sovereignty, liberity, freedom, rights or privilege

It is only fitting that on this day we revisit history and not just any history, but that which empowered one Martin Luther King Jr., to embark on the continuation of the works, ideas and beliefs of freedom and liberty. Yes freedom and liberty for even with knowledge of King, Frantz Fanon, and Thomas Jefferson, such knowledge is lost on the hearts and minds of others. I say these because I have come to the empirical conclusion that many folks of my ethnic persuasion have accepted that we are free or even worse – think we are free. Truth is that many can not tell the difference nor explain what separates liberty from freedom, or a right from a privilege.

For me, the concepts all start with the fundamental understanding of sovereignty – a construct imbued in us not from or by any man but rather a Supreme Being or higher power. Sovereignty means supreme or highest in power. To be sovereign means to be independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction. This is what liberty and freedom are based on in these United States of America with respect to the un-alien-able rights men documented in the constitution.

I say this because a sovereign individual is self-reliant and does not need anyone (even government) to provide for him, protect him from himself nor tell him what to do. To be sovereign means to be responsible for ones own actions, to be financial independent and free from unnecessary government interference – basically living the life he desires. The problem again is that many do not understand theses concepts or how mandates are in direct opposition from the aforementioned concepts.

Recently Obama passed a Health Care reform bill that mandates folks buy health insurance, similar in the vein that we are mandated to purchase auto insurance and or wear seat belts (if your state demands such by law). Truth is some states do not and that there were times that it was not required to buy auto insurance or wear seatbelts. Many may be too young to remember such but it is true. When I mentioned my problem with this to a friend, he told me that he was glad such was mandated because driving is not a right but rather a privilege. I said that anything can do, create or think of is legal and provided to me by that greater than me and not a man. Also added that by your logic, reading and learning is a privilege also for that is how slave masters saw it – that they could decided for you as government entities do now. I also added that also thought it was unnecessary for marriage license, gun permits and driver’s license. Again he disagreed.So I reminded him of why we have both.

There was a time when there was no such thing as either, that is until or near the end of slavery. Historically, all the states outlawed the marriage of blacks and whites. Not until the mid 1800’s did some states allow such but in order to do so, they were mandated to received a license from the state (had to get permission to do an act which without such permission would have been illegal). Blacks Law Dictionary notes historically that a marriage license is defined as, "A license or permission granted by public authority to persons who intend to intermarry." "Intermarry" is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as, "Miscegenation; mixed or interracial marriages." Up until this period their was no such thing and now states all use them as a way to make money for God requires no such permit.

The same is true with respect to Gun permits. Throughout much of American history, gun control was used as a method for keeping blacks due to the racial fears of whites. Racist arms laws were on the books before the US was established. The French Black Code (required Louisiana colonists to stop "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane)." If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to "shoot to kill." Even before that the sixteenth century the colony of New Spain, prohibited all blacks, free and slave, from carrying arms. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. Such restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead". Simply, America has a fear of armed blacks based on the collective unconscious of what many made Africans in America Experience. Even the end of slavery in did not eliminate or change racist gun control laws. Blacks even needed to obtain a license before carrying or owning a gun or knife when such was not required for whites. Even today the same practices based on race via mandates stem from what we saw in the years of slavery. From public housing residents being singled out for gun bans to so-called "Gun sweeps" by police in "high crime neighborhoods.

All I am trying to say that we speak and accept these mandates by the government and they are often accepted under the guise of privilege as opposed to a right. We do not value freedom or liberty as much as we say or we would have continued the struggle that ore fore parents lead. It seems again as we think we are free, or think we have made or thin\k we have overcome, but the truth is we accept with out question. Accepting mandates as such makes us slaves, obviates us from individual responsibility and takes away our enumerated rights stated in the constitution. I mean it is not rocket science – if we are not sovereign, we have no liberty, if we have no liberty we have no freedom, if we have no freedom we have no rights – all that is left is privilege, which by definition can be given and/or taken away at anytime.

bad 4 ya health

I am starting to figure out the grand master scheme of the west, of the historical pedagogy of the liberal arts and all the associated nonsense that make them folk click. Honestly, I used to think it was an old school thing, you know sons and daughters of the confederacy and the economic plutocracy of the status quo, but now I am startin' too recognize it, our problems are much more and not improving but moreso getting worse. True, it is going on only 40 years since African Americans have had the right to vote. But voting, what does it really accomplish in a republic? I would answer nothing, just like a baby with a pacifier in its mouth.

This is why nothing surprises me. Nothing. The computer chip maker Intel has just apologized for a print add it ran in several major news papers. It was supposed to be advertising new breed of micro-processors but it do so with old world zeal and fatuousness. The quote was "Multiply computer performance and maximize the power of your employees." The only problem was that it had one white man in the middle of the isle between six cut brothers poising as if they bout to start a race.

Now me and the feeble tequila drinking mind that I tote concluded: 1] white micro-processors must be slowa da a mutha fuka and 2] these saltines and woods still look at us as if we live stock. Maybe that’s why I had the beef with the Morehouse school of medicine. Not only am I not a fuck boy, Nat Turner wont allow kool-aid ruining through the veins and arteries. Some time I wish I was a bitchy type nigga – I mean negro, then I could just open my butt cheeks, hide the Vaseline and say “you called Masta”. I think that’s what my dean in the school of community health and preventive medicine wanted me to do. But i'm suspended with pay, lounging and reading about 10 newspapers a day – what more could your fol ask for (and yes, steak and eggs was the breakfast for the morning).

