generations---blog

#48 A Transitory Phase

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 04:44:21 +0100

I've decided take some time and step back from blogging. The reason for this decision quite frankly is to touch up on some of the previous blog entries. Also I am anxious to rewrite the face-page, which unfortunately, has been left in draft format for weeks. I will do my best to keep up with the other channels in the selection menu to the left, especially the News Channel. Thank you for your understanding and patience. & Season's Greetings.

#47 Look into Zeitgeist

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 13:25:17 +0100

I once read somewhere that the only constant in life is change. To embrace this truth with the greatest of expectations without any trepidation is a sign of great understanding. However, because so many of our ambitions are misguided by the dictates of Capitalism i.e. profit, the changes that are imminently necessary for our world can't take place. The reason is simple...

We are all, to one extent or another, imbued with greedy Western values, our spontaneous inclination to get as much wealth at the expense of each other and the planet that we may subsist can only yield certain disaster. The Zeitgeist Movement is a completely 180º about face in the right direction; despite it's imperfections, this Cause is the closest approximation to perfection as it embraces the most sensible solution for the human race. It aims to show us that an entirely new scheme for how societies should be built in the future is in fact possible; these new societies will be completely divorced from anything remotely resembling a financial system, as such systems inevitably breed all kinds of corruption. I'd like to encourage you to consider watching the actual Zeitgeist Documentary after this brief video.

#46 Don't Pull Back

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:34:32 +0100

This is a snippet of an email I sent to a female acquaintance and quite possibly a friend:

__________________________________

Initially, I found your openness to be a breath of fresh air; I was literally smiling after reading your first letter. I've often told my sister that the strength of a women isn't so much in how well she can prove her forcefulness, it's in how soft she can make her voice; just like a gentle tongue that turns away wrath (Prov. 15:1), or one that can break a bone (Prov. 25:15). "It's finesse, not force," I'd admonish.

Anyway...

So I was beside myself when you took it all back with the second letter. You were right there on the cusp of a miraculous breakthrough and then...you pulled back. Gooossh! It reminded me of a line in a Duran Duran song from the 90's:

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say, pride will tear us both apart.

It's a profound line, it's also true for black men and women. By the way, it's not weakness [for you] to admit tears – that actually takes quite a bit of strength. On the other hand, it's easier to simply give generic answers, so full of bravado and independence - you know, BUSINESS answers! I believe the corporateer in you was trying to reassert itself.

#45 O' Start a Revolution

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:00:32 +0100

O! start a revolution, somebody!
not to get the money
but to lose it all forever.

O! start a revolution, somebody!
not to install the working classes
but to abolish the working classes for over
and have a world of men.

by D.H. Lawrence

#44 On This Day of Days

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:22:37 +0100

I didn't do much on this uneventful day except read some of this book again and meditate peacefully. Sometimes, it's a much better idea to forgo the hollow fanfare of ceremony and tradition in order to take personal inventory. So, I am one year older today. Now what? Well, let's see... What can I share with you, the reader? I pondered a few questions privately ...who knows, maybe you'll want to do the same. Here they are:

Do I really see myself any differently than before?; Are my perspectives about life more profound?; Do I have a greater and more meaningful vision for myself and others?; Do my collective actions thus far approximate that vision or not?; If not, how do I get there from here?

#43 Blogging

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 04:16:56 +0100

In a brief conversation with a sistah, I found her childlike fascination with the idea of how quickly one might setup an online blog site amusing. More importantly, I got a chance to mention just how necessary it was for people to use this medium as a way to cultivate one's personal voice in a presently 'Free-Speech' society. My simple opinion was that the more you write the better you become @organizing your own thoughts... usually; besides, I tend to believe that all the constant drafting is good exercise for the brain. All in all, it was a modest conversation with a physically attractive woman who was, for the most part, fairly uninteresting otherwise.

#42 BE's strained optimism

Mon, 16 May 2011 23:39:22 +0100

Like all conduits of marketing that lead to well established venues of self-consuming capitalist ideology, Black Enterprise Magazine is a powerhouse in the black community probably because there is no viable wealth to speak of and hence, no competition; after all, who wants to expend energies for a majority share of an already rapidly depleted market, especially when that market is likely to come over to your side anyway of it's own volition? With it's near absolute control on commanding the entire focus of just about every black professional who desires to read more than tea leaves, I must admit, I have no love for them - a fact that is aggravated more so by their cowardice to challenge a system with a runaway Press than by anything else. BE balefully capitulates to it's own dismemberment by failing to provide the kind of financial reporting that could save it's own black readership. And because this is so, they are allowed to meander a while longer or at least until they are no longer needed to lull their hapless black patrons to sleep. They know this, but since their only interest is money, they don't care. A complete sham these guys are! The BE magazine is a poor facsimile of Business-Week, The Economist, Forbes, and every other financial publication in the white-owned media establishment but it is unfair for me to say such things, especially when I know that they are only following the dictates of Capitalism. Nevertheless, they are slaves with longer chains than the rest of us, who can easily be bought off to cajole us into moving here or there; into investing with this or that company, etc., etc.

In Their November 2010 Issue, Talking Points Section:

A list of the top 5 States for black businesses are given: (drum roll please) California, Texas, New York, Georgia, & Florida. First of all, I thought we were already heavily located in these areas. This looks like a very clever way to get these clowns over @B.E. to lead the teeming mass of blacks located throughout the U.S. back into already over-populated & balkanized areas to further disenfranchise the entire lot of them/us.

