Reading is Fundamental

I was doing so well in getting all my books in order. I gave away a few. Re-arranged my bookshelf. I told everybody who had borrowed books from me over a year ago that they could consider them theirs.

And then I heard Dr. Dennis Kimbro in a radio interview and what he said was so powerful that I bought several copies of his books. The idea is to share, of course.

I may be going backwards. I now have at least fifteen books in my possession that I have yet to read.

I also need to find time to write books that I have outlines for in my head.

Remembering My Daddy

For the last four or five years I have thought about writing something about my Daddy on the day that is commonly called Father's Day. This is apparently the year, but the few words that I type will not come close to describing my father. But I will try.

My father was a self made man in the truest sense of the word. He grew up in one of the most racist counties in Texas. He became ill at 11 years old and missed a whole year of school. When it was time for him to go back to school, he told my grandmother he was not going to school. She said that he would either 1)go to school or 2)get a job. He got a job at 12 years old and worked continuously until he reached retirement age. At sixteen years old he headed out with my grandfather to a city which offered better opportunities. They immediately found work, and slept on someone's porch for awhile until they could save enough money to bring the rest of the family down. The rest consisted of my grandmother, 3 of my aunts, and two of my uncles.

When he was of age he was drafted by the Army into the Korean War. Not only did he get sick overseas, but he found out AFTER his discharge (everybody thought it best not to tell him when he was overseas) that one of his best friends was murdered by racists in my hometown because he was on the wrong side of town after hours. And he was only on that side of town because he was a cook at a cafe and was asked to work late. My Daddy was very bitter about this and spoke of it often.

My father was a man who gave it to you straight-no chaser. He did not take any mess. And He loved to dress. What's that phrase-cleaner than the board of health? That was my father. He spent more time getting ready to go ANYWHERE than almost anyone I have ever known.

He was an honest man, and as a result he always had keys to almost all his worksites. He once worked at a laundry and happened to be the only man. I called it his harem. I would often go to visit him after school and I could tell that he was really running the place. And even I could tell that there was some flirting going on. For all the years that he worked there all of my clothes were dry cleaned and starched. Even my blue jeans. They might have been old, but they were always clean and starched.

My Daddy loved to work with kids. He had softball and basketball teams that consisted of those boys who could not for whatever reason make the school teams. It was an ideal match, because they were a little rough around the edges as was my father. My father only had two girls and of course he wanted sons. I'm sure that these boys were the sons that he never had. Actually I know they were, because they were always at our house. And they called him what my sister and I called him-Dadee.

I might as well admit that because my father wanted a son, he allowed me to do lots of things he would have taught a son to do. He let me get away with a lot. Nothing illegal or immoral, of course. I dated some bad boys and dared them to cross the line because if they did "I would tell my Daddy." I learned how to drive at 14, and at 16 when I got my license he bought me a car. He had a cousin who could fix any car (this was before cars had computers) so he always bought used cars and fixed them up. When he asked me what color I wanted, I said pink and white. And I got it. It was only when I was in college that I realized he had outsmarted me. How? There was nowhere I could go in our small town where that pink and white car would not be recognized. It was the old school version of a GPS.

Even though my father did not finish junior high school, he was a very smart man. Almost all of my aunts and uncles were college educated and were in fact teachers, and many people probably thought my father was also. He never lied about it, but he just carried himself regally. When my sister and I both were away at college, the mayor of our city appointed him as a Recreation Center Supervisor. He was responsible for a brand new 20 acre, half million dollar facility. He had the power to hire and fire, and the facility was geared towards the young men and women he was previously working with for free. Unfortunately, with this new responsibilty came more paperwork, and from what I found out later he could not keep up with the paperwork. That would have been something my sis and I ordinarly would have assisted him with. It lasted for a few years and then I guess he was "demoted". He still got to work with the kids, but he was no longer the Center Supervisor.

As with a lot of African American men who had seen some of the horrors of the segregated south, my Daddy had some demons. When he was able to retire at 65, he did. He stopped working with kids (because they had become more problematic and disrespectful) and drank more and more. He became reclusive.

