PLACING KOBE BRYANT’S DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY
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PLACING KOBE BRYANT’S DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE

I placed a simple comment on Facebook, and I couldn’t believe how some people freaked out. But it struck me as a teaching moment. The response I received not only demonstrated how we’re having our minds stolen from us, but how effective that effort has been. So I think it’s worth discussing, at least briefly.
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I posted the following:

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“I was greatly saddened over Kobe's untimely death, and even more saddened by the death of his daughter, Gianna. But I'm about Kobe'ed out at this point. Millions of people have died since Kobe, so shouldn’t we be just as mournful over them? I’m a father and a grandfather more than I am anything else, so every time I hear about this tragedy it depresses me greatly – not so much about Kobe, but about his baby girl. So let’s move on – PLEASE!!!”

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In response, most people simply took it like I meant it – while I'm sorry about what happened to Kobe, we shouldn't treat it like the fall of Rome. But in a few cases, I got the kind of hostility that made it seem like I told them they shouldn’t mourn their mother, and all simply because I stated an opinion. One person told me to mind my own business, and another suggested that I should get off the social media.
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Well, I’m not getting off of social media. I expressed an opinion, and that's what people do on social media. In fact, that’s what gives social media it’s value, the many varied opinions shared on multiple subjects. Such comments are designed to stimulate the mind, and encourages people to think. So no opinion should be taboo, regardless of its content.
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Making any subject taboo is anti-intellectual, and anti-intellectualism is the establishment’s most potent tool for keeping us brainwashed. They use it to herd us like cattle. It’s called “group-think.” Anti-intellectualism is what makes it possible for people like Donald Trump to exist. If you'll notice, the dumber a person is, the more likely he is to be a Trump supporter. The reason for that is they've been trained to be guided by their emotions instead of their brain.

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In that regard, with Black people being shot and killed by police through their windows while watching television, and others dying on the street of hunger and freezing to death in the elements, and then on top of that, having a lunatic in the White House putting children in cages and trying to turn the entire damn country into a prison camp, going into deep mourning over the death of a rich man who bounced a ball for a living is a major “wakeup-and-get-a-life" moment.
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Most people can't even recite the names of the other people who died in the crash, yet their lives were just as precious as Kobe's. Thus, they're not mourning a person, they're mourning fame. So it's important for us to remember that while we might feel sorrow over Kobe's death, he wasn't Jesus. So while we should mourn the death of a family member, a situation like Kobe's rate a "I'm sorry to hear that", and move on. We might want to set a day or two aside to recall who he was, but going on and on about it is ridiculous. Yes, I mourned - I'm still in sorrow - but I'm in mourning for Gianna and her mother much more than I am for Kobe. I'm mourning over the pain it brought into their lives, not because I considered Kobe to be like Jesus. I mourn over anyone's death, not just Kobe's.
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But many of us tend to take the death of a celebrity to a ridiculous extent, and that clearly shows how much control the White man has over our minds. In spite of everything that’s happened to us since his death, some people are still mourning over Prince, and never even met the guy. I mean, give me a break! That’s not mourning, that’s called a distraction. The establishment can cut our throats, and then take our minds off  what they've done in the here-and-now by simply saying, “But wasn’t that horrible about Prince?”, and we’ll forget all about the fact that they just took school lunches from our children, stole our Medicare, and threw the elderly out on the street. We'll allow them take us to an entirely different zone and forget all about the fact that they just cut our throats.
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They’ve been playing us like that for years, so we've got to learn to remain focused and prioritize what's really important in life. I just read a comment by a conservative Trump supporter that said Martin Luther King would be against the Democrats – and it was a Black bigot hugger who said it. So in spite of all of the years since Martin's death, they're STILL trying to use the death of a Black icon to cloud our minds. It's called misdirection, or changing the subject. They do it routinely. That's why every time Trump is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, instead of trying to denying it, they say, "Yeah, but what about Obama?", and then come up with a lie you have to argue with them over, effectively changing the subject. 

