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Posts Tagged ‘Blacks’

We are in the middle of local elections and my thoughts turn to the days when preachers, barbers and funeral directors were the community leaders because “the man” couldn’t quiet them since their money came for us.   Today, retirees should be added to that list because those on pensions are free to speak their minds and have plenty of free time to do it.

A friend from high school who is a vocal leader of the Tea Party Movement gave me the Beatles greatest hits cd a few years ago.  While listening to the lads sing “get back to where you once belonged” the other day, I thought about getting back to what my community was the 60s and before the mean-spirited approach of the ultra conservatives.

My community before the 1970s was a place of proud, deliberate people.  While we need the federal government to enforce basic human rights and to end Jim Crow, the well-intended assistance of the government when from temporary help to something debilitating.  The next crop of leaders, whose who come after the “I marched with MLK” ones, should be more life coaches than cheerleading politicians.  After elected leaders ensure that essential governmental services are functioning, they should get about the business of explaining to the people what the people should do to help themselves.  It starts with personal responsibility because “the man” and the Klan aren’t damaging my block as much as the people in the mirror.

Stats in the Albany Georgia newspaper blew me away the other day.  The president of the local technical college says that only 62% of people in my region are functionally literate.  Huh?  We spend millions on schools and teachers’ salaries but the folks can’t read.  Wait a dam minute!  We aren’t talking about advance subjects from high school like trig, chemistry and Lit.  We are talking about reading, writing and arithmetic; stuff that was supposed to be taught in the first few grades.  Of course, educators will say that home isn’t supporting the learning process and I agree on some level.  Once and for all: you can’t be the parents of K-12 kids speaking poor English around them all day. Double negatives, ending sentences with prepositions and leaving the “g” off of “ing” are simply the tip of the iceberg.

http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/sep/17/parker-says-adult-literacy-is-key-to-area8217s/

The governor should fund a program I designed while working with a welfare to work project.  The program refreshed grammar skills for adults in a few days because education is a lifelong endeavor.  Oh, there is no money for such programs but get ready for the second alarming statistic.  The new head of the Georgia department of juvenile justice says that a youth offender cost the state $91,000 a year.  What the blank!  We are spending money on the wrong people at the wrong times.

http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/sep/17/new-law-to-alter-juvenile-justice/

I took my nieces to a Black college football game last week.  One of the girls is a high school cheerleader who doesn’t understand football.  Let me get this right: you are cheering for an activity you don’t understand.  By the end of the game, she understood first downs, passing, rushing and the fundamentals of the sport.  We have all attended games when the cheer was “defense” while we had the ball.

Some of these elected officials are like those confused cheerleaders; they are cheering without fully understanding the situation and goals.  To me, President Obama never had a stomach for the older members of the Congressional Black Caucus for this reason.  If conservatives spent time getting to know Obama rather than tripping about Kenya, they would have learned that his conservative roots are in the Midwest.  Obama is a moderate with equal distain for the far left and the far right but most importantly, he feels that leaders should tell the people that change begins with them.

So, local elections should be the selection of those who would help Barrack Obama, Jon Huntsman, Colin Powell and Cory Booker turn the nation around with positive energy.  You hear the saying “speak truth to power” use frequently these days.  Well, the people are the power and someone need to tell them the truth about why their situation isn’t what it should be and what can be done to address it—again, the mirror.

Since football and cheering are themes in this blog post, I want to end with them.  If you can sit in a stadium for hours watching football, you can take ten minutes to go vote—vote for whomever but vote.

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Local elections have statewide and national consequences because they echo the word on the street to the statehouse and the White House.  To me, we are experiencing a disconnect in Georgia because the conservatives who run state government do so with little input from rural Blacks.  Yea, Atlanta and the other cities have urban legislators run down the urban agenda but who speaks for the relatively moderate to conservative rural Blacks who conservative lawmakers are forced to ignore by that far Right (Tea Party) segment of the Republican Party.

 

It’s good seeing young Black conservative Democrat (not an oxymoron) blogger Keith McCants running for local office in middle Georgia.  Folks like Keith because he is down to earth and to me improving our community will start when leaders like him explain the limit role of government in a compassionate way to the people.  His blog Peanut Politics is a must read and Keith has the right ideas for bringing some of the rural South back to the Democrat Party.  Hell, southern moderates should come back since they have been ceremoniously kicked out of the GOP by the Tea Party/”purity test” crowd.  For those who don’t know the GOP has a recent history of creating a list of 10 or so questions for their faithful and if you aren’t with them on a few, don’t let the door knob hit you….

 

http://www.peanutpolitics-keith.blogspot.com/

 

Don’t sleep, Saxby is “retiring” from the U.S. Senate because he doesn’t like the constant threats for dialoging with Obama and the Democrats.  The next target is on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.  I am convinced that former Senator Bob Dole was right when he said that President Ronald Reagan and he wouldn’t pass the current GOP purity test.

 

What do good people do when crazy people in their organization start going off?  They get up and leave because sitting quietly is condoning the ugliness.  Keith has bunch of old political pictures and posters on his blog and I give him a hard time because we know that every pre-Jimmy Carter elected official in our state was basically a segregationist.

 

Today, we have the new segregationists who divide the South based on political parties.  But, I am puzzled by Democrats in general and Black Dems in particular who don’t question local officials about the outlandish spitefulness coming from their supporters on the other side of town.  See, a servant can’t have two masters.

 

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke

While looking for that quote, I came across someone’s Bible references to it.   http://www.padfield.com/1997/goodmen.html

 

Voters should ask candidates for local offices the following questions during the campaign season.

  1. When they said Barrack Obama was born in Kenya, what did you think and what did you say?
  2. When they falsely label Rep. Sanford Bishop as a crook, what did you say or think since you have dealt with him for years and know him to be good people?
  3. Do you think Georgia’s version of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws should be repealed?  Was George Zimmerman profiling Trayvon Martin?
  4. Is “Stop and Frisk” a good police procedure?
  5. Is Michelle Obama a great role model?
  6. Were you against your area receiving stimulus money from the federal government?
  7. Are you bold enough to tell citizens that the government isn’t their daddy?
  8. Do you support the Tea Party movement?  Do you support the Occupy movement?

Wow, writing those questions was fun in a naughty way because some issues involve one level of government primarily.  But, I get a little squeamish when hanging with people from the far left or far right.  I love being cool with people from the entire political spectrum because dialog and communication are vital.

 

You know what, we are talking about a double standard because moderate Democrats support conservative lawmakers regarding important regional issues but conservative voters rarely give love to Blue Dog Democrats.  Be like that and maybe your Dems friends will be ghost when you need them on the legislative floor.

 

In my local elections, we have some quality candidates but I need to know what they did or didn’t when those around them privately were saying horrible things.  That s— isn’t cool because people had gotten so pumped up that they were talking about hurting the president’s family.  You never never go there…I don’t care who the president is or was.  Yea, ugliness echoes and good people can’t sit idly by.

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train

Elected officials and public employees have official responsibilities and also have unofficial duties.  These duties aren’t on paper but are sometimes as important as the items on the official job descriptions.  For example, Hillary Clinton would have been and still will be a fine president; she knows presidential stuff as well as Bill Clinton, Barrack Obama and the second George Bush did on the day they were sworn into office.

