Today is May 29, 2008. I am blogging this in the San Diego Airport on business.
I passed a newstand that had a Newsweek cover: "Obama, Race and Us" with Barack's smiling face on the cover. As I broused the bookstore, I saw predictions like "Will Michelle Obama hurt her husband's chances in the fall?" I opted for a Chai Frappacino at Starbucks (fattening, I know).
I title this November 5, 2008. It is meant to save as draft and on that date I will post it after Obama's election. I boldly make this claim after my business trip with two very staunch republicans that don't mince their words about: Saddam having the capability of becoming operational with regards to weopons of mass destruction, finding Sarin gas, which most experts state have a shelf life of two years (this was manufactured in 1991 or 95), because we're in the business of war, they wholeheartedly support this was that drains our economy and cost us $4 at the pump and increased cost at the grocer.
I am not the result of Obama's victory. My vote is one.
No. Mr. Obama won because of the youth he mobilized that suddenly realize the maddness their parents' made will inexorably be their world.
I type this because I will be charged up, challenged on my vote as much as Mr. Obama can expect to be attacked, threatened and lampooned for the next 8 years as he tries to rebuild from the ashes of the economy, the rubble of Katrina "a more perfect union."
I type this because my vote is one and his win is the result of cumulative votes, cumulative angst and cumulative hope for the future. Oprah didn't cast a spell on us. Michelle didn't embarass us. Jerimiah Wright didn't appaul us. We were better than that.
So I formally thank Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney: without your favoritism of the rich, without your gutting of the abundant surplus, without your invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (that the Pentagon and 600,000 PROVED didn't and you've even said it yourself on many occasions), Mr. Obama's win would not be possible.
By fear and tyranny, you've made us a "more perfect union." Democracy isn't automatic: we found it to be a team sport.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’
I spoke on this 1/17/06 in the piece "Imperious Unum." Since he's an "expert" on foreign policy ala his comments in the Israeli Knesset, I thought we should review his thoughts on the US Constitution:
From Capitol Hill Blue
The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’
By By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 5, 2005, 07:53
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine “in the end ” if something is legal or right.
Every federal official - including the President - who takes an oath of office swears to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“Oh, how I hate the phrase we have “a 'living document,'” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don’t have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it’s better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don’t think that it’s a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”
© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue
Fair Use Notice
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
From Capitol Hill Blue
The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’
By By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 5, 2005, 07:53
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine “in the end ” if something is legal or right.
Every federal official - including the President - who takes an oath of office swears to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“Oh, how I hate the phrase we have “a 'living document,'” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don’t have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it’s better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don’t think that it’s a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”
© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue
Fair Use Notice
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Period
© 14 May 2008, The Griot Poet
The best description of our dilemma was spent by the candidate’s “magnificent other,” to coin a phrase from the prophetic sage known as Rev G:
“Black America will wake up,” Michelle said. “We have a problem with self-esteem.”
It seems I hear that from the young – too young to recall Medgar Evers, Malcolm X or Dr. King except from a term paper essay assigned to them – or the old, that think “he’s too young and/or black” to run their country.
Somewhere in the middle are the intelligent white liberals, the educated black masses, the McGovern Democrats that pundits say can’t win: so, the political salvation of this nation is in the hands of – as his opponent has stated – white, uneducated, blue collar workers that can’t do the math on gas holidays?
Don’t let FOX-Y, MSNBC, 60 Minutes, CNN, and ABC (especially) or Disney, try to sell us on the notion that we are casting our vote because Barack is “black.”
Recall that at the outset, he wasn’t “black enough.” That he didn’t have the stuff of growing up in the south, in the ghetto, in the Civil Rights Movement, in the black church. That he was possibly a closet radical Muslim (an oxymoron), or the latest rift: the antichrist. See: www.bushisantichrist.com or your current bank account and wallet!
That he’d be the stuff of other candidates in the past like: Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes (Republican) and currently Cynthia McKinney for the Green Party – all show and no substance.
But his campaign has had the panache of seasoned veterans, the strength of gladiators and the grass roots organization that can only stem from immersion in Chicago politics.
