The Republican Party specializes in taking a robust Democratic economy and then convincing the people that, with Republican guidance, they can promise even better days ahead. Then once they’re elected into office, they immediately begin to divide the people, loot the economy, undermine the average American, and drag America under a bus. Thereafter, in complete desperation the people turn to the Democratic Party for help, and with that, the cycle repeats itself.
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This economic cycle has been playing itself out every generation for the last hundred years. Every 10 to 15 years, as soon as one generation learn their lesson regarding the Republican Party, another one comes along with dreams of wealth and prosperity to replace them. So the GOP never runs out of victims. Even as we speak, Donald Trump is going around bragging to anyone who will listen regarding all he has done, while taking credit for an economy that he inherited from Barack Obama.
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But in reality, Trump, much like Ronald Reagan, has got us living on a credit card. Things seemed to be relatively stable under Ronald Reagan as well, but once he left office he left the country with a larger debt than all of the presidents that came before him, combined! The same is true of Donald Trump. The $1.8 trillion tax cut that he gave the rich is a debt that’s gonna have to be repaid, and he’s sending the bill directly to the average American in the form of cuts in Social Security, Disability, education, housing, and other safety-net programs.
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THE GREAT DEPRESSION
History is clear. The Great Depression was brought on by 12 years of Republican governance. Thereafter, Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt repaired the economy with the New Deal and America prospered. Then Nixon came along and brought with him the corruption of Watergate, and later Ronald Reagan flooded our inner cities with crack cocaine, destroyed our industrial base, and made a college education beyond the reach of many average Americans. That not only diminished the nation’s intellectual currency by failing to invest in tens of thousands of brilliant but underdeveloped minds, but at the same time, it also promoted an undemocratic attempt to create a class-based society where the rich continued to prosper, and the average American remained in “his or her place”.
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That’s clearly a failed experiment that the conservatives refuse to give up. Conservatives have always been known for walking around with flag pins in their lapels and spewing their "bone-spur" brand of patriotism. Going all the way back to the very founding of this nation they’ve always used false patriotism and deception as weapons to promote a self-serving agenda to undermine the interests of the average American. As a result of that attitude, they have always been the most insidious enemy of American democracy. That’s why when our founding documents speak of American enemies it uses the phrase, “Both foreign anddomestic.”
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When conservatives first arrived on these shores, they brought with them the European notion of class distinction. They have always suffered from the distinctly undemocratic attitude that the only inherent value of the average American is as servants to cater to the whims of the upper class. Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a permanent share in government. He said:
. “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President (after being selected by congress, instead of the people). Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!? But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class
system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they became the conservative coalition, and lowered their profile as blatant aristocrats, but continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various other strategies to divide the people to achieve their agenda, and that’s what we see today. That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.
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While a class structured society may bring comfort and contentment to the monied class, the damage it’s doing to the nation as a whole can be clearly observed by simply assessing the relative intellectual acuity and quality of leadership of Barack Obama as oppose to Donald Trump. Wealth and intelligence are not synonymous. The nation needs brainpower to prosper, not merely wealth, and Donald Trump is currently a poster child for the proposition that money without brains is a waste.
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But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Not long after Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush came along. Bush ignored warnings of the pending 911 attack, then lied us into Iraq and created the current destabilization of the Middle East. He also brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression. But in that regard, and following a now familiar pattern, Democrat, Barack Obama came in to clean up the Republican mess.
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Now we have Donald Trump, undoubtedly the most lying and incompetent
president in the history of the United States - and worse, he’s in treasonous lockstep with the Russians. But in spite of that, the GOP is currently leaving no stone unturned to coverup his gross corruption, incompetence, and criminality in pursuit of their own self-interest. . . That’s the problem with giving wealth priority over character and intelligence. Neither Donald Trump nor the Republican Party have either the character or intelligence to understand the importance of placing the nation’s interest above their own. It’s exactly that lack of understanding that led to Trump’s impeachment – and it would lead to his removal from office if the Republican senate wasn’t so irresponsibly corrupt.
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So once again, as they’ve shown repeatedly over the past one hundred years, instead of adhering to their oath of office, and their oath to be impartial jurors during Trump’s impeachment, in a desperate attempt to corrupt the system for their own self-interest the Republican Party is going to do any, and everything possible to see to it that the American people never learn all the facts regarding Trump's criminality in this impeachment case. That alone undoubtedly makes the Republican Party the domestic enemy of the American people, and as such, they should all be swept out of office and relegated to the garbage heap of American history.
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Contrary to
popular belief, Black people don’t have a moral obligation to be stupid
TRUMP IS DRAGGING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY INTO A LITTER BOX YET, CONGRESS IS FAILING TO USE ITS MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST
HIM
At this point even Donald Trump supporters recognize that he has the
self-serving and anti-intellectual immaturity of an 8-year-old. Due to his
childish irresponsibility, in just over two years he’s caused the United States
to go from the most respected nation on Earth to the laughingstock of the world.