 

But, there was something special about Obama becoming president; something related to healing.  Also, my community needed to have someone who looks like them in office so he could once and for all tell them that a person who is like you isn’t going to give you everything.  Obama said that from the first day of his campaign and people get it now.

 

Those unofficial duties therefore explaining the limited role of government to hardhead people who only listen to people from their circle.  In my hometown, we recently had an issue with flooding.  A city councilman was on the local T.V. news broadcast saying that the city government wasn’t the problem with certain flooding.  Water wasn’t flowing properly because locals were tossing bottles and trash into ditches and that debris clogged the pipes.  I love it; dude basically said, “The problem is you.”  We need more of that.

 

While it might sound racial, I want more Black clean cut guys in lower grades teaching positions because some kids don’t see positive brothers during their development.  Non-Black students need to see that also because they’re formulating their opinions of us on rap videos and the fools on the Maury Povich Show.  If I had Oprah/Bill Gates type money, I would give a grant or supplement to Black male teachers in lower grades.  Hey, two students at my black college told me that Senator Saxby Chambliss’ wife was one of the sweetest and most loving people in their lives.  Seeing her at school was the high point of their day and a positive light in an otherwise tough childhood.

 

Hillary Clinton is going to be president and little girls can be proud of the fact that women make the world go around.  If I had my choice, I would still like to see Republican Jon Huntsman in the White House one day because part of his unofficial duties would be being a conservative who isn’t angry and dismissive. He drives the far right crazies more crazy with his cool approach.  I am uniquely qualified to say vote for the right person in the right situation because I am a moderate Democrat who has voted for both of Georgia’s current U.S. Senators a few times.  I voted for them because they support the economic engines of this region: agriculture and the military.

 

Of course, it’s not cool for reasonable members of a group to remain quiet as other members of that group say ugly things about others.  I wouldn’t be quiet if someone was talking about all White people being this or that when I know that isn’t true.  That would be ugly by association.  What about those rich kids who had “the help” as second mothers but who grow up to say the ugliness things about all of “those people.”

 

I tell you what, I am not voting for anyone who doesn’t have a comfort level and functioning relationship with people in every community.  Coni Rice, Jon Huntsman, Colin Powell, Rep. Sanford Bishop and Rep, Jack Kingston come to mind as public servants who can dialog with anyone—disagree without being disagreeable.  The most important unofficial duty might be the ability to reasonably explain public policy to those who disagree with you.

 

America is at it’s worst when supporters of a public official dare him or her to talk with the other side.  People who don’t make much money and people who have had it rough (by their own creation) are still Americans.  Any person, political parties or group that wants to suppress their voting are un-American to me.  This whole blog post isn’t race-based because the last time I checked most of the people in my community have as much affection for the presidential service of Bill Clinton as for Barrack Obama.  As quiet as it is kept, that southerner White dude knows more about these piney woods in Georgia than any president other than James Earl Carter.

 

With unofficial duties in mind, Michelle Nunn and Karen Handel get a certain amount of consideration for U.S. Senate because they have that lady logic working.  Yes, the Georgia congressional delegation needs a woman’s touch and I would look seriously at a sista from the GOP running for the U.S. House.  Sisters in my community are now and have always been relatively conservative and they know that our community has become too reliant on the government.  It’s a shame that the Tea Party will force Handel to act hardcore to win their primary.  Rep. Jack Kingston is in that senate primary and that cat will talk with anyone anywhere because that is part of his official duties.

 

Unofficial duties include telling it like it “tiz.” If you don’t know that that adage, you might not be ready to represent both sides of the tracks down here.

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In the local elections this fall, I know and respect all of the candidates.  But, competition is actually healthy; competition like Obama vs. Hillary that elevated both of their games.  I can’t help but think that better competition might  have compel Rep. Sanford Bishop to have been hungrier legislatively and could have lead him into the U.S. Senate or a presidential cabinet postition.

 

 

Barrack Obama was defeated in a U.S. House race by Bobby Rush, who is from Albany, Georgia.  Heaven only knows who would be president today if Obama got bogged down in the morass of the House.

 

 

Local and state elected positions are building blocks for federal positions.  Actually, there are members of the state legislature who never wanted to be in the Congress.  Being a part-time lawmaker is cool but being a full-time congressman would be a pay cut for a person balling in the private sector. i.e. state Rep. Calin Smyre of Columbus.  By building blocks I mean that congressional candidates look to members of the state house and state senate for support.  Candidates for the state houses in turn look to local officials.  Of course, presidential candidates look to elected officials on all levels.

 

 

To make it plain, Hillary Clinton 2016 starts with local elections this year.

 

 

I am ticked off by the ultra conservatives who ran moderates out of the Republican Party and who are designing laws and procedures in the state capitol to limited Americans from voting.  They seem to be functioning under the Jean-Paul Sartre/Malcolm X phrase “By any means necessary.”

 

 

Gerrymandering of state legislature and U.S. Congress lines have left large sections of the South with one party leadership. In other words, candidates can win elections with little input and support from anyone who doesn’t look like them or thinking totally like them.  My friends in the conservative movement will dare elected officials to listening to and explaining matters to the other side.  I thought that was their jobs.  To give credit where credit is due, Rep. Sanford Bishop and Rep. Jack Kingston love to talk issues with anyone in their service areas—hats off to them for that.

 

 

I want paraphrase Jesus to those whom might come up short in the coming election: Let not your heart be troubled…in my father’s house are many mansions.”  The houses I have in mind are the state house and state senate.  These are the legislative bodies where laws like “stand your ground” were passed. The place where state officials and lawmakers think it is cute to make it hard for regular people of any color to vote.

 

 

Look, I didn’t like former Democrat Congressman Jim Marshall and I gladly voted for reasonable Republican candidate Austin Scott because Marshall slamming Dems was too much.  With the same strategy in mind, I hope that some of the candidates who fall short in the local elections will consider running for the state houses next year—from either major political party.   I am sure that there are enough southern moderates to sway some primaries next year.

 

 

The most important matter is massive voter turnout.  You can vote for Dora the Explorer for all I care but vote because someone is trying to reverse your rights.  “Oh, after Obama is off the ballot…those people will go back to not voting again….right?”   Wrong.

 

 

In the future, we will have some Republican sistas in the Georgia congressional delegation.  These conservative ladies will keep legislative debate civic and tell my community what wise people already know—that the government isn’t your bank.

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I read the July 2013 issue of Georgia Trend magazine yesterday and the times they are a changing.  One story told of a speech given by Governor Nathan Deal at the GOP state convention.

http://www.georgiatrend.com/July-2013/Neely-Young-Shame-On-Us/

He spoke of the future demographics for our state and how Whites would one day have minority status here.  That trend made me think about a bumper sticker that read “If I knew it was going to be like this I would have picked my own damn cotton.”  Actually, if not for stolen land from Native Americans and stolen people from Africa, this nation wouldn’t be what it is today and the European powers from the colonial period would still have swag on this continent.

What about the bumper sticker or T-shirt that says Indians should have had better immigration policies and homeland security?  The past is the past and the southern state that truly aims positively toward the future first will win.  Germany’s atrocities from the last century are some of the worst in history but the people in Savannah will show you a beautiful building, currently used by the technical college, which was constructed as part of an effort to attract a Germany automaker.

I can’t remember if it was BMW which went to South Carolina or Mercedes which ended up in Alabama but the Germans were concerned with the confederate flag drama and imagined racial arguments on the plant floor.  If the fools who committed genocide came turn the corner, southerners can also.

