HATRED, KILLINGS, AND THE DUBIOUS DONALD TRUMP

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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HATRED, KILLINGS, AND THE DUBIOUS DONALD TRUMP

Yet more killings have taken place in Texas. This time it was in Odessa, Texas. According to the Midland, Texas police, 5 people have been killed and 21 wounded on the highway, and at the Cinergy Movie Theater in Odessa. The Cinergy shooter was killed, but they suspect 2 more shooters to be at large shooting at people at random on the highway. One of the shooters is driving a gold/white Toyota truck, and the other a hijacked U.S. Postal Service Van.

It’s no accident that the repeated violence that’s breaking out around the country is happening on Trump’s watch. The entire country seems to be taking on his unstable personality. An individual has to be mindlessly immature, ignorant and angry to support such a man in the first place, and then, when you add the hatred he spews on a daily basis to compensate for his glaring ineptitude, it turns the nation into a ticking time bomb.

In an interview with Breitbart, Trump said,“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny, I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

All delusions aside regarding his having the support of the military and police, what kind of president in his right mind even talks like that? He's essentially threatening the American people over being investigated by congress.  That alone warrants invoking the 25th amendment. He sounds like a kid in a sandbox telling the other kids, "You better be nice to me, because my big brother is the leader of the Crips." The man is a geriatric 8-year-old. 

But of course, Trump, his supporters and the NRA are going to say, “You can’t blame Trump for these shootings; you have to blame the people pulling the trigger”. That's a weak argument when you consider the fact that Osama Bin Laden didn’t fly any of the planes during 9/11, and neither was Charles Manson at the scene of the Manson killings. But we held them responsible for both atrocities nevertheless, because they inspired them, and there is absolutely no doubt that Trump is also inspiring the upsurge in right-wing terrorism currently taking place in America. 

So, Trump has got to go. His gross instability, complete distain for the law, and his total ignorance of the Constitution and how government works is infecting the entire nation. In a previous article, "About DonaldAbout Trump's Brand of Mental Illness”, I point out the following:

“Being rich can contribute to mental illness just as easily as poverty. Those very conditions you described can lead to a bratty and dysfunctional personality so pronounced that it led to Trump never having a real friend or anyone who really cared about him in his life. The loneliness and desperation to prove himself worthy resulting from that can lead to his becoming the narcissistic sociopath that he is.

“All through life Trump's had to convince himself that people hated him because he’s so brilliantly special that the average person is incapable of understanding him. He HAD to indulge in that delusion just to maintain his self-esteem. That’s why he’s always bragging and promoting himself, because for Donald Trump, the only thing important in life is trying to get the world to embrace his delusional vision of himself, or who he'd like to be - even if he has to bring down America, and the entire world, to do it. That explains his intense hatred of Barack Obama. Barack represents everything he's always wanted to be - and rubbing vinegar in the wound is Barack is Black. It's just killing Trump that the man he most envies in the world is a Black man, and what makes it worse is the more he tries to out-shine him, the bigger fool he makes of himself. 

“Just imagine going through life where every single person you ever came into contact with hated your guts (the guy's wife doesn’t even seem to like him). He's so arrogant, delusional, and self-absorbed that he's just not the kind of guy that anyone can like or want to be around for any extended period of time. Can you imagine being his friend and having to agonize through endless stories about how wonderful and brilliant he is all night? It must drive Melania absolutely insane.

“So, even his so-called supporters and staff don't really like him; they’re simply opportunists like himself - that's why his White House leaks like a sieve. He's just a useful idiot who allows his "supporters" to promote their own agendas - bigotry for some, and power and greed for others. But in private, they talk about him like a dog – an ignorant and incompetent dog, who could either inadvertently, or in an attempt to save face, destroy America and the world.”

And that’s exactly what’s happening. This is Trump’s last stand.  He’s even melting down with Fox News for not standing up for him.  He sees the polls, and they’re ugly. And he knows that if he loses the 2020 election and the Republicans lose the senate, he and all of his adult children are going to prison, and he’s gonna lose everything he’s stolen.

