Author: bookmystorysite

I share this short story to infuse a fact, not oppose those who post their opinions. As human beings by conjecture, we spend more time, in general, not necessarily complaining, but like the idiom “two ships passing in the night.” Therefore, we can go through life with dysfunctional communication. In the early 70s, I was a Facilitator in Race Relations for the US Navy. During one of my classes, a participant called me an ideologue. At the time, in gesture, I acknowledged his assessment as a truth. Defined as one who is taken to whimsical ideas or theories; someone who theorizes and or investigates further. This, I believe, was my nature, instigated through fantasy and wishful thinking. Which was the zenith of what I fed myself through my reading as a child. On the first night of a three-day class, I searched ideologue to give meaning to my Soul as justification for my feelings. The next day I presented this question to the class. What is an ideologue? Only the same individual spoke up with this answer in summary: “Someone who espouses a particular belief, particularly a political one.” Concluding to me, our principles of thought were not on the same page. He invoked politics, like the difference between idealism and realism, which is the essence of cause and effect. We turned the page and started the next paragraph together. He was flabbergasted that I was not analytically defensive. The moral of this story: “First impressions can become the obstacle to graceful communications.” And that “Graceful acceptance of negative opinions will not diminish the integrity of one’s Soul.” It becomes a pathway to gainful communication. When we communicate with others, people we do not like, strangers, even loved ones, with concealed grudges, thoughts tainted with detest, and soiled with gossip, we spoil our chances to grow in the glory of knowledge. We hear abstractly what others say, as we are listening mainly to the impediments instilled in the mind’s eye. Now, Critical Race Theory has entered the same conundrum as Defund the Police. Both have wide implications.

His first speech Reverend as a Senator drew a standing ovation. As a minister, he does not speak in hyperbole, makes exaggerated statements, or use preposterous claims, or derogatory names. He spoke elegantly as a man who cares about his country, ALL Americans, beginning with heartfelt condolences to the Asian community. He also gave appreciation to the people of Georgia for sending him to occupy a seat (as he said) ounce held by Herman Talmadge, a staunch segregationist who served from January 3, 1957 – January 3, 1981.

I speak as a senior citizen and a retired veteran. As a people, we will never make sense of nonsense if we refuse to learn from authentic history. When evil is stimulated by the mouth of authority, words matter and become the validity of an ill-informed mind’s consent. From Obama, born in Kenya, to Ron Johnson insisting he felt safe and not racist after saying MAGA capitol rioters love their country more than BLM. From Patrick Crusius – at Walmart, in Texas, Dylann Roof – at a Black Church, in South Carolina, and Robert Aaron Long – three Message Parlor, in Georgia, all shootings; with Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office, stated, Robert Aaron Long was having “a really bad day.” The hypocrisy of this mindset and the many lives lost through rogue police actions, i.e., George Floyd, but yet Colin Kaepernick’s demise because he non-violently protested the aforesaid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSEBAa17xsQ

 It was August 1949, I was five, my body was black, and I did not know it; the third son of migrant parents from Keysville, Virginia, had purchased a home on the east side of Baltimore. At five years of age, my first friend was white, and he didn’t know it. Our friendship came abruptly to an end one year later when we started school; it was segregation before boys in the hood. He suddenly stopped speaking, and his friendly smile went away. I did not know why. It was my first experience with having a discouraged heart. 

On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department over his legal possession of a knife. While transported in a police van, Gray sustained injuries and died on April 19, 2015; his death was ascribed to injuries. 

             In 1960 I became a high school dropout. Racial taunting at Baltimore City College High School had become a phycological nightmare. Fifty-six years later, in 2016, Dedric Colvin, with a BB gun resembling a firearm, was shot by police in East Baltimore. At the time, the Police Commissioner stated that he could not wrap his head around a child leaving home with a replica of a gun. His statement betokens a total disconnect, ignorance of “Cause and Effect” within the zip codes of Baltimore. Zip codes he vowed to serve and protect. — Zip codes of repression, as written in “A Colony in a Nation” by Chris Hayes.”  

           Baltimore is not unique in its sins as a city. Nor are we uncommon to many being, as labeled by #45, “a rodent-infested mess.” In a country that subliminally utilizes skin tone to measure equity and cultural beliefs, Baltimore has become a showcase through mythoi. Mythologies sometimes mature into alternative facts. Without a bridge between cultures, unfounded facts produce fears, illuminating anxieties that boldly integrate laws. Sometimes, a law can be unjust as it becomes fixated only on and to the benefactor’s belief. Laws, as platformed in the Residential, Segregation Ordinances of 1910-1913, labeled Apartheid Baltimore Style.

             Baltimore’s segregation law was the first such law to be aimed at blacks in the United States, but it was not the last. Various southern cities in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky enacted similar laws. Laws that create circumstances (Cause & Effect) that are never recorded in history books.

