After Jericho

(c) 6 November 2008, The Griot Poet

The significance of the election of the first African American president holds meaning in the biblical story of Moses and his protégée Joshua.

Moses could not go into the Promised Land but was allowed to see it from a mountaintop. The nation of Israel, freshly freed from Egyptian slavery, still had a “slave’s mentality.” They esteemed themselves “as grasshoppers” in the sight of their adversaries as ten out of twelve spies reported. The minority – Caleb and Joshua – said for all intents and purposes: “Forget that! We can take them!”

The new nation’s lack of faith gained them the chastisement of wandering the wilderness for 40 years until Joshua and a new generation walked through a parted Jordan in similar fashion to parting the Red Sea into the Promised Land. The land “flowing with milk and honey” was rich in resources that needed workers to harness them, and had many battles – starting with Jericho – to maintain their claim to it. The new, younger nation had to WORK for their reward.

A wall has fallen, just as significant as the Jericho wall that a new nation marched around in silence for seven days, increasing their circuit proportionately matching each day’s number, shouting on the seventh and fighting to claim their prize.

I was five-years-old and a month from graduating Bethlehem Community Center, a still mostly all-black kindergarten in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when Martin – our Moses – ended his address to the Sanitation Worker’s Union in Tennessee with “I’ve been to the mountain top.” History reports he afterward collapsed in the arms of his aids, exhausted and depressed due to death threats and self-inflicted stress from his extramarital affairs. Tearfully, my class would learn from our teachers our Moses prophesied his own demise to the coincidental annual date of his opposition to the Vietnam War.

It has been forty years since Martin, and Obama is inaugurated the day after we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Joshua. Obama as our first man of color as Chief Executive represents a mere 2.3%: 1/44 presidents in the office.

We are the remnant that has wandered the wilderness after forty years of measured progress in Civil Rights post Emmitt Till: separate water fountains and schools, forced integration, prison recidivism, black exploitation films, de facto re-segregation, the Rodney King Riots, O.J. Simpson, James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, questionable police killings, Oscar snubs, negative images in the media and seeing others progress their own agendas – women, immigrants, Hispanics, Gays and Lesbians – using the same tactics birthed in the basements of black churches. Now they with us are a coalition along with seventeen percent Republican voters that supported the candidacy of Obama and are the first evidence that maybe, we as a nation have “grown up” a little from our ignorant past.

However, Google “anti-Obama sites” and see what you pick up. The right-wing is in a dual quandary of an identity crisis and the open sores of a significant political loss. No less than Newt Gingrich is poised to oppose any Obama policy that is even center-right. As I see it: the identity crisis Republicans suffer are from the confusing mix of (1) traditional fiscal conservatism (a stance I think they should return to), (2) evangelicalism and its aversion to science, (3) neo-liberalism and its devotion to laissez-faire “trickle-down” Stockton, Chicago Friedman style economics and (4) neo-conservatism and its now defunct “Project for a New American Century” which staffed much of Bush 43’s foreign policy philosophy in the quest to expand the American Empire in a post-modern version of the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) to a Pax Americana by force of arms.

So, it’s up to us.

As Maya Angelo stated poetically, we are truly on this new “Pulse of Morning,” the black, the white, the straight, the gay, young and old, men and women that supported this historic election can’t just shrink away and think Obama can govern by himself. He can no more do that than raise record sums in campaign contributions by himself.

Walls fall after a might shout. Victories are won after effort, struggle and a fight. You’ll still need to be engaged after the glow of the election is over. Email President Obama from www.whitehouse.gov after January 20, 2009; call your local Congressional Representatives and Senators.

Stay engaged: pray for Obama. We have a history of martyrs and a culture of violence that must change. Politics in the age of the Internet is no longer a bench-warmer sport; you can’t just vote and hope everything works out OK. Blog and email; chat and post; write poetry and essays. Your ideas are viral contagion, as has been observed and can be spread and shared by all of us benefiting all of us.

The old model observed by Noam Chomsky – Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at M.I.T. – was defined as “the bewildered herd” reacting to sloganeering, mantra, rumor and dogma versus making informed decisions as an electorate. This, of course, benefited business interests that controlled the electoral process with their well-heeled dollar donations to the campaigns. YOU shattered that. This was without a doubt, the most informed decision as an electorate we’ve made for our future. We survived the specter of Jeremiah Wright and charges of socialism, communism and “Joe the Plumber.” That herd was expected to respond like Pavlov’s dogs, then “fade away” after the election and let the business chosen elites govern them. You are not helpless anymore and President Elect Obama needs our help. The economy is in a shambles, the jobless number is bound to be terrible tomorrow and since two-thirds of our economy is dependant on consumerism, it’s unfortunately going to get worse before it starts to get better.

Your mission is simple: make President Obama not only a barrier breaker, but he and Vice President Joe Biden the most successful administration in the history of this nation that proved on November 4, 2008 that we are as good as our promise to all peoples; “We the people.”

Tomorrow

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
”To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!

”Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Tomorrow.

Not just tomorrow: November 5th.

I explained to a friend: Martin for all intents and purposes became "Moses" with his "I've been to the mountaintop" sermon. Prophetically uttered the day before his assassination.

In "April 4, 1968" by Michael Eric Dyson, Martin was said to be suffering from depression. Possibly preaching lifted his spirits a bit, but the constant death threats and juggling what was by history's reckoning a very recreational extra marital sex life, he was approaching a nervous breakdown.

40 years.

We've likened ourselves to the ancient Hebrews in so many ways: about 12 million Jews in the entire world today; we're about 12 percent of the US population. They were enslaved in Egypt 400 years; we were enslaved in a new Egypt 400 years. God sent Moses; we assume He sent Martin. Joshua and Caleb took the remnant into the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

40 years ago I was five years old. Mrs. Wooten and the teachers sat our kindergarten class down and explained "Dr. King was killed."

I learned later, coincidentally it was one year to-the-date he spoke out against the Vietnam war. I knew that this significant personality would not be around to see my formative academic years: we all cried at the news, and graduated the next month in May. We all started the fall in a world without our saints: Medgar, Malcolm and Martin.

Forty years: Blacksploitation movies, Vietnam protests, all-volunteer force, recession, Reagan, "trickle-down" economics, the Republican Revolution, 45% of the prison-industrial-complex, recidivism, lack of self-help, still lacking education, not taking care of the babies we make, blamed for welfare while giving corporate welfare, the usual suspect for rape, murder, theft, frisked in King's Department store at 14 ("shut up, boy! I know niggra's steal"), a reprieve from the Bill Cosby show, booty-call-I'm-gonna-get-you-sucka-blacksploitation-movies (again), a few Oscars from liberal Hollywood, a brief solace under the Clinton years, "Oruborous [the world eater] unfettered" as every crazy Friedman/Stockton/trickle-down theory got its day under DUBYA.

400 years. 40 years. 8 years in purgatory. Moses. Martin. Joshua. Obama.

We have this reverential fear of "tomorrow." What will it mean on November 5th?