To me, there are two parts to the post civil rights phase.  First, lovers of the Confederacy can admire the military keenness without romanticizing the cause.  The cause simply wasn’t just.  It was based on oppression and money.  Second, the way some young Blacks are carrying themselves justifies (in some minds) a new reason for racism.  We use to say we knew who we were and we knew whose we were.  But, the youth today don’t give a rat’s –ss about legacy, history or standing on our shoulders.

They have a bigger commitment to glamorizing thug, pimps and strippers than moving Black forward.  Yea, they are moving us backward.  On an old Public Enemy rap album, someone with a fake southern accent said he was the grand wizard of the Klan and he wanted to thank the pimps, pushers and hustlers in the Black community for doing their job for them.  P.E. was right and that why they were the prophets of rage.

Georgia’s future could be sunny.  An article in that Georgia Trend issue told of the solar power efforts in Germany and the new efforts in the peach state.  Huh?  I have been to Germany three times and the place is about a third as sunny as Georgia.  We must harness the energy of the sun and make Georgia green.

The last great article was about a tour of downtown redevelopment in Georgia and I loved it.  As quiet as it is kept, this area was my field in grad school.  I love downtown lofts and dig the café culture of Paris, Barcelona and Prague.  Yea, my blue passport has many stamps but there is something special about rural Georgia.  As the rust belt continues to rust and as Northerners brace for another cold winter, the sunny Georgia from that solar power story is the same sunny Georgia that could attract people and industry.

My master’s thesis was about using cultural amenities to attract industry. Wow, that was 1990 but I was a bit of a prophet myself—or should a say a profit because I wanted to make a career of prepping Georgia for a cool future.

Governor Deal knows the deal.  Georgia could have a bright future we embrace the coming changes in people, power and places.

For years, I have been friends with a group of Georgians who could have easily join the moderate section of the GOP but (oh yeah) the Tea Party killed that division of the conservative movement.  After reading of Deal’s speech, I can tell you of three or four Black women who could win congressional seats here while laying the foundation of the counter-argument to Juggernaut Hillary Clinton.  But, the good old boys won’t hear that.

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It’s time for my annual “consider yourselves told” blog post for southern conservatives. For years now, I have been patiently waiting for someone or some group on the right to ask how to do better in my community. My simply solutions would start with an overview of “The Art of War” because the first rule should be to study and learn the ways of the other side. Anyway, I have been writing the same points for years and should have gotten paid from my insight but that’s life. For the record, this discourse is the 2013 version of the same old same old.

 
Acknowledgement: America would be a better place if people would live the way conservatives wanted. A Bible based clean life would be perfect: no kids until three years into a marriage, zero cocktails, no sagging pants, do any legal employment to provide for self and family.

 
Problem: In a free society, people have the right to do as they please. It would be grand if all Americans follow their doctor’s recommendations on diet and exercise but that isn’t happening nor are people listening to sound life advice in other aspects of life.
Resulting Problem: So, a person is free to live anyway he or she chooses but if problems result from life choices, they gently fall in the governmental safety net. While that seems fair, we are finding more people who dive in the net from jump street and working people get the bill.

 
When Liberals are so wrong: Yea, a nation that ensures that all of her citizens have decent homes and decent meals sounds great. But, that would be socialism. In a democracy, the state creates a climate or situation where everyone has an opportunity to work hard, focus, plan and thrive. If your plan doesn’t work, you must keep trying while admitting that you made your lumpy bed.

 
Conservative Force vs. Moderate Compel: My conservative friends often see everyone else as child who must be told what to do. Say what? They make public policy decisions without general input and their source of knowledge comes from those in their inner circles. Some people have termed this the “donor class” because it’s the conservatives who donate to candidates and causes—in a bubble. They wanted to force their Solomon type decisions on the nation as a whole and regular folks simply laugh. (Remember, some of their approaches make perfect sense but their delivery techniques are appalling.)

 
On the other hand, moderates take the views of all sides into consideration before crafting logical policy. For example, the “lockem up” crime policies of the past produced macho campaign ads but the astronomical cost of the criminal justice system made even conservatives go back to the drawing board. Some of that money should have been used for education and training to put young people on the right path. Hell, I still think Newt Gingrich’s 1990s idea of giving clean living 21 year olds a $5,000 check was interesting because thug activities cost seven times that amount at least.

 
Bible Based: There must be a special hot pit in hell for those who twist the Bible to justify whatever provides them increase. I could list a zillion parts of the Bible that the Right uses and another zillion that the Left uses. But, I personally think Jesus of the Beatitudes speech wouldn’t want to see hungry people.

 
However, First Timothy 5: 8 says “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” Translation: A good dad would take that job flipping burgers.

 
Proverbs 12:11 He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding. Translation: Thank a farmer and a rancher in your dinner prayer tonight.

 
Second Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Translation: The work requirement provisions of the Food Stamp selection of the Farm Bill weren’t written by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky but by Paul who use to be Saul of Tarsus.

 
Fat On Food Stamps: First, food stamps or temporary food assistance helps needy families and helps American farmers by providing additional markets. The “let them starve” mentality doesn’t seem as compassionate as President Reagan or the second President Bush. While starving, the health care cost would be billions and where were these folks when people were trying to fund programs that taught family planning and control. One conservative guy in Florida said that birth control was a grapefruit between the knees—keep those legs closed.

 
Conservatives don’t know that working Americans are also ticked off by the idea that their tax dollars are paying for someone to get fat on a futon while playing Madden all day or watching Maury Povich. Then, folks use the emergency room as a doctors’ office. My farm bill would provide temporary healthy food aid—no greasy foods . Healthcare reform should have provided a doctor for everyone and the doctor should state clear goals, objectives and consequences. “Sir, you are 100 pounds overweight and you have one year to get under 200 pounds. After that year, there will be no more free health assistance for chubby you. You will thank me in a few years or your family will be picking out hymns for your service.”

 
Nasty, Just Plain Old Nasty: In the above mention “donor class” of conservatives, you have people who love the vitriol of Fox News and talk radio. I should mention the young staffers and politicos who were sheltered as kids—home schooled, far Right Church, detest everyone and anyone not like them. Again, they are not very Jesus-like and they should stop demonizing folks who have fallen on hard times….there but for the grace of God…..

 
When the ugliest parts of the conservative movement say things design to fire up their ranks, reasonable conservatives shouldn’t remain quiet. Moderates aren’t quiet when that junk comes from the far Left or far Right.

 
Voter Suppression: The new nasty is a rehashing of the old nasty: let’s make voting hard. That’s not funny and shame on every conservative who supporters efforts to limit Americans from voting. The voter fraud junk is hogwash and they grin about it behind closed doors. If you can’t win an election fair and square, you shouldn’t resort to shady options. In June, I jumped though so many hoops to renew my driver’s license before I realized that the ultimate goal of conservatives in the state capitol was discouraging me to vote.
Joseph from the Bible: That guy Joseph was done dirty by his brothers but in Genesis 50, 20-21 it says “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.”

 
We are all southern brothers at the end of the day. I can’t understand voter suppression from the far Right nor can I understand the glamorization of thug living in my community. If anyone thinks the answer is governing the South without input from every section of the community, they have another thought coming. Some people voted for Obama while others voted against ugliness.

