RELIGION: THE KEY TO WHITE SUPREMACY

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

RELIGION: THE KEY TO WHITE SUPREMACY
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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.
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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.
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WE'VE GOT TO WAKE UP, PEOPLE - AND FAST.
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Ed,
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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. 
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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.   
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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.
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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.
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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:
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"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.
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"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).
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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:

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“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” - Ephesians 6:5

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” - John 3:16

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FIND EARTH
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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.

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DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON, A HUMBLE, BUT TRUE MAN OF GOD

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"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN,
YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"  - JOHN 8:39

Eric L. Wattree

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

Sphere: Related Content

BLACK INTELLIGENCE: THE MOST CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET IN AMERICA (Reprise)

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

BLACK INTELLIGENCE: THE MOST CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET IN AMERICA 

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KAI AND ERIC, JR.

Most Black people have well above average intelligence. We have to just to survive in America. Every day, from the time we get up, until the time we go to bed we have to navigate our way through all manner of bigotry, both overt and covert. Racism is so pervasive in the lives of Black people that many of us don't even have to think about the intellectual strategies necessary to outwit most bigots - we do it on autopilot. As a result, we've developed an intellectual muscularity that we don't even have to think about. 
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As Naturalist Charles Darwin pointed out in his book, On the Origin of Species, all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.  In other words, the adversity that Black people have been forced to endure over the centuries has caused nature to step in to enhance our innate intellectual abilities in order to help us to survive in a hostile environment. So the adversity that we’ve endured over the centuries is serving to make Black people MORE rather than less. It is causing us to evolve as we speak, but it's up to Black people themselves to recognize, develop, and utilize that potential.
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A HOME IN THE BLACK MIDDLE-CLASS

SUBBURB OF BALDWIN HILLS, CA.

President Barack Obama, and the Imafidon family at the bottom of this article, are graphic examples of the fact that the evolutionary process mentioned above may already be revealing itself. As the son of an African immigrant, in ONE generation Barack Obama rose to become one of this nation's greatest presidents, and he possessed the intellectual muscularity to handle the entire Republican establishment like they were a group of irate children.  He also saved the world from a second Great Depression, and if it weren't for the Republican Party's eight-year tantrum of ignorant, racist, and childish obstructionism, America would undoubtedly be experiencing the greatest era in its history at this very moment. And then there's the Imafidons, a Nigerian family, acknowledged as THE most brilliant FAMILY in the United Kingdom.
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Those facts are significant when it comes to defining what Black people represent. But facts such as these tend to be ignored, or played down in a bigot drenched America, because they don't conform to America's preferred view of reality. America prefers to define Black people based upon the images of the most dysfunctional among us. But I intend to explode that myth, not only for the average uninformed White person, but for the many Black people who've been brainwashed by the mass media into embracing their tainted view of reality. If we portrayed White people in the same way that Black people are being portrayed, all White people would be seen as hillbillies.
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As I've mentioned in a previous article, racists tend to be the mediocrity of White society, so they try to use the fact that they were born White to define themselves and to compensate for their lack of personal value. Their entire sense of self-esteem is based more upon group association than individual value and accomplishment, and their entire claim to personal significance is, "Well, at least I'm better than them."  Well, here are the facts:
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In the Live Science Article, Low IQ And Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice, it states unequivocally that "There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy." That's what drives radical conservatives so crazy about President Obama - he's walking, breathing, evidence that they cannot claim superiority by virtue of the color T-shirt they were born in, and that simple fact alone is causing them to suffer a severe attack of cognitive dissonance before the eyes of the entire world. That's also why they were so determined not to allow President Obama to be as successful as he could have been, even if it meant  destroying the country.
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But Obama's not the only chink in their armor. These people feel such a desperate need to be superior that they’ll go to any length to try to substantiate that claim, even if they have to corrupt both logic and reality to make it conform to their point of view. For example, how can they claim to be superior to Black people while at the same time claim that America is such a devoutly Christian Nation? If Jesus Christ had been born in the desert with blond hair and blue eyes they wouldn’t have had to crucify him - he would have died of Sunburn. Jesus Christ was a man of color. So how can you claim to be superior to a man that you also claim to worship? One would think that a “superior race” would have recognized the flaw in that logic.
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So now this entire nation, including the future of our children, is being threatened by the desperate attempt of a handful of insecure bigots to maintain their delusion of superiority, and as far as they’re concerned, if the country has to be sacrificed for that cause, so be it.  That's what makes it so important for Black people to begin to develope the innate intelligence that we've been both hiding, and/or, holding a cultural antagonism toward.
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What do I mean by a cultural antagonism toward intelligence?
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The root of the problem that we’ve traditionally had in the Black community among the more dysfunctional among us is not a lack of intelligence but our attitude toward knowledge. As a direct result of our history of slavery, we’ve developed a sort of hostility toward both knowledge, Black people who embrace it, and/or tend to display an exceptional level of intelligence. We tend to equate the pursuit of knowledge with selling out. We also tend to see the active pursuit of knowledge as part of the White man’s domain, so we look upon Black people who have a love of knowledge with disdain, because we see them as "trying to be White."
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KRIS KROSS WEARING THEIR