Rain

© 29 October 2008, The Griot Poet

I hear the coming sound of rain…

Rain touches my face
after 40 years of wandering the Wilderness of Sin – lynch ropes to frighten us from education, beatings for votes, bombing churches and buses, police batons, German Shepherds, pressure hoses, poll taxes and marching – round and round Mount Sinai,
outside the Promised Land promised by
Moses


who had "been to the mountaintop"
and prophesied
his own demise
but that you and I
Vickie
would see
this Promised Land.

But, we were "as grasshoppers" in our own sight
and we assumed, those of our adversaries,
those that would use devils devices
and apothecary
to defame
a new Joshua
that would refrain
a hope that the slaves
of previous generations
could not conceive
because their yoke
could only be thrown off
by a "renewal of their minds"

for in the economy of God
what is unseen is more real
than Wall Street

Main Street
is under His sovereignty and
CEOs
His feet.

Your husband and your children
rise up and call you blessed,
and you are the wife
dressed in white
of Leon's youth.

What the world will see
is what you have taught
the fruit of your womb
that when they are old
"they will not depart from it"

for we/they are this new
generation

that finally emerges
from this Wilderness of Sin
into a future
of

HOPE.

For Mrs. Vickie Nowlin’s birthday, NC A & T Alumni, English Major, Principal, and friend (I was best man in their wedding)...

James 5:7 "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain."

Enough!

© 25 October 2008, The Griot Poet

First: he’s accused of being a “closet Muslim” (no one asked my NOI cousin),

Then: a pedophile (for a while).

They’ve run the gambit: eight-years-old when Ayers was so rudely bold and “pals around with terrorists,”

Explaining his heart to “spread the wealth” to “Joe the plumber”: Aha! He’s a socialist!

Even though the Berlin Wall (like Jericho’s) did fall: he’s now a communist!

They haven’t tried Satanist (yet), though after previously being labeled “the antichrist” on right-wing blogs, I think technically that would be a demotion!

A former, noted military man and statesman’s devotion to his party turned on its head as he endorses without fear or dread: “one with style and substance,” “a transformative figure,” “steadiness” with “intellectual curiosity”

According to Rush, though the general wrestled for months before his decision, obviously racially motivated (And…: Scott McClellan’s endorsement?).

We have experienced eight long years of an “Oedipus complex” run amuck. Ross Perot’s “sucking sound” now NAFTA plus 10 billion bucks a month to a war that shouldn’t have been, nearly 5,000 lives and 500,000 mortgages owned by the bailed-out banks (still failing), potentially replaced by another who’s grandfather and father finished their naval careers at flag ranks above his Captain.

He MUST one-up them and insight the nightmare of President George Washington’s “warring factions” invoking the worst in us, skewing unity beneath the Orwellian sign: “Country First.”

This is a referendum on 25 plus years of Friedman/Stockton “trickle down” schlock economics, divisive politics birthed from “the great communicator”: “welfare queens,” “Willie Horton,” “the ’92 LA riots,” “the lesser of two evils,” “right-to-life,” “PNAC Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” “tax cuts for the wealthy,” “swift boating,” “lipstick politics,” “ROBO calls from Giuliani,” “Unpatriotic,” “Traitor,” “terrorist…” ENOUGH!

I invoke Langston Hughes as I say to you all:

We too, are America! VOTE!

Epiphany

http://blackmenformccain.com/2008/10/18/barack-obama-for-president/#comment-747

Stephen King in "On Writing" often referred to writing, or the process of writing as I believe "excavation"; "sculpting."

Ray Bradburry in an interview on the 50th anniversary of "Fahreinheit 451" noted a lot of his stories "wrote him," and that he relied on his "secret voice" to make sense of the worlds he created.

There is a boldness in penmanship that you otherwise would find yourself tongue-tied to express. In politics, that makes you "unsure," 'unsteady," "not ready." In academia, you may just be thinking of a reply.

I do not know this writer at all. He is/was a black republican. I respected his views as I read them even if in many cases I did not nor could I not agree.

He (the writer), like a lot of pundits and republicans, struggled mightiliy to excavate the "2000 maverick McCain" from now distant memory. Once labeling the religious right as "agents of intolerance," McCain embraced them at Jerry Farwell's Lincoln University. Once saying he "fought for the stars and stipes, not the stars and bars," McCain allows the vilest vitriol to emanate from his supporters: "terrorist, kill him, socialist, communist," evidence of a campaign that like the man at the helm of the ship has clearly lost control of the rudder that should guide it. A cool iceberg, unrelenting is in front of him off the bow of the sinking ship. He need not hit the behemoth: his Titanic is sinking.

The writer knows this, and I sympathize with him because of the mention of the pending death of his father. Mortality has a way of taking the sureity out of your lifespace, the inevitable memory of the last conversation you had with your loved one before their demise, the helplessness of staring at a coffin when the essence of themselves - their laughter, their warmth, their smile, their hugs and their tears - no longer exists in this realm. Reviewing the tape over again in your mind: "this person used to be alive, and I loved them." It births anger and raises doubts.

What is poignant is the evolution of his whole person: political, emotional and yes spiritual.

Like Bradbury, this blog "wrote the writer." One of the reasons I [personally] voted for Obama was frankly how well he wrote in "Dreams from My Father." I feel if you can write, you can think, therefore reason and then apply critical thinking skills to a myriad of situations. The political and sadly, the American education system "soundbites" this process into meaningless "gotcha" momemts.

I also voted on a cool Monday morning at 7:10 AM in Cedar Park, Texas because http://outsourcedamerican.blogspot.com is more than my story now. It's no longer just me and doubts about whether I "played the game" or "pleased the right people." No. The system is broken, and someone needs to fix it.

Writing is almost a lie detector test even in fiction: the worlds you create must have rules, "make sense" in those rules and follow them to the end. In nonfiction, you try to be narrative and honest and trust where the story leads. The writer swung wildly from blind support, to doubt about Sarah Palin, to applauding her speech at the RNC, to doubt again and to switching his support.

He has excavated the corridors of his mind and found more questions than answers. The whole blog, good points and not-so-good, irreverant, reflective and sometimes funny, is a scuplted masterpiece. Don't just read the most recent post: take time to paruse them all.

One-Fifty

© 3 October 2008, the Griot Poet

What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday.

What we needed was some pork barrel spending to sweeten the stinking pot of gruel:

- A provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.

- subsidize renovations of restaurant franchises

- cut import duties on wool and wood

- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)

- American Samoa (Sec. 309)

- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)

- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)

- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)

- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)

- Railroads (Sec. 316)

- Auto Racing Tracks that will save Nascar track builders $109 million this year(317)

- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)

- Wool Research (Sec. 325)

- A research tax credit worth about $8.3 billion PER year for:
- Microsoft Corporation
- Harley-Davidson Inc.
- and subsidies for the overseas financial services earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc.

also known as: the same old offshore SHELL game!


Do they take us for fools?


Hank Paulson originated this while chairman in thief of Goldman Sacks.
And, he's ransacked
the futures of our great-grandchildren knowing full well this will only delay the inevitable:

recession.

"Dick" is currently at an undisclosed location adding up how he's set up

the economy to fund his retirement.

