I Remember a King - do You?

The African American community has changed significantly since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and not for the better.

Segregation has ended, and we can live in predominantly white communities if we choose to and our children can attend integrated schools, but systemically our situation is worse.

There are more single head of household families now than in King's era, and education, which used to be observed as a revolutionary act, is no longer sacred or seen as essential or momentous. Our self-centered worlds are what we are concerned about, and consequently, we perceived them as being of more value than community. We talk about community responsibility as having axiological pre-eminence, but do not walk the walk.

Currently, what we own, who we know, where we live and other aspects of materialism are more paramount than what we know or how we treat others. We even roll up and compact into our little shells as turtles do when others we know as our intellectual superiors inform or take us to task on how we live our lives or our behavior. Lewdness and shallowness are exalted while education and illumination are frowned upon.

Yes, times have changed. Celebrity and fame are held in high regard and young people tend to be rappers, actors and athletes when once they were Martin Luther King Jr., H. Rap Brown, Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. Now, fewer African American men are completing high school than during the time of MLK or segregation. There were even more black-owned businesses then than there are now.

But who am I to speak? I remember the day MLK was murdered in my hometown of Memphis, Tenn., and the night before meeting him as a child at my friend’s father’s church. I also recall seeing National Guard jeeps on my street in front of my home and being told I couldn’t play outside. I remember my mom calling home saying Dr, King was dead and that he had been driven to her hospital in a Colonial Bread truck to protect his body from angry white folks. I remember; the problem is that most who will read this do not. This is the problem and why we do more harm in our selfish ways than good, and will continue to do so.

thought amnesty (11.15.2008)

First wanna say good look to my folks at There ….Already for giving me the Superior Scribbler Award. I wanna pass it on to: Rich, averge american patriot, Love Babz, Kelso, Slappz, Ms Lady D, Curious, The Rippa, Boss Mack, Buelahman, 12kyle, Zack, monroe anderson & the Glamazon.

Now. Was thinking, After November 4^th, 2008, my most historical memories in my life outside the birth of my seeds – my order hear goes.

1] Martin Luther King Jr. Assignation – I was there.

2] Obama election – would have, or maybe would have been number 1 if I was there.

3] Planes flying in the twin towers (was teaching class at Emory at the time. Cut TVs on in class and saw second plane fly into 2^nd tower. They cleared school reports were one was heading toward the CDC. My building was next to it.

4] Hurricane Katrina (can’t say I expected to see in America, what I have only seen in Africa)

5] Falling of the Berlin Wall (Amazing is all I can say).

6] Million Man March (speechless)

7] John Thompson winning National Championship in 1984

8] Rodney King Verdict (Can still see that coward throwing a brick into the head of Mr. Denny and raising hands like a touchdown.

9] Arthur Ashe winning Wimbledon (I will never forget that Sunday - July 5, 1975)

10] Tony Dungy winning the super bowl (really two African American coaches paring off in the Super Bowl).

So what are yours? Full life, ey?

Still U.S. ing

For those of you who don’t know, I used to teach ancient African History. Although it was supposed to start from 200 B.C.E. (before Christian Europe) to 1100 A.C.E. (after Christian Europe), I started it during the time of the Djebel Ouenat carvings in Libya during the Upper Paleolithic age as well with a brief introduction of the Gloger Law. If you are not familiar with the latter, simply stated it postulates that warm-blooded animals need to be pigmented in hot climates. This means as a primer, folk started the class with a brief overview of the origin of man from homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens.

I did this although my main interest in history was during the periods of colonialism and slaver (of which a lot seems to over lap). Slavery for me holds both emotion and disdain. I was even asked and authored several historical pieces for the World Enclycopedia of slavery. Particularly on the punishment of slaves , the Kansas Nebrask Act and Church Schisms Slavery. I can’t see for the life of me how a group of folk can be so lazy and evil to place another (with or without their assistance) in bondage. It just confuses the shit out of me. Moreover, it really trips me out how some may suggest that it was not “that” bad, or that it is over and happened hundreds of years ago. Such a position pisses me the fuck off too.

It is as if they don’t see capitalism and racism as being the same thing as formulated in slavery. It is as if they don’t see how years of perpetual servitude without profit can have a devastating impact on the psyche, soul and more importantly pocket of the one enslaved. I really would love to see someone today work for Sears, or Wachovia or U.S. Steel for their entire life and not receive a penny, get am benefit or pension from said years of effort.

The way I see it, the proclamation announced by Lincoln really did not free the descendants of Africa. Sure it enabled them to move away from pimps called slave masters, but it was not freedom. For freedom has to be pursued aggressively. It is like Julius K. Nyerere said “Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic. Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino.”

It was really, as Douglass Blackmon called it a new time and more so the start of the “Age of Neoslavery.” A period where folks could still enjoy slave labor without the title of “slavery” attached. Just as the Jim Crow laws or the Black Code statutes passed to maintain white control after the Civil War, today, the same form of slavery exist except with out the chains, torture and punishment. Just as then, current laws are designed and put in place to intimidate African Americans, namely males because they were able to do rigorous free labor.

Yes I am talking about prison, and really since the freedom of slaves. But this is not important, because it is over and it had no impact on the current condition of Africans in America today. But I bet if you asked U.S. Steel, Tennessee Coal (Pratt Coal & Coke Co.), the Georgia and Alabama Railroad, U.S. Pipe & Foundry (Jim Walter Corp/ Walter Industries) or Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co among a lot of other major corporations that I won’t name, they aint willing to give back the money they stacked as a function of free labor. But then again it was prison labor; labor not protected by the Fair Labor-Standards Act. Just as today, a many folk end up in prison due to stupid shit that is exacerbated by ridiculous sentences and ridiculous fines. It just seems that it is deliberately directed mathematically disprotinatelly to African Americans, and it amazes me how folks can even say that the insidious legacy of racism called slavery doesn't reverberates today.

Yep, convict leasing is still really real, but no longer in the South, as in days of old but rather nation wide. They don’t keep records anymore, but back in the day it was estimated that the Alabama's forced-labor system made $17 million for the state government alone (about 250 million in today's dollars).

My thing is this, if it was not cool for Hitler to force Jews to work in a similar form, and they were awarded loot for making German corporations rich, why the double standard? As far as I am concernd, U.S. Steel is still using us, i mean they still making profit of tha loot, aint they, like the others. I’m through.