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. .
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
.
CORNEL WEST AFTER OBAMA ACTUALLY WON
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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:
.
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."
.
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.
.
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?
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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."
.
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.
.
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). .
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." .
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. . 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. .
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. .
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.
.
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
.
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.
.
CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT, FOR A JOB WELL DONE, AND WITH VERY LITTLE HELP. THANK YOU, BROTHER.
I'm a firm believer in God - but for intellectual reasons that I can defend, not because I believe in talkin' snakes. God is whatever force is responsible for creating nature, what we call reality, and the universe. But I realize that organized religion, with all of its walkin' dead men and talkin' snakes is THE most evil force on this planet. It's more responsible for all the hatred, murder, mayhem, wars, bigotry, and ignorance and greed than any other force on Earth - and when I say religion, I mean ALL of them!!! Religion is what terrorism is all about. Would a loving god bestow that upon humanity? I don’t think so.
.
NOBODY can speak for God, and anyone who believes that ANY man - including Jesus - can, is a damn fool. Jesus didn't "die for your sins"; he died just like any other man, because he was stabbed. If he’d been God - or even the son of God - when they stabbed him he would have just laughed at ‘em. But since Christians were claiming he was "the son of God," they had to find a reason to justify how he could be killed, so they came up with this nonsense. It’s also a loophole that allows Christians to think they can cut people’s throats all week and then pray for forgiveness on Sunday and think they can erase what they’ve done. Well, you can forget it. You may be fooling yourself, but you’re not fooling God. If you commit a sin, it’s with you forever, regardless to what you do - and that includes being dipped in water and trying to pray it away.
.
So if you're waiting around for Jesus to come back and "save" you, you can forget that as well. Dead men don’t come back. That’s why God blessed you with a mind, so you could handle your own problems. Believing in the Bible and believing in God are two different things. To believe in the Bible is to believe in the word of man - and ignorant, self-serving, and superstitious men at that - to believe in God, is to believe in the common sense that God bestowed upon you. So to go around worshiping man’s nonsense is the source of your misery, not your salvation. If God blesses those he loves, he must love White folks much more than he does Black people. So wake up! God helps those who help themselves. That’s why your preacher has a much bigger house than you do - and he worked a whole lot less to get it.
.
There are only three commandments, and you don't have to read a user's manual to find them any more than birds need a calendar and a map to know when to fly south - God instilled them in you when he created you:
1). Live the best life you can.
2). Help others whenever you can.
3). Mind your own business.
That came directly from God. It’s called common sense.
.
So when I saw all of the "Amens" on a Black site lauding Christian dogma I was absolutely disgusted. No wonder Black people are in such bad shape. We've been completely brainwashed, and it makes me sick to my stomach to see so many Black people so passionately embracing the White establishment’s version of God and what they claim he wants. How do they know what God wants!!!? The fact is, they don’t. All they know is what they want, and that’s to maintain the status quo, with White folks on the top and unchallenged as God’s “favorite” people - and I want to make it clear that when I say "White people," I'm not referring to all White people, I'm referring to the White establishment. But Black people, and America as a whole, have been convinced to believe in walkin' dead men and talkin’ snakes in order to maintain that agenda. They taught us that nonsense from birth so we casually accept it and never question it, but what we were taught is no different, and just as ridiculous, as Voodoo. So if you dismiss Voodoo as laughably ridiculous, take a moment to think about the Christian belief in talkin' snakes. How are they any different?
.
FIND EARTH
And we're just looking in one direction of one galaxy in a universe that's filled with hundreds of billions of them just like it.
No, I'm not a fanatical fool. I was raised a Christian, and I remain a firm believer in God, but I'm not an idiot. I believe in God for rational reasons, so I have absolutely no need for the dogma, or mindless sermonizing of self-serving and backward-thinking men to justify that belief. God is whatever entity, being, or force that is responsible for setting the universe, nature, or what we refer to as reality into motion - period. So it's the height of human arrogance to think that with our feeble and limited mentality that we're capable of even comprehending the mere concept of God, and much less know what's on his, her, or its mind. Yet we have these arrogant men struttin' around in fancy robes every Sunday as though they're experts. What they actually are, are either con men, or delusional.
