Sunday, October 11, 2015

Please Pardon Kwame Kilpatrick

Either Kwame Kilpatrick or Dave Bing are mayors of Detroit.
Of course, Benny Napolean might have a claim.
And I don't see why Matthew Abel isn't Wayne County Prosecutor, but Kim Worthy loyalty I will
admit, is high in this city.
I am certain, however, that we didn't vote for someone in my district called David Knezek. Why
does he keep contacting our house?
Michissippi is a strange, and stranger place each day.
I hated it when Jennifer Granholm refused to help Benton Harbor (a largely black city in Michissippi)
hold on to their legally inherited beachfront property. Now, of course, Snyder has stolen all their elections as well.
I hated it that Jennifer Granholm couldn't stay out of the fray when WDIV and the Deroit Free Press
insisted Kwame Kilpatrick go on trial.
How odd that Kwame, who loved Detoit is behind bars, when Trayvon's killer, who loved spilt blood,
is walking around. As the preacher said at the bid farewell to another sort of martyr, "My. my".
I ,though, will say that unlike the 'Snyder spider', Gov. Granholm did not try in any way to destroy Detroit.
Please- don't ignore our mayor because he isn't in that class called a "non-violent drug felon".
Our Mayor is surely non-violent; and no drug felon at all.

Dolts Running For President

See,citizen guns could not have dissuaded the Nazis
Not even a 'well-ordered militia" could have stopped the Nazi machine.
Even today, your 'well-ordered militia' couldn't stop the WWII Nazi regime.
Only armies could have done that.Not to say any para-military force could have succeeded; a full
fledged military- many full fledged military forces were needed to take down the Nazis.
If the world had begun right after the Wall Street collapse, maybe it wouldn't have taken such a gargantuan effort. However, the world was spent after WWI. And Lloyd George had no suggestions for how any nation was going to pay back what it owed, especially to America. And so Germany, and
Italy turned inward. Germany focused on its war machine.
Only entire nations, with armies, fleets of ships and subs, and air war capabilities could have, and barely did stop WWII Germany and the Nazis.
What might be helpful to the oversimplifying vacuous, is to read 1918-1938 German political history.
Don't read the history Fox News may have researched. Get British, or American, or French, or Austrian histories. Or,read each country's account. No? Well then do us all the great kindness of shutting your vulgar and unknowing mouth.
People don't have to be bragging about ignorance simply because they love to be politically incorrect.

Why Do The Uncommitted Keep Changing The Conversation?

Why do people keep wanting to change BLM to ALM. Here is the point. In today's America, Mamie Till would be stunned. People don't avoid the police. People don't evade a trial. Medger Evers' widow
wouldn't have had to go through all those justice seeking measures today.
There is usually 'no true bill' for killing an unarmed black person.
In Ohio, where the law says 'open carry', it must mean 'open carry for whites only', just like in Jim Crow days, but worse.
Tamir Rice could not 'open carry' or stand his ground. Even his big sister was manhandled for trying
to comfort her baby brother.
So many Americans relate the 'so what?' sentiment that if we don't start holding killers accountable,
what statute that we do have now will make BLM?