* From what I gather, California has all but been reclaimed by the "blood-thirsty" Mexicanos who are hellbent on reacquiring all it lost during those frontier years of white Manifest destiny. Of late, their vicious Chicano gangs lay waste to black gang bangers and black innocent bystanders alike, while the press is mum; Ultimately, they wish to force them out of communities in which they've always resided. Aside from this fact, which is under-reported if at all or mis-characterized as simply gang-related activity, it has a record of police brutality and blatantly overt racism toward blacks - but let's face it, what place doesn't!? Remember the Watts riots; what about the execution of Tookie Williams by the governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger); the list goes on. Lastly, of all the states that are likely to collapse FIRST, as a result of this new economic paradigm we are currently experiencing, various experts around the nation suggest that California will be the first to crack under the weight of it's own mismanagement. And BE is suggesting that business prospects here seem promising!? Do they want us to integrate into a burning house!?

* And Texas is no better. Personally, I would never choose to live in a state that has the highest incarceration rate of black men. Incidentally, it also has the highest number of executions of death row inmates as well. You wanna guess what percentage of them are black?

* I once read that virtually all businesses around the world have monies flowing through this place called New York; this is on account of the New York Stock Exchange & NASDAQ, to use a single term, Wall Street. It is practically the center of the universe as far as commerce is concerned and yet, black unemployment is commonly as high as 50% - a fact that is also under-reported. This, coupled with the Giuliani-years of breaking heads in black communities, shoving objects up their anuses while in police detention like the Abner Louima case back in 97' (click here), or shooting unarmed citizens are undeniable indicators that the NY is a very very hostile place for blacks. Today, New York is just short of a police state. Armed Guards patrol the streets and subway stations with bomb sniffing dogs and reserve the right to search whomever randomly and w/o cause or adequate justification. Sure 9/11 happened, but should we all now live like prisoners in our own country suspicious of one another?

* The state of Georgia has a history of some of the most horrendous acts of violence against blacks ever. Unmistakably, nestled in bible-belt as one of the most religious god-fearing states, it has unabashedly, shamelessly, and most vigorously fought to deny and keep blacks from exercising the full measure of their unalienable rights, which are guaranteed protection by the Constitution. It's right up there with Alabama. Even today, it follows this path with blinding tenacity ...albeit, more subtlety given today's coincidental runaway diplomacy brought swiftly back into by the implementation of the one of the oldest tactics: Divide & Conquer. So I'm sorry, but Georgia is not on my mind.

* My home state of Florida is perhaps the most difficult for me to comment on given the inevitability of harping upon topics that will only inspire the most vitriolic and unsavoury of responses. Nevertheless, it is with a heavy heart that I do so... (Conclusion is forthcoming)

#41 Disseminating the Facts

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:57:44 +0100

Nothing but experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think, as what they know; some men of confused memory and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on, without thought or care, a few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

- Samuel Johnson, as reported by James Boswell, Life of Johnson, 1778

Question:

Do you have the strength and wisdom to challenge the assumptions of your beliefs ...how about the beliefs of your assumptions?

#40 The Real Spirit of Education

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 07:35:32 +0100

Did you know that one's Degree doesn't necessarily connote a higher level of intelligence. I have known and still do know of individuals black & white, who sincerely believe that just because they have a degree they are somehow more intelligent or intellectual. Their unshakable faith in the current model of education has them believe that the collegiate institutions have inculcated them with precious knowledge; Yeah (sarcasm), it's more like the institutions have imbued them with a sense of greed. However, let us examine from where the true spirit of real education comes. I'd like to quote a few words from a book I am presently reading: (Humboldt)

"...all moral culture springs solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be stimulated in human nature, and never produced by external and artificial contrivances. The cultivation of the understanding, as of any man's other faculties, is generally achieved by his own activity, his own ingenuity, or his own methods of using the discoveries of others..." Education, then, must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way. Even a language cannot, strictly speaking be taught, but only "awakened in the mind: one can only provide the thread along which it will develop of itself." ...he would, I am sure, have approved of their (the radical Catholics of Latin America) criticism of schools that are: more preoccupied with the transmission of knowledge than with the creation, among other values, of a critical spirit. From the social point of view, the educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social and economic structures instead of transforming them.

So the real spirit of education (or curiosity) springs out from within the individual and is nurtured (or supposed to be) by it's surroundings. Many times for the middle class and poor, the environment is not fecund or fertile enough to allow their curious minds to grow. They are not exposed to much of anything. In the case of blacks, their collective interest is funneled into trivial pursuits like sports, rap music videos, and the like. So life imitates art and so many of them entertain fantasies of becoming the next Tyler Perry, or the next Micheal Jordan, or the next Beyoncé. It's a shame really

#39 Strong Black Woman

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:00:24 +0100

Black women are beautiful. I think us, black men, have taken you all for granted. More precisely, we've taken each other for granted. Of course, this isn't all by accident; that is to say, we are sorta pitted against each other - but I'll leave the theorizing for later.

Every now and then, it's a good idea to laugh @ourselves. There is some kernel of truth in the following clip, but I thought it was mostly hilarious. Maybe you will too.