.
Our galaxy alone is over 100,000 light years across, and has over 200 billion stars that are light years apart - and there's over 10 TRILLION galaxies in the universe just like it. If you go and look out at the night sky (as I do every night as part of my personal spirituality) some of the light you see, just from stars near by, left its respective stars traveling through time and space at 186,000 MILES PER SECOND (7 1/2 times around the Earth in one second), over 100,000 years before Jesus was born just to hit your eyeball tonight, and our galaxy is just a dust particle in the universe. Again, there are thousands of billions of galaxies just like it, and billions of times more distant, and the universe is still expanding in every direction at the speed of light. There are a billion times more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on every beach, desert, and beneath the sea - and yet, man claims to know what's on God's mind!!!? That's utterly ridiculous.
.
In spite of man's narcissistic assumption, it's all but mathematically impossible for mankind to be the only sentient beings in the universe. Stephen Hawking (the Albert Einstein of our time) suggested that one day beings from another solar system or galaxy may show up with a gigantic can of Black Flagg, and then we'll see how important we are. So the bottom line is, man is completely delusional to think that he's so special that he, in particular, has God's undivided attention.
.
Yet, the very same people who compiled the Bible threaten Galileo for saying that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. But as the church finally acknowledged, Galileo was absolutely right. Because, you see, Galileo didn't just depend on "faith," he utilized the intellect that God bestowed upon him to improve on Hans Lippershey's invention of the telescope and then used it to look out at the night sky. If Galileo had continued to depended on "faith" instead of God's gift of intellect, preachers would still be running around here preaching that the entire universe revolved around man, just like they refuse to believe in global warming because it's financially inconvenient. These people are ignorant, and their gross ignorance is a threat to the existence of all of humanity. Yet we have "faith," and we continue to follow.
.
So while this may be hard on man's gargantuan ego, the fact is, in cosmic terms, man is no more significant in just this one galaxy than a colony of germs under a toilet seat in Uzbekistan. Thus, man is on the mother of all ego trips to believe that God is sitting around kickin' it with either the Pope, Pat Robertson, or T.D. Jakes. It's also pure lunacy to believe that man is so significant that "God sent his only begotten son" to suffer and die just to save man for his sins. Just the thought of it is so childishly ridiculous it's laughable. Even if we were that important, why would a loving God send his ONLY begotten son through all that agony and unnecessary hassle when he could just forgive us - after all, he is God, isn't he? But if he did it to teach us some kind of lesson, it didn't work.
.
We can only know God's will by observing what he's done, so the one thing we do know about God is that he intended for man to be an intellectual being. He made that clear by blessing us with a logical mind, so we’re slapping him in the face by choosing to follow "the word of man" instead of following what he's clearly demonstrated was his will - for mankind to be logical thinkers, not to go around believing in talkin’ snakes, walkin’ dead men, and that God only speaks to White men - not all of humanity, but the White man in particular. But by looking at the books in the Bible, that seems to be the case. Didn't he ever speak to the Chinese, or Africans? If he did, it's not reflected by books in the Bible. Where's the Book of Chong, or Mumbulu in the Bible? EvenWhite women are relegated to second-class status. There's not one book in the Bible that was written by a woman, but that's not surprising, because the bigoted men in the Catholic church don't even believe women are worthy of being priests, and Pope Damasus I of the Catholic church compiled the Bible.
.
So according to what we see in the Bible, the Whiteman reigns supreme in the eyes of God. In fact, he occupies a status just beneath that of God himself. The Bible says, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” - Ephesians 6:5 In other words, you should know your place, and stay in it. But God didn't have anything to do with that stupidity. That has man written all over it. Yet, still we worship, and still we follow. So our "faith" is not in God, it's in man - and no, I'm not "the Devil trying to lead you astray."
.
CHRISTIANS ARE BEING TAUGHT TO HATE THESE
TWO BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T
LOOK, THINK, AND ACT LIKE THEMSELVES. THEY'RE
BEING TOLD THEY'RE "UN-GODLY."
