Forward Ever, Backwards Never

"Forward Ever, Backwards Never."

(My father's favorite quote.)

Seko Benjamin Eric VArner
09/22/2010

It's one year later. I lost my writing voice a year ago. A "other-father" of mine read one of my blogs a few weeks ago and encouraged me to keep writing as he was touched by the sentiments. "It's publish-able; For-a-price publish-able." he encouraged knowing how money focused I can be at times. I couldn't raise the courage to admit to myself, or to him, that I lost my voice. I lost my voice when my Father passed.

As one who continues aspects of traditional Afrikan culture I've been 'Pouring Libation' for over 30 years now. When my friend Juan Orso passed, I poured libation. When Grover Washington Jr. passed I poured. When Sean Sharpe passed I poured. When Elder Clarence Motsongo Vincent passed I poured. In the shock of Mother Gloria's passing I poured. I actually pour libation daily. Sometimes frequently. When Dad passed I felt as if I were being poured. 40 days after Dad's funeral I visited his earthly womb. I poured. Today I just feel empty. I miss my Mother-Gloria, I miss my dad. I just feel depleted.

Today the Wifey and I were clicking away on seperate computers as the television that was watching us was showing Spike Lee's documentary about If the creek don't rise.." Last year Wifey and I returned from New Orleans on 9/21/2009. Dad crossed the bar on 09/22/2009. While I was emotionally battered from watching the difficult footage I remembered the depression that sacked me when Hurricane Katrina occurred.

When Katrina occured I became continually physically sick, was emotionally depleted, and felt such a loss of life. One of the sacrifices of having a connection with the ancestral world is at times I feel when people are sucked into that exsistence. I know my fellow Christians may not understand. I've come to believe that as one focuses upon Yeshua (Jesus), the ability to feel the connection to other aspects of the spiritual realm is removed. My fellow Conscious believers may understand. I simply felt those Americans, those African-descendants, those New Orleanians, those humans, those other parts of me being dragged 'unpeacefully' into the spiritual world.

As the television watched us the Wifey began reading out-loud, as she often does when she's on the computer, and I tried to begin to listen to her. She then stated "Papi' died on the anniversary of the Emanicipation Proclamation." I thought "He's finally free."

(photo - Untitled by Henry Louis Stephens 1863, A man reading the newspaper about the Emancipation Proclimation)

Yesterday I found a casette tape of a speech I did for Youth day at Providence United Church of Christ on 6/6/1993. The speech was called "What's the 411." In this speech I began by performing a public Libation ritual in the sanctury. I then discussed how as one becomes older one gets closer to GOD and one shouldn't be afraid of death. I actually stated "We should embrace death as that's when we become closer to God." Listening to the speech I laughed at the level of quasi 5% (Nation of Gods and Earths) Hip-Hop lingo I used to use, and how radical I must have seemed, and the level of devotion I had at that time to "improving the lives of people of African descent to improve the United States of America." I was a great speaker then. I was on the road to becoming a great person then. As I look at my current life, I feel empty. My passion is gone, Mother-Gloria is gone, my father is gone, my voice is gone.

Bless-fully I continued listening to the casette after my speech ended. After my message was the voice of my father. He prayed, sang hymns from the pulpit, and ended the Sunday service. T'was refreshing hearing his voice. T'was refreshing feeling his presence.

Today my father is free. A year ago he became free. I've learned that I needed to embrace his freedom. I needed to embrace his death as his freedom. I also sat down and cried like a baby after the Wifey stated "Papi died on the anniversaryof the Emancipation Proclamation." As I take my Mother to his gravesite today, as I pour libation today. I'll proclaim that he has been emancipated. He is free.
Fresh water keeps me well;

Fresh water opens the way;

Fresh water is my sustainer;

Fresh water is from above.

I thank GOD for Fresh Water.

Fresh water in life;

Fresh water in Yeshua;

Fresh water in the form of those who walked before us.

Fresh water in the form of Mother-Gloria,

Fresh water in the form of DJ Law (crossed 09/19/2010),

Fresh water in the form of my Father.

I prasie you, Almighty, for fresh water.

Ashee, Ashee, Amen.

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Postscript:

I think I found my voice again.

"Forward ever, backwards never."
As my father used to say.

The politics of resentment - Thomas Sowell

The Politics of Resentment - Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford U., Stanford, CA 94305. His website is http://www.tsowell.com/ .