 
The struggle will continue after President Obama exits for Hawaii and candidate Clinton is my kind of tough lady. Yea, the voter turnout won’t be what it was in the past. I actually think it could be higher because people are getting hip to the dirty game.

 
Zimmerman: When Travon Martin was shot in Florida, George Zimmerman seemed surprised by all the heat coming down on him. He was right in being dumbfounded because he was functioning in a manner sanctioned by Florida state law. People across the country should be mad at themselves for not keeping at better eye on local, state and federal governments. Under the Stand Your Ground Laws, I could fire on a bald White kid running toward me in the parking lot at the store because I have a little concern about skinheads that I occasionally saw in D.C. But, that kid could just be someone with a cheap haircut (like mine) or an actual skinhead jogging to his car. I still don’t want to kill him.

 
The bottomline is that every American adult should try to vote so that the state legislature will be populated with officials who listen to everyone and who make well-thought out laws. Election results indicate that many Americans voted for President Obama then walked out of the polling booth. We must vote in every contest-from President to dog catcher in Ty, Ty, Georgia.

 
And we should vote smart. If the GOP is running your region, vote in the Republican primary for the candidate most like you. That action would be the cool move and it would make the far Right crazy mad.

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Derrick_E__Grayson

I came across Derrick Grayson, a U.S. Senate GOP candidate from Georgia, on Peach Pundit blog last week and this guy’s logic was refreshing. As a moderate, I can be easily put off by angry talk from conservatives but Grayson sounds familiar.

 
After a few days, it came to me; I remember the two places where I heard Grayson’s approach.   First, he sounds like Clarence Thomas’ grandfather.   Justice Thomas wrote a book about his grandfather’s distain for governmental involvement in people’s lives.   The book showed me that Thomas and his grandfather were simply old school—they came from the pre-LBJ period when our community was more about achievement and hard work than searching for government money.   That money actually made us softer.

 
The second place where I have heard discussions like Grayson was in the barber shops of my youth.   Those shops were much more than grooming centers—no, wait- they were grooming centers.   They groomed young men on how to be upright walking men.   The classes weren’t formal but we heard real talk about life, family, church and work.   You also were charged with moving the community forward.   As Colin Powell said, “We need to reinstitute the concept of shame.”

 
In those barber shops, men didn’t walk with the heads up if they weren’t doing everything they legally could to care for their current families and honor their birth families.   A wild theory might contend that home haircuts and growing out hair for braids has reduced those trips to the barber and therefore our young men are getting the information that supplements home training elsewhere.   I thinking that “elsewhere” is from the hip hop culture that glamorizes thug life and laughs at hard work.   When I worked in the barber shop on South Main Street in my hometown, I knew I was going to hear about my good and/or bad “street committee” regarding how I was carrying myself.   “What is this I hear about you…”

 
That Derrick Grayson seems like Neil from those Matrix movies.   Could he be the “one” who starts the conservation that bridges old school Blacks with the next generation—the one who is more interested in improving our condition by simply telling the truth about the limited role of government in our lives than personal fame?

 

 
The U.S. Senate is the most exclusive fraternity in America and it is rare for someone to enter before serving on a lower level or in the U.S. House.   But, boy on boy, he is one Black Republican who has a message than we need to hear.   He could get load of votes not in his capacity as a GOPer but in his capacity as a common sense fellow.    We should keep an eye on his guy.

 

 

http://www.grayson2014.com/issues_home

 

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The horrific, cowardly acts in Boston last year were carried out by young men who were brainwashed and/or radicalized. An argument can be made that all or most of us could be or have been radicalized on some level when inundated with too much of a particular point of view.

Blacks in America would be a good place to start this discussion. We knew upon arriving on these shores that wrongful actions brought us here. But, we had to patiently wait until the mid-1970s to experience the freedoms of this free nation. Americans who believe in the Christian Bible know our book is filled with references to waiting on the Lord and to me, being humbled by suffering prepares us for heaven as a proposed to those who think they have heaven on earth. Those cats might have a dated with a fire on the other side.

My friends from the Taxed Enough Already Party (TEA) are correct in many ways on taxes but they don’t have the patience of Black folks. If these guys don’t get what they want now, they are ready for an actual revolution…now.

People on both ends of the political spectrum often constantly listen to and read information from pumped-up sources. Too much of these opinions at one time can lead to an overdose. For example, viewers should know how to watch T.V. shows in their proper entertainment context.

Seinfeld doesn’t reflect all of my Jewish friends; Homeland doesn’t reflect all of my Muslim friends and the Real Housewives of Atlanta only reflects the lifestyles of about a dozen families in the ATL.

Oh, we should talk about Married To Medicine, the latest effort of the gay agenda at Bravo to make everyone else look foolish. (Kidding)

When I was a child, people said that politics was show business for ugly people. But, reality television has blown that out of the water…like blowing stumps on Swamp People. Today, the music T.V. channels have no music videos and the history channel has little history on it’s main channel. It’s all about reality shows and the affect of American culture could be cancerous.

The fight between lovely sistas in ball gowns last week on Married To Medicine should in no way reflect the behavior of Black professionals in Georgia. Bravo searched high and low (really low) for people who would trade dignity for instant fame. Oh, I knew as a child that lawyers, bankers, professors and physicians were regular people away from work and subject to the same drama as anyone else. Actually, my college sweetheart contends that her colleagues in the medical profession are socially awkward because they spent so many years in the books while others were learning social skills.

An old adage states “just because you paid for college, doesn’t mean you have class.” We have a problem in the Black community that centers on the desire for wealth. We like people to see us with shiny stuff in shiny cars heading to fancy meals at fancy places. If your natural abilities didn’t provide you the means to get this stuff, you can always marry well if you are smoking hot.

The Mariah lady to M to M is simply hood and will always be hood. The show is produced in some way in association with her production company. So, she sat in a board room at Bravo and pitched this product with promises of cattiness, ugliness and fights. The two lady doctors are classy as is the attractive woman Toya, who was basically jumped by Mariah. Of course, the hood has people without money who have class and they lack of money could be based on their refusal to compromise their integrity wealth.

So, people across America watch messy T.V. about groups of Americans they don’t know and formulate faulted opinions. “He is not this child’s father…either.” Then during the news hour, Fox News tells you that you are paying for these people to hang out all day while you are at work making money that a Kenyan born president will take from your check. On the other side of the extreme, MSNBC is doing the same thing from the stay point of “the government can fix all the problems in the nation with enough tax money….no one in America should be outside the middle class.” Huh? Can everyone be middle class? Isn’t the government ensuring a minimum quality of life basically socialism?

Fox, MSMBC and Bravo don’t brainwashing as well as the hip hop culture. Did I love hip hop as a college student? Yes sir, I was proud that urban youth created an art medium to reflect the realities of their situations. But today, life is imitating art because youth are glamorizing thugs and strippers while some students are actually downplaying their academic success. On his quality reality show last week, rapper T.I. told his kids that he never met a thug who wanted to be a thug. My man told them to rap about having a nice life. T.I. is the king of the South.

In summary, we need to be careful what we watch and hear because forces can radicalize you before you know it. In a diverse nation, there is no substitute for getting to know (humanizing) others. When we know each other, we can start the process of explaining now personal choices and decisions have consequences. If not, the next generation of Black southerners might include people that some people (including positive Blacks) will want to rightfully avoid.

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My thoughts on the future of Black political centrists in the South have been two weeks and/or two decades in the making.   So, brace yourself for an unusual brainstorm.  The open U.S. Senate race in Georgia next year forces us to plot our best plan for representation.