Check Bush and Cheney's exchequer after "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ride off into the sunset.

What was socialism on Monday became capitalism on Friday
with bipartisan support from both parties
as they flipped-the-script
and made this
150 BILLION dollars
MORE of our tax dollars spent!

And yet: I can't forget the prophetic utterance one of the Founding Father's advised:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

President George Washington, 1796 farewell speech

Bootleg

[paraphrase] ..."when he gets in trouble, you see the razzle-dazzle... the bootleg play..." Chris Matthews, Hardball host on the Rachel Maddow show...

© 25 September 2008, TGP

Chinua Achebe would say “Things Fall Apart”:
Big government bureaucrats become socialists and print $700 billion dollars not supported by gold or mint and give Hank Paulson a blank check with no oversight attachments…

When you have no spirituality: you enlist an evangelical leggy, ex-beauty queen; political Viagra for a limp, flaccid campaign as your poll numbers had you fading from the scene, that’s herself under an investigation for ethics violations: either firing the top cop for not firing her ex-brother-in-law or his zeal to appeal to Congress to redress the impact of sexual predators in Alaska – take your pick! “Roads to nowhere” end where “bridges to nowhere” should have begun!

Three interviews – Charles Gibson (Hard); Sean Hannity (Soft) – avoiding the Yin/Yang calamity by using leggy photo ops with Heads of State at the UN (talked about Hamid Karzai’s new baby to my chagrin), Katie Couric made the girl WORK because she couldn’t pull her usual Jedi skirt-above-knee testosterone mind trick…(“Why don’t I research that, Katie and get back with YA!”) avoiding at all cost tête-à-tête with the diminished 4th estate, now known in its epitaph as “yellow journalism.”

- Cheney first on the search committee for his candidate, then changing his residency from Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming so HE could run (for shadow president);
- Hurricane Gustav used to conveniently “un-invite” Bush and Cheney from their own party’s convention;
- Palin selected as last-minute intervention after one meeting, a phone call and calling that vetting a Vice Presidential Candidate;
- The deregulator-cum-regulator-cum-“the economy is sound”-cum-“I meant the American worker is sound”-cum-current crisis manipulator…

Throws his most recent “Hail Mary” pass because he’s a PUNK running completely scared and out of gas faster than price-gouged pumps on the east coast! Winning, not “Country First” is what matters to him most.

Because: political life is scary when you bootleg a “mandate for change” because you were part of the need FOR it, that’s why lipstick politics, bitter comments and charges of elitism – when YOU have 7 houses and 13 cars – matter more than reality, and you have on your own, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say!

No apology for Hillary...

Some hypocracy
requires poetry not
too long to the point. TGP

A Very Selective Amnesia

© 5 September 2008, The Griot Poet

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dear John: One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.
So, it was unpleasing to me NOT to hear anything about the economy during the RNC
Spiteful spit fest that jested against community organizers trying to fix this mess that bureaucracies like yours and Karl Rove’s attempted permanent Republican Majority rule chose to ignore…

So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?
Voting 90% of the time on tax cuts, oil drilling and what you have intimate experience with: torture. Each of which you were against before you were FOR (flip-flop)!

With a draft-dodging drunk and a punk that had “other priorities” during the same war you refrain again and again that shaped you.

It was quite a coup using Gustav to make them “stay away.” (Wink, wink) They did less this time with FEMA than Katrina, but at least you kept The Penguin away from booze, buckshot; his best friend’s face: and quail hunts in Austin, Texas!

As you tortured our common senses with some uncommon verbal Ju-Jitsu:
You both praised George W. Bush and Dick-the-stick Cheney and damned the last eight years of their administration: 6 of which YOURS was the dominate party!

So, you and the e-Bay, hockey mom, beauty queen, “Hot Governor/Cool State (slogan button), born-again DOMINIONIST that you picked at the last minute are supposed to ignite your party base – Rural, Suburban and Blue Collar Archie Bunker on the street – while Cindy McCain wears $350,000 of dress and jewelry and Barack and Michelle are the uppity elites?

Did you think we forgot the last 8 years and 7 houses that you can’t remember?

Unlike my cousin, your father’s station gave you a choice to leave your Hanoi Hilton. The same privilege that got you into Annapolis and graduated in the bottom fifth!

And, Cindy was your 25-year-old hootchie when your first wife Cathy’s injuries no longer made her worthy to be married to you: for better or for worse; in sickness and in health. You had to BEG Nancy Reagan for her endorsement she’d locked away on a pissed-off shelf!

But, like Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy, that spiritual baggage has been put on the shelf, even James Dobson and Bill O’Reilly has had second thoughts about the subject, when if the teen was named Sasha or Malia Obama they’d be having conniption fits!

One of the first stages of dementia is a mild case of amnesia.

So, John:
How do you implore us to “throw the bums out”… when you were ONE?

I guess that’s what fits when your real fear is what year 2050 demographers and Public Enemy prophesied:

“Fear of a Black Planet”

Sarah Palin-Gender Card (Comedy Central)

Doublespeak Good

Originally published on this blog: © 20 November 2004, The Griot Poet

Inspired by Jonathan Schell article, “What Happened to Hearts?”:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2014_

we will fight
with the steadfast resolve
of an unusual, artful draft dodger-in-chief
along with his veep
who both couldn't be bothered
when they were young men
to shed blood
for a war in Vietnam
that they steadfastly
believed…
in others bleedings.

we will fight
with strong delusions
guiding our common sense,
lies becoming truth
as greater than seventy percent
still believe Saddam was a threat
and involved in the attacks of 9-11
despite his rival Osama
referring to him
as an infidel.
oh, well!

we will fight
the constitution
with Patriot Acts I, II, and III,
calling it democracy.

we will fight
and twist words of peace
from Palestinian Prophets
into what Cornell West would call
"Constantine Christian"
diatribes, slogans and dogmas
to shepherd
Noam Chomsky's
"bewildered herd"
into the accepted
brainwashed,
corporate-controlled
network germ:

"war is peace.
"freedom is slavery.
"ignorance is strength."

we who bubble forth like fountains
see George Orwell's prophesy
becoming reality,

and General Tacitus'
observations
becoming most poignant in this season:

"they made a wasteland, and called it peace."

Sarah Palin-Wonder Woman

Source: Moveon.org email.

Transcript follows (TGP):

TRANSCRIPT:
Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it's not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It's over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

NBC's Chuck Todd: Don't you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They're all bummed out.


Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [B.S.] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

The Reluctant Eulogist

© 10 August 2008, The Griot Poet

Like "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
I find I am a "Speaker for the Dead"
speaking of endings
and beginnings
in two days having lost
Bernie Mac,
Now Isaac Hayes

"He was a bad mother... shut your mouth!"

He brought style to baldness before MJ,
Chocolate was never as sweet as when he sang,
Back in the day
If you HAD no luck with babes... you played a 45" by Isaac Hayes,
And she, felt gorgeous for his refrain...

He wore chains before Run DMC, Mr. T or gangster wannabe's,
He rapped before Ludacris or Nelly,
He was the foundation for disco, urban contemporary music,
midnight love videos, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross and Barry White...

