THE OBAMA LEGACY TO HIS PEOPLE, AND THE COONISM HE HAD TO ENDURE

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE OBAMA LEGACY TO HIS PEOPLE,

AND THE COONISM HE HAD TO ENDURE.

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AS WE CELEBRATE THE PROUD LEGACY THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BESTOWED UPON THE BLACK COMMUNITY, LET US ALSO REMEMBER PEOPLE LIKE TAVIS SMILEY, CORNEL WEST AND OTHERS, WHO TRIED TO DRAG THAT LEGACY THROUGH THE MUD.
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From literally day one, when Barack Obama chose to announce his run for the presidency in front of the Historic Lincoln State House instead of on Tavis Smiley’s "State of the Black Union" show, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West did everything in their power to undermine him. The reason for that is crystal clear, and very, very petty.  They were riding high back then and they thought of themselves as the unelected leaders of the Black community. Was Tavis Smiley the president of Black America?  No he wasn't, but based on the name of his annual show, "State of the Black Union"  he obviously thought he was. On the other hand, very few people really knew Barack Obama. Yes, he was a senator, and as Cornel west pointed out in the video, he was brilliant, charismatic, and rapidly gaining in popularity among the people, but he was relatively new on the scene. That's why in the video below both Tavis, and West, are talking like Obama had some kind of obligation to come on Tavis' show to get their “official blessing” to run for president.  But they had a much bigger problem with this young upstart - he was a direct threat to their Grand Poobah stature in the Black community.  That's why Cornel West launched into his soliloquy on why Obama couldn't be trusted on the very first day that Obama announced his candidacy, and thereafter, Tavis and West started campaigning against him for the hearts and minds of the Black community as though they were running for office themselves. 

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In hindsight their arrogance is nothing short of astounding. Just listen to them in the video.  It’s, literally, arrogance run amok. Cornel hotly complained that, "He [Barack Obama] had a whole YEAR to get ready for this show! So this ain't about us." Who the hell is "us"? They talked like they controlled the Black community, and I truly believe that they thought they did, because  later, when Obama started overshadowing them, they REALLY went off the deep end.  That's when I started researching and writing about them. It’s also when I found out just how petty and self-serving some Black people can be.  Of course, that goes for people in general, but Black people have the most to lose from such stupidity.

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CORNEL WEST ON THE MORNING OBAMA THREW HIS HATE IN THE RING TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN FRONT OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S STATE HOUSE INSTEAD OF ON TAVIS SMILES' SHOW.

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CORNEL WEST AFTER OBAMA ACTUALLY WON

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Black People Don’t Resent Criticism of Obama, But We do Resent Slander, Which is What People Like Tavis Smiley And Cornel West Engage In - To The Direct Benefit of the GOP, The Biggest Enemy Of the Poor and Minority Community In The World.

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BEWARE OF BLACK FRAUDS

Cornel West is the ultimate opportunist. As demonstrated above, he's not only self-serving, arrogant and willing to say whatever he thinks will get him the most attention, but he spews more racist rhetoric than any Republican in America. The reason for that is he’s essentially an entertainer who specializes in shock and race-baiting as his one and only routine.

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Clear evidence of his show business proclivities is that he's over the top in everything that defines him - he's over the top in his personal image, in his overly gesticulative presentation, and his rhetoric is invariably outrageously inflammatory. Everything about him is a contrivance that’s specifically designed to bring attention to himself.

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While he professes to be an intellectual, he actual issues are meaningless to West. They're nothing more than a platform to launch his performances.  The fact is, Cornel West is the Liberace of faux intellectualism, and in this case, he gave his need to be in the spotlight priority over what was in the best interest of the Black community, and the prospects of the first Black man to have a legitimate chance of becoming President of the United States.
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Nearly every public pronouncement that spews from the mouth of Cornel West is literally dripping with racial innuendo. That's because it gets him attention. One of his latest racist slanders is that MSNBC is the ‘Rent a Negro’ network. West has also said the following at one time or another:
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1). President Obama is "a war criminal."
2). President Obama is "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs . . ."
3). President Obama is "a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."
4). President Obama is "a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface."
5). President Obama "has a certain rootlessness, a deracination."
6). President Obama Is "Afraid Of Free Black Men."
7). President Obama is "a global George Zimmerman."
8). Dr. Harris-Perry is "a fake and a fraud"
9). Dr. Michael Eric Dyson "is a sellout."
10). Al Sharpton "is a sellout."
11). MSNBC is the "Rent a Negro Network."