 
Senator Saxby Chambliss is an establishment Republican and I have appreciated his service regarding the regional issues of agriculture, military and veterans.   Rep. Sanford Bishop, Rep. Jack Kingston, now Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and those who went to congress in the early 1990s worked together on issues of vital importance to the peach state.   In this Progressives vs. the Tea Party era, I miss that old school dialog.

 
For two weeks, I have been hearing that the Democrats won’t likely field a viable Senate candidate and the practical part of me says that moderate to conservative Georgia Dems could and should vote in the GOP primary next year to ensure that we don’t have a divider  representing our diverse state.

 
I was thinking about who is a “natural” Democrat or “natural” Republican last week and it made my head hurt.   While watching to the T.V. show TMZ, a story came on about Raspberry favoring of food.  It turns out that a food can be labeled as naturally Raspberry because it is natural and taste like Raspberry but it comes from the backside of a beaver. http://www.befoodsmart.com/blog/tag/raspberry-flavor/

 
That isn’t natural to me and it’s not natural to force everyone in a big state like Georgia into two political parties and expected them to naturally and neatly stay there.   A few years ago, the Georgia Dems lost two rising young stars to the GOP.   Ashley Bell of Gainesville and blogger Andre Walker of Atlanta were on CNN explaining their rationale and it seemed natural to me.   Before, they were my brothers and today they are still my brothers.   Walker once wished happy birthday on facebook to the naturalized American actress Charlize Theron, whom he considered an African-American because she is an American born in South Africa. Huh?

 
I personally like the No Labels political movement because we shouldn’t run away trying to put people neatly into boxes and categories. Like they say at church, we should look at a person’s “thoughts, words, and deeds.”

 
A Black conservative from the ATL told me yesterday that Rep. Tom Price looks good to him in the race for U.S. Senate.  I asked about his track record for explaining conservatism to non-conservatives and dude could say anything.   Remember, the wave created by the Tea Party doesn’t cotton well to conservatives talking with others without yelling.  Moderates and liberals are often viewed as the enemy.

 
Look, on Capitol Hill, I worked for Rep. Charles Hatcher, Rep. Don Johnson and Rep. Sanford Bishop and all three strongly insisted that we listened to and served everyone in the congressional district—not just the people who voted for them.   I was personal friends with a staffer in Rep. Kingston’s office and would hang after work with her at conservative functions because she was a natural hair wearing, smart Spelman College woman.   Yeah, Jack had a Spelman grad in a major position on his legislative team.   I talked with Kingston alone at a reception one night for 15 minutes and came away with an appreciation for his commitment to southern Georgia.   He mentioned that he promoted south Georgia colleges and universities during his time in the Georgia statehouse because students should get quality educations in our part of the state also.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/59464/october-18-2005/better-know-a-district—georgia-s-1st—jack-kingston

 
We would trip about Kingston going to political forums at Savannah State University without staff.   The guy loves the lively debate. Actually, he was the first member of congress to brave Stephan Colbert’s “Better Know a District” segment.   Because Kingston briefly lived in Ethiopia as a child, Colbert decided that he is an African American—like Charlize Theron.   There you have it; Jack Kingston is an African American who might run for U.S. Senate next year.   Some wiseacre is going to Kingston knows as much about the southern African American experience as my man President Obama.   I will leave that alone but he like knows more than most GOP candidates for Senate.

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Surprisingly, I agree with the rapper Two Chainz’s preoccupation with “I’m different.” We need some different mindsets in many aspects of our public and private lives because what has happen in the past simply isn’t fair, isn’t working and has us on a path to destruction.

Politicians: I have been waiting for two decades for a new type southerner officeholder/policymaker.  We need leaders who will tell the people the cold, hard facts—straight, no chaser; the good, the bad and the ugly.  A congressman or woman who goes to every community, builds trust, then sits on the tailgate of a pickup truck and tells the God’s honest truth about pulling everything on the fiscal table.

I have never been a fan of conservative columnist Cal Thomas but last month he wrote a classic about conservatives needing to “show up.”  The late Rep. Jack Kemp would show up in every neighborhood and people could sense his sincerity. Former RNC chairman Michael Steele tried to create a new subsection of conservatives who regularly dialoged with the other side and with regular non Republican folks but the Tea Party Movement wasn’t having that kind of different.

Tea Party People: America would be better off if those people weren’t so ticked off.  Their fiscal and governmental concerns are valid but being angry isn’t healthy or helpful.  Look, Black people have every right to be pissed with our bondage history in this nation but we (like the Native Americans) can’t carry that bitterness in our hearts.  The issues that have the Tea Partiers upset is still a pebble when compared to the boulder of slavery but we all need to make peace and move forward with positive energy.

Southern Youth: While this blog post started with Two Chainz I must take issue with the mindset of our kids.  The glamorization of thugs and strippers found in today’s hip hop is (in my opinion) is moving Black folks backwards.  In my neighborhood, the clean-cut kids with belts on their pants who speak English properly are different and I am so cheering for them.  The “yes, sir..no,sir” young ladies in my town are the remnants of our southern Black elegance.  That elegance is what we saw in the movie “The Help.”  I wrote a blog post once about Justice Clarence Thomas’s book about his grandfather.  Thomas’s grandfather didn’t like the government having the right to ask questions about what happens in his house.  I love that.

https://projectlogicga.com/2012/01/23/clarence-thomas-good-brother/

Hell, I will tell you about two chains.  The first chain was wrought iron and put by masters around the necks of slaves.  The second chains, which are golden, are in current times and put around the necks of slaves by slaves themselves.  I am different because I haven’t worn chains or any precious metal jewelry since 1979.  We need music like “De La Soul is on a roll…Black medallions…no gold.”  Two Chainz says “I wish a N-word would…like a kitchen cabinet.”  I wish the youth would watch our hip hop on VH1 Soul then view a Cosby Show marathon.

 

In summary, I hope that we create a movement of different in my community because what we are doing and where we are heading isn’t working.  We spend too much energy and time on the wrong things then struggle and suffer as a result.  All I want for my birthday is some guys who don’t reference to women as big booty garden tools. While Two Chainz says “me and you are cut from a different fabric,” I say that we are all woven into the same tapestry.

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Plantation with modern bridge

To be honest, you should never operate an entity or enterprise without input from all involved people.  On this election day, I can’t help but thing that this election is one of the last of it’s types–or should be. 

The Republicans think they know what is best for this nation and the Democrats think the same thing.  If I put on my old polly sci major hat and observe the situation the way Dr. Hollis taught us at college, I might conclude that the Dems better reflect a cross-section of the American people.

My conservative friends will quickly point out that the majority might be wrong and then the pull out the slavery example from our history.  Well, if you want to talk about that period, we should consider the plantation mentality that makes a small group think their prosperity is good for everyone (i.e. apartheid in South Africa, trickle-down economics in America.)  

Today, they call it plutocracy, rule by the wealth.  I personally think Governor Romney as an elder in his church has done a thousand times more to help needy people than the average American.  But, I also think that this smart, likeable guy is the Trojan horse that gets the plutocrats into the White House. 

We can’t keep having elections where most of the members of a major party look like each other.  Also, the people in that party shouldn’t hate other nations where a religion runs the government while they are trying to do the same thing here.  And don’t get me started on the idea that all members of another party are godless heathens.  As Dr. Hollis, Attorney Tucker and the other professors taught us at Black college, government functions best when all voices are heard. 