And the man doesn't care anything about America - he's incapable the thinking about anything but himself. So he's a clear and present danger to this nation. America is in the exact same position as the passengers in a 747 whose pilot put the plane on autopilot and left his 8-year-old son in the co-pilot's seat while he goes to pee. Actually, we're in worse shape, because Trump won't stop touching things he doesn't know anything about - like the economy, and international diplomacy, for example.

And he's so desperate to escape justice that I predict that if worse comes to worst on election night, he’ll resign between election night and the inauguration of the new Democratic president and elevate Mike Pence to the presidency to pardon him. But there's problem with that plan -New York Attorney General Letitia James is several steps ahead of him. As soon as she walked through the door as New York's AG she started charging Trump with violating one state law after another - and since he's spent his entire business life in New York, there are a ton of things to charge him with. She's been charging him with one violation after another every 2 weeks. At this point she has 17 charges against him and his family - and state charges can’t be pardoned away.

So, like Former CIA Director John Brennan warned Trump, the "protective cocoon" that's protecting you is "only temporary".

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS

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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

HOW TO MAKE A NEGRO CHRISTIAN

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I’m a passionate believer in God. I pray before every meal, and before I go to bed every night, but I have absolutely no respect any organized religion of any kind.  Organized religions are filled with ignorant, pompous, and closed-minded people who are much more interested in shoving their particular beliefs down the throats of others than they are God. They simply use the name of God to promote what they want you to believe, and use the Devil as an adult version of the Bogeyman designed to scare grown men and women into complying with their nonsense. Thus, every one of them constitute a ridiculous assault on our common sense and intelligence.

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There are over 4200 different religions on Earth, and God doesn’t have anything to do with any of them, if he did there would only be one. Religion was created by man to manipulate idiots. You don’t have to believe in talkin’ snakes to prove you love God, all you have to do is live your life in a way that honors his creation, which involves paying your tithes to the homeless, treating your fellow human beings with dignity and respect, and not killing children or putting them in cages.

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The fact is, following any religion is a slap in God’s face. God didn’t create you to be stupid, so believing in walking dead men only shows that you have more faith in man’s Mother Goose tales than you have in the common sense that God blessed you with. And if you're basing your belief on the so-called “Holy Scriptures”, they're not the word of God, they're the word of man. All they represent are the superstitious rantings of 3000-year-old dead men. Just because these men – and they were all men - lived 3000 years ago doesn’t mean they knew any more about God than you do – which is absolutely nothing. You can only know God by what God has done, and God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, not to believe in the Bogeyman, or to praise demagogues. So, falling for this evangelistic nonsense is absolutely idiotic.
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What kind of God would tell you to honor Donald Trump? I mean, come on!!! Anyone who believes he would is a fool by definition, and they should begin to question all their other beliefs. But they won't, because they're idiots, and Trump validates their bigotry. But religion has something for everybody.  With respect to Black people, it tells you that all you have to do is pray and God will do all the heavy lifting.  But that's not true either. God did his part when he gave you a brain, so you better get out there and organize, and educate yourself, and vote. The White man loves seeing you on your knees, because that assures him that he can keep you right where you are. You don't honor God by being humble, you honor God by being excellent - like he is.

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So again, religion is an attempt by narrow-minded bigots to shove their beliefs down the throats of their fellow man. That’s why 99% of all of the hatred, bigotry, murder, mayhem, and wars on Earth have religion at their root. A loving God wouldn’t set that kind of plague upon man, at least, not the God that I believe in. According to the Ten Commandments God says, "Thou Shall no Kill", and "Love thy neighbor", yet another scripture says the following:
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"This is what the Lord Almighty says ... 'Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' " - 1 Samuel 15:3
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And look at what’s going on in the Middle East. They’re killing one another in