All you have to do to live a Godly life is to live the best life you can, help others whenever you can, and mind your own business. But the Bible was designed and compiled by Pope Damasus I (nearly 400 years after the death of Jesus) to get you to believe in fairy tales, jump through a lot of hoops, and prepare you for brainwashing - and in that respect, it's served it's purpose well. But in terms of enlightening mankind it's been an abject failure. It's cause more hatred, bigotry, and dissension among man than any book ever written - and there's a good reason for that, because the only time man follows it is when he's looking for a scripture to justify killing other men who don't believe what he believes. Clear evidence of that is there's going to be a lot of Christians who are going to hate my guts just for saying what I'm saying now. But while that attitude is clearly ungodly, their attitude is, "It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does." We're seeing that attitude reflected in Donald Trump right now - "Everyone who's a Mexican, or of the Muslim faith, is the enemy."
.
Black people were taught these Mother Goose tales by White folks while they had us tied up next to the mules, yet, now we’re more devoted to their nonsense than they ever were. Wouldn’t you think that if God had created religion to guide man that he would have created only one instead of multiple religions that caused man hate one another’s guts? That defeats its purpose. And if the religion that we were taught was true, wouldn’t the people who taught it to us follow it themselves? But if a slave had walked out of the field to go “worship the Lord” and went into a White church and sat next to a White woman, the preacher would’ve stopped his sermon on “loving thy neighbor” mid sentence just long enough to lynch him. Yet, we’re gorging ourselves on every word they taught us as though we heard it come directly from the mouth of God.
.
We’ve been so brainwashed that many of us are like a man sitting on a rail road track and seeing an oncoming train. Instead of using the common sense that God gave him and simply getting off the track, he decides to “test his faith” and get on his knees and pray that God stops the train. That kind of stupidity is gonna to cause the man to perish, and it does - the train didn't even slow down - because God did his part when he gave the man a brain and he failed to use it. So the man wasn’t testing his faith in God, he was testing his faith in what another man told him about God. The same is true of us. If we don't learn to use the common sense that God bestowed upon us and stop having more “faith” in the White man’s fairy tales than in what God has done, we’re also gonna perish, because after God clearly demonstrated his will by giving us a brain, to allow ourselves to remain ignorant is a sin - and believing that a walking dead man is gonna appear to solve all our problems is just that - sinfully ignorant. It hasn’t happened in 400 years, and it’s not about to happen any time in the future.
.
While we’re on our knees praying, the White establishment is cutting our throats, because religion keeps us docile and thinking that “salvation” is right around the corner. Think about it. Did all of our prayers keep Trump out of office, or keep our children from being shot down in the street? No they didn’t. God’s not gonna stop that train either. It’s up to us to save ourselves. So we need to get up off our knees and get off the tracks - and in a hurry, if we haven’t already squandered away any time we might have had left - because the American Express is about to obliterate us, and God is just gonna sit there and watch, because we chose to believe in the White man’s religious dogma instead of the common sense that he bestowed upon us.
.
NOTICE THAT THE DEVIL IS ALWAYS PORTRAYED
AS HAVING DARK SKIN, NEVER WHITE.
I've known intuitively that Christianity didn't make sense every since I was a child sitting up in Sunday school. As I said, it makes no more sense than Voodoo. I'd sit there (at 9 years old) and say to myself, "This stuff doesn't make sense. If Adam and Eve were the first two people on Earth and they only had two sons, where did the rest of us come from, and where did the people come from who Cain went to live with after he killed his brother?" But I was afraid to either say, or admit that I didn't believe it because I'd been threatened with demons, Hell, and brimstones if I refused to "believe" - and that's a very real fear for a child when even your protectors are scared to death. That's why Christianity is so thoroughly ingrained in us, because it was threatened into us by authority figures when we were children, and that was a horrible thing to do to a child - in fact, it's ungodly.
.
AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT'S HAPPENED.
THAT'S WHY WE'RE STUCK WITH DONALD TRUMP -
BIGOTED AND CLOSED-MINDED CHRISTIANS.