            As a military veteran, I am not an advocate of weaponry in the hands of the untrained. Nevertheless, in 1960, because of the psychological effect bestowed upon me through the bullhorn of the times, if I had had access to even a replica of a gun, I might have carried one myself. I cannot speak for Dedric Colvin’s mindset, but I have experienced fear and the emotional effect it can bestow upon the mind. Poverty, joblessness, and educational deficiency are the proving grounds for drugs and crime. People judging from afar are clueless about a black male’s mindset born into an environment of scarcity. Black youth spontaneously run from the police, not necessarily because of criminality but because of learned distrust —a foregone conclusion.

            In August 2016, “Black Lives Matter,” demonstrated at a police convention in Baltimore. An official from the police union sent to all attendees on a formal department memo stating: “Union members attending the state FOP conference should expect more bad behavior from the THUGS OF BALTIMORE,” referring to protesters. “On the bright side, maybe they will stop killing each other while they are protesting us.

In July 2017, although it seemed to be standard procedure, to “rough people up more” and not worry about injuring suspects during arrests, words from the most powerful voice in America, effectively endorsed the reuse of excessive force by cops. Apartheid reinforcement with a capital A.

            Privileged mindsets, sets no boundaries and, if confronted, have no path of aberration, except adversarial, having not a clue of life in “A Colony in a Nation,”  by Chris Hayes.

In the prolong era of rapacious fake news, hacking of emails, politicians trolling of each other, suggestion of election tampering, and the banning of a news reporter from the White House, one musttalso wonder about censorship in blogging i.e.  “A Tweet for the President of these United States,” posted four years ago, February of 2017 @ https://bookmystorydomain.blog/2017/02/06/a-tweet-for-the-president-of-these-united-states/  I have high regards for the office of the presidency, as a 22-year veteran of the US Navy, honorably served under the banner of free speech.     For me, blogging/tweeting the truth is free speech but in America it appears to not be a poor man’s portal. “A Peaceful Tweet to the 45^th” in October of 2017 in my opinion was proof positive. https://bookmystorydomain.blog/2017/09/25/a-peaceful-tweet-to-the-45th/   The stats after that blog showed a sharp decline.  Go-figure? Thee who has the most money control the minds of many through repetitive media marketing. Henceforth January 6^th 2021, circumstanced from chapter four “The Wrecking Crew” by Tomas Frank.

In my childhood on my grandparents’ farm, the rooster’s crow at dawn encapsulated the nature of God’s creation in the serenity of a loving family. But today, in 2021, since 2016, each morning, I have been awakened by the bark of my dog Raven on sporadic mornings. The dawn erupts with a whistle, way off in the distance. Her ears fine-tuned to the encroachment of a train, warning of its tonnage by the roar of its engines, racing louder until it passes, leaving in its echo the clanging of rail cars, its wheels churning upon the railways of the times. A clanking that reverberated in my soul as shackles of bondage. On January 6, 2021, metaphorically, a train ran into the United States Capital. Its cargo? The unlearned lessons of history passed, now projected in real-time.
     

“Money, politics, and the freedom of speech and the right to vote.” The three ingredients in a mindset taken for granted, while the fourth “voting” has become the idiomatic Achilles heel.

It was the 80th United States Congress in 1948, where the Senate Majority were Republicans, transferred over $12 billion (equivalent to $130 billion in 2019) in economic recovery programs to Western Europe. The 116th Congress, in 2020 lead by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a closed-door lunch in October, (ref. USA Today) told fellow Republicans he urged the White House not to strike a deal with Democrats on COVID-19 relief. The Grinch who stole relief while Americans are in dire need.

Although the education of our children has been interrupted, they are still learning divisiveness.  The question is, which way will our nation trend ?????.  Hypocrisy cannot be conducive to a democracy. A fact remains: if there’s no enemy within, the enemy outside can not hurt us. We might become our own worst enemy.

It was the 80th United States Congress in 1948, where the Senate Majority were Republicans, that transferred over $12 billion (equivalent to $130 billion in 2019) in economic recovery programs to Western Europe. The 116th Congress, in 2020, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a closed-door lunch in October, reportedly told Republicans that he had urged the White House not to push for a coronavirus relief deal before the election. The Grinch who stole relief while Americans were in dire need.

It was the 80th United States Congress in 1948, where the Senate Majority were Republicans, transferred over $12 billion (equivalent to $130 billion in 2019) in economic recovery programs to Western Europe. The 116th Congress, in 2020 lead by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a closed-door lunch in October, (ref. USA Today) told fellow Republicans he urged the White House not to strike a deal with Democrats on COVID-19 relief. The Grinch who stole financial relief while Americans are in dire need, Mitch McConnell, who will KEEP his stranglehold on the Senate and RUIN President-elect Biden’s first years in office. On the other hand, Trump spent the 2020 campaign promising that if Joe Biden got elected, the stock market would collapse. Well… the day after Trump basically admitted he lost, the Dow Jones hit 30,000 for the first time in history. As usual, Trump was dead wrong.