Yes, I am a speaker for the dead,
and something about us is passing fast
into the past,
into oblivion,
into the cloud of witnesses...

I quote myself in the piece "Last Days":

I lament the death of soul music:
born of marches,
riots,
Civil Rights songs.

It was OUR marching music,
the beat of OUR drums,
when we sang out
we gave NEPHESH *
back in spirit-filled medley.

I lament the death of soul music
and the architects of its pentameter,
journeymen and master musicians
as capable of 'da FUNK'
as arranging a Philharmonic Orchestra
without sampling past hits,
shocking lyrics
or "lip sync."

I lament the death of soul music
with the sincerest tears...

In twenty years:

Music that calls our women "hootchies, B's and 'hos,"
Music that calls our men gangsters, N's and thugs,

Lyrics so FOUL as to attain the label "parental advisory"...

will

BE

the oldies!

* NEPHESH - Etymology, Hebrew: "Living soul."
Soul, self, life, seat of the appetites, seat of emotions and passions, activity of mind, activity of the will, activity of the character

Soul Music
Date: 1961
: music that originated in black American gospel singing, is closely related to rhythm and blues, and is characterized by intensity of feeling and earthiness

Bernie Mac - Celestial Effervescence

© 9 August 2008, The Griot Poet

Heaven just got a little funnier,
For a time, our memories
of Bernie will be the only sunny
things that brings smiles to our
visages.

He
was on a mission
to dismiss
his previous
existence
in poverty:
raised on Chicago's south side
by mother, grandmother, Deacon grandfather,
being "from the 'hood" he wore with pride
and a badge of honor:
not dropping his drawers
and acting thuggish
(OK, a few films in a sophisticated way, maybe)
but acting and making people laugh
that garnered him and fellow comedians Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey and DL Hughley
nomination for a Grammy.

Doting father and grandfather,
he carried himself with dignity, honor
and wide-eyed
delight
with laughter
and a joke behind
each smile:
"I ain't scared of nobody!"

And nobody need be afraid:

Heaven just got a little funnier.

The Chitlin' Era: an essay on TheRoot.com article

On the Chitlin' Era: I never ate them as a child, having the notable experience of seeing (and smelling) fresh-slaughtered bowels at a family reunion: as I recall, flies avoided the aroma. Hot sauce does not cure every taste.

On Obama: I was a late convert to the "Obama bandwagon," and I never viewed myself as a swooner, nor a disciple looking for a political Avatar to follow. I decided on his first book: "Dreams From My Father." Recall that our first stab at commentary about him was that he wasn't "black enough." My observation is the same as Carter G. Woodson [paraphrased]: we are well-conditioned to “know our place,” and react almost violently (Jesse’s “cut his nuts off” comment) when one of us looks to move beyond the crab bucket. It takes all the excuses away for sure. Anyone who can write well is a person with organized thought patterns that can take new information, make an informed decision and go in a particular positive direction. Also, that same intellectual prowess allows one, president or pauper, to admit to mistakes and learn from them.

We've had eight years of "stay-the-course-steadfast-non-flip-flopper-decider" mentality from a person who's not the least bit intellectually curious, the only person in his family (from Connecticut) to speak with a southern drawl; an economy that's been a boon for his REAL masters and our reputation abroad evidenced by the boos and cat calls when our president shows up and the rock star attendance when Mr. Obama speaks in Europe.

Michael Eric Dyson said on Larry King that Mrs. Clinton all but had the nomination sewed up except that "history broke out in the person of Barack Obama," and you want to label this the "Chitlin' Era?"

Forty years ago, we lost Martin; a few years before that Malcolm and Medgar. We owe a debt to them as well as the women in the movement for the kind of world we have now: not perfect, but without the overt signs on bathroom stalls and restaurants.

What will change with an Obama Administration? Nothing overnight except the possibility of young black males growing up to be president and not "ballers and rappers"… An Obama Administration should be held accountable to the US Constitution, unlike the current one that circumvents it almost daily and at will. Pulling the lever, filling the square, punching the chad is not the end: politics is a participatory sport and there are no bench warmers when your premise is rule by the people. If he fails, that's called a term limit and it has no reflection on us as a people or culture. Senators and Congressmen fail and get reelected: that's called apathy.

Though I found your comments witty, “Chitlin’ Era” is almost an apology: a conciliatory mea culpa to the waning majority now moving from the suburbs back to gentrify the inner city to feel a sense of control and lower their outlay of money at the gas pump, and that [majority] will be decidedly browner by the year 2050. It is apologizing for a black man having the audacity to run a credible presidential campaign raising funds and breaking records with the power of the Internet.

If Mr. Obama wins it will be because the last eight years gave him the framework to “break out in history”: now was his time. If McCain wins, then the US richly deserves the inheritance it will get from that decision and the continuation of Bush’s policies: the whirlwind.

“Chitlin’ Era” is on par with his opponent comparing him to Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton: it’s what you say when you’ve run out of material.

Father's Day - a Letter to Sons of the Promised Land

Fatherly angst blogged - TGP

I grew up in a ghetto, glorified in rap videos and CDs that demonstrably are urban reservations for the systemic problems of a society that hasn't grasped the concept of cause and effect, reaping and sowing, chickens coming home to roost.

I now live in a suburb with better access to more expensive drugs and white high school students convicted of counterfeiting - a federal offense - and not serving a day in jail.

I live in a time where the office of father is camp buffoonery in "Good Times", "All in the Family," "The Cosby Show," "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," "The Wayans Brothers," "Family Guy," "American Dad," "The Simpson's" and "The Boondocks." I list them as I've watched them and laughed at them all, similar to blacks laughing at the minstrel show "Step-n-Fetch" in burnt cork faced self-derision.

Then, I demand respect.

But I do live in a time where the Democratic Party decided to be the first to field an African American as their candidate - the Republicans had their chance with Colin Powell in '96 (his wife's mental illness a litmus to his "fitness to command," despite having been National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan and Bush), and Alan Keyes who said and believed what evangelicals like candidates to say and believe - was summarily thrown out of the Republican National Convention in 2000, though he "still believed in the party." I applaud his faith.

My motivation to be a father was from my example of fatherhood: a man who had no recompense when the supervisor called him "nigger Bob" at work. Human Resources did not exist. They had personnel then, that only served as on-site bean counters, intervention only solicited when things at the workplace got almost hopelessly bad and out of control. I treated him with respect in his home because outside to bring a paycheck home, he literally went through hell...

What do I want for father's day?

I don't want to feel like I'm living by myself anymore.

- If the lawn needs mowing, mow it.
- If done with the computer, shut it off (before midnight preferably).
- If done with video systems, turn them off.
- If done viewing television, ditto.
- If the sink's dishes need washing, wash them (and put them up).
- If your clothing in the laundry room needs folding, fold them.
- If done, then ask "what's next?"

All should be done without thought of compensation. No one calls me "nigger" to my face as my martial skills are well known and respected.