Few things have captured in microcosm what has gone so painfully wrong, where racial issues are concerned, like the recent election for mayor of Washington, D.C.

Mayor Adrian Fenty, under whom the murder rate has gone down and the school children’s test scores have gone up, was resoundingly defeated for re-election.

Nor was Fenty simply a passive beneficiary of the rising test scores and falling murder rates. He appointed Michelle Rhee as head of the school system and backed her as she fought the teachers’ union and fired large numbers of ineffective teachers — something considered impossible in most cities across the country.

Fenty also appointed the city’s chief of police, Cathy Lanier, who has cracked down on hoodlumism, as well as crime.

Either one of these achievements would made mayors local heroes in most other cities. Why then was he clobbered in the election?

One key fact tells much of the story: Fenty received more than 70 percent of the white vote in Washington. His opponent received more than 80 percent of the black vote.

Both men are black. But the head of the school system that he appointed is Asian and the chief of police is a white woman. More than that, most of the teachers who were fired were black. There were also bitter complaints that black contractors did not get as many of the contracts for doing business with the city as they expected.

In short, the mayor appointed the best people he could find, instead of running a racial patronage system, as a black mayor of a city with a black majority is apparently expected to. He also didn’t spend as much time schmoozing with the folks as was expected.

So what if he gave their children a better education and gave everybody a lower likelihood of being murdered?

The mayor’s faults were political faults. He did his job, produced results and thought that this should be enough to get him re-elected. He refused to do polls and focus groups, and he ignored what his political advisers were warning him about.

No doubt Fenty is now a sadder and wiser man politically. While that may help him if he wants to pursue a political career, Adrian Fenty’s career is not nearly as important as what his story tells us about the racial atmosphere in this country.

How did we reach the point where a city is so polarized that an overwhelming majority of the white vote goes to one candidate and the overwhelming majority of the black vote goes to the opposing candidate?

How did we reach the point where black voters put racial patronage and racial symbolism above the education of their children and the safety of everyone?

There are many reasons but the trend is ominous. One key factor was the creation, back in the 1960s, of a whole government-supported industry of race hustling.

President Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty” — a war that we have lost, by the way — bankrolled all kinds of local “leaders” and organizations with the taxpayers’ money, in the name of community “participation” in shaping the policies of government.

These “leaders” and community activists have had every reason to hype racial resentments and to make issues “us” against “them.”

One of the largely untold stories of our time has been the story of how ACORN, Jesse Jackson and other community activists have been able to transfer billions of dollars from banks to their own organizations’ causes, with the aid of the federal government, exemplified by the Community Reinvestment Act and its sequels.

Racial anger and racial resentments are the fuel that keeps this lucrative racket going. How surprised should anyone be that community activist groups have used mau-mau disruptions in banks and harassed both business and government officials in their homes?

Lyndon Johnson once said that it is not hard to do the right thing. What is hard is knowing what is right. We can give him credit for good intentions, so long as we remember what road is paved with good intentions.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is http://www.tsowell.com/ .
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A Manifestation of Strategy and Indifference

Obama's "Mongrel" Statement:
A Manifestation of Strategy and Indifference

Written by Frederick Alexander Meade

In the last few weeks much discussion regarding a unique matter involving race has surfaced within the African-American community. Such is the case, as President Barack Obama's appearance on the daytime talk show, The View, in which he classified African Americans as a "mongrel people" has provoked feelings of displeasure among some members of the group.

Obama's characterization of Americans of African descent as "mongrels", germinated in response to a question spawning from the show's executive producer and co-host Barbara Walters, in which the Head of State was asked to expound upon an issue regarding his ethnicity.

The President's use of the term "mongrel" in describing African Americans registers as a technically adequate expression, as it defines an individual in possession of genetic matter from more than one racial group. However, the word "mongrel" -- historically used by white supremacists opposed to miscegenation -- functions, more commonly, as an expression employed by canine handlers in categorizing a specific class of dog. Consequently, such peculiar phrasing on the part of the President has resonated among many within some African-American quarters as a great affront.

That Obama, then, in the next sentence suggested white Americans are too of a "mongrel" class -- thus broadening the application of the term -- functions not to diminish this reality.

It is not within the history of white Americans they have been classified among the beasts that inhabit the Earth as have black Americans since the arrival of the first enslaved African on these shores. The White American has largely enjoyed a station of abundant privilege, in the face of an African-American people, that have struggled unceasingly to have their complete humanity recognized.