Intel did release a statement on its website: "We made a bad mistake. I know why and how, but that simply doesn't make it better." It was intended that the advertisement "convey the performance capabilities of our processors through a number of visual metaphors,"

The entire PR had me rolling, and also managed to fill my hemoglobin with vehemence. And just think, them mutha fukas made $8.7 billion the last quarter. But I guess they see white micro – processors, like all else white, salt, rice, sugar and glue – is bad for folk health.

4 real though

I have received inspiration for this post from several fellow bloggers – yawl know who you are. I have wanted to do this for myself; I guess another form of soul searching. So outside of the men and women in my family, these are the people that have informed, improved and assisted in proffering the disposition and molecular mass known and Torrance T. Stephens, PhD. And I would advise this as an exercise for all. For it will be fun, introspective and informative. Not to mention folk here consider himself the truth, just as these mutha fukas – yep they the truth, 4 real tough.

1] Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) – I got a chance to see him before he died, and the Nile Valley Conference Meeting held at my alma marta, Morehouse College, if ever I could foster a man crush, it was with him. Got his PhD from the University of Paris, Sorbonne in 1960 in Egyptology after a nine-year struggle to do so.

I have read all of his books at least 5 times, and such may be an underestimation. The reason I rank him number one is because I read an interview conducted by the Third World Book Review. He said in essence that we as Africans in the Diaspora, for those of us who can just do one thing, do it and do it exceptionally. He said for the rare breed of folk such as he, master it all and don’t be afraid to self inculcate on new subject matter. He studied at the top physic laboratory in the country, was a paleontologist, historian, anthropologist, spoke nine languages and developed the test by which one could discern if melanin was I the bones of mummies found I archeological digs. Dr. Diop was the Director of Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN) at the University of Dakar. Diop’s seminal pedagogic challenges, which was irrefutable via science was that African culture and history was older than any other, and influenced the course of other cultures more than usually given credit. I took up his challenge.

2] Martin Luther King Jr. – Enough said. Not to mention he had Coretta.

3] Rube Foster (1879-1930) – Founder of the Negro Leagues (in picture). Made a way when there wasn’t one for the love of his self, his spirit and the love of sport. Didn’t hurt that he was one of the first multi millionaires of our persuasion of his era. As a pitcher and owner, his brand of baseball was solid defense good pitching and hitting. The same way I coached my Old national Pirates – from 14 to 14 yrs of age, had them from T ball to 13,14). His American Giants won all other recorded championships from 1910 through 1922. He was the founder of two things pf importance t me, the Negro Leagues and the screwball or fade-away. In fact he was paid to teach the screwball to Christy Mathewson.

4] Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961) - In 1953, he was the Head of the Psychiatry Department at the Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria Here he was in charge of patient care and learned of the horrified stories of torture his patients -- both French torturers and Algerian torture victims -- told him. This was the period he penned Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961). A pupil of the philosophical tractates of Jean Paul Sartre, he took exestentialism to the human level. BTW my favorite book by Sartre is “Being and Nothingness" (had to read it at least 8 time). Fanon developed leukemia, and The Wretched of the Earth, was completed in 10 months, and published by Jean-Paul Sartre in the year of his death. He died at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland in 1961 a year before my birth.


5] Voltaire (1694 – 1778) - My Nigga, writer extraordinaire ( the person responsible the most for my motivation to write). I love this quote "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Jones made me, me, because he was the ultimate humorist, the ultimate satirist and intellectual philosopher. Only difference was that he was an admirer of John Locke. For me his books were the shit. Candide – the optimist, Micromagus (man and geospatial analysis in the anti Alexander Pope sense if you asked me – none center of the universe), Zadig, the philosophical dictionary and his play the fanatical. Must read, again, if u asks me.

6] George Clinton – “Not just knee deep she was totally deep, when she did the freak with me” and “no head no backstage pass”. What else can I say. Oh yea, can u say FUNKY?

7] Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) - Can you say epitome of well read and riffle? Where would I be without my SKS and the 7.52 slug (full metal jacket of course, with potassium cyanide and candle wax over the top, I know TMI)?

8] Arthur Ashe (1943 - 1993) - Character and integrity, faith and truth, that’s what he defines. And last of the powerful one hand backhands, next to me, but you should have known that. My complete tennis idol. Taught me how to incorporate the game of the swed’s into mine. Shouts out to Joakim Nyström, Mats Wilander, Björn Borg, Anders Järryd, and Stefan Edberg. Long live the high looping forehand. Ashe was one of the first to speak out againts Aparthied and as result, he was excluded from the Davis Cup competition. in South Africa on March 23, 1970, because the country denied him a Visa. Add to that, his afro was tight.

9-tie] Denmark Vessey (1767 – 1822) & Nat Turner (1800 – 1831) – The essence of live free or die, and if I have to tell yawl more about folks who had their heads stuck on poles on the road leading out of town, or one who was lynched in Jerusalem, Virginia, the yawl really aint my folk Jones. But for the record, Vessey was a real man, it cost him $600.00 to buy his own freedom, a lot back in the day but he was not able to purchase the freedom of his wife and two children - Thats him in the pic with his back whipped all up. Nat, well after killing ONLY 50 white folks, they celebrated and had picnics on the Sunday of his lynching, I mean execution.

10] Sheldon Gilbert – Young cat, your folk can can learn from themm too. 32 year old CEO of Proclivity Systems. A Yale graduate. Also conducted genetic genetic research at Cornell University Medical Center and Rockefeller University. A self taught computer programer, he dropped out of the PhD program in computational genomics at New York University. His programing genious has moved beyond that of the basic Google-like searh engine. His is predictive, and analyzes the data left behind from a persons interaction on a Web site. Now a search engine that predics one future searches – that’s ingenious.

Rounding out the list: Ida B. Wells, Muhammad Ali, W.E.B. Dubois, Corretta Scott King, Paul Roberson, Pam Grier. Jack Tatum, James Vander Zee, Richard Pryor.