Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Trump ~ What I was Taught About Being A Christian Turns Out To Be Wrong

What I thought I had been taught being a Christian was growing up, turns out not to be what Christians are. In my beliefs, regarding what a Christian is, does NOT allow a voter vote for Donald Trump. And yet, Christians have twice. And can three times. 

Respect is earned. My respect is defunct for Christians voting for Donald Trump. 


Reputation matters. I was taught that, too. A lot of what I was taught, apparently gets a pass when it comes to presidents, if your name is Donald Trump. Bill Clinton was impeached for a BJ. And Donald has raped young girls and yet Christians voted for him. Donald told young girls he was raping to get an abortion, if he made them pregnant because he refused to use a condom. After he forced them to give him a BJ, he degraded them, telling them they did a bad job on him. But, surely this is unacceptable to Christians to be told. 


We had Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci as a felon and that was stated to me to be a deal-breaker by a Christian that he get elected. Donald Trump has done way worse than Buddy. It is not even close. Donald has told you, me, the world, what he will do and yet the polls are neck and neck between Trump and Harris. 


I have lived my life. Yet, I care about the planet that is already ending the life of animal life, including ocean animal life, due to the earth climate damage. And there are our grandchildren and great grandchildren. Donald keeps telling us all at his every rally what he is going to do. Christians believe just some of what he says? The writing didn’t need to be written down in a book about the lack of character embodied in Trump. Anyone can google his childhood. It's on the internet with sources. No one could come out of his childhood and be a mentally in tact and  mentally healthy human. He exhibited the foreshadowing of who he became in kindergarten. His father was not a good example for his sons.


Not listing specifically the laws he has broken, workers and cities he has stiffed, sexual and mental abuse he has acted out, degradation of people who worked in his administration, his betrayal of the Constitution and good governance, his former Generals, administration heads who have turned on him and told us what he has done. Christians choosing him to be the president is enough to turn a Christian against Christians. It has me. I don’t respect the religion I was raised in because of their voting for Trump. 


I was taught Christian testimony by how you live your life matters. This includes voting for a man such as Trump. Anyone could have learned what Trump is before voting for him the first time. New York City was very familiar with his lack of character. All the writing about him can be found at your fingertips. 


The stealing of government secret documents, encouragement of overturning the government, hanging of Mike Pence, his VP, his racism, his degradation of women, young girls, human rights of everyone, refugee and immigrant rejection, with no empathy for them as God's children is unfathomable for a person living by Jesus Christ's teachings. Republican FBI Director Christopher Wray has stated to Congress that racism and racist groups has climbed to the highest levels during Trump. Trump has made it acceptable for people who were in the racist closet to come out and blatantly act out racism in the neighborhoods, streets, stores and in public life. 


Anyone who is paying attention to the news worldwide can see the effect Trump's unleashing indecent behavior, fascist, nationalist behavior is doing elsewhere. Venezuelan presidential crisis, Great Britain domestic crisis, Bangladesh government crisis, recently, all mirror Trump. Trump doesn’t like leaders of democracies, he only likes dictator leaders. Why is that?


The USA is playing with political fire and Trump has been the kindling, wood and match. But his voters are the ones who gave him power.


The recent article written by a producer of his fake reality show would give you a jolt. Hopefully. Producer of Trump Apprentice TV Show Exposes Donald


I write until I get a sense it is futile. We are at the mercy of Christians who voted in Trump and gave us the current state. 


If Trump is your man to lead the country, even you may one day get the chance to see your blindness.


Excerpt from linked article: Cianci was loved and reviled in a city that, like America, has been rocked by financial troubles and shaped by demographic change. He was loved for leading a small, dying city through a renaissance — and for being its biggest cheerleader. He even spoke at the 1976 Republican National Convention.


But he was reviled because of his major shortcomings — both personal and professional. In addition to serving two terms as mayor, and having once been America's longest-serving mayor, he also spent 4 1/2 years in prison after twice being convicted of felony charges.


Both times, 20 years apart, ousted him from office. Once, he roughed up the man he thought was having an affair with his wife — he had his bodyguard, provided to him by the city, bring the man to him; he tried to jab a cigarette in his eye and threw an ashtray at him. The other stemmed from corruption charges after Cianci had made an improbable comeback to lead the city yet again. Source The Story of Felon Buddy Cianci - Providence Mayor




Thursday, December 9, 2021

The Comfort Level of White People Casual Conversation

There are thousands of U.S.A. towns and cities where neighborhoods, as well as single family house deeds and restrictive covenants that have words that Black people cannot buy a house specifically there. Sometimes Jews are included in the restrictive words. In some cases, Chinese, or white people from some countries such as in Scandanavia, have been in the restictive covenants and deeds. The groups of people that have been excluded are so numerous that I feel it is safe to say that the groups excluded are any that are not what the group setting the standard thinks their own description is. The land the Huntington, Indiana's courthouse was built on was given with the restriction that no Black people would ever live in Huntington. I was born in Huntington as were my parents and their parents. 

