KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BLACK: FREDERICK DOUGLASS - ONE OF THE GREATEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BLACK: 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS - ONE OF THE GREATEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED

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HE LIVED TO LOOK DOWN UPON THOSE WHO ENSLAVED HIM

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America's Independence Day:
"A thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace
a nation of savages!"

You think Malcolm was militant in the 1960s? in 1852 - nine years BEFORE the Civil War - back when even "nice" White folks would lynch a brother if given sufficient cause, Douglass told America that he considered their Fourth of July celebration a "mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages!"
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Born in February of 1818, escaped from slavery, and self-educated, he became one of the most prolific and sought after orators and writers of his time. Douglass was what many brothers of today pretend to be. He epitomized what it meant to be cool, but with one big difference - it wasn't contrived, and he had a powerful, focused, and very serious mind to go along with his suave demeanor. He, this former slave, had the kind of powerful intellect that would allow him to sit with presidents as a peer. He wasn't just against slavery, he did something about it. If you're Black, this man spoke up on your behalf, and he was also a fierce defender of women's rights.
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"Mr. Douglass was a regularly-enrolled member of the National Women's Suffrage Association, and had always attended its conventions. It was probably with a view to consistency in this respect that he appeared at Metzerott Hall. Although it was a secret business session of the Council, Mr. Douglass was allowed to remain, and when the meeting had been called to order by Mrs. May Wright Sewall, the President of the Council, she appointed Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna H. Shaw a committee to escort him to the platform, where most of the delegates, not more than fifty in number, were sitting. Mrs. Sewall presented Mr. Douglass to the Council, and contenting himself with a bow in response to the applause that greeted the announcement, he took a seat beside Miss Anthony, his lifelong friend."

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Douglass was way ahead of his time, a 21st century man living in the 19th century. If you're Black, or a woman, he was fighting for your interest long before you were born - and he wasn't just respectfully whining for a little justice; he was out for a pound of flesh  He convinced Abraham Lincoln to enlist Black troops into the union army, and he helped to organize the famed 54th Massachusetts Regiment for a little pay-back over the brutality or slavery.
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THE 54TH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT
MEMORIAL

". . . the 54th was widely acclaimed for its valor during the battle, and the event helped encourage the further enlistment and mobilization of African-American troops, a key development that President Abraham Lincoln once noted as helping to secure the final victory. Decades later, Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor for grabbing the U.S. flag as the flag bearer fell, carrying the flag to the enemy ramparts and back, and singing 'Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!' While other African Americans had since been granted the award by the time it was presented to Carney, Carney's is the earliest action for which the Medal of Honor was awarded to an African American."
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Douglass was both a musician, and a ladies man, and he was sought after with affection by many of the sophisticated and highly placed White women of the time. Historian and scholar Playthell Benjamin describes Douglass in his, Commentaries On The Times, as "six foot four and over two hundred pounds, with a the well muscled body of a blacksmith and the handsome countenance of a leading man of the theater, a gift for language – historian and biographer Benjamin Quarles says Douglass seemed incapable of writing a bad line – and blessed with a marvelous vocal instrument which, when wedded to his mastery of rhetoric, had the power to move masses to action in behalf of his cause, a cause that included the emancipation of women, Frederick Douglass was a sexual magnet to the ladies, especially educated white ladies."
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He told racist America, "This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine." Indeed, he says, to ask a black person to celebrate the white man's freedom from oppression and tyranny is "inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony."
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And he had a little something to say to the jackleg preachers of the time as well. ". . . the church of this country is not only indifferent to the . . . [bad treatment of] the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the . . . [defender] of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent . . . [preachers], who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world . . . [as] Christianity."
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THESE ARE THE EYES OF A FREE BLACK MAN.
ARE THEY YOUR EYES?  WILL THEY BE THE EYES OF YOUR SON(S)?

