life.
This Sunday, he just wanted to hang out with Grandpa all day. He wanted to get out of the crowded apartment. He wanted some individual attention, which was hard to do when he was the oldest among the six kids in the house. But hanging out with Grandpa was not all fun and games, as he would discover.
But where would I take a troubled child after church, on a hot Sunday afternoon in August? There is one place.
We first visited the Huguley Nursing Home, where he heard Grandpa delivered a sermon to a group of elderly seniors, who suffer various ailments of aging. They are usually heavily medicated and deeply depressed. And when I did not see Glenn, our resident centenarian, I was concerned, as always, whenever a regular church attendant in the nursing home suddenly disappears. But one by one, they trickled in, including Glenn, peddling his wheelchair with his feet.
My grandson had been here before, singing Christmas carols and passing out gifts. But this was a different mission. This was about a spiritual transformation.
As I preached, the audience faces came to light and a gleam returned to their eyes. But my grandson had dosed off and slumped over in his seat. All the more, I felt unworthy as a preacher, not being able to keep my own child awake. And, here I was an overworked teacher and mentor, stretched between the extremes of this generation, with a 10-year old on one hand and a 100-year old centenarian on the other.
Afterwards, we visited the Michael Jacobs Jr. National Memorial, named in honor of a mentally challenged young man who was tasered to death by a Fort Worth police officer. I was compelled to be here because here were some of the young men whom I had mentored over the years: men like SCLC President Kyev Tatum and Success Movement motivational speaker and author Junichi Lockett.
My hopes would be to someday entrust my male children and grandchildren into the hands of honorable men like these.
At the same time, we fellowshipped with members of the Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, LULAC, Rainbow P.U.S.H. Coalition, and other community groups who came together to form a coalition and fight to save the Michael Jacobs, Jr. Memorial. These, too, I could rest assured would have my grandson’s wellbeing at heart, for the simply fact that he was a young black man, imperiled by a cruel and dangerous society.
In the end, my grandson took pictures of the Memorial field with its erected 465 crosses, each representing a taser death victim. Then, it was time to go back to church for evening service. At last, he was tired, sleepy, and totally exhausted from the 100-degree heat.
It reminded me of the days I shared with my own grandfather, a preacher in the dusty backwoods of East Texas in the 1950s.
Back to the old man’s morning bench with the bees and the wasps swarming about, I feel like a beekeeper with the ability to summon the bees upon my fingers and hold them in my hand. It is a paradox that a man can be so at peace with nature and yet so at war with the world?
Monday, August 16, 2010
As I sit on a park bench, hedged about, I am unperturbed by the bees and wasps that came to gather nectar among the bushes. I meditate, remembering Sunday with my 10-year old grandson. He has recently attempted suicide, on several occasions. It makes me pondered why a child is so miserable that he would attempt to take his own life at such a tender age.
Maybe I already know.
He, and his two sisters, were taken away from their mother by the courts and given to their father, my son, who already has three kids, two of which are stepsons, ages 7 and 9. The baby girl is one. Altogether, there are now eight of them living in a two-bedroom apartment, and it is hard to find larger accommodations on a single low-income budget. Grandpa’s fixed income covers some of the gaps, but not the whole.
I sense that there is something void in his life.
This Sunday, he just wanted to hang out with Grandpa all day. He wanted to get out of the crowded apartment. He wanted some individual attention, which was hard to do when he was the oldest among the six kids in the house. But hanging out with Grandpa was not all fun and games, as he would discover.
But where would I take a troubled child after church, on a hot Sunday afternoon in August? There is one place.
We first visited the Huguley Nursing Home, where he heard Grandpa delivered a sermon to a group of elderly seniors, who suffer various ailments of aging. They are usually heavily medicated and deeply depressed. And when I did not see Glenn, our resident centenarian, I was concerned, as always, whenever a regular church attendant in the nursing home suddenly disappears. But one by one, they trickled in, including Glenn, peddling his wheelchair with his feet.
My grandson had been here before, singing Christmas carols and passing out gifts. But this was a different mission. This was about a spiritual transformation.
As I preached, the audience faces came to light and a gleam returned to their eyes. But my grandson had dosed off and slumped over in his seat. All the more, I felt unworthy as a preacher, not being able to keep my own child awake. And, here I was an overworked teacher and mentor, stretched between the extremes of this generation, with a 10-year old on one hand and a 100-year old centenarian on the other.
Afterwards, we visited the Michael Jacobs Jr. National Memorial, named in honor of a mentally challenged young man who was tasered to death by a Fort Worth police officer. I was compelled to be here because here were some of the young men whom I had mentored over the years: men like SCLC President Kyev Tatum and Success Movement motivational speaker and author Junichi Lockett.
