What's up, guy? So, what's on my mind today? Prejudice and Racism.

Okay, wait, before we get into this there is one thing that we need to do, all of us. We will do it together because we have to put a steak in the sand and say this is the starting point, zero. Because if we don't all start from the same position, then some of us are going to end up in the wilderness wandering around. Okay, guys let's get into this.

The definition of prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. 

The definition of racism is a belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

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Okay, guys, this is part three. Let's get into this.

One of the worst things that people can hear about themselves is that they are racist. But if a person votes for someone that puts racist policies in place, then why shouldn't that voter also be considered racist.

In August of 1955, two men kidnapped Emmitt Till and brutally killed him. Those two men would go to trial in September of that same year. After the trial was over and the evidence deliberated by the jury, those two men were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury despite overwhelming evidence against those men. All the men that participated in the murder trial of Emmitt Till had at least two things in common with him. They were all males, and they had all been 14 years old once and no one on the jury could see themselves as 14-year-old kid. Whiteness won.

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The myth of black on black crime. The way we phrase things matter.

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Hmmm? I got questions!

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What's up, guys? What's on my mind today? The Veil. Okay, guys, let's get into this.

The definition of a veil as a noun is a piece of fine material worn by women to protect or conceal the face. But we will look at the verb tense of the word veil, which means to cover, hide, or disguise.

A textbook case of someone using a veil (to cover, hide, or disguise) is the statement from Nikki Haley, about living in a South Carolina town divided by railroad tracks. Full stop right there. Why? Why did the railroad tracks divide the town? I'm sure many black people know what she was saying, but she never speaks the truth about why. The fact that she never addresses why the railroad divided the town is problematic, this is her using a veil to cover up, hide, or disguise. But I am black and from one of those towns, so I can tell you this. She grew up in a town built on racism, redlining, and jim crow laws. I know this because I grew up in the same small type of town in Mississippi. Indianola was a little unique, in that, the railroad tracks and the bayou winding through the town combined to create an artificial and natural boundary between black and white communities in the area. Towns like these are dotted across the south. The railroad track or some other natural or artificial landmark acts as the boundary.

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What's up, guys? So what's on my mind today? Guilty. Okay, guys, let's get into this.

The United States of America would have you think it does not believe in collective guilt.

But this is 100% incorrect.

When over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II because of Executive Order 9066, the survivors received an apology and reparation, from the United States because the United States of America recognized its collective guilt. After a decade-long campaign, the Japanese-American community won congressional approval for a law, The Civil Liberties Act, signed by President Reagan in 1988 and paid each surviving victim $20,000 in compensation to try to right a wrong.

It is not bombastic nor grandiose to say that the ancestors of many Black Americans suffered far more significant losses concerning life, liberty, dignity, and the pursuit of happiness than any of our fellow incarcerated Japanese Americans. If the pain and indecency suffered by our fellow Japanese Americans were considered a ten on a suffering scale, then the ancestors of many Black Americans suffered a million times worse. It is also noteworthy that this nation not only apologized to those Japanese Americans, thus admitting its collective guilt or moral fault, but the United States of America also paid them reparations. The reparations were intended to provide some restitution for Japanese Americans' suffering and injustice during World War II. They were also meant to acknowledge the past's wrongs and demonstrate the nation's commitment to justice and the protection of civil liberties. Millions of Americans were responsible for paying these reparations, promised in 1988, in the form of taxes, despite not being involved in the decision, in 1942, to incarcerate Japanese Americans at all. The collective guilt of this country was responsible for an awful act, thus requiring all Americans to bear the culpability or blame for such an appalling decision, even after several generations had passed.

Why pay the ancestors of enslaved people? That's a fair question. Here is the answer. This country promoted, allowed, and they made it legal, but its most essential flex, this country made it profitable to enslave my ancestors. I am, and millions of others like me are all that remain. I am the amalgamation of this country's rancid, vile decision to make my ancestors profitable. My enslaved ancestors are dead. But I am their voice; I am their face; I am their proof of this country's deed. I am the bill that is marked overdue, and it is time for this country to pay its debt for the capture and enslavement of my ancestors the foundation.

The country's founders purposely set this nation on a path of oppression, subjugation, enslavement, and disenfranchisement, of a group of African People that committee no act of war or invasion. They violated no treaties against this country. Nor did this group of people try to achieve economic or territorial gains from this country or try to change the religion of the country's people.

This country sought to uphold the vile practice of chattel enslavement for no other reason than capitalism. This country's practice of chattel enslavement benefitted the federal, state, and local economies, banks, and other institutions. 

 Those Africans were brought here for enslavement and became the nation's foundation and scaffolding. They grew the wealth of this country, without benefitting from that growth or wealth. They were brought here, against their will, to work the fields for the capitalist system of this government.

The United States of America should be held guilty as a collective because it passed on many opportunities to abolish the practice of enslavement. The 3/5th compromise, the Dred Scott decision and the fugitive slave act all solid

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What's up, guys? So what's on my mind today? Racism. Okay, guys, let's get into this.

Racism is more subtle now, but subtle does not mean racism doesn't exist. Subtle is defined as delicate, elusive, or something achieved through clever and indirect methods. Before the civil war, the practice of racism was overt, it was in your face, and racist white people didn't care if their racism was known. But after the civil war, the practice of racism has moved slowly to something more subtle and has given some white people the braising idea that racism no longer exists. Subtle racism is the same as overt racism in what it plans to achieve.

Subtle racism initially included things like Jim Crow laws, black codes, redlining, segregation, poll taxes, and others. With the help of the courts, Black people slowly chiseled away at those forms of racism. But instead of racism disappearing, racist people have become even more subtle with their racism and practices. They are so subtle with their racism that, at least to themselves, they believe that racism no longer exists or that they are not racists.

