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Gibran

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Everything posted by Gibran

  1. A GOOD BOOK TELLS US A LOT ABOUT ITS HERO; A BAD BOOK TELLS US A LOT ABOUT ITS AUTHOR GK CHESTERTON
  2. Peace. A few days ago I saw a promotion about a book that was based on black Detroit. Write your book now. It won't ever be too late, but since there is a book already out in that vein, a wise thing to do would be to piggy-back on the publicity that book might generate. Let that book do all the heavy lifting and you just get as much benefit as possible. Even if it is a bad book, you can promote your book as 'an upgrade'. If it is a good one, you can talk smack about it anyway, just to draw attention to your book, Nothing sells better than controversy. Peace
  3. Wow....the tenets of democracy surely have changed since i first became concerned about the concept. I have always felt that democracy, in theory, has merit. However, the problem lies in practice and application especially when conceived in a nation that is a Republic with underlying corporate undertones. In any event, as someone who has labored to understand the constructs of governmental rule from various perspectives, I do still value the inherent values of democracy as opposed to the payout conferred by either socialism or communism both of which I studied during my revolutionary days in the 70s. I shun authoritarian and totalitarian dogma. Oh yes, I, no doubt, can see why some governments would choose to rule in such a fashion. Both virtually insure compliance due to the heavy-handed power wielded by a state that will not tolerate any freedoms other than those endorsed by state policy. And i have never thought, by any stretch of the imagination, that democracy was designed to do any of the things espoused above. Again, the theory is breathtakingly awe-inspiring, but it loses its poetry when confronted with the practices of men out to invent their own traditions. Usually such man-made traditions and practices conflict with the noble aims of the theory. Personally, I have never entertained the notion that leaders seek to uphold the will of the people, but rather, in time, will seek to impose their will upon the people. During those heady days of revolutionary fervor, one of my favorites quotes was from Hitler. "WHAT LUCK IT IS FOR RULERS THAT MEN DO NOT THINK"
  4. I am going to go on the black book clubs on FB and shout out AALBC and tell people to check out the site. As soon as I figure out how to use the CALL TO ACTION button on my website, I will set it up to get people to support AALBC.
  5. Once the political dust settles, I do not think that brothas and sistas are not going to view the end results of the election with any eye toward enhancing either social or political potential. Black folks simply crave a sense of normalcy, however that is perceived. Primarily, blacks within the confines of this country still feel what all colonized people feel, and as such don't entertain perceptions of power, either socially or politically. Instead, we harbor fears about what the end results will do to alter or disrupt our perceived sense of normalcy which has been carved out from our political and social immaturity. We are so busy begging for the right to breathe that we don't possess the luxury to stop trying to live. Additionally, it is rather difficult to have clear perceptions about our social or political potential when we have yet to be formally introduced to them. Thus far, we have been treated like prized guinea pigs in this great Democratic Experiment and it appears that despite all the trumpeted legislation to excuse our oppression and to condone white supremacy, Supreme Court Justice Taney is having the last laugh. He got it right. Blacks still have no rights white are bound to respect.
  6. How do we help AALBC. I ghostwrite a lot so I will introduce these folks to AALBC. Plus, I have 20 books that I don't even attempt to sell. Crazy, right. I'm a writer and I hate the business of selling so I write books and forget about them. I also have writer friends in the joint and all of those guys write. Many have books already and they are constantly bugging me for help. Is MOSAIC still around. I think the brotha's name was Ron. He and I spoke a few times, many many years ago. I remember AALBC and his site would do combined promotion stuff a while back.
  7. You are more right than I am because I am guilty of making a blanket statement. Man, there are some jokers from the joint and the streets that cannot be trusted any further than you can throw. In fact, there are some brothas from the joint that if i saw them walking in my neighborhood, I would kill because I know they are up to no good. That was a great observation about the leadership quality of guys from the inside. They are too institutionalized to be real leaders, but they are good front line soldiers once they embrace a cause. What you were seeing in those guys was the system at work. In that same paper I spoke of reading, it was also designed to make guys in prison dependent on the thinking of others. They wanted to disrupt our ability to make our own choices and they did this by forcing prisoners to have to get permission to do anything from a phone call, to buying a radio, to getting a job. Everything decision made inside is made for the prisoner or the choice is so limited, it is not much of a choice. Case in point. After ten years in the feds, I had been out about twenty minutes when I went to get something for my dreads. I went inside a store and when I spied all the hair care products, I almost passed out literally. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It was brain overload and due to the extra mental stimulation, I was emotionally distressed. In prison, we only had 3 choices when it came to hair care. And now all this. No lie. I practically ran out of the store. I was unable to choose. Without someone to tell me what to do, I was lost. It takes a while to shake the fog of prison off, and once you understand how dehumanized you have been, the search is on to piece yourself back together. In fact, if the time comes for serious action, we all gonna have to step up.
  8. Oftentimes, we don't equate our suffering with anything in particular. We just suffer and we have become so good at it that it is simply another condition of our oppression that we learn to accept and internalize. Most of us may have already been stressed out before Covid and the most recent spate of racial injustices and though these pandemics may have accelerated our mental decay, it's merely 'another brick in the wall.' No matter how much we suffer, we always know that it can get worse so instead of seeking help, we brace ourselves for wherever is coming next.
  9. Yes sir, preachers have always preached to keep us in line, or as you correctly noted, to calm us down when we need to act up a lil bit just to let it be known that we more than sick and tired. I never will forget an article I read about an incident in DC a long time ago. What happened is that white folks were going through the city, beating up blacks which was nothing new, but this time, the brothas fought back. And man, the sistas were so proud. Sistas were hollering and screaming; "They fighting back! They fighting back! Our women were so tired of us getting punked and when we fought back, they celebrated. Sometimes, you just gotta make a stand.