The fact that President Obama is of partial African ancestry does not function to psychologically prohibit such an inherently offensive statement from projecting from his person, as the source of his part African identity - Barack Obama Sr. a native of Kenya - held no significant position in his life as a parental figure and or caretaker.

Obama was raised by grandparents of another race in lands physically and culturally far removed from Black America. As a result, the infusion of ethnic sensibilities, relative to an African-American population which descends from a people historically dehumanized by an unrelenting oppressor never initially developed within the psyche of our nation's 44th President.

Obama was not brought up by those who emerge from a people enslaved for centuries in which opposition to this abominable institution invited the unforgiving sting of the whip or terminal force of a noose.

Obama was not nurtured by those whose heritage encompassed the incessant lynching of its men for the slightest perceived offense leveled toward a white woman.

Obama was not reared by those whose lineage consist of a people existing in an era in which, for any of its members, to stand in the name of the slightest semblance of justice, induced the presence of hooded riders in the night -- a collection of profoundly racist American citizens committed to the practice of terrorizing and ultimately slaying any black individual who would be so bold as to challenge white authority.

Obama was not trained by those whose legacy recognizes a heritage in which its population was deemed so socially unacceptable; the larger society constructed a separate and grossly inferior society in which this people -- by law -- would be forced to function within -- an act of social control designed to keep white citizens from having to engage the black masses in any manner that would constitute a state of equality.

Obama was not instructed by those whose history bespeaks the inability of its members to assemble in mass, vote or seek redress within an impartial justice system -- an American court system, historically designed to uphold the tenets of white supremacy in leveraging its power against those persons of a darker complexion.

Obama was not directed by those whose descendants were denied basic human rights in which their ability to secure adequate housing, food supplies, medical attention or an education was often rendered nonexistent, as it lay in the hands of a thoroughly tyrannical ruling class - a governing body, largely supported by citizens acutely indoctrinated with a religious theology which proclaimed the existence of such an apartheid state, a manifestation of divine providence.

Lastly, Obama was not guided by those whose history bears the mark of having been perpetually excluded from the ranks of those for whom a society regards as fully human and thus by implication was - and is often still -- reduced to the grade of that of an animal in the minds of many of its members.

While Obama's early development -- in some manner -- was influenced by forces varying significantly from those of most black Americans; reason would suggest the leader's scholarship affords him the intellectual awareness to understand the subtle comparing of an African-American people to that of a canine represents an insult to the group.

Obama's keenly perceptive speech, given during the Democratic primaries, regarding the politics of race and its damaging effects on the welfare of the American public -- to include black citizens -- bears witness to this proposition.

In light of this reality, it may be suggested, that perhaps Obama's phrasing in response to Walter's potentially divisive question represents a tactic. A strategic approach, in which the "taboo" subject of miscegenation, is in jest, dismissed through the indirect framing of the issue within the context of canine intraspecies crossbreeding. A calculated maneuver designed to avoid inspiring vexation among segments of an American public, often proven, psychologically incapable of rationally engaging the matter.

Such an interpretation of the President's behavior is supported in the fact Obama has on more than one occasion, regarded himself as a "mutt" when addressing the issue of his racial identity. A conceivably humorous expression designed to "play down" this perennially contentious issue.

In employing such an approach on The View however, Obama for the first time included an entire black American people, many of whom were bound to find some level of irreverence in the subtle analogy. However, a population composed primarily of ardent supporters, subsequently more likely to excuse such an extraordinarily distasteful use of language.

While Obama in some measure surrendered the dignity of an African-America people in making his insensitive remark, such phrasing exacts a far less personal toll on the leader himself.

As a function of Obama's cultural upbringing and socialization within societies essentially void of an African-American presence and attending experience, those profoundly unique sensitivities this group possesses find virtually no residence within the psychological schema of this nation's President.

In addressing the issue of race, Obama has seemingly chosen to take the path of least resistance. The President has elected to engage in a veiled form of gamesmanship in attempt to contend with an American public still unable to emotionally grapple with this often explosively polarizing topic. Obama's political maneuvers have unfortunately now come at the expense of the African-American community.

A black people in jeopardy of losing their identity with every move.

Frederick Alexander Meade is a journalist providing social and political commentary. His works appear in news-magazines and publications internationally. The author may be contacted at: http://us.mc654.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=meade1900@yahoo.com

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