droves over a disagreement on the placement of a comma in the “Holy Koran”. A Muslim man cut a woman’s lips off because she had the audacity to try putting on lipstick. Women are not allowed to drive, and a woman can go to jail for showing her ankles in public. In India, a truckdriver was forced off the road and nearly beaten to death after being accused of transporting “sacred cows”, and here in the United States, they used to burn women at the steak as witches just for being educated and having more knowledge than ignorant men could understand. So all religions are primarily the ignorant bigotry of man being carried out in the name of God.
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The religious mindset can easily be explained by recognizing the fact that as a group (there are always a few exceptions), the most deeply religious people in the world are invariably either the most backward and ignorant people in the world, or the most greedy. As a result, you can't get through to the former, and the latter have a vested interest in ignoring you. Notice that here in the United States, what we call “The Bible Belt” is in the South. The reason for that is, they also used religion to justify slavery.
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“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would show to Christ. And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.…” – Ephesians 6:5

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And finally, have you ever wondered why there’s not one book in the Bible that was written by either a Black man, a woman, or an Asian; or why women are not allowed to be Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, or Popes in the Catholic Church?  I’ll tell you why – because the Bible was written by bigots, and God is not a bigot, men are bigots. After all, a woman raised Jesus. Thus, she had to possess some kind of wisdom, so why couldn’t we hear what she had to say? The reason for that is quite simple - the chauvinist bigots who compiled the Bible thought that women were irrelevant. They felt that God only spoke to men. They were ignorant, closed-minded and backward. So how are ignorant men like that suppose to teach mankind how to live our lives? One would think that if God did want to speak to us through other men, he'd, at the very least, find people with some sense.
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"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent." - 1 Timothy 2:12
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When I was in the 3rd grade, a woman, Ms. Lady Lee, had a huge influence on my entire life. She prevented the principal from placing me in the "Dunce Brigade" for slow learners, and she taught me the value of knowledge. When she was done they skipped me a year in school. Instead of going into the 4th grade, they placed me into the 5th.
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And later, another woman, Ms. Immel, taught me to write. I can still hear her in the back of my mind whenever I write anything - "Eric, you say absolutely nothing more eloquently than any student I've ever had.  If you expect to get through this class, every time you make an assertion I expect you to start backing it up in the following sentence, or no later than the following paragraph." I also think of her every time I hear Donald Trump making unsubstantiated claims. Having "faith" in people like Trump is what makes evil possible, because what we call "evil" is actually ignorance. So it is not having "faith", but using common sense that is Godly. Snakes don't talk!!! - and if you believe they do, you're not a "child of God", you're a damn fool.
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So, whenever a preacher comes up to me talkin’ about the Bible, I know right off the bat that I’m dealing with a witch doctor and a fool who lacks the ability to think. So I completely dismiss anything he has to say. His voice simply becomes background noise to me – and I not only dismiss his thoughts on religion, but on any other subject, because I know I can’t trust the thinking of anyone who's so dimwitted and allergic to common sense that he's allowed himself to embrace the validity of Voodoo.

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"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would show to Christ. And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.…"

Ephesians 6:5

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I've read this a thousand times, and I don't like it any more this time than I did the first time I read it. God didn't say this. This was written by a 3000-year-old idiot who didn't know any more about God than we do - which is absolutely nothing.  

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

AL SHARPTON: THE HAPPY NEGRO

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY
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AL SHARPTON: THE HAPPY NEGRO 

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I hate the video below. While Sharpton is out partying in the street, Trump supporters are arming themselves to the teeth. This nation is in the most dire straits that it’s been in since the Civil War, and this guy is out dancing in the street, the epitome of the happy negro. The behavior of Al Sharpton – this so-called civil rights leader – sends the exact wrong message to the people. It says that everything is cool, don’t worry, we’ve got this, everything’s under control so let’s party.

