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Friday, January 26, 2018

The strange case of the illegal slave ship, The Clothilda

https://blackamericaweb.com/2018/01/26/little-known-black-history-fact-the-clotilda/

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The mystery of the illegal slave ship The Clothilda just might be solved. This ship and its crew for hire defied slaving laws and smuggled slaves on  the regular when it had been strictly forbidden.

On its last known run in the mid to late 1800's, a run that had been privately financed by a planter in the Mobile Ala. region, it was destroyed to hide the fact that it had been to West Africa, had captured 110 people and had delivered them to the port city.

Lost for decades, it seems the wreckage has been found submerged in deep mud in a delta in Alabama. Read more about it at the link above.

One cannot hide what's done in the dark. It always comes to light.

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info courtesy of blackamericaweb.com

Monday, January 15, 2018

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - The holiday and its creeping Disney-fication



Today marks what would have been the 89th birthday of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. and @its 32st year being a federal holiday. Reagan signed it into law in 1983. The first observance was in 1986.

Here goes. What can I add to my annual post about Martin Luther King, Jr. that will be any different than previous posts?

Very little. My stance remains the same.

How this "holiday" is celebrated has rubbed me the wrong way for decades. From the mattress and furniture sales to the organized clean up of vacant lots. WTF? We, AADOS (African-American Descendants of Slaves), need to cut the BS and reframe the narrative before Dr. King's efforts  becomes a theme park ride somewhere. We need to put our eyes back on the "prize." We need to present a "cease and desist" order to the purveyors of the Disney-fication of his life and legacy.

I honor the poor, sacrificed soul that has been reduced to a safe, docile Bobblehead of a dreamer by non-Blacks who need feel-good moments in their lives, once a year,(i.e. "the "I Have a Dream" speech) to assure them that the USA isn't really as terrible as her history can confirm.

I honor the poor, sacrificed soul that many in the younger, "woke" generation of AADOS have called a "sellout." My take on that sentiment? Go do your research, READ some books, ask for documentation and put down the blunt. The man was FAR from a sellout. He was a compromiser who, unfortunately, realized too late that he'd been played by his gov't and probably by someone close to him in his circle..

That's the way COINTELPRO works.

He was human and on the SAME PAGE as Malcolm X in philosophy at the end of his life. He wanted no more compromises. No more manipulation. No more lies. Talk about a power couple! I ponder the progress that could have been made if these two could have lived and worked together. I wonder what they would have to say about the divisive buffoonery that erupts every day on YouTube and Twitter amongst "woke" Black people.

I say honor King NOT by cleaning up a vacant lot in the neighborhood. That's the city's job. I say ditch the "I Have a Dream" speech and take up his 1967 book "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" It's the words of a changed King. A RADICAL King. A King the gov't was afraid of.

How will you honor him today? Want suggestions? How about shutting out non-productive chatter? Those destructive channels on social media, like YouTube et al., that pass for intellect. How about shutting down ALL COLORS of people who do not have your best interests at heart as a AADOS?How about shutting out those who live for praise and "likes" and "thumbs up" and high view counts?
And last, but not least, how about shutting out, or down, the noise from myriad people telling you that FIFTY YEARS of Civil Rights is ENOUGH TIME time to correct the damage of THREE HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS previous years of America's boot heel on your neck? And that's a theme park ride for which I do not need a ticket. I got a lifetime, front-row-seat pass to that m-effer.

There. I feel better.




Sunday, January 7, 2018

I've been "bombcycloned' and didn't even get kissed




It's 6 friggin' degrees out this morning!

The weather here on the Eastern seaboard of the USA has been crazy. It's appropriate. This past week revealed that our President is. Oh, that bunch in the White House is gona get us all killed, or badly injured. So, pay your bills. Nothing like being current when the ax drops because what if by chance the annihilation gets called off?

It's 6 friggin' degrees this morning!

It's been colder than a witch's tit in a tin bra since since last Thursday. Why? Because this thing called a "Bombcyclone" rolled in, deposited a over a foot of snow in lots of places, and then left in its wake, unconscionable cold. The Polar Vortex. The "Bombcyclone." The first word sounds like a thing on a "Star Trek" episode. The second one sounds like a word cobbled together by a hipster while he/she drank his/her soy latte with a half-caf twist with hints of leather at the kitchen table he/she "bartered for" in their re-habbed, three-story, row home in the gentrified section of that previously poor, mostly non-White 'hood.

It's 6 friggin' degrees this morning!

Pardon my rancor. No, wait a minute. Don't. If I hurt your feelings...Good! Try being uncomfy. It's called life. No refunds. No reassurances. No sure things. It's a crapshoot. Life. There are no warnings to alert you that something might "trigger" you. No. Trigger? That's just what's gonna happen today. You cannot plan for it. You cannot brace yourself for it.

Yep. Life is a beautiful  bitch of a "bombcyclone" that sometimes feels like 6 friggin degrees. Just wish it had kissed me first.

Oops! But then I'd be breaking one of those "brace yourself" rules.

SIX FRIGGIN DEGREES!  .