He died 18 years ago at age 69 and had all of his teeth, and not one strand of gray hair. He lived a full and mostly happy life. I completely lost it at his funeral and only was present for the very beginning scriptures. I had to be carried out and could never calm down enough to go back in.

Happy Father's Day, Dadee. Rest in Peace and power.

BROWN V BOARD OF EDUCATION - 60 YEARS LATER

The more things change the more they remain the same.

Sixty years ago on this day a United States Supreme Court case [Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954)]that was-and is-considered a landmark case was decided in favor of not only the six children pictured on the left but all other children in their legally defined class. This decision was an attempt to offer parity in terms of education to all little American children regardless of race, creed or color. There are many misconceptions about this case. The first fallacy is that the little children pictured reaped the fruit of their parents tenacity while they where still small children. To the contrary, Linda Brown (who is the most recognizable of the children, since her father was the lead plaintiff)was 9 years old when her parents first filed their case in State court in 1951-and lost. She was 13 years old-a teenager- by the time the Supreme Court case was finally decided in Brown II in 1955.

I am sure all the children and parents had seen a lot of ugly things in those ensuing years.

Some parents lost their jobs, some houses were burned, at least one church was burned, citizens of their towns considered them troublemakers. As a matter of fact, even one judge in South Carolina who argued against segregation was forced from the bench and after receiving death threats fled to the North even before the Supreme Court decision was handed down. At least one of the parents was also forced to leave his home.

Segregation, after all, was the law of the land. [Read PLESSY V FERGUSON 163 US 537 (1896)] Black children who attended substandard and underfunded schools in the 1950's was an acceptable form of business as usual in the United States. Another fallacy, then, was that the cases all originated in Kansas. In point of fact they represented at least 5 different parts of the country. Parents filed lawsuits in State courts in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The cases were purposely combined by the Supreme Court so that whatever the subsequent decision, it would not be seen as a Southern issue. The last fallacy is the importance of the NAACP. Many attempt to minimize this importance, but those who know American history know that the NAACP in many important arenas made the country better. The NAACP was a truthteller, and sometimes the truth is not what people want to hear. With very few resources but with great and passionate lawyers, the NAACP successfully argued the case before the Supreme Court and won with a unanimous decision. The opinion was pretty straightforward in it's distaste for segregated schools. It said that education is “the very foundation of good citizenship. To separate from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” These words are a predictor of what followed in the subsequent years.

Many legal machinations were employed as a result of the 1955 Supreme Court case labeled Brown II that was supposed to give directions for implementing the 1954 case. Brown II used the phrase "all deliberate speed". The result was that many states gave no serious thought to integrating schools for 10 years or more. School segregation looked the same during this 10 year period: Underfunded, overcrowded, dilapidated infrastructure, were the status quo.

My own experience with Brown v Board was that I was in diapers when Linda Brown, et al originally filed their State lawsuit. I was in kindergarten when Brown v Board of Education decision came down. I was a freshman in junior high before I attended my first non-segregated school. In my town they integrated the older kids first. Seniors, then juniors, then sophomores, then freshmen. As much as I have always loved school, those were the worst 4 years of my educational life. We Black students could all see it was designed to be unpleasant. The school itself was huge compared to our little neighborhood school which housed all 12 grades. Despite those of us who were A and B students, Black students were usually assigned to the low achieving classes where students were tracked for non-college courses. Because I had many family members who taught at the segregated Black school in town, that tracking system was changed pretty quickly for me. We were never assigned to classes with any other Back students. We were never called on in class-even when we raised our hands. I remember writing a pretty good paper in high school, and I could see that my English teacher was impressed. He waited until class was almost over before handing me my paper and whispered to me that I wrote an outstanding paper. He also said if I was thinking about going to college I should major in journalism. Our principal (who I assume had a college degree from somewhere)would never say "Negro" - which was the word we preferred back then. It was always "nigra". And he always said it with a sinister smile. I have degrees from two HBCU's and have never felt the need to keep in touch with any of the white students who attended high school with me. I also have never felt any desire to attend class reunions.