  10. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, While the world anxiously holds its collective breath waiting to learn who will occupy the White House, life goes on. Although brothas and sistas do not vote as a bloc for either party, we have always had our favorites, but no presidents prior to Barack Obama were more beloved than John F Kennedy and to a lesser degree Bill Clinton. When I was a shorty, blacks loved JFK who was elected in 1960. He was the one that was supposed to do things for brothas that had never been done. JFK was the white savior black America has finally been waiting on and looking for. Without a doubt, JFK did give us welfare, providing the hood with Government cheese, Kennedy meat, and peanut butter. I surely ate my share of all three. But what did he actually do for blacks? His intentions may have been to do tremendous good for us, and without a doubt, enormous amount of government money had been set aside to really dress up the hood. There was going to be schools, hospitals, better roads; everything was going to change. And why not, if the money was there. And it was stacked to the roof. For once, and at long last, we were going to get equal footing on the playing field but it didn’t happen. In the end, we didn’t get squat. What happened is politics as usual. Just as things were due to get to jumping in the hood, a funny thing happened on the way to putting a new dress and lipstick on the hood and what happened is the Space Race. When the US discovered that Russia was about to put a man into space, the game changed because nothing else mattered now to America except beating Russian into outer space. Every dime from everywhere was siphoned off wherever it was needed and shifted to finance NASA. No money was spared in the Space Race because the stakes were terribly high. This was Ali vs Frazier on the political stage and whoever won the Space Race would be able to stamp their brand of governing on all the developing countries sitting on the sidelines, watching. America was pushing democracy. Russia was dealing communism. There were numerous countries who were trying to decide if or not to accept Mother Russia or Uncle Sam as their pimp, so the stakes for national pride was extremely high. The world was watching and neither of the players wanted to lose. This was for all the marbles so both countries threw everything they had, including every single dime, into their individual strategies. Guess what, America lost. It would not really have made a difference to black America because win, lose, or draw, the money for them was gone. POOF! So there we were, left standing at the altar, abandoned. When JFK was killed, Lyndon Johnson did carry through a lot of the small scale stuff that had been on the table and he pushed through legislation favorable to us. As much as we loved JFK, it was LBJ who threw us a few bones we could lick while we licked our wounds from being kicked in the ass by what we thought was going to happen. JFK talked the talk, but when it came down to it, he was not about to let his political promises to black America get in the way of doing for white America, And what about Bill Clinton, another president beloved by black folks. Despite how cool he may have been and no matter how good his sax playing was, he was the one who signed into law the 94 Crime Bill that cranked up the mass confinement of brothas. This Crime Bill, more than any other piece of law of modern times, has done more damage to black America than anything that preceded it. Oh by the way, Joe Biden sponsored that Crime Bill, otherwise known as the Biden Bill which added 60 more crimes for which the death penalty would apply, and it opened the door to send juveniles to prison as adults. Both Clinton and Biden have publicly apologized for the Bill as they understood just how it devastated blacks America.. Unless you were a street person, you can never really understand what happened. IT was a rape of black communities. I know because I got caught up. I got charged with selling 5 keys of heroin but they couldn’t produce any drugs, what they called a dry conspiracy. You don’t get a bond unless you snitch. I mean, all you had to do was to make a phone call and say that your neighbor was selling crack and you could get locked up. A lot of people got rid of enemies in that way. You fuck my wife. I tell the cops you are a dope boy. Even though, you are innocent, you can’t make bond because there is none so the only way to get out of jail would be to tell on someone else. So you tell on someone who may or may not be a drug-dealer and this behavior just spiraled out of control. It was so bad during this time that guys were snitching on their Mamas to get out of a life sentence. Shit was crazy. You go to jail and can’t get out unless you give them someone to take your place. Here’s is another lil voting incident that I have never forgotten. It was never a big deal to me but it did make me think. In the 90s, a brotha, Harvey Gannt, was running against Jesse Helms for the Senate. The race was as tight as this one is. It was close and in the final days someone figured out a way to get the brotha a win. This was in NC, in my hometown and MJ was a favorite son of the state and if the Dems could get Michael Jordan to support or endorse Gantt, it would be a wrap. Jesse Helms was a known racist who had openly opposed the MLK holiday. Anyway, Mike refused to endorse the brother and his given reason for his denial was ‘BECAUSE REPUBLICANS BOUGHT SNEAKERS TO!
  11. When there was no Washington DC, the powers that be wanted to form a new federal government that was to be a separate entity from any of the state governments. The feds were to deal with foreign business and leave the states to conduct their own business. Many of the states didn’t go for that, but they got tossed a bone so juicy they couldn’t refuse the offer . First, in exchange for a portion of land from Virginia, and an equal portion from Maryland to establish the new capital in Washington, the federal government agreed to absorb all the debts of the states who all owed money to foreign bankers in Europe which the states used for road construction, schools, hospitals. etc. Quite naturally, the states jumped all over the chance to be debt-free and DC, the federal government, was born. Uncle Sam was a healthy baby but he was in deep debt to foreign bankers. Oh yeah, before I discuss that, let me explain how DC got to be Chocolate City. About mid-century—1950--- real estate agents out to make a quick buck devised a way to beat the ‘rent covenants’ used then to restrict and to bar brothas from living in certain neighborhoods. With help from a buddy on the Supreme Court who also got paid in the scheme, the rent covenants were overturned and just as soon as the ink was dry on the paper, real estate agents went to NC and brought families from there and settled one family on each block. (And that is why to this day, virtually everyone from DC is from NC via their family. When I was locked up in the feds, DC and NC never got along. It was because we were family. NC was DC’s country cousins.) Anyway, this tactic was call Block-Busting. Due to outright prejudice against brothas, this would start a housing panic and the homeowners would sell their property for peanuts to get away from the darkies. The real estate folks got paid. Not only did they get access to cheap property as white flight started, but once they had obtained these fancy cribs, they would inflate the prices of these d4eam homes when they sold them to black folks. Devils got paid on both ends. And DC got its flava. The same Supreme Court Justice who looked out on that also had his hand in something else big. He orchestrated the Brown-v-Board of Education case. He was Felix Frankfurter. History celebrates Thurgood Marshall and that is how they wanted it. (I don’t have my source material on hand so I will free style. Plus, it is on this site from years ago) The short version is that in the days leading up to the decision, the vote was to deny Brown. The vote wasn’t even close. Frankfurter who wanted to outlaw segregation asked that the case be reargued so the Court went on a short break, but the Chief Justice who wanted to doon Brown didn’t make it. He died under mysterious conditions. Washington insiders winked at the so-called mysterious heart attack as they were common in DC among politicians who got in the way. When the deceased