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Regarding Kobe, one commenter, said, "I am not about to stop praising Black excellence." And that gets to the crux of the matter. It points out another way that they use distraction to redirect our minds. We’re being indoctrinated into accepting their view of what constitutes Black excellence. There’s no doubt about the fact that Kobe was excellent at what he did, but what Black people need to consider is, was what Kobe did intrinsically excellent in itself? The man bounced a ball for a living. What intrinsic value does that have for the Black community, or humanity as a whole? Let me answer that - solutely none. In fact, if basketball had never been invented humanity wouldn’t have even missed a beat.

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So the bottom line is, through no fault of his own, Kobe was engaged in the kind of distractions that actually hurt the Black community, because they used him to keep us focused on the frivolous rather than the serious matters in life. Black people need to be focused on the things that can move us forward as a people - things like math, science, and engineering - not on how well we can bounce a damn ball.
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Life is not a game. Playing games is for children. While the White man is grooming his kids to own the racetrack, he's dangling a carrot before ours to become the damn horse – and if you want to see how they treat horses, just look at Colin Kaepernick.

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So I’m not saying that we shouldn’t feel bad about what happened to Kobe, but we should be careful about who we enshrine as our cultural heroes. While Kobe was undoubtedly skilled at what he did, so is a mechanic, but the White establishment can use Kobe's skills to manipulate us as a people – and they do. Kobe was famous because the White man made him famous. Kobe was good, but he wasn’t special. The Black community is filled with young people with his kind of talent in many areas, but we don't freak-out if something happens to one of them. So the only thing that makes Kobe different is he was just lucky enough to be chosen by the White man for their purpose.  
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The White man controls the sports leagues, the media, and the publicity machines. And he uses that machine to keep brilliant Black minds seeking wealth and fame instead of pursuing their true excellence, the excellence that's locked within their minds. That serves the White establishment’s purpose, because without true Black excellence, and the development of our intellectual creativity, all the Kobe Bryants in the world can’t move the Black community forward.
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Kobe stands as a symbol of wealth and fame for other young Black people to aspire to if they choose to shun knowledge for celebrity. But that serves the White man's purposes, not ours. The White man selects a handful of Black people and make them superstars in order to hold millions of Black people down. So while we can, and we should, admire what Kobe accomplished, we shouldn’t worship him for a minute. We should worship knowledge. Because the White man didn't enslave us because he could beat us up - he was able to enslave us because he had a knowledge of gunpowder that we didn't possess, and he had his mind on conquest while we were thinking of other things. We can't allow that to continue to happen. It's essential that Black people learn to remain focused.
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And I’m not just blowing smoke. I believe in what I’m saying. My son, Eric Jr., is in his university's Basketball Hall of Fame, and he had several friends

that went into the NBA. When he went into high school he walked through the door as their starting center. In fact, they didn't even wait for him to get to high school. When he graduated from middle school they started working with him during the Summer. But when he graduated from college, I noticed he had already started living the celebrity lifestyle – clubbing every night, and running around in expensive cars, and hanging out with beautiful, high-living women. I didn’t like that, because I felt that it was a frivolous lifestyle, and I was losing the down-to-Earth son that I’d put so much effort into raising. So I encouraged him to pass up trying to go into the NBA and develop his mind and character and pursue a life of substance instead, and that's exactly what he did. I didn't put all of my efforts into raising a human being to make bouncing a ball the high point of his life. I felt that he had more to offer to the world, and I was right. He ended up going all over the world with the President of the United States.
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He's gone on to become quite successful and greatly admired by everyone who knows him.  Currently my grandson, Eric III, is a starting player at Oklahoma City University, and I was curious to know if my son regretted the advice that I'd given him to give up playing ball himself. So we recently discussed the subject, and he said he didn't regret it for a minute. In fact, he said, he was glad I intervened, because if I hadn't, his two sons wouldn't be here. And I know exactly where he was coming from. I wanted to be John Coltrane and go all over the world playing my saxophone, but when Eric Jr and his sister, Kai, were born, I had to make a decision, and I don't regret it for a minute either. THEY became my fame and fortune, and no amount of celebrity could replace them for a second. That's exactly why I'm sitting here writin' instead of giggin', and I'm thrilled about it. 