So personally, I don't think that most Christians really believe that Christian nonsense for a minute, unless they're complete idiots, but they'll never admit it, because they too were threatened as children. That's why you hear so many "Amens," "hallelujahs" and so much testifying in church, because they know deep down inside that they don't believe that snakes can talk, but they're trying to convince God that they do, which is ironic, since it's God's gift of common sense and logic that's telling them NOT to believe it. Yet they continue to try to lie to God, because they've been taught that any atrocity can be forgiven, EXCEPT, not believing in what they've been told. And Christians take full advantage of that loophole, because many are absolute horrors Monday through Saturday. Pat Robertson is the most evil-spirited person I've ever seen - he even LOOKS like a demon - and if you'll notice, Christians tend to be some of the most closed-minded and bigoted people in the country. Yet, we follow.
.
A PREACHER'S HOME
And many of these Black preachers better hope like hell that Hell is just a myth, because they should be educating the Black community on how to survive its adversities instead of getting rich off our misery by giving paid spoken-word concerts every Sunday morning. So if Hell is real and not just a myth, God is gonna slam them in there so hard and fast that they’re gonna be bouncing off the walls. They shouldn’t be preaching us a sermon, they should be living us one.
WHAT MANY BLACK PREACHERS ARE DOING TO THEIR OWN PEOPLE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TREASON
.
.
.
Frederick Douglass had this to say about the jackleg preachers of his time - ". . . the church of this country is not only indifferent to the . . . [bad treatment of] the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the . . . [defender] of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent . . . [preachers], who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world . . . [as] Christianity."
.
So I’m sorry for having to be so brutally blunt regarding an issue that is obviously so close to your heart, but our current circumstance calls for exactly what I'm saying, and since God made me arrogant enough to say it, I feel like I'm simply following his will - and I didn't make up one syllable, or ask you to believe in one magic trick in order to hold my words together. So just remember this - your religious beliefs are merely an accident of birth. If you’d been born in Israel, chances are, you’d be a Jew, if you’d been born in Iran you’d be a Muslim, or China, a Buddhist, so you’ve been SOCIALIZED into believing what you so passionately believe is the word of God. And again, regardless to what man says, you can only know God’s will by what God has done, and what he’s done is blessed us with logical minds. So when that mind tells you that snakes don’t talk, and dead men don’t walk, that’s God speaking to you, just like he's speaking to me right now. And his word is self-evident, so you don’t have to have “faith” in it. You only have to have “faith” in the word of man, but for some reason, he always wants to be paid for it.
.
So put your "faith" aside for just one moment and use the common sense that you KNOW that God bestowed upon you and ask yourself one question - How can you claim to hate White supremacy and then get all dressed up on Sunday morning and go PAY a man to tell you that God is White?
.
JUST LISTEN TO THIS IDIOT!
.
. KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE
DEMOCRATS LOST THE 2016 ELECTION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
.
I’m so sick of hearing Clinton cultist trying to hold the people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton responsible for Trump’s win that I could throw up. The DNC lost the 2016 election in the Democratic primaries when they used lying, deceit, and corruption to deprive the people of their right to choose, and then shoved the most hated, corrupt, and insidious Democratic nominee since the Civil War down our throats. What did they expect to happen? So they shouldn’t blame the people for refusing to be blackmailed out of their vote, they should blame themselves for failing to stand up for democracy and trying to push Hillary into the White House through hook or crook.
.
.
So I’m proud of the role I played in revealing Hillary Clinton's flaws. Yes, I'm disgusted that Donald Trump is now the President-Elect, but I'd be just as disgusted if it were Hillary Clinton, because she's no better than Trump, and quite possibly, worse. Hillary is sneaky and insidiously corrupt. In addition, she has a political machine in place that would give her the support she'd need to cut our throats covertly just like Bill Clinton did when he was in office. On the other hand, Trump is a mindless buffoon whose goal is to put ALL poor and middle class people back on the plantation - Black and White. So at least this time Black people will have allies to help them fight back.
.
In addition, Trump's election may have unintended consequences. The Republican don't have a sense of limits, so chances are they're going to go over the top and wake the people up to who they really are and sabotage themselves as a party. And further, if the intelligence community finds that Trump had any covert contact with the Russians during the election, that’s treason - and mark my words, the intelligence community (17 agencies) is looking into that as we speak - because they cannot allow the nation to have a “Manchurian Candidate” as President of the United States. If it's true, even if he wanted to go straight, the Russians could blackmail him. So Trump is entering office on very shaky ground, because the CIA doesn’t engage in spitball fights over twitter.