There have been families who have bought houses and then the neighbors have burned the house down to get the Black families to not live in the house they bought. Also, other ways to get them to not live on all white streets, neighborhoods, towns, is the Black family is "offered" an offer to sell their house. The offer is not an offer that is free to take or not. It is not to be refused. I only know because I have read well-sourced books that include this knowledge. I have read most about the state of Indiana because I am most connected to Indiana. But it has been rampant in other states as well. Indiana had it in the state constitution, that Black people were not to move in to the state. And when the state did allow some Black people they had to sign that they would not be a burden in any way on the state of Indiana. And often only one Black person would be allowed, such as Huntington who had one Black man live in an abandoned room, that otherwise had no use, up over a store. He was called Rags by the town and washed windows in town at businesses. Often names such as Rags were used in place of real names. Easier to see them as less human and in the whites' minds, see them as a novelty or mascot type subject. 

The Schachts who owned the Schachts Rubber Factory in Huntington had two live-in Black house workers, a couple, one man, one woman. They had no children, so no schools had to concern themselves of Black children mixing with their white children. But they could not walk outside the property of the Schachts home, the richest family in Huntington. 

 The state that most enforced that same law as Indiana in their constitution is Oregon. Specifically this was true in states that were on the Union side of the Civil War. I lived in Huntington through 3rd grade then moved to another town, Columbia City. Both towns were Sundown towns. Huntington is written about in the book Sundown Towns - A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen and Kathleen M. Blee's book Women of the Klan - Racism and Gender in the 1920s, as is Whitley County, where Columbia City is the county seat. It would be more rare than common of Indiana towns to let Black people live wherever they wanted. The reason bigger cities, such as Indianapolis, Fort Wayne...have a section of Black people is because when white people forced out Black families from small towns, villages, the country, they went where they were hemmed in. Often white communuties had an adjacent town that allowed Black people. The reason for this is that Black people went to work in the white towns during the day, but must be out by sundown. That is why there is high concentrations of black people in specific locations. Black families want their children to go to the best schools too. Don’t fool yourself that Black people live where they live because they want to live with their own kind. White supremacy is still with us today. If you don’t think that is true, you most likely are white and have lived in a white privilege mindset for so long you aren’t open to learning the truth of racism and the standard ingrained racism in everyday living. It is there. 

 I'm Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me by Miriam Zinter: My parents originally tried to purchase a home in Syracuse in the 1960s. Most of the houses they made offers on had deed restrictions that stated the home could not be “sold to Negros.” Determined to own their own home, they decided to build a house, and found some land in a subdivision in Liverpool, New York, where the builder was happy to sell to them. Despite this good news, they soon learned they couldn’t get approved for a mortgage. My dad had a good job at General Electric and my parents had savings, but none of this was enough, because they were Black. 

 My dad accepted a transfer to a position in Alaska, because he could earn double what he’d make in Syracuse. My mom and I moved in with my grandmother for a year and my mom banked all of my dad’s checks. When he returned, my parents paid cash to have their house built in Liverpool. This was the same house on which people painted “Go Home Nigger.” They did this when we already were home ― there was no other “home” to go to. We lived in a white neighborhood, and I went to a school where all the other students were white. Before I started kindergarten, my parents had “the talk” with me. If you don’t know about “the talk,” let me explain it to you. “The talk” is about race. It’s about being Black in a world run by white people, where white people make the rules. In order to survive, let alone thrive, you need to know you are Black and know what that means, even if you present as white. In our home, 

Dr. King was whom we strived to be. Even at 4 years old, I knew who he was. I was taught King’s principals of nonviolence. My parents marched on Washington with King and hoped for a better world for me. I set off for school the next day, prepared to walk through a gauntlet of screaming hatred. I was on the lookout. But there didn’t seem to be anything happening. If any protesters had been there, they probably wouldn’t even have known I was Black. With my blond braids and my sparkling new outfit from Sears, I might have walked right by them. I was ready to learn ― and learn I did. But just because there weren’t protesters doesn’t mean there weren’t challenges. 