man’s son tried to investigate his father’s death, well, he knew what had happened. It was political expediency. Seemed like everyone in DC knew the deal. Anyway, Frankfurter was a gangsta and made some power moves behind the scenes and faster than you can say conspiracy, the Supreme Court changed its vote and Brown was passed. Okay, why would Frankfurter be involved in so dastardly an act? Did he love brothas that much? Naw, He was part of as powerful group of men, Jewish mainly, who had an agenda for us. They were visionaries, thought way ahead of the game. Since brothas were here to stay and they couldn’t kill us, deport us or put us all in jails, the next best thing to do was to manufacture niggas they could control, and would do their bidding to keep the rest of us in line. To be effective, these blacks would need to be highly educated to carry out their duties. They wanted to invent a new black middle class who would be a buffer between them and the regular brothas. They needed Brown so they could educate their individual niggas who they would teach how to keep us in check. In essence , these were to be the new overseers. The teachers who taught us would be taught by them so we would learn exactly what they wanted us to learn. Preachers would go to schools designated and handpicked by them so that preachers would merely parrot what was put before them as knowledge. Through us, they felt they could control us. The job of these token, look-at-me niggas was to ooh and ahh us with their fancy cars and white women, being sure to make it known that we could derive the same benefits if we did what we were told. And that was why Brown was so monumental. We were going to get educated at last but they were going to control what we knew and learned. I mean, was that good strategy or what. If they couldn’t kill or imprison us, the next best thing to do would be to control what we learned. We were taught to keep on being slaves. VOTE!
  12. I guess, Brother Troy, that we just don't know what to do. I recall some years ago saying that maybe it is you who must forge the path as far as gaining an more equally stable platform on social media. I will help. I can write. I can blog. I just don't know how to do what, if anything, needs to be done. You do. I have no solid idea what Bezos and Zuckerberg are doing. I'm just a street person with my eye on the police and local politicians. I just asked the young lady in my bed if she knew who Jeff Bezos was. She didn't. Sista online shopping all the time. (her money, I must add. Not mine.) We gotta know who is who and what is what. Look, I don't even know how to use this website as people have complained that they can't follow my rants because I don't know how to use the quote button. It may not be that we don't want to help, we just need someone to whip us into the social army we need to be.
  13. Once Roger Taney, Supreme Court Justice, issued the order in Dred Scott that brothas had no rights that a white man was obligated to respect, his baby brother Octavius immediately passed the Forced Removal Act which was designed to deport all the free black men out of the country. White men in high places went to work and in a spirit of goodwill, gave blacks the option to get missing voluntarily or they would be forcibly removed. To appear humane to the rest of the world, whites disguised their emigration efforts as colonization efforts making it seem as though blacks were going back to Africa on their own and were not being coerced into leaving. This way, it could be passed off as black colonization rather than forced black emigration. Despite the fact that these brothas were free, they were still ‘stateless’ and as such could be forcibly removed from any state that they didn’t belong to. And this was because it was felt that a man, in order to be free, had to enjoy the protections of being a member of a particular state because this is where you derived your rights from. There was no such thing then as a US citizen. Being in a legal bind, and living under the constant threat of forced removal, brothas petitioned for “birthright citizenship”. Brothas had to do something quick as they were well aware of the Trail of Tears where the so-called Indians were forcibly removed so they knew whitey was not bullshitting. And lo and behold, the 14th Amendment, if it did nothing else, it did plug the legal loophole that would have allowed them to be shipped off. The 14th Amendment did stop the Forced Removal Act, but it was not long before a new scheme was hatched to keep brothas in check. What did white people fear? They feared history. They had history as a reminder that any people who had ever been brutally oppressed would one day attempt some get-back. When Germany was defeated in WW1, the whole country as one wanted get-back at the world and when Hitler came to power, they opposed the entire world. What about Rwanda. That was a beef between the Hutis and the Tutsis. Decades earlier, the Hutis had punished the Tutsis and had treated them like shit, oppressing them and holding them down. The Hutis suffered and they waited. They plotted and planned and when they were strong enough, they got some get-back, killing bout a million of the Tutsis. In all those barbarian movies, when the invaders swoop in, they kill everyone, especially the young because they know that if they spare the children, that one day, when these kids are grown, they gonna want some get-back for the way their people were mistreated. Genghis Khan was a prime historical example of what happens when you kill a village and leave the young alive. Pay-back. Whites are well are of this and have been afraid since slavery and for good reason. Trust me, they have taken their precautions. That was COINTELPRO was all about in the 70s. But they have pulled the playbook out on counterintelligence to use against the Black Hebrews. The primary issue is to prevent a black messiah from rising up to unite black people. After the so-called Emancipation of brothas, white men scrambled for a way to control the masses of blacks now roaming the countryside. What did they do? They passed the infamous Pig Law which made it a crime to steal a pig. Before blacks were free, the penalty for stealing a pig was a fine. Now, it carried a 5 year bid on the chain-gang. You know what happened. The prisons filled up with hungry black men, trying to feed their families. This was our first introduction to jail because prior to freedom, when a brotha stole a pig, the Massa would just whip him. Now, he had to go inside for 5 years. And we haven’t stopped going to prison since then because it was set up to contain us since they couldn’t control us. Ok, this was the first wave of brothas going into the prison en masse. The second wave occurred in the early 70s shortly after The Mack, and Superfly were released. These 2 movies crippled the revolution and stopped it in its tracks. Seeing ourselves on the big screen for the first time really impressed us, and overnight, brothas who had been out on the streets, ready to die for the cause, were now imitating Goldie from The Mack and started to pimp. Other niggas fried their Afros, straightening their hair to look like Priest, the cocaine dealer in Superfly, and they started slanging cocaine. It was almost as if the crackers knew what was goijg to happen and they just waited on these wannabe hustlers to step out of line so they could fill the prison up with them. And that is exactly what happened, but something else was going on at this time that made the white man turn a whiter shade of pale. Prisons, across the country, were highly politicized with black militancy and many of those brothas that came in got ‘conscious’ and adopted revolutionary doctrine. Brothas were coming into the joint as petty crooks and going back out as seasoned revolutionaries who got involved in community activism. The prisons were turning out black revolutionaries and these brothas were not about talking and marching and singing. They were not afraid of the law as they had demonstrated by breaking it to get locked up. These were the soldiers of our Army. Many went to Cuba to be trained in guerilla warfare. And if you know anything about the 70s, brothas didn’t think twice about shooting it out with the police. This was for the freedom of black people. All of a sudden, Congress got involved and a day hardly went by when some new legislation wasn’t being passed to make prison