So, please don’t let the news, owned by only eight media conglomerates that the only time African Americans are in the Board of Directors meetings are with Hispanics as janitors, that cheer about the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wall Street and haven’t talked much about YOUR Main Street, that lecture us on the “good things outsourcing accomplishes,” which have ties to the military-industrial-Congressional-complex, that sanitize the lasting effects of the middle passage, slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination – Amadu Diallo and Sean Bell – that cheerlead us into a war in Iraq with no weapons of mass destruction present tell us that we are casting our vote because Barack is “black.”
Tell them to “step back.”
We’re casting it because like any American with sense, we’ve been convinced by his fundraising, his business acumen and his management style he can DO the job of president… period.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The Tie That Binds - Commentary
First, a review I posted on Michael Eric Dyson's web site regarding "April 4, 1968":
I was exactly 5 years old April 4, 1968.
It was April 3, 1968 I was sitting with my dad listening to Dr. King deliver "I've been to the mountain top." I remember asking my father "what does longevity mean?"
I also remember seeing him, a man that had been a golden gloves boxer in his youth and in the Navy, crumpled over in front of the television. It was like someone had punched him hard in the gut. His eyes were red. I remember my mother wailing like Rachael. April 4, 1968 was a Thursday.
That Friday, I was dropped off at my daycare, Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, NC. I later learned when I took my youngest son there on a home visit, the United Methodist Church designated "Bethlehem" to kindergartens on the east/black side of town and "Wesley Community Center" to facilities on the west side of town.
The teachers sat us down and explained what happened. I think it was more for them than for us. Amazingly, we understood and responded with hot tears, anger and genuine hurt. I personally felt like I'd lost an uncle or close relative. We were to graduate from kindergarten that June. I thought "I don't have him with me," and I knew that fall I would start first grade and the beginning of my academic life, still in a segregated society - forced busing would integrate us in the fourth grade - without him. I tear up as I type this.
Everyone I graduated college with has a memory of that day and the reactions, the gunshots, the news coverage. We are the last generation that will hold such memories.
I remember confederate flags flying and horns honking as others were happy apparently that Dr. King had died. This was also repeated apparently in Vietnam, a war he spoke out against, according to black veterans I've spoken with. What they could not have fathomed is the seeds planted by the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King would germinate into a harvest in history in the personage of Barack Obama.
I bought the audio version of the book and listened to it at work. I plan to expose my sons - 25 and 15 - to your words. Thank you.
***************************
Since the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I've picked up my copy of James H. Cones' "A Black Theology of Liberation." I bought it while home in Winston-Salem, NC at a local black bookstore. I'd thumbed through some pages and like many books I mean to complete, other priorities took effect. It's an interesting read.
I've also read commentary about the so-called apostasy of "prosperity gospel."
(I mention this because Dr. Dyson lists himself as an opponent of it and opines/personifies Dr. King as one in his final chapter.)
Lastly, by Karl Evanzz "The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad."
So, what is the tie that binds Liberation, Prosperity and Nation of Islam theology?
Racism.
In "The Messenger," the crucible that built The Nation was the racial climate of the times, even to the point Evanzz (yes, his name is spelled with 2 z's) suggests that the Klan helped finance them since their stated goal is (still) a separate black state or states within the US.
In a lot of the commentary about prosperity gospel, like Dyson in "April 4, 1968," the author and the commentators site quite clearly what they think the ministries are doing wrong as in: the display of wealth, a God that only cares for the wealthy, etc. Absent from their critique is what they actually think and can admit the ministries are doing right.
TD Jakes preached to about 14 people for over a decade until a conference he thought he'd do one time called "Woman, Thou Art Loosed." He wrote it up and tried to go the conventional route of publishing. He ended up self-publishing it, and that was the start of his business empire. Had that fortune not occurred, we probably would not be hearing about a TD Jakes. He rightly points out the 50 ministries his church sponsors like HIV/AIDS, the reduction of recidivism and financial education to name a few.
Cone sites only that prosperity gospel makes you feel good but "fails to help those in need." He also fails to site - other than Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church of Christ - where the Black Liberation Theology model yields similar results.