• Factually speaking, when in the cause of human events and the evolution of time, we must look at the privileged mind and the dinner table as the nexus between slavery and now. — It is the epitome of “Cause and Effect” into the absoluteness of how hate and supremacy are seeded and re-seeded. In the sequence of time, before the radio, the telephone, the television, and now social media, the family meeting place was the dinner table, the personification of today’s social media. What was communicated became a bonding message to the child. It was also in the telling a woman… but unarguably not in a gossipy way. In retrospect, it was the telling a woman who had the natural propensity for the enlightenment of others. At the beginning of slavery, although the slave planted, harvested, and prepared food for the diner table. It was the slave owner who broiled the meat for consumption. For generations, his authority menaced and loomed over the intellectual potential of all he dominated. Even his wife and any woman under his purview, illuminating the fact they were powerless and that they had no right to vote. (As in “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a dame. “Gone with the Wind”) When he spoke, she – they responded—replicating his jurisdiction into the souls of others and future slave owners, especially children, giving way to the “Internet Karens” of today, and the use of the “N” word as described by Mary Trump to Rachel Maddow. Words were his power in dominion, the marinading sauce of the subconscious, with no need for rationality, only the results of dominance with a topping of fear. Within this context, rational minds know and understand; the first decade of a child’s life is the most plant—tative. A sarcastic play on the word plantation, as it is the seeded words sowed as the child’s inquisitiveness grows while simultaneously fertilized with love and protection. Subsequently, some seedlings will become roots while developing into irreversible instincts. Some instincts remain vibrant year-round, some become perennials, while others hibernate as they become embedded in the soul.
• Instincts, deeply embedded, will germinate to life instantaneously when watered by a dissenting episode, whenever its mindset is opposed. Fast-food and social media have replaced the diner table, providing very few nutrients in the maintenance of life and a warm, cordial society. Likewise, the negative con in the phrase “a gossiping woman” has been around for decades, beguiling—revamping a contrary intention by men, making it another genre of gender control. But we all know, on the contrast, behind every genuinely successful man (minus the mandate of supremacy), there’s an authentic woman who shares the spotlight as equals with her man. Michelle, with Barrack indisputably. America’s society will continue to elect those who promise a pesticidal cure, while the vermins among us systematically become immune. There is no cure for a learned abomination that has become rooted in the heart and soul except rebirth in the spirit. Taking a look at one’s self would be the first step in this process. Bishop T.D. Jakes tells us in his book, “Let it go.” to ask ourselves: “How did I get to this point in my life?” Is this where I want to go? If hateful souls can come to this point, then and only then, maybe the process can begin. Otherwise, it’s only the woman, the bearer of the child, and the unsoiled minds of our youth, that will place this nation on a positive trajectory. Movements don’t start with a strategy; they begin with a moment. It is the exact Moment when a Set of Principles are united in a space of time where positive thoughts from rational people are congenial. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand the qualities of the individual who perpetuate a divisive society. Case in point, the recent attack on New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with witness and then denial by Rep. Yoho. https://bookmystorydomain.blog/2019/02/13/movements-dont-start-with-a-strategy-they-start-with-a-moment-3/amp/

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To those who cannot see the virtue in my words, I will say, “It’s understandable,” for one has not walked in my shoes nor I in yours. For the living body can be a testament of faith with the mind being the greatest weapon between good and evil. Consoling the caliber of words cultivated through the printed word being the ammunition from the chambers of my soul.

Figuratively speaking, the root cause of hate is literally from the roots of its tree, as the apple will not fall too far. The tree, covered by its bark and its grain, is intrinsically ingrained and will never change. It can only be modified by the chain of wisdom, cut, and mounted in its own image. So, as the child is taught, the shell becomes the teacher, even of hate or charism.

In life, things happen around us and to us, but the only thing that matters is how we choose to react to them. I decided to use my ammunition in print. For in my lifetime, I’ve witnessed the glory of words, many lives of black men fallen unjustly, the majestic kneeling of Colin Kaepernick in justification, and still a knee to George Floyd’s neck. May he Rest in Peace. 

In my travels, while in the military, by the Grace of God, my encounters with the ingrained mentality of superiority were not fatal. However, physical encounters and countless episodes of mortification will never fade. My core belief is that no individual is born without the capacity for fulfillment through God’s grace, despite the denigration from another human being. My fulfillment is in BookMyStory.net. One day I will be heard because of “Footprints in the Sand.”