Gen. Colin Powell on Racism.

It’s downright shameful that a whole President Obama is rudely confronted with so much stereotypes and disrespects on daily basis and, especially, by those who are not as well-educated and professionally grounded as he is.

 

What then should poor folks like me expect from similar ignorant people all around us? Most often when I look at the idiots who try stereotyping and disrespecting me, I realize that they are barely educated. Each time this happens, all I see is a fool who cannot see beyond his/her nose. And this only drives me crazy.

The Desperation and Hopelessness in the American Inner City.

“A young man had been shot at by another teen. He was willing to let it go. Only now he is hanging with buddies who tell him, ‘Man you’re a bitch. You let them pop your ass, and you ain’t did sh— about it.’ They’re harassing him every day, and it’s psychologically destroying him. Now, he’s got to show his friends he’s a man. So one day he gets in the car and goes looking for someone to aggress against so he can come back to his buddies with a story. He sees a group of kids, talking loud. The boy shoots at them, the kids scatter, and now he can go back to his friends and say, ‘We aired them ni--as out.’ But in the process, he accidentally kills an innocent child. That isn’t gang violence. It’s desperation, hopelessness, despair, cultural confusion.” – Essence magazine. July, 2013.

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The Worst Case of Child Abuse.

I still don’t understand why it’s so difficult for some women to take just a few seconds to think about the consequences of unprotected sex. It’s not just about them. In fact, it’s more about the child that may be unfortunate to be a victim of their sexual recklessness which sometimes takes only a few seconds. Why risk bringing an unwanted child to this world when all it takes to prevent the “mishap” is a condom?

This brings one to a 1989 story when a Santa Ana police officer Michael Buelna (right) found an abandoned newly-born baby in a garbage dumpster. But for the officer’s kindness, the baby could have died from exposures to the elements, dehydration or starvation. And now a 25-year-old man, Robin Barton (left) met recently with the police officer in an emotional reunion.

According to the AP, Buelna was on duty in November 1989 when he heard a faint sound coming from a trash bin. Buelna started shifting through the trash and discovered a baby, his umbilical cord still attached. The child was just four hours old and weighed 4 pounds, 2 ounces.

"He still had all the mucus and stuff, and all the trash and gravel was sticking to him," Buelna said. "I tried to give him a tiny little bit of breath, and he reacted a little bit."

Buelna wanted to adopt the boy, but another Orange County family stepped in first. They named him Robin Barton. Officers released a sketch of Barton's 19-year-old biological mother, later identified as Sarina Diaz, to the public. She was arrested and later sentenced to three years in prison for child endangerment and attempted murder.

KCBS-TV reports that news of the reunion led Barton's biological father to come forward. The two met Sunday, and Barton learned from Marcos Meza that his biological mother moved to Mexico after serving her sentence and wants to see him.

Meza said he had an affair with Barton's 19-year-old biological mother and only found out Barton had been abandoned in a dumpster when police questioned him. Meza said he has been searching for his son for years.

"It's a dream" to meet his son, he said.

Barton said he hopes that meeting his biological mother will also provide closure. "I'm not angry or upset with her, and I forgive her because she was a young woman in a very compromising position," he said.

Matters Arising from the South Carolina Shooting.

Yes, it has happened again! The shooting by a white police officer of a black victim. This time, the unfortunate incident took place in South Carolina. Although this is not a new incident, there are some issues, ironies and lessons to be learned from it.

The major issue arising from this matter is the need for a retraining of police officers across the nation. They all need to stop seeing a section of the people they are serving as enemies. Currently, officers are trained with a war-zone mentality. And to worsen the situation, a lot of white police officers harbor stereotypical views about black folks. Sadly, they allow this myopic views to affect their judgements in the performance of official duties.

The main irony in this case is the fact that both men, Slager, 33, and Scott, 55, were U.S. Coast Guard veterans. Slager was said to have a history of excessive force while Scott had some child support issues and traffic violations. Neither of the two however had a record of violence.

Both cop and victim have mothers who care a lot about them. While the victim’s mother has already forgiven the killer cop, the latter’s mother is prayerful, “I just have to let it be and hope God takes care of everybody involved — not only my family but the Scott family because I know they're grieving just like I'm grieving, so I want them to know that…"

This is yet, an awfully terrible incident. One therefore can only hope that going forward, our police officers will learn to be very careful as they perform their very sensitive duties to the members of the public. There just has to be an enough of these sad, unfortunate incidents.

To The Memory of George Stinney Jr.