A friend of mine was hired to sing at an "old folks" home, and she said, "I was shocked! Those old folks were the best audience I've ever had!" And I told her, of course they were. They know more about jazz than you do. To them, you were just a talented kid trying to imitate what they created. Those old folks were everything that we try to pretend, and hope, to be. They had more class, more talent, and much more style than any of us do today. The tunes that we call "standards," they (or their contemporaries) actually wrote, and what we call jazz, speaks to the lives that they actually led. . John Coltrane would be 90 years old today, Dexter Gordon 94, Bird 96, and Thelonious Monk would be 100 years old this year. So those "old folks" could do everything we do today, and much better. Just being asked to perform for this great generation of people should be considered the highest compliment that you could be given, because your host obviously felt that you brought the kind of feeling, talent, and excellence to the table that these old-school steppers could appreciate - you're just lucky one of them didn't decide to limp up on stage to show you how it was really done, because I'm sure that many of 'em still got the chops to do it.
.
Most of the people who Slow Dragged to the piece below are dead today, but they lived their lives to the fullest.
The piece below shows how they rolled during the Great Depression and the Harlem Renaissance. Many of them were thriving. While most of America was starving to death, in bread lines, and some jumping out of windows in desperation, it was business as usual for these steppers, because they knew how to deal with adversity.
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
.
We’re children of ____the night______
Our souls___ come alive___ at Sunset_____
We sing of jazz___ beneath the moonlight____
to a song___ that’s often mis-understood____
.
We sing of pain____ and bitter sorrow_____
And known_____ to cry out_____ into the night______
We sing our song _____ a Harlem Noctune______ A song that soothes____ the Harlem Moon____ tonight________
.
But we
swing and we sway___
And sleep through the day___
and live a life
that the squares don’t understand____ .
Though misunderstood___
we always look good___
and
forget about
our sorrows
when the horns
start to play___
.
We’re children of ___the night_____
Our souls___ come alive___ at Sunset_____
We sing of jazz___ beneath the moonlight____
to a song___ that’s often mis-understood____
.
We sing of pain____ and bitter sorrow_____
And known_____ to cry out_____ into the night______
We sing our song _____ a Harlem Noctune______ A song that soothes___ my Harlem Moon___ tonight________
Claude McMay, a Harlem Renaissance writer that was senior to Langston Hughes, would have been 129 years old now, but his words have the kind of sentiment and insight that would allow him to speak for many of us today.
So whenever I see an "old person" passing by, I always wonder what they were like in their youth, because they could show us a thing or two about what it really means to be a stepper.
The video above was a share from Roslyn Russell and Perman Wilson on FaceBook, and it made my eyes moist, not only because of the beautiful message it sends, but because of what this great lady represents. When I listened to it the years melted away and the memories began to flood in on how the beauty, grace, and excellence of this fabulous lady has enhanced my life over the years.
.
The first time I heard Nancy Wilson it was on an album that my mother bought called “Nancy Wilson and Cannoball Adderly.” When my mother played it I was on my way outside to play, but when the bittersweet passion of Nancy's flawless voice filled our livingroom, it stopped me dead in my tracks, even though I was a mere child of 11 years old at the time. I sat down and listened to the entire album - including the alternating tracks of Cannonball’s group doing instrumentals.
.
.
When the album was done I went to look at the album cover to see who this supremely talented lady was. Then when I picked up the album and laid eyes on her, I instantly fell madly in love, and even though she’ll be turning 80 years old in February, it’s a love affair that I still haven’t managed to overcome.
.
.
