When I was 13, Ralph Waldo Emerson reached across time to grab my young mind and changed my life forever. That is my ambition - not to gather wealth and fame by telling my contemporaries what they want to hear, but to help minds yet unborn to gain wisdom through seeing my world, and my time, through my eyes. Injustice should be made to pay dividends.
-Eric L. Wattree
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It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion, and it is easy in solitude to live after one’s own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
. Thank you, Ralph.
. 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.
Politicians will be politicians, and we should hold EVERY politician’s feet to the fire. But when you consider that Black people have been trudging all through history for generations in an attempt to find people to show that we too have a significant history that’s competitive with other cultures, President Barack Obama is uniquely significant.
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While we’re looking back 5000 years to find great Black kings, queens, and conquers, we have one of the greatest men in history – and not just Black history, but in ALL of history – walking right here among us. In yet another 5000 years people will be talking about Barack Hussein Obama, because he’s accomplished something that NO other man in history has accomplished. He’s a man whose father came to these shores from a little village in Africa, seeded him, and then he went on rise from the dust to become the equivalent of the emperor of Rome. You don’t get no greater than that.
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When Barack Obama is seen in that light it becomes clear why an attack on Obama is not just an attack on a politician, it’s an attack on the potential greatness of Black people as a whole. Obama haters recognize that fact, that’s why they’re leaving no stone unturned, and sparing no expense in a desperate attempt to drag this Black man down. They understand that since we are what we think, Obama represents the destabilization of the lie that’s been holding Black down for centuries - that we’re incapable of greatness.
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The exact same kind of attacks were lodged against Dr. Martin Luther King, by the very same kind of people, and for the very same reason. Simply because he had an innovative way of seeking justice for our people without getting thousands of us slaughtered in the streets, they used to call him "Martin Luther Coon" - I know, because I was one of those damn fools! But in the end, it turned out that what made him great was his ability to out-think his opponents, which is true of nearly every man with a monument attributing to his greatness in Washington, D.C. So what are we hearing now? "Obama ain’t no Martin Luther King." But believe me, the cards are stacked against the haters, because regardless of what the haters say, President Barack Hussein Obama has already proven himself to be a great man. In fact, that's what they hate about him most.
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When we begin to recognize the pride that young Black people will take in pointing to Barack Obama as a prime example of greatness for EONS to come, only then does the absolute treachery of today’s Black, Obama haters begin to sink in. Just think how they’re going to look to the young people of tomorrow - and unlike the haters of the past, they’re not going to have the benefit of having their identities drift into the shadows of history. Due to the flawless memory of the internet, their names, pictures, and videos will be available to posterity in all their flaming treachery with the touch of a button.
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Just imagine what the families of these people are going to have to go through. "Hey Corny, I was checking out your old wooly-headed great granddad on the net last night. What an idiot! How does it feel to be the great grandson of one of the biggest turncoats in history?" So the families of the haters are certain to take great pride in them - probably to the point of having their names changed.
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In order to understand their attitude - and many of our attitudes today - you have to consider the gravity of Obama’s story. In spite of the fact that the Statue of Liberty was designed to represent a freed slave, as attested to by the broken shackle that was attached to her left leg, some of the very same people whose ancestors this great lady’s flame shined upon as she welcomed them to this great land practiced hatred, racism, and allowed discrimination to run rampant within her very shadow. But in the midst of all that hatred and turmoil, the lady welcomed yet another young man to our shores, a solitary and unassuming young man from Kenya. He sailed quietly into America beneath her burning flame and presented papers bearing the name Barack Hussein Obama. As the immigration official looked at his jet black personage, he undoubtedly laughed as he examined the papers and said, "Who!!!?" But little did he know that in another generation the entire world would be able to answer his question. "You mean, Mr. President."
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So unless President Obama goes completely off the rails, any Black person who doesn’t support this man is a fool. That isn’t to say that you can’t disagree with him like you would any other president(http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/01/obama-supporters-vs-cheerleaders.html), but your disagreement should be with great respect, because to disrespect President Obama is to disrespect the Black culture as a whole – and any scholar who doesn’t recognize that fact needs to turn in his diploma, because he hasn’t learned a thing.
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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.
I often wonder why Obama-haters tend to hate Obama so much more than they do the Republicans who have a much more malevolent agenda towards the American people. The GOP is engaged in an ongoing campaign to abolish Medicare, Social Security, organized labor, the minority's right to vote, and they repeatedly hold the American people, including the unemployed, hostage to promote the interest of the rich. In addition, they’ve staged a bitter war against women, gays, and the immigrant community - and this GOP assault on the rights of the poor, middle class, and minorities is not just being staged by a radical few. It’s clearly a concerted effort by the entire Republican Party.
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Thousands of Republicans have come together in a solid block of solidarity to embarked upon the exact same agenda. It involves corporations, congressmen, U.S. senators, state senators, state legislatures, city council members, judges, etc. They've come together all across this country, and they're hell-bent on cutting the throat of poor and middle-class America.
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Yet, Black, Obama-haters seem to be completely oblivious to this fact, because they are so totally fixated on this one Black man, Barack Obama, who was elected twice to be President of the United States by a large majority of the American people, that everything else seems to be irrelevant to them. One would think that, that fact alone would, at the very least, cause these haters to reflect on what's REALLY going on inside of their heads. Why, does it seem, that they'd be much more comfortable if President Obama was the White House butler rather than of the President of the United States? There's something very dysfunctional going on there.