 My kindergarten teacher did not feel it was appropriate for a Black child to learn and play with white children. She left me inside the classroom on my own while the other students played. I stood by the window and cried. My parents complained to the principal ― a child of Italian immigrants ― and he stepped in. I was then permitted to play with my classmates. Worried that my teacher would not engage me in the same ways she did with the other students, my parents worked with me on my alphabet, math and reading every night after dinner. I excelled. 

 When we moved from Syracuse to Rochester, New York, our new neighborhood was also largely white. I didn’t even find this strange. I fit in and made very good friends, some of whom I am friends with to this day. But I always knew I was Black, and forgetting who I was simply wasn’t an option. In middle school, my history teacher told the class that if we really wanted to insult Black people, we should call them “Uncle Toms.” 

In high school, one student came dressed as a klansman for Halloween, carrying a noose. Another student, wearing blackface and a loincloth, ran around in front of him. When the few Black students and a number of our white classmates complained to the principal about it, we were told we needed to “develop a sense of humor.” Another student, who would later become a teacher, called me a “white nigger.” I found myself constantly defending affirmative action, busing and desegregation with friends and classmates whose parents thought that if Black people “infested” their white world, chaos would ensue. 

Many years have passed since then, but sadly, this madness hasn’t stopped. My neighbor, the one who asked me why “Black lives matter,” is not the only one who has felt comfortable asking me such a question or making a statement rife with racism. White people think I am white too, and therefore feel safe saying all kinds of horrible things they might not say publicly. I’ve had people tell me it “disgusts” them to see interracial couples. They’ve told me they don’t understand why Black neighborhoods look so “ghetto,” and that Black people are “animals” or “thugs.” 

Many of these people are educated, and hold jobs or positions that give them some form of power or influence over Black people. They are doctors, judges, lawyers, social workers and politicians. That’s frightening. In every instance where I’ve encountered racist rhetoric, I have made it my business to speak up. I have told (or reminded) these people that I am Black. I have told them my family’s story. And I have done whatever I could to educate them about the systems of racism that exist in this country. 

Sometimes they say: “But you’re different!” Then I ask them if other Black folks they know are also “different.” When they say yes, I ask them: “How are all the Black people you know ‘different’? When are you going to realize that we are not different? That you have been misled into believing that Black people are somehow bad, and that what you see with your own eyes ― these Black people you know, and know are not different or bad ― are good people like you?” And that floors them. There is a purposeful and strategic force dedicated to segregation and racism. There are people who benefit from Black people and white people remaining in conflict. When people of different races live together and truly want to know and understand each other, it is harmonious. But when races are separated, it breeds suspicion and distrust. It becomes “us versus them,” and it weakens us as a nation. Living as a Black woman who looks white has allowed me to experience white privilege firsthand. Because people assume I am white, it is assumed I am honest, smart and trustworthy. 

Many times I have thought to myself: If I looked Black, how would these people treat me? And I have known, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would be treated with disdain or suspicion, or as a criminal. I know in many instances that if I looked Black, the police would have been called to question me. And this sickens and angers me. How many of our Black brothers and sisters have had the police called on them simply for the act of living their lives? As a nation, we need to stop this. The best way to achieve change is to accept and learn about our racist past and the injustices visited upon our Black citizens. It’s deeply concerning that people are protesting the possibility of our country’s history being accurately taught in schools. The only way for America to be great is to accept all of our citizens at face value, and the only way to do that is to understand our intertwined roots ― our history and all the pain and tragedy that exists within it ― and face this, together, head-on. Miriam Zinter's entire article is from Huffington Post. The link is provided above. 

