Someone, Help Me Understand...! Part II

I don’t care where you are from; what continent or country.  I don’t care what color you are; from the blackest black to the palest white and all the rainbow of hues in between.  I don’t care if you love everyone or don’t like anyone; worship fervently, daily or barely think to pray to anyone or anything at any time.  Please ask yourself, regardless whether you really believe what you believe about your god or have no belief in any god; should it be so: you are supposed to have a feeling of incessant hate or blatant disregard for someone whose belief is different than yours as a prerequisite for good living now and entry into and existence in a better afterlife, later?  That is, sadly, what is preached, practiced or perpetrated against any and all fellow man if his faith or thinking is different.  And that is at a minimum!  Let us not ignore what some are physically willing and able to say or do in the name of what is believed to be that which a practiced faith commands one to say and do.  Then, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…that all men are created equal.” Those words and these; …”conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”…what do they really mean?  Given that, through science, we have found that we have almost interchangeable parts, how can anyone really believe that we aren’t all created by the same Supreme power?  And if you don’t believe that we are all created by the same Supremacy, then how many gods must there be out there with the power to create a world?  How many are there with the power to create, not just a race of people, but a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual humanity; all with SOME belief system that commands that they answer to a higher power?  What doctrine has such power enough to seduce the believer into discounting blood relatives, former friends or neighbors, such that they are deemed no longer worthy of acquaintance because of a learned doctrine of faith?  It is magical to have that kind of power.  So, should one believe that various magical gods created us all and are now, what…vying for our souls?  Does that mean that renouncing one god and singing praises to another will save our world?  Please, help me understand!

Someone, Help Me Understand...! Part I

     While deeply engaged in living, and trying to understand death and dying, immortality, a God, faith, religion, people, things, ways and whys about all that is life these days, I reflect back on years past.  Then, I just stop…and vacantly stare.  I’m hoping, praying; feeling that I am just past midway in my life’s cycle.  My father is an 86-year-old man and if I am blessed to live that long, I still have 34 years, at least, and anticipating more.  I’m old enough to realize that the days of my most fascinating youth during the Sixties and Seventies, the days of that generation who almost changed America and came really close to changing the world, are truly historical.  I am the tail end of the Baby Boomers and the beginning of something I can’t quite clearly describe!

     I have watched the metamorphosis of a world society that, at that time, seemed to be on the verge of making another huge step toward further enlightenment.  Then JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy were all killed.  Anwar Sadat and Indira Ghandi were assassinated.  Thoughtful world leaders, to whom we would have sworn allegiance said, “Not me” and that left the door open for those who would assume the leadership role by fear and intimidation.  Hate-mongers, under the guise of good, assumed control and we have not recovered, still! 

     In the name of nationalism and religion, nations have killed, no, slaughtered innocent people; sometimes their own.  China, Russia and South America have killed.  Afghanistan and Pakistan have killed.  Saddam had killed so many that it was difficult to keep an accurate account.  Recently, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Iran have killed.  Under the banner of humanitarian intervention, America has even killed.  Not to mention, the world has taken turns killing Africa!  It seems that everyone’s god has demanded that they war against people of a different god.  Then a thought that almost frightened me in its simplicity, occurred.  How many gods are there? 

Is this what being 'Technologically Advanced' garners...?

We have become, in this nation, a society subject to the unfettered exploitation of individual, emotional expression!  Conducting oneself with manners, etiquette and respect is becoming a lost behavior.  Restraint, constraint and social protocol have taken a backward step and have, now, allowed boorish behavior, disrespectful speech and interaction and, finally, verbal and physical, violent rebuttal to become the behavior of the masses. 

     Technology is making it easy to forget our humanity.  Months back, I read Eugeny Morozov’s column titled ‘The Internet’s False Promises’, interested to see if he was going to make mention of my point of contention regarding the internet and the impact this technical advance has had on our personal lives.  He didn’t go into detail but, peripherally, he identified one of my critiques of our dynamic information highway, especially regarding the easy access to information; it is not always used to serve the best interests of society but, oftentimes, those most callous.

     Plain citizens, community activists and elected officials are shouting out of turn in public forums totally forgoing social convention and training attributed to good manners.  No, now, those that dream of celebrity or those with public aspirations hope that someone captures them on video and sends it to You Tube.  If the responses measure favorably, the footage is used on their political campaign website or facebook page!

     Extremists hide behind the mask of anonymity that the internet allows and gleefully spit ethnic, religious and racial epithets, indiscriminately and with the comfort of non-disclosure.  With the technical availability of ‘up close and personal’, real-time, private and sometimes tragic, everyday interaction between folks captured with the click of a camera button or the on switch of a recorder, it is like we have become actors of life instead of people living our lives.  With the life-like realism of a combat zone, the seamy side of the street or an urban jungle as the background scenario for all of the adult video games, do we wonder how we have come to accept a violent culture? 

