Are America’s prosecutors standing in justice’s way, should we fire them all?

Good morning y’all and thanks for stopping by! Hope these few words inspire your walk through the coming week!

This is not the precise question posed by UnitedBlack Fund; he was speaking of a specific case and prosecutor when he suggested mass termination. But his response caused me to consider the habits African American has assimilated from the colonialist culture and inspired the rant, which follows. Thanks and blessings to UnitedBlack Fund and Brother Khalid Raheem whose post started this conversation. Once again, I’m driven to ask…

Who are we and what have we become?

Me thinks a stance of fighting against, as exemplified by your suggestion, is ill considered and even counterproductive. By my calculation, we've been fighting against this system for nearly four decades ~ prior to that we were fighting for a myriad of things that can all be summed up in the word us ~ and it AIN'T working.


Throwing out the baby with the bath water is dangerously reactionary and cannot it the long run stabilize either our efforts or our communities. What about Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins who has risked his career and likely his life in the relentless effort to expose and overturn wrongful convictions? What about Superior Court Judge David S. Cunningham who used his personal experience of terroristic racial profiling to change policies at UCLA and provide educational opportunities for African American students? There are many others who live the principles of infiltrate and overtake, who have sacrificed much including, in many cases, the love of their own people; do we simply dispose of them too?

I know y'all gotta be tired of me asking, but I just don't get it. Who, what have we become? I remember the time when the police, pimps, judges, doctors, drug dealers, 'hos, activists, journalists and clergy all gathered at the neighborhood bar to watch the game, talk about the state of the community and solidify the coming week's plan. Now we don't have a plan, our communities are fragmented and decaying, the activists are at war with police/judges, 'hos are arguing about how the tone of their skin affects their earning capacity and the clergy and pimps have merged to devour the naive and needy.

Now, in assimilation of the mediocrity of the oppressor societal structure, we seem to have forgotten that every person and circumstance both deserves and requires individual evaluation and we've adopted the lazy practice of identifying any/all differences, in perspective, approach, education, skin tone etc., as "other" and rejecting them as having no value. We seem to have lost our abilities of discernment; we look at proverbial book covers and rush to judgments. Somehow, we routinely fail to consider whether the brother in blue chose to don that uniform to help ensure some other brother doesn't get his head beat in or worse by some rabid police state robot. We never even ask if the pretty yellow sister who busted her butt and smiled her way into the executive offices spent lunches with her rapists to gain the power to ensure opportunities for other brothers and sisters.

We have these amazing social media platforms that give us the power to demonstrate the principles of unity, rational thought, civility as well unconditional love and respect for one another especially in the midst of disagreement and I think it is the responsibility of all of us who have taken the red pill to be wary of rash blanket statements and reactionary responses. Many, many of us have been absorbed into the sheeple and respond to simple statements of frustration and disgust with an irrational fervor that almost always adds fuel to fratricidal fires.
 

Old school, I’m talking to you/us! Can we, will we make a commitment to contribute to the restoration of our communities by being living demonstrations of what it means to fight for? Will we take a stand for civility, mutual respect and unconditional love of self/us? Can we by our actions and interactions teach our children the legacy of excellence, unity and pride that was/is the birthright of any and all born African in America? Will we?

Three Actionable Steps towards Preventing Police State Injury/Execution

Good morning African America and the rest of y’all. Thank you for stopping by; I’m grateful you’ve decided to spend a bit on your long weekend with me.

Was struggling with what to say this morning; y’all know how I feel about “holidays” like this one and I know you’ve heard the “What the heck are we celebrating rant” too many times to want to hear it again. So off I go surfing for news and distraction, and after reading about a 2-year-old shot at point blank range, catching up on the Dr. Ersula Ore travesty and requesting updates on the police shooting of yet another young black man, I re-realized how desperately we need an action plan to free us from the dangers of an increasingly emboldened police state. I don’t know if what I’ve got qualifies as a plan; I’ll let y’all decide that. But this morning, instead of rehashing what we all already know about the hypocrisies in/of the land of rabid greed and the cellblock of the slave, I’d like to offer a few simple steps we can take to help protect and free ourselves from the increasing dangers of life in a police state. By the way, if your brown, poor or in any way victimized by the bastardization of to protect and serve, these steps will work for you too.

1

.         Strive to not be alone in public places including your workplace and grocery store. Having a witness/witnesses may prevent an otherwise inclined officer from becoming belligerent and/or aggressive.

2        At the first hint of impending law enforcement contact, activate the spycam app on your cell phone ~if you don’t have a spycam app, get one ~ and enter 911 on your keypad. Keep your phone(s) clearly in hand until the encounter is over and the danger has passed.

3.       Know the law and respond according to it. When law enforcement gives a direct order without establishing cause for that order, ask if you are under arrest. If yes, comply. If no, ask am I free to go. If yes, immediately walk away toward a populated area. If no, repeat the first question. If the officer becomes belligerent, call 911 so the continuing conversation is indisputable, ask the officer to have his/her supervisor respond to the scene and repeat question one. Stay calm, plan a safe retreat and stand your legal ground. Worth repeating ~ this works best if traveling in groups of two or more.