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And if that’s not enough, he was also  quoted as calling the first Black President of the United States “a shell of a man.” Yet, when comedian Steve Harvey called he and Tavis Smiley Uncle Toms, West said, "When you are trying to talk about issues that affect the people, name calling gets in the way. Name-calling is nothing but another weapon of mass distraction." So it seems that name-calling is only objectionable when it’s directed at him. Such unmitigated hypocrisy is mind boggling - but for once, he’s right. Not one of the above assertions is a disciplined, constructive, or scholarly assessment of the facts. On the contrary, they're the reckless and intellectually undisciplined rants of a bitter, self-serving, and severely discredited academic fraud.
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For Cornel West, there’s something ‘racially defective’ about every Black person who has the audacity to preempt Cornel West from the limelight. He also has a propensity for trying to denigrate the character of people whose been in the trenches for years, while West, himself, has done absolutely nothing beyond running his mouth. In order to gain clear evidence of that fact one simply has to ask oneself, what efforts have West made to try to improve the plight of the Black community?
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1). Is he in the community teaching 3rd grade to help ensure a better education for our children, or teaching at an Historically Black College or University to help "enlighten" young Black students?
No. He’s never taught at a school that more than 1% of Black students can even afford to have lunch in throughout his entire career. He’d rather gain props for teaching the children of the economic elites, who he CLAIMS, is the enemy, whenever he MANAGES to do a "Drive-by" in the hood.
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2). Is he in the community teaching our young men to cherish, honor, and respect our Black women - the very womb of our culture?  No. He’s out trying to sell books filled with inane and misleading information, doing $30,000 an hour speeches, and trying to become a hip hop star.
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3). Is he advising his good friend and business partner, Tavis Smiley, to be consistent with his sermons about being "accountable" to the community, and returning the money that he made on the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Scam" loans that he helped to herd over 30,000 poor minorities into? Or is he out getting arrested in support of the Black Friday Demonstrations against Wal-Mart, the most prolific abuser of poor workers in the world?  Nope, not a peep.
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The same is true of West's former puppeteer, Tavis Smiley. He could go all over the country in a bus criticizing President Obama on his Walmart sponsored "Poverty Tour," and find the time to go "Dance With The Stars," yet, he couldn't spare even one second of his time to walk down the street from his office to support the demonstrations by Walmart employees.  But of course, Walmart sponsors Tavis' television show, which speaks directly to Cornel's question in the video, "Where's your money coming from?"  But Cornel didn't seem to have a problem with that.  So nope, we didn't hear a word from "The Accountables" on this issue.  All we heard from Smiley and West regarding Walmart's abuse of poor workers were crickets.
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So what West, Smiley, and their ilk actually see coming from the community regarding their criticism of President Obama is Black outrage over their indulging in the crabs-in-a-barrel tradition that was inbred in us as slaves. Black people recognize that many of President Obama’s Black critics, including Cornel West, aren’t really interested in policy, they’re just using public policy as a pretext for attacking the President himself, and they’re so steeped in their Willie Lynch mentality that they either don’t realize, or don’t care that they’re doing a grave disservice not only to the African-American community, but to Black people all over the world.
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NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AND FORMER
OBAMA CRITIC