     We have become divisive and vindictive and anxious to show our willingness to be confrontational rather than congenial.  With such easy access to our personal lives and information, we have created a doubtful, distrustful, disturbed underclass…the middle-class that has always been the base of this nation!  We don’t trust anyone to do the RIGHT thing, anymore and constantly, calculatedly await the moment when we can capture our own ‘gotcha’ moment and parlay it into instant riches. 

     Violent outcomes to seemingly innocuous, initial engagements don’t even shock us anymore and the reality of a close call only registers on the radar screen if it is a matter of national security.  Then something like Austin, Texas happens and we are reminded of within as well as without.

     Passionate expression took the life of a young lady from University of Virginia, allegedly at the hands of a former boyfriend who apparently lost all rational thought and slammed her head against the wall, repeatedly.  Where and when did he become hardwired to resolve a situation, as bad as it could have been, by slamming a smaller, physically- mismatched, young woman against a wall?  The adult video games on the market that have so de-sensitized the act of physical violence as to label it a fun, fast-paced, leisure time activity to engage in with other on-line combatants, worldwide, and not have to leave your home to meet new friends could be a negative influence.  A young girl in Florida was punched, kicked and stomped into a coma over a text message, at the same school where, previously, a young man was sprayed with lighter fluid and set on fire over a video game. 

     How can teenaged children become that violent at any age, let alone as young as they are at twelve to fourteen, to zone out to the extent that they can set another child on fire and watch him cry out, in torturous pain, without a hint of remorse?  How, again, could a bigger boy jump on, punch, kick and stomp on a smaller, fairer, young lady, regardless of the personal tragedy he was coping with, and think that his behavior was suitable?  Watch some of the amateur video on the world-wide-web and realize where the seed may be being planted; watch some of the reality TV programs and you will find a likely culprit for presenting and exploiting that type of behavior. 

     The benefit of our technological advances can not be discounted, by any means.  A teacher in Houston was fired after compelling evidence of her physical abuse toward a thirteen-year-old was captured on cell-phone video.  According to what I’ve heard and read, corporal punishment has never been meted out in the manner that teacher abused that child.  Proof captured with technological advance!  But, the masks that the same technological advance provides allows us to be less likely to truly engage with one another and can contribute to our future demise…humanity must engage to remain humane.  

     In a strange irony, television programming of generations past was designed to provide us an escape after a long day of keeping our noses to the grindstone.  Now, reality TV and the advances of the Internet present critical information and a raw dissection of society’s everyday lives with all of the good and bad; the ugly and uncensored, captured to entertain us by allowing us a view into someone else’s real or imagined misery…like we should be entertained!  So then...let the people say!

The Family Reunion...A Melancholy Time!

During the third weekend of July, every other year, (this year) my family extended, will gather together for a weekend of celebrating the legacy of our forbearers and the new additions to our family!  We have a fantastic time planning it; forming committees, sub-committees, focus groups, coordinators, sponsors and contact persons!  We have a bank account created especially for the collection and safekeeping of dues and expense funds.  We make calls or send out e-mails and texts with information updates.  We mail fliers and letters to accommodate the communication abilities of all of our family members as everyone is not necessarily participating in the latest technological advances…found that some prefer it that way, also!

It is a glorious undertaking and we have been having it since I can remember!  Back in 1979, after a long hiatus, my mother, her sister and their spouses, along with some of their first cousins re-established the gathering; something that they used to do back in the day.  It seems that it was easier back then because everyone lived in a lot closer proximity; if not in the same community, at least, in the same town or county. By the time my mother and my aunt re-established the event, all of the related families had spread out to all reaches of the nation and, in fact, the world.  A family whose legacy includes several generations of individuals who served in the Armed Forces throughout the years made traveling to the event a reality that had to be taken into account. 

We have all, on one occasion or other, missed the event due to more pressing commitments like fighting in wars, career obligations, family issues or shallow pockets but for the most part, the principle actors seem to make it; they being the first generation Elders.  They always seem to make the sojourn and grace us with their presence and remind us what the event is all about.  Unfortunately, the family tree of participants’ narrows as Elders meet our maker and distant cousins, several times removed, don’t keep close contact as did the early generations.  The grandchildren of 1^st and 2^nd cousins hardly know each other, let alone stay in contact.  Sadly, I admit this; it is life and we can’t dwell on it too negatively. 

I will attest to the feeling of melancholy as I grow into that middle age where I am old enough to have grandchildren; not that I am anxious over not having any yet.  I think that it is more the fact that I am easily reminded of when I was of the age of a young parent and watching my children interacting with their older relatives was a satisfying feeling.  I was ensuring that the bridge was being crossed and the gap was being filled; them knowing their extended family.  The reunion was an event that would live with them for the rest of their lives.  I knew how I felt being around all of my relatives and my sons’ fondest recollections seem to be of those instances when they had the opportunities to be around theirs. 