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Peace Requires Action

Is your town racist? Apparently it's a topic white people a) admit outloud they are and take actions to frighten and intimidate anyone of color, b) don’t want to talk about it, c) proactively take actions to not be, d) deny they are, while at the same time vote in overt racists for federal, state and local offices. Why don’t most white people talk about racism? I live in a racist town. You can tell by the census. Plus I have met it on my own property and on this island. While I was teaching here, I heard racist statements in the teachers room. I was raised in two racist Indiana towns. And yet, nobody white that I know will talk about the racism of the current day and fresh history of even the years of my parents' and grandparents' lifetimes. I have been reading the history over this time period and have had my eyes opened. It is blatant and definitely real. A couple years after I and my Black African American partner separated, a huge swastika was drawn on what was his garage stall door in Rhode Island. I took it as a racist act. Also, many other acts were done to us that spelled it out to me. These things happened in Indiana, at church, in Rhode Island and Barbados. Peace will never be on earth until we face that this country was based on racism. We tried to erase the indigenous peoples who lived here before Europeans came here and took away their lands, their children, denied them their own beliefs, ways of life, clothing, hair styles and using their own native languages. Peace is not passive and it is up to us to bring peace into possibility. We can either force everyone to live one way, or accept that other peoples have the right to their own beliefs, ways of life, culture, dress, food and for sure their own languages. Justice cannot be only for white causes. Ancient Native American ~ Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant & immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous & unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember & seek the truth. Kanghi Duta 👉🏾 RedCrow
He was born Floyd Westerman on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a federally recognized tribe that is one of the sub-tribes of the Eastern Dakota section of the Great Sioux Nation, located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. His Indigenous name Kanghi Duta means Red Crow in the Dakota language (one of the three related Siouan languages of the Great Plains). At the age of 10, Westerman was sent to the Wahpeton Boarding School, where he first met Dennis Banks (who as an adult became a leader of the American Indian Movement). There Westerman and the other children were forced to cut their traditionally long hair and forbidden to speak their native languages. This experience would profoundly impact Westerman's development and entire life. As an adult, he reclaimed his heritage and became an outspoken advocate for Indigenous cultural preservation. Westerman graduated from Northern State University with a B.A. degree in secondary education. He served two years in the US Marines, before beginning his career as a country singer. Kanghi Duta 👉🏾 Red Crow, aka Floyd Westerman was a Dakota Sioux musician, political activist, actor. As a political activist, he spoke and marched for Native American causes. Born ~ August 17, 1936 Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, South Dakota, U.S. Died in California from complications of leukemia ~ December 13, 2007 (aged 71) He was survived by his wife Rosie, four daughters, and a son.
Tap on the image to enlarge. Peace starts with our daily words and actions. Justice cannot be only for white causes.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Love Letters ~ Soul On Ice

Excerpts from love letters taken from the book SOUL ON ICE, by Eldridge Cleaver. This is from the part in the book where Mr. Cleaver, who is in Folsom Prison, and attorney Beverly Axelrod exchange letters. The letters began September 5, 1965.  

E.C. “I feel impelled to express myself to you extravagantly, and words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs leap in my mind.  But I beat them down, refuse to write them, because it all seems so predictable and trite...What right have you to summon my soul from its slumber?......You have tossed me a lifeline.  If you only knew how I’d been drowning, how I’d considered that I’d gone down for the third time long ago, how I kept thrashing around in the water simply because I still felt the impulse to fight back and the tug of a distant shore...”
 
B.A writes back:  “...Believe this:  I accept you.  I know you little and I know you much, but whichever way it goes, I accept you.  Your manhood comes through in a thousand ways, rare and wonderful...I have no measuring stick.  I accept you...What an awesome thing it is to feel oneself on the verge of the possibility of really knowing another person.  Can it ever happen?  I’m not sure.  I don’t know that any two people can really strip themselves that naked in front of each other.  We’re so filled with fears of rejection and pretenses that we scarcely know whether we’re being fraudulent or real ourselves...” 

E.C. answers back:  “Your letters to me are living pieces, chunks of you, and are the most important things in my life...It only happens in books – or...Do you know what shameless thought just bullied its way into my consciousness? That, I deserve you, that I deserve to know you and to communicate with you...I seek a lasting relationship, something permanent in a world of change, in which all is transitory, ephemeral, and full of pain.  We humans, we are too frail creatures to handle such titanic emotions and deep magnetic yearnings, strivings and impulses… 

…The reason two people are reluctant to really strip themselves naked in front of each other is because in doing so they make themselves vulnerable and give enormous power over themselves one to the other.  How awful, how deadly, how catastrophically they can hurt each other, wreck and ruin each other forever!...Better to maintain shallow, superficial affairs; that way the scars are not too deep, no blood is hacked from the soul.  You beautifully – O, how beautifully!! – spoke...of ‘What an awesome thing it is to feel oneself on the verge of the possibility of really knowing another person...’ and...I do not believe that a beautiful relationship has to always end in carnage.  I do not believe that we have to be fraudulent and pretentious,...I know that sometimes people fake on each other out of genuine motives to hold onto the object of their tenderest feelings.  They see themselves as so inadequate that they feel forced to wear a mask in order to continuously impress the other.  I do not want to ‘hold you’, I want you to ‘stay out' of your own need for me.  ...It takes time and deeds, and this involves trust, it involves making ourselves vulnerable to each other, to strip ourselves naked, to become sitting ducks for each other...I am vulnerable and defenseless and I make myself a duck for you.  ...And it is not a fraud, forced out of desperation...”  