60 years later, schools are re-segregating. Zero tolerance rules in schools result in many questionable expulsion of Black and brown children. Black and brown children are at risk for the school to prison pipeline. A report came out on the day of the 60th anniversary that "inner city youth" are at risk for something called "hood disease", which seems to be a form of PTSD for inner city children. The CDC says that maybe 30% of inner city youth are affected by this "disease" and not only does it make it difficult to learn, but it's like growing up in a war zone. The economic downturn resulted in many homeless families, and this includes children. A surprisingly large percentage of children who go to school now are homeless. Many neighborhood schools are in poverty just as much as the residents of the community. As a result they are lacking in resources to offer students a pleasant school experience. Basic courses are the rule-elective courses are the exception.

And then we have the the police commissioner in a small New Hampshire town who publicly called President Obama "that f--king n--ger". He admitted it, would not apologize, and said he would NOT resign. This would be distrubing at any time, but it is especially disturbing during a time when Black men and women are profiled and killed for perceived perceptions about who they are and what they are doing. By the POLICE.

While Brown was an important first step, it was only a step. Sadly, the country did not take the MOST important step in acknowledging the true meaning of segregation. That step involved telling the raw and real truth about America's relationship with it's Black citizens. Segregation-for Blacks in particular-was an answer to the Amendments passed after the South lost to the North. It is an answer to the period of Reconstruction immediately after that war. It is a statement by former slave owners that the slave will never have equal rights with the slave owners. Segregation is a statement of one's superiority that is not supported by facts either scientifically, morally, or spiritually. Brown, then, was never going to fully be succeessful as long as the systemic structures that undergirded segregation was still in place.

I often quote a proverb that has African roots:

Until the lion has his/her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story.

More of us need to tell our stories. And it will not always be politically correct. Or male centered.

WHERE WE STAND: 72 YEARS POST-SLAVERY

I saw the last 30 minutes or so of an interesting documentary on WUGA-TV that was a summarization of Douglas A. Blackmon’s book Slavery by Another Name. (1) Since I first heard about Mr. Blackmon’s book I have always been impressed by his thoughtful and meticulous research. He documents an ugly part of American history which tells the story of Americans [mostly “free” Blacks] who were-in the early years of the 20th century-victims of involuntary servitude, exploitative labor arrangements, and peonage. They were picked up on minor charges and their labor was then sold to corporations, steel plants, and coal mines. Loitering was a common means for Black men (and others) to be imprisoned. By 1908 ‘convicts’ were not only rented to private industries and private farmers, but States began to use prisoners in their own endeavors. This was the beginning of chain gangs. This forced labor could be for any offense from sharecropping debt to general debt peonage.


Public schools in America are notorious for teaching HIStory, and not OUR story. For instance, there is no school system in America that teaches the real story of slavery in America. It was ruthless, heartless, demeaning, physically and mentally abusive, and calculatingly horrible in a Marquis de Sade kind of way. Slaves who arrived in America were immediately separated from their brothers and sisters who spoke the same dialect. Slaves were not taught the language of their slave owners and subsequently just picked up the language. Slaves were considered property-thus the three fifths rule. White plantation owners raped slave women repeatedly, fathered their children, and then raped their own daughters-and sons. While most slaves were forbidden to marry, those Black men and women still considered themselves family and struggled to stay together. They were often sold to different plantations-many times deliberately and diabolically so. Slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write, and the penalties for clandestinely doing so were either to be blinded or sold to another plantation - or death. The horrors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe are more honestly taught than the horrors of American slavery.

What is commonly taught in American schools is that the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Blackmon does a very good job of documenting why this is not true. Post-1863/1865 slave owners found another way to obtain free labor to do the same tasks that slaves had done. The prison system was an ideal way to acquire free labor, and the combination of the 13th Amendment and the Black Codes which were enacted in many Southern states provided the mechanism.

Because many, many black men and women began to just disappear in the South at this time and ended up on chain gangs, it should be no surprise that this period was also the beginning of the mass migration of Black people from the South to the North. Living in the South was not safe for any Black man or woman, and those Blacks who remained in the South were courageous. The North was a temporary refuge, because over time it has been shown that it had it’s own landmines of danger for Blacks. Racism, hatred, and prejudice have no borders.

