Christmas onto your credit card might be the Anti-Christ - Seko Varner

To celebrate Christmas, many believers did something the Bible teaches it's readers not to do...... Go into debt. Putting Christmas onto your credit card might be the Anti-Christ.

!!! Happy New Year !!!

    I decided to wait to make this post until after the Holy-Day & Holiday season.Just a few weeks ago many placed themselves into debt to celebrate Christmas and gift giving. Credit cards and the ease of borrowing has made it easy for 'Christians' to use credit in a manner which is fundamentally obverse to the teachings of the Bible..... I've decided to call 'debt' the 'Anti-Christ'. Plainly put, the Bible and other Holy books of guidance direct their followers to avoid debt. Putting Christmas onto your credit card could be construed as doing the exact opposite of the holy teachings. Putting Christmas onto your credit card might be the Anti-Christ.

Let that marinate for about 11 months........I'll join you in that consideration. Why not take a look at the below Michelle Singletary video or visit Dave Ramsey's site while marinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjJZY7913g

     Last year my business partner Brian Cooper and I began a series of presentations called The Plan which was based upon our lessons from being agents of World Financial Group, our studies of Michelle Singletary and Dave Ramsey's plans, and other personal financial plans. In late February we will be releasing a FREE video of the entire presentation. Until then, enjoy below a slide from the presentation.

Here's more info':
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/wordpress/2013/10/14/avoid-christmas-credit-card-debt/

Happy Life !
Seko

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Seko Varner is from the Positive Vibes Financial team, a World Financial Group team of financial services agents. They specialize in debt reduction, investments, and insurances. Seko is also in high demand as a special events DJ and owns an event marketing service. Seko has diverse background in business, real estate, counseling and education. Seko is active with numerous Youth Mentorship programs and has a background in radio and television. Visit www.HappilyEverAfter.Be or call 757-248-3820 for more details.

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(Video) Not only that - More of the Dr. Martin Luther King we somehow miss....

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Tom Cruise was Black (The Original “Top Guns” Were Black Fighter Pilots) - Bozeman Development Group

As we pull back the curtains on the hidden history of African American accomplishments, I’d like to mention a couple of facts that dispel the fictional allegations that plagued African American military personnel for too long.  The allegation was that they were incompetent.

In 1897, a surprising proposal was initiated in the higher echelons of the U.S. Army. It was proposed, on numerous occasions, that the cadets of West Point Military Academy, the elite future leaders of the U.S. military, should learn their riding skills and mounted battle tactics from the soldiers who were considered the best fighting horsemen in the Army. Although the proposals were initially denied, finally, on March 23, 1907, one-hundred African American non-commissioned officers were assigned as a special detachment from the all-Black 9th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) to provide riding instruction, mounted drill and tactics at West Point Military Academy. For the next 40-years the West Point cadets received their cavalry training from African Americans, the best fighting horsemen U.S. Army, from 1907 until 1947.

In 1986, millions of moviegoers were thrilled by the drama, acrobatics and intense battle scenes of the movie Top Gun starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. Top Gun was a special program and competitive event for the best fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy. Following the release of that movie, lots of boys across the country dreamed of being a Top Gun fighter pilot.

What was not revealed in that film was that the Top Gun program actually originated in the U.S. Air Force and that the original Top Gun pilots were Black men from the famous Tuskegee Airmen, 332nd Fighter Squadron.

The military’s first “Top Gun” gunnery meet originated in 1949 and was established by United States Air Force. At this point, the Air Force was only two years old. It had previously been the U.S. Army Air Corps before Congress determined that it should be a separate organization from the Army. What is also virtually unknown is that a team of Tuskegee Airmen, Captain Alva Temple, 1st Lieutenant Harry Stewart, 1st Lieutenant James H Harvey III and alternate pilot Halbert Alexander competed in the event with their P-47N Thunderbolts. They not only competed, they went on to win the USAF very “First Top Gun” Weapons Meet (also known as “William Tell” and “Gunsmoke”) in May of 1949. The event was held at the Las Vegas Air Force Base, which later became Nellis AFB.