For me Nancy was, and is, the embodiment of the perfect woman. She’s the reason that I’ve always loved women, and over the years it’s turned out that all of my best friends are woman, because for me, they all have some element of Nancy Wilson in them. Nancy’s beauty, eloquence and class helped to put me in touch with a part of myself that many men don't like to visit due to our predatory nature. Yes, we love women, but our outlook is often very superficial - we like what they look like and what we can do to, and with them, but we often don’t see them as real human beings with the same needs and desires that we have in life. But Nancy gave me an affinity for women, and helped me to view reality through their eyes. She opened a door to their world that gave me a unique view of the beauty, tenderness, and strength that women have to offer. And listening to her lush and sophisticated serenades over the years helped me to understand very early in life that there was nothing “soft” or “unmanly” about walking through that door and joining them in their world - a world of children, love, and sincerity. She taught me to trade in machismo for passion, and as a direct result, I’ve enjoyed a life of maturity, tenderness, and pure romantic joy.
.
.
THANK YOU, NANCY, FOR REMINDING US THAT MUSIC IS NOT JUST ABOUT WEALTH AND FAME, IT'S ALSO ABOUT LIFE, AND THE LEGACY THAT WE LEAVE BEHIND.
RELIGION: THE KEY TO WHITE SUPREMACY . A LOT OF BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN SO BRAINWASHED OVER THE CENTURIES THAT WE SEE SHAKING OFF THE SHAKLES AS A SIN. BUT THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR BLACK PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND DURING THIS ERA OF DONALD TRUMP THAT I DECIDED TO UPDATE IT AND REPEAT IT. . LET'S USE OUR CHURCHES TO ORGANIZE AND IMPROVE OUR LIVES, AND STOP TRYING TO USE THEM TO BEG THE LORD FOR HELP. GOD DID HIS PART WHEN HE GAVE US A BRAIN, SO LET'S FOLLOW HIS WILL AND START USING IT. . WE'VE GOT TO WAKE UP, PEOPLE - AND FAST.
.
Ed,
.
I assume that you’ve read the entire Bible, yet you consider what I have to say “shit” and not even worth the time to consider? What’s the problem, am I not sufficiently White for you to accept the fact that God might find me worthy of speaking to? If that's the way you feel, I can certainly understand it. After all, if we base our assessment of God on the books in the Bible you love to thump, he only speaks to White men. He never speaks to women, he never speaks to Black people, and he never speaks to Asians - at least, none of them are represented by books in the Bible. And in spite of the fact that he sent his “only begotten son” to be born in the desert, both Jesus, and the entire population of the desert are portrayed as White.
.
So why is that important? It's important because it clearly demonstrates that the Bible was the creation of man and not inspired by God, because God is neither a chauvinist nor a bigot. So the Bible has man's fingerprints all over it. As a result, it’s not a bit surprising that according to most portrayals that I’ve seen in your “Holy Book,” God bears a striking resemblance in both appearance, and disposition, to the people who taught us his “Holy word” while they had us tied next to the mules. In other words, he bears a striking resemblance to a bigot, which has always given me pause (as it should also give you), and it leads me to believe that bigots created God in their own image.
.
But in spite of how your “Holy Bible” portrays him, God does speak to me. He’s speaks to me constantly through the intellect that he bestowed upon me, and he tells me that your “Holy gospel” notwithstanding, we can only know his will through what he has done, and not through the self-serving words of man. He says that he made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, and any creature that fails to adhere to their nature cannot survive. That’s why birds fly south in the winter - and without benefit of maps or a holy instruction manual. They simply follow the innate prescription in which God created them to follow, and that allows them to survive in perfect harmony with nature - unlike man. Man tries to re-write God's prescription to accommodate his own agenda for power, wealth, greed, and hubris, and that's where religion comes in. That's why we have so many of them. Wouldn't you think that if God put religion on Earth to guide mankind, there'd only be one of them? Consider that.
.
All of your religious beliefs are merely an accident of birth? If you'd been born in Israel, chances are you'd be a Jew; if you'd been born in Iran you'd be a Muslim, or in China, a Buddhist. So your religion isn't so much God-inspired as it is a result of the environment in which you were raised. You were SOCIALIZED into believing what you believe so passionately. Thus, if you truly believe that a person born in Israel, Iran, or China is going to Hell because they weren't socialized to believe what you believe, you're delusional. And if you believe that God sent a White Scandinavian with Blond hair and blue eyes to be born in the desert to instruct people of color in how they should live their lives, you're not only delusional, but you're stupid - if that had been the case, they wouldn't have had to crucify Jesus, he would have died of Sunburn.