Politicians, all from the right,  often use the word like 'woke' as their silent dog whistle. Blaming this so-called 'wokeness' for making white children feel inadequate because if they learned the history of what their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and ancestors did to give them the white privilege, it may make them feel bad.

Subtle racism has been weaponized and it affords the user of such tactics the ability to 'throw rocks' (to put actions and methods in place to boasters racism or enhance systemic racism) and then hide their hands, you know, make up an excuse of why they are doing it, plead ignorance, or downright deny the action that are doing are should be considered racist.

Today, most people know that being overtly racist can come with detrimental consequences. And in an unfortunate twist of faith, efforts to stomp out overtly racist people and or systems have caused overtly racist people to use more subtle ways to practice their racism. The people putting politicians in these places that will make laws that will target a specific group of people are now the pariahs of the system.

Racist people have found new ways of having their cake and eating it as well, in the form of subtle racism. The challenge then becomes what do you call people who claim they are not racist, but all their actions, their voting habits, prop up this racist system. Well, that's easy. Racist by proxy.

For a racist system to work, you must at least two types of people, one the racist people and two the people that racist people marginalize. Which camp do you belong?

Okay, guys, that's what's been on my mind today. Peace out!

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What's up, guys? So, what's on my mind today? Fear. Okay, guys, let's get into this.
The dictionary defines fear as an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
This definition of fear hits home because I, too, know it. If you are the parent of a child, but especially a black child, regardless of your child's age, you also know it. 
As a parent, but especially as a black parent, you always carry this fear, and you are always ready to place yourself between harm and your child. 
Instead of the fear dissipating as your child ages, the fear only deepens as your black child ages because with age comes more independence.
This is when most black parents lean into prayer and the almighty to protect their child. Or they hope the people causing harm to their child have empathy for their child and their child's life. And when these things seemingly fail, you beg the question, "why?" to be answered.

I wonder to myself why none of those officers, black, white, or otherwise, why none of them could see Tyre Nichols as a human life, period.

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What's up, guys? So what's on my mind today? Just a boy from Tupelo. Okay, guys, let's get into this.

So what is a 'Just a Boy from Tupelo? Well, it is a 30-minute HBO exclusive special on the Elvis Presley phenomenon and the making of the Elvis movie." 'Just a Boy From Tupelo: Bringing Elvis To The Big Screen' is the short film's full title.

Do I have a problem with it? Yes, yes, I do. 

This is yet another example of this country burying its head in the sand and trying to make itself feel better. This is another form of the lie that America tells itself over and over again. Elvis, despite how poor, was not just a boy from Tupelo. Part of the short film depicts how a young white Elvis can move in and out of Black establishments, picking up skills he would use later in life.

The title makes it seems that Elvis was just another boy in Tupelo. In reality, he was just another white boy raised in the late 1930s, and throughout the 1940s and 1950s in Mississippi. Elvis' competition wasn't the other great black talent of his time. The dirty poor Elvis Presley would have been able to go into places that a wealthy, talented black boy raised at the same time would not have even gotten near.

As I read the title, my thoughts were that they could not see the privilege that a poor Elvis, having been born and raised in the most racist state in the union during the Jim Crow era, had over all the other black kids, probably many of those black children were just as talented or even more talented than Elvis.

In any self-help program, coming to terms with and admitting the horrible acts you have done is the first step on a long road that should lead to improvements. Just a White boy from Tupelo" is the better title, and we all know why.

Okay guys, that's what's been on my mind today. Peace Out.

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What's up, guys? So what's on my mind today? America's struggle, okay, guys, let's get into this.

This country has an internal struggle that most refuse to believe. What is that struggle? Easy, it is this country's identity. The U.S. identity is the essential thing that has been a failure by both the citizens and lawmakers to describe since the founding of this country. 

The United States of America's so-called founding fathers, in their declaration of independence from the English crown, set the tone for this country's identity crisis. They would pitch that this country stood for certain things that could not be challenged, right given to men by their Creator. But in reality, they would practice something else. The declaration of independence starts with the founders' words that they obviously did not believe, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is this identity that the United States of America has had a delusional relationship with since the founding of this country, and it still does to this very day.

This country's practices and deeds have been diametrically opposed to what the idea of America was supposed to be.

For example, a "self-evident" truth does not require complex reasoning or evidence to justify it. Liberty, a self-evident truth the so-called founders state that all men had, would end up as empty words because the country practiced enslavement of black people. This country's words or idea of who it thinks it is has been a lie m when contrasted with its practices. 

Each branch of government has repeatedly usurped the self-evident truth that all men were born with certain unalienable rights, including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This country has shown that the life of the unborn is more important than the born's. 

It claimed that freedom was an undisputed right and a self-evident truth that every person deserved. But yet, in practice, this country allowed enslavement, a directly opposite view. It forced indigenous people onto reservations and placed more value on white male and female lives than on others. 

The United States tailored laws that would assure the promotion of white male or white female people over others. These people have had a prominent seat at the table and have made detrimental decisions for others. Some of these decisions, whether written or unwritten, would include things like redlining, segregation, jim crow laws, and unfair and unequal education practices, to name just a few, which would affect black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ, and indigenous communities.

It is very difficult to look at yourself in the mirror and admit that you are a monster. Time and time, the United States of America has continued to lie and sugarcoat itself into believing it is the hero of its own story. This is the identity crisis struggle of this country, the lie vs. reality.

Okay, guys, that's what's been on my mind today; peace out.

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