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ERIC III

Life is about much more than trying to be a celebrity and chasing a dollar. Life is about happiness, personal development, and enjoying your family. Eric ended up producing two sons who are following in his footsteps. Eric III, who is headed for Wall Street, and Eli, a hell of a writer, and currently in military intelligence. THEY are my claim to fame, and they can take my bows for me, because whatever they accomplish, is my accomplishment. They allow me to face any man in the world eyeball-to eyeball, regardless of his wealth and power, and challenge his greatness. I can walk into the White House and challenge Donald Trump to compare his kids to what I've produced. That gives me stature, and it says it all.
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So ballin' is fun on the playground as a child, and it can be helpful in getting a young person through college, but I've taught my kids that it's only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Our people have gone through far too much to spend our lives playing games - no matter how much they pay us. Where would we be if Martin and Malcolm had decided to dedicate their lives to bouncin' a ball, or Rosa Parks had decided to shake her ass for a living? We wouldn't be very well off, I assure you.
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Excellence breeds respect, and the Black community has ample evidence of the value of excellence,

knowledge, and character currently walking among us. Who commands more respect, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump with all of his wealth? Obama is, without a doubt. As a direct result of Barack’s excellence, he’s brought honor to our entire culture.
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Prior to Barack Obama coming along, in spite of all our athletic ability and "soul", there was a raging debate going on in this country about whether or not Black people were inherently inferior. It was being alleged by many that Affirmative Action was the only thing that allowed Black people to compete with their White counterparts. But since Barack Obama, you rarely, if ever, hear anyone trying to make that claim today – in fact, Trump spends his every waking hour trying to prove he’s even close to being as competent as Barack Obama, and as a lifelong bigot, it's driving him crazy. But Donald will just have to be content with going crazy, because he'll never be able to compete with Obama. Barack learned as a child that what we so dismissively call "soul" is actually intellectual brilliance straining to be unleashed, and he developed that brilliance into becoming one of the greatest presidents this country has ever known. He's the Charlie Parker of American politics.
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So it’s important for Black people to remember that God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. So we should always honor knowledge, character, and intellect over all other things. But the White establishment would have our Black youth believe that their highest aspiration in life should be the opportunity to run up and down some basketball court or football field with a ball. That “keeps us in our place”. But if you stop and give it just one moment’s thought, it becomes clear that any dog can outrun us. So what’s the point?

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So, again, I'm very sorry that Kobe met with the untimely tragedy that befell him, but we’ve got to keep life in perspective. People die every day, but there are a lot more important things in life to focused on other than bringing life to a standstill over a man with the ability to bounce a ball – and taking the time to develop our intellect, and devising a strategy for surviving our current condition should be at the very top of that list. We must focus on keeping our culture alive. 
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So wipe your eyes, say goodbye to Kobe, and let's focus on moving our people forward.

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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. 

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CHASING THE DOLLAR

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY
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CHASING THE DOLLAR

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Gustavo Escanelle  said, “Prince [Harry] had everything, castle, title, money, fame, what else could go wrong? We shall see, bad call on his part.”

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In response, I don't think so, Gustavo. You left out the most important thing in life - happiness. Prince Harry has just proven himself to be a REAL prince. I know that I look at him a lot differently, because he's proven himself to have character and class. On the other hand, all the stuff you listed are purely superficial. What Prince Harry has done is the stuff that fairytales are made of. This is a real-life Prince Charming, sweeping his Black princess off her feet, saying to hell with what anyone thinks, and riding off into the sunset with the love of his life. Nothing could be more beautiful.

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This is one of those moments in world history that will serve as a metaphor for what all of our lives should be, and I guarantee you that a movie is going to be made about this episode of love and devotion, and for centuries to come, people will be talking about this beautiful love story.  From this day forward, Prince Harry will always be remembered as the world’s most admired prince, because he’s carried himself like one.