.
The Bible that Christians Worship today was compiled and “bless” by the Catholic Church, not God. Any book that disagreed with the Catholic Church was banned. What Christians call "The Holy Bible," and what preachers run around thumping, wasn’t even compiled until almost 400 years after the death of Jesus. So everything in it is hearsay. In terms of years, at the time the Bible was compiled they were twice as far away from the life and times of Jesus Christ as we are away from the life and times of George Washington today. So in reality, they didn’t know fact from fiction, any more than we know whether or not George Washington actually chopped down a cherry tree:
.
"For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today. Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose. The Catholic Church realized early on that it had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren't. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren't. In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides. One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father's writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions. When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSONS PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL. There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome's position, or Augustine's position was the correct position, had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
.
"Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, "The Decree of Damasus," in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books"
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080928064041AATOZUD).
.
SO THE POPE HAD SPOKEN, AND THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED. THUS, WHAT CHRISTIANS REFER TO AS "THE HOLY BIBLE" IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD, IT'S THE WORD OF POPE DAMASUS I.
.
The gift of intellect is God’s most precious blessing to mankind, but you’re taking it and slapping him in the face with the very blessing that he bestowed upon you by choosing man’s words over God’s deeds. You’d rather have “faith” in man’s contrived tales of walking dead men, talking snakes, and demons than to use the common sense that God bestowed upon you to recognize that demons don’t exist, dead men don't walk, and snakes don't talk, and they never did - period! Thus, you don’t believe in God, you believe in man. You’ve let man convince you that if you ever doubt his word by having the audacity to cave-in to GOD’S will that you use common sense and intellect to guide your life, that the Boogie Man’s gonna get you and drag you into eternal damnation. That’s the kind of tactic that’s used to manipulate children - fear. But you’re a thinking adult, so wake up.
.
It's all a farce. Think about it. In spite of all the nonsense man preaches about “loving thy neighbor,” if a slave walked out of the field on a Sunday morning and into a so-called “house of God,” and then sat next to a White woman to worship the Lord, the preacher would stop his sermon on “loving thy neighbor” mid sentence, just long enough to lynch him. So I respectfully submit, sir, that you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed - and most Black people have been brainwashed. We’ve been brainwashed into hating ourselves, because the underlying message in Christianity is Black is evil, and White is pure and holy. That’s why they portray Jesus as White, and wearing all white, in spite of the fact that he was born in the desert (can you just imagine what that flawlessly clean white robe would look like in the desert!!!?). So if you can't even trust them to tell you what he looked like, how can you trust them to tell you what he said? Yes, there is a passage in the Bible that says his hair was like sheep's wool, but how often do you hear that passage, and how is he portrayed? As a child when I said my prayers, I pictured myself praying to, and worshiping, a White man with long flowing blond hair. That's how our minds were stolen.
.
Now, I can see children believing in Santa Claus, but to see so many allegedly educated grown people enthusiastically embracing this utter nonsense is freighting. It proves that man can get other men to believe in anything. As a direct result, none of us are safe. We’re not safe from our children being shot down in the street, or sent to foreign lands to die for the profit of other men, or being blown up by various and sundry lunatics and religious fanatics who have other beliefs, as we’re currently seeing all over the world. The vast majority of all of the bigotry, pain, suffering, and hatred in the world can be traced directly back to religion - or the word of man. So while I’m a firm and passionate believer in God (every morning at 3:30 a.m. I go into my back yard and commune with him as I stare out into the universe and into his face), you can spare me the Christian Voodoo. That’s not for me. It smells far too much like the man who enslaved my people, and who is keeping them mentally enslaved to this day.
.
But when I debate preachers on this issue, they try to conflate themselves with God by wrapping themselves, the Bible, and God into one neat little bundle as though they are one. They asks, "Where's your faith? Don't you believe in the word of God (as though it goes without saying that the Bible is the word of God)!!!?" My response is, I don't have to have "faith" in God. You only have to have faith where there's doubt, but I KNOW that God exists without any doubt. God is whatever being, entity, or force that is responsible for creating the universe and what we refer to as reality. So the mere fact that you and I exists is irrefutable evidence of the existence of God. So the only question that begs to be asked is, whether or not I have faith in you and your "Holy book," and the answer to that question is definite and unequivocal - absolutely not.
