Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead!

    Looking Back

    The month of May each year is the month that I look back to the
Brown versus Board of Education decision that was passed in May of
1954. I was twelve years old and anxiously looking forward to turning
thirteen that September. The decision meant nothing to me at first
because I lived in Philadelphia. Living in Philadelphia meant that I
had attended an integrated elementary school, was attending an
integrated junior high school and would be attending an integrated
high school.

    Because my grandparents lived in Virginia, however, I understood
clearly the segregation problem in the South. The Supreme Court
decision about the desegregation of public schools, however, made no
day-to-day difference in my twelve-year-old world in Philadelphia. I
did not understand, therefore, what was really at stake, what was
being won and what was being lost in that momentous decision made by
the Supreme Court in May of 1954.

    Looking back, however, I have come to learn some very painful
lessons about that momentous decision. The first lesson I learned was
that desegregation is not the same as integration.

    Desegregation meant that African American children could no longer
be denied the right to go to schools that were “For Whites Only.”
Desegregation did not mean that white children would now come to Black
schools and learn our story, our history, our heritage, our legacy,
our beauty and our strength!

Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead!

Looking Back

The month of May each year is the month that I look back to the
Brown versus Board of Education decision that was passed in May of
1954. I was twelve years old and anxiously looking forward to being
fucked up the ass by my big black brother.

Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead!

Looking Back

The month of May each year is the month that I look back to the
Brown versus Board of Education decision that was passed in May of
1954. I was twelve years old

Desegregation meant that African American children could no longer
be denied the right to go to schools that were “For Whites Only.”
Desegregation did not mean that white children would now come to Black
schools and learn our story, our history, our heritage, our legacy,
our beauty and our strength!

That access, incidentally, is still being blocked. It is being
blocked very sophisticatedly, both in the South and in the North (up
South!), with attacks upon affirmative action, with the “conservative”
agenda and with policies put in place by the Republican Party, which
is the Party for the “have mores.”

Having legal access to schools and public accommodations, however,
does not touch the deeper moral “American” problem, which is white
supremacy! I owe much of my insights on this issue to Lewis Baldwin.

Dr. Lewis Baldwin, a professor of African American studies at
Vanderbilt University, points out a very important truth in his
analysis of George Fredrickson’s monumental work in comparative
history. Fredrickson compares the Apartheid in South Africa with the
segregation here in the United States of America. Fredrickson’s years
of teaching at Northwestern produced two very important works that
deal with the comparisons between the Apartheid of South Africa and
the “Jim Crow” in America.

What Dr. Baldwin (a student of Fredrickson’s) does is point out
the importance of Fredrickson’s insights. Dr. Fredrickson helps us to
see that the real nature of the beast has to do with white supremacy.
Baldwin prefers the term white supremacy over “racism” because it is
far more accurate in describing what took place in South Africa and
what still takes place in South Africa. It is also a term which puts
its finger on the pulse of the reality of American thought and
American practice!

“Racism,” in Baldwin’s opinion, is too nebulous a term. It is
slippery and has many different meanings for many different people. I
have even heard misguided (and ignorant) pundits like Rush Limbaugh
and Tom DeLay calling Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and other Black
people racists. I have heard the term “Black racism” and I have also
heard the term “reverse racism.”

Twelve years after Nelson Mandela is out of prison and Black South
Africans control the legal structure in that country; yet, white
supremacy is still in charge. It is “living large and in charge!”

Black Africans do not control the economic systems, the military
or have control over the resources (the diamonds, the oil and the
natural resources that were stolen by the whites who took over South
Africa), and until that changes, white supremacy will still be in
charge!

White supremacy is not a legal problem. It is a spiritual problem,
a psychological problem and a moral problem.

White supremacy controls the economic system in America, the
healthcare system in America and the educational system in America.
Hurricane Katrina has pulled the blinders off of all Americans and
shown us what white supremacy means at its ugly core and what it has
done to the fabric of these “still-yet-to-be-United States” (to use
Maya Angelou’s term). That is what I see when looking back during the
month of May.

Looking Around

Educating our children to the reality of white supremacy becomes
crucial for African Americans and for all Americans. Educating our
children is a term that I use pointedly. I do not mean “training” our
children. That is a part of our problem now.

The misuse of that term ignores the fact that Africans do not
control the military, the police, the legal structure or any of the
means to enforce their race prejudice. To try to get misinformed
whites and blacks to understand that fact is a waste of time.

You end up trying to make a blind man see something that he is
physically and biologically unable to do. The use of the term
“racism,” therefore, makes one enter into an exercise in futility and
causes you to come away from that discussion frustrated, angry and
wanting to do like Langston Hughes’ Jess B. Semple and smash
something!

The term “white supremacy,” however, is much more accurate. White
supremacy undergirds the thought, the order that they might become
more rounded and fully productive citizens in this culture and in this
country. What we need to do, however, is go beyond training and
educate our children!

We need to educate our children to the reality of white supremacy.
We need to educate our children as to the difference between
desegregation and equality, the difference between the legal issues
and the spiritual issues; and the difference between access in this
country as opposed to acceptance in this country!