George Stinney Jr was the youngest person ever executed in South Carolina, in 1944. Due to his small body frame, they had to make the poor 14-year-old boy sit on top of a phone book before he could properly fit into the electric chair. It must have been a gory sight. And the agony suffered by the child could only be imagined. The execution however, has since been found to be wrong. In a December 7, 2014 ruling, a South Carolina state judge vacated Stinney's conviction in the deaths of two young girls, clearing his name.



He is shown here above in this undated file photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. The cold-blooded murder of this child under legal coloration was just one of the many cases of injustice that were perpetrated by some Americans against people of color, and that include the Blacks, the Native Americans, the Hispanics, the Japanese and others. These acts of evil came under descriptions of racism, prejudice and stereotype.

It’s been many years ago and the perpetrators of those heinous crimes against humanity have since been long dead and gone. There is however a spiritual law of Karma. It has no statutory limitations. And there is definitely life after death. Therefore, any wonder why this great nation is plagued with too many strange physical afflictions and mysterious omens that are not even seen in Third world nations.

SONY Pictures and its Peculiar Mess.

What a peculiar type of mess this is for SONY Pictures! In the aftermath of the leakage of her very crude and ignorant remarks about President Obama and some black movie stars, Sony Pictures co-chairman, Amy Pascal has begun a "healing process" by reaching out to some black leaders.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the woman said she “want to accept responsibility for these stupid, callous remarks."

In the leaked email exchanges between her and a producer (Scott Rudin) the duo mocked movies that featured black actors and joked about the president's possible interest in them. Examples of such movies the two "messed up" in their e-mails were DJango and 12 Miles.

What a time for a scandal like this to come up! Hackers or no hackers, this woman did demonstrate a lack of character and discretion. Someone at her level of corporate ladder should have known better than to “run her mouth” so recklessly. Sometimes, I wonder how some of these so-called corporate top shots got to their leadership positions. And now Amy Pascal thinks all she needs to sweep the stinks under the carpet is merely by reaching out to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson?

93 Year-old Woman Denied Funeral Because She “Owed” Back Tithes.

In Texas, a 93-year-old woman (Olivia Blair) had been attending a church for about 50 years. She is now dead but her pastor refused to allow her funeral service in the church. Why so? The pastor said the old woman “owed” some back tithes!

According to the church’s pastor, the other “sins” committed by the deceased was that she “...had not paid her dues, and she had not attended the church in recent years.”

But when contacted by KRIV FOX 26, the dead woman’s daughter retorted that “For the last two years, my mother has been in either a nursing home or she’s been in a hospital. And the last few months, she was in a coma!”

Now, what manner of a shameless pastor would ignore a sick, old church member for so long and then turned around to condemn the poor woman for not paying tithes in her period of agony and anguish?

X                                                                                          X                                                                              X

And in a related incident, a pastor (in a different American church) has directed members of his church to stop practicing cremation because according to him, “When Jesus comes back, how do you expect him to be going around searching for the remains of your loved ones that have been cremated and whose ashes have been scattered all over the ocean and some other places?...”

And this guy is supposed to be a "Man of God"?

A Message for Black Leaders.

“I now realize, that we who consider ourselves leaders in the black community can’t just be against racism. We have to also be against a portion of black culture that has become increasingly anti-authority and anti-social to a point of self-destruction. This is an enemy we’ve yet to engage in the black community. But it’s a conversation I think we’re forced to have now.” – As told The New York Times by Brian Willingham, a church pastor and black police officer from Flint, Michigan.

My response: The above message is for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the other black leaders. It’s high time they began to address some salient issues such as the sky-rocketing number of drop outs among black students, frequent black-on-black crimes, the social malady of “babies” having babies, women having five kids for five different men and the numerous men who are “missing-in-actions” in the lives of their kids.

Equals Rights & Justice.

Jamaican Reggae star, Peter Tosh released the album, Equal Rights in 1977, in protest against the then apartheid regime in South Africa. If only he knew that the song would still be relevant in 2014 America...

Everyone is crying out for peace, yes

None is crying out for justice

Everyone is crying out for peace, yes

None is crying out for justice

 I don't want no peace...

I need equal rights and justice

I need equal rights and justice

I need equal rights and justice

Got to get it, equal rights and justice...

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10 Survival Tips for Young Black Folks in the United States.

In the wake of the ridiculous verdict of the St. Louis County grand jury on the cold-blooded shooting of Michael Brown, here are ten survival tips for young black folks to consider:

1. Stay away as far as possible from any city or town that has no favorable racial diversity in its law enforcement agency.


2. If you’re already stuck in such a city or town, avoid driving in the evening as much as possible.


3. Don’t go driving about with your car loaded with black friends. It’s a sure invitation to racial profiling at the hands of white cops.