Two cases mentioned in the TV documentary and Douglas Blackmon’s book stand out for me-perhaps because I have some familiarity with the two states involved. The first is a 1921 case where a plantation owner/landowner in Jasper County Georgia and his Black farm boss were charged with murder in the death of a Black man who was forced by the owner to work against his will. There was also much evidence that at least 10 more Black men had been killed in the most gruesome ways possible by these same two men. Both were found guilty of murder and were given a life sentence by the jury. (The jury, by the way, asked for mercy for the plantation owner/landowner-after finding him guilty). Both the farm boss and the plantation owner/landowner died within ten years of their sentence. This case was important because the plantation owner/landowner was the first Southern white man since 1877 to be indicted for first degree murder of a Black man. It would not happen again until 1966. (2) (3)


On December 12, 1941 (almost eighty years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment),President Roosevelt, through his Attorney General, issued Circular No. 3591, which stated that the United States of America would aggressively prosecute any case of involuntary servitude or slavery. Within months of Circular 3591 a Texas man and his daughter were convicted of holding (and working) a man against his will for years. The father was sentenced to 4 years and his daughter was sentenced to 2 years by a Federal jury. They both served their time in Federal prison. Douglas Blackmon says-and I agree- that only then did slavery end. (4)


This blog entry is therefore a good news/bad news story. The good news is that men and women such as Douglas Blackmon continue to lift the shroud of secrecy off a very ugly chapter in American HIStory. The bad news is that even after the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, and Circular 3591,on February 26,2012 a 17 year old Back teen [who did not have any arrests for any criminal activity] named Trayvon Martin was in a place he had every right to be and had money in his pocket. He went on a 7-11 run for snacks, and was killed by a 28 year old man named George Zimmerman [with a documented record of a violent past]. The reason: Trayvon Martin “looked suspicious and was up to no good.”

The more things change the more they remain the same.



NOTES:


(1) http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/

(2) http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60E1EFA3B5B1B7A93C5A9178FD85F458285F9

(3) http://law.jrank.org/pages/2820/John-S-Williams-Clyde-Manning-Trials-1921.html

(4) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120674498432473091.html



Revised 2.03.2013

2012 - GUNS, HATE, FEAR, HOODIES AND LOUD MUSIC

On December 21, 2012, Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President and CEO of the NRA, made his first public statement about gun violence in our schools since 20 children and 6 school personnel were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Not surprisingly, his solution calls for MORE guns, albeit by the GOOD guys. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said. He proposes that “qualified armed security” be placed in all our schools. This notion scares me, as I assume this armed security force will no doubt make the same mistakes as police officers, private security, and private citizens make who kill innocent people every week because they ‘thought’ someone had a gun or they ‘thought’ that someone was aggressively moving towards them. And how safe will our children be if there is a shootout in our schools between “the bad guy” and “the good guy”? Unfortunately, when bullets start flying they are not going to discriminate between the bad guy and innocent children, teachers, and parents who might be in the room. I am also worried because the security that is in many schools NOW are handcuffing and otherwise traumatizing children that are the same age as the 20 children murdered in Newtown, Connecticut.

Where will this “armed security” end? After all, we have had shootings in shopping malls, theaters, restaurants, churches, fast food establishments, office buildings, and gas stations, just to name a few locations. Is the solution to place armed security everywhere? Who determines who (other than police) is qualified to protect the citizenry with weapons? If someone qualifies with his/her weapon but belongs to one of the over 1, 018 hate groups as documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center would that disqualify him/her from being suitable for “qualified armed security” in our schools-or anywhere else? What will the criteria be for using the weapon? Will there be universal training? What are the penalties when an innocent person is killed?


The text of the Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It was adopted 221 years ago, at a time when the United States was very wary of a standing army, but recognized the need for some sort of militia. The militia in 1791 was small and was expected to prevent a takeover by a standing army, so the people’s right to bear arms was a defense against both. I understand the relevance of this for 1791, but because we have a mammoth Military Industrial Complex in the 21st century, it doesn’t matter how many guns private citizens have, we would not win a fight with any standing army-especially our own. But I honor the Bill of Rights-including the Second Amendment-with the same reservation that I honor Section 1 of the Thirteenth Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” While the Thirteenth Amendment ON PAPER ended slavery, the Black Codes that were almost immediately established in each and every State guaranteed that every newly freed slave could easily be convicted of something somewhere on any given day.