I am the only one in a small company that does not have much in the way of diversity training. Since we're tied to the defense industry, I am not political at all as my candidate is insulted daily, especially since he won his party's nomination. I am making 20% less than my pre-lay off salary, but I have a mortgage and college tuition to pay. My daily hell is less overt than grandpa's, but I, like he, have responsibilities.

You will each be fathers someday, managing your own households. How you behave now is what you [should] tolerate from your own offspring without complaint.

All I ask is not extraordinary or expensive. In a 24 hour day, we each have 1,440 minutes. All I ask is a few minutes of your time, 20 per day at the least of tasks listed above, 120 for the lawn. 1,320 - 1,420 minutes left to sleep, eat, play videos, surf the Internet and generally lead your lives as the values your mother and I model should govern you accordingly.

That is more priceless than a Hallmark card given on a contrived day of "respect."

1 Corinthians 13:13
"And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity (love in action)."

November 5, 2008

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.

Parsec's Measure

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

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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.

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.

"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!

Last Stand for Jonah

Jonah’s not backing down!
Having been divinely clowned in the digestive bile of Orca,
He’s had a revelation
Praying in the belly
Of the beast
That the only thing
More unpleasant
Than disturbed digestion
Is for the full cycle manifested
And he
Recycled
As fertilizer for
Seaweeds on
Corporate
Coral
Reefs!

Barack's Former Pastor on a Roll - Stay Tuned!

I admit: this has been an exhaustive campaign, even for one that claims to be a "political agnostic" (or, at least I did) because I didn't want to be bothered with office debates and vitriol. So, the following email posted below was my "fresh breath of political air."

However, the comments below are not mine: Reverend Frank Garrett, Jr. runs http://www.garrettradio.net/, which evolved from a local Austin, Texas talk show "The Wake Up Call" that still plays in the city.

So, he has the perspective of being a political and social rights activist as well as a commentator on the body politic.

The Kerner Commission said we were becoming two Americas: Black and White, separate and unequal http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/. Recent data suggests in our school systems, we are no more integrated now than we were back then and/or resegregating by dropping court-ordered mandate http://theintegrationreport.wordpress.com/2008/01/.

Restrictive covenants have been removed and some of us rise to the middle and upper classes due to education. So, we can hide a problem behind class and preparation now, make those lucky enough to have prepared to feel "special," significant "the one."

Go to a school on the east side or the south side of any major city: go to the computer room, the locker room, the library. Then go to the same facilities in the suburbs to complete the experiment.

Then, go to a gas pump for $4 a gallon, a grocery store for $80 worth of food in fewer bags than you remember it covering. Call your loved one in the Iraq War we should not now or ever be fighting. Ask someone who's lost their job and has to file for bankruptcy. As someone whose house hasn't sold in over a year and their carrying two notes. If one thing has unified us now, is the boat we find ourselves in together...

*******************************************************

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is enjoying a second helping of 15 minutes of fame, and many Americans are seeing it as detrimental to Barack Obama's race for the presidential nomination. The Internet is loaded down with posts by blacks online lamenting the preacher's effort to defend himself against a barrage of media coverage very negative and racist. Rather than wring our hands and wish he would shut up and sit down, I feel invigorated by his candor, intellect, and yes, showmanship. Of course we all know white folk looking for a reason to not vote for Barack will use this as an excuse, but they never intended to give him their vote in the first place. Let's at least be honest about one major thing here - America is still a very racist nation.

Senator Obama is smart enough, ready enough, and organized enough to ride this tide to a conclusion in about a week or ten days when escalating gasoline prices will replace Rev. Wright as America's biggest problem. All you have to do is listen to right-wing talk radio to know who is most affected by the reverends dialog - rednecks and intellectually challenged white Americans too stupid to determine for themselves what truth is. Those are the useful idiots listening to the likes of Rush, Sean, Laura, Mike, Bill, and the troglodytes on the FOX News network. Intelligent white people don't take their cues from bombastic racist, sexist, homophobic draft dodgers on talk radio - only the brain dead gun loving, Bible thumping redneck hicks do that. Unfortunately, they all have voters registration cards too so it poses a problem.

Mainstream media is now fully engaged in the "beat back Obama" movement so you can expect them to keep Rev. Wright front and center long after he goes home satisfied with his effort to exonerate himself. Dogs that they are, mainstream media has become nothing more than electronic tabloids more interested in sensationalism than national security, health care, housing, and education. Sick puppies that a lot of us are, we wring our hands and watch the boob tube religiously. Now is the time for we the people to do the smart thing and keep up with the issues that impact our pocket books, homes, and employment, rather than what a retired preacher said about America in one of his sermons. What is America saying to us is the question of today - do we matter or has Iraq replaced our nation as the governments responsibility?

I personally have no problem with what Rev. Wright is doing now. I agree with him - preachers must do what God wants done regardless of the impact it has on those running for office, or trying to win the Super Bowl, or the Lotto, or the Masters. The Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, and our thoughts seem to border on what others think rather than what God thinks. That is why pundits and dunderheads are saying Rev. Wright is hurting Barack Obama's campaign. If our nation is stupid enough to not elect a man because of his skin color, or former pastors rhetoric so be it. Barack Obama's biggest liability is not really Rev. Wright - it is instead his honesty and lack of baggage. He is not a phony. In a nation of phony patriots, phony Christians, phony politicians, and phony citizens - he is odd and hard to compromise. That is why guilt by association is being used against him - if you can't pin something on the man you want to beat down, blame it on his former pastor.

Peace - RevG

Directive 51

© 19 August 2007, The Griot Poet

Directive 51 might as well be Order 66 given by an Emperor bent on shredding the Constitution and his Dark Lord apprentice…

We started this with a night of cyber-terror: the error of throwing out thousands of African American votes, calling all criminal rogues when no such records existed, (thanks to Choice Point, Incorporated), overseas military ballots mysteriously vanished, arguments over hanging chads and chaff, disenfranchising their rights as Americans…

The vote count was halted by the Supremes, five of which deemed themselves more qualified to select a president than “We the people…”

Then, we had 9-11, birthed by a poet named Osama Bin Laden, knowing the international code for distress and that in the Koran, “darkness was created on a Tuesday…”

Remember when gas was .98 a gallon?
Remember when we had a budget surplus in 2000?
Remember when a house on the market selling in more than one week was… too slow?
These things weren’t that long ago…

Then we had “Code Orange” alerts, Hurricanes’ Katrina, Rita: when fear is your diet, you’ll gladly allow your civil liberties violated by the NSA/CIA military-industrial-complex in violation of Posse Comitatus!

Now, to my point: Google Directive 51 on your own computer and it will take you to www.WhiteHouse.gov…

It was posted without fanfare and knowledge that you wouldn’t search or care…

The gist of five pages of legalese is this: if there is another catastrophe, which is the president’s – and not Bobby Brown’s – prerogative to define what catastrophe is, HE becomes the government!

And will restore governmental powers at such time in the future as HE deems fit.

“If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, (chuckle) just so long as I'm the dictator!”

All hail, Caesar!

And now we have the sixth anniversary of a “day of darkness, horror and dread”; we’ve lost more dead in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9-11 than we lost in those twin towers.

