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IN CHICAGO 67 PEOPLE SHOT,11 KILLED NEWS SAYS/SHOWED BLACK PEOPLE STREET GANGS AGAIN..BLACK STREET GANGS ARE BLACK SKIN NEO NAZI///NAACP,CHURCH,POLITICIANS SEEM UNCONCERNED AND USELESS//PREACHERS MOTIVATED BY MONEY,GREED,NAACP PROBALY PLANNING NEXT AWARD SHOW, POLITICIANS,ALL ARE OVERSEER'S ON PLANTATIONS//BLACK RICH AND FAMOUS SHOWS UP FOR AWARDS IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS/SOME OF THE BLACK RICH THINK THE POOR AND AVERAGE BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOTHING.. SOME OF THE HIGH SUCCESSFUL THINK THEY HAVE BECOME ANOTHER RACE//BLACK PEOPLE ARE DOING WHAT SLAVERY AND SOUTHERN LYNCHINGS COULD NOT DO GENOCIDE THE BLACK RACE OUT THIS COUNTRY./REMEMBER THE PRESIDENT COMPASSION FOR THE WHITE CHILDREN KILLED AT THE SANDY HOOK SCHOOL KILLINGS IN CONNETICUT.WHITE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS,WHITE STUDENTS WITH GUNS..BLACK PRESIDENT ,BLACK U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL//SHOULD MILITARY ,NATIONAL GUARD BE ON THE STREETS/////THE KKK ,NEO NAZI OBSERVE BLACK STREET GANGS,ARE THEY SUPPLING BLACK GANGS WITH GUNS........///AND DRUGS...

In regard to your thoughts on escapism, wc. edwards, I earlier cited H.L. Menken's quote in regard to nobody every going broke underestimating the taste of the American public. I'd venture to say that escapism does not have to be a fantasy that represents a flight from reality; it can be a diversion that amounts to an extension of reality - be about familiar people, places, and things that the masses have things in common with, and about humorous situations or heartfelt dilemmas that common folk can empathize with. Art imitating life. Entrepreneurs long ago discovered the profit and advantages of giving the people what they want. When it comes to entertainment, giving people what they need instead of what they want is a slippery slope that can evolve into paternalism. There will always be the "art for the sake of art" crowd. They are the audience for serious writers whose reward will be the praise and acceptance of their peers. Earning a place in the annals of literary distinction as opposed to instant fame and fortune is also a reward. But don't discount the fact that it also takes a lot of skill to write comedy. Writing, like any other profession, is multifacted. Of course, the pen is mightier than the sword and anyone who does write with the noble intent of making the world a better place should, indeed, be encouraged and commended but it should also be kept in mind that laughter is one of the things that makes the world a better place. I grew up during the '40s and '50s before television hit the scene and because my mother worked for the local theater, I got in the show free and I went just about every time the features changed. I never paid any attention to directors but I did have an appreciation for the black and white film noir movies and screwball comedies and lavish technicolor musicals that comprised the golden age of Hollywood which I was privileged to be a spectator of. I was also lucky enough to see the pictures with all-black casts directed by Oscar Marcheaux that at one time were run on little off beat TV channels. At first, I thought these melodramas were painfully amateurish and it took me a while to put them in their proper perspective and appreciate their merit. I've never really considered myself qualified to critique directors but I've always been piqued by the quirkiness of Robert Altman and the outre of David Lynch and the whimsy of Woody Allen and the mischief of Alfred Hitchock. Black directors are surely good at what they do but, if I didn't know, I couldn't identify a movie directed by one of them on the basis that it bore the imprint of their style. From time to time, I catch a showing of Orson Welle's Citizen Kane, still gleaning it for what it is that reputedly qualifies it to be a directorial prototype. As a person of color, your experience has its own niche in the racial spectrum in this country. My black experience is slightly different from others. I grew up in a small midwestern town far away from the Jim Crow south, a pleasant little village that was interracial but not really integrated. The races co-existed, and Blacks were content to stay in their place and not rock the boat because we were comfortable in our own skins and did not need the validation that mingling with Whites would supposedly provide. Things gradually changed as the civil rights movement gained momentum, however. In retrospect, the one thing I am most grateful for was the excellent education that was available at the highly rated high school we Blacks were free to attend. The opportunity to take advantage of this was never denied the younger generation of Blacks in this town. When I went away to college to the Big 10 state school, once again my experience was unique. During the semesters I lived in one of the newly-integrated woman's residence halls, we small circle of black co-eds preferred to keep to ourselves, but curious white dorm mates sought us out, wanting to befriend us to the point of making nusiances of themselves. After a while we just gave in and all became one big happy family. The student body of this campus was made up from a cross section of cities and small towns and farms from all over the state of Illinois as well a sprinkling from other states. Needless to say, the education I got during my time at this diverse institution was not just from books. Being a part of this diverse environment broadened my experiences which were not always positive ones, but I learned a lot about people. BTW, I certainly agree with your take on greed. It is insidious. And it is not good.