My hopes would be to someday entrust my male children and grandchildren into the hands of honorable men like these.
At the same time, we fellowshipped with members of the Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, LULAC, Rainbow P.U.S.H. Coalition, and other community groups who came together to form a coalition and fight to save the Michael Jacobs, Jr. Memorial. These, too, I could rest assured would have my grandson’s wellbeing at heart, for the simply fact that he was a young black man, imperiled by a cruel and dangerous society.
In the end, my grandson took pictures of the Memorial field with its erected 465 crosses, each representing a taser death victim. Then, it was time to go back to church for evening service. At last, he was tired, sleepy, and totally exhausted from the 100-degree heat.
It reminded me of the days I shared with my own grandfather, a preacher in the dusty backwoods of East Texas in the 1950s.
Back to the old man’s morning bench with the bees and the wasps swarming about, I feel like a beekeeper with the ability to summon the bees upon my fingers and hold them in my hand. It is a paradox that a man can be so at peace with nature and yet so at war with the world?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Glenn Beck Calls for Shirley Sherrod’s Job Back
Glenn Beck Calls for Shirley Sherrod’s Reinstatement
Can you believe it? FOX commentator Glenn Beck is calling for Shirley Sherrod, former USD administrator, dismissed for comments taken out of context by a conservative blogger.
It seems that FOX News and Commentators speak with forked tongues. Only yesterday, it seems, that FOX commentator Bill O’Reilly was calling for her crucifixion.
All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
Another Obama official forced out
"As we told you last night, Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod admitted that years ago she held back some government assistance to a white farmer because of the color of his skin. After hearing that I said 'Ms. Sherrod must resign immediately,' and that's exactly what happened. But if you were watching the network news last night you would know nothing about the story. Once again, an embarrassing moment for the Obama administration was not covered. In the big picture this is a small story; every administration has had employees do dumb things. But why the news blackout when things become unpleasant for the Obama administration? The answer has to be bias - the establishment press tilts left and is reluctant to do damage to a very liberal president. There's no other reason to spike stories that bring millions of viewers to Fox News. You would think the other TV news operations, all of whom are not doing well, would want to attract that large audience. Apparently they don't."
Source: http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=2649
Didn’t this same FOX News Report issue this story as BREAKING NEWS?
Sure! Breaking News: An innocent black woman is lynched by crafty racist deception: FOX News.
Beck calls for Shirley Sherrod to be reinstated.
Too late, Shirley is a martyr like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose character was assassinated long before he died.
If I were Shirley, I would not go back until America hangs her head in shame, for this mass rush to judgment. In the meantime, she should sue the Agriculture Department for wrongful termination.
There is someone out there retrieving old black video tapes, doctoring them, and create hysteric fears and racial animosities, INTENTIONALLY (Willfully), for purposes other than what is publically known, subversive, spread throughout the television network airways of FOX.
[Isn’t this an FCC issue?]
So much for truth in journalism: THE SPIN STOPS HERE
Can you believe it? FOX commentator Glenn Beck is calling for Shirley Sherrod, former USD administrator, dismissed for comments taken out of context by a conservative blogger.
It seems that FOX News and Commentators speak with forked tongues. Only yesterday, it seems, that FOX commentator Bill O’Reilly was calling for her crucifixion.
All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
Another Obama official forced out
"As we told you last night, Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod admitted that years ago she held back some government assistance to a white farmer because of the color of his skin. After hearing that I said 'Ms. Sherrod must resign immediately,' and that's exactly what happened. But if you were watching the network news last night you would know nothing about the story. Once again, an embarrassing moment for the Obama administration was not covered. In the big picture this is a small story; every administration has had employees do dumb things. But why the news blackout when things become unpleasant for the Obama administration? The answer has to be bias - the establishment press tilts left and is reluctant to do damage to a very liberal president. There's no other reason to spike stories that bring millions of viewers to Fox News. You would think the other TV news operations, all of whom are not doing well, would want to attract that large audience. Apparently they don't."
Source: http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=2649
Didn’t this same FOX News Report issue this story as BREAKING NEWS?
Sure! Breaking News: An innocent black woman is lynched by crafty racist deception: FOX News.
Beck calls for Shirley Sherrod to be reinstated.
Too late, Shirley is a martyr like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose character was assassinated long before he died.
If I were Shirley, I would not go back until America hangs her head in shame, for this mass rush to judgment. In the meantime, she should sue the Agriculture Department for wrongful termination.
There is someone out there retrieving old black video tapes, doctoring them, and create hysteric fears and racial animosities, INTENTIONALLY (Willfully), for purposes other than what is publically known, subversive, spread throughout the television network airways of FOX.
[Isn’t this an FCC issue?]