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And with regard to what he’s given up, he’s gained much more than he’s lost. I've spent all of my adult life loving my family and pursuing knowledge and happiness. As a result, I've developed skills that people are willing to pay me to utilize on their behalf. Attorneys call me and offer to share a third of their fees to do legal research and brief writing for them, and I do many other things. I don't even know how much money I have in the bank. I received a $20,000 check last week and threw it in a filing cabinet, because as long as when I need money the ATM spits out the cash, it doesn't matter how much I have in the bank. But today is my daughter birthday, so what matters is, I can put a smile on her face, and my granddaughter is a Jackson State, and I can help her to focus on studying to become a doctor instead of worrying about money. 

People waste their entire lives chasing a dollar. That keeps them from enjoying their lives and family in the moment, and in the end it doesn't make them any happier, unless their idea of happiness is trying to impress others with what they can buy. But in the final analysis, while they can go out and buy a mansion, they can only live in one room at a time. So the only way they're really gonna be happy is to make themselves better and more knowledgeable than they were yesterday. We should cut out trying to impress all the middle-men and impress ourselves. That's who we're really after in the first place. Everything we do - including trying to impress others - we do to try to make ourselves feel better about who you are.

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Once, after a case came in, I had my daughter take me to a car lot and I bought a brand-new Escalade truck, in cash (for the most part). But I wasn't any happier when I drove off in it than I was when we entered the car lot. That taught me a valuable lesson in life, and I never forgot it. Yeah, all of my "friends" were impressed by my pearl white Esclade, but they weren't doin' shit for me, so why should I care about trying to impress them? All it did was kept phonies grinnin' in my face. I needed to be trying to impress myself - and that's exactly what I do today.  

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I learned that we should simply gather enough money to be comfortable and not have to live from hand to mouth. Thereafter, we should focus on intellectual development and being happy. Because life flies by, and if we spend it chasing a dollar, we'll look back one day and realize that we’ve never taken the time to enjoy the life we’ve been given. So if you really want to enjoy your life, take the time to enjoy it, and not spend all your money trying to live a lie to impress others. Because in time, the money you save just living a casual and laid-back life instead of trying to impress others can, in itself, make you rich. 
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And in that regard, who do you think is happiest, Donald Trump, with all of his alleged money, or Barack Obama? Think about that. Trump would do anything to be as brilliant, and as loved and respected as Obama, that's why he's always trying to compare himself to him. But he'll never be able to compete with Obama, because Barack has spent his entire life perfecting himself. So the difference between him and Dubious Donald is hugely apparent. In fact, if Michelle decided to run for president, Trump wouldn't have a chance, because even many Republicans would vote to get knowledge, common sense, and class back into the White House. Because NOTHING impresses people like knowledge and character - not even money – and Prince Harry has clearly demonstrated that he has both. So I wish him, his son, and his beautiful princess, much happiness.

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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. 

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THE PUEBLOS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

THE PUEBLOS

I was born in Watts – and always kept a foot in that hood because my grandparents, uncles and aunt lived there – but I grew-up in the Pueblos.  5250 Long Beach Ave. I went to Holmes Ave. Elementary School, and as a teenager and young adult my hang was 55th and Long Beach. Everybody knew me because my mother was the head nurse at the 55th St. Medical Center and she took care of them when they were cut, shot, had no insurance, or had any kind of emergency when the clinic was closed, in which case they just came to the house. The Pueblos is where I learned about Bird, Miles and Trane; and learned how not to be a follower, how to think for myself, and I absorbed the most valuable lesson of all - that humanity was full of shit. So yes, everything I know came out of the Pueblos.

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I was taught that the pursuit of knowledge was essential to avoid being manipulated and there was no excuse for failing to attain it, because knowledge was free. So by the time I went to college I already had a working knowledge of both sides of the street. I understood the importance of absorbing knowledge, but I also understood the importance of connecting the dots for myself. I was taught as a teenager that there was a big difference between “education” and cognitive development. Efficient cognition was developing the ability to think, while education, more often than not, was being TOLD what to think – that’s why we have so many fools in congress, and even more fools following them.  