The chatter increasing as that Monday on August 6, 2001 when the grinning chip heard from his intelligence brief “Bin Laden Determined to Attack US with Planes” and refrained from doing anything except… get back to his chores and photo ops at the ranch.

On this particular anniversary, 9-11 reoccurs… on Tuesday.

“In the Koran, DARKNESS was created… on a Tuesday!”

Directive 51 might as well be Order 66 given by an Emperor bent on shredding the Constitution and his Dark Lord apprentice!

"Uppity" - Article

An article e-mailed to Daniel in the Black Democratic Coalition for publication. VERY insightful.

With this - and the inspiration of the so-called "debate" last night - I will compose a poetry piece of the same title as Ron's article. Well Done! TGP, 17 April 2008

A bonus: very FOXY news...






**********

Daniel-

This thing with Hillary Clinton accusing Obama of being "elitist" reminds me of the shenanigans they pulled in South Carolina, only worse. So, please consider the following for publication:


Uppity
By Ron Horne
April 15, 2008

Interesting how Senator Hillary Clinton paints Barack Obama as an elitist. This son of a Kenyan, fatherless at the age of two, raised by grandparents of a teenage mother, is elitist. This Harvard Law Review editor who, instead of going for a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or quarter million dollar wall-street law firm salary, worked as a civil rights lawyer and community activist in the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago for a fraction of what he easily could have made, is an elitist. And Sen. Clinton? She’s lived in the White House, has two posh homes on the east coast, and, between her and her husband, the former President of the United States, has racked up $109 million in the last eight years. Folks, that’s $13,625,000.00 per year on average. According to Reuters News Service (3/25/08), “Obama's income with wife Michelle jumped in 2005 with the re-release of his first book ‘Dreams from My Father,’ which brought him $1.2 million, and in 2006 when his second book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ earned more than $500,000.” So, he went from a quarter million to nearly two million in five years. The Clintons make over $13 million every year. Hillary and Bill-$109 million; Barack and Michele- $2 million. Sen. Clinton ran as the Democratic incumbent to the presidency, like she was the heir to the American throne of the Clinton dynasty . . . until, of course, the American people said otherwise. And Obama is elitist? Clinton said that the caucuses and primaries in the small rural states, those states where Obama won, don’t matter, don’t count. Rather it is the large, populous, urban, cosmopolitan states that matter. She basically said that rural America doen't count and Obama is elitist?

Hmmm. $109 million vs. $2 million. White house v. brick house. First Lady v. first brutha. The elitist argument may work for Clinton in the “Alabama” portion of Pennsylvania (James Carvilles’ characterization, not mine), but in North Carolina, as well as other highly populated Black states and cities, Black voters will read her attack as code for something many accomplished and aspiring Blacks have been called by their White counterparts in both high and low society: Uppity. You know, uppity, as in Uppity Negro. For those too young to be familiar with the phrase, it means a Black man or woman, who doesn’t realize their “place” in the social fabric, i.e., beneath whites in terms of what he or she is “allowed” to do. He’s elitist, she says, thinks he’s better than you. Translation: despite his hard work and educational and professional achievement, you are better than him. Here I have been living and working in Washington, First Ladying in the White House, getting funding together from lobbyists to run my coronation campaign, waiting my turn. Then all of a sudden, this young buck comes in, unknown to most, hasn’t lived in the White House, hasn’t “suffered” under the trappings of the presidency, hasn’t paid his dues to be known, yet he comes in here with his Harvard degree and law professorship, holding those big tent rallies like some kind of black Baptist minister getting people all stirred up when it is MY turn to be president. Who does he (that BOY) think he is?

Uppity. Black people of a certain generation know exactly what that means: second class, lower class, racially undeserving, ambitious beyond your station, not knowing your “place”. As the first Black “post racial” candidate (a term that, to my knowledge, has never been applied to White candidates), Barack Obama cannot, and will not, say what many Black people will inevitably take from the latest Clinton tactic. Frankly speaking, he’s cool like that. He will do what he usually does, make simple comparisons and appeal to the basic fundamental needs of all people of all races that are not being met by the current political and governing system where the Clintons are heavily entrenched. It is no wonder that in a poll last week more than 25% of women who had supported Clinton now think less of her as a result of her campaign tactics. It is no wonder Clinton is losing to Obama by margins of 7, 8, and 9 to 1 among Black voters. It is no wonder that Clinton trails in delegates, votes, and states as of this writing. She says what she needs to say and does whatever she needs to do to win. And while they may not fall cleanly and distinctly into the categories of lie, cheat, and steal (i.e. lie about sniper fire, cheat on the Michigan and Florida primaries, steal pledged delegates), her campaign has and is effectively burning a bridge between herself and the Democratic party’s fundamental constituents: Blacks, Hispanics and Women. She continues to pursue the Rev. Wright issue (while his statements have been labeled as “hate speech”, no one has addressed the truth of his statements [we did bomb Hiroshima, Vietnam, and Iraq; Blacks have been medically experimented on by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) from 1932 and 1972, there is resentment in the Middle East due to the effects of our funding of Israel on Arab Palestinians]), the 3 a.m ad (there’s a Black man lurking around the corner in the dark), and whether he is Christian or Muslim (“so far as I know”). She decries NAFTA and the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (which appears to have benefitted Hispanics, although some may differ on this point) and flip-flops on issues, displays emotional schizophrenia, and relies on her husband’s record (the good parts) as her curriculum vitae, something many women, and feminists in particular, find especially irritating.

As for Obama’s statement itself, according to MSNBC.com, he was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Like the statements of Reverend Wright, his explanation also has a historical foundation. The Rosewood Massacre (http://www.displaysforschools.com/rosewood.html) resulted, in part, from the economic hardship of the white segregated town of Sumner and the economic success of the black segregated town of Rosewood, Florida. The catalyst was common for the south: black man accused of violating a white woman. But the economic climate between these two towns in the same county led to the massacre and abandonment of Rosewood by its Black residents and businesses. Today, this country is filled with segregated “sundown towns” where blacks cannot live despite the money to do so. And numerous towns in this country have instituted or tried to institute anti-immigration ordinances to prevent immigrants from getting jobs or renting property including Riverside, New Jersey, Valley Park, Missouri, and Farmers Branch, Texas. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/nyregion/26riverside.html).

Despite these documented circumstances, Clinton chose to do the politically expedient thing: parse the words instead of the facts. Certainly, if she learned nothing else from her husband’s campaigns (or the Bush campaigns thereafter), she had to have learned that Presidents win elections via their base first, even if they need swing and independent voters. The take-no-prisoners conduct of her campaign could leave her bereft of a large portion of that base support were she to somehow garner the Democratic nomination. Of course, on the bright side, since Senator Clinton has clearly opted to utilize the tactics expected to come from the Republicans in the general election, after the last primary in June Obama will be able to argue, as he already has on occasion, that having weathered the Clinton storm he has proven that he is vetted and electable. Ironic since, by her own actions, Senator Clinton may succeed in putting this uppity Negro in his place . . . The White House.