When the GOP goes back to the drawing board after this victory or defeat, they should consider using various color markers because (mark my word) that plantation mentality only leads to civic war.  (You know that is what some folks want.)   The silly thing to me is that the GOP doesn’t realize that could have 15% of the vote in my community if they keep to the issues of jobs/economy rather than letting the far right push social issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

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School choice and family planning are two topics I would love to hear discussed in my community because they are at the foundation of our futures.  However, I want that discussion to take place around a discussion table sixty or seventy years ago. 

A.G. Sadler Sr., third seated from left

A photo of my father and his fraternity brothers meeting at the local Black college hangs in my mother’s den.  The organization wore Black and Gold and he was old enough to actually know founders personally but it could have been a meeting of any Black fraternity or sorority of that time because they were all committed to moving the race forward.  You can see the steely determination in their eyes: we as a people would have the opportunity to learn, earn and prosper in this great nation and the sky would be the limit once those doors of opportunity opened. 

If we had a time machine or a portal to the past (like a smart phone app), we could tell these gentlemen that we were from 2012 and that a Black man was in the White House…a Black man without a mop.  Since most of the men in that picture were college professors or public school educators, I want to know their opinions on school choice.

Today, we recognize that public school K-12 education needs a top to bottom overhaul.  I personally think that the teachers enter the profession ready to teach and that the facilities are generally acceptable in my area.  For a myriad of reasons, some of the kids just aren’t ready, willing and able to learn.  I think the foundation of education is discipline or obedience learned at home and church. 

Those guys in that photo didn’t question their parents in their generation and neither did we in my generation.  Today, I hear kids ask their parents “What?” and “Why?” with a tone that would have never happened in my day.  One of the men in that photo was likely the dentist that my father would have taken me to see after he knocked my teeth out for saying “What.”

We should discuss parents having a tax credit or voucher to put their children in the best quality educational situation.  When schools in the South were integrated, White private schools popped up in every county.  But, I can remember the dedication of the educators from the all-Black schools.  A period of “separate but equal” would have been fine with many Blacks because they wanted fairly funded schools more than forcing us to attend school with people who thought of us wrongly. 

When we debated school choice as congressional staffers in the 1990s, I would always argue that private schools would cherry-pick the best students and those remaining in the public schools would be students from families that couldn’t afford to get out.  If the best 20% opted for private schools, the worst 20% should have a voucher to attend a special school after getting kick out of regular school. 

Public policy can’t solve the education problem because the ultimate problem is that some people are having children before they are prepared to raise and nurture them.  To me, people shouldn’t get married until they are around 24 years old and they should then wait 24 months before having kids (a waiting period to ensure that the marriage is viable.)  Before 24 years of age, people could be finishing their education and training, moving up in the workplace and having fun socially.  Children should come into the mix when folks are ready to be parents like those Alphas in that old photo.  Instead, we have kids having kids and early grade teachers are half educators and half parents. 

Current conservatives trip me out with talk of abortion and welfare.  The guys around that table never envisioned people having the government deeply involved in their lives. They were concerned more with anti-lynch and opportunity.  The conservative men in that photo would have a lot to say about the long-term effect of LBJ’s policy that would come in a decade or two. 

A recent study indicates free birth control dramatically reduces abortion and teen pregnancy.  Since the far Right conservatives are rightfully concerned with governmental spending, they should know that abortions and public assistance goes down if fewer pregnancies occur in the first place.  The guys in that picture could discuss the wrongness of abortion and premarital sex as well as the wrongness of hungry children and struggling families.  Reasonable people know that you can’t always push your faith’s beliefs into the public policy of a diverse nation. 

http://news.yahoo.com/study-free-birth-control-leads-fewer-abortions-210623724.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CabFnBQvlUAOf7QtDMD

The achievement-oriented Blacks of my fathers’ generation would be disappointed to learn that music is crime and sin-based and hip hop shapes the mindset of our youth more than parents and church.  If those guys in that picture were transported into current times, they would figure out a way to get the best education for their families.  Unfortunately, those pioneers in education would be compelled to seek schools for their families that kept their kids away from certain elements without regard to race.  Oh, I would teach government and tennis at an all-male school that brought academic heat all day every day–a place where gentlemen were built.

Teaching the guys in that photo was easy because they were enthusiastic about learning; it was learn or be an unofficial slave during Jim Crow.  If they had a window on today at that table, they would be flabbergasted with the way our youth are carrying themselves and disappointed with the squandering of opportunities.

I enjoyed hearing this speech by Kappa founder Edward G. Irvin.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P7rpu-0Tf4]

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President Obama’s presidency would have been better if he had a congress interested in dialog and compromise.  Without doubt, we are looking at one of the worst congresses in modern history.  Obama plan to have a healthy line of communication with the House and Senate and central to that plan was talks with conservatives like current GOP VP selection Paul Ryan.

The ugly part of the conservative movement wouldn’t let Ryan or any GOP members of Congress debate issues and seek solutions with the president.  Oh yeah, the ugly part has grown in the body of that party like a cancer.  As a party, Democrats are weak in the South but well-intended while Republicans are strong but hell-bent on running the nation without input from anyone outside their shrinking tent.

If they had listened to former RNC chairman Michael Steele, things would be different.  Steele and reasonable conservatives (who were moderate in their temperament) wanted to court those of us in the political center.  However, the Tea Party’s nature took them in another direction.  Understand, all conservatives share the same fiscal and size of government views but temperament is the key. 

The temperament of most southern conservatives will not allow them to select congressional candidates in primaries who will appeal to moderates in the general election.  Representative John Barrow of Augusta, Georgia,  is the last White Democrat in the House of Representatives from the deep South.  The GOP has been after him for years and to be honest, a moderate conservative Black candidate would have taken that seat.  Oh, I forgot that there are no GOP moderates since the Tea Party purge their ranks.

Rep. John Barrow listening

In the 12th congressional district primary, businessman Rick Allen lost to state Rep. Lee Anderson.  Allen has civic and social connections with non-Republicans in the Augusta area but that meant nothing to primary voters.  They wanted someone just like them and they got a candidate who refuses to debate Harvard-educated Barrow.   Democrats in Georgia that are looking for some action should get involved in the Barrow campaign because we can’t become a one race party in the South; we would be bogus.  Okay, I tossed in “bogus” because I was listened to MC Hammer yesterday and thought politics when he said “your party is bogus..yo, it ain’t legit” on the rap classic “Let’s Get It Started.”  Hammer could have been talking about Romney and the post Michael Steele RNC with their 47% nonsense.  

Let’s Get It Started had a sample from Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” and that is what is going to happen to GOP congressional candidates until they develop a moderate wing.  Hammer can be in a blog post about Augusta politics because brother James Brown is from that area and Hammer clearly bites from the Godfather of Soul’s beats and dance moves.  When America was on fire after the MLK assassination, Brown cooled things down.

We should get “Get Out The Vote” started for Barrow and Obama in that part of Georgia.  Barrow and the Blue Dogs bring moderate to conservative views to the Democrat table.

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Hall County, Georgia, County Commissioner Ashley Bell loss his election Tuesday night– who saw that coming.  Bell is a bright Black attorney who was a college star in the Democrat Party but recently switched to the GOP.  I thought he was a shoe-in to win Tuesday night but the election should have been for a newly created congressional district.

