Dear friends,
If you're wondering who are the constituents of Republicans, it's mostly the tens of millions of people who live in trailer parks and mobile homes, living the "American dream", as is evident by the article on the link at the bottom of the page. They are pathetic people who live in both the South and the Midwest. They don't need much to survive on, just alcohol, crystal meth, cigarettes, and a little ammunition for their shotguns. They pay for those items by working for less than l;ow-wage, non-union factories that supply companies like Walmart, so the latter doesn't ever need to buy from overseas too much. Real "American". Right? (please refer to Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant)
Moreover, the Republicans don't have to do much to keep their dimwit constotients motivated. All they have to be reminded of is the past, when there weren't all kinds of big cities with their highfalutin "educated" folks and all of "them immigrants", although they can always feel that they have a little superiority over African Americans, by simply turning on their TV sets and catching a few minutes of Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns" or a video of Spike Lee's movie called "The Kings of Comedy".
Aside from the corporations and banks who sponsor them, the Republicans, especially, know that the folks who live in trailer parks and mobile homes will never let them down..
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24135022
Read full post
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Black women - NOT MEN - led the fight to switch from Republicans to Democrats in 1930
" A decade later, as memories of the war faded, the U.S.government offered to send the mothers and widows overseas, all expenses paid, to visit the graves...With one caveat. The trips would be segregated, with white women given higher classes of transportation and lodging, an arrangement sadly not that unusual in the america of that era. Most black women went, many of them grudgingly overlooking the racial unfairness. But 23 refused..."
Dear friends,
Having been born into an activist family, I learned at a very early age, from direct experience, that, in our centuries-old liberation struggle, it was often African American women who led the fight against our oppression as a group - NOT men! A case in point regards an incident that occurred back in 1930, when "Martin Luther King was still an infant", the Republican president Herbert Hoover insulted the mothers and widows of African American soldiers who died in World War 1, by asking them to take a second-class, segregated trip to the grave sites of their departed relatives overseas, in Europe.
In a 2002 article, "Poignant Protest, by Richard A. Serrano, an LA Times staff writer, it was pointed out that, "Their sons and husbands had been killed in World War I and were buried in Europe, black soldiers, alongside white, in new cemeteries honoring those who died before the Great War ended in 1918. A decade later, as memories of the war faded, the U.S.government offered to send the mothers and widows overseas, all expenses paid, to visit the graves...With one caveat. The trips would be segregated, with white women given higher classes of transportation and lodging, an arrangement sadly not that unusual in the America of that era. Most black women went, many of them grudgingly overlooking the racial unfairness. But 23 refused. They wouldn't tolerate such conditions to visit the resting place of the sons and husbands who had made the same sacrifice as whites. Those 17 mothers and six widows, most of whom rarely traveled far from their hometowns, passed up the trip of a lifetime." Actually, I disagree with the author on his last point, when he insisted that the protesting women had " passed up the trip of a lifetime". To me, it was the other women who missed out on a chance to not only stand up for themselves, but for their dead husbands, fathers, and sons, because the discriminating insult was directed towards the latter as well.
In any case, the protest by these African American women here-to-mentioned has everything to do with, not only the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, then later, the Black Consciousness Movement, but, also, shows why African Americans, almost unanimously, do not support the Republican Party ticket today. It's a genuine cultural repulsion that has been passed on, rightfully so, for the past few generations.
"Liberation!" - Dr. Barbara Love
G. Djata Bumpus
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/sep/15/magazine/tm-moms37
Read full post
Dear friends,
Having been born into an activist family, I learned at a very early age, from direct experience, that, in our centuries-old liberation struggle, it was often African American women who led the fight against our oppression as a group - NOT men! A case in point regards an incident that occurred back in 1930, when "Martin Luther King was still an infant", the Republican president Herbert Hoover insulted the mothers and widows of African American soldiers who died in World War 1, by asking them to take a second-class, segregated trip to the grave sites of their departed relatives overseas, in Europe.
In a 2002 article, "Poignant Protest, by Richard A. Serrano, an LA Times staff writer, it was pointed out that, "Their sons and husbands had been killed in World War I and were buried in Europe, black soldiers, alongside white, in new cemeteries honoring those who died before the Great War ended in 1918. A decade later, as memories of the war faded, the U.S.government offered to send the mothers and widows overseas, all expenses paid, to visit the graves...With one caveat. The trips would be segregated, with white women given higher classes of transportation and lodging, an arrangement sadly not that unusual in the America of that era. Most black women went, many of them grudgingly overlooking the racial unfairness. But 23 refused. They wouldn't tolerate such conditions to visit the resting place of the sons and husbands who had made the same sacrifice as whites. Those 17 mothers and six widows, most of whom rarely traveled far from their hometowns, passed up the trip of a lifetime." Actually, I disagree with the author on his last point, when he insisted that the protesting women had " passed up the trip of a lifetime". To me, it was the other women who missed out on a chance to not only stand up for themselves, but for their dead husbands, fathers, and sons, because the discriminating insult was directed towards the latter as well.
In any case, the protest by these African American women here-to-mentioned has everything to do with, not only the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, then later, the Black Consciousness Movement, but, also, shows why African Americans, almost unanimously, do not support the Republican Party ticket today. It's a genuine cultural repulsion that has been passed on, rightfully so, for the past few generations.
"Liberation!" - Dr. Barbara Love
G. Djata Bumpus
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/sep/15/magazine/tm-moms37
Read full post
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Who does “gun control” really help?
Dear friends,
Who does “gun control” really help? Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who is in my opinion the greatest scholar/activists that America has ever produced, called the period from 1870 1920 “the lynching industry”. For it was during that time that African Americans in the South were lynched on the average of one person per day. What conveniently coincided with that period was the vigorous practice of all European Americans (so-called “whites”) of the South was to make sure that African Americans never got their hands on guns. Do you think that there ever would have been a lynching industry, if African Americans had guns at the time?