So what we have in Douglass is a handsome, suave, and debonair Black man, living in pre-Civil War America, yet, had the knowledge and intellect to command enough respect to live life the way he saw fit. He counseled the President of the United States, he 'dated' who he felt like 'dating' (Black or White), and he had the courage to tell White America that their celebration of the Fourth of July was "a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages!" But in spite of Douglass' in-your-face outspokenness, which certainly would have gotten a lesser Black man lynched, he received several presidential appointments.
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So Douglass was one hell of a guy, and young Black men of today could learn a lot about what it means to be a true Black man by studying his legacy. In order to command the kind of respect that Douglass enjoyed during a time when other Black men were looked upon as scarcely more than animals, he had to be a unique man among men and have some serious 'street creds.' Because he lived life the way he wanted to live, and he said exactly what he wanted to say - and without looking down at his feet. He dealt with every man eyeball-to-eyeball, and he didn't care who they were. Yet, he had no 'posse,' no 'crew,' and absolutely no backup. It was just Fred, and his manhood, against the world. But obviously, that was enough.
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So one of the important lesson that today's young Black men can learn from Douglass is what it MEANS to be a Black man. Today, many of our young men are all swagger and no substance, while Douglass was all substance and no swagger. That's what it means to be a man. Swaggerin' is a device designed to hide a LACK of manhood, so you'll find a wimp behind most swagger. Douglass didn't have to swagger. He had knowledge, resolve, and a serious sense of purpose that the world could see in his eyes, and again, that was enough.
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Douglass's first autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," published in 1845 (When he was 27 years old). At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe.
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Frederick Dougalss died at 78 years old on February 20, 1895. He was living in a sumptuous manor on Cedar Hill, looking down upon those who had enslaved him.

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OBITUARY

Death Of Fred Douglass

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 20--Frederick Douglass dropped dead in the hallway of his residence on Anacostia Heights this evening at 7 o'clock. He had been in the highest spirits, and apparently in the best of health, despite his seventy-eight years, when death overtook him . . . (MORE)
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0207.html
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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.

Sphere: Related Content

About Knowledge, Intellect, and Critical Thinking

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

About Knowledge, Intellect, and Critical Thinking

I was just sitting here thinking about my good friend, Playthell Benjamin. While I’m a firm believer in becoming one’s own hero, I really admire this guy, almost to the point of jealousy. I think he’s one of the great, and most under-recognized, writers and historians of our time (if you’re not familiar with him, look him up on Google). The reason I enjoy reading Playthell is because his writings always contain a wealth of information. That’s his brilliance. Regardless to what the subject, he’s a literal reservoir of information, and I’ve undoubtedly become a better writer as a result of reading him. Reading his writings have taught me to scrupulously avoid superficiality, and to look beneath the carpet of my subject matter to drive my points home.
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But we have a fundamental difference in the way we view the White academic establishment. He’s in awe of it (after all, it produced him), while I have a very critical view of contemporary academia, especially with respect to Black intellectual development. That’s one of two subjects that we never miss an opportunity to fight over. The other is the impact of sports on the Black community.
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Like most Black intellectuals, Playthell fully embraces the White academic establishment and considers being anointed by it what it means to be truly educated. I don’t. While I understand, and respect, what the White academic establishment has achieved in the physical sciences, I find it to be hugely flawed in what I consider the "Speculative Arts" - history, philosophy, politics, economics, and such. What it tends to produce is a bunch of establishment-serving clones. While the knowledge is definitely there - and every Black person alive should leave no stone unturned to avail themselves of it - it should be consumed with two boxes of salt, because it tends to be skewed toward promoting the prevailing interest of the establishment.
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Thus, we cannot trust the academic establishment to tell us who’s "brilliant," because the people who it anoints as brilliant are those who tend to embrace the establishment’s mindset. While these people often have opposing views on any group of facts, they all tend to base their thinking on the same philosophical assumptions. For example, the assumption that the White establishment’s water is wetter than everyone else’s.
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For that reason, I firmly believe that Black people should establish their own intellectual traditions, and we should put brutally critical thinking at the very root of that tradition. We should critically scrutinize EVERY fact that we’re exposed to before we accept it as a part of our data base, and any "fact" that doesn’t stand up to logical scrutiny should be unceremoniously discarded, and that's regardless to whether it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside or not. 
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For example, we shouldn’t accept the contention that Dr. Brainchild is a brilliant man simply because he taught at Harvard. We should ALWAYS listen to what Dr. Brainchild has to say, and make the determination on whether he’s brilliant or not for OURSELVES. And we should never assume that if he doesn’t seem to make sense, or if he speaks in convoluted sentences that cause us to forget the subject matter before he gets to a period, that we simply don’t understand him due to our lack of intellect or education. If we fail to do that, we’re allowing the establishment to tell us who to listen to, and that allows us to be played. We should never give anyone else's ability to think priority over our own.  Both the GOP, and Fox News', very existence is based on people's willingness to allow others to think for them, and we're all paying a huge price for it. So if Dr. Brainchild is indeed as brilliant as the establishment claims he is, he should be able to communicate clearly, logically, and on a level that anyone can understand. If he can't, we should immediately write him off as just another academic lip flapper living on dubious credentials - and there are plenty of them out there.
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Black people, and Americans in general, need to understand that knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence are very different things from merely obtaining a degree. Malcolm didn’t even go to college; he got his education in jail, but who do you think was the more profound thinker, Malcolm X, or Cornel West?
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While I’m a great proponent of formal education, we must never forget that knowledge started with individual and independent thought, and only then, were educational institutions established to disseminate that thought. Thus, we don’t get knowledge, wisdom, and intellect from institutions - they get it from us. So we should never assume that because an individual has a "receipt" from Harvard that his thinking is any more profound than our own. After all, George W. Bush has a receipt from Yale.