My Socratic question:
What if: our so-called Founding Fathers freed the slaves? Would that not typify a "Christian nation?"
Our founding fathers were "deist," which Webster defines as " a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe." The perfect religious philosophy for defining Africans as 3/5 human in the Constitution. Jefferson went so far as to write his own bible, excising every miracle Jesus ever performed: http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/.
Manumission was granted to Africans in the United Kingdom in 1872. There are no "African British" or "African English" as they've had full citizenship as Americans of African descent have experienced the Jim Crow version of apartheid until recent history.
The answer, in my mind, is that typifying the Christian values of mercy and charity, the seeds of a Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and Prosperity Gospel would not have been planted and these "chickens would not have come home to roost," and these variants would not exist on US soil.
It is hope that we reach for. History and self-esteem (Nation), Liberation and Prosperity had so long been denied us, we will gravitate towards centers of worship that answers those vital questions. It is acerbic to suggest the Nation is only populated with hate speech, since they have by all regards an effective ministry towards the reduction of recidivism in the black community. It is a sound bite we hear when Reverend Wright says "G-D America" without the supporting text to the sermon that he was preaching post 9/11/2001 (9/16/2001), albeit over-the-top, it took a journalist and researcher to FIND this sermon seven years later and loop it on You Tube. It is naive to suggest prosperity ministers have no care for the poor since many of them have the same type of ministries as their Liberation Theology brothers, as Liberation Theology has to concentrate somewhat on financial wealth building techniques. The "Balm in Gilead" are the constructs we've made to bind the wounds we receive as numerical minorities in Corporate America and in political races.
No repudiation asked of the Clinton's for their pastor - convicted for pedophilia with a seven-year-old girl LAST year, or John Hagee - the Roman Church as the "whore of Babylon" and "Jesus never claiming to be the Messiah" has been asked of McCain.
So I say: if the establishment wants the monies to these ministries to dry up, if they want them to cease to function as they do against white supremacy, a bumper sticker says ERACISM.
Obama would be questioned if TD Jakes were his pastor. If he wore a tie pin every day, the news would be the one time he didn't!
And, if our deistic Founding Fathers had made like Spike Lee and done "The Right Thing" would we be having this conversation at all?
Remember: the president that got us into this war that's cost us $4 per gallon gas, increased grocery and utility bills wears a flag pin and supposedly goes to church.
I was exactly 5 years old April 4, 1968.
It was April 3, 1968 I was sitting with my dad listening to Dr. King deliver "I've been to the mountain top." I remember asking my father "what does longevity mean?"
I also remember seeing him, a man that had been a golden gloves boxer in his youth and in the Navy, crumpled over in front of the television. It was like someone had punched him hard in the gut. His eyes were red. I remember my mother wailing like Rachael. April 4, 1968 was a Thursday.
That Friday, I was dropped off at my daycare, Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, NC. I later learned when I took my youngest son there on a home visit, the United Methodist Church designated "Bethlehem" to kindergartens on the east/black side of town and "Wesley Community Center" to facilities on the west side of town.
The teachers sat us down and explained what happened. I think it was more for them than for us. Amazingly, we understood and responded with hot tears, anger and genuine hurt. I personally felt like I'd lost an uncle or close relative. We were to graduate from kindergarten that June. I thought "I don't have him with me," and I knew that fall I would start first grade and the beginning of my academic life, still in a segregated society - forced busing would integrate us in the fourth grade - without him. I tear up as I type this.
Everyone I graduated college with has a memory of that day and the reactions, the gunshots, the news coverage. We are the last generation that will hold such memories.
I remember confederate flags flying and horns honking as others were happy apparently that Dr. King had died. This was also repeated apparently in Vietnam, a war he spoke out against, according to black veterans I've spoken with. What they could not have fathomed is the seeds planted by the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King would germinate into a harvest in history in the personage of Barack Obama.
I bought the audio version of the book and listened to it at work. I plan to expose my sons - 25 and 15 - to your words. Thank you.
***************************
Since the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I've picked up my copy of James H. Cones' "A Black Theology of Liberation." I bought it while home in Winston-Salem, NC at a local black bookstore. I'd thumbed through some pages and like many books I mean to complete, other priorities took effect. It's an interesting read.