And so far, the United States Congress has become complicit in his dysfunction
by allowing him to drag the nation into a litter box.Clear evidence of that is in the short time
that Trump has occupied the Oval Office, the nation has gone from engaging in
serious, if often disingenuous, political debate, to indulging in childish name-calling,
spitball fights, and blatant obstruction of justice over Twitter. That’s a
horrible image for a once great nation. . Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tried to justify congress’ inaction by
pointing out that Trump is trying to goad congress into premature impeachment
proceedings in order to galvanize his base in preparation for the 2020
election, and since the GOP is in control of the senate, any attempt to remove
him from office would fail at this point. So the smart thing to do is to hold
hearings on the Mueller Report and educate the public on why Trumps impeachment
is necessary. . So, while Pelosi has an excellent plan, Trump is stonewalling her
efforts by blocking all congressional subpoenas for documents and witnesses for
congressional hearings, which makes it impossible to educate the public – at least,
in a timely manner. . Trump has declared that he is not going to cooperate with
congress' constitutional right of oversight, and he has taken it upon himself
to overrule the United States Constitution by declaring that any further
investigations into his personal conduct is unnecessary, completely dismissing
congress' constitutional right to oversight, and his Attorney General, William
Barr – who’s supposed to be representing the people, not Trump - has declared
that since a sitting president can't be indicted, neither can he be
investigated. So, essentially, Donald Trump has placed himself above the law,
and taken over the government.
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While both Trump, and Barr, know that this tactic is illegal, they’re
trying to force congress to waste time by having to go to court. Trump’s
betting his presidency, and freedom, on the hope that he can make it to the
2020 election, and just maybe, the GOP will be able to retake congress and kill
the investigations into his criminality all together. Thus, congress seems to
be between a rock and a hard place.
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So, what’s next to impossible to understand is, why isn’t congress
invoking all of its powers to fight this blatant assault on our democracy? They’re
spewing a lot of tough sounding language, but they're completely ignoring their
most powerful weapon – their power of “Inherent Contempt", which allows them - as congress - to simply arrest a person, or fine them $25,000 a day, until they comply. Now, that would get a person's attention. It would make me show up a day early.
INHERENT CONTEMPT
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The National Constitutional Center states in it’s publication,
Constitutional Daily, that “Justice Willis Van Devanter made perhaps the most
famous statement of these powers in McGrain v. Daugherty, a 1927 Supreme Court decision
about Mally S. Daugherty, the brother of former Attorney General Harry
Daugherty. A select Senate committee issued a subpoena for Daugherty to
testify and to also surrender records from an Ohio bank. When Daugherty refused
to comply after a second subpoena, the Senate passed a resolution issuing a
warrant and authorizing a Senate deputy to take Daugherty into custody.
Daugherty filed a habeas petition against his detention. A lower court ruled
that the Senate exceeded its powers by detaining Daugherty, freeing him.
However, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction, holding that under the
Constitution, Congress has the power to compel witnesses and testimony “to
obtain information in aid of the legislative function.”
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“Each house of Congress has power, through its own process, to compel a private
individual to appear before it or one of its committees and give testimony
needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to
it under the Constitution,” Van Devanter said. 'This has support in long
practice of the houses separately, and in repeated Acts of Congress, all
amounting to a practical construction of the Constitution.'”
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It's been reported by several news organizations that Attorney
General Bar has even taken to mocking Speaker Pelosi by jokingly asking her
after he ignored a congressional subpoena, "Did you bring the
handcuffs?" So, for congress to do anything less than utilize all of its
Constitutional powers is to invite disrespect of congressional authority by both the people
involved, and the public at large, because it makes congress look like they’re
unsure of their own authority. The speaker should have Attorney General Barr
locked up, because he's not only thumbing his nose at her, but at congress, the
United States Constitution, and the American people.
DONALD TRUMP: THE WORLD’S MOST LYING, CORRUPT, AND INCOMPETENT BUSINESSMAN
The courts have just turned over Trump’s finances to congress.
Trump wasn't trying to move Hell and Earth to keep that from happening for
nothing. We're now gonna see what a corrupt fraud he is.
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We're soon gonna find that Donald Trump is, hands down, the world's worst
businessman. He's never started a business that wasn't an abject failure.
Recent reports by the New York Times - with just a sliver of the information
they have now - revealed that Trump's entire image was built on a lie. His
father kept him afloat while he was alive by giving him over $400 million, towards the end, and
after his father died, Donald went into bankruptcy 6 times (count 'em, SIX TIMES!!!). As a result, he couldn't get a loan from ANY bank in America. Then the Russians
came to his rescue in order to use his name to do business and launder money -
they even had an office in Trump Tower!!!
PREDICTION: We're about to find that all, or at least most, of Trump's so-called
wealth is actually Russian money. Trump perpetuated a lie about how much
of a bigshot and great businessman he was, and then used that lie to rent his
name to the Russians. The Russians then hung out a shingle under it to launder
money and commit crimes all over the world. The Russians have a phrase for a person like Trump -
"a useful idiot."
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Thus, this is a pivotal moment in American history and we're dealing
with a world-class criminal in Donald Trump. So, the founding fathers expected
congress to step up to the plate at a time like this. If they fail to do so, we can just flush our democracy down the toilet.
This article was originally written in December of 2005. It wasn't written to glorify either crime, murder, or the gangster lifestyle that a minority of Black and Hispanic youth embrace in the hood. It was written to reflect the reality of life in this nation’s inner cities, and the culture of wasted humanity that it spawns. . In the end, it turned out that Tookie Williams was a brilliant young man, and he just might have possessed a mind that could have cured many of society’s ills. This nation cannot afford such a waste, and the Black community cannot just sit back and allow this sort of thing to continue, because the fact is, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams was actually an All American Boy; the only thing he did that we don't routinely honor our young men for, was applying his American values toward his own interest, instead of Exxon/Mobile's.