RELATED MATERIAL

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BLACK AMERICA:

BLACK AMERICA: OUR HISTORY LIES BEFORE US

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2008/12/black-america-our-history-lies-before_31.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.

Sphere: Related Content

The Beneficial Yet Harmful Impact of Sports On The Black Community

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

The Beneficial Yet Harmful Impact of Sports On The Black Community

I’ve been debating the pros and cons of the impact of sports on the Black community with my good friend, historian, and political commentator, Playthell Benjamin for several years now. Playthell is a huge sports fan and is of the belief that sports have been invaluable in their impact on helping to move the Black community forward. I, on the other hand, see sports as a two-sided coin. While sports have undoubtedly been of great value in helping many young Black people to build character, obtain an education, and financially prosper, in terms of the overall Black community these people represent a limited few. For the greater part of the Black community, however, the lure of sports often serves as a distraction that prevents many from investing in their intellectual development and pursuing more realistic goals.

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I view sports much like I do morphine. In small doses it can be of great medicinal value against pain, but if you overdo it, it can destroy your life, and it seems to me that many in the Black community are about to overdose from a lack of substance as a result of its abuse, both literally, and figuratively.

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So I’m not against sports, per se, but I do think that sports should be kept in perspective. It’s perfectly natural for kids to want to indulge in games, but while they are indulging in these games it’s very important that the adults in their lives constantly remind them that sports represent the "Toy Department" of life, and that there are many other things in life that are much more important. But due to our mass societal fixation on sports, and the virtual "worship" of sports figures, they’re rarely getting this instruction. As a direct result, we’ve become a society of easily manipulated, undereducated, and totally distracted sports junkies. 

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Many in this country can tell you the starting lineup and various statistics of every football team in the country, but they can’t tell you who their congressperson is, how they voted, or what they voted on. That’s not good, and it’s having a negative impact on not only the Black community, but the nation as a whole.

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What many people fail to realize is how profoundly their thinking can be shaped by social manipulators through the use of sports and other forms of public "entertainment." The passion engendered through sports allows social manipulators to circumvent an individual’s cerebral cortex, or intellect, and exploit a direct line to the fan’s brain stem, or the most animalistic and condition-receptive part of their brain. That allows manipulators to condition an individual’s thinking and attitudes without the individual even recognizing it.
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Thus, it’s no accident that some of the most rabid sports fans are found in the most bigoted parts of this country, and neither is it an accident that Black people were discriminated against in sports until quite recently, and they still haven't been fully accepted. It's only been a relatively short time since Black players were accepted as having the intellectual agility to be a quarterback. There was a huge controversy over the issue, as though it takes an intellectual giant to throw a ball. The actual problem was ignorant, backward, and "tribal-like" thinking (when Rush Limbaugh entered the controversy that said it all). Black people were - and still are, in many cases - considered a part of the "wrong team," or tribe. 