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So, why should Black people care what people think? The way people profile us is extremely important. It can have an negative impact on a young Black person's ability to get a job, or whether or not a cop blows our brains out during a traffic stop. Bigotry is not simply based on the color of our skin, but the hostility that bigots harbor towards our cultural traditions and our way of life. So there are many components to bigotry. It's just like the attitude that Black people have towards White people. We don't hate all White people, we simply dislike White people who have traditions that we don't approve of. Every White person from the South is not a bigot, for example, but hearing a Southern drawl tends to turn many Black people off. That's due to the profile we have of them in our minds. We make assumptions about them without even knowing them. That's exactly the way many White people profile us. 
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My late wife used to tell me, I don't understand why no matter how wrong you are, you never get a ticket. It's simple. On the one hand, I don't show any hostility towards the police, and on the other, I don't suck up to them either. I simply talk to them like I would talk to my neighbor, and they respond to that vibe. 
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But with respect to Sharpton, one lady told me, "Relax. He's just having a good time!" I can understand that, but if he wants to have a good time, he should do it at home, not in public. Since he professes to be a Black leader, he should carry himself like one, with dignity and class. He needs to remain cognizant of the fact that many people are already under the impression that all Black of people's intelligence is confined to below the neck. So it's important that we defeat that impression, and as a so-called Black leader he should be in the very forefront of that battle. 

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If he genuinely cared about Black people, he’d be sending out videos shouting, “Fire!” instead of videos featuring him boogying down like a geriatric teenager. Once again, he’s sending out the exact wrong message. He should be hard at work preparing the people to face the worst situation they’ve ever faced in their lives, because the demographics clearly indicate that this is White supremacy’s final stand, and they know it. That’s why they’re pulling out all stops - they’re stacking the courts with bigots, building walls to keep non-Whites out of the country, the Supreme Court is making it legal for the GOP to gerrymander and demand voter I.D. and then closing down every public office in the minority community where the required I.D. can be obtain, and at the same time, they’re purging Black people from the voter rolls in droves, and that's just to name a few of their devices. So, those are the things that Sharpton should be putting out videos about, yet, he's out there dancing. There’s a phrase for what he’s engaged in, it’s called, “Fiddling while Rome burns”.  He's just waiting around for another atrocity so he can grab him a headline.

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That’s why we can’t trust many of these so-called “leaders” – their judgment is clouded by their own self-interest. He’s more interested in gaining applause by showing the people that he can “get down” than he is in addressing the urgent issues of those very same people. Jesse Jackson betrayed that very same kind of selfish attitude when it looked like Barack Obama was going to be successful in his run for the White House. Jesse was overheard saying, “I’d like to cut his nuts off”. If Jesse’s concern was actually for the people instead of himself he should have been delighted that a Black man was going to become President of the United States. And I won’t even get into Tavis Smiley and Cornel West’s envious asses – by the way, where are they now that we need someone to badmouth the President? I guess they’re comfortable now that a White man is back in office.
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We wouldn't even know who Al Sharpton was if he wasn't such a headline chaser. He's been a distraction for Black people for years. Yes, Black people should get out and demonstrate grievances, but we need to spend more time educating ourselves. So, what turns me off most about people like Sharpton, is he claims to be for Black people, but he's really out for himself. He'll ride an issue as long as it captures the headlines, and then he’ll walk away once it grows stale. A true Black activist would be using these issues to emphasize the need for Black people to learn to out-think the White man.
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Black people need to make knowledge the new "soul". The very same creative intellect that created Ray Charles and Areatha Franklin can be put into distinguishing ourselves in math, business, and the sciences. So the time for dancing is over while Trump is still looking for a match to light the ovens.  It's time to start stimulating our minds, instead of shaking our asses.

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The only way the Republican Party can survive is by dumbing down the population, so that provides Black people with the perfect opportunity to level the playing field. While the GOP is busy dumbing the rest of the population down, Black people should be focused like a laser on becoming the most knowledgeable people in the country. That way, the only way the nation can survive is to get Black people to run it. That’s the technique the Jews used to ensure their equality. Today, this nation couldn’t survive without Jews – or at the very least, without being severely hobbled.
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Black people need to keep in mind that the White man wasn't able to enslave Black people because he could beat us up, we were enslaved because he had a knowledge of gunpowder that we didn't possess. So we were enslaved due to ignorance, and the only way that we're gonna be able to free ourselves is through knowledge, and giving priority to shaking our asses is not going to provide that knowledge. No one has ever gained freedom through shaking their ass.