Some Thoughts on a 40th Anniversary

I was 5 years old in Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on April 4, 1968.

We were "Bethlehem," the labeling by the United Methodist Church for day care services on our side of town. "Wesleyan" was reserved for West Winston-Salem.

Yes. We were segregated, and our lives reflected it visibly. Now, as I travel home, the signs are down, we no longer just go to the "Ritz" Movie Theater and anyone can ride on any part of the Metro they desire. East Winston is still segregated, de facto versus legal writ now. Economics, opportunity, education and globalization are the new fences, the new overseers. Bethlehem and Wesleyan are still community centers serving a new generation of the same constituents albeit interspersed with Hispanics now.

I remember April 3, 1968 sitting next to my dad as Dr. King preached a sermon. I asked him what he means by "I've been to the mountain top?" I, my teacher, my parents, my neighbors and that kindergarten class were soon to find out in the cruelest fashion.

We found out in that kindergarten class that life can be cruel, that flawed heroes can fall. We found out you can cry tears until your eyes burn and your gut hurts. We found out that our teachers hurt just as much as we did. We heard horns honking and saw rebel flags flying outside and later on the news: as we cried in agony, many celebrated our loss. I'm told by Vietnam veterans the scene was similar in country to the stress and detriment of soldiers of color. We graduated from kindergarten into a world without our Dr. King.

I appreciate the impact Martin Luther King had on our lives in that we understood our loss: usually at that age (as I recall), loss is not so personal even within the family unless it is a close, involved relative. He was like the uncle we’d never met and knew somehow his importance in our collective plight. We played, as kids are apt to after the midmorning nap. That was the only thing we could think to do.

Today, we are his legacy. And what we do with that legacy will be an interesting test of the democratic experiment known as America. Those that denigrate this commentary with simplistic, salacious epithets do not have the vocabulary or the intelligence to see their worldview other than that of a pie that is being subdivided to their disadvantage, that their culture and privilege somehow is threatened. Nothing could be further from the truth: no one registers culture, nationality or political party at the gas pump, in the supermarket, when your company has downsized you for cheaper labor overseas. We are all America.

John Donne said it best "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Four-Thousand Faces

Four-thousand faces,
Human beings from divergent lives and various places,
When we'd crossed the first Rubicon of 1,000 faces,
I wrote a poem that I hoped would reveal to us
Maniacal machinations
Are not what represent us, and
Are not the ways of democracies...
The hypocrisy of holding so-called "elections"
At the same time withholding the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
That 600,000 plus Pentagon documents conclude and admit:
Saddam Hussein had no connection to Al-Qaeda or 9/11.

That deserves to be said again:

That 600,000 plus Pentagon documents conclude and admit:
Saddam Hussein had no connection to Al-Qaeda or 9/11.

Yet, "we're safer" for the effort,
"So, what?" That the electorate has turned their opinions on it.
From one who served in the wealthy and privileged Houston, Texas "Champagne Unit?"
And the ever smirking, fish-in-a-barrel quail killing Darth Elmer Fudd
With "other priorities..."
It's easy to talk tough as chicken-hawks!

The election is already fixed for another internment of the junta
Masquerading as our government,
We genuflect between sexist and racist rants
That takes our focus off the chance
For real, lasting change that could positively affect
The next generation...

Four-thousand faces,
Human beings from divergent lives and various places
Their noble sacrifice
The blood on an arcane altar
to gods that take their spoils from our tax coffers
paid for by an economy faltering
[I fear: and I wish desperately to be wrong]
on the late, Great United States.

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright

Please note: when I went to check the original source of the "news," the video has been removed from YouTube due to terms of usage violations. Yet curiously, every major news outlet has a copy and has run it ad nauseam. The Senator was grilled to repudiate, condemn and reject in no uncertain terms comments made by his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. Obama's own comments cast doubt: it's not much of a prophesy to predict an army of journalist are pouring over every DVD of the Reverend Doctor's sermons to see a thin future presidential candidate in the midst as he delivers a stirring sermon in the tradition of "call and response."

History: "Call and response"

"In Sub-Saharan African cultures, call and response is a pervasive pattern of democratic participation -- in public gatherings in the discussion of civic affairs, in religious rituals, as well as in vocal and instrumental musical expression. It is this tradition that African bondsmen and women brought with them to the New World and which has been transmitted over the centuries in various forms of cultural expression -- in religious observance; public gatherings; sporting events; even in children's rhymes; and, most notably, in African-American music in its myriad forms and descendants including: gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz and jazz extensions." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_and_response_(music)

This tells me two things:

1. Most likely the church did not post this sermon. Out of the thousands of hours of sermons they could post that would not be so controversial, why post THIS one?
2. It is to the advantage of opponents of Obama's candidacy to run it.

Who are the opponents? They are legion:

- History;
- Ignorance;
- The source of the video.

I've read about the history of the black church since, most of my life I've attended one. I started with the Baptist Church, by far the oldest form of worship pattern in the New World. We were organized by masters into separate but hardly equal organizations.

Call and response stemmed from shear enthusiasm: Sunday was a day of rest from labor in the fields, and since we could not read - that would make us "uppity" and question authority, and since, like the history above it was something we brought from Africa, it has dominated our form of worship since. In contrast, evangelical pastors tend to speak in soft, lecture tones. Some can get fiery, I admit like: Jerry Farwell (deceased) - who said 9/11 was due to gays and lesbians, Rod Parsley - who advocates the destruction of Islam by the US and John Hagee - also not a friend of GLBT.

Many things we do in the black church stems from slavery, like: holding up one's finger to walk from one's seat. That meant you were asking permission from the overseer that observed your congregation. It made sure your "pastor" wasn't saying anything crazy like liberation, freedom, etc. Our ancestors made the coded 100s (no wikipedia on it) like "Swing low, sweet chariot. Coming forth to carry me home," itself a coded message for escape to the north to freedom.

The Azusa Street revival was lead by William J. Seymour, a pastor from Houston, Texas that took his revival and "speaking in tongues" to Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California 14 April 1906. It was the first time whites and blacks mingled worship together. The profound prejudice confounded the effort and people went back to their worship patterns.

In the 1930s, W. D. Fard established a new type of church in Chicago that would be inherited by Elijah Poole, a.k.a. Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. They called for separation because they experienced separation. There is some evidence that the Klan invested in the church since their aims were quite... similar. The lack of teaching of black history, extensively researched by the sect would attract Malcolm Little, a.k.a. Detroit Red, a two-bit criminal that would be known as Malcolm X. He would attract a disciple from Winston-Salem Teacher's College, Louis Walcott now known as Louis Farrakhan. The same who would lead The Million Man March in Washington DC, 16 October 1995 with both Christian and Muslim brothers of color.