I can't say too much because my family has not given me permisson to talk about our lives. But this is more than you'll find online about me. I think I mentioned being of mixed race in origins. But being mixed race in appearance wasn't any advantage to us, as it might be to some now, neither of my parents were celebrities and we didn't have money. Other than being mistaken for hispanics by Puerto Ricans and other hispanics, people would ask us what we were. A black bully didn't beat me up because he liked my curly hair! I didn't yet know about the hair problem. Yet we where fortunate to come here because the place we came from fell apart badly soon after. We lived in an apartment near the stadium before moving into an old, old house off the Grand Concourse with a smashed up grand piano on the top floor. You couldn't take it down the steps or out the window. It must've been put in when the house was being built. The white man who sold the house to my parents quickly wanted to buy it back for some reason. Maybe it was nostagia for the house he grew up in. Anyway, our block when we moved in was very white and it seemed overnight white folks moved out. Maybe it was partly white flight and partly the opportunity for Italians, Irish and Jewish ethnics to finally move out into the suburbs, trees--grass. I remember when the gang members at school wore their colorful jackets. But these gangs now seem pretty tame in comparison to the ones today with their machine guns. The drug problem seems tame by comparison, too. We never heard about shootings, maybe stabbings and beatings but never the kind of gun fights today. So it was shocking to hear of that new academic study, is it Harvard or Yale, that says blacks in New York are more segregrated than in the South. It seems nothing much has changed. Fortunately and unfornutely we came at a bad time in terms of race relations in New York, I think, that effected how people looked at us and treated us because we appeared to be mixed race blacks. My own personal experience of serious racial violence happened when a big hulking white cop once pulled over my teenage brother, the darker one, soon after he had gotten his license and this cop was just aching for a reaction that would give him the excuse to beat my brother up. We were lucky he was a cop who needed an excuse. He barked and fumed for no reason I could see. I was the kid brother in the back seat terrified. My brother kept his cool and we Escaped the monster. I cannot forget the anger and or hate radiating like madness from this man. The man's face was red with upset for what reason I still don't know. When my mother first took us to a park in the late 60s, a small park near Yankee stadium, all the white mothers and their children suddenly seemed to have disappeared and she wondered what was happening and became frightened. And fled the place. Earlier than that, before we came, she and her sister went into Manhatten to eat and they couldn't figure out why they weren't being served and why all these white people were staring at them. It was very unfriendly to say the least. I think, if I recall the story, they were about to complain but decided to leave instead, insulted. But to end on a more positive if not bitter sweet note. Let me tell you of my griot experience. Maybe this how storytelling will survive in the oral sense: People can and will listen to stories. They do already. Maybe more so children. So stories will never die out. In this Bronx I've just given you a glimpse of we lived next door to African Americans originally from the South and the mother or grandmother of this family used to tell these wonderful stories about her childhood and life down South. I think they were living there when we arrived. And for the life of me I would give anything to remember the stories. When I sat on the stoop and listened to this toothless old lady, talking with great passion about events and people in her life, I saw vivid pictures in my mind's eye of what she was saying. I swear. It is not a false memory. It was something wonderful. But I can't remember the stories she told, sadly. That's the terrible thing, the sad part of my story. Maybe because I was too small. Was it telepathy? Of course it must be dismissed as imagination. Why take my word for it. Have you had any experience like that? Some years back I read Fordham University was trying to get oral histories of blacks that lived in the Bronx. Many know something of the Jewish, Irish, and Italian communities, but blacks lived in the Bronx, too. It's a real shame, that this old lady's journey was never written down. Her daughter too passed away at a ripe old, taking her stories with her. I was so sick once, the same black Americans next door, this daughter of the old lady, made some kind of meat poultice to cover my chest. It was powerful stuff. Maybe it helped me to stay alive to tell you this story.