But I don’t want to digress, because gun control is the topic right now. To quote Dr. Phil McGraw, “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.“ As 2012 draws to a close, I find myself doing what I always do about this time every year: I critique what has happened in America over the past year. I try to look at events both separately AND in their totality, but a pattern always seems to develop. The re-election of President Barack H. Obama was certainly a highlight-if only because a majority of Americans decided to ignore the lies and negativity and instead sent a message to the 1% who took advantage of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that FORWARD-and not backwards- is the direction America should go.


On a more troubling note, however, many extrajudicial killings occurred in 2012. These are those summary executions where a person is accused of a crime and is immediately killed by either police, private security personnel, or private citizens who act as judge, jury, and executioner. Common in other parts of the world, it is frightening to see these killings occurring more and more in the land of the free and home of the brave. The war on drugs and gangs has all too often become a war on young black men and women. This is not to dismiss black on black murders, for they certainly occur also. It is problematic when those who are paid to protect law abiding citizens carry out their own version of street justice. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Malcolm X Solidarity Committee released a report mid-2012 entitled “Every 36 Hours: Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of 120 Black people” that alleges that police, security guards, or neighborhood watchmen kill a black man, woman, or child every 36 hours. MXGM call them “extrajudicial” because they happen without trial or any due process. These killings in 2012 include, for instance:


An unarmed 18 year old teen who was murdered after running into his house and being followed inside by a member of the Narcotics Task Force. Police falsely claimed that this teen was running away from them.


The murder of a 17 year old teen by a 28 year old neighborhood watch person as the teen was walking through a neighborhood he had every right to be in after buying skittles and iced tea at a nearby 7-11. The neighborhood watch person followed him and eventually shot and killed him because he thought the teen looked “suspicious.”


An unarmed 20 year old who fled from police who were investigating a party because alcohol was purportedly being served to underage party goers. This 20 year old hid on a neighbor’s back porch. The neighbor shot him in the chest and killed him. No charges filed, as the D.A. said the neighbor had the right to “defend his home”.


An unarmed 45 year old man who was involved in a car accident got into it with the State Trooper who arrived to investigate. The Trooper said the 45 year old attacked him with his dogs. The Trooper shot the man 3 times, killing him. The Trooper did not shoot the dogs.


A 24 year old unarmed man asked for a refund/or lower price on condoms at a store. The clerk refused, the 24 year old knocked over some merchandise, and the clerk shot and killed him. The clerk was charged with first degree murder.


After some sort of altercation, an 18 year old was running from the scene. A police captain chased him and shot him in the back. Witnesses say the 18 year old was surrendering when he was shot. The police captain was charged with manslaughter.


A 30 year old woman who had a diagnosed mental illness was beaten, held face down on her bed, and suffocated by police-who were initially called to the home where she lived by her concerned family members.


An 18 year old was having a heated conversation in front of his parent’s home while trying to protect his sister. He was killed by two security guards who pretended to be police officers. These guards left the apartment where they were being paid to patrol and unasked, went onto the 18 year old’s parent’s private property. They were arrested for impersonating police officers but were not charged with murder.


A 19 year old was killed by police based on the untruthful statement of a so-called victim who stated the 19 year old had stolen a laptop at gunpoint. There was definitely no gun and most likely no theft. The accuser was charged with manslaughter because “his false statement” led to the teen’s killing.


An 18 year old naked teen was shot and killed by police because he was acting bizarrely and they ‘thought’ he had a knife. Again - he was NAKED.


A 22 year old unarmed young woman was an innocent bystander and was shot in the head and killed by off duty police officer who angrily drove up to a group of people in an unmarked police vehicle.


A 27 year old unarmed man was “stealing” cobblestones from a public housing complex construction site. He saw a police officer and ran from the officer towards his mother’s building. Two officers chased him down and another veered onto the sidewalk and hit him. After six days in a coma,and handcuffed to a hospital bed, he died.