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You see, sports appeal to, stimulate, and feed upon the very worst characteristics in human nature, or what’s referred to as the "Seven Deadly Sins" - wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. "Each is a form of Idolatry-of-Self wherein the subjective reigns over the objective." The very point of sports is to prove that "I’m better than you." Sports also promotes the "Us against them" mentality that’s at the very root of every form of bigotry - racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.
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Sports are based completely on man’s need to be competitive, and competition has been so deeply ingrained in our societal psyche that many Americans can’t even imagine life without it. Yet, man’s animalistic need to be competitive is the most thoughtlessly malevolent characteristic in man. It’s not a part of man’s higher intellectual development. The need to be competitive is an animalistic brain STEM behavior that’s a throwback to our instinct to be territorial as apes before we gained the capacity for higher intellectual cognition. Thus, it’s not based on anything constructive. It’s based purely on greed, self-centered idolatry, and swag, and it’s serving to kill us off as a species. It’s directly responsible for ALL of the wars in the history of humanity, crime, bigotry, bligotry (Black-on-Black bigotry), and even global warming. In short, it’s complete insanity.
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But most Americans have blindly accepted the proposition that it’s our "competitive spirit" that makes this nation great. But what evidence do we have of that? How do we know that we wouldn’t have been even greater if we’d embraced a philosophy of enlightenment and the pursuit of excellence with the same amount of zeal as we’ve pursued the need to say, "I’m better than you?"  And why must our national motive be to be "the greatest nation on Earth?" We'd UNDOUBTEDLY be much greater if we’d resolved to compete against who we WERE to become the greatest nation that we can BE. How many minds do we have locked up in the nation’s prison systems who may have the unique intellect to solve the world’s problems? Is it possible that due to this nation’s "us against them" mentality that they might have lynched the very person who might have found a cure for cancer?  
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So personally, I believe that our overzealous need to be competitive is both childish, dysfunctional, and less than efficient in moving the nation, or humanity, forward. It would be interesting to see the results of an experiment where they took two football teams and trained one in the traditional way, and trained each member of the other team to focus on nothing but improving on their last best effort. They should be trained to forget all about "beating" the opposing team, and simply focus on beating their last best performance. If a given player’s last best effort was gaining 30 yards, he should be exclusively focused on gaining 31 yards in the current game. In such a match-up, I'm virtually certain that the latter team would prevail if all other things are equal.
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Now, if you’re a lifelong sports fan, you’re probably reading this and saying, "That’s ridiculous." But it’s not surprising that you feel that way, because your conditioning is so ingrained, and so deeply seated at this point that you can’t even recognize the dysfunction in something that you've embraced and loved all of your life. It's like a religion, or someone raised to believe in Voodoo - sticking pins in dolls seems like a perfectly natural way of life to them. So let me give you an example of how the system works, and how you're being manipulated.

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When a fan goes to a football game, what a fan THINKS he sees are two teams on a football field with the coaches and their staff on the sideline. But what the fan’s subconscious and emotions see are two armies on the battlefield preparing to go into combat, with two generals and their staffs on the sidelines. And that’s not by accident, because the spectacle is DESIGNED to psychologically condition every male in the stadium to be willing to go into combat and sacrifice his life in a blaze of illustrious glory for "The Gipper" - or The Standard Oil Company. The very same is true of the "All-American" pastime of baseball and other sports.

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Social manipulators also use sports to condition unsuspecting Americans to believe that thinking is for wimps - and this has a particularly negative impact on the Black community. Have you ever noticed how they portray college football "heroes" in the movies? They always show them standing next to their shiny new pimped-out cars, wearing their letterman’s "uniform," and with adoring girls hanging all over ‘em. Then they’ll invariably contrast them with their portrayal of the "intellectual wimp" - or the guy who’s ultimately going to end up the school’s valedictorian and most prepared to solve the world's problems - as a nerd. Again, they invariably portray the school’s intellectual as a small little guy wearing oversized horn-rimmed glasses, walking all bent over with a arm full of books, and with his sweater buttoned improperly - or Steve Urkel, as it were.  That sends an unmistakable message to young boys - thinking’s not cool; if you want to get the women and the best things in life, you should aspire to be a dumb and clueless gladiator who’s willing to give your all on command. That serves two purposes - first, it keeps America clueless and ignorant, and secondly, it keeps the military recruiter’s office full.

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In contrast, look at these young people at George Mason University come together to combine their personal growth, skill and knowledge - a knowledge that they'll possess and be able to call upon for the rest of their lives - to produce excellence.  Then once you've seen it, take a moment to ask yourself the following questions: Who do you think is getting the most funding, this fine band, or the football team? Who do you think is making the big bucks, this obviously talented music professor, or the football coach? And finally, who do you think is contributing more to the intellectual development of the students, the professor, or the coach? Those are questions that our entire society should be pondering.

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Ironically, the tune that the band is playing is called  "Rage Against The Machine."