 We can really mess some stuff up down here in the South and one of the biggest messes is politics. Governor Nathan Deal saw Bell as the future of the conservative movement but to me, there is little place for African-Americans in the current southern GOP.  Of course, the few Blacks who spew that mean-spirited talk radio crap will do well speaking to ultra-conservative groups but they will not do much to expand the conservative tent by explaining their policy positions on my side of the tracks.

Michael Steele and Ashley Bell could have changed the course of American politics because they are level-headed but the party that booted Steele and ignored Jon Huntsman isn’t about healing or serving the whole nation.  It’s about getting folks pissed off and inciting a revolution.  Those of us in the political middle needed guys like Bell to speak with his fellow conservatives about reasonable methods of approaching the rest of the country.  If they did that, a third of Blacks who vote in the South  could get their views.  But, they let anger take over and the rest is history.

I think Bell was once a Rep. Sanford Bishop intern and he would be the perfect young conservative to seek that congressional seat once Bishop retires to private life and corporate board wealth.  Ashley is still rooted in our community and could win enough of the Black vote because he is a good brother.  But, I got the call yesterday saying Ashley didn’t win in the GOP primary.  Why the hell didn’t he have a GOP opponent when he was being groomed to be the next great thing? 

Under our primary system, Blacks would not take the GOP primary ballot for Herman Cain, Ashley Bell or anyone because that ballot is associated with the ugliness of the far-right.  What kind of southerners do we have today?  The southern way is to smile and say syrupy-sweet things to get elected then do whatever once in office.   Well, the “powers that be” in the GOP will take care of Ashley but at some point they need to know that a political party in which everyone is the same isn’t good for a diverse nation.  The same principle applies to a southern all Black Democrat party. 

Someone is getting wise to the game on the GOP side because the new anti-Obama ad is too smooth.  The ad basically concedes the fact that Obama is one of the greatest people ever but questions if he is the right person for this good right now—hats off to the smooth slickness of this method.  Someone at the RNC is begging his teammates to keep it policy vs. policy rather than Obama vs. Romney—smart.  If they wanted some more similar smart ideas, I would suggest listening too and respecting Steele and Bell.   

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBqW4NTFiE

After this ad, what’s next.  “It’s not President Obama fault that Americans suck.”  “America doesn’t deserve a great guy like Obama.   Paid for by people who are good at messing with your mind.”

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Team Obama and Team Romney need to understand that we simply refuse to have this election decided without more input and involvement from the South.  Yes, North Carolina and Florida are swing states but most of the South is being bypassed because Dixie is supposedly solid red. It seems that our donations to fund swing state campaign ads are more important that our votes—hell “haw.”

Let’s do this: keep our campaign money here in the rural areas and use that money to get out the vote (GOTV).  These two campaigns might spend two billion dollars on TV ad wars and the real winners will be the professional campaign industry.  President Obama once sat weekly in Congressional Black Caucus meetings with Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop and I think that seeing SDB’s approach to moderate service benefited candidate Obama in 2008.  In 2010, Bishop had a formable GOP opponent and they went toe to toe in a media war; I watched cable TV the last few weeks because I was sick of slick campaign ads.  In the end, Bishop won because national conservatives and the Tea Party hit so hard that we got defensive and resorted old school GOTV methods to help the incumbent. If the Tea Party and the bitter national groups had stayed out of that election, the GOP would have taken that seat so thanks. 

Looking at that 2008 congressional race would help Obama and Romney prep for rural battles.  Clearly, the current plan is to have both official presidential campaigns be nice and above the fray while outside groups do any dirty work.  The positive dirty work would be a door to door, house to house, hood to hood effort to get everyone properly prepared to vote.  It is a low down dirty shame that some on the Right want to limited voter participation—you’ll are better than that.  We should counter by making sure that everyone knows the deadlines, rules and regulations for registration and voting.

To be honest, the GOP can never reach a point where 100% of the Black vote in the South is assumed Democrats.  If they do, their attitude and policies would be even more punitive.  Peace and blessing to brothers and sistas on the conservative side because 25% or more of Black southerners are actually conservatives but won’t join a party with a section that is dam near confederate.  The black conservative blog Booker Rising has a nice questionnaire in it’s margins and if my family members took it they would discover that they are more moderate than liberal.  Of course, the rural south GOP allows talk radio to work them into a mean frenzy so their gatherings are more salt than pepper.

We should start now and maximize our voter participation.  If we put 10% of the time and interest we put into football into getting everyone voting, we will ensure that our voice are heard.  Hey, we could combine the two; GOTV rallies in the form of old school parties after high school and college football games.   Yeah, we need to say among ourselves what the national campaigns can’t or won’t say and young  Dem conservative Keith McCants from Peanut Politics should be leading the effort.

http://www.bookerrising.net/2004/08/booker-rising-quiz-are-you-black.html

http://www.bookerrising.net/2004/08/booker-rising-quiz-are-you-black_20.html

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George Zimmerman meant well but we must be careful in our zeal to protect our communities.  Trayvon Martin was a better young man than most but sorting good kids from the bad ones has become difficult because most of them –Black, White and Brown- seems to admire the thug/hard element. 

I didn’t add “Yellow” to the list above because (as I stereotype) Asians youth in America still respect their elders and attempt to be obedient.  Oh, it is a matter of time before certain parts of American culture ruin them also. 

We have two or three generations of young people who don’t give a flip about how they carry themselves.  They will say or do anything in front of anyone and dare you to look at them sideways.  Zimmerman, with the warmth of his firearm, wanted to be that heroic figure in the neighborhood who stood for what was right; he wanted to be the man not afraid to stop the crime drama.  But, he stepped mistakenly to a decent guy. 

On some level, I feel like the guy on the block who senior citizens seek regarding community matters but I am much smarter than Zimmerman.  You must establish a vibe with the young folks and I have found that the holiday season is the best time.  During Christmas and the Fourth of July, my 40 something classmates come home to visit their parents and, of course, yell (like we do) at a brother from down the street.  It usually surprises the current young people to know that their uncles were once young and that some oldheads gave us words of wisdom—now it’s our turn. 

The seed gets planted when my old friends put their massive hands on their nephews’ shoulders and say, “listen to my homeboy and help him keep the block straight for moms.”  That nephew and his crew are the ones with the booming car music at 3 a.m.  We always want to diplomatically address these matters rather than seeing another person heading to expensive penal system.

We have so much unemployment in rural Georgia but a factory closing doesn’t mean you don’t have a job to do.  Most of my friends have worked continuously since high school.  I have seen guys laboring to keep their kids in Polo and Tommy gear but the kids grow up with a feeling of entitlement.  A year out of work might just be the year when dude saves his son from the streets or the year when moms’ house get the renovations it needed. 

On the job front, we are starting to see reports on employers who will only hire whose currently working.  Really?  In my community, we must do everything we can to weather these rough times.  The good news is that Black folks have perseverance encode on our DNA.  If we get rid of Polo, Tommy and other aspects of conspicuous consumption, we could live with less money.  Secondly, we must stop trying to keep up with the Jones because the Joneses are in debt up to their eyeballs. 

There is nothing wrong with a guy being a stay at home dad for a minute; I have been a stay at home son for more than a minute and yes the salary drama is stressing me out.  We are now the old guys who voluntarily read the Bible and I like Proverbs 20:29 “The glory of young men is their strength and the beauty of old men is the grey head.”  I find Psalm 71:18 to be equally cool “Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and they power to every one that is to come.”  While unemployed, you still have work that needs to be done.