Of course, the same question goes to the Oklahoma City “race riot” in 1921, when scores of African Americans were murdered by both ordinary European American citizens, along with the US Army (who was supposed to be there to protect African Americans against the racist mobs). Yet, the cry for “gun control” is often heard loudly in lower-middle class African American neighborhoods. Since the overwhelming preponderance of gun ownership lies with European-American people in this country, but they are not the ones who experience gun violence on such a despicable level as African Americans do, then it seems to me that the real problem for African American people has far more to do with what I call the other half of racism, that is, “black self-hatred”, than it has to do with us owning guns.
Please remember that White Supremacy a.k.a. racism cannot be maintained, if those who control the majority of European Americans who, calling themselves “white”, continue to try and exclude us from the pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness”, if those perpetrators of injustice must always use force. In other words, through black self-hatred, as especially promoted by the negative images presented to us through the government- and corporate-controlled media, including Tyler Perry movies and television shows, along with other cultural institutions like our churches, and schools, we then make ourselves easier to oppress/exclude, since the self-hatred is mirrored to us every time we look at another black person.
And the range of insults to ourselves includes everything from how, for example, black store clerks and the like treat us differently than they do “white” customers to drive-by shootings. Instead of worrying about gun control, it is perhaps instructive for us to join together and build genuine communities that are loving and prosperous. We already have the resources, unfortunately, because of our self-hatred, we are unable to embrace each other within the context of “we". Unite!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Who does “gun control” really help? Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who is in my opinion the greatest scholar/activists that America has ever produced, called the period from 1870 1920 “the lynching industry”. For it was during that time that African Americans in the South were lynched on the average of one person per day. What conveniently coincided with that period was the vigorous practice of all European Americans (so-called “whites”) of the South was to make sure that African Americans never got their hands on guns. Do you think that there ever would have been a lynching industry, if African Americans had guns at the time?
Of course, the same question goes to the Oklahoma City “race riot” in 1921, when scores of African Americans were murdered by both ordinary European American citizens, along with the US Army (who was supposed to be there to protect African Americans against the racist mobs). Yet, the cry for “gun control” is often heard loudly in lower-middle class African American neighborhoods. Since the overwhelming preponderance of gun ownership lies with European-American people in this country, but they are not the ones who experience gun violence on such a despicable level as African Americans do, then it seems to me that the real problem for African American people has far more to do with what I call the other half of racism, that is, “black self-hatred”, than it has to do with us owning guns.
Please remember that White Supremacy a.k.a. racism cannot be maintained, if those who control the majority of European Americans who, calling themselves “white”, continue to try and exclude us from the pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness”, if those perpetrators of injustice must always use force. In other words, through black self-hatred, as especially promoted by the negative images presented to us through the government- and corporate-controlled media, including Tyler Perry movies and television shows, along with other cultural institutions like our churches, and schools, we then make ourselves easier to oppress/exclude, since the self-hatred is mirrored to us every time we look at another black person.
And the range of insults to ourselves includes everything from how, for example, black store clerks and the like treat us differently than they do “white” customers to drive-by shootings. Instead of worrying about gun control, it is perhaps instructive for us to join together and build genuine communities that are loving and prosperous. We already have the resources, unfortunately, because of our self-hatred, we are unable to embrace each other within the context of “we". Unite!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Monday, September 30, 2013
Obama wins Sojourner Truth's vote (originally posted 9/18/08)
Permission to reprint this article below was given to Djatajabs.org by Rev. Valda Jean Combs and Womens enews.
Obama wins Sojourner Truth's vote
by Rev. Valda Jean Combs
Some of Clinton's backers, this campaign season, have tried to make a vote for their candidate seem like a vote for all women. Younger women drawn to Obama's message of change have demurred. So have peace activist women horrified by Clinton's vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Black women also have our own reasons— rooted in the history of this country and the two waves of women's rights activism—to make another choice. And, I'd like to talk about that. But first, let me make it plain that my support of Barack Obama is not a failure to understand the damage patriarchy has done to our community. Instead, it's an intentional embrace of a brother who eschews paternalism and who himself embraces community.
This contrasts with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both have marginalized Obama at different times with statements such as: "He gives good speeches," "he's not electable," "he's another Jesse Jackson" and most recently "hard working whites support me." It's an encoded drumbeat that spreads the message that Obama is "not like us."
Rather than challenge racism, the Clintons have affirmed those for whom race is a barrier to supporting a Black Democratic nominee. In their quest for the White House, the Clintons have sacrificed the Black vote and the Black loyalty that helped to put Bill Clinton in office. We have a saying in my community: "It is a sorry child who forgets those who helped them along the way."
At the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851, Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave, posed a defiant question to white men and women when she asked, "Ain't I a woman?"
Sister Sojourner spoke out despite the pleas of white female suffragists who thought that demanding the vote for former slaves would doom their cause to failure. Sojourner felt then, as I do, what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "the fierce urgency of now."
But, the dialogue she sought did not occur. Sojourner's place was to speak when she was asked, and to sit down and shut up when her agenda diverged from that of her suffragist sisters. Sister Sojourner experienced sexism, but it was racism that caused her children to be sold away and racism that forced her to plow the fields like a man.
When Black women press for inclusion, white women have historically been hard of hearing. As a result, far from viewing white women as partners in the struggle, women of color have the historical knowledge of white women in partnership with their men as oppressors.
Slavery left a sour taste in the mouths of Black women whose forebears suckled and nurtured white children while their own children were neglected or sold away. Slavery bred antipathy between the Black slave woman forced to endure rape at the hands of the white male slave owner and mistreatment at the hands of the white female slave owner. And, then there were the Black men lynched, murdered and prosecuted based on false accusations by white women.