********************

It is the ignorance of this history that is quite interesting to watch unfold. That the magazine of the church (not the church) would give Louis Farrakhan an award - what award it escapes me, but enough to ruffle the establishment. That his sermons would stem from his experiences in a formerly segregated country as a former US Marine coming back from the Vietnam War. That such a man might attract followers that struggle to make a middle class lifestyle in a country that does not favor them, or predominately white liberal campuses where they feel "alien" according to Michelle Robinson's senior thesis at Princeton. That his sermons aren't much different than sermons I've heard in churches like his that developed under this rubric. The fact that I said the previous statements will get a reaction - probably from "anonymous" that I am again a racist. That is neither a broad brush on black pastors nor a labeling of African American Christians - just a statement of experiences.

On http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881455.html it states "About 10.4% of the entire African-American male population in the United States aged 25 to 29 was incarcerated, by far the largest racial or ethnic group—by comparison, 2.4% of Hispanic men and 1.2% of white men in that same age group were incarcerated. According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute in 2002, the number of black men in prison has grown to five times the rate it was twenty years ago. Today, more African-American men are in jail than in college. In 2000 there were 791,600 black men in prison and 603,032 enrolled in college. In 1980, there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in college." 1980: that was my freshman year. Beyond statistics, those experiences might shape how we see things, how we view things and how we relay the gospel to each other in the nation’s most segregated hour.

********************

It's possible that someone released the video to YouTube, but it's doubtful without the church's permission. What's more possible is someone at the church that for whatever reason did not like Obama. Not some racist, but someone that looked like him and did not like his meteoric rise to possibly becoming the president. That person may or may not be a Hillary Clinton or John McCain supporter. The only description I can muster that best illustrates him or her is: crab. Crabs are boiled alive. The proverb is that they pull each other down below the steaming depths and all die together.

The candidates’ repudiate, reject, distain and respond to surrogates every week. The economy is in a shambles, the Iraq war is unpopular and cost 12 billion a month, gas is approach $4 and milk $5. I'm paying the same mortgage on 20% less of an income, and THIS is what I get from the First Amendment Media?

"Separation of church and state": what a NOVEL idea!

Grandmother Poem

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/negritude: (circa: 1945-1950) The historical, cultural, and social heritage considered common to blacks collectively: An aesthetic and ideological concept affirming the independent nature, quality, and validity of Black culture. An ideological position that holds Black culture to be independent and valid on its own terms; an affirmation of the African cultural heritage… © 7 March 2008, The Griot Poet, TGP

I've seen a lot this election cycle, and experienced a lot on this blog: the comment I replied to "anonymous" is one individual that thought I was a racist and that my culture has and has never had value. That challenge I could not leave hanging.

This is a commentary I wrote in the cubicle. I hope it speaks to what Africans in America/African Americans/Blacks/Negros go through on a daily basis. Our silence is not consent: we have mortgages and college tuition's to pay. So we leave our place of employment each day, our jowls tight and our blood pressures and sugar levels elevated. If you just had to say it, and you had the gift of spoken word, I think this is how you'd spit it. TGP

* * * * *

I sit in a cubicle
Surrounded by the descendants
That owned my ancestors

During this election season
My reasons for my choices are derided
I’d invite direct challenge, though I’d be chided for breaking a company edict that they flagrantly violate daily.

So, the issues are gaily bandied about me,
Subtly, without directly calling me
Delusional,
Feeling less human and more Labrador retriever
Sleeping silently, my stomach to the floor, my tail ready to wag before
Someone whistles.

A pious air of pedigree
Is their refusal after evidence abounds contrary
To the negative pictures they mentally filter to review any news of me.

CNN did a special: “26 Hours of Terror” when a brother went crazy and shot up downtown ATL…

For the other brother who risked his life to rescue the four children of another man and his wife from a fire – he said he was a dad too, and wouldn’t want anyone to leave his children to house fires hotter than hell – he got a one-time, five-minute sound bite.

I want to hug my grandmother basking in the morning sunshine of the village of my beginnings.
I want to smell the air, taste the dew unmarred by middle passages, only the smog of so-called modernization that mars even Eden.
I want to see you dance a welcome [to me] in a pink tribal dashiki as I, the prodigal son walk, trot then run to your greeting.
I want to hug my grandmother and feel the grip of her embrace as she communicates the spirits of my ancestors in each breath sigh, each tearful cry I shed.

Shush, Hon!

I have been gone long, grandmother:
My father married and divorced my mother.
At one time I was called mulatto, now I mark “other”
As I take a census of my history
A mystery that I had to solve that eventually led me to you and this embrace.

My father voluntarily journeyed to a distant place,
And did not speak over me his blessings,
Or tell me who I was
As the quiver of his loins
He was little more than a ghost to me
Before his earthly demise
We corresponded via letters now known as snail-mail
And so, through sorcery and liquors, I tried to escape
And disguise
The responsibility of my lineage
Taking psychedelic trips did little to alleviate the derision seen when I hailed a cab, got on an elevator, furrowed my brow, combed my hair, shaved my head, inhaled – flaring my nostrils, pursed my lips, or wore a turban from my father’s tribe.

When I express my negritude, I am chided as a racist.
When my church celebrates its heritage, they are scolded as separatist.
When I express any views that are contrary to the control of the ancestors of former oppressors, I am a black nationalist (or terrorist).

Comments from anonymous in Cyberspace ridicule the age wrinkles of wisdom on your beautiful face and my own as “gorilla,” evidence that some of us have yet to evolve from Neanderthal separatists thought processes.

What began as “hope” perhaps is hopeless since the word “America” can be rearranged into three distinct that describe this country’s characteristics: “I am race.”

I want to hug you grandmother, basking in the morning sunshine of the village of my beginnings.

I want to run down streets owned by my people since time began in Eden, like the children I see, for a childhood not experienced in Indonesia or Hawaii playing soccer and hopscotch, double-dutch with lollipops as your prodigal grandson.

I need the strength of my Faith, my people and origins as I am in a contest with others like me who side against me,
Cultivating the seeds of their own destruction in the process,

As I am in a contest that most suspect rigged – for or against me anyway,
And that most after wards will not denigrate their intelligence with participation.

I want to hug you, grandmother and feel the grip of your embrace as you communicate the spirits of my ancestors

I need to hear from our village Griot their whispers from long ago and their assurance that this Goliath will also fall to the stones of my truth.

Shush, Hon! It’s going to be alright. Grandmother’s here… embracing you.

Open Letter to Anonymous

Dear sir or madam:

I'm afraid www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions is the type of web site that is constructed to appease one's brused ego.

The web sites I'd refer you to are the following:

http://inventors.about.com/od/blackinventors/Famous_Black_Inventors.htm
http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/history.html

Also, look at the following:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

I can find patent 147,363 dated February 10, 1874 belonging to:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllatimer.htm

I found the patent search tool, sir or madam, from your web site's bibliography.

It's interesting and sad: I typically don't get responses to my postings. However, I take umbrage to being called a racist. In my experience, racism takes a certain amount of authority and power, like the kind that hung my grandfather for the crime of being a teacher: it seems reading was a criminal, revolutionary act in South Carolina at the time. You should try it sometimes.

The fact of history is that it has always been written by the victors. You may have your opinions sir or madam and I may have mine. This is after all, a country of laws, not of men. And the law we both have access to as Americans is the First Amendment.

Sincerely non racist,

The Griot Poet