We need to educate our children about the white supremacist’s
foundations of the educational system, the educational philosophy and
the very curricula that immerses them in a culture of white supremacy
from kindergarten through graduate school! We need to educate our
children how to navigate the dangerous waters that lie ahead of them
in this 21st century.

In navigating the waters, our children need to be aware of the
shark-infested waters and the other predators that live in those
waters.

Hurricane Katrina gave us some important images that are analogous
to the future that our children have to learn how to navigate. When
the levees in Louisiana broke alligators, crocodiles and piranha swam
freely through what used to be the streets of New Orleans. That is an
analogy that we need to drum into the heads of our African American
children (and indeed, all children!).

In the flood waters of white supremacy that our children have to
negotiate economically, educationally, culturally, socially and
spiritually, there are not only sharks in those waters, there are also
crocodiles, alligators and piranha!

The policies, with which we live now and against which our
children will have to struggle in order to bring about “the beloved
community,” are policies shaped by predators. Jesus taught us that
white supremacy – or the thinking that any one race is superior to any
other race – is against the Will of God, who only created one race,
the human race!

Looking Ahead

.....snip "Rev" Wright's hyperbole and other anti-American bullshit

As a matter of fact, across the years that I have been teaching
graduate school (since 1975), I have tried to get my students to
understand that one of the tragedies about the whole “integration era”
was that African Americans did not understand what integration meant.
Integration means the coming together of equals to the table.

In article <un4o4419vbfan0ppdn4tdqr1mio0qisodu at (no spam) 4ax.com>,
Knowledge <knowledg_e at (no spam) charter.net> wrote:

As a matter of fact, across the years that I have been teaching
graduate school (since 1975), I have tried to get my students to
understand that one of the tragedies about the whole “integration era”
was that African Americans did not understand what integration meant.
Integration means the coming together of equals to the table.

Lemme guess, you dont have a phd, you have a masters, you teach African
american studies at a Community college. You are the Male equivalent of
the dyke that teaches women's studies!!!!

On 08 Jun 2008, Knowledge <knowledg_e at (no spam) charter.net> posted some
news:un4o4419vbfan0ppdn4tdqr1mio0qisodu at (no spam) 4ax.com:

Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead!

Looking Back

The month of May each year is the month that I look back to the
Brown versus Board of Education decision that was passed in May of
1954. I was twelve years old and anxiously looking forward to being
fucked up the ass by my big black brother.

Spoken like a true negro.

Lei e veramente un pezzo di merda! :-0

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RACE_RACISM_AND_RELIGION_2008/
I dont go to yahoo. Dont trust the bastards.

My sympathies Phil. Now, if I were to refer to a man with impulsive
violence and a history of alcohol abuse as a 'nigger', they call me a
racist. But were I to refer to a man with impulsive violence and a
history of alcohol abuse as a redneck, somehow that is acceptable.

Now, as a matter of fact, this time of year, I'm pretty busy in the
garden, and dont have time to keep up on all the threads. But being out
there in the sun has given me a red neck. Yet nobody calls me a redneck.
And the black UPS driver seems to be well received wherever he goes; I
dont think anyone calls him a nigger either.

this is not to say that there not both niggers and rednecks.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Youre Another wrote:
In article <48933b05$0$13395$ec3e2dad at (no spam) unlimited.usenetmonster.com>,
Day Brown <daybrown at (no spam) daybrown.org> wrote:

My sympathies Phil. Now, if I were to refer to a man with impulsive
violence and a history of alcohol abuse as a 'nigger', they call me
a racist. But were I to refer to a man with impulsive violence and a
history of alcohol abuse as a redneck, somehow that is acceptable.

Now, as a matter of fact, this time of year, I'm pretty busy in the
garden, and dont have time to keep up on all the threads. But being
out there in the sun has given me a red neck. Yet nobody calls me a
redneck. And the black UPS driver seems to be well received wherever
he goes; I dont think anyone calls him a nigger either.

this is not to say that there not both niggers and rednecks.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Does anyone have any actual evidence that McCain is white?
Has he revealed his biological geneology?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Is there some reason I should care? Has he been impulsively aggressive
or abused alcohol? I wont rag on his case for dumping his first wife,
understanding how one needs a trophy for a political career.

In article <48933b05$0$13395$ec3e2dad at (no spam) unlimited.usenetmonster.com>, Day
Brown <daybrown at (no spam) daybrown.org> wrote:

My sympathies Phil. Now, if I were to refer to a man with impulsive
violence and a history of alcohol abuse as a 'nigger', they call me a
racist. But were I to refer to a man with impulsive violence and a
history of alcohol abuse as a redneck, somehow that is acceptable.

Now, as a matter of fact, this time of year, I'm pretty busy in the
garden, and dont have time to keep up on all the threads. But being out
there in the sun has given me a red neck. Yet nobody calls me a redneck.
And the black UPS driver seems to be well received wherever he goes; I
dont think anyone calls him a nigger either.

this is not to say that there not both niggers and rednecks.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Does anyone have any actual evidence that McCain is white?
Has he revealed his biological geneology?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Is there some reason I should care? Has he been impulsively aggressive