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In addition, being primarily known for engaging in frivolity is why nobody takes us seriously. When a young Black person goes to be interviewed for a job, I want the interviewer to say, “I want to hire this person, because Black people are known for their brilliance”; not, “naw, if I hire this guy he might distract the other employees by trying to start a Soul Train line in the lunchroom” - and the latter is exactly how many people view us. We simply don’t have an image of professionalism, and Sharpton's spectacle in the video below is contributing to that. We have an image - whether deserved or not - of disrupting the workplace, and coming to work with our head so bad from partying the night before that we can barely perform our job.
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I was a union rep for 20 years, and one day a brother came up missing from his assignment. I couldn’t find the guy anywhere, so finally I checked the parking lot and found him in his car asleep. I woke him up and told him he’d better get back to his assignment before they realized he was missing. He looked up at me and said, “If there’s two things I can’t stand, it's niggas and flies.” So, I left him there. This went on for a few days, and finally management noticed that he was missing after being unable to contact him by phone. Eventually security found him and he was placed up for removal. Then when he came to me, hat-in-hand. I told him I’d do what I could, but not to get his hopes up, because it was an open and shut case. But when we met on his case, management wanted to compromise. They wanted me to agree to a 14-day suspension of a guy in another case. The guy they wanted to suspend wasn’t guilty of anything, they'd just trumped up a charge because they didn’t like him. But they said if I agreed to the compromise, in return they'd simply have the sleeper sign a Last Chance Agreement. I refused, so the sleeper was fired.

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Thereafter, sleeper didn’t even want to take responsibility his own actions. He called me a sellout and everything under the Sun. He claimed that I turned on him to save a White boy – but, again, the White guy wasn’t guilty of what he was charged with - I didn't turn on him for a White boy, I turned on him in pursuit of justice, and justice is blind. Why should I make the White guy suffer for the sleeper’s irresponsibility? The last thing I heard about the sleeper was he'd lost his Cadillac Escalade, all his women and fine clothes, and he was living on Los Angeles' Skid Row, but I didn't feel a thing.
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The point of this story is, long after the sleeper was gone, his behavior tarnished every Black person in the unit. Every time I represented a Black person before management they would bring up the sleeper – and I mean, even 3 years later!  I had to ask them several times, "What did the sleeper have to do with the current case!!!?  But their attitude wasn't lost on me, and that attitude was, "You're all alike". So, I often wondered how many deserving young Black men were refused a job because one brother wanted to party and get his head bad all night and sleep on the job during the day. 

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Admittedly, while the situation is much different, the issue is the same. It’s all about not reinforcing the White man’s racist image of us. How dare Sharpton be out on the street shakin' his ass and profiling us? He’s supposed to be a Black leader! So, if he’s out on the street being frivolous and undignified, what message does that send about the rest of us? And what makes it even worse is he’s out there boogyin’ while innocent Black people are being murdered on the street by rogue cops all across this country. That’s why the White man's attitude is, "Aw, don't worry about it. They'll get over it. Their dumb asses will be back out on the street Twerkin' in a week." So, we've got to get serious, become more professional in our conduct, and stop profiling ourselves as happy negros.

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Image is everything. After seeing this video, when Sharpton tries to address a serious Black issue, his image in this video is going to be in the back of the White man’s mind. So who’s gonna take him seriously? I know I can't. If you're upset over the conditions that Black people are suffering, you can't turn your outrage off on a whim. I go to bed upset, and I wakeup upset - and I'm never in the mood to get out on the street and shake my ass. Can you even imagine Martin Luther King or Malcolm out there shaking their asses like that? Their careers would’ve been over. So while Sharpton might have garnered a little applause from the people on the street, all he's actually done was help the White man profile us as frivolous children who shouldn’t be taken seriously. 

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Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

RAISING KAI AND LIL’ ERIC WITH VAL

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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RAISING KAI AND LIL’ ERIC WITH VAL

“Daddy, can you beat-up the Bogeyman?”

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“Aw, yeah. I already did – twice. That’s why he’s afraid to come in our house.”

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, E.

YOU’VE MADE ME PROUD.

BUT NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU GET,

AND HOW MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU ACHIEVE,

YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABY BOY.