So much for truth in journalism: THE SPIN STOPS HERE
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tea Party Invitation to NAACP for Summit
As an ambassador of good will and advocate of human rights, I always welcome the opportunity for peace and understanding between people, races, and nations. Therefore, I welcome the olive branch extended by David Webb, co-founder of TeaParty365, who appeared on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday. He proposes a Tea Summit on Race Relation, in response to the NAACP resolution against racism within the Tea Party movement.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, according to the Wall Street Journal report, was “open to the idea”. He wishes, however, that such a forum should address issues other than race.
Even so, I would welcome the idea of holding a joint town hall meeting, as proposed by Webb, on any terms, for the sake of putting animosities behind us.
NOTE: David Webb is African-American, the same as Benjamin Jealous. And, it appears that only the African-American members of the Tea Party are willing to step forward to deal with racism within the organization. The rests seems more inclined to find a fault with the NAACP and spin cases or instances of “black racism”, to counter the damage done to the party's image.
Nevertheless, there has been progress since the release of the resolution. The North Iowa Tea Party billboard in Mason City, depicting President Barack Obama as Hitler, has been taken down and replaced with a public service announcement. Tea Party Express activist Mark Williams has been expelled from the Tea Party Federation for a demeaning racial satire posted on his website.
These corrections in organizational behavior clears the way for people of good will to move forward toward racial reconciliation, and yet with freedom to air our legitimate political differences.
“There is no debate about racism,” says Jealous. I agree.
Some people would go tit-for-tat on instances of racial bigotry, both white bigotry and black bigotry. And, some African-Americans would fend that they have been more assailed with white racism since the founding of this nation, and point out slavery and lynching and violent oppression and white terrorism, as proof.
These arguments rub raw the wrong way. To get caught up in tit-for-tat acrimony would be fruitless. However, beware that it is the only term with which some can discuss the issue.
Therefore, my advice to the NAACP would be to accept the Tea Party’s invitation to a summit with grace and dignity. Take the high road and not condescend to tit-for-tat on bigotry. Remember: Racial bigotry is only the outward expression of a subjective idea. In this case, when we speak of racism, we speak of the ideology of white supremacy and the discriminatory and prejudicial practices that grow out of it, and how the state apparatus becomes an institution of oppression by it. Everything else is a diversion.
Give all due respect to your adversary, remembering that the bigot is not the enemy, but a victim of a misguided idea. The enemy is the foundation of ideas that lead to hateful and prejudicial behavior. Study from whence these ideas of white supremacy come and how they innocuously and subtly interject into today’s political arena.
FOR EXAMPLE: Tea Party Express activist Mark Williams, in his satire, insinuated that black people were lazy, shiftless, and irresponsible. Needless to say, this is a popular idea within the movement, and forms the basis of why some people think that the government is taking their hard earned wealth and giving to an unworthy group of people.
It is also a popular idea that providing poor and unemployed people with welfare (or "extended unemployment") creates a disincentive to work, and such assistance, such as free food stamps encourages "welfare mothers" to reproduces.
These are very old ideas, dating back to the debate on English Poor Laws in 1536. In 1834, when another round of Poor Laws was introduced, Thomas Malthus, the father of birth control and family planning, opposed the new laws for the very same reasons listed above: that it would encourage the poor to become lazy, irresponsible, reproduce like rabbits, and eventually become a burden on the state.
Today, we have code words like “welfare state”, “entitlement programs”, “socialized medicine”, all with the same underlying meaning that hard working Americans are being robbed by the government to support lazy and irresponsible welfare recipients. Unfortunately, the modern day stereotype is not the British poor, but poor minorities, the faces of which are mostly black.
Thomas Malthus’ “An Essay on the Principal of Population” (1798-1826) was a series on political economy based upon population growth of the “unworthy” people, who would overpopulate the world and consume more food than the earth could produce. The solution was to cut off support for the lazy poor, keep wages at subsistence level, and put malaria in the water of African natives. In short, let the “unworthy” population die off, by natural attrition and haste.
The current debate over government spending is primarily aimed at the programs that helped the poor, unemployed, and aged. The arguments are the same now, as in 1834. Technically, this is not racism, until combined with the goals and aspirations of white supremacy.
In rebuking the NAACP for its resolution, a FOX commentator questioned if the black community did not have enough problems for its organization, such as poverty, unemployment, teen pregnancy, crime, etc.
Somehow, we assumed that these were common problems to America as a whole, not just an isolated group or race of people. To say that these are black problems, instead of America’s problems, puts the onerous African-Americans to build bricks without straw (as in, no government help or assistance). The above arguments stymatizes helping the poor and undeserving. Instead of a theme of Saving America, we see slogans like Save White America in the Tea Party movement.