better. They didn’t want to make prison better. They wanted to stop the prison movement of turning brothas into revolutionaries. (Even I went to NY at 19 when I was released from my first bid to join the Black Panthers.) All of a sudden, they wanted to make prison humane. Prisons became correctional facilities, guards became correctional officers. They hired psychologists and counselors. They ended many of the draconian rules of prison life. They made it possible to take college classes and gave away Pell Grants like they were Skittles. They put pool tables and ping-pong tables inside, the food got better, they established conjugal visits in many places so you could have sex with your woman while you were locked up. Didn’t think about it then, but how many sistas they let get pregnant by being with their locked up boyfriends who would not be able to take care of the child since he was where he was. Uncle Sam didn’t give a damn. He was more than willing to take care of these jailhouse babies if he could stop prisons from sending out niggas ready to destroy the country. And here’s a mini-rant. Everyone turns their back on a man when he goes to prison. Won’t send a nigga a card, let alone a dollar or two, but who would you want in your corner when the shit hits the fan? If we had to go to war, who do you think gonna be willing to do the dirty work? In a dire situation where there is sure to be drama, who would you want to have you back, some suit and tie corporate brothas, the teachers, the preachers, rappers, entertainers, or niggas from the joint who don’t believe shit stank? Show the brothas inside some love. Gonna need these niggas one day. The third wave of going-to-jail for brothas was with the crack laws. Nuff Said And since the day is VOTE DAY, I will leave you with this. Back in the days, Brothas in the streets used to give Trump big props. It was because he had money. Brothas on the grind used to always say, they wanted to blow up like Trump, or they wanted their money to be as long as Trump. Basically Trump was a street hero because of his so-called deal-making rep and his ability to get paper. No one even knew or cared that he was a Republican. To hustlers, he was just a motherfucka who got paper. Joe, on the other hand,, like Rockefeller and Clinton, were hated because they were the ones who helped pushed through the Crack Laws and the Tuff-on-Crime bills that has locked up over a million brothas and sistas. VOTE!
  14. Another thing is how right you are to note how brothas in the underground economy can mimic the game of the crackers with some success. On the streets, we have to be versatile to survive. We can't be one-dimensional as is the case with a lot of brothas in the corporate world. In order to get in, they have to make sacrifices to fit in. They toe the corporate line and do as expected. On the streets, we adapt. When we saw the white man playing the stock market, we set down the numbers games on the same principles. We saw how Uncle Sam played the oil game so we copied that and set up the dope game On the streets, we look, we learn and we execute using the same principles as Uncle Sam. We just micro-gangsters. Uncle Sam be all in other countries fighting turf wars . We fight turf wars on the block. When we hustle, we just coping a page from Uncle Sam's playbook Legal brothas have more ethical concerns and due to this restraint can't get as much done because they don't like doing the dirty work that sometimes accompanies success.
  15. I can feel you on that. No doubt, there is a white way of doing things in America and it usually works for whites as they understand the nuances of what is to be done and exactly how it is to be done to reap the benefits. First, they have the complexion and the connections. Mainly, when a white kid needs a job, he doesn't have to scan the want ads. He merely makes a phone call and someone he knows know someone who knows someone. He has a job. It is that simple, sometimes. Any system, whether in nature or in America, tends to supports and upholds the needs of the people who put it in place. They do so that when the people at the top eat and the leftovers begin to trickle down, they want to make sure that the ones who benefit from their labors are those who look like them. And we, as outsiders, not knowing exactly how nepotism and the old boy network operates, we think we can get in where we fit in under that system and we get our butt kicked. They make it look so easy and we think we can do it. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it does not. Why? Because when they follow the signs or the rules put in place by their own people, it like they using a paint-by-numbers plan. They can't lose. On the other hand we playing the game with blindfolds on. We get tricked into believing that if the system works for Mr. Charlie, it will produce for me as well. We believe that if if works for them it will works for us. It works for them because it was meant for them. When I was a peewee, when I got a cut, I would grab a band-aid. On the box, it said flesh-colored but when I put it on, it did not match my flesh. It was made for them and they are openly let you know it. This band-aid is flesh-colored because it matches the skin tone of the people it was meant for. When we use it, it doesn't perform as advertised. It may do the job, but it sure as hell exposed me by making me stand out. And that is what happens when we try to apply white solutions to our problems. Our game gets exposed and we get busted. Or what about when you go to the doctor and they give you meds that don't work. Why? because the dosage of most meds were medically measured to suit the needs of a 110 pound white woman. Quite naturally, the dosage won't do shit for you, but it wasn't you that had in mind when they set the game up. You are nothing more than collateral damage. So, your first order of business is to 'screw your head on right" so you can peep the bullshit that they don't want you to see. My brotha, excuse my french, but fuck the players of the game. It's the coach or the rule book you want. Knowing the rules takes the guesswork out of the equation and when you know what you are doing, your chances for success go way up. A lot of times, brothas shoot for the wrong prize. A brotha will be in an office flirting with the big-butt secretary when the person he needs to trying to get under is the cracker inside the office who can give him what he wants. But, this is my personal thought. I learned a long time ago that in order to break the law, you must understand the law. I think that in order to crack the code to how white folks play the game, you, first, gotta understand the game. Well, let me back up because I have already started off with a bad piece of advice, and this is old school science. IF YOU THINK YOU ARE PLAYING A GAME, THEN YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST! Brothers play the "dope game" but to white folks, it's a WAR on drugs. And that's how they confront it, as a WAR. Brothas be playing checkers, crackers be playing chess. It's the way of the system to make a brotha get less than he is worth because they know that if you don't value your worth, then you are going to always come up short. We don't value ourselves or our skills. Check this out. You can take a white boy and a brother and equip them with the exact same skills. Let's say that both are automotive geniuses and can really handle a car. The white guy will go ahead and drive a race car for NASCAR whereas a brotha with the same skills will probably end up being a get-away driver for a crew of stick-up kids. or what about two kids, one black, one white who are charismatic and have the gift of gab. The white boy will become a highly paid motivational speaker. The brotha will use this same gift of persuasion to turn bitches out and have them on the corner selling ass. Anyway, like I said, get the rulebook because once you know and understand the rules you can adapt them to fit your purposes. Data, like truth, is static and does not discriminate. It is what it is. Truth, under any and all circumstances will perform the same. It can't change or be altered. It's like a trusted recipe. It's always going to do what it do. And that is how it goes when you understand the rules Once I learn the rules to anything, it is no longer a white or a black thing----it's simply knowledge which will work for me just like it works for the whites .