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Thus, sports are DESIGNED to appeal to the emotions and a man’s most basic, animalistic, and infantile need - the need to be macho, and the need to prove it by showing that he’s better than other men. That’s fine when you’re a kid, because a kid needs to test his or her resolve, and to learn what it’s like to hone new skills, face challenges, and overcome disappointment. So there’s nothing wrong with sports for a kid, as long as they’re being instructed against allowing themselves to be brainwashed, and they are taught that participating in sports is just a MEANS to an end, and not an end in itself. They should also be helped to understand that participating in sports is not about "beating" the other guy; it’s about testing their own limits.  It's merely a dress rehearsal to prepare them to face the REAL challenges of manhood, like raising a family.
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Thus, young Black people need to be taught very early in life that the only mature and constructive form of competition is to compete against the person they were the day before. If they learn that lesson well, they’ll spend their lives investing in THEMSELVES, and becoming their own heroes, instead of wasting their lives trying to live vicariously through the meaningless exploits of some guy on a football field.  If that's what a person's life is about, by definition, they don't have one.
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But I agree with my good friend, Playthell, in one sense - sports can be a very valuable asset to the Black community, but only if we teach Black youth to keep that "one for the Gipper" nonsense in perspective. If we manage to do that, sports can provide the Black community with a great opportunity. We are currently living in a political environment where powerful interests have a vested interest in dumbing-down the American people, and one of the Black community’s most valid complaints is that Black people are not afforded the opportunity to "play on a level playing field." Thus, if while the powers that be are hard at work dumbing-down the rest of America - and they're using sports among other things to do exactly that - if Black people begin to focus on education, intellectual development, and the power of knowledge, the impact of sports on the rest of America can help us to level the playing field to our advantage.
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So the point is, 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, but we can out-think them, and that’s exactly what we should focus on doing, not playing frivolous games in the mere pursuit of some kind of meaningless personal "glory(?)." So yes, we should take advantage of the opportunities that sports represent, but while doing so, we should never lose sight of what they actually are - GAMES.  So in this case, instead of keeping our eye on the "ball," we should make it a point to keep our eye on the big picture.
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So a good analogy of my position is this - if a Black person goes to the race track, it's past time for us to start focusing on owning the track, not becoming the horse.

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Related Material
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"When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout."
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"Giant Steps" - John Coltrane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kotK9FNEYU

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Is Our Competitive Spirit Helping or Hurting America?

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-beneficial-yet-harmful-impact-of.html
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A CALL TO ARMS FOR THE ENLIGHTENED GENERATION:

LET US MAKE OUR FINAL ENCORE MAGNIFICENT!

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-call-to-arms-for-enlightened.html

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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

Debate On Truth, The Black Church, and Dr. Amos Wilson

BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

Debate On Truth, The Black Church, and Dr. Amos Wilson

(Eric L. Wattree and Playthell Benjamin)

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PLAYTHELL:
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Eric,
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I just noticed that you didn't read my original post in response to the video on Dr. Amos because you couldn't read either of our statements. So I am going to post them.
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My Response to Renaldo:
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"Since you posted this on my wall with great fanfare Renaldo, I feel compelled to respond. I do not wish to debate; simply to make a declarative statement. I knew Amos Wilson well. I thought he was a frustrated nihilist and his speeches little more than public temper tantrums. Dr. Franz Fanon he is not!
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Every psychiatrist who becomes enraged by the social pathologies they observe from their practice - which is treating individual personality disorders - and want to affect the larger social milieu seems to think they are the next Franz Fanon. However the difference between Dr. Fanon and Dr. Wilson is that Fanon was a leader of a real revolution that lasted seven years and cost a million and a half lives, while Wilson was a bourgeois black nationalist who tells black audiences they ain't shit and gets paid, and even praised by some.
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I was not impressed with Wilson when he was alive, and I am less impressed now. If I saw black people as the hopeless helpless pathetic figures he makes us out to be I WOULD CUT MY THROAT RIGHT NOW!!!!! "Church going, law abiding Negroes" are the greatest danger to our community???? REALLY????
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Well I was raised by such folks and I've met so many people from all nations that I feel like I've been around the world and spoke to everybody twice: BUT I HAVE NEVER MET ANY FINER FOLKS THAN THEM, NOR ANYBODY I AM MORE IMPRESSED WITH THAN MYSELF!!!!! JUST SAYIN. And by the way, nobody who talks to the people he hopes to lead with such gross disrespect has EVER BUILT A SUCCESSFUL MOVEMENT ANYWHERE!!!! That's the real reason he remained a fringe figure!!!!!!!"
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WATTREE:

Playthell,
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I'm listening to this brother critically, and what I've heard so far is truth. Truth is simply truth, and it's no respecter of race, creed, nor color. While I want our people to be seen in the best possible light just like anyone else, if we seek to move forward, we must be prepared to accept some painful truths. Because the pain of truth is like physical pain - yes, it's uncomfortable, but that discomfort serves a very useful purpose - it alerts us to important issues that need to be addressed.
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Thus, as I see it, the difference between an efficient thinker and an ideologue is an efficient thinker gives truth priority over ideology, while an ideologue attempts to contort truth into a configuration that fits comfortably into what he wants to believe. So I see Dr. Wilson’s brutal honesty as an indication that he was an efficient thinker who believed in following truth wherever it led, and regardless to whose ox it gored. Thereafter, he seems to suggest, if we don't like where truth leads, we should seek to modify the destination, not truth.
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So, again, I've listened to this brother very carefully, and I haven't been able to dispute anything he's said. But then, I don't profess to corner the market on either truth, intellect, nor wisdom. So if you can demonstrate to me where this brother is in error with respect to his assessment of the collective mores of our people, I'd appreciate the education.
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And finally, everybody is not out to lead a movement. Some people simply want to contribute their thinking to the marketplace of ideas. I count myself as among that group. I'm not out to convert people into becoming my followers, and so far, I haven't heard anything to suggest that this brother is, or was, either - but then, you undoubtedly know more about him than I do, and as you know, I have great respect for your opinion, so I'll keep an ear open for any demagoguery, but I haven’t heard any indication of that as yet.
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PLAYTHELL:
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Perhaps you had better take a closer look at my critique. First of all I am and have been an atheist for over fifty years!!! So I need no lectures on the shortcomings of religious dogma. But this is some self-destructive bullshit - as defined by the Princeton philosopher Dr. Edward G Franks in his book "BULLSHIT." It is ahistorical nonsense to say that "Law abiding, church going Negroes" are the cause of the black community's problems.
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It is no exaggeration to say - as a matter of HISTORICAL FACT - that the black church is at the root of EVERYTHING POSITIVE THAT HAS HAPPENED IN OUR HISTORY!!! The abolitionist movement against slavery and the Civil Rights Movement WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT IT!!!!! And in the 19th Century, THE BLACK CHURCH WAS THE PRINCIPLE SOURCE OF THE BLACK NATIONALISM that Amos claims to revere. Frederick Douglass was an ordained minister in the black church - Christian Methodist, Nat Turner was a folk preacher, Dr. King was a Baptist, and all of the early black nationalist thinkers and activist were CHRISTIAN MINISTERS!!!!
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Hence Amo's speech is some confused ahistorical bullshit!!!! AND THAT'S A FACT!!! I will read your essay and comment later (and if you really are arguing the same thing as Amos, well what I have said here applies equally to you). However, right now I want to examine Dr. Amos' argument. And aside from the fact that his diagnosis is awry WHAT'S HIS PRESCRIPTION?????? As far as I can see he is just a historically confused blowhard!!! And I heard him many times!!!!
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WATTREE:
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I’m sure you know that I’m not dumb enough to get into a debate on history with you - I’m many things, but not a fool. But that said, first, I am very familiar with your stance on religion. Secondly, I completely agree with everything that you said above regarding the church’s historic contribution to the Black community over the years. But that was during the last century and before.
.
That kind of dedication to the Black community, except for with a few exceptions, ENDED with King. Today these churches are filled with poverty pimps and backward-thinking White-boy wannabes. Today the Black church is at the very root of Black conservative philosophy. That's where Tavis Smiley comes from. That's where Cornel West comes from. That's where Boyce Watkins comes from, and it’s also where Ben Carson comes from.
.

Today, there is no more fertile ground in America to harvest Black conservatives than within the Black church. George W. Bush’s very first executive order after assuming office was to create the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives to start bribing these churches, and it was a tremendous success. And the GOP is currently using wedge issues like abortion, gay marriage, and the like to convert even more Black Christians to the conservative cause - and some of the most insidious kind of conservatives - undercover conservatives. Tavis Smiley is connected at the hip with Wal-Mart (and therefore, ALEC), Cornel West helped to get George Bush elected over Al Gore in the 2000 election, and tried to do the very same thing to Obama in the last election - and he's openly going around calling himself a libertarian these days. And Boyce Watkins is intimately associated with BlackBlueDog.com - if, in fact, he doesn't own it.   Think about it.

.

This brother is right on target - and what I like about him is he's on everybody's ass. I'm going to send you another link where he's telling the Black community that with libraries, magazines, books, television, radio, and so forth, you have to STRUGGLE TO BE DUMB IN AMERICA TODAY! If I had just a tad more ego, I’d accuse him of stealing that line from me.
*
PLAYTHELL:
.