DADDY.

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ERIC WATTREE

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INDUCTION INTO THE APU HALL OF FAME

Class - 1996

Induction – 2019 

MEN’S BASKETBALL

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“The 1996 Golden State Athletic Conference Player of the Year, Eric Wattree returned to his roots and played his final two years of college basketball at Azusa Pacific, where he led the Cougars to two straight GSAC championships and a combined two-year overall record of 49-18 (22-6 in the GSAC).  During his 1996 senior campaign, Wattree averaged team highs of 15.4 points and 7.7 rebounds while shooting a team-best .634 (201-for-317) from the floor.  For his effort, he received honorable mention NAIA All-America.  A force in the key at both ends of the court, Wattree recorded 15 double-doubles in his 57-game Cougar career.  A prep standout at Northview High School in Covina, Calif., Wattree played his first two seasons at the University of Wyoming before coming home and averaging 11.8 points and a team-high 8.9 rebounds for the Cougars during his 1995 junior season.  Following his collegiate career, Wattree served with distinction in the U.S. Armed Forces, followed by a career in federal law enforcement.”

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Eric Wattree at Azusa Pacific (1994-96)

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Now Eric Wattree III is doing his thing on the court, and Taylor, my only granddaughter, will soon become a doctor. All of you are excelling in your own ways.
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When I was a reckless teenager the police used to tell me that I was gonna end up spending my life in prison – if I survived - and many of the girls in school used to tell me, “Step off, Eric. I ain’t crazy”. But your mother, the most popular girl in school, decided to take a chance, and she, with the help of my mother, began to housebreak me to make me a suitable father for her children – and she succeeded. If it wasn’t for her, I would have had to draw this note, because literacy wasn’t a part of my repertoire. But she made it one of her primary goals in life to encourage me educate myself. She was an Angela Davis clone and the President of the Black student’s union, and I was an embarrassment to her. She and her clique were against everything I represented, so she gave me a choice between her, or the ignorance of the street. And fortunately, since I was sprung at the time, I made the right one.

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By street standards caving into Val was weak, but I thank God every day of my life that I wimped-out when it came to her. I tried to stand strong, but I was no match for her and my mother, and they were strong allies. 

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You see, my mother knew Val long before I did. She knew her as a child.  In fact, my mother and Val's aunt, Ann, were "road dawgs." So when my mother got out of nursing school, she and Dr. Morris P. Atkins started a clinic together - The 55th St. Medical Center. At first was just the two of them, eventually, it was fully staffed with family, friends and acquaintances', and Val's aunt, Ann, was the billing and insurance person. So, during the Christmas season, my mother hired Val (at 14 years old) to send out Christmas cards to all of the patients. That's how we met.

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One day (when I was 16 years old) I showed up begging for weed money. Mother knew what I wanted it for, so she was a hard sell. So I waited until she and Ann went to lunch so I could hit-up Dr. Atkins. He was always an easy touch - and he gave up more money too. Giving up twenty dollars was nothing to him, when all I really need was five. But little did I know that when I walked through the door of the clinic that day, my life would change forever.

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When I walked up to the counter to be buzzed into the examining rooms Val had her back to me and was bent over pulling out files. Even then she was well endowed, so I remember thinking, Wow! She must be new, because I've never seen that butt before. But when I spoke, and she turned around, it was clear that she was a young girl. And the minute she looked into my eyes, I knew that we would have a future together. The look in her eyes made me feel special, and significant. It was as though she saw something in me that I was missing, and that look remained there until the night she died.

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We became inseparable until she went to college, became and activist, and started making demands that I change my lifestyle. At first I was hard, and I dug in, so she dumped me. She wouldn't even take my calls, but unbeknownst to me, she was staying in close contact with my mother. 