While leading feminists often acknowledge this historical truth, this acknowledgement did not equal inclusion. Women of color fought alongside white feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, but found our perspective elbowed aside; our loyalty taken for granted.
Feminism's almost exclusive focus on the worth of woman's work outside the home was a non-issue for Black women who worked inside and outside the home and whose work was devalued in both realms.
But, when we raised the problematic irony of women of color working outside their own homes in the homes of white women—where they were paid low wages with no benefits—this was often lost on white feminists. They seemed more riveted on breaking down the gender barriers to elite schools and high-paying professions.
Feminism could not, or would not, grasp the loyalty of Black women to a patriarchal church that has marginalized and sometimes oppressed us; our insistence that we will not leave our men behind; and a moral vision, borne out of oppression, that seeks a just society for all humanity, with equal opportunities and rights for all groups. Ain't I a woman?"
Out of that demand grew the movement we call "womanism," a term that Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker coined in the introduction to her 1983 book, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose.
Womanism recognizes that—at least for now—only Black women can articulate the complex nature of our history, our theology, our community, our voice and the fierce power of our love.
Implicit in that love is the embrace of church, family and women, but also our men. For women who experience oppression more intensely, we require a more intense liberation movement.
Finally, while feminism places priority on women, womanism places priority on the collective whole. While feminism speaks to sexism, womanism speaks to sexism, racism, classism and ethnocentrism. As an end note to her definition of womanism, Walker writes, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender," an acknowledgement that womanism expands the parameters of white feminism to include issues important to women of color and women in poverty.
My support for Obama is a repudiation of the politics that have reigned supreme since Sojourner Truth, a politics that says my dream must wait until someone else's has been realized.
Obama stands for the proposition that we can go forward together, as one. This is what my 94-year-old grandmother and her 84-year-old sister have prayed for, stood for and hoped for. The fierce urgency of now is up against the fierce arrogance of now.
Black women supporting Obama now dare to believe that change can come in our time. A change that offers our boys hope that they, too, can become president; a change that offers our community hope that Black families can survive and thrive; and change that says out of oppression can come liberation for not just some of us, but all of us. If we have learned anything from Sister Sojourner, it is that we must speak now, for we are women too.
Valda Jean Combs is a pastor in the United Methodist Church, an ordained Baptist minister and licensed attorney. Combs heads Full Proof HIV Ministry, an organization that educates, raises awareness and combats stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in faith institutions. Read full post
Obama wins Sojourner Truth's vote
by Rev. Valda Jean Combs
Some of Clinton's backers, this campaign season, have tried to make a vote for their candidate seem like a vote for all women. Younger women drawn to Obama's message of change have demurred. So have peace activist women horrified by Clinton's vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Black women also have our own reasons— rooted in the history of this country and the two waves of women's rights activism—to make another choice. And, I'd like to talk about that. But first, let me make it plain that my support of Barack Obama is not a failure to understand the damage patriarchy has done to our community. Instead, it's an intentional embrace of a brother who eschews paternalism and who himself embraces community.
This contrasts with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both have marginalized Obama at different times with statements such as: "He gives good speeches," "he's not electable," "he's another Jesse Jackson" and most recently "hard working whites support me." It's an encoded drumbeat that spreads the message that Obama is "not like us."
Rather than challenge racism, the Clintons have affirmed those for whom race is a barrier to supporting a Black Democratic nominee. In their quest for the White House, the Clintons have sacrificed the Black vote and the Black loyalty that helped to put Bill Clinton in office. We have a saying in my community: "It is a sorry child who forgets those who helped them along the way."
At the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851, Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave, posed a defiant question to white men and women when she asked, "Ain't I a woman?"
Sister Sojourner spoke out despite the pleas of white female suffragists who thought that demanding the vote for former slaves would doom their cause to failure. Sojourner felt then, as I do, what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "the fierce urgency of now."
But, the dialogue she sought did not occur. Sojourner's place was to speak when she was asked, and to sit down and shut up when her agenda diverged from that of her suffragist sisters. Sister Sojourner experienced sexism, but it was racism that caused her children to be sold away and racism that forced her to plow the fields like a man.
When Black women press for inclusion, white women have historically been hard of hearing. As a result, far from viewing white women as partners in the struggle, women of color have the historical knowledge of white women in partnership with their men as oppressors.
Slavery left a sour taste in the mouths of Black women whose forebears suckled and nurtured white children while their own children were neglected or sold away. Slavery bred antipathy between the Black slave woman forced to endure rape at the hands of the white male slave owner and mistreatment at the hands of the white female slave owner. And, then there were the Black men lynched, murdered and prosecuted based on false accusations by white women.
While leading feminists often acknowledge this historical truth, this acknowledgement did not equal inclusion. Women of color fought alongside white feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, but found our perspective elbowed aside; our loyalty taken for granted.
Feminism's almost exclusive focus on the worth of woman's work outside the home was a non-issue for Black women who worked inside and outside the home and whose work was devalued in both realms.
But, when we raised the problematic irony of women of color working outside their own homes in the homes of white women—where they were paid low wages with no benefits—this was often lost on white feminists. They seemed more riveted on breaking down the gender barriers to elite schools and high-paying professions.
Feminism could not, or would not, grasp the loyalty of Black women to a patriarchal church that has marginalized and sometimes oppressed us; our insistence that we will not leave our men behind; and a moral vision, borne out of oppression, that seeks a just society for all humanity, with equal opportunities and rights for all groups. Ain't I a woman?"
Out of that demand grew the movement we call "womanism," a term that Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker coined in the introduction to her 1983 book, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose.
Womanism recognizes that—at least for now—only Black women can articulate the complex nature of our history, our theology, our community, our voice and the fierce power of our love.