Because the fact is, many of Obama’s White conservative critics aren’t really interested in policy either. Like Obama’s Black critics, they have an ulterior motive as well, but their motive has nothing to do with crabs-in-a-barrel. Their primary motive is defending their claim of White superiority - and President Obama, in his soft-spoken and laid-back way, is dragging that claim through the mud. That’s why racists and conservatives hate him so.
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Conservatives recognize, as we all should - and especially Black people - that President Obama was not just another president. President Obama was the most high-profile symbol of Black competence in the world. In addition, what he has accomplished is the perfect equivalent of a conquered slave rising to become the emperor of Rome - and, one of its greatest emperors. So Barack Obama is going to be remembered by posterity as one of the greatest men in ALL of human history, and his story will be inspiring Black children a thousand years from now.
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Racists and conservatives recognize that fact, so naturally, they’re desperate to tear down Barack Obama’s image, and build up the image of criminals like Ronald Wilson Reagan, and there is no excuse for Black idiots like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins not to recognize that fact. That’s what makes them so despicable. Instead of trying to help racists tear down this Black icon, they should be offering RESPECTFUL suggestions in an attempt to ENSURE that Barack Obama is remembered as one of the greatest Presidents that this nation has ever had, even if they have to drag him up Mt. Rushmore kicking and screaming. But instead, they’re allowing themselves to be pointed to by racists who are claiming, "See, even Black people know he doesn’t live up to the standard of White presidents."
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Thus, people like Smiley and West are giving their own egos, self-service, and their Willie Lynch-inspired need to tear-down a Black historic icon priority over Black history, and the role that history is going to play in helping to raise the self-concept of the Black culture. In short, they’re sabotaging the self-esteem of Black children who are yet unborn. The mere thought of that kind of ignorant selfishness is absolutely disgusting - and especially when clothed in faux scholarship.
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So Cornel West and the others like him are not Black leaders, they’re clueless Black cultural afflictions, and if I wanted to take even more time I could methodically take apart every argument that they've put forward against President Obama (maybe I'll do it in a book).
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About Drones

When Tavis Smiley and Cornel West began to lose the confidence of the Black community, they tried to broaden their constituency by refocusing their criticism of President Obama from poverty to the war in Afghanistan. Time.com reported West as saying in 2012 that he didn’t vote. "I couldn’t vote for a war criminal," he said, calling Obama’s administration a "drone presidency."
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While I don't like killing machines either, I've had to take into account the fact that Obama was charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that Al Qaeda, ISIS, or any other terrorist group was prevented from getting their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal - and let us not forget that they located Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan living, casually, and comfortably, within the shadow of that arsenal. So while West would have us believe that Obama was in Afghanistan just killing people for the hell of it, or for the oil companies, that’s a myth. He was trying to make sure that YOUR family wasn't blown up by angry religious fanatics who think that God will bless them if they blow up "The Great Satin" - the United States.
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So while war, and killing, is an ugly business, it is very much a reality in the world we live in. So as I see it, if we have to lob missiles into an area filled with innocent people - since hiding behind human shields seems to be the terrorists' preferred mode of defense - the drone is a far better alternative than firing missiles blindly into a populated area of women and children.
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Consider this. If you were an Afghan and lived next door to a terrorist, would you want to have someone blindly firing missiles in your direction, possibly taking out your home and family, or maybe even the entire town just to get one man, or would you rather they sent in drones with television cameras where they can specifically target the person they’re after? One drone pilot said that they even wait for the target’s family to leave the house before they fire a missile to take out the target.  Drones also prevent us from having to put American troops in harm's way.  So the fact is, if you have to go to war, drones actually SAVE lives.
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POVERTY IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY

These  same so-called intellectuals also complained that President Obama didn't do enough about poverty in the Black community.  But as alleged "educated" men, they should all realize that Obama was merely President Obama, not King Obama. The United States Constitution is very specific in giving SOLE power over spending to the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans (that’s why they could refuse to pay the light bill and shutdown the government). So President Obama couldn't do a damn thing for Black people without getting the Republicans to go along with him. That’s why he had to slip Black people everything on the down-low, because if the GOP knew it was for us, they'd dig-in, and if Obama went to war with them over the issue they would have prevented him from doing anything for ANYBODY, and as President of ALL the people, he couldn't allow that to happen, so he had to wrap Black interests in with the interests of ALL the people.
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In addition, as a thinking man (unlike many of his critics), Obama realized that he had to also consider the precedents he set. If he had grandstanded like many of his critics suggested, and say, "This is what I'm going to do for Black people," today Donald Trump could say, "This is what I'm going to do for White people" - and he'd justify it by calling it "The Obama Doctrine." Thus, Barack Obama was simply being President of the United States, not Santa Claus, and Black people shouldn't have been led to expect any more, or any less
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So Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and all the others who share their backward-thinking proclivities, need to use some of their alleged brain power to think, instead of burning it up trying to maintain their image and attempting to hide their true motivations for attacking this President. I didn’t hear them saying a damn thing when Bush was in office, so they can try to clothe their true motivations in a tux, but it still has the funky smell of Willie Lynch all over it.

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 CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT,
FOR A JOB WELL DONE, AND WITH VERY
LITTLE HELP.
THANK YOU, BROTHER.