As it has happened too often in American history, their triumph was not publically acknowledged. Actually, the trophy for which they qualified was “lost” for many years and was finally unearthed after years of searching by renown historical researcher, Zellie Rainey Orr, nearly 50 years later. The team of the 332nd Fighter Squadron was officially acknowledged as the winners of that 1949 competition and finally awarded their trophy by the U.S. Air Force in 1995.

It’s not surprising that their victory was swept under the rug for a half-century. News like that would have been too much of a psychological shakeup for the white population at that time. Their view of the “Negro” was so skewed that they wouldn’t have been able to handle it. For example, there were several so-called studies done in the military to determine the suitability of allowing African Americans into the military.

According to the studies by the Army War College, Negro Soldiers were “Child Like”, “Careless”, “Shiftless”, “Irresponsible”, “Secretive”, “Superstitious”, “Unmoral and Untruthful” and more than likely to be guilty of “Moral turpitude”. The Negro Soldier was also branded as “A Comic”, “Emotionally Unstable”, “Musically Inclined With Good Rhythm” and “If Fed, Loyal and Compliant”.

On his website (http://www.tuskegeetopgun-jharvey.com/attitude.php), Lt. Col James H. Harvey III, who was one of the pilots on the winning Top Gun team, shares his experiences and the motivation behind the attitude of the Tuskegee Airmen. He states,

“Since every White Commander had a copy of this report this is how he perceived us. Plus, he had a few unfounded ideas of his own. Keep what I just said in mind. During the early forties the “wash out or failure rate” for White Aviation Cadets going through Flight Training was running at 63%. The “wash-out or failure rate” for the first Cadet class at Tuskegee was 40%. They said, ‘There is something wrong with this equation’, so they made sure the wash-out rate at Tuskegee was 70% or higher. We were washed out for anything, it did not have anything to do with our flying. Our Flight Training was different than the White Cadets. Everything we did had to be perfect. So when we graduated, we were better than our Instructors. Colonel Noel Parrish, our Commander at Tuskegee Army Air Field would go to the White Flying School at Montgomery, Alabama and tell the Commander there that, “We wash out better pilots at Tuskegee than you graduate here at Montgomery”, which was true. Colonel Parrish was a White Military man from Kentucky, but he was behind this program at Tuskegee 100%. This “Tuskegee Experiment” or “Tuskegee Experience” as it was called, was designed to fail. Yes, the whole program was designed to fail. We were out to prove them wrong. We were not just learning to fly for ourselves, we were out to prove that we, as a Race of People can do anything they can do, but only do it ‘Better’.”

When the United States Air Force held it’s “First Ever” Weapons Meet (also known as William Tell) in May 1949, the members of the 332nd Fighter Group (Tuskegee Airmen) organized a team for the competition. The primary members of the team were, Captain Alva Temple, 1st Lieutenant James H Harvey III, 1st Lieutenant Harry Stewart and alternate pilot 1st Lieutenant Halbert Alexander. They met with their commanding officer, Colonel Benjamin Davis, prior to their departure from Lockbourne Air Force Base for the Las Vegas event. His final comment to the team was, “If you don’t Win, Don’t come back” (tongue in cheek). That was their incentive to win the Meet and they came back with the win, even though it would take 50-years for the world to hear about it.

https://bozemandev.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/the-original-top-guns-were-african-american-fighter-pilots/
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Trayvon Martin and American Racism - Kevin Powell

Trayvon Martin & the fatal history of American racism

by Kevin Powell

I am Trayvon Martin.



So are you. And so is any human being who has ever felt cornered, in a dark and desolate alley, between life and death. Add the grim reality of skin color in America, and you have the disastrous spectacle of 250lb George Zimmerman, 28, pursuing 140lb Trayvon, 17, until that man-child is screaming "Help!" - and then gasping for air after a bullet from Zimmerman's 9mm handgun had punctured his chest. A majority-white, gated community became, on 26 February, the makeshift mortuary for a black boy who will not get a chance to live, to go to college with his exceptional high school grades, to make something of his life. Trayvon's fatal act: a mundane walk to the nearby convenience store to buy a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles.