The problem I have with Amos's comments about "black people" is the same problem I have with you about the "black church." BOTH OF YOUR REMARKS ARE SO GENERAL THEY CEASE TO HAVE ANY REAL MEANING!!!! Some of the things that Amos says are true of some black people - and millions of whites too - but there are many black people for whom his fulminations are meaningless.
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The upbringing that I - and virtually all of the members of my extended family - was quite adequate to help us overcome the limitations of a viciously racist [society] and succeed far beyond many white Americans of our generation. One person in my family went to jail that I know of over four generations: AND HE GOT OFF LIGHT!!!! I got everything I needed from the black community - which was centered around the church - to be the best that I could be. THERE IS NOTHING THAT I HAVE HEARD FROM THIS GUY THAT COULD IMPROVE ON THAT!!!!!! IN FACT I FIND HIM INSULTING!!!
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As for the work of the black church today, the progressive black church is still - BY FAR - the most important institution for racial uplift in America today!!!!! The evidence is far to vast to even begin to present here - even if I were so inclined, which I am not because I believe that your mind is made up on this question and exercises in futility hold no charm for me - but the work of the Abyssinia Development Corp in New York, and the "Moral Mondays" campaign in North Carolina are but two examples of the work the church is doing RIGHT NOW!!!
*
WATTREE:
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I'm not trying to cast aspersions against Christians in general. I was raised to be a Christian as well, but teaching a young child to believe in talking snakes is less than productive in any way. We need to teach our children, FROM BIRTH, to be efficient and independent thinkers. No one will EVER be able to convince me that raising a child to be a follower who believes in "Voodoo" doesn't have a negative impact on that child's view of reality.
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In addition, the church's entire reason for being is to teach Black child that the way to riches and "glory" is to get on their knees and pray to a Nordic-looking White man for all things good instead of getting out there and hustling for it. That was the initial PURPOSE for creating the Black church in the first place. Instead of getting out and fighting for justice, we get on our knees and pray. How’s that been working for us?
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Did the slave masters who taught us about Christianity - while they had us tied up next to the mules - pray for the crops to be harvested, or did they go out and get slaves to do it?

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Playthell Benjamin/Christopher Hitchens

Debate on Iraq

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu43_LtKiM0

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.

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Confessions of an Unrepentant Hood Rat

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Confessions of an Unrepentant Hood Rat

Some have advised me to maintain a strict journalistic public persona. They said that if I begin to indulge my passion for music and poetry that I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a journalist. Well, I’ve decided to take that chance, because I’m not just a journalist. First and foremost I'm a writer, and my primary mission is to chronicle my times, from my perspective, for my grandchildren and great grandchildren just as I wish someone had thought to do for me.

I don’t want my descendants to have to ask who was ‘Poppie,’ and what was he like. I want them to be able to see my world through my eyes. I also want them to see my reaction to it. That way they won't have to speculate about who I am.  I want them to know me, warts and all, so they’ll have a better understanding of who they are. So I've decided they need more than just sterile opinions. They need a frame of reference that will give them some perspective into the well from which my opinions are drawn.

And since I’m both a musician and a poet, naturally, music and poetry are a big part of my life. So I use both mediums to define myself, just like a person with a Ph.D. uses the letters behind his or her name to define who they are. I wish I could simply put Uh.R (Unrepentant hood rat) behind my name, but it would be such an uncommon convention that no one would get my meaning.

But if I could, that’s exactly what I’d put behind my name, because that’s exactly who I am. Many take issue with my defining myself in that manner, but I wear the education that I’ve gained through surviving the adversity of the Black experience with the same kind of pride that any Harvard, Yale, or Columbia graduate place in their backgrounds.  In fact, I take much more pride in it.

The degree that I managed to obtain through my “formal” education was theoretical at best. I simply received a receipt attesting to the fact that I was warming a chair in an environment where psychology was discussed. It says absolutely nothing about whether or not I absorbed any of that knowledge in a meaningful way. Otherwise, with all the receipts being handed out across this country every year we'd be in much better shape as a nation. George W. Bush managed to obtain a receipt from Yale. That alone should speak volumes regarding both their intrinsic value, and Yale. Thus, I come from a tradition where a person can't simply hand me a receipt - they have to show me that they can think. 

While I didn’t get a receipt for the education I obtained on the streets of Watts, the Pueblo Del Rio projects, and various other areas in inner city Los Angeles, just the fact that I’m sitting here writing attests to the fact that I’ve been dragged through the pits of Hell and managed to come out the other side as a fully functional individual. Now, those are credentials.  My education is hands-on, and I have the wounds to show that I graduated magnum cum Lawdy (sic).