A 23 year old unarmed man was killed by a security officer who was working at a club and claimed the 23 year old tried to force his way in and reached for a gun. No gun was found. The security guard was charged with voluntary manslaughter.


An unarmed 27 year old man was shot and killed by a hotel security guard because the 27 year old and an unidentified woman were arguing with the guard. The security guard was charged with murder.


An unarmed 13 year old was shot and killed by a 75 year old man who accused the teen of stealing his guns. The teen was shot while denying the theft (he was in fact in school at the time of the theft) and with his hands in the air. The 75 year old was charged with first degree murder.


A strip club security guard shot and killed an unarmed 28 year old who was “rolling joints” in the parking lot. The 28 year old was shot 11 times and his friend was shot 4 times. The security guard said he “feared for his life.” He was charged with second degree murder.


A 17 year old teen was murdered while in an SUV with three friends. The murderer confronted the teens because he decided their music was too loud for his sensibilities. After shooting 8 or 9 times into the SUV because “he felt threatened” and killing the teen, the murderer left the scene to stay in a hotel for the night. He did not call police. At some later point the next morning, he drove over 150 miles to his home instead of immediately turning himself in to police. He has been charged with one count of first degree murder and three counts of attempted first degree murder.


Finally, in an online AP poll conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago 2 or 3 months before the elections of November 2012, 51% of Americans expressed explicit anti-Black sentiments. There was little difference between Democrats, Republicans, or even Independents, by the way.


It is, of course, not just African Americans who are harmed when guns are in the hands of the wrong people. Hate, fear, xenophobia, and mental illness are equal opportunity threats. Too many mass killings have proven this in 2012:


A gunman killed seven people and wounded three in a shooting at a Christian college in California.


12 people were killed and 59 injured by a madman with many types of guns in a theater. He ambushed them as they had just settled into a theatre to watch a midnight screening of a Batman movie.


A gunman killed six people during Sunday services at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before he was shot dead by police.


A gunman opened fire inside an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people and wounding one before killing himself.


11 days before Christmas, 20 children between the age of 6 and 7 were brutally and savagely murdered by a madman armed with numerous weapons. He also killed seven adults-including his mother, the principal of the elementary school where the carnage played out, the school psychologist, and four teachers. And as a coward would do, he killed himself when he heard first responders closing in on him.


Guns don’t kill people. People who have guns and problems kill people. If just one innocent child or adult can be saved by having tougher gun laws in the United States, I’M ALL IN.

MY RACIAL PROFILING STORY

Almost every Black person that I know has a racial profiling story. I do not think that means we make more excuses than everybody else-we might just be more attuned to games people play-out of necessity. Sometimes the games can be fairly innocuous. Occasionally, though, they can be deadly if we get into that “I’m an American just like everybody else and I have my rights” stance. Under certain circumstances, we will be DEAD right.

I cannot speak for everybody else who gives voice to their profiling story, but I for one do not speak from a place of hatred. I have a love for all humanity. Not only love for my people, but love for my fellow man. That is MY paradigm. Let me explain. I have always been an avid reader and as a pre-teen I wanted a library card. I grew up in a small town where you had to jump through hoops to get one: you had to get your parents to prove they were residents of the town for a good period of time and not transients. I also seem to recall that my uncle had to sign something as to the truth and certainty of my parents’ statement. Anyway, when I finally got my card I practically lived in the library. I was disappointed that the section on “Negro” history was pretty paltry, but I nonetheless read all of those in pretty short order. Plays, poems, biographies, even maps-I read them all. After that, I started reading autobiographies and the history of other people. I wept when I read The Autobiography of Anne Frank. This led me to read a lot of Jewish history. I then became curious about Biblical history. I read a lot of Irish history and discovered why Irishmen are such a proud people. I read a few autobiographies of Chinese, Japanese, and Italian citizens. So I get it. Every racial and cultural group has come from behind stories. Blacks do not have exclusivity on pain.