  16. For certain, the Emancipation Proclamation was itself an Executive Order. Still even as such, it had no teeth as Lincoln had no control over any of the states in rebellion as they were under the control of the confederacy. In actuality, no slaves were freed. It only made it easier to escape to Union-controlled cities where even then they could not be legally accepted as free so they had to be treated as “contrabands of war.” If they were freed, they could have merely walked away from Massa. Nope, they had to escape which meant they still could be captured or killed while trying to honor a phantom freedom. The most annoying thing about The Emancipation Proclamation was that it did nothing to even free any of the slaves where Lincoln did have control. If he had been trying to free slaves, then he could have easily done it with those who were already in territory he controlled. But he didn’t. The same kind of thing happened with the Executive Order of Tom Jefferson who issued The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in 1807, but it had no power and slavery continued and flourished. So much for the power of Executive Orders. Yes, the 14 Amendment did declare that we were free and the section following provided the federal government power to enforce the provisions of the Amendment, but the feds could not force the states to honor it. It’s like right now that the fed government does not have the power to force individual states to enact a mask mandate. Even in the middle of a pandemic where the life of the country is at risk, the federal government cannot compel individual states to pass such a mandate if they don’t want to. People are dying and the feds can’t force the states to comply with an mandate that will save lives. That is because the feds cannot force the states. And that was why during desegregation, no matter what the feds legislated, the states still had the power to keep us out of school. And when the federal government wanted to enforce the laws that the states refused to honor, federal troops were sent in. Despite being deemed citizens by the federal government, southern states still passed the Black Codes, which contradicted citizenship and actual freedom. The Black Codes were the law of the south and we were forced to live by them and the feds were powerless to stop them from doing it despite the 14th Amendment. To fix the matter, the feds passed The Enforcement Act in 1870 to scare the south into doing right by us, and despite the enormous power of the feds to punish the south for noncompliance, the maximum penalty for violating the 14th Amendment would be to subject the offender to ‘a proportional reduction of representation in the House of Representatives”. No doubt, this didn’t work so the very next year in 1871, they passed a second ENFORCEMENT ACT to add more bite to the 14th because the states still didn’t comply with it. Anyway, that act must not have worked very well because in 1901, none other than Booker T Washington, the most beloved brotha of his era, protested to the president that blacks were still not ALLOWED TO VOTE in Alabama, which like other southern states, implemented their own laws to prevent blacks from voting. The major reason the 14th was opposed so much was because the south felt that the end of slavery by the Amendment would violate the right/powers clause reserved exclusively for the states which prohibited them from being compelled to follow the instructions of the federal government. Perhaps, the greatest feat of the 14th Amendment is the event that we never hear about which is that the 14 Amendment prevented the US from exiling and deporting us. As soon as Roger Taney, Supreme Court Justice, ruled that blacks had no rights that whites had to respect, his brother Octavius, proposed laws to remove us from the country just like they had done the Indians, if need be. The Forced Removal Act forced the National Colored Convention to demand birthright privileges so the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed. But it wasn’t enough to stop the forced removal of blacks from the country. Blacks were given the choice of self-deportation or forced removal. This was remedied by the 14 Amendment which guaranteed that we couldn’t be removed, but since the states could pass laws that went against the federal government, the beat went on. Why? Because black folks were still stateless and because the states could enact their own laws to remove immigrants, aliens, black people from their borders. Now, when we were ‘made’ residents of the government, we became ‘national citizens’ of the federal government. This, strange as it may seem, afforded us residency which prevented the states from shipping us out. In those days, there was no such thing as a citizen of the US. Men were citizens of the state where they lived. And since there was no such thing as a citizen-at-large, men’s allegiance was to their respective states. To vote, you had to be a citizen of a state. Men derived all their protections and rights from their states so what was legal in one state might be illegal in another. Since we were not citizens of any state, the 14th Amendment made us resident/citizens of the federal government. Why can’t people in DC vote? Simply because DC in not a state. People in DC are legally stateless. It is the federal government and those under the authority and jurisdiction of the fed government cannot vote. Consider Puerto Rico. Why can’t they vote. They’re citizens. Same thing. They are citizen or residents of the federal government and since they are not residents of any state, no vote is allotted them. They, like us, were ‘made’ citizens. In answer to another quote: It is true that this country is not a so-called ‘true democracy’ as mentioned. That’s puzzling. If it is not true---what is it. Half true, quarter true, false. Nonetheless, this country is a Republic. The Founding Folks decided a republic would be better than a true democracy because they wanted a safeguard against the fickleness of public sentiment. They felt that passion and emotion, rather than common sense would decide most popular majority decisions. And that was the exact reasoning for the Electoral College. They needed this as a defense to check the will of the people who may not know what’s good for them. They felt they couldn’t afford a government driven by the short-sightedness of popular public sentiment. In a Republic, such as this, common rule draws upon the voice of the people but does not identify the majority with the whole of the population. The founders conceded that popular rule could not by itself secure liberty and it was to this very end that the Electoral College was established. The people couldn’t be trusted to be responsible with the vote. And what about this. The delegates that represent your vote in the Electoral College do not have to vote the way of the popular vote. They can vote their conscience. Even if that state’s popular vote was for candidate A, and they liked B better, they could legally go against the wishes of the popular votes of their state and vote for B. That’s how it goes. In fact, all of this info is in a book I wrote exactly 20 years ago, and the reason I mention this is, is because it was due to that book that I met Troy. Bro. Troy, you getting old!