The End of Church Camp:2015

              The only two paid black workers were hounded to do more every day. Subjective? Read on...
The children were not to be taken into the gym.
The children were not to be given play equipment.
The children were to be kept very quiet when a church person spoke to them for an hour on how to
pray.(Not happening. They would get so hungry, and the temperatures were high.)
Camp workers were told to take the children to play in the hot parking lot.
One day they were told to have the children plant flowers. Well, the flowers were to be planted in
the front, where no tree cover was helpful. The children threw down the trowels after a short time.
The children told camp leaders, "My mom does not want me to get mud on these Air Jordan's."
The next day the same kids brought a second pair of equally expensive, but not brand new gym shoes.
Still, they didn't stay in that hot sun long.
Part of the problem the two Caucasian staff had was that the two Black staff members didn't blame the children at all. They blamed paid black staff. 'Get those project waifs in line!'
So one day the children were allowed to get on the church bus for Belle Isle,an island recreation park familiar to generations of Detroiters. As no itinerary had been offered the kids or their
camp counselors by camp leaders, the youngsters planned a 'lil sumpn sumpn' for themselves.
As nothing had been said to any on the trip about when and where they would get to play or eat- they didn't seem to expect much.
For the "D" uninitiated, Detroit has a large island park, now taken over by the "henchmen" state of
Michissippi of course, called Belle Isle. The island has many kid-friendly features- slides,etc. but the children were always fed so late in the day that they were skeptical of how comfortable with would be with playtime, as with all the church's 'outings'. As bus began the journey, the youngsters(all Black but one) began to sing songs and do monologues from "The Boondocks". The two AA counselors looked at the kids, who stopped singing immediately, and looked caught. "Boondocks" is not for children. It is on TV, aired at midnight here; but the two counselors burst into laughter as the children began again to talk in Uncle Ruckus' voice about 'pickaninny cheelren'.
                Back at the church one day, one of the Caucasian 'leaders' told the camp workers, 'This is probably the only decent meal these kids get all day." All Caucasian workers but
one was a paid staffer. Still-
                Where does that sort of propaganda originate in a setting like this one?
Were the leaders blind? Of the several children in the camp, only three or four were from income challenged families. One family owned two houses on Virginia Park St.(a street in an older upper middle classed neighborhood built by retail middle managers mid-century) and one in Grosse Pointe; but rarely stayed at the Grosse Pointe house.(To me, all five Pointes behave like sundown towns- but then so do parts of Detroit.
                 I think many AA Grosse Pointers are of more recent African heritage. So they feel foreign
in all American settings. AA men especially, are a group no one will fully infiltrate. And if you get
too familiar, they will let you know.
                 One of the children got chided for bringing a one hundred dollar bill to camp. But some kids bought lunch for each other on "field trip" days. This particular child was related to one of the original Temptations.His grandma had told him if something happened to it, she would get him another one.
                 So many of these Methodist churches have opened their arms to the white gay community or whites who say they have black people as relatives. And truthfully, they are some of the worst 'leaders'.
                 They are often the new overseers no one dares accuse of anything.
They believe their family bona fides or cries of newfound acceptance give them privilege to demean, degrade, and announce their knowing dominion over everything in black culture; and to twist it into majority straight jackets. For one thing, they change dialect in Negro spirituals, which are classic around the world just as they were published. Sigh. Aargh!
                  Black congregations are somewhat  themselves to blame for giving at huge levels to these sorts of churches. This church is endowed by The Kresge Foundation, and the Kresges were more
progressive than POTUS probably is. I doubt they'd approve.
                 After summer's end, the only two paid black church workers were let go, even from their winter jobs at the church. Church leaders were unhappy they'd found no volunteer camp counselors. I warrant this country has seen enough unpaid black labor for...forever. Maybe more amenable black workers were hired in place of the two who were 'no longer needed'.
                 Actually, the Caucasian male who should have been releived after he
threw an adolescent male to the ground for refusing to give up his cell phone, was simply 'spoken to'.
The boys' mom, however, wasn't sure whether she'd escalate.
                 One other situation the children resented in that camp was that the top
floor of the church was populated all summer by people being trained for some sort of ministry- maybe in Haiti- and they slept there, ate there, not to be disturbed in any way.
                 So don't play, and don't disturb the all-white paid and housed delegation.
The children's parents had begun to show up more often near the end of camp.These were parents who seemed to be unaware the church leadership was going south for black families. I wonder what
they will think for next year?
                  Don't think Methodists are alone and pregnant though. Some Catholic parishes in this city
are as awful.
                   I wonder what Ralph Ellison would think of any of this all these years and all these same
sort of events later?

Monday, July 20, 2015

Silas Norman: Detroit's Treasured Physician And Opera Voice

Dr. Norman, also a brother of the more world-famous Jesse Norman, has passed away this week-end.
Dr. Norman had the most beautiful bass voice I have ever heard.  I asked him once why he hadn't taken that voice to the met. He indicated that he couldn't have competed with his sister, but I doubt that was why. I don't believe they would have been contracted for the same projects.
Still, Dr. Norman had an illustrious career, and taught for some time at the Wayne State Med School.
He was sincerely revered as well, as one of the most prized members of Detroit's
accomplished Brazeal Dennard Chorale.
I cannot believe I won't hear Dr. Norman sing live ever again. To hear him sing was
absolutely transformative.

Friday, July 17, 2015

What Sort Of Muslim Is Drunk?

It makes no sense for authorities to say the Tennessee man who killed four marines was arrested for
drunk driving in April, and yet a religious loyalist radical in the Muslim faith in July.
Muslims do not drink.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Church Camp: 2015

When I was young and we saw a gaggle of cops, we knew someone might be in trouble. We were
pretty certain it wasn't any of us.
Today, the kids think much differently.
The camp bus rolled up to the Detroit Belle Isle entrance Wednesday.
One of the youngsters asked distractedly,
 "What are all these police doing here?"
Another answered,
"Cause they don't like us."
According to the camp counselors it was Youth Day at Belle Isle, and cops seemed to be there from
the tri-county area, as well as the Border Patrol!
Just then some of the kids began to mimic Uncle Ruckus of the cartoon show, The Boondocks.
"Look at all the picaninny chillren, wit dey picaninny essence all in d' ayur!"
So the counselors (All on the bus were African-American of American slave heritage.) began to laugh out loud. They asked the youngsters,
"Do you watch The Boondocks?"
Initially, the children thought they were in trouble, but at the end they all began to laugh.