A quote by Dickens and thoughts on the joint address to Congress...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist (1812 - 1870)

I had two very strong reactions to President Obama's speech to the Joint Session of Congress last night: weeping and cheering.

I teared a little at the beautiful young lady next to First Lady Michele Obama: "We're not quitters." As a nation, we're not quitters, but we have been cowards, meaning we have not as Attorney General Eric Holder stated, acknowledged the impact of our past on our present global competitiveness.

Langston Hughes said in the poem "I Too": "they tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' when company comes. But I laugh and eat well and grow strong. Tomorrow, I will set at table when company comes, no one will dare tell me to 'eat in the kitchen' then."

Company has come. In the Jim Crow, segregated past, our economies were segregated as well. The world wasn't as interconnected as it is now. We are in competition with European and Asian countries that for the most part are homogeneous and had no need for a Civil Rights or Voting Rights movements due to that fact and the structure of their governments. One noted exception would be China's human rights struggles in general and specifically Tienanmen Square.

The president articulated such in his speech last night. We need "everyone at table" to be competitive globally. A failing school in a predominately African American or Hispanic district is a failure for America as a whole. To use a sports metaphor, there are less people to compete on the floor of the global basketball court and the same players are getting outrun and outgunned. When the drop out rates increase in such municipalities, the recidivism of the prison-industrial-complex is not the solution. So, everyone at table means we're going to have to solve the legacy of segregation and "Separate, but (Un) Equal" not only for this nation to be competitive, produce and sell, but to survive.

I cheered when President Obama stated we're going to stop giving tax breaks to companies that outsource American jobs. I have an Engineering Physics Bachelors from North Carolina A&T State University. I am a US Air Force veteran. I worked in the semiconductor industry in Process, Device, Manufacturing. Yield Enhancement and Product Engineering for 15 years. I was laid off August 26, 2003, my wife May 31, 2001. Our income has never recovered from our highest earnings at that point in time.

I now run into a lot of engineers and tech types that can't find employment. They may hear as I have that I'm "overqualified based on my years of experience." Technically, that's not saying I'm old, but the result of the twisted flattery is I'm currently underemployed as a commission-only sales rep and drawing on unemployment benefits. That's not the best usage of mine nor my fellow comrade's considerable talents.

I can be and a lot of others can be better utilized employed in this country, paying taxes and buying STUFF! This economy has slowed to a crawl because a lot of people like me - tech, HR and management types - have to do the delicate balancing act between dwindling assets, gearing up to pay for college and keeping a roof over the heads of our families. I honestly don't care how much cheaper you made it overseas: I eat and live over here!

I wrote an open letter on another blog regarding this to the previous administration. It's also published in the book: "Unemployed: A Memoir." I end this essay with the link to it. I doubt President Bush nor Congress read it. My hope is that it makes us all think about what we're creating for our grandchildren:

Chapter 19: Open Letter

Self-Portrait

(Homage to Langston Hughes and his poem, “I, Too”) © 31 January 2002, The Griot Poet

Langston Hughes said: “I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.”

I am the one
Burning under the hot sun
You derisively nicknamed
“Buffalo soldier”
Because of my Afro?

I am also the Cherokee:
Befriending the runaway,
Giving my daughter to him in marriage,
Joining him to my tribe,
Creating the Seminole.

I am the Irish overseer:
Bursting into the slave quarters,
Raping my own great-great grandmother,
Siring Julius Goodwin and a host more mulatto children.

I am the offspring of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming:
Some of us destined for the last class,
Others hair so straight; skin so bright to crossover as white

So, when you call me “n----r”
You obviously
Can’t see
You vituperate
A pureed pedigree
As everyone has had
Their piece of African me!

As would be the case
Someone related to Egyptian race
Would decipher the hieroglyph
“America”
Into three distinct words:
“I am race?”

Check your attitude!

For pride in
My negritude
Allows me to enlighten your case

As you point your
Jeering finger
At me through space,
You will inevitably
Pimp-slap your own damn face!

Without me, though you wouldn’t hear it
Would you have the hairstyle “The Bo Derek?”
Would dreadlocks, locks and fades have left the east side venturing to the west side?
And hip hop become hip POP?

Forced here in chains and cargo crates,
It was you who gave me great chase
Bring me to this place
That by GOD’S
Grace
The cane came together
Where Ezekiel’s dry bones
Dotted the landscape:
“Son of man: can these bones live? O Lord GOD, thou knowest! *”

I am the darker brother:

I am the Mende; the Ashanti; the Yoruba; the Igbo.
I am the Seminole; the Cherokee; the Choktaw; the Sioux;
I am the Irish; the Italian; the German; the Arab; the Jew.

I am the melting pot: I am all of you!

As Langston Hughes said,

I say again to you:

“I, too sing America.
I too am America.”

I, too!

* Ezekiel 37:3