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I went to view the remains of Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, the Friday after America released his body from its death chamber. He went to Washington High School with my late wife. When I went inside the mortuary’s Slumber Chamber where Tookie’s body lie in repose, there was only two of us there, a lady sitting in the front pew quietly weeping, presumably a member of Tookie’s family. It was obvious that the lady was in great pain, so in spite of the fact that I didn’t know her, I offered her my condolences. The chamber was quiet and solemn. Then, after paying my respects, I walked out the side door of the mortuary - and into an absolute zoo.
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In the parking lot next to the mortuary there was a crowd of people partying like it was New Years Eve - the music was blasting, one car was on lifters so high that it seemed to be standing on end, and three sisters were dancing in a heated frenzy before a crowd of maybe a hundred people shouting, “Go ba-by! Go ba-by! Go ba-by!” It was unbelievable. But the scene outside the mortuary that night served to reinforce a point of view that I’ve held for many years now - it's time for our people to wake up and sniff the funk, because the fumes are emanating from all around us, and it’s coming at us from every direction. That goes for the American people in general, but black people in particular.
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As black people, we have a beautiful and festive culture, and I realize that in the past that festive spirit has been used to great effect as a defense against pain. But times are changing in this country, and they’re changing faster and more drastically than we’ve ever known before. So, if we are to survive as a people, we must adapt to that change - and we’d better do it real fast.
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Looking at the United States today, one can’t help but recognize that it’s become reminiscent of Germany during the 1930s, just prior to the rise of fascism. We have a regime currently in power that’s stolen two elections, and has taken over every branch of government; they invaded a sovereign nation on false pretenses, and they’re saber rattling towards others; They’ve set up concentration camps all over the world, and they’re torturing innocent people. As we party, they’re not only passing laws that will allow them to spy on American citizens, but arrest those citizens, while denying them rights supposedly guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States.
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We’ve got to start thinking the way this government thinks (notice that I didn’t say “the White man,” because if a White man happens to be poor or middle class, he’s in trouble too). We‘ve got to start thinking ahead. When I was in the Marine Corps way back in 1971, even then, they had me out in Twenty-nine Palms training reservists in desert warfare. So you see, while we’re living in the moment, this government is thinking ahead. And when you consider the fact that Bush is now spending 2 billion dollars a week in Iraq, and sending this country into so much debt that it precludes our funding education, Medicare, most entitlement programs, and possibly, even Social Security, you’d better believe they have a game plan in mind. They have to have one, just to deal with the resulting social upheaval that is sure to result - and they are practicing that game plan in Iraq as we speak. So it is past time for black people to set our party hats aside, at least for the moment, and embark on a very serious and sober reassessment of where we stand in this country today.
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Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-America - I Love America. America has provided me and my family with a way of life, and opportunities, that we might not have found in any other place in the world. But what I love most about America is the American ideal, those ideals that we may not always live up to, but we aspire to. It is the American ideal that makes America special, and it is the assault on those ideals that makes me very nervous about the Bush administration. Under Bush, we seem to be losing sight of what America stands for. He claims that the terrorists hate us because of the American ideal of freedom, justice, and equality. But if that is indeed the case, the terrorist are clearly winning this war, because with every day that passes those ideals are being whittled away.
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When Bush invaded Iraq in response to 9-11, he demonstrated very clearly his propensity for venting his hostility towards people of color. In spite of the fact that all available evidence pointed to the fact that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with attacking this country, his invasion of Iraq seems to say, “Oh well, one Arab is just like another - they’ll do.” That is not the American way.
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And as a result of that policy, United Press International reported on July 12, 2005 that according to an Iraqi humanitarian organization, 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003. The report goes on to say, “chairman of the 'Iraqiyun' humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.” Thus, according to this report, more women and children are being killed in Iraq than anyone else - and that, is not the American way.
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In addition, it has now come to light that the Bush administration has been spying on Muslims in their homes, businesses, and mosques, without warrant, since September 11, 2001. Conservative spin doctors try to justify this policy by saying that this fudging of the Constitution only affects 0.1% of the people, so those of us who don’t have anything to hide, don’t have anything to worry about. But the fact is, these violations set a precedent that sends the nation down a slippery slope that affects us all. It’s not only a gross violation of an entire community of people, but a corruption of the United States Constitution that places us all in jeopardy. That is not the American way.
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So it is clear that our government, under Bush, has no understanding, nor respect, for limits. Since he's already demonstrated his propensity to paint all people of color with the same brush, it’s not a very big leap from terrorist, to Muslim, to Black Muslim, to black people in general. And while that's not the American way, it's a glaring reality.
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So, again, it is past time for the black community to turn down the music for a minute and get serious. The Cabbage Patch can wait, because if there has ever been a time in our history where it is incumbent upon us to focus, educate ourselves, and become politically engaged, it is now. We’ve demonstrated over the years that we can party hardier than any group of people in the world, but at this point in our history, we have absolutely nothing to party about. Tookie’s body should attest to that fact.