PANTS BACKWARDS

The reason for that is simple. During slavery the only Black people we knew who spoke anything close to "proper English" were the "house niggas," and many house slaves had a tendency to look down their noses at slaves who worked in the field. As a result of that experience, many Blacks have an hostility toward "proper talkin'" Black people that persist to this day. So many highly intelligent Black people will often try to hide their intelligence, because, ironically, over the years we’ve developed an attitude where many feel that we have a moral obligation to remain ignorant in order to prove that we take pride in being Black.  Think about that. Isn't it ironic that many of us embrace ignorance as a sign of Black pride? That's why we can hear many educated young Black people going around saying things like, "What it is?", "What it be like?", and other obvious assaults on the English language. They know it's improper English, but they see it as giving credibility to their pride in being Black.  Some young people would put their shoes on backwards if they could just to show how unlike White people they are, and one hip hop group, Kris Kross, actually did wear their pants backwards.
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That attitude among some Blacks was one of the weapons that was used against President Obama by many envious Black intellectuals. They tried to use his "all-American" conventionality against him. They attempted to convince the Black community of the following:
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"I’m cool - see my long, wooly Afro, how cool I act, and how I can quote Lil’ Wayne when I’m on television? I’m one of y’all. I just have enough intelligence to speak the White man’s language, so I’m keeping an eye on him for the people. But that Obama, he’s not like us. He don’t have no Afro, he don’t never quote Lil Wayne, and he’s obviously much too intelligent to be trusted as a genuine Black man. He thinks like the White man."
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So even as Black "intellectuals," many send the message to Black youth that intelligence is the White man's domain, and that being Black and intelligent are incompatible - and ironically, many Black people have become more wedded to that attitude than White people. The message isn't overt, because we claim to be seekers of knowledge, but it can be clearly seen in our daily interactions with one another.
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An example of that is reflected in a joke that I wrote for a comedienne by the name of Frances Nealy.  I spoke of a new kid in school who continued to enthusiastically raise his hand to answer all of the teacher's questions.  Finally a kid in the back of the class said, "Who IS this dude!!!?  He must think he White or somethin'!" What made that a joke was it put it's finger on the underlying attitude of many Black people pointed out above.

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Here's another  example of that attitude at work posted on YouTube:
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"THE BLACK BOULE-NEGROS THAT HELP SELL YOU OUT "

WHAT DID THESE PEOPLE DO TO DESERVE BEING CALLED SELL-OUTS?
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JIM CROW
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Another reason that Black people have a tradition of hiding their intelligence is through necessity. During the Jim Crow era many White folks saw a smart Black man as an "uppity nigga," and it could get him lynched, because a smart Black man was a challenge to what bigots wanted to believe - that they were superior. Again, that's why they hate Barack Obama - and I've been surprised to see how deep seated that attitude is today, even among many White people who claim to be liberals. I've noticed over the internet that many White people believe that a Black person should defer to them in a debate, even if they're proven to be dead wrong. A Black person can say the very same thing to them as another White person, but they'll view the Black person as being arrogant - "How dare this spook try to make me look like an idiot!!!?" (Well, because you are).               
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When my mother was in nursing school my grandparents virtually raised me - we were connected at the hip. and my mother was more like an older sister that they allowed to play house with me from time to time. But every year my grandparents would go back to Louisiana to visit for a week, and every year they had to keep their pending trip a secret, because the moment I found out about it, it was absolutely ON until the car turned the corner headed for the airport.  I wanted to go with them, but my grandfather wouldn't let me.
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I could get them to cave-in on most things, but on this, my grandfather stood absolutely firm.  He said, "Eric, I wouldn't take you no farther South than San Diego, because you talk too much, and you could get us killed.You've got to learn to listen to what's on everybody else's mind, and never let anyone know what's on yours, because if you tell the another man everything that's on your mind, he'll then know everything you know, plus what he already knew, and that'll make him smarter than you. So that's why you have to stay home - because we can't afford to let those White folks down South know more about us, than we know about them." That was the thinking of many Jim Crow era Black people, and they also knew something that's true even today -  one of the fastest ways in the world to lose a job in America is to let your boss know that you're smarter than he is. So for all of those reasons, Black people have developed a tradition of hiding their intellect.
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But at this point in our history it's time for Black people to come out of the closet and change that strategy, and for the very same reason - survival.  We're living in a different world today, a world where we can't survive without using all of the intellect and knowledge at our disposal.  So we've got to prepare our children to survive in a world of science, technology, and political manipulation.  We can no longer simply demonstrate and shake our fists at the establishment and expect results. All the establishment is going to do is wait a couple of weeks until we cool off, and then it'll be business as usual. We see that strategy currently being played out against the Black Lives Matter movement at this very moment.
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So our children have got to be taught that we can't out-scream the establishment, because they control the media; and we can't out-fight them, because they control the military; thus, the only option left is to out-think them.  We've got to prepare ourselves to assume positions of power and authority, and we've got to learn, as a culture, not to be self-serving, and to recognize the advantages of sticking together in order to jerk the chains of political power most effectively.  In short, we've got to start relying on our intellect, and we have plenty of it to draw upon.
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TAYLOR WATTREE-JACKSON

