This blog's mission is to improve Cultural Health, by raising Cultural Literacy and reducing Cultural Poisoning.
With respect to Cultural Literacy, I am focused on Classical African Civilization. With respect to Cultural Poisoning, I will help you understand how to Detect it, Correct it, and most importantly, how to prevent little children from catching it.
This site is for Americans in general and African Americans in particular. Video: Politics to Physical Health
The African American Mayor, the ultimate boss, in the town where the rogue cop arrested Dr. Gates says "race" has been a historic factor in police interaction with African Americans and Latino Americans. She wants to see officer Crowley and his boss.
Mayor E. Denise Simmons indicates that she is not happy regarding the safety of the citizens in her town. She has launched an investigation and wants to understand what happened, how it happened and how it can be prevented in the future. The Mayor wants to see Policeman James Crowley, his boss and his boss's boss.
Talk about out of the fire, into the frying pan. Imagine that you are a rogue anti-humanist cop that has been hiding in the police force. After verbally abusing , assaulting and unlawfully imprisoning a law abiding Harvard Professor. You find that this citizen is a personal friend of the first AA President, who is also a graduate of Harvard. It dawns on you that the POTUS is a lawyer and probably knows Cambridge law better then you.
Then you go to the prosecutor, who would historically defend rogue cops and he says (I imagine) you arrested who, for what? in his home. Get the ell out of here. You think I am going to burn down my career for your stupid a$$, drop the charges, get out of my office, what are you the Joe the Plumber of cops?
A shot has been fired over the heads of out of control bad cops. The question is, what will they, and we the citizens of this forward moving country learn from this incident?
Cultural Caveat: Dr. (Skip) Gates is also known in some quarters of the African American community as skip the truth Gates for his skipping Classical African Civilization, Kemet (Ancient Egypt) in his African TV tour/history documentary. Gates is married to a Non-AA and considers himself 57% white (according to his DNA).
Every American, especially African Americans, should know the July 5, 1852 Frederick Dougless speech, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro". From a Cultural Health perspective it is a basic American Cultural Literacy requirement. (Video)
...Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
I grew up in the Queens, of New York City that Eddie Murphy made famous. I could walk out my front door and see Manhattan. Today I have to drive somewhere to see the fireworks like I did yesterday with my youngest son and his girl friend. But back then everyone where I lived just came outside and looked up, over to the city, to see the 4th of July fire works.
Fire works are pretty, romantic and fun for many. What is not to like about America's birth day? As I grew in Cultural Literacy, I finally heard the famous word's of Mr. Dougless and for the first time I said to myself. Self, the 4th of July was not "Independence" Day for all Americans. This was a shock to my system, as this reality for AA was not thought in school. Like most African Americans, I learned over the years to roll with the cultural punches on the Red, White and barbecue day.
After watching the Williams Wimbledon final and playing some tennis on the local courts (with a guy who brought his own personal portable, on wheels, automatic tennis ball machine to practice with) I went to the traditional family barbecue. We talked about current events, New American Health Care, Micheal Jackson, and what do you mean Palin quit?
Yes, the 4th of 2009 is different from the 4th of 1852. An AA President and a guy with his own personal tennis robot underline that reality. I think AA's are prouder of the Nation on this 4th, more so then any in my memory. However, we must not forget the reality and contributions of our ancestors and the Cultural Health work that remains.
You will note I have made a Cultural Health correction to the title of the Speech. Here is a link to the full text of the speech. It is interesting to hear, but more powerful to read personally.
Here is the most famous passage of the 1852 speech and maybe the most famous of all of our ancestor Douglass' speeches.
...What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour...
Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in
Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial
results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single
vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.
I seeded an article (from NYT) on newsvine it made the front page as a top seed and is on the the front page of MSNBC, community section. Help us keep this story on Blast in the blogOsphere. Keep the light on Zero votes in Harlem.
Remember the caging of more then a million African Americans and Latino Americans in the 2000 election by Bush and the forty thieves. There are anti-humanists in both parties don't think your vote is safe just because you are a Democrat.
Some have called the American two party system - two wings on the same bird. Others say that the Republicans rob the bank and the Democrats drive the getaway car.
I grew up in the Jams Brown era and my favorite songs are - Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud and I Feel Good. My favorite part of the second song goes something like this (loud shocking voice) “Ahhhhhhhh! I feel good”. From time to time I have been responsible for people and significant numbers of computers. I have been known to have this few second feel good audio clip, added to the start up file of the Personal Computers. So, literally, as the PC is turned on in the morning, the user is greeted with – I FEEL GOOD! –. I believe JB the humanist, would have approved of making computers feel good too.
That is what James Brown did, make people feel good with his powerful musical energy. He put the UNK in funk!
Al Sharpton said. "What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music.
December 25 Christmas morning, I was shocked like everyone else who heard the news of brother Brown’s transitioning. I passed the word to my family at home as I saw them in the morning and JB was remembered around the Christmas dinner table. My brother in-law Professor Vega was their expanding my Cultural Literacy as usual, making sure I understood the larger context of I’m Black and I’m Proud. He said, Black and Proud came out when the Civil Rights Legislation was coming into existence, which, lead to African Americans going to collages in greater numbers. This was the dawn of the Black studies programs and a new consciousness in our people. His words took me back to Dr. King and Malcolm and all that was going on back then.
IMHO JB was the musical artist with the greatest Cultural Health impact in the history of America. In 1968 he released the national hit I’m Black and I’m Proud. What a cultural milestone, before his song, African Americans were Colored or Negroes, after his song we were Black and proud.
To understand the important of that one song, you have to understand that the concept of Blackness had been beaten out of Black people here in America for more then four hundred years. You remember the TV movie Roots, (that we can no longer see on TV) where the European enslaver beat an enslaved African near to death, to make him give up is African name and take on a European name. Cultural terrorists systematically and effectively deleted African names and the very concept of ancestral pride in Blackness. The Cultural Poisoning Program “Negro” replaced the great history, worldview and pride of the people formally known as Black People.
The legacy of our ancestors who first brought the word Black into recorded history during Classical African Civilization had been erased from the minds of Africans in America. In fact, for one Black person to call another Black was occasion for a fight. In the sixties you could still here the symptoms of Cultural Poisoning from Great American leaders like Dr. King. It was common to here him refer to himself and his people as Negroes.
The Image Poisoning in Black people was so great, it was said, that all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put it back together again. And here comes James Brown, with one song he deleted the Culturally Poisoned “Negro” Program from the minds of men, and restored the more culturally healthy Black program. What is truly remarkable is that he did this not just for his own people but also for all Americans and the world. This was a cultural feat unmatched in the history of music by any musical artist.
Yes, we now mark the transition of our honorable ancestor, who was given the name Brown, but died Black and proud. Thank you my brother.
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