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RELATED CONTENT

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West Ducked The Walmart Demonstrations . . . AGAIN!!!
But Of Course, Even Though Walmart is Right Down The Street From His Office, It's Also Tavis' Sponsor.
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2014/11/tavis-smiley-and-cornel-west-ducked.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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An Ox That Needs To Be Gored - Black Preachers

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

An Ox That Needs To Be Gored - Black Preachers
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Where are the Black Churches, and where are all of the millions of dollars in tithes they're collecting every Sunday going? Black preachers do a great job of giving inspirational speeches, and telling us to "forgive, forget, and put all of the atrocities committed against us in God's Hands," but we've been doing that for over 400 years, and the same kind of things keep happening to us. So it seems to me that, that constitutes a message from God - that he helps those who help themselves. So, Reverend, while quivering voices and inspirational speeches may be soothing, we can save those spoken word concerts for Sunday morning. The burning question that's begging to be asked is, what are you doing to help provide a better life for God's Children Monday thru Saturday when the collection plates are stacked in the corner?  That's the question the Lord would ask. 
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God did his part when he gave us common sense. Now it's our job to use it, and recognize that the very same people who are victimizing us are the ones who taught us to moan, quiver, and shout, while they had us tied up next to the mules. That's what kept us docile, easily manipulated, and compliant ("God told me to tell you this."), and many Black preachers are using the very same tactic against their own people, and for the same reason - to enrich themselves. Yet, if that's what we've become accustomed to, there's plenty of time for shouting and quivering oratory on Sunday. But reverend, the relevant question is this - what are you doing OTHER than quivering and shouting to help the community Monday thru Saturday? I think that's what the Lord would ask.
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The Black churches in every community should come together to form a consortium. Thereafter, they should pool the tithes they're collecting every Sunday to purchase businesses to provide jobs for our young people that pay a living wage, and purchase property to provide affordable housing in the community. The churches should be open 7 days a week to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. Then they could also hire unemployed mothers to help in the daycare centers. They could utilize the retired professionals in their congregations to help mentor and instruct the people in the community.  And of course, there should be a citizens committee to oversee the operation of the various businesses, and it should require multiple signatures to withdraw any funds from the bank for any reason. And finally, to ensure that the funds are being used most efficiently, preachers should be placed on salaries instead of being allowed to get rich at the expense of the community. Jesus was not a wealthy man, so why should any preacher be?
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That would go a long way toward relieving the suffering in the Black community. But I'm sure that most preachers would be totally against such a plan (especially the salary part), and the rest of the plan would be much too much trouble, because it would require them having to work more than one day a week.
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The Black community has spoiled its preachers. When the community needs something the preacher will tell them to take it to the Lord in prayer, but when the preacher needs something, he comes to us. So the community must start demanding more of these preachers. Just as it's the preacher's job to keep us on the path of righteousness, it's our job to do the same with them.

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"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

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As I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction - she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member. 
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I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was - if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate - we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God - if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day - in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister, direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheim's, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place - you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
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HOME OF REV. CREFLO DOLLAR

And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed - the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer (Billy Preston) was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to Heaven - every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. Since he wasn't ordained, he never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there - if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher  - politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.

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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like that. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the no-account sinners in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men and women to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like that. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He actually thought that when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have definitely been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back - with Jesus.

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34
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Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record them.
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Dedicated To Elder Hampton, A Man Of God.

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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

An Ugly Truth: Why Some Black People Are Still Waiting For Santa Claus

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
 

An Ugly Truth:

Why Some Black People Are Still Waiting
For Santa Claus

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Whenever I hear the Name Belafonte the first word that comes to mind is "Class." That’s the only word appropriate for the way Harry Belafonte represented Black manhood in the fifties and early sixties. During a time when the few other Black celebrities with the crossover appeal of Belafonte were trying their best to make the White world forget that they were Black, Harry Belafonte flaunted his Blackness with dignity and pride. This soft-spoken, intelligent, and self-assured Black man with the undulating body drove White women crazy for just a taste of forbidden fruit, while at the very same time giving the White establishment a glimpse of things to come.
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During that period America still viewed Black men in the Steppin’ Fetchit tradition, so for the most part, the only Black men that we saw or heard in the media were people like Lightin’ and Amos n Andy. So brothers like Harry Belafonte were sorely needed to upgrade our image, but ironically, Belafonte was so self-assured, and moved about the White world so effortlessly that there were a few in the Black community who called him an Uncle Tom. Such people will always be around. No matter how impressive a person is, you can always depend on a handful of haters pointing out that one of his shoestrings is shorter than the other. 
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But, of course, calling Belafonte an Uncle Tom was ridiculous. Harry Belafonte was on the cutting edge when it came to defining the modern American Black man. Again, Belafonte was one of America’s first looks at what the modern Black man - at his best - was to become. While on the other hand, those who called him an Uncle Tom represented a throwback to the slave mentality of the Black man at his worse, with a mentality that dictates that any Black man who doesn’t walk around looking at his feet, or who is comfortable in casually dealing with White folks eyeball-to-eyeball, can’t be trusted.
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I’ve come to call that mentality the Smiley/West syndrome. You can always spot these people with just a glance. While they don’t act overtly subservient to White folks, and they’re even militant at times, their interactions with the White world always have a needy, self-conscious tinge to them, as though they’re seeking admiration, or recognition from the White world for being "brave" enough to speak up, and smart enough to speak to them in their own terms. Thus, while on the surface, they seem to be speaking on behalf of Black people, the message beneath the surface seems to be a desperate plea for acknowledgment, for the "Great White Father" to give them recognition for being "special."  Their actions and behavior seems to say, "See, I ain’t like those other niggas!"
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Notice the Body Language. 
There's No Doubt Who's the Dominant
Personality Here.


 

Such people are frauds. They’re trying to play both ends against the middle. On the one hand, they’re trying to gain the admiration of Black people for having the courage to speak up on their behalf, while on the other, they’re winking at the White man and desperately seeking his approval. That’s why such people were so hostile toward people like Harry Belafonte in the past, and those same sort of people are hostile toward Barack Obama today.
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People like Belafonte and Obama have attainted the stature and genuine respect of the White establishment that the frauds so desperately seek, so their response to people like Belafonte and Obama is like that of a child who resents his brother or sister because their daddy seems to like their sibling more.
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There’s clear evidence of this syndrome in the career of Cornel West. For a man who claims to love "his people" so desperately, it’s very curious that he’s never invested one smidgen of his oft-lauded skills as an educator into an effort to educate Black kids. Cornel West has never taught at a predominantly Black school in his entire career. He’s chosen to educate the kids of the White elite at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale instead.  And with respect to that, a good rule of thumb when attempting to assess the character of any individual - be they preacher, politician, or potentate - is to ignore what they say, and watch what they do.
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Any Black man who advocates "conserving"
 traditional American values is,
by definition, an idiot.

There are far too many Black people around who still suffer from this slave mentality. They’ve been convinced over the years that their own people are inferior, so unlike the people of most cultures, whose prime motivation is to come together and help move their people forward, the prime motivation of far too many Black people is to prove that they’re somehow superior to their own people. Then, when they come across other Black people who demonstrate the excellence, and even brilliance, that thrives throughout the Black community, instead of embracing these people, they feel challenged, and become hostile.
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As a direct result of that attitude by some, the very Black people with the knowledge, foresight, and character to help us move forward, are often severely scrutinized and brutally attacked, and that’s exactly what’s taking place with respect to President Obama. Instead of just letting the President do his job like any other president, people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are constantly demanding that he PROVE that he cares about Black people. It’s ridiculous - the man’s wife and children are Black, and he’s Black!
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But it’s more than just ridiculous; it hurts the Black community, and it hurts the nation. It makes the President’s job twice as hard, because in order for the President to be effective, he has to have the solid support of the people. So this constant insinuation by his Black critics that he’s somehow "not Black enough," not only dilutes his Black support, but their constant demands that he do something SPECIAL for the Black community to prove his Blackness, serves as grist for the mill of his political opponents. His opponents use such demands to both further dilute the Black community by claiming that he should be doing more for Black people, and then flipping the coin and telling the President’s White supporters that all he cares about is delivering special treatment for Black people. Thus, everything he does is scrutinize and evaluated in that light. As a result, everything he does that happens to benefit any group, is turned around and used against him as evidence that he doesn’t care about another.   
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BOYCE WATKINS