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ADDED AFTER BARACK OBAMA'S ELECTION
Since I wrote that article eight years ago, there has been some change - with respect to the Black community, it's gotten worse. Some Obama critics - like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and the entire Republican Party - would say, that makes their point. Even though we've elected a Black president things have gotten worse. But that's not true. On a national level things have gotten a lot better. Under the Bush administration the nation was hemorrhaging 850,000 jobs per MONTH, and this nation, and the world as a whole, was racing towards a second Great Depression, so on a national level things are much better.
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What the steady decline of the Black community does clearly indicate, however, is that we're not doing nearly enough to help ourselves. So why are Obama critics wasting so much time on television selling books, and rolling around in buses promoting themselves when there is so much work to be done in the community? Why aren't they in the community with their sleeves rolled up and educating the community to the need for change, and about how to bring that change about? The answer is, because they don't care. All they care about is their own enrichment. So the fact is, we've got to stop waiting for them, and start caring about ourselves. So let's get moving.
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About Tookie and Others Like Him
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We must also remember while we’re condemning Tookie that society creates it’s own monsters. All any person is, is a walking, breathing, bundle of past experiences, and society creates those experiences. So society plays a huge role in what we become as individuals. Then, why is it that two people from the very same sociological group will become complete opposites - one will become Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams, and the other, Dr. Ben Carson?
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First, is parenting - our parents help to shape the way we view reality, how we deal with adversity, and determine whether we feel entitled or deprived. Second, is predisposition - some people tend to be appeasers, while others are combative. And finally, every individual is shaped by micro experiences - the individual experiences that serve to shape our personalities. Maybe at some point in his life Tookie Williams was slapped by a cop, and Ben Carson never had that experience. So although Carson is from the very same sociological group, his INDIVIDUAL life experience has shaped him differently.
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Thus, Tookie Williams wasn't just BORN to be rebellious, he BECAME rebellious as a result of what he'd experienced in life. And Ben Carson wasn't BORN to be a subservient kiss-ass - which is clearly what he is. His INDIVIDUAL experience has shaped him into what he's become. Therefore, society creates its own monsters, both in fact, and portrayal. So what you saw in Tookie was a brutal murderer. What I saw was a pensive guy who I found, in the middle of a raging party, sitting quietly in the glow of a red nightlight in my kid's bedroom watching them as they slept - he was in pain, because his legs had been injured in an attempted assassination, so he couldn't party. Nevertheless, he took his life in his hands and came all the way across town, where he would have been killed on sight, just to share a few moments with a high school friend.
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Tookie regretted forming the Crips. he told me that he and a guy by the name of Raymond Washington organized the Crips at Washington High as a defense against bullies, and my wife confirmed that. But the group took on a life of its own, and he got caught up in the fame, folklore, and notoriety of his name. He didn't want to live that kind of life, but it got to the point where he either had to live the life or die. But actually, Tookie had a brilliant and curious mind. I was already in college studying psychology the first time he came to our house to visit Val, and considering his reputation, I was amazed at his brilliance. He could discuss, in detail, any subject that came up - cosmology, philosophy, epistemology, etc. I was taking epistemology (the science of knowledge and logical thought) when I first met him, and he could discuss the subject in so much detail that it was like he was the star student in the class. So I went from being angry over my wife inviting such a notorious person into our home, to looking forward to seeing him. I could write an entire book on my discussions with Tookie, and I might do just that in the future. So I can say without any fear of contradiction, Tookie was much more brilliant than the people who executed him. When they killed Tookie Williams, they sent a lot of knowledge into the next world.
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So those images came back to me as I looked upon him in the mortuary in what seemed like a peaceful slumber. That's why I don't believe for a minute that Tookie was guilty of the crime that he was murdered for. They couldn't produce a shred of hard evidence at his trial, but he was infamous, he was smart, and he was Black. That was enough for them. So as I looked upon Tookie's stilled body, I didn't see the infamous Tookie Williams, I saw who my late wife (who had died in April of that year) used to call Stan, and the image of him as he sat quietly in the glow of a red nightlight still remains with me.
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But, that said, this society also created Gorge W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and we know for a fact that they're responsible for the death of over a million people, the maiming of thousands of others, and the brutal torture of still more. So even if Tookie was guilty of what he was accused of, his crime doesn’t even begin to approach the magnitude of Bush and Cheney’s. Yet, instead of killing Bush like society did Tookie, they built him a library. Thus, Tookie’s major crime wasn’t murder, per se - the mere murder of men, women, and children is a part of the American ethic. Tookie’s major crime was allegedly murdering in the promotion of his own agenda, rather than the agenda of Haliburton and Exxon/Mobile, the kind of murders in which we routinely hand out medals.
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Now, those are the facts. Bush and Cheney turned the American military into nothing less than the Crips with a dental plan, and Tookie merely took the American ethic - in which he’d been indoctrinated into all of his life - and applied it to his own environment. As far as he was concerned, he was America, and everybody else that didn’t see things his way, was the USSR.
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But the existence of the Tookies in the Black community is also partly our fault, because we’re so busy watching BET, MTV, ESPN, partying and having a good time, that we're failing to educate our own young people in OUR own values. We're allowing them to take on the very values that were responsible for our enslavement - and I'm not speaking as a detached academic from an office atop Mt. Olympus; I'm speaking as a "hood rat" . . . just like my late friend, Tookie.