Implicit in that love is the embrace of church, family and women, but also our men. For women who experience oppression more intensely, we require a more intense liberation movement.
Finally, while feminism places priority on women, womanism places priority on the collective whole. While feminism speaks to sexism, womanism speaks to sexism, racism, classism and ethnocentrism. As an end note to her definition of womanism, Walker writes, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender," an acknowledgement that womanism expands the parameters of white feminism to include issues important to women of color and women in poverty.
My support for Obama is a repudiation of the politics that have reigned supreme since Sojourner Truth, a politics that says my dream must wait until someone else's has been realized.
Obama stands for the proposition that we can go forward together, as one. This is what my 94-year-old grandmother and her 84-year-old sister have prayed for, stood for and hoped for. The fierce urgency of now is up against the fierce arrogance of now.
Black women supporting Obama now dare to believe that change can come in our time. A change that offers our boys hope that they, too, can become president; a change that offers our community hope that Black families can survive and thrive; and change that says out of oppression can come liberation for not just some of us, but all of us. If we have learned anything from Sister Sojourner, it is that we must speak now, for we are women too.
Valda Jean Combs is a pastor in the United Methodist Church, an ordained Baptist minister and licensed attorney. Combs heads Full Proof HIV Ministry, an organization that educates, raises awareness and combats stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in faith institutions. Read full post
Friday, September 27, 2013
Huey P. Newton on Gay & Women's Liberation
"We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms “faggot” and “punk” should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as [Richard] Nixon or [John] Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people." - Huey P. Newton, Black Panther Party
Dear friends,
On the link below, is a short speech by my old comrade Huey P. Newton. What he had to say at the time was very uncomfortable for many men especially, including male Panthers.
The attitudes that seemingly most people had towards both
women’s and gay liberation were not those that would move our society forward.
While women in the Black Panther Party enjoyed equal and
respectful treatment, things were far different in the overall society. As
well, homosexuality was basically unacceptable.
Yet, one of my biggest concerns, regarding today’s social movements
is: the word “liberation” has been replaced by the term “rights”. Unfortunately,
as a result, the very goals of both the women’s and gays movements now reflect
the overall identity crisis in our country.
Finally, if the drive for equality, dignity, and justice, for all people, is
diminished to being only for females who call themselves “white”, and people whose “identity”
is based upon something as precarious, if not frivolous, as the human sexual appetite/impulse,
then Male Supremacy and its spirit - which is male homosexuality, along with White Supremacy,
euphemistically called “racism” will prevail.G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.workers.org/2012/us/huey_p_newton_0524/ Read full post
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Craigslist Pet Ban will Respect the longtime Human and non-Human animal Connection
Dear friends,
The connection between both human and nonhuman animals goes back, at least, hundreds of thousands of years/generations. In fact, especially people and their dogs is a love affair that predates human civilization.
Of course, dogs other results of the evolution of wolves. And that transformation from being wild animals to a domesticated species has served people well. From companions to protectors and/or workers, it is not very hard, in fact, think of how people have used dogs. I mean, for example, how tough would it have been without dogs pulling sleds for those who live up north in snowy regions? Imagine how difficult it would’ve been for us to control large herds of animals like sheep (who were actually the original animals that were used to build Capitalism). We humans owe a great deal to our canine friends.
On the link below, is a brief story from the Boston Herald about some sick, lowlife, and cowardly scoundrels who have been buying dogs that are being offered on Craigslist, solely for the purpose of brutalizing, mutilating, and murdering their abandoned charges.
G. Djata Bumpus http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/09/puppy_doe_petition_end_animal_adoption_on_craigslist Read full post
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Some thoughts from a Father about Raising your Daughters and "Equality"
Dr. Namandje Bumpus (left) with sister Tia (MD/PhD candidate)
Dear friends,
Being the same has nothing to do with equality, when we are speaking about the rights of either a person or all people to be treated “equally”. The idea of “sameness as being equal” is the intellectual basis upon which systems of oppression like racism and sexism flourish.
Consequently, a person does not have to run as fast as you, jump as high as you, lift as much weight as you, fist-fight as good as you, or have as much money as you, to be equal to you. Do ya feel me?
You are, in fact, equal, because you are both human individuals. Moreover, if you compare any individual with yourself, you will find: 1) You each require food and drink, in periodic intervals, and then must expel the waste from those activities, or you will cease to exist in the form of a living being. 2) You each feel lonely and separate, as individual beings, even when you are sleeping beside someone, because even then , you still must sleep on your own; that is, no one can do that for you. 3) No matter how few or many, you each have physical, mental, and emotional shortcomings. Every single person does. 4) You can each do well at one thing, but do poorly at some other activity. That is why you are equal to everyone, and everyone is equal to you. That simple truism, especially, includes the mother(s) of your child(ren). It is extremely important that you appreciate that notion, because if your child sees her mother treated as an equal, she will expect that same kind of treatment for herself - from others, when she is grown, and, therefore, be less likely to hook up with some knucklehead who will mess her life up.
Obviously, as it is for a boy, the way that a girl is raised will have a great deal to do with how well she fares in life as an adult. Yet, unfortunately, starting when they are very young, most girls are raised in a way that makes them feel that they should use manipulation and deceit, by being allowed to cry and whine, and so forth, in order to get what they want in life. Boys are not raised that way. Instead, boys are treated differently. They are told not to cry (as I insisted not only for my son, but my daughters too).
The crying and whining teaches them nothing about positive, sincere interaction with another person, especially a boy or a man. That means that they will not, like boys, learn social skills that will make them not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, self-sufficient. Consequently, far too often, girls are socialized to ignore their need to develop skills that will allow them to acquire whatever they need or want without having to depend on the gullibility and insecurities of boys and men. And these days, with the confusing concept of “sexual identity” in vogue, other girls and women are even included in that equation, that is, using other females as means to their ends, as well.