This is what racism, the American version of it, means to black boys like Trayvon, to black men like me. That we often don't stand a chance when it has been determined, oftentimes by a single individual acting as judge and jury, that we are criminals to be pursued, confronted, tackled, and, yes, subdued. To be shocked and awed into submission.

The police authorities in Sanford, Florida, where the shooting occurred, are apparently so mired in racial prejudice and denial that George Zimmerman, at this writing, still has not been arrested nearly a month after Trayvon was killed - in spite of Zimmerman being told, on 911 police dispatch audio, not to follow Trayvon Martin.

In spite of Zimmerman being charged in 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on a police officer. In spite of Zimmerman calling the police 46 times since January 2011. In spite of Zimmerman, according to neighbors, being fixated on bracketing young black males with criminality. In spite of Zimmerman being the subject of complaints from neighbors in his gated community due to his aggressive tactics. In spite of the officer in charge of the crime scene also receiving criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant's son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. In spite of Zimmerman violating major principles of the Neighborhood Watch manual (the manual states: "It should be emphasized to members that they do not possess police powers. And they shall not carry weapons or pursue vehicles.")

In spite of Zimmerman not being a member of a registered group, which police were not aware of at the time of the incident. And in spite of the Sanford, Florida police failing to test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. (A law enforcement expert told ABC that Zimmerman sounds intoxicated on the 911 tapes, and that drug and alcohol testing is "standard procedure in most homicide investigations".)

Finally, what was a man like George Zimmerman doing with a gun in the first place? And will Florida's very controversial "stand your ground" self-defense law prevent Zimmerman from ever being prosecuted, especially as he and his lawyers are claiming he was protecting himself from harm?

Finally, does any of the above truly matter, if the shooter has white skin and the victim's is brown?


We've heard, since President Obama came into office, that we suddenly, miraculously, live in a "post-racial" America, that there now is such a thing as "post-blackness". Try telling that to the families of Trayvon Martin. Or Ramarley Graham. Or Sean Bell. Or Oscar Grant. Or Amadou Diallo. Or Emmett Till. Or the Scottsboro Boys. And numberless others in modern US history.



Racism remains the greatest cancer of American society, and has been since the founding of this nation - by men who owned slaves. You cannot slaughter and push from the land Native Americans, enslave black people, harass and marginalize Asians, Latinos and Jews, and scapegoat immigrant white ethnics and Arabs through your long and tumultuous history, then wonder how the killing of Trayvon Martin could happen in the first place? The former is the context for the latter.


We, most of us, have been socialized to fear and demonize difference, the other. Trayvon's murder is of a piece with hysterical and overzealous anti-immigration policies and new voter ID laws that recall the days of segregation and harsh American racial apartheid. Left unchecked, as George Zimmerman has been left unchecked, and you perpetuate this ugly national tragedy.

American racism is not merely a distortion of human psychology that teaches the George Zimmermans of our nation to see Trayvon Martin as nothing more than a criminal; it is also the debilitating disease that allows us, on the one hand, to denounce the alleged atrocities of Kony in faraway Africa we've seen in that ubiquitous viral video, and on the other, to overlook the Trayvon Martins, just as we ignore the routine stop-and-frisk harassment of legions of black and Latino young males.


We are trapped in the stereotyping that saw my friend's son being told by his teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia recently, as he reciited a Langston Hughes poem, that he needed to read it "blacker". The stereotyping that allows us to cheer loudly for the majority-black college basketball teams during March Madness, yet won't permit us to pay attention to Trayvon Martin's parents, clearly shattered, pleading for some shred of justice.

The Justice Department's intervention is welcome, if belated. But it is American racism that constrains our leaders, like President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, from speak forcibly and publicly about this destructive cancer for fear of alienating "regular" folks. If the president could call on Sandra Fluke considering the insult she'd received from Rush Limbaugh, we should be able to expect him to offer his condolences to Martin's parents for the grievous injury they have received.