My previous blog


Wednesday, November 4, 2020

We Must Find A Way ~ As If We Were One Single Tribe

"Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we as brothers and sisters on this Earth should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe." King T'Challa of Wakanda

Chadwick Boseman: November 29, 1976, Anderson, South Carolina ~ August 28, 2020, Los Angeles, California

Ryan Coogler, Writer & Director of Black Panther


Tapping on images will enlarge them, so you can read the words on them. 

Chadwick gave this speech at the Thalheimer Freedom Fund Awards Dinner at the NAACP July 26, 2017. This was at the NAACP 108th Annual Convention at the Baltimore Convention Center:

Chadwick Boseman speech at the NAACP Annual Convention


This is my 2020 entry for Mimi Lenox's annual Peace effort. We believe words matter. We believe the energy we put out into the universe matters and makes a difference. 












Monday, June 29, 2020

When We No Longer Know What to Do

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Copyright ©1983 by Wendell Berry, from Standing by Words.

Source: gratefulness.org

Sometimes Trusting Is All There Is


Just some thoughts. Life is an experience. Okay to think of it as a journey. I like to think of things with words that provide me a way to get closer to the truth, my truth. To have an understanding. To feel closer to life. And for sure, to feel closer to who and what I am. Some words are helpful, help clear the way to feeling closer to my life. To myself. Some words muddy up my understanding. And I have no doubt that I experience when I am in special moments, feelings that bring me closer to myself. It is simple to know these moments. I feel at one with myself. I feel whole. I feel at home in myself. I don’t need someone else to advise me that what I am experiencing is healthy for me. Is good for me. 

A wee window into my life right now is that I am involved in challenging situation. If not a person that starts at a zero or low level of anxiety as a default functioning level, anxiety would spike. And if a person who functions at an anxiety level that is right there under the surface, continually needing to be consciously balanced, then your daily functioning level gets an extra amount of anxiety that can suffocate you. Or throw your balance so far off, you can realistically get a feeling that might be overwhelming. 

Surrendering ~ 
Intellectually you can say everything will work out. Religiously you can say I will pray through it, read your holy book, trust God. You can take medication to affect your body's response to it. And then, there is the honest truth, that you still are dealing with it and you are in over your head to calm your nervous system to find an even peace. We are human. Dealing with a human body's capacity. Getting from one moment to the next is what is before you. 

And sometimes, life is easier and surrendering to the winds of life is a luxury we can opt in or opt out. And then, we can meet life on different terms and surrendering isn’t an option. It's all there is. We surrender with no other choice, but to surrender. Feel there is no net. No safety valve. Choices are for the privileged. And for those that society or your government has thrown roadblocks all your lives, it is even more overwhelming. 



Surrendering to whatever is going to happen ~
Fear is an overpowering force, but fear cannot be allowed the force to dictate choices. Fear can be a coping mechanism, that we have used for years. We have practiced using fear. Surrendering fear, as a familiar coping mechanism, is like going out in a boat in rough waters and strong winds and no sails, rudder or technology to get you by. You end up trusting because that is all there is. Surrendering is trusting. And trusting is all there is. In a scary time.

So while surrendering, your only choice is, to one moment at a time, do what you can, reach out to a confidante, reach in, to try to center yourself. 

I find balance as best I can. I hang on the best I can. I look for comfort in anything, anyone, any art form. I write. I call for my angels to comfort me. I call for what I like to think of as my spirit guides. I hope to come through. If I don't, I don't. 

I wish for you in your life:
Clarity, balance, enough sustaining comforting moments and relief. And moments of joy. Internal peace.

I light a candle for all the suffering. Especially the suffering children who have no one.


They have no choice. Would we be their refuge? That is my wish.





"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

On April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. The former president—who left office in 1909—had spent a year hunting in Central Africa before embarking on a tour of Northern Africa and Europe in 1910, attending events and giving speeches in places like Cairo, Berlin, Naples, and Oxford. He stopped in Paris on April 23, and, at 3 p.m. at the Sorbonne, before a crowd that included, according to the Edmund Morris biography Colonel Roosevelt, “ministers in court dress, army and navy officers in full uniform, nine hundred students, and an audience of two thousand ticket holders,” Roosevelt delivered a speech called “Citizenship in a Republic,” which, among some, would come to be known as “The Man in the Arena.”


                                   And please vote in 2020