So, my main point here is: From the moment that they come into this world, always think of your daughters as - and teach them to be - physically-, mentally-, and emotionally-capable human beings who both recognize and use their inner powers like discipline, concentration, memory, and responsibility, to name a few, so that they will be able to accomplish goals on their own, thus controlling and determining their own destinies. They are, after all, equal to everyone else. Dig? Peace.
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Monday, September 23, 2013
Looking back a month later - was it a Party or a March on Washington?
Dear friends,
With all of the problems in Washington DC alone, why wasn't there anything happening, regarding "community service" for genuine community development?
Instead, it was just a lot of people "celebrating". I remember vividly, as a child growing up in an activist family, leafleting the housing projects where I lived - door-to-door about the upcoming march, while my Mother and older brothers sold tickets for the buses that were traveling there. Even then, the only people who were buying tickets, much less attending, were people who were already actively involved in The Movement. Today, the crowd is made up of a bunch of party revelers. Please think about it.
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
With all of the problems in Washington DC alone, why wasn't there anything happening, regarding "community service" for genuine community development?
Instead, it was just a lot of people "celebrating". I remember vividly, as a child growing up in an activist family, leafleting the housing projects where I lived - door-to-door about the upcoming march, while my Mother and older brothers sold tickets for the buses that were traveling there. Even then, the only people who were buying tickets, much less attending, were people who were already actively involved in The Movement. Today, the crowd is made up of a bunch of party revelers. Please think about it.
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Friday, September 20, 2013
Uncle Barry or Uncle Tom?
Dear friends,
The kind of racist behavior that has been shown by far too many European Americans, including those who call themselves “liberal”, since Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, points to the fact that neither he nor the super-Uncle Tom, Eric Holder, have done anything about redirecting the values of White Supremacy that have dominated this country ever since the Civil War.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/18/north-carolina-school-board-bans-ralph-ellisons-invisible-man/ Read full post
Superstition in Africa - a short video
"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer...Superstition ain't the way." - Stevie Wonder
Dear friends,
The short video on the link below seems very disturbing, in this day and age. Yet, if we look at the behavior of African peoples in the Americas, we can truly understand that "Culture hides more than it reveals". And interestingly enough, what it conceals best, it does so most effectively from its own participants.
In explaining that concept, I always point to the practice of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, when they placed bombs in soda cans that they then would place on their roadsides, knowing that young, urban Americans of the pre- “Don’t litter” era often played a street game called"Kick the can". As a result, a lot of American soldiers lost their feet and other parts of their lower limbs. The Viet Cong fully understood the quote mentioned above.
At any rate, while this video by the New York Times, a story about an Albino population in an African territory, tries to put a racial slant on the topic, wih it's use of the terms "black" and "white", the real problem is: an unwillingness for African peoples to let go of so many superstitions that we've carried on for far too long.
We must learn to confront our fears, inadequacies, and insecurities, so that we can relate to each other and all that is around us, in a more thoughtful way, as opposed to surrendering to our aforementioned fears, inadequacies, and unexplainable “feelings”, in order to enhance the conditions of our lives. That was exactly what our ancestors had to, literally, fight to do, in order to gain freedom from chattel slavery (i.e., those of our ancestors who weren't slavemasters themselves in the antebellum South).
G. Djata Bumpus
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/06/06/world/1194817478108/albino-killings-in-tanzania.html Read full post
Dear friends,
The short video on the link below seems very disturbing, in this day and age. Yet, if we look at the behavior of African peoples in the Americas, we can truly understand that "Culture hides more than it reveals". And interestingly enough, what it conceals best, it does so most effectively from its own participants.
In explaining that concept, I always point to the practice of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, when they placed bombs in soda cans that they then would place on their roadsides, knowing that young, urban Americans of the pre- “Don’t litter” era often played a street game called"Kick the can". As a result, a lot of American soldiers lost their feet and other parts of their lower limbs. The Viet Cong fully understood the quote mentioned above.
At any rate, while this video by the New York Times, a story about an Albino population in an African territory, tries to put a racial slant on the topic, wih it's use of the terms "black" and "white", the real problem is: an unwillingness for African peoples to let go of so many superstitions that we've carried on for far too long.
We must learn to confront our fears, inadequacies, and insecurities, so that we can relate to each other and all that is around us, in a more thoughtful way, as opposed to surrendering to our aforementioned fears, inadequacies, and unexplainable “feelings”, in order to enhance the conditions of our lives. That was exactly what our ancestors had to, literally, fight to do, in order to gain freedom from chattel slavery (i.e., those of our ancestors who weren't slavemasters themselves in the antebellum South).
G. Djata Bumpus
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/06/06/world/1194817478108/albino-killings-in-tanzania.html Read full post
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Mentoring Our Youth in Philly and elsewhere
“My experience has been that people choose their own mentors…”
Dear friends,
Ever since the 1960s, well-meaning men in the African American community have talked about and, periodically, set up “mentoring” programs for African American youth, with special attention to boys.
At face value, it seems to be a worthy idea. The problem is: My experience has been that people choose their own mentors.
In other words, going to a young man’s house and talking with him, or taking him to a movie, as do, for instance, men who are affiliated with the Big Brothers Association, is, obviously, a nice gesture. However, the guidance and direction that that same young fellow, especially an African American one, will need in order to make his way through the foggy path of life’s journey that will eventually lead him to a worthwhile destination requires deliberate planning that is based upon the solid ability of the aforementioned youngster to know how to distinguish a “goal” from an “ambition”. Unfortunately, due to their over-exposure through the mainstream media, politicians particularly have folks confused about the difference between the two, since pols rarely speak in terms of goals, even though they usually proclaim to be doing so.