  17. I would suspect that if you are writing about history, then all you are doing is recording the truth as it relates to that person, place, or thing. Any and all info on historical people, places or things are a part of the public record so you are not prohibited from repeating facts. However, you do not have the reward to bend the truth or to slander. One of the things about celebrity, whether famous or infamous, is that you surrender your privacy
  18. It was the longest night of my life. When the prison guard locked us in the cell for the night, I knew that sleep would be out of the question because in about five hours, I was going to escape----or at least try to. Along with four other brothers from out of DC, we had put together an escape plan that we felt would land us on the other side of the fence. Ever since one of my childhood friends, Dan, had gotten killed in the prison a few months earlier, I had started to contemplate escaping. All of my appeals had been denied in court and I was angry at the “Scandal” among my homies. This was perhaps the only time I was upset with my homies because the killing of Dan had gone against everything we believed in. It was a iron-clad rule that no beefs from the streets would be carried on in the joint because we had to stick together. The fed joint in Petersburg Virginia was known as “gladiator school” and it lived up to its reputation. Gang wars were a fact of life there and everything was “geographical” meaning your whole life revolved around your set. Whatever state you were from, that is who you hung with. That was your family and if one of you fought, the whole set fought. DC was the powerhouse because there were so many of them. Anyway, we always knew when we were getting a new homeboy in because of the transfer sheet so when Dan gets there, another homeboy comes to me and tells me that he is about to do something that the other homies “are not going to like”. I didn’t do my homework! As the shot-caller for the NC crew, I should have investigated more since whatever he had planned would involve the crew, but I assumed that it had something to do with the beef we had had with Virginia. Even though we had handled that, I assumed that he was going to start it up again, so I told him to do whatever he had to do and that I had his back. I regretted that decision. Dan hit the yard on Friday evening. Me and Dan had met in The Youth Center but what made me and Dan so close was that our dads had been friends. Another thing that should have alerted me that something was up was that the homey and his brother joined the Nation of Islam. I found that odd because he never mentioned it to me, but he knew that once he did what he had planned that the homies would retaliate so in order not to be out there “butt-naked”, he joined the Muslims, knowing they would watch his back since he was a part of their team. That was a smart move, but I was asleep at the wheel and missed everything although all the signs were there. On Sunday, about ten of us left the chow hall together, Dan among us. When we got to the block where I stayed, I saw the homey sitting on a bench in front of the cellblock with a raincoat on. It was July and the sun was shining. He also had a newspaper under his arm. I went in the block to brush my teeth. I hadn’t even finished when one of the crew rushed to my room, yelling that something had happened. I rush out of the dorm and see Dan lying on the ground. He was shaking and everyone thought he was having a seizure but I knew better, so I turn him over on his back and I see the hole in his chest. I immediately knew he had been stabbed with an icepick. I dash into the block and pick up the phone and dial the number that I know will bring the goon squad. I needed to get Dan to the hospital and once they had removed Dan, I tell the homies to “strap up”. We were going to war. However I thought it was DC. We had had a beef earlier that morning over the pool table. Even though the beef had been squashed I now thought they had reneged on their word and this was their way of getting back, but one of them said that they had observed Dan walk around the building with the homey wearing the raincoat. Then, everything became clear. Now, there would be more bloodshed We would have to kill our own. When Dan died about an hour later, what made it even more sad is that his girlfriend had come to visit and they had to tell her that Dan was dead. I was furious. They locked the prison down and the feds came in to investigate the crew from Charlotte. They knew it was a beef from the street because Dan had only been in prison for two days and didn’t know anyone except the crew. Once the feds had left, the yard opened back up and we bum-rushed the block where the homie stayed, but both he and his brother was locked up. Tensions were so high that attempts were made to poison his food but there was no way to isolate his food. Back to the escape. I knew sleep would be out of the question so I listened to the radio, did pushups, everything to calm my nerves. I was afraid although not afraid in a scared way. I was afraid in the way that men are afraid when they know they might get killed. This was Ramadan and the prison escorted the Muslims to the chow hall for the early morning meal about three in the morning. I was not Muslim then but I still fasted. At 2:30, I wrapped my entire body in Ace bandages until I looked like a mummy. I didn’t want to get cut by the razor sharp wire on the 12 foot fence. I packed my backpack, filling it with some water and some Little Debbie cakes. For some crazy reason, I packed my hairbrush and comb. Of course I packed my knife. I wanted to take my bow and arrows! I knew for a fact that I was the only one in the joint with a bow and arrows. There were a few guys who had guns, but no one had a bow and arrows but me. When the door opened, we only had ten minutes to get out of the dorm. We removed a big picture glass window and climbed on the roof. Other guys replaced the window. Though it was only September, it was cold up on that roof and it was wet. We had to lie face-down in the wet gravel until the coast was clear. We waited and waited. We were waiting on our ride which was supposed to flash its headlights at 3:30 so we could start moving. The car was supposed to have guns and money and fake identification. The time came and went. No car. Now, we had a problem. We couldn’t get back in the building and now we had no transportation. It was a two story building, but damn it looked like ten when you were looking down. We had to jump. From the ground looking up, it didn’t look that bad, but being up there was a different story. I didn’t want to sprain or break my ankles so I slid down to the end of the building while the others jump and I knocked on the window of a friend from New York. When he came to the window, I motioned for him to open his window. These windows rolled out in layers and I was able to climb down like I was on a ladder and as luck would have it, the guy in the bottom cell already had his window opened. So I made it to the ground with having to jump. Once on the ground, we crawled on our bellies to where we had a set of bolt-cutters stashed. We cut through the first fence. It was dark and cold and we were all breathing hard. We made it to the second fence. Our car still had not arrived. We had no choice but to go on. We were huddled in the dark, discussing our next move. Did we split up or did we stay together? We didn’t really look to have any problem getting out the prison because we had found out which guards towers were empty. My crime partner was cool with a white dude who worked in the administration building and he had mentioned to my partner that once the yard closed for the night that the guards in those gun towers would be brought out of the towers since it would be a waste of manpower to leave them there since the yard was closed. I had put my partner on the white dude to find out just what gun tower would be empty because that would be the part of the fence where we would make our exit. We couldn’t be stopped if the gun tower was empty. As soon as we started to cut through the fence, huge floodlights lit up the night and a voice crackled over a microphone. “As-Salaam-Alaikum, we have you surrounded----give up!” And they did, but we had gone too far to stop now. We hit the fence anyway. Now, I was glad I had wrapped my body up. Everything slowed down. When they starting shooting it sounded like Vietnam. I could see the red tracers lighting up the night and I could hear the bullets hitting the fence. I got caught in the barbed wire and had to use my knife to cut myself free. We hit the ground running. Anyway when we get busted, the Judge did not want to give us any more time because it came out that the prison knew a week in advance about our escape. He said they needlessly put our lives in danger since they could have prevented the escape by simply locking us in preventive detention. Anyway I got another year added to my sentence and got transferred to a prison in Oxford Wisconsin where it was colder than I thought possible. As soon as I got there, I starting planning another escape.