We Blacks, however, have stories that no one else wants to share either ownership or understanding. For instance, one of my favorite authors is Harper Lee. She wrote only one book and it won a Pulitzer Prize. The name of that book is To Kill a Mockingbird. She wrote movingly about the unfairness, mistreatment, and downright hatred of Black citizens by some whites in her small southern town in the 1930’s or 1940’s. It was actually considered pretty courageous for her to write such a book about her beloved South. When asked, however, in the 1960’s what she felt about The Freedom Rider’s riding buses across the South and exposing the malevolent nature of some whites, she said the Freedom Riders were wrong to expose the South like that and she much rather preferred the model set by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It seems as if she was disconnected from the fact that The Freedom Riders, Dr. Martin Luther King (and SNCC and The Black Panthers, by the way) were all connected. They were fighting the same battle, but just had different strategies.

But I digress.

This is my racial profiling story. Sometime around 1996 or 1997 my daughter, son in law, my three small grandchildren, my niece, her small daughter and myself were traveling from West to East and would have to pass through Alabama. We were in a rental van and were coming back from a wedding where my daughter’s step brother had gotten married. My daughter was in the wedding party as was my youngest grandson, who was either five or six at the time. It was a great wedding and we had a great time with old and newfound friends. We were anxious to get home because there were things we all had to do when we got home. My daughter worked for a Fortune 500 Company and she and my son in law were going to close on their first home the next day. The wedding was on a Saturday. We got on the road pretty early on Sunday morning, because both my daughter and I had to get back to work on Monday morning. My daughter had scheduled the closing during her lunch break on Monday. I worked for the Court system at the time and may have had a hearing scheduled before a judge that I had to attend.

We were also anxious to get back for another reason. My granddaughter has sickle cell anemia (as do all three of my grandchildren) and had felt sick all Sunday morning and we wanted to get home to her doctor just in case she went into crisis. We all just threw our luggage in the back of the van and all of our fancy wedding clothes on top of the luggage. My granddaughter had thrown up twice and was feeling pretty lousy. My son in law had braids at the time and for some reason he decided to undo them and just let his hair blow in the wind. I would not say he was speeding, but he was putting distance between him and the slower moving cars.

So of course we see the police lights behind us just as we were almost out of Alabama. Everybody knows that town, right? In the beginning there was just one police car. My son in law did not have a hat on so his hair was all over the place. He did not have his Drivers License on him (which I did not know) but he did have a valid license and he knew his number. And we were in a fancy van. The police officer searched him and then placed him in the back of the police car and called for backup. The problem? My son in law had the emergency traveling money and closing cost money-in cash-in his wallet. So of course the police officer was thinking: drug dealer. My daughter explained the situation and showed her ID. She also showed the bank withdrawal ticket from their account. I vouched for her story and showed my business card from my employment. My niece worked at a job for a Fortune 500 company also and she identified herself. I assume they asked my son in law about his employment, and would have discovered that he was in between jobs because he was the caretaker for my grandchildren because of their chronic illnesses and constant hospitalizations.

The officer called two other cars for backup: Another officer to help him search our vehicle and the K-9 officer with the drug dog. So we women and children are standing on the side of the road. The one man with us was in the back seat of the police car, and the police are pulling our wedding clothes out of the car trying to find. . .something. It was not that kind of trip and we were not that kind of people so I knew they would not find anything. We were exactly what the contents of the van showed we were: A family coming home from a fancy celebration. They pulled everything out of the car and the dog sniffed and sniffed and we stood on the side of the road for at least 45 minutes. We told the officer my granddaughter was ill and she in fact threw up again on the side of the road. After the extensive search, the police officer got my son in law out of his car and gave him all the money back. And left without a word. You could tell he was not pleased.

My son in law did not get a ticket for anything. The computer verified that he did have a valid Drivers License but did not even get a ticket for not having the license on him. He did not get a ticket for speeding. They knew the van was not stolen because they saw the paperwork. They knew that three of the occupants of the vehicle had very reputable employment. They saw the bridesmaid dress, the little fancy suit my grandson wore, the other fancy dresses, and the dress suit my son in law wore.

