NEVER BECOME SO BLACK THAT YOU FORGET YOU NEED WHITE ALLIES

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

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

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  NEVER BECOME SO BLACK THAT YOU FORGET YOU NEED WHITE ALLIES

WHITE ALLIES

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

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

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

PRISON SCHOLARS

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

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

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

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BERNIE SANDERS FIGHTING
FOR CIVIL RIGHTS DURING THE 60S

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACTIVISTS PROJECT OBAMA VS. TRUMP APPROVAL RATINGS

ON TOWER OF LONDON DURING TRUMP VISIT

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

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

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

THE HOOD RAT

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Baby,

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

How can you speak of loving my soul, 

but not the hood rat that is me?

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

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

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

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WHY MANY BLACK PEOPLE FEEL A MORAL OBLIGATION TO FEIGN IGNORANCE

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

WHY MANY BLACK PEOPLE FEEL A MORAL OBLIGATION TO FEIGN IGNORANCE
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One of the major problems that we have in the Black community is a failure to recognize our own intellect. We fail to realize that having to deal with adversity from the time we wake up in the morning until the time we close our eyes at night has made us more, rather than less. We assume that everybody can see and understand everything that we can plainly see, and that our unique insight into reality is simply common knowledge. It's not. But as a result of this assumption, we tend to dismiss our intellect as routine, or average, and invest all of our intellectual potential into being cool and “soulful” instead of in math, science, philosophy and psychology. By making that erroneous assumption, we're severely short-changing ourselves, and the world. So it is a must that Black people start to take our intellectual development more seriously, and make knowledge the new “soul.”

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What Black people call "soul" is actually creativity, and as any cognitive scientist can tell you, creativity is intelligence.  So if Black people are known for having soul, what that actually means is we're known for having intelligence.  What we call soul is actually intelligence seeping out through the cracks as a result of not being used for other pursuits. Thus, the reason that Black people seem to have so much "soul," is because we were prevented from expressing our knowledge, intellect, and creativity in any other way. Later, we developed a hostility toward knowledge as a direct result of our history of bondage in this country, but it's time for all of that to come to an end.
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During slavery, house slaves, who were the more educated among us, had a tendency to look down their noses at field slaves. As a result, many of us developed a hostility toward knowledge. We tend to feel that Black people who take pride in their intellect, or who are dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge are trying to be White. So instead of embracing our intellect, many of us take great pains  to hide it.  That’s why Black intellectuals like Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson are always trying to be so cool. Their attempt to be cool is actually an apology to the Black community for pursuing knowledge. Their actions tend to say, “Yeah, I’m a professor with multiple degrees, but that don’t mean I ain’t one of you.”  What that demonstrates is that they feel that they have a moral obligation to be ignorant in order to prove their Blackness.”  Young brothers on the street do the same thing when they say things like “What it be like?”,  “What it is?”, or  “Stay Woke.”  They know that’s bad English, but they feel an obligation to sound illiterate to prove their Blackness.

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Another reason that many Black people feign ignorance is for survival. When my grandparents, who raised me while my mother was in college, would go back to visit Louisiana, they would never take me along. When I asked them why, my grandfather said, “Because you talk too much and you could get us killed.”  You see, many White folks are very insecure, so during the Jim Crow era, one of the fastest ways for a Black person to be lynched was to let White folks know that he was smarter or better than them in any way. And even now, the fastest way to lose a job is to let your boss know that you’re smarter than he is.
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There are a lot of White folks who don’t appreciate Blacks having the audacity to be intelligent at all, because it’s a direct assault on their delusion of superiority, and in many cases that delusion reinforces their entire sense of self-esteem - "I might not be much, but at least I'm better than them." That's the primary reason they hate Barack Obama so intensely, because he's walking and breathing proof that their delusion of superiority is a myth.  Clear evidence of that can be seen in the fact that even though Obama has long since gone on about his business, Donald Trump is still trying to compete with him. You'd think that Barack was living next door. So old-school Black people had a rule of thumb that my grandfather laid out to me as a kid - “Never tell people everything you know.”

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But it’s time to set those old traditions and attitudes aside.  The new paradigm in this country is not just about race, but class. The Donald Trumps of this world don’t care any more about poor and working class White people than they do Blacks and other minorities, and Black people have a unique understanding of White supremacy that other groups lack, so it has become our responsibility to educate them. If poor and working class Americans are going to survive in this country, it’s is imperative for Black people to step up to the plate, because  ironically, it’s going to fall on the shoulders of the Black community to first, educate itself, and then begin to educate others on how to deal with this greedy and self-serving beast - and we can do this.
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An excellent example of who we actually are was reflected around the turn of the 20^th Century, when you could find Black musicians sitting along the side of the road playing washboards, tubs, and anything they could put together that would make a sound. When people passed them by, including White musicians, they would simply smile, and sometimes even throw them a few pennies for the modest effort and industry that they displayed for even attempting to make real music with such crude instruments.

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These simple music-makers were looked upon as "quaint". There was no hostility towards them at all, because they weren't a threat. After all, they couldn't possibly be a threat to the White musicians, since they could never hope to get any real instruction in music. Most of them couldn't even read their names, so why should anyone ever worry about them learning to read music? They had to struggle just to get through grade school, so what threat did they pose to White musicians who had access to the great music conservatories of the world?

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WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS

YOUNG MAN WOULD BECOME ONE

OF OUR GREATEST PRESIDENTS? 

Well, little did the world know that in the very near future, those simple little ragtag musicians with their makeshift instruments would morph into some of the greatest musicians the world has ever known. They would contribute one of the most important and harmonically complex forms of music to the world in the history of all mankind. Few knew at the time that one day Universities, musicologists, and music conservatories all over the world would struggle to understand the complexity of their musical genius, and even fewer could have guessed that many of these "quaint" musicians would someday become world renowned, and synonymous with their respective instruments–Louis Armstrong, Jellyroll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane–just to mention a few.

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As a point of irony, I began to typed "Duke" into Google, and the program completed my entry with a list that presented Duke Ellington before the Duke of Windsor. I'd say that says it all about the impact that the Black culture has had on this society, and the world.

But what we've got to recognize and address as a community is that creativity is not restricted to just music. The reason that the creative genius of Black people has been reflected more in music than in business, science, or technology is because it was an area where we didn't have to depend on the approval of others, and more importantly, we were rewarded in the community for its development. We've also got to recognize, as any scientist who studies cognition well knows, creativity is not stagnant–it has associative properties that allow it to be transferred from one endeavor to another. Thus, as Barack Obama has clearly demonstrated, Black people have much more to offer the world than a twelve bar blues.

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But due to the racist history of this country, the intellectual capacity of Black people have always been grossly underestimated.  Thomas Jefferson said the following:
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“They [Black people] are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. … Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.”
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Well, I wonder what Tom would have to say about this regarding our ability to be "equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody?"
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So just as the Black community has educated the world in music, it now falls upon us to educate them in generalized knowledge and common sense. Thus, we must educate ourselves against divisiveness and begin to recognize that our battle is not against THE White man, but against a particular GROUP of White men. If we fail to recognize that fact and continue to allow them to stir division among the working class - Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, gays and straights - we’ve already lost.  Because as Barack Obama pointed out, we must begin to recognize that “We are the change that we seek.”
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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.

*****

“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.
***
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.

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