Over the years we’ve had to realize and accept some drastic changes in the extended family dynamic such that our gathering has dwindled down give or take, to115 people instead of the 250 in attendance at the 1979 affair.  Now, not withstanding my 1^st cousin, his wife, son and sister; the children and grandchild of my mother’s brother, the reunion is made up of my parents’ prodigious brood of ten children and their spouses/significant others, thirty-nine grandchildren with assorted husbands, wives or significant others and about forty-some great-grandchildren!  The reunion is a wonderful event that allows us to reconnect, again, and, as my father says, put eyes on each other as we don’t know if we can promise that we’ll do so again, soon or ever.  That is the often sad, unspoken, reality of family reunions; could be the last time!  We don’t know…!   

Another Hero Gone...!

A man can be cursed or blessed with the blood that flows in his veins!  I have been blessed, now, for all of my life as the blood of several generations of Laws men is in me!  Today, my daddy’s brother, my Uncle Oscar died and I can’t think of another man, after my father, who meant more to me.  My uncle had a smile that he could put on you that made you think that the sun wasn’t doing it’s best to light up your world, by comparison.  He made me feel like I was the most important person in his world whenever he saw me and that feeling was equal to the sweetest pie, the coolest water, the shadiest place! It was fantastic, indeed!  When I visited him, throughout my life and his, we had special signals; the wink of an eye, a nod of the head, a clucking noise that said, Nephew…Uncle, I love you like you can’t imagine…but we could, ‘because I loved that man like he was my father.  He and my Old Man looked so much alike that I could believe that they were twins, when I was young.  The laughed alike, walked alike, talked alike!  My Pops used to comment that I was hard-headed just like my Uncle Oscar and he disciplined me like their father, my grandfather, did my uncle because we had that same untamed streak in us.  My uncle got a lot of whippings when his was growing up and so did I.  I wore that fact like a badge of honor because it was something that bound me to him, forever.  We prescribed to the notion that we were as tough as nails and could take whatever our fathers could dish out and we didn’t shy away from that distinction. 

My uncle was preceded in death by his own two sons and at both of my cousins’ funerals, he presented a stone-faced, hard-core man who accepted such instances with a stoic, matter-of-fact reality that belied his torn heart.  I will not try to maintain that persona as I write this ode to another of my fallen heroes.  I want the world to know that I sit at this computer, my current post, with tears streaming down my face, and a pain in my heart that is close to overwhelming, to say to you that I am, a part, damaged goods, because another one of my teachers, another one of my mentors, another one of my heroes has died!  Uncle Oscar, I will miss you, filled with an emptiness that my feelings won’t ever try to hide!  Lovin’ you, forever!  Your nephew.

Understanding a Profound Dynamic...

If one were to attempt to suggest that the advances of the recent past 50 years; the changes in the attitudes of both Blacks and Whites, the economic and educational opportunities that, it has been suggested, serve all of our citizenry, the function of our economic model and the written, but not felt, constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would act as a magic wand and remove all of the fears, distrust, hate, victimization, blatant and covert racism that has been continually visited upon the Black people of this nation, one would be suggesting an illusion.

Why do so many ‘intelligent, educated, entitled’ people want to sound off about black parents needing to prescribe to a list of behaviors that will make their child’s chances at getting a good, fair education more viable? And are doing so, so willingly, without drilling down to the real ‘cause and effect’ of what Blacks have yet to overcome, even in 2011? Why is there an expectation that a change can occur with the snap of one’s fingers or the wave of a magic wand or, wait…the news of some startling statistics that we act like we didn’t know? 

Some perspective, please:

- Slavery from 1620 to 1862…242 years; some white people still carry that hate and disdain in their hearts, toward Blacks, and their behavior attests to it.  Did you not hear the question that o’reilly (I refuse to capitalize his name) asked our esteemed president; “Why do people HATE you?  They HATE you!”  In what other instance have you ever heard that type of vitriolic speech directed at the President of our country during an interview by a, ‘supposed’ newsman?

- Southern Confederacy from 1861 – 1865…4 years of a behavior subscribed as a noble act of states’ sovereignty; a behavior that holds as its foundation, the enslavement of a race of people and it continues to be celebrated as proud Southern Heritage and Blacks are just supposed to ‘let it go’!

- The Holocaust from 1933 to 1945…12 years; always remembered and the perpetrators of those horrific acts were hunted across the world and eradicated.

- Jim Crow laws and practices…1863 to 1965…142 years; in truth some southern counties still get away with it even though all of those ‘Civil, Voters’ and Human Rights’ acts were enacted.

- Overt discrimination in hiring, education, incarceration, property ownership, business opportunity, law enforcement, treatment by the judicial system and respect, all based on color…1620 to now…392 years; yet we are encouraged to forget all of that and, miraculously, know how to work within the boundaries of our society with nothing to lift the burden of shame, mistrust, disbelief and ignorance that all of the years of atrocious treatment, heaped on Blacks as a people, has inflicted!

We’ve been wound so tight by what we have had to endure that we don’t even know which string to pull to unravel all of the damage we’ve incurred!  And a school system that doesn’t even want to teach its country’s real history is supposed to elevate us?  So what do you trust, who can you trust, when should you trust…all of this lip service or history?