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The Pueblos also taught me that while trying be an intellectual was cool, I should never forget the hood rat that is my nature, because while being an intellectual did come in handy when dealing with pretentious fools, it was the hood rat that would keep me ahead of the game and my intellect in perspective. The hood rat in me helped me to recognize that while it was good to become well versed in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, I should never forget the teachings of “Sweet Willie”, because Willie was about survival. Willie was wise, and he didn’t bullshit, so his teachings would serve to keep my ass intact.
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Thus, 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, and some of the weakest minds I’ve known paraded around university campuses giving credentials priority over knowledge. So I learned early in life to never confuse credentials with either knowledge or intellect. Educated fools are not a myth – the world is full of them.

THE HOOD RAT

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Baby,
I’m sure you know that I love you.
You’re everything I need.
You fit the bill of all my desires,
a perfect match for all of my dreams.
From the moment I first laid eyes on you,
You were everything I craved -
that luscious vision from across the tracks,
that delicate flower, beyond my blade.
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But what you ask is foreign to me.
You need something that I’m not.
You said, just tweak my nature a little bit,
and you’ll give everything you’ve got.
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But that "tweak" you need is who I am -
it’s my essence, can’t you see?
How can you speak of loving my soul, but
not the hood rat that is me?
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While "hood rat" may seem trite to you,
it’s the essence of my being.
So forget about what all the other’s say,
here’s what it means to me:
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I’ve been brutally dragged through the pits of hell,
yet, managed to survive,
well educated and fully functional,
when I came out the other side.
I scrounged the lessons taught at Harvard,
because knowledge, I found, was free.
But they’ll never obtain the lessons I’ve learned,
or the knowledge that makes me, me.
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While the "elite" may have heard a mournful Trane,
or Miles muted in the night,
not in the context of hunger and pain,
or hopelessness, hatred, and blight.
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So while I've lived the life of a hood rat,
I’ve reaped a knowledge that money can't buy;
a knowledge passed on to my son and daughter,
which has greatly enhanced their lives.
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Thus, I wouldn't change a single thing in my life -
I’ve faced Hell and passed the test.
I have a PhD in adversity,
that's made me much more,
rather than less.
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So unlike the people at Harvard and Yale, who
try to buy intellectual clout,
they only study the genius of Miles and Trane,
while I'm who they’re blowin' about.
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So when snobs try to slur me as "just a hood rat,"
I say, "thank you," and don’t take offense.
I take great pride in surviving the travails in my life,
That’s what gives me my confidence.
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The Ivy League degrees of those of means
are only paper compared to mine;
they have only a "receipt" for their knowledge,
while my knowledge is SCORCHED within my mind.
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I can teach philosophy to the Aristotle
with the adversity that I’ve endured,
so any snob who dares to match my wit
will come up short, and that’s for sure.
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Snobs walk about quoting Socrates and such,
through their "education" they’re prone;
but while they’re spewing the thoughts of various dead men,
I'm developing thoughts of my own.
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Never give the thoughts of ANY man, 
priority over the knowledge you're prone;

You must collect the facts, and think for yourself,

that’s where Harvard and Yale has gone wrong.

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Aristotle was a brilliant man,

of that we can all agree,

but when it comes right down to the bottom line,
he was only a man just like me.

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Preacher, politician, potentate,
whatever their point of view,
God didn't bless them with any knowledge
that he failed to bestow on you.
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So being seen as a hood rat has its advantages
against racists of limited wit;
I simply quietly wait for their condescension,
and then show ‘em that they ain’t shit.
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While God made birds to fly and fish to swim,
he gave man thought, and that's the key.
So any man who thinks he's half superior
will have to PROVE his wit to me.
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Thus, knowledge is the key to set us free,
no matter what the people say,
and there’s nothing more formidable than
a knowledgeable hood rat, and
that’s what you’re looking upon today.
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Yet, these are the things you want me to purge,
and spurn the life I’ve led,
but I’m sorry, my love,
as much as I love you,
the soul of a hood rat is my edge.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

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

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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. 