.
So every time I see Black people dancin’, and shoutin’, and cryin’ in church, it makes me want to throw up, because I know it’s all based on ignorance and a self-serving lie. And it’s no accident that the most devout Christians either live in the South, came from the South, or were raised by people from the South, because that’s where the brainwashing tradition was most pronounced. The more undereducated and country a person is, the more likely he or she is to be a devout and unthinking Christian.
.
What they don’t understand is, regardless to what the preacher says, they can neither pray their way into Heaven, out of poverty, or out of any other kind of adversity. God did his part when he gave them a brain. So they've got to think their way out of adversity, and since God already blessed them with the tools to do that, it's not only senseless, but ungrateful, lazy and greedy trying to beg God to do what they should be doing for themselves. But preachers keep them in that mind-set because it keeps them coming back to church and paying the preacher to help them "speak to Jesus." The only reason people can't see through this transparent game is because they were born playing it - their mother and father played it, their grandparents played it, and all the people around them are playing it. So they need to step back and take an honest look at their belief-system with the common sense that God bestowed upon them.
.
"God helps those who help themselves." A perfect example of that axiom is if a man is sitting on a rail road track and he sees a train coming, if he decides to get on his knees and try to pray that God stops the train instead of using his God-given common sense to get out of the way, he’s gonna to perish. That’s just how the universe works. But many Black people are doing exactly like that man on the rail road track, perishing, as a direct result of trying to pray their way out of adversity instead of using their God-given ability to think. That mind-set was instilled in us while we were in slavery when White folks used to tell us not to worry about how bad we were being treated. They'd say, “Just put your faith in the Lord, and you’ll get yours by and by.” Many Black people embraced that philosophy and they're still clinging to it today. That's why, in spite of our intellect, we're at the very bottom of the social ladder.
.
One of the primary reasons we're still clinging to that ridiculous philosophy is because instead educating Black people to reality, again, many Black churches are using that very same game to fleece Black people themselves. The preacher will simply give them an inspirational spoken-word concert and a little entertainment on Sunday morning (because when emotion, or the "holy ghost," walks through the front door, intellect flies out the back window), and then once he's got them sufficiently emotional, he'll convince them that if they simply pay him enough money he’ll help them to “grow in their faith” to the point where God will stop the train. Well, it ain’t gonna happen, and the preacher knows it - but he doesn’t have to worry about the people ever figuring that out because he’s already convinced them to believe in talkin’ snakes, and neither does he ever have to worry about anybody coming back from the dead (like he claims Jesus did) to tell them that he's been lying to them. So it’s the perfect hustle.
.
So let us be clear. You cannot pay admission into Heaven or fool the creator, regardless to how loud you shout “Praise the Lord!” on Sunday morning. If you want to carry out God’s will, you’ll use your common sense to make this a better world. Instead of making your preacher rich, and trying to lie to God, you'll pay your tithes to the hungry family of your neighbor who just lost his job, help provide shelter for the homeless, demand that your church remain open seven days a week to provide community services, stop supporting entertainers, athletes, and businesses that don’t support the community, and organize to turn out ruthless politicians. That's praising God, and if we all did that we could answer our own prayers. But instead, we embrace the Bible and the following kind of self-serving nonsense written by man:
.
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” - Ephesians 6:5
.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” - John 3:16
.
FIND EARTH
.
.
God neither wrote, nor inspired, that nonsense. It was inspired by the self-interest of self-serving and greedy men, the very same kind of self-serving and greedy men that exist today (if they were around today they'd probably be on Trump's transition team). God created you to be your own master, but you don't believe in God, you believe in the word of man, simply because you've been convinced that the men who wrote and compiled the Bible had some kind of special connection with God because they lived and died 2000 years ago. Embracing such nonsense is why Black people are suffering, and will continue to suffer, until they wake up and demand that their preachers stop preaching them a sermon, and start living them one.
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.