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These are people that even the experience of Black history didn't prepare us for, though it should have, if we'd examined it closely enough. Again, they are so fixated on hating Obama that they’re completely blind to everything else. One can prove to them without a doubt that one of their leading and most high profile Obama-haters is connected to several members of ALEC - an organization that's spending HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to obstruct the minority right to vote, and that he was directly involved in herding poor and middle class minorities into Wells Fargo's "Ghetto Loan" scam that caused the bank to have to pay a $175 MILLION SETTLEMENT to Black and Hispanic borrowers - and they’ll simply say something like "Yeah, but Obama played golf with a man who works for the oil company." Thereafter, they won’t say ONE WORD about anything else. Their total disconnection from reality is frightening.
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These people hate Obama so passionately that they’re allowing the GOP - the most insidious domestic threat to the American people in the nation’s history - to pursue it’s malevolent agenda with complete impunity. In fact, their behavior is enhancing the GOP effort.
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I mean, one would think that their tunnel vision alone would send up a red flag signaling them to review their thinking. It’s absolutely amazing how it doesn’t, but it does clearly show why Black people are in such bad shape. The thoughtless behavior of these haters is undeniable confirmation that there are a handful of Black people in this country who hate other Black people - and especially this Black president - as much, or more, than any Klan member. But their hatred is even more insidious than that of a White, White supremacist - at least a White bigot recognizes his bigotry - but the bigotry of these Black "bligots" seem to be cloaked even from their own recognition in a camouflaging labyrinth of pretextural justifications.
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If Malcolm, Martin, and the other Black icons of the past could see what’s currently going on among us, I’m sure they’d hang their heads in shame. But even if they can’t see what’s going on, there are many others who surely will.
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Due to the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president, scholars and historians are going to be scrutinizing this period in history with a fine toothed comb - and they won’t be alone. Due to the flawless memory of the internet, Black people who are yet unborn are going to be looking back and reading our posts, articles, and comments during this period, and I guarantee you that many of us are going to be a huge embarrassment to them.
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Remember, they’ll be reading our remarks with an objective eye. They’ll be able to examine this period in history absent the passions and fog of current politics and with a perspective of 20/20 hindsight. So it will be absolutely clear to them who was engaged in promoting malevolent and selfish agendas, and who were merely "bligoted" (Black bigoted) fools. As a result, many of us are going to be, at best, horrible embarrassments to our families, and at worst, in the case of some high profile people, even smears on their family names.
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You see, what the Obama-haters are engaged in has been going on for centuries - in fact, we were undoubtedly sold into slavery initially by such people in Africa. But back in the day, people were anonymous, so we don’t know whose family members helped to promote the interest of the slave masters. But during this information age, it’s all going to be a part of the public record, and I don’t think many of these people recognize that fact. So what many of us do today, may someday cause our great grandchildren to hang their heads in shame and public ridicule.
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Consider the following. Let’s say that President Obama ends up having a hugely successful presidency and history records him as being one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Many of these Obama-haters’ conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios will live on as part of the public record. As a result, our great grandchildren and future historians are going to look back upon these people as un-American - and considering the fact that Obama was our first Black president - Black people of the future may even view them, and quite possibly their families, as race traitors.
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I can hear it now: "Hey Willie, I was just reading some of the stuff that your great grandfather wrote. He was a world-class fool and an 'Uncle Tavis.' Now I see where you get it from."
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A HISTORIC PORTRAIT OF TAVIS SMILEY AND CORNEL WEST
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Black people of the future are going be focused on people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West like a laser due to the negative impact of our 400 year history of having to deal with Black turncoats. Black turncoats have been hugely demonized in the Black community throughout our history. Every Black person in America is familiar with the sentence, "Dim niggas talkin’ bout burnin’ OUR house down, boss" - or a variation thereof.
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The only limitation to the intense hatred and disdain that the Black community has for such people is the fact that history has obscured exactly who they were. But now, due to the flawless memory of the internet, Black people of the future will not only be able to identify these people, but connect them to their contemporaries with a simple people and Google search. Thereafter, they'll be able to connect them to specific families - and I guarantee you, that’s gonna be devastating to the Black families involved. In some cases it may even become a threat to their well being.
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In any event, I would hate to be connected in any way to an "Uncle Tavis," or a "Dr. West" (an educated fool), because these people are directly associated with bringing shame to the Black community during a seminal moment in Black History by not merely criticizing, but trashing, the first Black President of the United States - and their connection with ALEC (Walmart, Wells Fargo, etc.) is not going to help their cause a bit.
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I know my people, and they’re starved for a focal point in which to vent their hostility and frustration over the way that they’ve been treated over the years. So they're never, EVER, going to forget this episode in our history, and their response to people like Tavis and West isn't going to be any different than that of Jewish people who manage to identify Nazi collaborators. So I guarantee you, these two are going to be demonized like no other individuals in Black history.
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Tavis and West seemed to have been determined to ride President Obama’s coattail into American history. Well, they’ve done it, and I sincerely hope they enjoy their infamy, because Black people are going to make Benedict Arnold look like a rock star compared to these two.
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
When I was 13, Ralph Waldo Emerson reached across time to grab my young mind and changed my life forever. That is my ambition - not to gather wealth and fame by telling my contemporaries what they want to hear, but to help minds yet unborn to gain wisdom through seeing my world, and my time, through my eyes. Injustice should be made to pay dividends.
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