Proverbs 22:6 states “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Well, my daddy had a strong commitment to our community and my neighborhood was created in the 1970s by men who were overworked and underpaid on someone else’s farms.  If those dead men paid for these houses with years of hard labor, we can’t let a few half-raised youth destroy the area to the degree that widows are in constant fear.  And the crazy thing is that homies who come home from prison are the main ones telling the youth that the wild path isn’t the right one.

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Is anyone else thinking that the Trayvon Martin situation might be to the 2012 presidential election what the Elian Gonzalez matter was to the 2000 presidential election?  We remember the young Cuban boy who was in the middle of a Florida battle.  After the Clinton administration sent him back to that island nation, Al Gore narrowly lost the presidency by the state of Florida. 

If any good can come from the death of this young man, igniting a political fire in his generation might be that good.  Young folks should put on their hoodies and head down to the courthouse to register to vote—vote for conservatives, liberals or moderates…just vote.  They should think about their cousins who joined the military and are in harm’s way on foreign soil.  We think of them as heroes but many signed up because that was a stable income during unstable times.  How long should they be there and where are they heading next?  Look, protesting is important but real change comes from the ballot box and the mindset.

America is the land of the free and a person should have the right to be himself.  But, we do need to have a  discussion with our youth about the cold reality of being a minority in America.   And before someone emails me…yes, Black kids kill Black kids every day.  Bottomline: do what you can to see the sun rise tomorrow.  You just might see millions of hoodie wearing young people voting for the first time. 

Those new voters would send a wake-up call to southern state lawmakers who clearly feel that they input isn’t important.

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It’s madness to do the same things year after year and expect difference results.  So, I decide to acknowledge the brilliance of the guy who started the Khan Academy to reform education.  But first, I would like to invite anyone to join our ESPN NCAA basketball groups for the men and women tournaments.  The group names are “Jawja Hoops” in both contests.  Let the basketball and rethink ranting begin.

Rethink Education: Clearly, our education system needs retooling and Salman Khan has a fresh approach.  In my community, I simply wish parents would start with using better grammar 24/7 to stop contradicting what is taught at school.

Rethink College Basketball: College basketball shouldn’t be a stepping stone for the NBA and we should have a farm system in smaller cities (similar to baseball) for those who want to be pros.  Student athletes should be just that.  In other words, the NBA D-League should be developed.

Rethink Politics and Religion: In America, we have the freedom to select our faith and politicians’ faith walks should be the foundation of their character.  They shouldn’t attempt to force their particular church on the population as a whole.  So, Mitt Romney should put the nutty factions in his party in their places about his church and any other faiths that they find “different.”

Rethink Political Leaders: The next crop of political leaders should be much better than the current ones.  On the Right, conservatives should get back to being pro-business and smaller government rather than the promoters of the next Civil War.  On the Left, liberals are actually limiting personal development with their socialist policies.  We need leaders who will speak to the people (straight, no chaser) about the limited role of government and importance personal responsibility.

Rethink Campaign Finance:  My new congressman is Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia and he was a true campaign finance rebel as a candidate for governor.  He spoke wisely of limiting the amount of contributions and that got me thinking.  Everyone knows that money runs campaigns and that those who gave money will later want something from officeholders.  If I designed a congressional candidate from the ground up or from day one, I would tell my guy to take the average income in the area, add a few zeros and that would be the total amount raised for the campaign.  (For example, 32K in average income = 320,000 funding limited.)  If elected, that person would belong to the people and wouldn’t spend time kissing up to lobbyists. 

Rethink Black Conservatives: Peace to my brothers and sisters on the political Right…I feel you…I really do.  To me, your side is right (pun intended) more often than not; but the ugly ways and methods of the far Right make the GOP unacceptable for most Blacks.  There is no place for less bitter, moderate Americans in that party.  If Jon Huntsman won the GOP nomination, I would have strongly considered voting for him in November but you cats gave cool people the boot. 

Rethink Black Liberals:  At some point, it’s not about “the man” holding us down.  It’s about us holding us down.  We must return to the driven African-Americans who beat Jim Crow; the people who knew who they were and whose they were.  The next generation of CBC members must honestly inform the community that improves start in your house…not the U.S. House.   

Rethink Hip Hop: Most of current hip hop stinks out loud.  The music glorifies the worst elements of our community and I can’t tell college students from thugs and strippers.  I know artists are free to express themselves but come on now.

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When thinking about presidential politics, I keep hearing Georgian Ozzie Davis line from Georgia-educated Spike Lee’s movie “Always do the right thing.”  Well, “the Mayor” clearly was too fond of Albany, Georgia-produced Miller High Life beer but that simply statement speaks volumes.

The Georgia primary is tomorrow and I have been thinking hard about what I should do to optimize my vote.  Voting for President Obama would be an empty gesture but voting for Gingrich or Santorum could indirectly help the president by prolonging the GOP battle.  Our governmental directions and policies are nothing with which to play and I personally sadden by the ugliness coming from those two candidates—Newt is actually better than this but campaign is a dirt game.

 So, it comes down to Governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul.  Dr. Paul keeps it real and that is refreshing but Romney is the person who gets my vote by default.  Romney isn’t a red-meat far Right nut and people change their minds over years.  (Here is where moderates help Obama by hugging Romney publicly.)

President Obama is a real American and I think he is fully prepared to keep his 2008 promises to let someone else have it if he doesn’t turn the economy around.  I think he has us heading in the right direction but that is for all voters to decide.  If a GOPer is the next president, it should have been Jon Huntsman but Romney, when compare to their remaining field, is much better.

Romney’s ability to appeal to us in the political middle might pull Democrat policies in that direction.  As a twist, real hardcore conservatives might decide to bite the stick with more four years of Obama and get a real Santorum type in four years rather than tolerate nice guy Romney for eight years.

Because the issues on the table (jobs, taxes, gas prices, war) touch everyone, we must push for everyone to register and vote…always do the right thing.  I loved revisiting Ozzie Davis’s real eulogy of Malcolm X and when he said “he was our own Black shining prince” chills still shoot through me.  Theodore Roosevelt,  Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama were/are good guys and people shouldn’t stand idly by while they fight the good fight alone.  We must remember that we are standing on the shoulders of JFK, RFK, X and Mr. Davis.  If you don’t vote in November, you insult their memory and deserve whatever happens.

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The PBS documentary “Slavery By Another Name” will seen chills through in freedom-loving person.  While slavery in America technically ended shortly after the Civil War, southerners know bondage continued in one form or another until the 1960s. 

This documentary tells the story of Blacks and some Whites who were put in jail or prison for nonsensical reasons and later had their services sold to private parties by the local or state government.  As we have said over and over on this blog, you can’t really trust or depend on the government.

The financial chains of sharecropping didn’t end until the 1970s; it’s called the Dirty South for a reason.  During Black History Month, young people should watch these hard to view stories and learn that they have it so much better.  But as they say, you study history because it has a way of repeating itself.  Debt, addiction and blatant ignorance are the modern chains and these restrictions are often self-inflicted.  Some wondered if we run the risk of moving forward at a slower rate while I content that we actually could go backwards.  Freedom should be precious.     

Slavery By Another Name: Full program  http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758

 

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