4. If you get pulled over by a white cop, make sure to place your two hands calmly on the steering wheel as he or she approaches the car. And put a “zipper” on your lips!


5. When the cop asks for your driver’s license, registration and insurance, gently inform him or her when you’re about to reach for the required documents.


6. Make sure to say “Yes sir/ma’am” or “No sir/ma’am” to any question asked.


7. It’s DUMB to swear, curse or argue with anyone that has a gun. If you disagree with a cited violation or traffic ticket, keep your feeling to yourself. You can always go to court later to argue it out.


8. Please NOTE that cops are humans too. They have prejudices, frustrations, miserable lives and anger management issues just like other mortals.


9. Yes, this is a land of freedom and liberty. But if you rely on that slogan to confront an armed cop (legitimately or not) you may be doing so at your own peril.


10. And, lest I forget, there can never be any change in this God’s own country unless you and I make it a duty to always go VOTE at every election!

These are times that call for common sense. It’s better to appear stupid and be alive than to “show off” and end up six feet below!

What Really is the Matter With Some American Men?

This piece was inspired by a “strawberry letter” written to the Steve Harvey Radio Show this morning.

A man left his southern hometown for a better job prospect in a faraway city. Upon his arrival in the city, he met another man from his hometown who he described as “wonderful” and they began a “relationship”. All the while, the gay lover was still resident in the hometown, making the relationship more of a long-distance affair.

Then came a point in time, when the city man had to travel to his hometown to attend the wedding of a woman who he described as his best friend. Decked in a beautiful wedding gown and grinning from ear to ear was the “lucky” bride. But guess who the groom was? It was the guy who was in a deep gay relationship with the city man.

Shocked beyond words, the city man quietly left the wedding and was now wondering if he should tell his best friend (the bride) that the groom was “On the Down Low”, a term commonly used in describing men who are having sex with women and men. They are like bats. On the one hand, they are running with rats and, on the other hand, they are flying with birds.

Now, I personally don’t care what anyone does with his or her body in the privacy of their lives. After all, this is America, a land of liberty. But it’s grossly unfair for any man, as it is with the guy in this story, to deliberately expose the lives of women to unnecessary health risks that can lead to deaths. Why can’t such men simply make up their minds on what sexual orientation to abide with instead of trying to “eat their cake and have it”?

A lot of men with this “down low” nonsense are exposing their unsuspecting wives or girlfriends to undue grievous physical and emotional hazards. Yet, among these dysfunctional men are professionals (powerfully-dressed guys), celebrities, religious folks and even clergymen. They live a double life. In public, they parade themselves as being “happily” dating or married to women while, secretly, they are having sex with fellow men.

This is a shame!



 

 

 

 

 

What Manner of Couple Bred This Kid?

A couple of days ago inside a classroom the Bartram High School within the Philadelphia School District, a female student sat on the lap of a male student while they were both engaged in some “inappropriate business”. A teacher saw them and ordered the two to stop.

“Fuck you!” the male student yelled at the teacher and continued with his “fun”.

On hearing this “insult upon injury” profanity, the teacher ordered he student to leave the class. The student left the class but waited for the 68-year-old teacher to get out of the class. As the man did, he was sucker-punched by the crazy student. As the student fled (they always do after committing crimes), the school nurse attended to the poor teacher who was subsequently taken to a hospital.

The old teacher did something I love though. He insisted on pressing criminal charges against the student. And in the meantime, the boy has been suspended by the school authorities.

I believe it’s not everyone that is capable of being a good parent. The young man in this story did not just drop from the sky. And so, I wonder what manner of couple brought him to this world?

Anyway, this is another vindication for my decision to never attempt to be a teacher in God’s own country. If the only available job is teaching, I would prefer to be jobless than go to jail. God knew very well what would have happened if I had been the teacher in this incident.

Pictured above is the punched teacher.

 

The Height of Moral Degradation in Gods’ Own Country.

“The Strawberry letter” segment on the Steve Harvey Morning Show is one of my favorites. Every morning, people write letters to the show, baring their souls on some very personal issues. Some listeners are of the view that the letters are fictitious. But the presenters and, especially Shirley Strawberry, have often stated that the letters are real. And I believe them.

Today’s strawberry letter was a two-handed, heart-wrenching type. A man ( the letter-writer) wrote to say that he loved his wife (to whom he has been married since ten years ago) but that at the moment, he was at what I would describe as an emotional cross-road.

On the one hand, he started an affair with a sibling of his wife about three years ago. The sibling in question however was the twin brother of his wife. Now, the lover is threatening to inform his sister about the affair unless the letter-writer divorced her. Here was a guy desperate enough to break his sister’s marriage just so that he and the letter-writer could continue their gay relationship without hindrance.