In any case, almost 30 years ago, while at Temple University, I developed a kind of intellectual model that I call the "Urban Fire Department Paradigm", in order to help people distinguish goals from ambitions. The aforementioned intellectual model goes like this: A person is named as the new chief of a fire department. A reporter asks, “Chief, what are your new goals for the fire department?” The chief confidently responds, “I’m going to have a truck at every fire in city limits, before the fire becomes dangerous.” Well, actually, that is not a goal. Rather, it is an ambition. Consequently, an answer by the chief that would represent a goal should have been, “I’m going to have a truck at every fire in city limits, in twenty minutes”. In other words, the chief does not know how bad the fire will get or how quickly it will spread; yet, s/he is determined that there will be a truck full of fire-eaters there fairly soon.
Hence, in order to help our youth maintain their focus on the future, it is best to encourage them to set goals of say 5 years ahead, regarding what they plan on doing for that specific time period. Moreover, once they become accustomed to setting specific goals, they will do that in all of their activities, whether for school. work, sports, or recreation.
By the way, as I continue to insist, let Us stop asking children what they want to be, in the context of what they will possess, when they grow up. Instead, let Us ask, what they want to be, regarding their relatedness to others. Let Us ask, "How will you help the community when you grow up?". Let Us ask, "What kind of work will you do to help people when you grow up?".
Still, ultimately, if we provide young people with proper and adequate guidance, they will do quite well, when it’s time for them to replace Us. As the great Franz Fanon warned: Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.
Finally, if people (i.e., children or adults), generally-speaking, choose their own mentors, it's better that men – and women - make themselves available in the community by setting up basketball and other such sports teams, or acting, writing, and singing clubs, for instance, to give kids, and not just boys, a chance to interact with positive community people; rather than to just go hangin’ out with a particular kid whose name has been drawn from a hat.
Besides, by this society's shaky standards, there are a lot of "successful" people, both male and female, who would be a bad example for anyone to follow. Ya dig? I'm just sayin'.
Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Dear friends,
Ever since the 1960s, well-meaning men in the African American community have talked about and, periodically, set up “mentoring” programs for African American youth, with special attention to boys.
At face value, it seems to be a worthy idea. The problem is: My experience has been that people choose their own mentors.
In other words, going to a young man’s house and talking with him, or taking him to a movie, as do, for instance, men who are affiliated with the Big Brothers Association, is, obviously, a nice gesture. However, the guidance and direction that that same young fellow, especially an African American one, will need in order to make his way through the foggy path of life’s journey that will eventually lead him to a worthwhile destination requires deliberate planning that is based upon the solid ability of the aforementioned youngster to know how to distinguish a “goal” from an “ambition”. Unfortunately, due to their over-exposure through the mainstream media, politicians particularly have folks confused about the difference between the two, since pols rarely speak in terms of goals, even though they usually proclaim to be doing so.
In any case, almost 30 years ago, while at Temple University, I developed a kind of intellectual model that I call the "Urban Fire Department Paradigm", in order to help people distinguish goals from ambitions. The aforementioned intellectual model goes like this: A person is named as the new chief of a fire department. A reporter asks, “Chief, what are your new goals for the fire department?” The chief confidently responds, “I’m going to have a truck at every fire in city limits, before the fire becomes dangerous.” Well, actually, that is not a goal. Rather, it is an ambition. Consequently, an answer by the chief that would represent a goal should have been, “I’m going to have a truck at every fire in city limits, in twenty minutes”. In other words, the chief does not know how bad the fire will get or how quickly it will spread; yet, s/he is determined that there will be a truck full of fire-eaters there fairly soon.
Hence, in order to help our youth maintain their focus on the future, it is best to encourage them to set goals of say 5 years ahead, regarding what they plan on doing for that specific time period. Moreover, once they become accustomed to setting specific goals, they will do that in all of their activities, whether for school. work, sports, or recreation.
By the way, as I continue to insist, let Us stop asking children what they want to be, in the context of what they will possess, when they grow up. Instead, let Us ask, what they want to be, regarding their relatedness to others. Let Us ask, "How will you help the community when you grow up?". Let Us ask, "What kind of work will you do to help people when you grow up?".
Still, ultimately, if we provide young people with proper and adequate guidance, they will do quite well, when it’s time for them to replace Us. As the great Franz Fanon warned: Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.
Finally, if people (i.e., children or adults), generally-speaking, choose their own mentors, it's better that men – and women - make themselves available in the community by setting up basketball and other such sports teams, or acting, writing, and singing clubs, for instance, to give kids, and not just boys, a chance to interact with positive community people; rather than to just go hangin’ out with a particular kid whose name has been drawn from a hat.
Besides, by this society's shaky standards, there are a lot of "successful" people, both male and female, who would be a bad example for anyone to follow. Ya dig? I'm just sayin'.
Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Should we Bomb Israel for having and using Chemical Weapons?
Dear friends
From: America's Tricky Relationship with My The Chemical Brothers Romance- Warfare - OpEdNews.com
"Vietnam War: America/President Lyndon Johnson uses 20 million gallons of herbicides and defoliants during the Vietnam War. About half a million children suffer from severe physical or mental disabilities as a result of the highly toxic Agent Orange. About 3 mi...llion have been affected altogether. A joint Vietnamese-US panel recommended in 2010 the US government, corporations and other donors spend $300 million to compensate Vietnamese victims and clean up their ecosystems. So far, the US government has not pledged such compensation. Similarly, many Congressmen appalled by the Syrian attack have failed to champion the House's "Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act" introduced three months ago.