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Tookie was a brilliant writer, with a brilliant mind, and he had the respect of the very young Black people we need to get through to. So his institutionalized murder was a complete waste of what could have been one our most valuable assets. His influence could have prevented the pending murders of the innocent people who are today walking around happy and smiling, and completely unaware of the horror that lies in their future.
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ODE TO TOOKIE
* Tookie? Yeah, I knew Tookie; I WAS Tookie, And I knew his pain. * I knew the pain of a child That the cold, smirking Eyes of society Peered down upon; Of being caught like A doe in the headlights Of unbridled hatred For nothing more than Just . . . being; Of being Under-acknowledged, Under-appreciated, And under-educated, By a society Intent on robbing me Of the innocence That is every child’s birthright. And I know the churning, agonizing, And unfocused anger Of a youth Who knows anger Much too soon. * So, Tookie? Yeah, I knew Tookie; I WAS Tookie, But I ain’t going out like that. * Because some the greatest minds I’ve ever known Held court while sitting on empty milk crates In the parking lot Of ghetto liquor stores; And at their feet I embraced The love of knowledge, And through their tutelage Defined self-worth In my own terms. * These were the "Eulipians"— Writers, poets, musicians, painters, And uncommon drunks— Those shade-tree philosophers who Contemplated the fungus Between the toes of society; Who danced with reckless abandon, Unfettered by formal inhibition Through the presumptuous Speculation of the ages. * Yes, the Eulipians, Who lived in county jails, Cardboard boxes, alley ways, And luxury apartments. Seemingly insignificant Here in Great Bruteland, But of ultimate significance In the eyes of God. * While these obscure intellectuals Stood well outside the mainstream Of academy, I watched with astonished delight As they sang, scat, blew, and scribed Their various philosophies into the Mainstream of human knowledge. * Tookie? Oh Yeah, I knew Tookie; I WAS Tookie, * But I met the Eulipians, Who, from their ragged podiums, Put forth the proposition That knowledge was free, thus, Would transcend attempts to be Contain through barriers of Caste and privilege - and even, Institutionalized murder - Leaving man's innate thirst For knowledge free to overwhelm His lust for stupidity. * So, Tookie, Yeah, Yes in deed, I did know Tookie; I WAS Tookie, But I choose a different tact. While I refuse to lunge Against your saber, In a glorious and defiant act, Look into my eyes, my man-- I still got my brother’s back. * You thought you had him, While facing death, But he went down like Like Trojan - Leaving your silly asses, With your silly smiles, Standing there Shocked and frozen. * "What’s up, baby, Can’t find a vein? You been beggin’ to do this, So let’s us do this thang. But if y’all Waitin’ around To see me grovelin' in pain, I ain’t the only one gon’ Die here, You jive ass, lame. * "Faint of heart? Give it here, I’ll stick the damn thang for ya; I’m a man of the hood And strong of heart, So I goin' down Like a warrior. * "Naw, my man, You don’t see no fear; You really look surprised! I’m gon’ honor my people As I leave here, So just stick me, So I can close my eyes. * "You schemed and you cheated To take me out, So let us get this on; You can still my body And take my breath, But my heart Will still live on." * So, Tookie? You mean THAT Tookie. Yeah, I knew Tookie, We’ve planted his heart Within the hood;
So what you saw as dirt, We see as soil, To sow this tragedy, Into something good. * Tookie, Oh yeah, I KNEW Tookie, But I ain’t goin’ Out like that.
WHY HILLARY CLINTON DOESN'T REPRESENT WOMEN WELL .
Can a woman become a great president? Anyone who can't answer the above question in the affirmative couldn't have been raised in the Black community. As ashamed as I am to have to admit it, it should be clear to anyone with eyeballs that the African American culture is matriarchal by it's very nature. That said, now I'm supposed to start explaining all of the conditions beyond the Black man's control that led to this state of affairs, but the fact is, I'm not predisposed to lying, so I refer you to Black Entertainment Television (BET) and you can be the judge. . Okay, had enough? . Now that you've viewed the misogynistic subculture that has all but seized the soul of the young Black male, it has to be clear that any woman who can manage to raise well rounded, productive, and stable children - by herself - in such an environment can do anything. . So, of course a woman can be a good, and even great, president, but I don't count Hillary Clinton among those women. Hillary, and many other so-called "feminists" of her generation suffer from seriously misguided views on what it truly means to be a strong and independent woman. They actually diminish the meaning of womanhood by embracing the position that the only way a woman can truly be strong and independent is by being more like a man, and Hillary has spent her entire life doing just that - trying to show America how much like a man she can be - and to the point where all vestiges of femininity are now nonexistent. . That doesn't promote the competence, intelligence, and insight of the female character; it suggests that women should abandon the "inferior" qualities that make them innately special, and take on the "superior" qualities of men. That's backward thinking. That's like a Black man thinking that the only way he can be equal to a White man is to become Archie Bunker. But Barack Obama has clearly shown that a Black man can be equal to a White man, and more, while remaining true to his nature; and Michelle Obama has demonstrated the very same point with respect to female competence. Let us not forget, Michelle used to be Barack's boss and mentor, but she has no problem with being highly feminine, and highly home oriented. Michelle doesn't feel the need to prove that she's as competent as a man, because she's comfortable in her womanhood, so she knows she is. . But Hillary is an ideologue, and all ideologues (regardless of stripe) are dangerous, because they tend to give ideology priority over truth, and intrinsic to every zealot's passion for justice lies the seeds of tyranny. So with a feminist ideologue like Hillary Clinton as president, I'd be afraid that she might send thousands of young Americans to a needless death just to prove that she can be "just as strong as a man" with respect to wreaking havoc and destruction all over the world. .