On the other hand, the letter-writer wanted to justify the affair with his brother in-law by disclosing that his wife had cheated on him shortly after they got married. And guess who she cheated with? It was the letter-writer’s father. In fact, the woman got pregnant and had a baby boy for the older guy. The little boy is now being raised by the letter-writer. In view of this cheating issue therefore, the letter-writer believed that he had the moral right to comply with his gay lover’s demand.

Tommy Nephew’s response to the bundle of absurdities was the best in my view. At a future family re-union, Tommy gave hints about the way principal characters in that letter would be introduced?  To start with, the man’s wife would simultaneously be seen as his wife and as a step mother. The man’s gay lover would be introduced as his brother in-law and as his “significant other”. And the letter-writer’s hapless son could also double up as his brother. What a spectacle that family re-union would exhibit?

And I thought I had seen and heard everything about moral degradation in God’s own country. But that strawberry letter on the Steve Harvey Morning Show has since convinced me that I “ain't seen nothing yet"

Glory Belongs Only to God.

 “Ojo wo leda yio simi ogun?

Igba wo leda yio simi ote?

Ote nile.

Ote lode.

Ote re,

nibi gbogbo…”

 (When will people stop waging wars?

When will people stop treachery?

Treachery at home.

Treachery outside.

There is treachery everywhere…)

• The movie theme of Opa Aje, a middle-1980s depiction of the 19^th Century internecine wars among the Yoruba people in the western part of Nigeria.

This was the most tragic period in the lives of the Yoruba people. It was a very sad moment when brothers were at each other’s throats and sisters were stabbing each other in the backs. Nothing was spared in the various war fronts, from the use of dangerous charms to other metaphysical powers. The brutal wars also led to the procurement of the most sophisticated military weapons of that era in the African continent. The Yoruba used all these lethal weapons against each other.

 And the consequences were legions, top among which were:

1. The internecine wars weakened the Yoruba in their opposition to the British military invasions. In fact, the military defeat (at Imagbon) of Ijebu forces by the British colonial Army was the platform used in the eventual annexation of the rest of Yorubaland. If the Yoruba were united, the British would have thought twice before going into that war.


2. The Uthman Dan Fodio’s Jihad campaign made serious incursion into Yoruba land at Ilorin through the treachery of Aare Afonja, the then Field Marshall of the Oyo Empire. If not for the great, valiant Ibadan warriors that defeated them, the whole of Southern Nigeria would have come under the Fulani hegemony.


3. The European slave traders also took advantage of the situation to forcibly cart away millions of Yoruba individuals to Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Venezuela and other parts of the World.

The sad irony though was that the crazy wars were fought merely to prove a point over who deserved the glory for the greatness and sustenance of the Yoruba race! This problem is not restricted to a race of people. Too many of us as individuals within marriages, families, churches, mosques, corporate establishments, neighborhoods and communities do also engage in glory-seeking battles.

And as it happened in Yoruba land, every quest for glory always leave bitterness, divisions and pains in its wake. Why so? Because glory belongs only to God!

 

 

The Damned Human Race by Ebun Olawole.

In Mark Twain’s literary work, “The Damned Human Race” (1905), he conducted an experiment that compared man to other animals. He concluded that man should be called the lower animals while the so-called lower animals should be regarded as the higher animals. He found Darwin’s theory wrong.

In terms of brutality, lower animals are better than man. He gave humorous examples of how brutal man can be. He continued that man has a flaw. And with the flaw, he is unable to reason because he descended from lower animals.



I agree with Twain (p. 8), that man is greedy, compared to the so-called inferior animals. In line with Twain’s opinion, it is man that will keep accumulating excessive things, especially riches, far beyond his actual needs because he is never satisfied. Man always wants more. For example, a well-fed, satisfied lion won’t kill another animal merely for the fun of it.

With man’s brain and intelligence, he is supposed to be able to differentiate between good and evil. However, it is not so in reality. As Twain noted (p.10) man is the only animal that agonizes over insults and waits patiently for a sign of weakness, then retaliates. A dog has no brain that is so sensitive as to realize that it has been offended and has to retaliate.



Twain recognized the many bad traits of the human race. Man is the only religious animal, yet the same man fights each other because of religion. There is a good example where, in the name of religion, a Moslem sect in Nigeria is currently holding about 150 abducted high school students hostage.

I also agree with Twain that man is the only animal that engages in war. Examples are the Ukraine-Russia crisis, Israel-Gaza war and many more. While the human race is known to possess the best brain, man will often act before he thinks.