Chemical Weapons Convention: The 1975 international treaty prohibits the use and production of chemical weapons and sets a timetable for their destruction. To date, seven countries in the world, including Israel and Syria, have either not signed or not ratified it. The United States signed the treaty in 1997, basically gutting its provisions through limits. The US also missed the deadlines established in the convention for destroying the vast majority of their chemical weapons. Needless to say, the treaty does not allow military force to be taken in case of noncompliance.
Side note on international treaties: Other countries could not legally bomb the US for violating treaties that it has not ratified (or has unsigned) that are agreed to by the vast majority of the world. A few include the Convention of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Yet action without United Nations Security Council approval would violate international law.
Iraq-Iran War: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sell Saddam Hussein toxic poisons and biological viruses which Iraq uses in the Iraq-Iran War. The American government knows and approves of this use. In fact, the Reagan administration provides intelligence to Iraq to identify Iranian targets for chemical warfare. Additionally, Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons against the Kurdish people in 1987.
Gulf and Iraq Wars: America/George Bush uses white phosphorus in Fallujah, Iraq, reportedly melting the skin of Iraqis and causing a higher incidence of birth defects, cancer, leukemia, and infant mortality than after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The United States also used weapons and munitions containing mildly radioactive and toxic depleted uranium in both the Gulf and Iraq Wars, causing cancer and birth defects, while leaving toxic land behind for the Iraqi citizens to live in.
Israel-Palestine Conflict: Israel uses the chemical white phosphorus in Gaza in the 2008-2009 war. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found white phosphorus was used in civilian areas, inflicting major injuries and chemical burns. Israel initially denied the chemical was used, but later admitted to it."
Let's keep it real, please!
G. Djata Bumpus
Read full post
From: America's Tricky Relationship with My The Chemical Brothers Romance- Warfare - OpEdNews.com
"Vietnam War: America/President Lyndon Johnson uses 20 million gallons of herbicides and defoliants during the Vietnam War. About half a million children suffer from severe physical or mental disabilities as a result of the highly toxic Agent Orange. About 3 mi...llion have been affected altogether. A joint Vietnamese-US panel recommended in 2010 the US government, corporations and other donors spend $300 million to compensate Vietnamese victims and clean up their ecosystems. So far, the US government has not pledged such compensation. Similarly, many Congressmen appalled by the Syrian attack have failed to champion the House's "Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act" introduced three months ago.
Chemical Weapons Convention: The 1975 international treaty prohibits the use and production of chemical weapons and sets a timetable for their destruction. To date, seven countries in the world, including Israel and Syria, have either not signed or not ratified it. The United States signed the treaty in 1997, basically gutting its provisions through limits. The US also missed the deadlines established in the convention for destroying the vast majority of their chemical weapons. Needless to say, the treaty does not allow military force to be taken in case of noncompliance.
Side note on international treaties: Other countries could not legally bomb the US for violating treaties that it has not ratified (or has unsigned) that are agreed to by the vast majority of the world. A few include the Convention of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Yet action without United Nations Security Council approval would violate international law.
Iraq-Iran War: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sell Saddam Hussein toxic poisons and biological viruses which Iraq uses in the Iraq-Iran War. The American government knows and approves of this use. In fact, the Reagan administration provides intelligence to Iraq to identify Iranian targets for chemical warfare. Additionally, Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons against the Kurdish people in 1987.
Gulf and Iraq Wars: America/George Bush uses white phosphorus in Fallujah, Iraq, reportedly melting the skin of Iraqis and causing a higher incidence of birth defects, cancer, leukemia, and infant mortality than after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The United States also used weapons and munitions containing mildly radioactive and toxic depleted uranium in both the Gulf and Iraq Wars, causing cancer and birth defects, while leaving toxic land behind for the Iraqi citizens to live in.
Israel-Palestine Conflict: Israel uses the chemical white phosphorus in Gaza in the 2008-2009 war. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found white phosphorus was used in civilian areas, inflicting major injuries and chemical burns. Israel initially denied the chemical was used, but later admitted to it."
Let's keep it real, please!
G. Djata Bumpus
Read full post
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Some Wisdom from Albert Schweitzer about LIFE
“A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.” - Albert Schweitzer
Dear friends,
It is obvious to me that people who hunt down and kill non-human animals for fun have serious mental health issues, just as those who murder other humans for power and wealth -through war - do, as well. Moreover, the crazies are not only the ones who murder people in movie theatres, temples, and the like.
Of course, Australopithecus Africanus, the earliest known hominid related to humankind (beginning @ four million years ago) was a meat-eater. Vegans be damned! Nevertheless, they killed for food, not fun. Finally, we should embrace the idea that all fauna and flora are sacred, as long as that belief does not interfere with our ability to maintain our existence.
At any rate, below is an excerpt from the work and wisdom of the great Albert Schweitzer. Please reflect and enjoy.
G. Djata Bumpus
***********************************
“REVERENCE FOR LIFE" by Albert Schweitzer
The following words by Albert Schweitzer are excerpted from Chapter 26 of The Philosophy of Civilization and from The Ethics of Reverence for Life in the 1936 winter issue of Christendom.
"I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually.
Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development. In me the will-to-live has come to know about other wills-to-live. There is in it a yearning to arrive at unity with itself, to become universal. I can do nothing but hold to the fact that the will-to-live in me manifests itself as will-to-live which desires to become one with other will-to-live.
Ethics consist in my experiencing the compulsion to show to all will-to-live the same reverence as I do my own. A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. If I save an insect from a puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the division of life against itself has ended. Whenever my life devotes itself in any way to life, my finite will-to-live experiences union with the infinite will in which all life is one.
An absolute ethic calls for the creating of perfection in this life. It cannot be completely achieved; but that fact does not really matter. In this sense reverence for life is an absolute ethic. It makes only the maintenance and promotion of life rank as good. All destruction of and injury to life, under whatever circumstances, it condemns as evil. True, in practice we are forced to choose. At times we have to decide arbitrarily which forms of life, and even which particular individuals, we shall save, and which we shall destroy. But the principle of reverence for life is nonetheless universal and absolute.