WOMEN TRYING TO BE MEN IS
ANTI-WOMAN
Hillary Clinton, and many other modern women, seem to have dedicated their entire lives to the proposition that the traditional role that women have played in society is something less than what a modern woman should aspire to. I firmly disagree with that position. While I think that a woman should be free to compete with a man in any and every area in this society, I also think the role of the traditional "housewife" has been severely undervalued in this society. What our society looks upon as a "mere housewife" is actually a mother, a psychologist, a nurse, a chef, an economist, an interior designer, and in many cases, a sex therapist for a philandering husband--and society has been going downhill every since these women were convinced that what they did wasn't worthwhile. . Remember Donna Reed? Women of Hillary's ilk tend to look down their nose at women like that, but consider this - there was no such thing as drive-bys on Donna's watch. She created a stable home environment that served to stabilize society as a whole. She did more for society from her family's house, than a Hillary clone could ever do as president from the White House. The problem with the Hillary kind of women is that they fail to recognize that fact. They see women like Donna as "quaint," and out of touch with the new feminist reality: . "One of the things that made me drop the feminist label was how cruel they were to women who said they weren't feminists, I had no problem with women who supported equality even if they didn't use the same label as me and I didn't understand WHY they [feminists] had to act like they [non-feminists] just said 'No, I hate my rights and I wish it was the 1900's again'. They just said they didn't labeled themselves as feminists, big f..king deal, it's like asking someone if they believe in God and then saying 'If you believe in God you MUST be a Catholic' when that person says they're an Orthodox Christian.
"They believe feminism is the truth and if someone is against it they're obviously wrong and deserve to be shunned until they convert, almost like religion. They're like the religious nuts that say that atheists have no morals or worship the devil, the only difference apart from politics and the like is that feminists are taken waaay more seriously than those guys. I used to laugh at the people who said it was a cult and now I think that yes, It's kinda cult-ish, If you say 'wrong stuff' they shun you and treat you like shit, they just lack a 'Feminist Overlord' or any kind of leader and initiation rituals." https://www.reddit.com/r/TiADiscussion/comments/3k1j4g/why_are_modern_feminists_outright_hostile_against/ . Many feminists completely fail to realize that women like Donna are directly responsible for who, and where they are today. So it's not Hillary that I dislike, or her chosen path in life; it's the condescending attitude of Hillary-type women towards homemakers - and I don't think I'm alone. Hillary hasn't personally done a thing to deserve the hostility that she engenders in many Americans. But while much of that hostility is directed at her, it's not about her, it's about what she represents - the degradation of America. . The American people don't have a problem with women seizing the opportunity to express their creativity and potential as human beings, but what they do resent is a handful of ambitious women attempting to further their personal goals by convincing a generation of housewives that they're being less than productive by not entering the workforce to take up arms against men. Prior to these women entering the workforce, one income was sufficient to comfortably support a family. Now, a woman must work, whether she wants to or not, just for most families to survive. The reason for that is, once women went to work and put more money into circulation, the business community simply doubled the cost of living. So what we're left with as a result of this mass exodus of housewives into the workforce is a rise in the of the cost of living, women being forced to juggle family and a full-time jobs, latchkey children, a hoard of incorrigible teenagers, a rise in workplace indiscretions, failed marriages, and skyrocketing crime - a net loss anyway you look at it. This is the culture that women like Hillary Clinton represents - the very mindset that's destroying America. .
But of course, now I'm going to be accused of wanting women to remain barefoot and pregnant, but that's not at all the case. Women should be free to go into whatever profession they choose, but if they choose homemaker as their chosen profession, they shouldn't be denigrated as "barefoot and pregnant," because as our current situation clearly demonstrates, they are actually the backbone of this society.
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This country is falling apart because we allowed the "feminists" of the sixties to sell us a bill of goods. When these women chose to pursue professions and then ran into sexism in the workplace, instead of addressing the problem within the workplace itself, they decided to hitch their wagon to the civil rights movement in order to sop up some of the gravy that the eloquence of Martin Luther King had stirred. But in order for these White, middle and upper class women to make an effective case - many of whom, living comfortably, and supported by husbands - they had to convince all of the housewives across America that they, as a class, were just as victimized as Black civil rights activists, who were not allowed to vote, couldn't find jobs, and were being attacked by police dogs.
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So while these women did have a just cause, they addressed that cause in a fraudulent manner for no other reason than to promote their own ambition - and in the process, convinced women across this land that raising a family and laying the foundation that everything else in our society is built upon was something less than a desirable pursuit. They also convinced many women that the only things that are of value in this world are those things that men do - in fact, focusing on being a lady, in itself, was a frivolous pursuit. The message was, the only way to compete with men was on a man's terms - a message that places women at a gross disadvantage.