For the sake of Trayvon Martin, and the Trayvon Martins who never had this sort of mass outcry, something must be done. But if we choose to turn our ears and hearts away from his parents and his community, then Trayvon Martin's blood will be on the hands of this entire nation. Will we ignore that call for help, as Trayvon's went unheeded?

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Blair Underwood's African Ancestral search

Golden Globe nominated actor, director and producer Blair Underwood first became a household name for his portrayal of charismatic attorney Jonathan Rollins on the celebrated NBC drama, L.A. Law. Throughout his 25 year career, Blair has highlighted important African-American issues through his work with charitable organizations and by the roles he chooses. He is a five-time winner of the coveted NAACP Image Award. Blair lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their three children.

Blair Underwood's search sends him to the American South to learn startling news. Then Blair travels to Cameroon to reconnect with his African ancestors.

Blair Underwood's trip to Africa video:
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3228803353/

"Family to me means everything... they've provided a strong foundation," Blair says as he talks about the importance of his ancestral search. Blair's father is a retired army colonel who was in the service for 27 years. "He was an army officer in the 1960s, which was a rarity," Blair proudly says about his father. His grandfather was also a trailblazer by becoming the second African-American police officer in Steubenville, Ohio.

Blair starts his journey at his parent's house in Petersburg, Virginia, where his brother Frank Jr., who has been working on the Underwood family tree for years, tells him about the ancestral "brick wall." When anyone starts looking at their family tree, they will eventually run into a wall where they cannot find any more information on their lineage. African Americans tend to hit that brick wall about 150 years ago because records for slaves were never kept. Blair takes an Ancestry.com DNA test to help his family shatter the wall.

Having just learned his great-great-grandfather Sonny Early was in a mental intuition at the age of 78, Blair looks at previous census records to find out how he might have ended up there. The census from 1880 shows that Sonny Early was a farmer and had not yet been sent to the institution. Stepping back 10 more years to 1870, Blair finds that Sonny worked as a blacksmith. Joseph Shumway attempts to analyze the 1860 census to find more information, but before the Emancipation of Slavery in 1863, slaves were not listed by name in any census, only by number as property of their owner. Thus creating "the wall" Blair's brother warned him about.

To learn more about why Sonny went from a skilled blacksmith to a mental institution at the end of his life, Blair meets with Dr. Dan Fountain. Dr. Fountain searches an old newspaper database from 1876 to see if he was listed in any local papers. They find an article that calls Sonny a "pestiferous darky who claims to be the second Jesus." The article then describes that Sonny was accused of killing a valuable cow and assaulting a man named Mr. Chambers. Dr. Fountain finds another article that describes Sonny as a religious zealot and someone who survived a gunshot to his jaw. Dr. Johnson tells Blair that he now believes Sonny might have been a conjurer for the African-American community. Blair learns that conjurers came out of a West African tradition and served a vital purpose for slave communities. They negotiated the boundaries between spirits and humans and offered their followers protection from a slave master. They often served as leaders of the community, and because of that, the white population viewed conjurors as a threat.

Dr. Johnson takes Blair to the site where Sonny lived, according to the records. Blair learns that the farmer who tried to kill Sonny, Mr. Chambers, lived on the parcel of land next door. We discover that Sonny killed Mr. Chambers' cow because it was eating Sonny's corn, which he used to feed his family. Blair's estimation of his relative changes. "He has a justifiable reason to be indignant," Blair says. Given that he was a leader of the local African-American community, Blair and the researcher wonder if perhaps the pejorative newspaper accounts of Sonny were in fact a smear job orchestrated by the white community that feared him.