THE BILL CLINTON AWARD FOR SCHOLARSHIP
OUTSTANDING STUDENT OF THE YEAR 
KIWANIS CLUB OF RIALTO 

So our children already have the intellectual potential to meet the challenges of the modern world and more, but it's up to the parents to convince them of that fact, and to impart the importance of doing so.  We've got to teach them that life isn't about just sitting back and being cute, or cool anymore, so they can no longer afford to just sit around, party, and get high like many of us did in the past, because the election of Donald Trump sends a very clear and emphatic message - it's crisis time.  So we've got to stop letting our young people be programed regarding who they are by the corporate media, because as long as Black people are better known for dancin' and saggin' than we are thinking, we'll always be under the White man's thumb. That isn't to say we should ban our kids from consuming pop culture, but we should discuss these issues with them, and point out how they're being manipulated.
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These are horrible times for this country, but they present a prime opportunity for the Black community to level the playing field . While the establishment is pulling every lever at its disposal to dumb the rest of America down, Black people have the opportunity to pull every lever at our disposal in pursuit of knowledge and leveraging our innate intellectual competence.  So it's all about thinking, instead of just shaking our fists.
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For that reason, every time our children did anything exceptional, my late wife and I made a big deal of it - like when my daughter, Kai, taught me how to factor when she was in the 6th grade, while university professors couldn't do it. We made a big deal out of that - in fact, it was a big deal, because I was struggling with

TAYLOR WATTREE-JACKSON

PRE-MED

JACKSON STATE UNIVERSITY

that class.
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For some reason my math professor just couldn’t get the concept of factoring across to me, but Kai did it in about 10 minutes by simply drawing a little tree and then hanging numbers on its branches. We praised her to high Heaven. That rewarded her for thinking, instead of just being able to dance. We also had this little game where you had to insert various geometric-shaped blocks into the proper slots before it popped up. Kai and Eric could do it with time to spare, but I never did master that game. They loved it, and it gave them confidence in their abilities, because it clearly demonstrated to them that they were better at some things than their parents were, and that's a big deal to children.  So we always went out of our way to let them know that they weren't average, because “average is the best of the worst, and the worst of the best,” and they were better than that. We also always treated them like peers rather than children, and while always respectful, they acted that way.
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Today Kai is a Human Resources Specialist for her college alma mater and President of the California School Employee’s Association, And Eric is a Special Agent for the United States Department of Justice.  Here’s what the Air Force had to say about him:
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23 April 2002

MEMORANDUM FOR OFFICER TRAINING SCHOOL SELECTION COMMITTEE
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FROM: 92 SFS/SFO
2 E. ARNOLD STREET
FAIRCHILD AFB, WA 99011

SUBJECT: Recommendation for Staff Sergeant Eric L. Wattree

ERIC WATTREE, JR.

1. I wholeheartedly concur with Staff Sergeant Wattree’s request to attend Officer Training School. He represents the enlisted ranks with the highest standard and will bring that dedication and professionalism to the officer corps.

2. Eric continues to lead a stellar military career; his enlisted performance reports speak for themselves. His leadership and experience, especially in contingency environments, remains a vital asset to our unit and wing. As one of my primary Phoenix Raven team leaders, he’s propelled to the forefront of all major deployments throughout the world. He’s repeatedly secured aircraft and crews, supporting a wide variety of missions, in the most austere and terrorist-ridden environments where security is severely inadequate. The diversity of these missions never limited SSgt Wattree’s capacity to adapt to each situation. For this reason, Eric was selected as our 2000 Outstanding Phoenix Raven Member of the Year and the 2001 Air Force Reserve Component Airman of the Year for the 92d Security Forces Squadron.