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I have a good friend who happens to be an Asian. She's so beautiful she doesn't look real - she looks like someone drew her. In addition, she's brilliant, and one of the sexiest women I've ever laid eyes on - and she knows it. Her only shortcoming is she's bought into the nonsense that it's against the rules to use her femininity to help her get ahead. She told me one day that her boss wouldn't allow her to move up any farther in management. When I asked why, she said, her boss always tries to flirt with her and she doesn't want to play that game. So I asked her, doesn't your boss use his deep voice and intimidating personality to get what he wants? And she told me that he did. I then asked, so why shouldn't you use your beauty and feminine wiles to get what you want? You don't have to give in to your boss, just make him think you might - right after the next promotion, then the next, and the next. You don't have to give up a thing. Just keep hope alive. There's nothing immoral about that. You're simply manipulating him with your feminine beauty in the same way that he manipulates you with his masculine ability to intimidate. That was a few years back. Today she's his boss.
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So, absolutely a woman can become a great president--and quite possibly, one of the greatest presidents we've ever had. But I don't want one who thinks she has to act like a man to be successful. I want to vote for a female who's intelligent, charismatic, and well educated, yet, not afraid to stick her hands in dishwater. Yes, I want her to be professional and dignified, yet, also know the value of a short skirt and silk shiny stockings. I don't want any president who's going to try to be effective with one hand tied behind his or her back. A president should be prepared to bring every resource to bear. So if the president happens to be a woman, sure I want her to know how to be firm when she needs to be, but she should also know how to work it like it's hot.
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If a man's strong suit is intimidation, the illusion of power, and brute force, a woman's is insight, subtlety, and finesse. Once a woman loses sight of that fact, she's tying one hand behind her back.
This Is Gonna Sound Ugly, But Let's Keep It Real And Save Our Children, Black Folks
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Let's keep it real. While the crimes being committed against Black people are unconscionable, in many cases we're allowing ourselves to be victimized. Of course, there are those who are going to accuse me of blaming the victim, but the fact is, sometimes the victim is partially to blame for his situation. The concept of placing oneself in harm's way is very real, and that's exactly what we're allowing to happen in the Black community.
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Let us take an extreme example of that concept at work to make my point. If a person is told that the Klan is having a rally in an isolated location at midnight that night, the person getting that information would be perfectly within his rights if he decided to go home, comb out his Afro, put on his most colorful dashiki, and walk past the rally singing "I'm Black and I'm Proud." But if he ended up being shot or lynched and someone suggested that he had acted stupidly, it would be next to impossible for the man's family to claim that the critic was blaming the victim, because the critic would be right. Yes, the Klan definitely committed a heinous crime by killing the man, and the perpetrators should get exactly what the law prescribes for their murderous act. But we can't avoid the fact that the victim was, at the very least, partially responsible for his own demise, because he failed to utilize the common sense to ensure his own survival, and that's exactly what's happening in the Black community.
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In order to protect our interest we should be doing everything in our power to see to it that anyone who is abusive or takes any life is brought to justice. We should consider abusive behavior and the taking of life as unacceptable - period. But we're not doing that. While we go absolutely berserk (and we should) when a cop kills an unarmed Black person, we literally step over the bodies without a whimper when a home-grown criminal kills another Black person. In many cases he's made a hero of the community for being so tough. that's why so many youngsters try go for bad, and brag about their "Gats."
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That attitude not only makes our community less safe, but it lessens the chances that bad cops will be brought to justice - and there's a very clear-cut reason for that. When we allow criminals to operate with relative impunity in our community, it contributes to an environment that is so violent that potential jurors tend to give bad cops the benefit of the doubt because they see them as operating in a war zone. In addition, when we single out cops - and not EVERYONE who murders another human being - it makes us look disingenuous. It makes it look like we don't care about Black lives at all; we're just using the death of a Black person as a pretext to go after cops. As a result, jurors tend to close ranks to protect cops - even bad cops. But don't become confused over my position, I want to make it absolutely clear that I have absolutely no sympathy for either an abusive, or a murderous cop whatsoever, but with that said, I also want to make it absolutely clear that I'm equally hostile toward a murderous criminal as I am a bad cop. To me they're one and the same - they're both criminals. While one might say, "But a cop should be held to a higher standard," I disagree. EVERYBODY should be held to the SAME standard - YOU DON'T KILL PEOPLE!!! .
Thus, the Black community must mount a concerted effort to correct the conditions that tend to make the community vulnerable to injustice and abuse, because the very first thing that any society does before it commits genocide against a people is to denigrate and demonize them. That serves to dehumanize them to the point where the larger population becomes comfortable with the fact that it's okay to exterminate them - it was done to the Native Americans (savages); it was done during slavery and Jim Crow to African Americans (niggers); and it was recently done to Muslims (terrorists). But now they've added an ingenious new wrinkle to this technique. Now they're paying Black people to demonize themselves, by producing and distributing ten minute commercials around the world portraying Black people as gangsters, drug dealers, and worthless human beings.