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NEVER BECOME SO BLACK THAT YOU FORGET YOU NEED WHITE ALLIES

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Contrary to popular belief, Black people don’t have a moral obligation to be stupid.

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  NEVER BECOME SO BLACK THAT YOU FORGET YOU NEED WHITE ALLIES

WHITE ALLIES

I started writing when my children were toddlers for two reasons - first, I decided that we should all contribute what we do best to the community, and secondly, I began to notice that many of the people I read were being self-serving. Instead of telling Black people what they NEEDED to hear, they were so interested in their own notoriety and fame that they told the people what they WANTED to hear in order to feather their own nests. So instead of educating Black people and discussing the best way to move forward, the favorite subject of many Black intellectuals was “Who could find the most creative reasons to hate the White man?” – and that was even as they cozied up to that very same White man for book deals, professorships, and television facetime.
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I decided that didn’t help Black people at all. But then, they weren't writing to help Black people. It’s was all about capitalism – the very same thing that was responsible for Black enslavement in the first place. I used to complain to my wife about it all the time, and she had a simple solution – “Well, you do it.” She was right, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
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If Black people are going to move forward, we can't continue to say that all of our problems are the White man’s fault. No, we shouldn’t ignore all of the atrocities that this White supremacist society has committed against Black people, but we shouldn’t dwell upon it either, because sitting in the corner with our lips poked out is not gonna get us anywhere. We must maintain the clarity of mind and objectivity to recognize that many of our problems are a result of our own dysfunction. If we fail to do that, even if every White man on the face of the Earth disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have problems.

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We’re not so weak-minded that the White man controls our every thought and action. It’s not the White man’s fault when we leave our sisters with a house full of babies and then walk away to allow them to either sink or swim on their own; it’s not the White man’s fault that we choose to abuse drugs instead of cultivating our minds, and it’s not the White man’s fault that we think it’s manly to blow one another’s brains out on the street. That’s our fault, because we refuse to make the pursuit of knowledge the new “soul”.
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But I found a perfect example of this kind of flawed thinking while browsing the internet in a post written by a Black Ph.D. – in EDUCATION, no less! She writes the following:

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“‘The students, all convicted of felonies, earned associate degrees by

PRISON SCHOLARS

completing 60 credits in courses taught by Washington U. professors. They take two to four classes each semester, all for free. Course offerings this spring included Chinese Civilization, Introduction to Macroeconomics and Greek Mythology. --Excerpt.'  On the surface, this looks like two institutions are working together for the greater good of those incarcerated men. They are. On the surface . . .

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“At the very least, these listed course offerings are a bit dubious when considering any ability to get a well paying job upon release, or using this gained *knowledge* of Chinese Civilization or Greek Mythology to open their own businesses. Of course one can hope the student convicts also got Business Management and other usable courses. What do you think?”

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The very first thing that jumped out at me was in the good doctor’s attempt to make her point - which seems to be that the effort to educate these inmates was nothing more than window-dressing that failed to give the inmates the education needed to survive in the real world - in her restatement of the courses provided, she conveniently left out the most important course in that regard – Macroeconomics. That clearly betrayed her motive.  She was much more interested in criticizing the program than she was in relating truth and objectivity.

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BERNIE SANDERS FIGHTING
FOR CIVIL RIGHTS DURING THE 60S

Every Black person in America (with the possible exception of Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson) know that White supremacy is real, but the good doctor took it a step further to profile and impugn the motives of  even the White folks who are TRYING to do the right thing. While that may make her look like a no-nonsense Black warrior, that only feathers her own nest among the non-thinkers among us, but it’s not in the Black community’s best interest.
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Since Black people are only 14.6% of the population, we need allies, and the good doctor’s brand of rhetoric only serves to turn potential allies off in droves.  In fact, it can be argued that Donald Trump became president the second that the sisters from Black Lives Matter went on stage and snatched the microphone from Bernie Sanders. Say what you will about their motives, but it was piss-poor judgment.