I've also read commentary about the so-called apostasy of "prosperity gospel."
(I mention this because Dr. Dyson lists himself as an opponent of it and opines/personifies Dr. King as one in his final chapter.)
Lastly, by Karl Evanzz "The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad."
So, what is the tie that binds Liberation, Prosperity and Nation of Islam theology?
Racism.
In "The Messenger," the crucible that built The Nation was the racial climate of the times, even to the point Evanzz (yes, his name is spelled with 2 z's) suggests that the Klan helped finance them since their stated goal is (still) a separate black state or states within the US.
In a lot of the commentary about prosperity gospel, like Dyson in "April 4, 1968," the author and the commentators site quite clearly what they think the ministries are doing wrong as in: the display of wealth, a God that only cares for the wealthy, etc. Absent from their critique is what they actually think and can admit the ministries are doing right.
TD Jakes preached to about 14 people for over a decade until a conference he thought he'd do one time called "Woman, Thou Art Loosed." He wrote it up and tried to go the conventional route of publishing. He ended up self-publishing it, and that was the start of his business empire. Had that fortune not occurred, we probably would not be hearing about a TD Jakes. He rightly points out the 50 ministries his church sponsors like HIV/AIDS, the reduction of recidivism and financial education to name a few.
Cone sites only that prosperity gospel makes you feel good but "fails to help those in need." He also fails to site - other than Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church of Christ - where the Black Liberation Theology model yields similar results.
My Socratic question:
What if: our so-called Founding Fathers freed the slaves? Would that not typify a "Christian nation?"
Our founding fathers were "deist," which Webster defines as " a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe." The perfect religious philosophy for defining Africans as 3/5 human in the Constitution. Jefferson went so far as to write his own bible, excising every miracle Jesus ever performed: http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/.
Manumission was granted to Africans in the United Kingdom in 1872. There are no "African British" or "African English" as they've had full citizenship as Americans of African descent have experienced the Jim Crow version of apartheid until recent history.
The answer, in my mind, is that typifying the Christian values of mercy and charity, the seeds of a Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and Prosperity Gospel would not have been planted and these "chickens would not have come home to roost," and these variants would not exist on US soil.
It is hope that we reach for. History and self-esteem (Nation), Liberation and Prosperity had so long been denied us, we will gravitate towards centers of worship that answers those vital questions. It is acerbic to suggest the Nation is only populated with hate speech, since they have by all regards an effective ministry towards the reduction of recidivism in the black community. It is a sound bite we hear when Reverend Wright says "G-D America" without the supporting text to the sermon that he was preaching post 9/11/2001 (9/16/2001), albeit over-the-top, it took a journalist and researcher to FIND this sermon seven years later and loop it on You Tube. It is naive to suggest prosperity ministers have no care for the poor since many of them have the same type of ministries as their Liberation Theology brothers, as Liberation Theology has to concentrate somewhat on financial wealth building techniques. The "Balm in Gilead" are the constructs we've made to bind the wounds we receive as numerical minorities in Corporate America and in political races.
No repudiation asked of the Clinton's for their pastor - convicted for pedophilia with a seven-year-old girl LAST year, or John Hagee - the Roman Church as the "whore of Babylon" and "Jesus never claiming to be the Messiah" has been asked of McCain.
So I say: if the establishment wants the monies to these ministries to dry up, if they want them to cease to function as they do against white supremacy, a bumper sticker says ERACISM.
Obama would be questioned if TD Jakes were his pastor. If he wore a tie pin every day, the news would be the one time he didn't!
And, if our deistic Founding Fathers had made like Spike Lee and done "The Right Thing" would we be having this conversation at all?
Remember: the president that got us into this war that's cost us $4 per gallon gas, increased grocery and utility bills wears a flag pin and supposedly goes to church.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
"Uppity" - poetry piece
Kinda late - apologies. TGP
© 20 April 2008, The Griot Poet
Sound bites like nanotech NANITES flip-flop through cyberspace at light speed pace, “elite” is the twenty-first century code for “uppity” Negro. So let me be the first cultural hero to admit:
I am bitter!