  19. And you know what, I AM GUILTY. Seriously. All my life and I don't mean my adult life. I mean, all my life I have wanted to be involved in any changes that would help us battle the oppression that has plagued our stay in this country, but the lure of the street was too strong. Therefore, in many cases, I was a part of the problem. It saddens me that when it came time to choose to do 'what I needed to do' or to do 'what I wanted to do' I chose to do what I wanted to do although I understood that I could contribute to the cause. The good thing is that it is never 2 late.
  20. Bro. Troy, I gotta be honest. I cannot bring myself to watch prison movies or read novels about being locked up. I have never even watched Shawshank Redemption. It sorta odd, but if I'm watching Tv and I see bars of anything prison-related, I reach for the remote. And it is not just me. A lot of friends are like-minded. It is almost like we might jinx ourselves. Crazy, right, but, yeah, it's real. Even now, I will drive out of my way rather than to drive past the street where the jail is located. But back to the original question, No. Most books and movies probably focus on the violence for the shock potential, but the real struggle in prison is to stay sane. You must be able to think or else you die.
  21. O black woman, do you know who you are? It is you for whom the birds sing when the dawn opens itself for inspection. It is the glow in your eyes that the stars imitate when they sparkle. It is the color of your flava that makes the rainbow dull in comparison, and it is via your beauty that we can physically witness God’s artistry. • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are the secret that only reveals itself when a man is truly ready to experience the joy of having his dream transformed into reality. You are God’s private blessing to men who know what to do within the point between birth and death. To dwell within the kingdom of YOU is where heaven begins. • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are both the starting point and the finish line for everything I could ever aspire to be. You are a force of nature that has broken my shackles so that I can walk freely. You have erased my doubts so that I can think clearly. You have repaired my broken wings so that I can soar beside you. • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are the magic that awes the universe, the splendor that amazes the earth, and the glory that makes men heart beat with pride when they attempt to possess U. • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are the beautiful gift that God left on the doorstep of my heart. You are that special moment in time when nothing else matters but most importantly, you are YOU! Unmistakably YOU! • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are the sunshine that lights my life from within. You are the fire that warms every fiber of my being and that illuminates my path so that I am never afraid of the darkness. • O black woman, did u know that when I stare in the skies the stars spell your name? I feel your touch in the wind and I see your face in the clouds. And when I stand under the shadow of your smile, I find shelter from the storm. • O black woman, do you know who you are? You are that warm safe place where all roads lead at the end of a day when I have slayed all my dragons and find that all my strength comes from you. You melt on my life and I become complete. • O black woman, do you know who u are? You are chocolate, dipped in mystery, a specially-designed flava whose smile is brighter than the rainbow.
  22. What I am about to hip you to is perhaps one of the greatest secrets ever kept, and I humbly advise that you pay attention. Now, I will be the first to admit that I don’t know if there exists, anywhere in the world, any concrete, empirical evidence that suggests that regimentation causes a sort of emotional astigmatism where the control group empathizes more fully. However, observation and experience has demonstrated, (at least to me) that regimentation and routine induce a spiritual catharsis where the oppressed slowly begin to identify with each other, slowly breaking down the walls erected to divide them. And during this formative identification stage, a bond will emerge, tentative at first, but with plenty of room for expansion and growth. Now, let me explain what I just said. When you got motherfuckas locked up for very long periods of time, they suddenly realize just how much they have in common. When this happens, the walls of race, geography, religion, or gang-affiliation will become less dominant. What will then conclude is the consensus that since “we’re all in this boat together” that it would be infinitely more better for all of them if they worked together to save themselves. Once convicts began to more fully identify with each other, then one group will no longer sit back and idly watch as another group gets punished, During this initial period of the identification process, convicts will be able to discern the truth that “if it can happens to them, it can happen to us.” The bonds will grow stronger. I remember that on every bid I’ve done, there was a number of times during each bid where the guards would perform some act that was so atrocious that the entire “yard’ (population) banded together to protest it. At such times, race didn’t matter, and neither did geography or religion because all that mattered was that “WE ALL WEAR THE SAME CLOTHES!” Nothing in prison is more unifying than that realization. We All Wear The Same Clothes is so very immensely powerful that even now, on the outside, I tremble at the enormity of what that statement portends. It’s like all the convicts, standing as one, in defiance, yelling that WE ARE ONE! And, again, I must take a second to point out just how we got to this crossroad. Listen, it was you, America. It was never enough for this country to merely jail a man. No sir, that would have been too humane, too rehabilitative. The laws of this country required that you not merely break a man physically. He had to be broken spiritually as well. You yank him from the breast of his neighborhood, and plop his ass smack-dab in the middle of a man-made hell where everything is so homogenized and bland that he can’t tell if he’s coming or going. With no respect for his person, you incrementally strip and rob him of his humanity and dignity. You reduce him with your regimentation, and you destroy all vestiges of his individuality by taking away his name, replacing it with a number. Then you dress him up to look just like everyone else in the prison, a living, breathing, law-breaking mannequin. Soon, even he doesn’t know who the fuck he is. So, there you go. You have just effectively erased away another human being, but one day, these soulless automatons you have invented are going to break down the last of those dividing walls. Then, they will free themselves. May God be with us.