 

 

 

The Perils of the Internet.

“Generally, social networking sites

can be hugely promising and beneficial

in opening new friendships

and vistas

and knowledge of the world,

but they are also fraught with peril,

when young people are reckless

or headless.”

- Richard Blumenthal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How We Destroy Sacred Institutions in America.

In the global community, we are known as a nation that destroys every sacred institution. Nothing is sacred anymore. Here are samples:

Back in those days, even in the most rotten society, priests are revered and held in very high esteem. But in the United States, it’s no longer the case. A parent that trust his/her child to a priest, and especially, a Catholic priest, is courting trouble for the child.



I remember my growing up days when sports coaches played important roles in the lives of us kids. Apart from parents, we could easily trust our lives to coaches. Now, the “game” has changed. Sports coaches in high schools and colleges, these days, have to be carefully monitored by parents or guardians to ensure that their kids are not sexually abused.

As for marriage, no institution has been so battered, trashed and ridiculed in any part of the world as that of marriage in the United States. Now approaching 60 % divorce rate, the marriage institution in God’s own country can, at best, be described as a farce.



And what about fatherhood and motherhood? Instead of a man and a woman raising children together, we now have over half of the children in the United States out of wedlock. In some neighborhoods across the country, over 7 in 10 children don't have any form of relationships with their fathers. And among the few kids who do know the sowers of the seeds that produced them, all they have are “Disney fathers” who show up once-in-a-while to take them out shopping. And after a couple of hours together, the “fathers” leave, and not to be seen in a long time. It’s only in the United States that a kid grows up and gets to become a celebrity before a man will suddenly show up to admit paternal responsibility for the star.

 

 

 

20 Kids Can Never Play Together for 20 Years.

There is a saying in my ancestral homeland (Nigeria); “Twenty children can never play together for twenty years.” This is a reality of life. But it does not enjoy recognition among many of my African American folks. They don’t know when to let go of the human, emotional and material baggage in their lives. For the youngsters though, the worst baggage is usually their old neighborhood “homies” or buddies.

Many of these young folks, especially the men, are often stuck in the past. It’s considered an attitude of “keeping it real” when a young, urban professional, sports personality or Hollywood actor gets stuck with buddies or “homies” in his past neighborhood. It does not matter that those buddies are not doing anything positive or productive with their lives. If they are not drop-outs, they are deliberately jobless or into some criminal enterprises.

Now into big-time career and famous, a typical African American young man will surround himself with these buddies from the past. It will have been a different thing worth commending if he reaches out to those buddies with the sole aim of uplifting them educationally or with some careers. No, he will only be interested in turning them into hangers-on, to boost his ego. Sadly though, the same buddies or hangers-on will, in most cases, turn out to be his nemesis. This reminds me of MC Hammer, Allen Iverson and many others. Where are their buddies who used to play the role of hangers-on?

There was also the sad story of a young African American rising basketball star who, at the beginning of his career visited his old, childhood neighborhood. There, he ran into some old buddies who invited him to take a ride in a car. The group soon drove to the entrance of a store. Leaving the basketball star in the car, the others walked briskly into the store, pulled out small hand guns and robbed the place. As they ran back into their waiting car, a witness secretly took photographs of the young men. That was all the police needed to round up the perpetrators of the crime. All the attempts of the basketball star to prove his innocence proved abortive.

Unfortunately, this is just one of the many ways that innocent young black folks railroad themselves into bankruptcy, jails and worse, untimely deaths.

Tom Brokaw on Gun Control.

On Thursday's "Morning Joe," Brokaw declared that the raging gun control debate reminded him of another chapter in America's history.

Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004.

Speaking on the salient topic, the veteran broadcaster said “It reminds me a lot of what happened in the South in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Good people stayed in their houses and didn't speak up when there was carnage in the streets and the total violation of the fundamental rights of African-Americans as they marched in Selma, and they let Bull Connor and the redneck elements of the South and the Klan take over their culture in effect and become a face of it. And now a lot of people who I know who grew up during that time have deep regrets about not speaking out."

Above picture shows the 9-year-old girl that accidentally shot her trainer. But why, in God's name, would anyone with common sense put an Uzi in the hands of a little 9-year-old?

Brokaw stated further that "Now it's time for the people who do have strong feelings, who are feeling that they can't do anything about it, to kind of band together and have something to say here."

 

For Those Who Eat Like Vultures.

The Vulture eats between his meals,

And that's the reason why

He very, very, rarely feels

As well as you and I.

His eye is dull, his head is bald,

His neck is growing thinner.

Oh! what a lesson for us all

To only eat at dinner!

-       Hillaire Belloc.