Sidebar: I don’t like guns. I don’t own a gun and I am not advocating that anyone purchase a gun. However, I know that many of you are both gun owners and appalled by the intimidation/fear tactics right to carry organizations are spreading across the country and the increased danger inflicted on marginalized and ethnic communities by these actions. If you are a legal gun owner who is fed up hate wrapped in the 2^nd Amendment, might I suggest that you are ideally positioned to stop the insanity. How? Take a Jacksonian approach (George not Andrew) and join their ranks; march with them, meet with them and make it clear you feel the same way about protecting your family, community and property as they do. There is little danger of arrest or violence because any negative action on their part proves your and millions of other American’s point. A sustained infiltration of this type would end the public displays of intimidation post-haste. So, if it sounds good to you, gather 15 or 20 of your closest gun owner friends and work off the bbq and beer with a good long march. 

Happy Independence Day y’all!

Checking Hate at the Gate

Wassup y’all? Feeling way blessed to have another opportunity to share my heart with you. Thank you for stopping by!

This has been quite a week. A brother who calls himself Yashua emailed me to declare his divine authority and sovereignty over African America. My cyber-granddaughter’s African Dance class was invaded by White folk of dubious intent. Sisters still debating whether dark skinned women suffer more than light skinned women and another 19-year-old man-child bleeds to death on the street with a police bullet in his back.

Who have we become and what the heck are we doing? Once upon a time, we saw beauty, excellence and pride reflected in our mirrors and each other’s eyes. Once upon a time, we fried chicken, baked cornbread and threw some serious parties to ensure each other’s rent was paid; we protected and disciplined each other’s kids and made sure mom got to the store no matter whose mother she was. Once upon a time, we were powerful in our love and unity.

What does that have to do with anything? Well let’s revisit dance class. Somebody commented that White folk used to stay as far away from African cultural happenings as possible; now there seems to be a rush on to usurp. Accurate? Could our post-integration perspective be why? What do I mean? Somewhere in the late seventies, there was a shift in the nature and focus of the battle. The civil rights movement was not a battle against systemic injustice and imbalances of power and capital; it was a fight for equity parity and justice. Now, on the surface, those may sound and in many ways even manifest as much the same fight, but they are in fact diametrically opposed.

To fight against something, one must fear it, must consider it the possessor of greatest power and deem it a life threat. In short, to fight against, requires taking the disdainful position of underdog and accepting this position of less than breeds epidemic self-loathing.

To fight for something, one must love it, must esteem it more highly than any perceived threat and willingly protect its right to grow and thrive with one’s very being. To fight for, secures the mountain top position. From the mountain top would-be attackers a clearly seen and their plans easily thwarted; it is from this position and this position alone that we can rebuild mutual respect, unity and our communities. It is from this position, that we can eliminate self-loathing and restore self-love.

So y’all, would we still be spawning “Yeshuas” opportunistically trying to wrap the shackles of organized religion in kente cloth and market it as our cultural heritage if we were fighting for? Would our most spiritual gathering be at threat of invasion if we were fighting for? Would we hold each other close to sooth the wounds of beatings and rapes if we were fighting for? Would our babies be daily murdered on street corners if we remembered/restored our position of power and unity ~ if we were fighting for?

Peace and blessing to y’all. Take a mountain top position today!

Good Morning Y'all, I Love You!

Wassup y’all? Been nearly five years since I folded Not Ur Momma’s News, left cyberspace and returned to university. Got that degree about 18 months ago and I’ve been trying to find my way back to you every since. 

So, what took so long? Truth, I’ve had a hard time processing what we look like, what we appear to have become. Am I the only one appalled by the way we treat each other? Blogger posted a Father’s Day article in which he derided single mothers who celebrate Father’s Day, because even though they are ill equipped they step up and into the job. He suggested that these women should be avoided because they are broken and incapable of logical thinking. What disturbs me is not only that he made no mention of the men who have shirked their responsibility, which he didn’t, but as a supposedly enlightened man, he offered neither compassion for the brokenness nor suggestions for restoring logical thought.

While his post perfectly exemplifies the distain of self/each other we have all but completely assimilated, it is but a pimple in a aggressive rash. “Completely assimilated” ~ crucial words. We are daily becoming what we profess to hate. It takes only a difference of perspective for a “queen” to be demoted to a “bit*h” or a brother to be dismissed with a curt “ni**as ain’t sh*t.” Really? How can we demand respect when we give little? How can we demand parity when we so cavalierly decimate each other? 

Everywhere I look, somebody is question or pontificating about what African America should be doing to regain control of their communities, finances and destiny, but little is said about healing the brokenness. For 18 months, watching the pain we inflict on each other in denial of our commonalities and interdependence rendered me largely speechless and for a while hopeless. Can I ask y’all a question?

If you met a woman who had been kidnapped, raped, beaten and left for dead, would you expect her to react to and interact in the world in a logical manner? Would you judge and condemn her fractured psyche; would you demean her brokenness and confusion? What if she’d been forced to witness the murder of her mate and the stripping away of her children? Would you expect her to be whole 50 years later? Would you withhold your compassion and nurturing from her because she should be strong enough, smart enough, ________ enough to have gotten over it by now?

Okay, that’s a bunch of questions, but I’ve got a couple more. Do any of y’all recognize this woman’s experience? Could it be that she is us? When you’re out cyber-socializing today, remember this woman. Remember she is a queen (king) even if, especially if, she (he) doesn’t remember her (his) own royalty. Treat your brothers and sisters according to their birthright regardless of their behavior; retrieve your compassion and stay your judgment, because you know what they have suffered and you know how long the wounds have festered with little opportunity to heal.

Good morning y'all; I love you