This is what divides us: that we are not One Nation, but a nation of competing interests along the color line. There must be reconciliation beyond the color of a person’s skin, and one community's problem must be looked upon as a problem for the nation, as a whole.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, according to the Wall Street Journal report, was “open to the idea”. He wishes, however, that such a forum should address issues other than race.
Even so, I would welcome the idea of holding a joint town hall meeting, as proposed by Webb, on any terms, for the sake of putting animosities behind us.
NOTE: David Webb is African-American, the same as Benjamin Jealous. And, it appears that only the African-American members of the Tea Party are willing to step forward to deal with racism within the organization. The rests seems more inclined to find a fault with the NAACP and spin cases or instances of “black racism”, to counter the damage done to the party's image.
Nevertheless, there has been progress since the release of the resolution. The North Iowa Tea Party billboard in Mason City, depicting President Barack Obama as Hitler, has been taken down and replaced with a public service announcement. Tea Party Express activist Mark Williams has been expelled from the Tea Party Federation for a demeaning racial satire posted on his website.
These corrections in organizational behavior clears the way for people of good will to move forward toward racial reconciliation, and yet with freedom to air our legitimate political differences.
“There is no debate about racism,” says Jealous. I agree.
Some people would go tit-for-tat on instances of racial bigotry, both white bigotry and black bigotry. And, some African-Americans would fend that they have been more assailed with white racism since the founding of this nation, and point out slavery and lynching and violent oppression and white terrorism, as proof.
These arguments rub raw the wrong way. To get caught up in tit-for-tat acrimony would be fruitless. However, beware that it is the only term with which some can discuss the issue.
Therefore, my advice to the NAACP would be to accept the Tea Party’s invitation to a summit with grace and dignity. Take the high road and not condescend to tit-for-tat on bigotry. Remember: Racial bigotry is only the outward expression of a subjective idea. In this case, when we speak of racism, we speak of the ideology of white supremacy and the discriminatory and prejudicial practices that grow out of it, and how the state apparatus becomes an institution of oppression by it. Everything else is a diversion.
Give all due respect to your adversary, remembering that the bigot is not the enemy, but a victim of a misguided idea. The enemy is the foundation of ideas that lead to hateful and prejudicial behavior. Study from whence these ideas of white supremacy come and how they innocuously and subtly interject into today’s political arena.
FOR EXAMPLE: Tea Party Express activist Mark Williams, in his satire, insinuated that black people were lazy, shiftless, and irresponsible. Needless to say, this is a popular idea within the movement, and forms the basis of why some people think that the government is taking their hard earned wealth and giving to an unworthy group of people.
It is also a popular idea that providing poor and unemployed people with welfare (or "extended unemployment") creates a disincentive to work, and such assistance, such as free food stamps encourages "welfare mothers" to reproduces.
These are very old ideas, dating back to the debate on English Poor Laws in 1536. In 1834, when another round of Poor Laws was introduced, Thomas Malthus, the father of birth control and family planning, opposed the new laws for the very same reasons listed above: that it would encourage the poor to become lazy, irresponsible, reproduce like rabbits, and eventually become a burden on the state.
Today, we have code words like “welfare state”, “entitlement programs”, “socialized medicine”, all with the same underlying meaning that hard working Americans are being robbed by the government to support lazy and irresponsible welfare recipients. Unfortunately, the modern day stereotype is not the British poor, but poor minorities, the faces of which are mostly black.
Thomas Malthus’ “An Essay on the Principal of Population” (1798-1826) was a series on political economy based upon population growth of the “unworthy” people, who would overpopulate the world and consume more food than the earth could produce. The solution was to cut off support for the lazy poor, keep wages at subsistence level, and put malaria in the water of African natives. In short, let the “unworthy” population die off, by natural attrition and haste.
The current debate over government spending is primarily aimed at the programs that helped the poor, unemployed, and aged. The arguments are the same now, as in 1834. Technically, this is not racism, until combined with the goals and aspirations of white supremacy.
In rebuking the NAACP for its resolution, a FOX commentator questioned if the black community did not have enough problems for its organization, such as poverty, unemployment, teen pregnancy, crime, etc.
Somehow, we assumed that these were common problems to America as a whole, not just an isolated group or race of people. To say that these are black problems, instead of America’s problems, puts the onerous African-Americans to build bricks without straw (as in, no government help or assistance). The above arguments stymatizes helping the poor and undeserving. Instead of a theme of Saving America, we see slogans like Save White America in the Tea Party movement.
This is what divides us: that we are not One Nation, but a nation of competing interests along the color line. There must be reconciliation beyond the color of a person’s skin, and one community's problem must be looked upon as a problem for the nation, as a whole.
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