It also hurts the Black community because it prevents President Obama from using his bully pulpit to even suggest things that the Black community could do to improve its plight, and that’s something that’s needed very badly. A prime example of that was when, then, Senator Obama, was running for President, he gave a Father’s Day speech suggesting that Black fathers step up to the plate and take responsibility for their children. The next day all hell broke loose. Dr. Boyce Watkins in - who it now turns out is an undercover Black conservative in drag - wrote an article in "Your Black World" wanting to know why Obama singled out only Black deadbeat dads. It seemed to me, that should have been obvious - because he's Black, and he wants to see Black people thrive.  But, of course, Watkins was simply fishing for an issue.
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What makes this problem so tenacious, and so easily seized upon by Black demagogues, is that Black people have been on the receiving end of such groundlessly slanderous criticism over the centuries that we’ve become overly sensitive to ALL criticism - even when it’s constructive and warranted. We’ve got to get past that and learn to follow truth. We’ve got to train our minds to always give truth priority over ideology, and learn to follow truth wherever it leads and regardless to whose ox it gores. If we can simply teach ourselves to do just that one thing, it would put us "Miles Ahead" (pun intended) of every other group in America.
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Recklessly irresponsible parents should be
liable for the crimes their kids
commit - Period.

Truth is much like physical pain. While it can be severely uncomfortable, it can also alert us to serious problems that need to be addressed. So again, we should always follow truth wherever it leads, and then, if we don’t like where it leads us, instead of trying to deny truth, we should take the necessary action to modify what it reveals.
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If we can do that, we’ll see many of the problems in the Black community begin to melt away, because truth will tell us that we’re both the primary source of many of our problems, and should be the primary source of their solutions. Truth would tell us that more money passes through the Black community than through many countries, so if we would learn to work together and patronize our own businesses, we could become a nation within a nation. Truth would also tell us that we need to begin to teach our children the value of knowledge from the day they’re born, and we should also teach them about the stupidity of killing one another over a "territory" where they don’t own even one blade of grass.
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Truth would also tell us that our churches should be doing a lot more in the community than just preaching and collecting money every Sunday. It’s not enough to just recite the words of Jesus. Jesus’s words were designed to teach us how to actually live, not just TALK about how to live. 
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One of the things that Jesus said was, "If you claim to be the children of Abraham, you’d be doing the works of Abraham." Are our churches doing the works of Abraham? I don’t think so. If they were, there wouldn’t be a hungry child in America. So again, truth would tell us that our Churches, and the preachers who preside over our churches, spend far too much time TELLING us about Jesus, and far too little time LIVING like Jesus.
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Take the issue of poverty, for example. One of the biggest expenses for many working mothers is childcare. Why aren’t our churches helping to relieve that burden by keeping the churches open during the week and using some of their tithes to provide affordable childcare for working mothers? They could also hire unemployed mothers to staff the operation, and use retired teachers within their congregation to help educate the children. I think that’s what Jesus would have done. 
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So until we open our eyes to the truth, we cannot correct one of the most serious legacies of slavery - the belief by many that Black people have a moral obligation to remain ignorant. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated we think we’ve become, we are still the product of a racist environment, and as such, many of us are just as racist toward other Black people as any racist, sheet-wearing, barefoot, Hillbilly - and in many cases, even more so.  I refer to such people as "bligots" (Black-on-Black bigots) - and let there be no doubt about it, there are many of them out there. 
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So in order to neutralize that inbred legacy of slavery, it is incumbent upon us to expand our minds and seek to become independent thinkers. Each and every one of us should begin to educate ourselves, and thereafter, never give anyone else's ability to think priority over our own. Yes, we should continue to absorb knowledge from the knowledgeable, but we should evaluate that knowledge, and then ALWAYS connect the dots for ourselves.
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And remember, even though knowledge is the most valuable commodity on Earth, it's free, so no one can deprive you of it. There is just as much knowledge on Google or at the corner library as there is at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities combined. So if you don't avail yourself of it, you're CHOOSING to remain ignorant. That's the one thing that we can't blame on the White man.
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And finally, the human mind was designed to hate ignorance, so true pride can only be had through the acquisition of knowledge. Thus, until such time that we obtain the true pride that comes with knowledge, we are doomed to continue to hate ourselves, which will make it impossible for us to ever come together to fight for the independence, equality, and justice necessary to sustain a viable culture. So the long and the short of it is, until we learn to respect the power of knowledge, we will remain enslaved - period.

 

RELATED MATERIAL

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A Sensible Response to White Supremacy

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-sensible-response-to-white-supremacy.html
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"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/07/know-truth-and-truth-shall-set-you-free.html

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