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No one’s more pro-Black than I am, but their actions even pissed me off, so I know it turned millions of White people off. We often tend to forget that when seeking allies, image counts - and our failure to recognize that fact is undoubtedly one of our huge problems. When some of us gain the spotlight, instead of focusing on the big picture we can't seem to resist the urge to put on a performance for the public, and we invariably go overboard.

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The Black community must always remember that we can’t out-scream the White establishment, because they control the media, and we can’t out-fight them because they control the military and police, so our only option is to out-think them, and this “educator” is not doing that.
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We can not only gain leverage by force, we can gain leverage through knowledge. In order for the powers that be to maintain power and promote their agenda they must keep the population undereducated. That presents the Black community with an excellent opportunity to level the playing field. While everyone else is being dumbed-down, we should be gorging ourselves on knowledge. As usual, our sisters are ahead of the game in recognizing that fact, but now we’ve got to get the Black man’s attention. Many Black men are so busy either struggling to make a living, or trying to be cool, that we’re completely missing the point. But these inmates have had the time to think, and they’ve become immune to the poverty pimps playing on their misery to feather their own nests.

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BLACK WOMEN HAVE BECOME THE MOST EDUCATED GROUP IN THE UNITED STATES

"Black women are now the most educated group in US, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 per cent of associate's degrees, 66 per cent of bachelor's degrees, 71 per cent of master's degrees and 65 per cent of all doctorate degrees awarded to black students.

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"By both race and gender, a higher percentage of black women (9.7 per cent) is enrolled in college than any other group, including Asian women (8.7 per cent), white women (7.1 per cent) and white men (6.1 per cent)."

So articles like the one referenced here, where a Black Ph.D. takes the constructive efforts of a prison and university system coming together to allow the inmates to earn college degrees, and then turning that constructive and well-meaning act into an insidious White supremacist conspiracy is destructive to the Black community. It not only promotes division and dysfunction within society as a whole, but it also represents a gross assault on simple common sense.  After all, how can educating Black prisoners possibly promote White supremacy!!!? They could have done more in that regard by just allowing them to rot in their cells.

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That’s why I went out of my way to address this issue. The Black community must start looking forward and focusing on ways to improve our condition instead wasting our time looking for every way in which the White establishment has undermined us. We already know we’ve been undermined, so we should simply take that overall knowledge and begin to address the issues that made it possible – and the simple answer to that is a lack of knowledge.

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The White man wasn’t able to enslave Black people because he could beat us up, he was able to enslave us because he had a knowledge of gunpowder that we didn’t possess. Thus, the source of our enslavement was a lack of knowledge, so the key to our liberation is to embrace the pursuit of that same knowledge as a way of life. Yet, the writer in question seems to have found a reason to criticize that pursuit.

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When I was a kid and going in and out of jail, the bulls used to laugh at my budding intellect. That was their favorite pastime, laughing at the ignorance of young Black men. I didn’t like being laughed at, so that’s what set me on my journey in pursuit of knowledge. As a result of that pursuit, I can now laugh at their dumb asses, and I often do, and with great joy.

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The most effective way of killing a bigot without having to go to jail is to be

ACTIVISTS PROJECT OBAMA VS. TRUMP APPROVAL RATINGS

ON TOWER OF LONDON DURING TRUMP VISIT

able to clearly demonstrate that he’s intellectually inferior to you, because it’s kinda hard to call your superior a nigga. I know, because I’ve made bigots choke on the word many times.  In fact, that’s become MY favorite pastime. That’s why just the thought of Barack Obama drives Trump crazy. Every time Trump thinks of Barack, he dies a thousand deaths. So the most effective response to White supremacy is Black excellence, not sitting in the corner with our lips poked out and talking about how mean the White man is.  That doesn’t demonize the White man, that deifies him. So we should teach our children, FROM BIRTH, that adversity is our friend, because it’s a source of knowledge that makes us MORE rather than less.