  23. Brotha Troy, just wanted to let you know that my writing partner, Greg, is now free. He is writing and said to be on the lookout for his new book. He has been out a few months, has a job, and is adjusting. He did over 30 years inside, but got covid three weeks before his release and almost didn't make it out. He got so sick that he contacted me and and asked me to start making his funeral arrangements. His book will be coming soon.
  24. I hadn't noticed that book, but I'm not surprised as I had stumbled across a sista a few years ago who was a coach who mentored black women in the fine arts of how to love a white man. And, she had a large following which, undoubtedly, may have increased by now. Brother Troy, as you should know, I jumped all over it and wrote a book about it and during my superficial research, what i did find was that 'black women harbored an unconscious desire to be with white men due to his assumed power'. I found the assumption disturbing, but I have no earthly idea what sistas feel so I won't attempt to offer an opinion. But I do know that every living organism is caught up in this never-ending journey to survive and any intelligent individual will do best to promote its interest in staying alive by attaching itself to something or someone more powerful than itself. That may be a unwritten law of nature, but does it fit the human equation? Sure, it does. POWER protects. And who can blame anyone from wanting to feel protected. Anyway, none of this means that sistas seek from white men the one thing a brotha could never pamper her with-----power! Anyway, could it possibly be that this so-called desire to be with a white man lurks within a sista's consciousness like a cancer just wanting on the right trigger to expose itself? Hollywood sure the hell is pushing the agenda for black woman/white man relationship. In fact, it is so prevalent that a few years ago a friend of mine in the publishing business helped spark an entirely new genre of novels called BWWM (black women/white men) which is exclusively what he, as well as others, writes about. Someone is reading those books. Now, back to Hollywood, You see the commercials. They are everywhere. Sistas and white men. The reason for this proliferation of such content, Hollywood states is not to push any agenda on mixed relationships. Rather the ads are business-related. With a sista and a white man, they can target the best of both worlds----powerful white men and black women who like to spend money. Just saying. And now this is from my personal reference and i spoke on this on this very site years ago. It bears repeating. In 1976, I was permitted to read a classified document from a Think Tank which was concerned with The Growing Threat of Black Males. It presented a long laundry list of things it was going to do to contain the brothas, but for interest here is what they said about sistas. Keep in mind that this was 1976. They said that by the year 2000, in an effort to disrupt the black household, they would fling open the gates of corporate America to black women in droves to cause economic dissension in the home once sistas started to make more money than her man. The thinking was to separate us through economic disparity knowing that the higher the sista went up the corporate ladder, the less black faces she would see and therefore in order to marry within her 'station' would kick a brotha to the curb and marry white. THE END
  25. I apologize if my intent was unclear and I must have missed the mark by a mile if you can assume my level of voter participation from the post. I merely conveyed a historical observation that relates to blacks and so-called voting rights, feeling that the truth about a matter should, in no way, detract from the veracity of the observation. If it is true, it is true. Vote. But even so what if you find that the Electoral College does not share your views. Twice in recent memory has it happened that the voice of the people didn’t mean a thing since the candidate they legally chose by the casting of their vote was shunned for someone elected by The Electoral College who is the final arbiter of who goes to Washington, damned what the votes indicate. The country wanted Hillary. The country got Trump. Same thing in 2000. In both cases, the popular vote fueled by black voter turnout had no effect on the final outcome. Vote. If, as you contend, the government does not give us rights, where do they come from? An argument can be made for God-given rights, but every right, real or imagined, in this country stemmed from either law or constitution. As such, they are enforceable due to the power of the government to punish. Laws must be accompanied with the power to enforce them. Otherwise ,they are meaningless. I can think of no law or right that wasn’t mandated by the government whereby they felt compelled to honor it. The us government despite its bluster is quite incapable of enforcing laws or rights that it didn’t establish into the law of the land, no matter how dressed up it is. A case in point is the so-called Emancipation Proclamation. Despite everything else, Lincoln didn’t possess the power to “free slaves held in rebel territory”. Lincoln controlled the North and though he talked that bullshit, he knew it wouldn’t cut one slave free in the south where he had no power. He couldn’t protect the slaves because there was no law to grant him the legal perquisite to do so. And the beat goes on. In the same manner, we were influenced to believe that Lincoln freed the slaves is much the same we were influenced to believe we have citizenship and real voting power. I don’t care if blacks vote or not, and I’m not asking anyone not to vote. That would be as silly as trying to get people to leave NYC because I told them that the original Statue of Liberty was of a black woman with her chains broken to symbolize the freeing of slaves. The monument was a gift from France who wanted to welcome the US into the civilized world of being slave-free. I wouldn’t ask black people to leave the church just because the portrait they worship of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus is as wrong as two-left shoes. I wouldn't expect blacks to stop going to school because of the deliberate lies that doctor history. I wouldn’t want blacks to burn the bible if they learned that practically everyone between the pages of the books are black. But I do applaud those of us, like you, who question the status quo.
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