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But I knew this woman loved me, so I decided to teach her a lesson.  I decided to constantly trying to call her let her know where she stood, so I'd stop calling and make her suffer. If she thought I was moving on she'd get scared and start begging for my forgiveness. Then one day I turned on the television and there she was on "Boss City" (the Soul Train of the time). She and some guy were partners in a dance contest together - and they won! When they hugged one another I wanted to throw a brick at the television set.
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When I told my mother about it she said, "Eric, Valdie ain't thinking about you no more. She's dating a law student at UCLA. She don't have no time for your childishness - and I hear his people's got money and the brother drives a Mercedes." So, I called her house, and when her mother told me she wasn't at home, I parked down the street from her house waiting to confront this brother, and start a scene. Then when they never showed up, I really went crazy. I couldn't even sleep. All I could see in the back of my mind is her spending a night with him and making passionate love. I didn't find out that the story about the law student was a sham cooked up by her and my mother until two years after we were married, when she was 19, and I was 21. In fact, she was standing behind the door when her mother told me she wasn't home.
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But a year after we were married, Kai was born, and a year and 9 months later, you were born. After that, I began to focus on what life was really about, and that gave your mother something to work with, so she began to talk about who I could be, and that I should start developing the skills to write about what I'm always talk about (I've always been into politics). 

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So even though she was a young girl, she was always pushing, and she sent me through hell. I remember telling her, "Stop trying to turn me into Malcolm!" But in her 20's she was a devout activist and death on any brother who just lived from day to day and not trying to improve himself. She said, ignorance was what was holding Black people down.
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So, in her 20's she was a terror, and all about knowledge and being "down for the cause". In her 30's she had chilled a bit. While her message was the same, she was much more subtle. Nevertheless, she got her message across by gently massaging it into your psyche, a technique that she eventually mastered, and led to her producing - not just good children, but exceptional ones. That's also what caused everyone to love her, because she could make a very serious point by putting it in the form of a joke - and she kept people laughing, but they were also learning. I think she was a genius in that regard.
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When you think about it, many of the most talented people die at an early age - Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Michael Jackson, Prince, and many others. It's as though they were just put on Earth to carry out their tasks, and then they move on. I think that was the case with your mother, to produce excellence in you, Kai, and all of her  children, and then she move on - and when I think about it, she also influenced me to promote her philosophy. If you'll notice, after awhile she simply laid back and let me do all the lecturing to you guys - and a close review of my writing has Val all over it. Maybe that's what she had in mind when she encouraged me to write.
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But as sweet as Val was, she was no pushover. She was athletic, strong, and she had a temper. One night I came stumbling in about 2 in the morning. I had been over her cousin’s house, whose husband had become a good friend of mine. We liked to drink, play chess, and listen to jazz together. But when I got home this particular night, Val was waiting for me, and she demanded to know where I’d been. I knew I had an innocent explanation, but being intoxicated, her anger not only struck me as funny, but flattering – “Ooooo, she’s jealous. She thinks I’m seeing another woman.”  So, I started to giggle. But she mistook my giggling for mocking her. Then, before I knew it she was all over me, and shouting, “Where you been, fool! Where you been!” She started beating on me and slamming me against the wall until she beat me sober enough to get her off of me and pin her down on the bed to explain. And then a short phone substantiated what I’d said. She was so contrite that she started crying, how worried she was and what she thought. But I already knew and realize I could have spared her all that concern with a simple phone call. But thereafter, we had one of the most loving nights of our marriage.

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But she told her mother about the episode, so naturally, it seeped out into family folklore – and on both sides of the family. So, one day I was over Val’s mother’s house drinking with “Fly”, Val’s stepfather, and a few others. During our discussion Fly and I had a friendly disagreement over politics, and he said, “Don’t be getting’ smart with me, boy! I’ll call Val in here and have her whop your ass again. The story had obviously been well circulated even outside the family, because everybody fell-out laughing. I even had to laugh, because for a minute Val was getting into my ass.
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Val ended up relating the episode to a radio psychologist who was advising people that if they ever got into a physical altercation with their mate, they should dump them immediately, because it will never end. Val told her, our altercation happened over 20 years ago, and we haven't laid a hand on one another since. Thereafter, the psychologist went to a commercial, and when she returned she changed the subject.

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The bottom line is, sometimes people trip, and if they’re good people they learn from it. In this case, Val learned not to fly off the handle based on assumptions, and I learned that simply being thoughtful can prevent conflicts, and through example, we past that along to you.

