About Me

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I am a man about the business of taking care of business, minding my own business and staying out of yours. I don't care what devices people use to separate themselves from others (religion, money, race, gender, class, intelligence etc.) at the end of the day you came from the earth and so shall you return. The only advice I have is try to live and love without fear.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

"We have to undo the millions of little white lies that America told herself and the world about American black Man." John O. Killens ,1916-1987  Novelist

Monday, December 10, 2012


"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up." Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915 Educator

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?


July 4, 2012
 In 1852, civic leaders in Rochester, N.Y., invited one of their residents, the abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass, to speak as part of their July 4th festivities. He agreed, and delivered an impassioned indictment of American slavery. Following is an excerpt adapted from that speech.

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. ...
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? ...
Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July!
Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America!
"I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. ...
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? ...
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Black fathers: Still valuable, still needed

Black fathers: Still valuable, still needed

His name is Steve!!!

     Never in life would I imagine or tell my son to leave the way he came.  Hell ,I wish it was that easy or that whatever it was could make him change back to normal - would just happen. I'd hope to wake up one day and it be a bad joke. I find myself at times completely and utterly angry at the things I could have done to prevent this horrible embarrassment. Yea,  people say "You should see signs, is how you'll know." I didn't see shit!!! Yea I knew he didn't like football but I felt he would come around one day. I would hear his sister yelling something about her dolls but I didn't think nothing of it....the boy was five.
      Most times we were together we'd talk about fishing and school, mostly gym and how he loved swimming and  not being afraid to shower afterward.  Summer camp this year had no negative responses. I thought that was a break-through cause he didn't cry or anything he was quiet the whole way there. I asked Jason if things where okay and his response was a shoulder shrug. While Jason and Lilly were away I thought I could get a little cleaning around the house done.  As I was cleaning his closet I noticed a little shoe box under a pile of old books from years ago.
      I don't know what told me to open the box, so when did I saw what I thought were love letters to a little girl friend he had, but I was sadly mistaken when a picture fell out of what appears to be some boy with no shirt on in his underwear.  On the back of the picture read, 'from your darling Steve'.... I didn't know what to think. Of course I thought this was a mistake til I read the letters they had  been mailing each other since summer camp last year.  I'LL KILL HIM, I thought to myself.  Then, I knew I needed to calm myself  because my blood was boiling. I tried to call the camp but I remembered they were going to be hiking to the mountains for two days. I thought when he gets back I'll beat him to death.  All kinds of questions were going through my head, 'How long was this going on?'  'What has happened?' 'Did he like it? MY GOD DID HE LIKE IT??? I can't wait til he gets home on Monday...I needed answers.  I CAN'T BELIEVE MY SON LIKES BOYS!!!! I'LL KILL HIM.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Baby Language!

Baby I need you.... Translation: I'm really horny and want you to please me sexually without any questions.
Baby I want to love you forever..Translation: I'm really scared of being alone but I don't know what I want.
Baby I want you to respect me as your lover and friend.... Translation: If I tell you my feelings I need you not to use them against me when we fight...
Baby It don't matter what I want... Translation: I only need my feelings to be heard until I feel that yours matter.
Baby I want whatever you want..Translation: I think that if I say this you will eventually give in to what I want.
Baby I want you to know this...Translation: I'm lying for the most part, but I'm sincere either way.
Baby How Can I make Us Better...Translation: If you know how I feel then why do you bother me with talking about the problems we have?
Baby I want to be better...Translation: I'm really tired and I give in so you win.


Baby I love you....