My education is real, not theoretical. It’s the very same education that Obama is using to make the GOP look like idiots. Surely you didn’t think Obama learned to make Trump look like a fool at Harvard, did you? And rubbing Trump's face in his shortsighted idiocy at the correspondent’s dinner, while at the same time, coolly accomplishing what the chest-beating Bush administration was unable to do in seven years . . . that was classic hood rat. It was uncharacteristically flamboyant of our president, but I’ve never been so proud.

My professors in the hood were some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known, and they held court in the finest Socratic tradition - while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores. And tuition was cheap - a half a pint of Silver Satin would more than cover it.

These were the “Eulipians” - writers, poets, musicians, painters, and uncommon drunks - those shade-tree philosophers who contemplated the fungus between the toes of society. They danced with reckless abandon, unfettered by formal inhibition, through the presumptuous speculation of the ages. And they were an assorted bunch. Some lived in county jails, cardboard boxes, and alley ways, and others in luxury Apartments. But they all had one thing in common - their very existence exposed the hypocrisy of "that shining light upon the hill."

While these obscure intellectuals stood well outside the mainstream of academy, I watched with astonished delight as they sang, scat and scribed their philosophy into the mainstream of human knowledge. They rammed forth the proposition that knowledge was free, thus, would transcend all attempts to be contained through caste and privilege.

Malcolm, Bird, Langston Hughes, John Coltrane; they were all Eulipians. Even old Gigglin’ Willie was a Eulipian. Some thought he was crazy - and we never did figure out what he was gigglin’ about - but during his more lucid moments he had us all gigglin’ at the absurdity of what we’ve been conditioned to accept as truth. And while the Eulipians all used different lyrics and mediums, they all sang but one song - we must dedicate ourselves to the proposition that man’s innate thirst for knowledge would someday overwhelm his passionate lust for stupidity. And to this day, that is my one commandment.

As a lifelong musician, one of my favorite Eulipians was Dexter Gordon. In fact, he was one of the reasons I dedicated myself to the saxophone as a preteen. He went to school with my mother, and grew up a couple of blocks from my house. Dex never did get a formal receipt, because he left Jefferson High School at 16 years-old to go on the road with 'Pops', then Billy Eckstine, nor did he ever make it to Juilliard or any of the great music conservatories. But before he was done, there wasn’t a music conservatory anywhere in the world that didn’t speak his name, even as I speak it to you now. Dexter Gordon. World renowned . . . hood rat:

A Swingin’ Affair

I was told as a child Blacks had no worth, not a nickel’s worth of dimes. I believed that myth

til Dex rode in with his ax in double time. His horn was soarin’, the changes flyin’, his rhythm right on time. My heart beat with the pleasure of new found pride, knowing his blood flowed through mine.

Dex took the chords the keyboard played, and danced around each note; then shuffled ‘em

like a deck of cards, and didn’t miss a stroke. B minor 7 with flatted 5th, a half-diminished chord, he substituted a lick in D, then really began to soar.

He tipped his hat to Charlie Parker, and quoted Trane with Miles, then paid his homage to

Thelonious Monk, in Charlie Rouse's style. He took a Scrapple From the Apple, then went to Billie’s Bounce, the rhythm section, now on fire, but he didn’t budge an ounce.

He just dug right in to shuffle again, this time a Royal Flush, then lingered a bit behind the beat, still smokin’ but in no rush. Then he doubled the time just like this rhyme, in fluid 16th notes, tellin’ Charlie and Lester, “your baby boy, Dexter’s, on top of the bebop you wrote."

Wailin’ like a banshee, this prince of saxophone, his ballads dripped of honey, his Arpeggios were strong.

Callin’ on his idles, ghost of Pres’ within in the isles, smiling at his protégé, at the peak of this new style. His tenor drenched of Blackness, and all the things we are - of pain, and pleasure, and creative greatness, until his final bar.

Eric L. Wattree, Uh.R

(Unrepentant Hood Rat)

So the major problem in the Black community is not that there's too many hood rats - our problem is there's not enough of us left.

My good friend (and fellow hood rat), Playthell Benjamin, debating

the late Christopher Hitchens.
*

Playthell takes himself a little more seriously than I take myself, so he might not appreciate the distinction that I've bestowed upon him.  But what the hell? Let him get mad, we fight all the time anyway - that's what hood rats do.

 

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.

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