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That's how your mother made her influence felt. She didn't lecture like I  tend do, she taught through example. That's why looking back on my life I have to scratch my head when I think of the impact that your mother had on me over the years, and I didn’t even feel the change. She always made me feel like I was running things, while I now know she was in full control. It’s like she indoctrinated me with her love, charm, and intelligence, and then flipped me into auto pilot and kicked back and watched me be a father.

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ME AND MY BABIES

I know that now, because I feel like a lump of coal who produced a treasure trove of diamonds, and I don't have a clue where all that excellence came from. But now I do – Val let me raise you and Kai, while at the same time, she was busy raising all of us through example. She saw her job as keeping us all focused, and that's the key to your excellence - focus.
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Focus is the key. Your mother somehow knew that focus was the key to excellence, so she alway kept me focused on raising you and Kai. I'm sure you remember that when you were kids, I never ran the street or hung out with any "road dawgs". It was all about you. It was about focus, and your mother saw to it that you were focused on what you were learning. You didn't have to learn about the street or drugs on the street, because I knew all about it, and I taught you what I knew. So when you became teenagers, you weren't intrigued by subject, or felt the urge to experiment. As a result, we became a family unit without any outside influences. And you were always treated as equals, not as kids. That kept you focused on what it meant to be an adult, so you didn't have to waste time learning it after you became an adult. You were ready to hit the ground running. We used to even vote on family decisions.
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You became so used to interacting with us as adults, we had to pressure you to go out and hang with the other kids. You'd rather hangout and trip with us. And when you were 11 and 12 years old, Kai said, "We don't need no babysitter." The babysitter used to try to treat you like kids, and you weren't into that. So we simply gave you the keys to the house, and we never looked back - and we didn't have to. When we got home from work, your homework was done, and you were kicked back either watching television, or playing video games.
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That was the influence your mother had on all of us. She let me do all the lecturing and philosophizing (while she rolled her eyes and giggled along with you), but she always quietly saw to it that we all remained focused on the big picture. And then at night when we went to bed, she'd lecture me on how I handled various situations - "Eric, you spent 20 minutes telling them about things they already know. Save your lectures for when it's necessary." When I got that lecture I knew she'd been talking to Kai - I found out early on that they'd become allies like Val and my mother had when we were kids, so I knew that MO well. So, our home was a full democracy, right down to the corruption. On serious issues, Kai and your mother would often bribe you to go along with them. I remember thinking at the time, "That little turncoat. He must be a Republican. He'll go along with anything for chili dog."

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VAL ON GRANDSON'S 

CHEST.

THAT SAYS IT ALL.

So, as I wish you a Happy Birthday, I can't help but think about your mother, and how her unintrusive influence has brought excellence into all our lives. She dragged me off the street and made me a better man and responsible father, and her thoughtful influence served to make everyone of her babies steppers. The only thing I don't understand is, why was I left here alone to take credit for it. She never got credit for all she'd contributed to this family. In spite of the fact that she was the one who encouraged me to learn to write, and when my book was published she threw a big party, she suddenly died a week before the publisher sent me the printed copies. What's up with that!!!?
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But at any rate, on our baby boys birthday, I want to you to know that I'll never forget what you've done to contribute to the excellence of all our babies, Val. So, I want to thank you, baby, for bringing so much love, happiness, literacy and pride into our lives - and by the way, I also want you to know that I know it was you that made that knife jump out the sink and scared that sister out of my motor home. You almost caused that poor woman to have a heart attack. That was naughty. She was just there to sell me some clothes.

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Eric, I wrote the following when you and Kai were in high school, and I want to thank you both, for making it come true:

LEGACY

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Neither scholar nor the head of state,

The most common of men seems to be my fate;

A life blistered with struggle and constant need,

As my legacy to man I bequeath my seed.

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More fertile, more sturdy these ones than I,

This withered old vine left fallow and dry;

The nectar of their roots lie dormant still,

But through their fruit I'll be revealed.

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Poppi

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS

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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.