3. Whether operating under peacetime or contingency operations, Eric easily assumes control and tackles every situation with meticulous tenacity, a quality highly desired in our Air Force officers. Requested by name, Sergeant Wattree, provided security for presidential Banner missions throughout Greece, Peru and Viet Nam. While deployed to Afghanistan, he flew numerous combat missions in our nation’s pursuit to eradicate terrorism through Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Additionally, he provided round-the-clock force protection for aircraft in other high-threat environments including Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Oman.

4. Sergeant Wattree motivated his personnel during the worst conditions and raised the level of esprit de corps to integrate personnel from other Air Force specialties into a cohesive team. His leadership, integrity and devotion to our Air Force play an integral part in our future leadership. Eric has what it takes to become a commissioned officer and earns my full support to attend Officer Training School.

FRANK HELLSTERN, JR., Captain, USAF
Operations Officer
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Phoneix Ravens
This Elite Force Protects Vulnerable Air Force Aircraft

In The Most Dangerous Places On Earth

When Eric was discharged after his four-year tour, he was contacted by the Air Force and asked to return by “Special Request.”  But that didn’t last long, because as an Air Force Raven (Special Forces) he worked in concert with the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, and various other security agencies, so the federal government snatched him up. The agent who did his security clearance came to my home and told me, “Your son could get any security job in the federal government - I’m just glad he doesn’t want mine.”
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I couldn't help but get a little choked up when he told me that, because all I could think of was that timid little boy who used to peek out at the world from behind his older sister, and get into bed with me and Val at night because he was afraid of the dark. And on 4th of July he would get in the car and roll up the windows because he was afraid of the fireworks.  He was, literally, the family's pudgy-jawed little baby boy, and frankly, I was concerned about what was going to become of him when his sister grew up and moved on with her life.
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ME AND MY BABY BOY - BEFORE HE EVOLVED 

But in high school he sprung up in just one year, and in college he continued to morph, and now the government was here telling me that he's this 6'6", 250 lb. American hero. "Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me that my timid baby boy is Buck Rogers!!!? Where did that come from?"  I couldn't believe it, and neither could my wife. When they arranged for Val and I to be brought out to attend his credentials ceremony at Quantico, they had a congressman there, but they stopped the ceremony just long enough to talk about who Eric was, and his exploits even in training, and my wife asked me, "Are they talking about OUR Eric?"  And I said, Yes they are, baby. But I don't think she ever did reconcile the difference between her little boy and the man that he later became. Actually, even after all this time, neither have I. Is this evolution at work?  I can't say with any degree of certainty, but what I can say is, it's been a chilling and fascinating thing to watch. Today, when I look into his eyes, there's absolutely nothing left of that timid little boy that I once knew. All I see is a dead serious, no-nonsense manhood, and without a bit of posturing, pretentiousness, or macho swagger. What I now see, is what manhood is suppose to look like.
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BARACK - BEFORE HE EVOLVED

So we don't know what potential lies dormant within our children. Thus, we must begin to instill the pursuit of excellence and the power of knowledge in them at birth, and never let up. We must also become their number one “road dawg,” and not just sit back and expect them to be educated by others, because we ARE what we think. The very purpose of Jim Crow was to keep us from knowing that.  So think big, and teach your children to do likewise. Let us make the pursuit of knowledge and intellect the new "soul" within the Black community. We must set a goal where when the world thinks of Black people, they think of brilliance, competence, and accomplishment, not just "soul."

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POPPI'S DREAM

Well, Taylor,

Well, Trey,

You’re on your way,

To add to the Wattree Clan;

It’s my conviction, not hope, you will surely both,

Add a page to the sojourn of man.

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You’ll be loved and nurtured to take your place,

In this world that you now belong;

And when we’re through, we trust both of you,

Will help make our people be strong.

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You’ll be taught that knowledge is the key to life,

And to harvest its essence you’ll strive;

Then combine that knowledge with the wisdom of Solomon,

To help see our people survive.

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Think not of what is politically correct,

Seek to be independent of thought;

For group-think, indeed, is not thought at all,

But that of which fools are wrought.

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Embrace truth over all as your clarion call,

Make integrity your moral code;

And when life’s so tough you think it’s too much,

Allow God to relieve your load.

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Make the God you trust the God of your heart,

And not the God of man;

For the God of man is man himself,

And only just when it suits his plan.

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And look to the note that your poppi once wrote,

A withered vine ignored as benign;

Make my words come true, what I said of you,

And make my legacy whisper through time:

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“Neither scholar nor the head of state,

The most common of men seems to be my fate;

A life blistered with struggle and constant need,

As my legacy to man I present my seed.

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More fertile, more sturdy, they both than I,

This withered old vine left fallow and dry;

The nectar of their roots lie dormant still,

But through their fruit I’ll be revealed.”

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Love,

Poppi

ERIC WATTREE III
INVESTMENT/FINANCE

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII

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The Imafidons, a Nigerian family, is the smartest family in Britain

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EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS

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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