I call this racial profiling because if we did not get a ticket for anything, why were we stopped? Was it the hair thing? And when we proved who we were why were we detained for 45 minutes? And why can’t Black people have large amounts of cash without being suspected drug dealers? And if all three of us women were not observing every move the officers were making around our van, would ‘something” have mysteriously appeared in the vehicle that would justify taking the closing cost money? If the police had taken the closing cost money how long would it have taken my daughter and son in law to save for another house-and would my grandkids have missed out on the many years of happiness they enjoyed in the house their parents closed on the following Monday? If we said to the officers that we want to exercise our constitutional right to NOT allow you to search our vehicle would we all have been detained? What if there had been three Black men in the van without the women and children? Fortunately, racial profiling does not always end in violence, but there are always the ‘what ifs‘.

THE VOICE

I came across a quote when I was working on my dissertation proposal (where I queried why and how 900 plus souls died in Jonestown) that I could never wrap my head around. It went something like this: The purest form of healing is death. I understand it now. I understand it because I am a little older and wiser. More importantly, though, I understand it because Whitney Houston is no longer with us. I cannot even bring myself to say that she is dead, even though I know it is true because I just watched her HomeGoing service.

How can Whitney Houston be dead? Because we live in the 21st century and have access to almost everything a “celebrity” does, we have seen video of Whitney having fun and laughing and smiling and being her bold and beautiful self just 24 hours before she died. It is so surreal. What we do not know is what happened in the final minutes of her life. And while the toxicology report will eventually reveal that final puzzle piece, it will still not be as important as the sad truth that she is gone from among us.

It was obvious from the moment Whitney stepped onto the music scene that she was special. She had a big voice and a big personality. However, she never pretended to be anything other than what she was-a girl from New Jersey. The industry at some point did not think this was enough and repackaged her. It created an image that made her more mainstream, but in hindsight, at some point the image apparently took her further away from who she thought she was. She could wear sophisticated gowns and appear at A-list functions, but at heart she apparently just wanted to be Nippy from the neighborhood. She tried to remind us over and over in subtle and not so subtle ways that she was really just like us except God had given her an incredible and amazing instrument. The rebellion to reclaim herself took a dangerous turn and her subsequent struggles were played out before the world-once again thanks to 21st century technology. In trying to reclaim the part of her that made her ‘just Nippy’ she did not honor The Voice. And just as the Lord giveth, he also takes away.

The good news was that Whitney Houston grew up in the church and came from a praying family. And many of her fans were praying people. The further down the rabbit hole we fans thought she might be going, the more we prayed. And prayed. And because God hears the prayers of the righteous, she came to herself, just like the prodigal son in the Bible parable.

The Voice was slowly coming back, and we thought she had time. She had nothing to prove to anyone. She had already sold 200 million albums, received 6 Grammy Awards, and won 22 American Music Awards. She was the only artist with at least one Grammy, one Emmy, one MTV Video Music Award, one MTV Movie Award, one People’s Choice Award, and one Billboard Music Award. And she was so good as a singer that she was called simply The Voice. She could take the songs of other artists-songs that had languished in a pile of average sales-and make them number one on the charts. So we were willing to wait until she came all the way back. We thought she had time. After all, she was just 48 years old. Her fans only wanted her to be well-in mind, spirit, and body. We all fight demons and she was fighting hers.

But of course our time is not God’s time. And His ways are not our ways. He decided to heal her by calling her home. And God being God, he decided to call her home the day before one of the biggest award show for singers was to take place. An award show that she had once ruled. One minute she was Nippy. And the next minute she was dead. It is almost too much to comprehend.

We all thought she was winning the battle right up until February 11, 2012. On that day the Lord decided to give her the perfect peace that she needed. And she joined the ranks of so many other artists that have died in the last three and a half years-Vesta Williams, Heavy D, Etta James, Nick Ashford, David Peaston, Phoebe Snow, Clarence Clemons, Gladys Horton (lead singer for the Marvelettes), Gil Scott-Heron, Johnny Otis, Jessy Dixon, Lena Horne, Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Jackson, and Koko Taylor. And Don Cornelius is producing the show. Whitney Houston once again can hit those high notes. And her struggle to ‘just be Nippy’ is over.