Now that Blair knows the dramatic story of Sonny Early, he looks to another branch of his lineage. He starts to delve deeper into Ada Belle White and her father Delaware Scott. Researcher Shumway is able to find an 1860 census revealing a freed slave who owned property, which was very unusual for an African American in Virginia. "That's pretty incredible," Blair says. Now Blair is curious to discover how his ancestor was freed before the official Emancipation of Slavery in 1863. He meets with historian Dr. Eva Sheppard Wolf who shows him a Register of Freed Negroes from 1849. It describes Delaware as being born free in 1823. "How is that possible?" Blair asks. Blair is then able to follow further documents that state the Scott family was free all the way back to the 1790s and were in fact prominent landowners.

Blair heads to the first African-American Baptist church in Virginia, which the Scott family was instrumental in helping build. Through further documents and tax records, Blair learns that his fourth-generation great-grandfather, Samuel Scott, owned two slaves in 1838. Dr. Eva Shepard explains to Blair that "most freed black slave owners in Virginia owned family members." They would buy family members who were not freed in order to care for them and protect them. "It makes sense, you take care of your own," Blair realizes. "What else that's been illuminating is that there is such deep roots in this state of Virginia that I had no idea about," Blair says. "Now it makes sense why I feel like such a Virginian."

Blair's Ancestry.com DNA test arrives, so he meets with Dr. Ken Chahine to review the results. They were able to find out that Blair's DNA is comprised of 74% African DNA and 26% European DNA. When they look at his European DNA they find that he is rooted to people from France, Switzerland and Germany. "That's hilarious because I've always felt a connection to France... got engaged in Paris, named my first child Paris... I never knew why." For the African results, Blair is associated with several tribes in West Africa, and they've specifically found a cousin named Eric Sonjowoh from Cameroon who matches Blair's DNA.

Blair and his father travel to Cameroon, Africa to meet his distant cousin. "What is staggering to me is the fact that my ancestors came from Cameroon," Blair says as he drives with his father through the Cameroon countryside. "To connect family, it's a dream come true." Blair arrives at his cousin's village to a tribal celebration. "Eric, I cannot thank you enough for making this all possible," Blair tells his newly found cousin. Blair tells Eric that this is such a special moment for him and his father because their ancestors were forcibly separated, and all these generations later, they have finally come full circle and have been reunited. "I feel certain voids have been filled that I've never known I had," says Blair. "Who I thought I was when we started this odyssey is different than who I know I am today. It's been incredible." 
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Brave Bessie Coleman (Black History for Kids)

http://sweetblackberry.org/2011/11/18/brave-bessie 

Bessie Coleman, the first African American female pilot, grew up in a cruel world of poverty and discrimination. Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892 as the tenth of thirteen children. They settled in Waxahachie, Texas, and worked as sharecroppers. Her mother encouraged Bessie’s schooling when she showed an aptitude for math. She eventually moved to Chicago and lived with her brother Walter, a Pullman porter. She became a manicurist and worked in the White Sox barbershop. After learning French, she attended the famous flight school, Ecole d’Aviation des Frères Caudron in Northern France. No schools in America would train a black person.

Coleman returned to the states and performed acrobatics in air shows around the country and gave lectures inspiring audiences that included many children. She believed that there was freedom in the skies and would not perform in an air show with a segregated audience.

In 1998, Reeve Lindbergh, daughter of world-renowned aviator, Charles Lindbergh, wrote the children’s book, “Nobody Owns the Sky: The Story of ‘Brave Bessie’.”

Lindbergh, first learned about Bessie Coleman in 1986, the 60th anniversary of her father’s famous flight. “Bessie was an incredibly brave person who was hardly noticed, while my parents got so much publicity it was difficult for them to live their normal lives. I saw a crazy imbalance and wanted to try to set things right.”

People said she was crazy; it wouldn’t be right.

“You’re a girl, not a man, and you’re not even white!”

But did she stop dreaming? Not quite!

Sweet Blackberry was founded by actor/writer, Karyn Parsons (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air). As a new mom, Parsons was motivated by a strong desire to instill a sense of culture and heritage to her daughter. Inspired by her own mother and upbringing, Parsons created Sweet Blackberry—delivering to all children, stories that need to be told and heard.
http://sweetblackberry.org/about/
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