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Okay, now here comes the ugly part that I spoke of - If we placed as much energy into education, community affairs, voting, and supporting Black businesses as we do saggin', flo-showin', and making people like Dr. Dre billionaires by calling the very womb of our culture "bitches" and "hoes," we'd be the ones running the police dept. in the black community. But many of us are much too busy trying to make it look like we've attained the "American dream" as individuals, to be bothered with trying to create a better, and more wholesome, community for our children. Our minds (including my own when I was raising my children) was more fixated on getting out of the area. African Americans are the only group of people in the world, that I can think of, who measure our self-worth by how far we can get away from our own culture. Instead of loving and supporting our culture, it's about "look at me; I ain't like the rest of y'all!" That's Willie Lynch, hard at work.
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I placed an early draft of this piece on Facebook and a well-meaning defender of the Black community by the name of Lynda said the following:
. "Who's we? Maybe you don't or your associates don't. These kinds of statements don't not reflect 'all' Black people. Just speak for yourself! When you say stupid stuff like this, it reflects on everybody."
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In response, I pointed out the following facts to Lynda:
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"What I've said reflects on enough Black people where it keeps us at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. It's also reflective enough where people can come here penniless from other countries and step right over us to become our bosses, landlords and the very people we're protesting to. So tell me one thing that I said above that's not true. The fact is, you can't. That's why you didn't do it in the first place. Instead, you just said my words were "stupid." But I beg to differ. What's stupid is SAYING my words are stupid without being able to show me HOW their stupid; and what's stupid is sticking your head in the sand because you don't like what you see on the surface. Another thing that's stupid is trying to be so supportive of your people that you support helping them commit cultural suicide instead of simply facing the truth and addressing it. Now THOSE are things that are stupid.
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"So I repeat - "If we placed as much energy into education, community affairs, voting, and supporting Black businesses as we do saggin', flo-showin' and making people like Dr. Dre billionaires, we'd be the ones running the police dept. in the black community. Now tell me, what's either stupid or untrue about that? Let me answer that for you - not a damn thing, so I won't take the time to wait around for your response.
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"Wake up lady and face reality. The Black community is hurting because there's a cancer growing in our midst and people like yourself keep insisting it's only a heat rash. You seem to feel that all we have to do is demand that the White man come and bring us a little ointment and everything will be alright. Well, let me tell you something, sister. The White establishment don't give a damn if our asses fall off - or, they has to blow 'em off. So what we need to recognize is, we can't out-scream him, because he controls the media, and we can't out fight him, because he controls the military and makes the guns; so all we can do is stop being "stupid," educate ourselves, and learn to out-think 'em.
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"But people like yourself aren't about that. You're too worried about our image. You want to just keep sittin' around saying, "We shouldn't air our dirty laundry in public?" Well, I've got one question in that regard. Where the Hell ARE we suppose to air 'em, in secret!!!? If you'll pull your head out the sand you'll see that trying to hide our dirty laundry ain't been workin' for us. The only people in the world who don't seem to see right through us is ourselves, and all that hiding our dirty laundry philosophy has led to is our kids being shot down in the street like dogs while the rest of the community is walking around in dirty draws.
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"I know it's unpleasant to face our shortcomings, but we can't correct our problems if we refuse to acknowledge them. And believe me, failing to acknowledge what's killing us is as stupid as it gets."
. I BEAR WITNESS
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I sit, I watch,
and I grow ever more obsolete
as I bear witness.
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I bear witness
to a once vibrant people greedily gulping down society’s hemlock. Even as they claim to be "keeping it real," they continue to maim, kill, and despise their own in hot pursuit of the prime directive with the passion of a sheetless Klan.
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I bear witness
to Black fists in the air in false solidarity promoted by self-serving poverty pimps as the world looks on and giggle at crooked fingers pointed elsewhere.
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I bear witness
to the superficial attempt to ban the “N-word” while the new "un-niggas" stand around watching children killing children and fathers drugging sons, as they celebrate, lionize, and enrich those who denigrate the very womb of their culture with impunity.
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I bear witness
to a generation of lost knowledge, cut off from its roots by Ronnie’s “Just say no” generation of crack, greed, death, and political corruption; A generation where the new N-word is pronounced “Responsibility” and the keepers of the flame completely ignore the destructive power of "bitch," "slut," "hoe," and "tramp."
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I bear witness
to the reckless disregard of the words "uneducated," "irresponsible," and "classless." Should we not ban these words as well, or should we ban banning words altogether as we celebrate their meaning?
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Yes, I do bear witness.
I bear witness to a new world -
a world where gross ignorance comes disguised as enlightenment, and funky sneakers look down with disdain upon the sweet smell of Florsheim; a world where saggin’ pants and gaudy glitter enable country bumpkins to masquerade as elegant, and the exquisite surrender of eloquence is the very essence of what it means to be hip.
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Where's Langston? Where's Baldwin? Where's Oscar Brown, Jr.?
We need you stormin' this beach, because . . .
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I now bear witness
to a world where motherhood stands alone, to be “dope” renders a smile, and posterity is forced to embrace the wind for paternal sustenance; A world where the walking dead strut about rapping the wisdom of idiocy, and we praise the illiteracy of vulgar nursery rhymes as profound; a world where the mother of salvation's final gasp is compared to the pigmentation of brown paper bags.
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Malcolm, Martin, where are you?
I once stood with a crowd.
Now seemingly alone,
I'm forced to bear witness -
horrific witness . . .
to the imminent demise of our people,
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And my heart bleeds. .
Eric L. Wattree http://wattree.blogspot.com/ Ewattree@Gmail.com Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA) . Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.Sphere: Related Content
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
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