Because you see, I didn’t turn the other cheek on August 26, 2003 – date of my lay-off and coincidentally the four-year anniversary of my beloved father’s death. So, though I bravely ventured into the unknown, I was baptized “kicking and screaming” into the Dead Sea of depression, landing on the sandy shores with the taste of salt on my tongue,
I “walked through the valley of the shadow of death” as “fiery darts” wickedly assaulted my dreams and my means to survive, giving me a plausible script for my own demise. No help from my spiritual mother and father who at the time had their own issues…
I was alone.
Until I was challenged to wrestle from sundown to morn,
I mourned less the life I led and would not let Him leave me until I said: “bless ME!”
I walked away, limping, battle-scarred and with the title of P-R-I-N-C-E.
To keep my mind and my sense,
I recorded my angst on blog-to-book: “Unemployed: A Memoir.”
LOOK!
I’m not white. I’m not blue collar.
My father was, and he had that and the other side of the double-edged sword in his back how he was treated: starting with “n” and rhymed with “figure.”
The gas pump;
The checkout line;
My bills;
My mortgage doesn’t really give a rat’s whether I’m an Independent, Republican or Democrat!
So, just maybe I’m a little “uppity” to think Richard Dawkins has NOTHING for me, even though he may number me among Whitman’s “fleas”: Cambridge professors-cum-NY Times bestsellers can’t list on their curriculum vitae:
- Bus boycotts;
- Marches on Washington;
- Nobel Peace Prizes;
- Opposition to Vietnam/Iraq;
- Poor Peoples’ Campaigns…
So, maybe I’m a little “uppity” clinging to my spirituality (and sometimes my guns) because the three functionalities left to me of dysfunctional PNAC governments the unholy trinity of:
- Apathy;
- Suicide;
- Or Anarchy
From which we are a hair-trigger, so let me be the first cultural hero to admit:
I’m an “uppity” Negro that’s bitter!
© 20 April 2008, The Griot Poet
Sound bites like nanotech NANITES flip-flop through cyberspace at light speed pace, “elite” is the twenty-first century code for “uppity” Negro. So let me be the first cultural hero to admit:
I am bitter!
Because you see, I didn’t turn the other cheek on August 26, 2003 – date of my lay-off and coincidentally the four-year anniversary of my beloved father’s death. So, though I bravely ventured into the unknown, I was baptized “kicking and screaming” into the Dead Sea of depression, landing on the sandy shores with the taste of salt on my tongue,
I “walked through the valley of the shadow of death” as “fiery darts” wickedly assaulted my dreams and my means to survive, giving me a plausible script for my own demise. No help from my spiritual mother and father who at the time had their own issues…
I was alone.
Until I was challenged to wrestle from sundown to morn,
I mourned less the life I led and would not let Him leave me until I said: “bless ME!”
I walked away, limping, battle-scarred and with the title of P-R-I-N-C-E.
To keep my mind and my sense,
I recorded my angst on blog-to-book: “Unemployed: A Memoir.”
LOOK!
I’m not white. I’m not blue collar.
My father was, and he had that and the other side of the double-edged sword in his back how he was treated: starting with “n” and rhymed with “figure.”
The gas pump;
The checkout line;
My bills;
My mortgage doesn’t really give a rat’s whether I’m an Independent, Republican or Democrat!
So, just maybe I’m a little “uppity” to think Richard Dawkins has NOTHING for me, even though he may number me among Whitman’s “fleas”: Cambridge professors-cum-NY Times bestsellers can’t list on their curriculum vitae:
- Bus boycotts;
- Marches on Washington;
- Nobel Peace Prizes;
- Opposition to Vietnam/Iraq;
- Poor Peoples’ Campaigns…
So, maybe I’m a little “uppity” clinging to my spirituality (and sometimes my guns) because the three functionalities left to me of dysfunctional PNAC governments the unholy trinity of:
- Apathy;
- Suicide;
- Or Anarchy
From which we are a hair-trigger, so let me be the first cultural hero to admit:
I’m an “uppity” Negro that’s bitter!
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