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For that very reason, one of the most important lessons we must learn in life is to ALWAYS give truth and knowledge priority over ideology. While it’s not always comfortable, and it may not always make you popular, we should ALWAYS follow truth wherever it leads, and regardless to whose ox it gores. Thereafter, if truth makes you feel uncomfortable, that serves as an indication that you’re confronting an issue that needs to be addressed.

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And finally, the good doctor ended her article with a question. She asked, “Will having a degree protect them [the inmates] from the ravages of racism and its expressions?” In response, I have a question for her – does yours?

THE HOOD RAT

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Baby,

I’m sure you know that I love you.
You’re everything I need.
You fit the bill of all my desires,
a perfect match for all of my dreams.
From the moment I first laid eyes on you,
You were everything I craved -
that luscious vision from across the tracks,
that delicate flower beyond my blade.
*
But what you ask is foreign to me.
You need something that I’m not.
You said, just tweak my nature a little bit,
and you’ll give everything you’ve got.
*
But that "tweak" you need is who I am -
it’s my essence, can’t you see?

How can you speak of loving my soul, 

but not the hood rat that is me?

*
While "hood rat" may seem trite to you,
it’s the essence of my being.
So forget about what all the other’s say,
here’s what it means to me:
*
I’ve been brutally dragged through the pits of hell,
yet, managed to survive,
well educated and fully functional,
when I came out the other side.
I scrounged the lessons taught at Harvard,
because knowledge, I found, was free.
But they’ll never obtain the lessons I’ve learned,
or the knowledge that makes me, me.
*
While the "elite" may have heard a mournful Trane,
or Miles muted in the night,
not in the context of hunger and pain,
or hopelessness, hatred, and blight.
*
So while I've lived the life of a hood rat,
I’ve reaped a knowledge that money can't buy;
a knowledge passed on to my son and daughter,
which has greatly enhanced their lives.
*
Thus, I wouldn't change a single thing in my life -
I’ve faced Hell and passed the test.
I have a PhD in adversity,
that's made me much more,
rather than less.
*
So unlike the people at Harvard and Yale, who
try to buy intellectual clout,
they only study the genius of Miles and Trane,
while I'm who they’re blowin' about.
*
So when snobs try to slur me as "just a hood rat,"
I say, "thank you," and don’t take offense.
I take great pride in surviving the travails in my life,
That’s what gives me my confidence.
*
The Ivy League degrees of those of means
are only paper compared to mine;
while they have a "receipt" for knowledge obtained,
my lessons are ETCHED within my mind.
*
I can teach philosophy to Aristotle
with the adversity that I’ve endured,
so any snob who tries to match my wit,
will come up short, and that’s for sure.
*
Snobs walk about quoting Socrates and such,
through their "education" they are prone;
but while they’re spewing the thoughts of various dead men,
I spend my time developing my own.
*
Never give the thoughts of ANY man
priority over our own;
You must collect the facts, and think for yourself,
that’s where Harvard and Yale has gone wrong.
*
Preacher, politician, potentate,
whatever their point of view,
God didn't bless them with any knowledge
that he failed to bestow on you.
*
So being seen as a hood rat has its advantages
against racists of limited wit;
I simply quietly wait for their condescension,
then show ‘em that they ain’t shit.
*
While God made birds to fly and fish to swim,
he gave man thought and that's the key.
So any man who thinks he's superior
will have to PROVE his wit to me.
*
Thus, knowledge is the key to set us free,
no matter what the people say,
and there’s nothing more formidable than
a knowledgeable hood rat, and
that’s what you’re looking upon today.
*
Yet, these are the things you want me to purge,
and spurn the life I’ve led,
but I’m sorry, my love,
as much as I love you,
the soul of a hood rat is my edge.
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http://wattree.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-hood-rat.html

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com

Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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