Such an ethic does not abolish for man all ethical conflicts but compels him to decide for himself in each case how far he can remain ethical and how far he must submit himself to the necessity for destruction of and injury to life. No one can decide for him at what point, on each occasion, lies the extreme limit of possibility for his persistence in the preservation and furtherance of life. He alone has to judge this issue, by letting himself be guided by a feeling of the highest possible responsibility towards other life. We must never let ourselves become blunted. We are living in truth, when we experience these conflicts more profoundly.
Whenever I injure life of any sort, I must be quite clear whether it is necessary. Beyond the unavoidable, I must never go, not even with what seems insignificant. The farmer, who has mown down a thousand flowers in his meadow as fodder for his cows, must be careful on his way home not to strike off in wanton pastime the head of a single flower by the roadside, for he thereby commits a wrong against life without being under the pressure of necessity. " Read full post
Friday, September 13, 2013
Real Talk - Cunthia McKinney on 9/11 and Middle East
"If you combined the thinking power of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack and Michelle Obama, much less their personal integrity, you could not possibly find it to be equal to Cynthia McKinney all by herself."
Dear friends,
If you combined the thinking power of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack and Michelle Obama, much less their personal integrity, you could not possibly find it to be equal to Cynthia McKinney all by herself.
On the link below, is an incredibly thoughtful and well-researched 13 minutes long video that proves my point .
Liberation!
G. Djata Bimpus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd6OpoW6siA Read full post
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Long Live Stephen Biko!!!...Happy Birthday!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNmAcgdO2Ck
' Read full post
Cynthia McKinney for POTUS!!!
Dear friends,
Back in 2008, when I was considering who I would vote for to be the president, my youngest daughter, Tia, an M.D./PhD candidate in a major medical school, had already decided that she was supporting Cynthia McKinney. I now feel very stupid, as I wound up like so many other African-American progressives giving Barack Obama his undeserved shot at the office.
Still, except for Cynthia McKinney - who has shown herself to be quite progressive, what will electing a female US president do for women and girls, let alone the rest of us?.
After all, Barack Obama was never meant to and deliberately has done nothing towards the purpose of African American liberation.
BTW, Hillary Clinton, as a US Sen., signed off on two unjust wars and has never, so much as a peep, talked about the fact that no president, including her husband, has ever signed on to the International E.R.A. Treaty?.
Meanwhile, violence against women and girls remains the number one problem on this planet, while Male Supremacy, the original source of all human exploitation and oppression, is as strong as ever.
And NOW (National Organization of Women), to this very day, hasn't presented a single community program for even European-American children, much less. their non-European-American counterparts.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Why is President Obama so Deceitful; about US Chemical Weaponry Use?
Dear friends,
Last night, in his chronology of the use of chemical weapons by certain nations Pres. Obama conveniently skipped over the Vietnam War and our government's use of chemical warfare against the Vietnamese people from 1965 to 1970.
Of course, there would have been no reason to bother addressing the nation, if people were reminded of that horror. So why all of the dishonesty? He sure can't blame the Republicans for his being so deceitful.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://theweek.com/article/index/232816/agent-oranges-shameful-legacy
Read full post
What really happened on 9/11? Amiri Baraka says...
"Why didn't the US military touch the hair on the head of one Saudi, when 19 Saudis flew into this country and killed thousands of people and destroyed thousands of small businesses?"
Dear friends,
What really happened that tragic day? Amiri Baraka gives us some ideas, on the link below.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/03/somebody-blew-up-america/ Read full post
Dear friends,
What really happened that tragic day? Amiri Baraka gives us some ideas, on the link below.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/03/somebody-blew-up-america/ Read full post
Dr. Norman Finkelstein confronts "Holocaust" crocodile tears
Dear friends,
Dr. Finkelstein's comments, on the links below, in a short video, to a silly, poorly-raised girl are more important to me than Wikileaks material, because they destroy the fraudulent position of too many Jews who blame Nazis for atrocities against Jews on the one hand, but ignore the atrocities that Isreali Jews have committed against Palestinians.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNQSV3BBtZ4 Read full post
Monday, September 9, 2013
Why we need Youth Sports
Two former Jr. Olympic champions, Frazier & Ali
Dear friends,
There’s an African proverb that goes, " To live together is to have a common fate." In other words, as a community, in the grand scheme of things as it were, we need each other, regardless of either physical or social differences.
Dear friends,
There’s an African proverb that goes, " To live together is to have a common fate." In other words, as a community, in the grand scheme of things as it were, we need each other, regardless of either physical or social differences.
But if people, in any specific community, share a common fate, then it only seems fair that all parties involved should have a voice in their destiny. Unfortunately, for all of the brave words of " freedom and democracy", when do Our children ever experience these lofty ideals, particularly democracy?
[Note: I am not ignoring the fact that the energy and courage of Our youth (both male and female) should, actually, serve the purpose of moving society forward - but only under the guidance of that part of society (parents and other elders) that has both the experience and understanding to recognize the values that maintain both Our humanity and spirituality.]
Still. what young people actually feel is that they are controlled, having little or no input, regarding decisions that directly affect their existence. They feel powerless. As a consequence, they become angry and frustrated. Moreover, in their feeling of powerlessness, quite intelligently, they rebel.
Yet, the problem with much of the rebellion of Our youth, especially in the inner city, is that young people often protest in ways that are self-destructive, largely due to the types of options available to them. Even worse, Our responses to anti-social behavior by Our youth are themselves often destructive, counter-productive, and mean-spirited. For example, " zero tolerance" in schools and harsher sentences for youthful offenders, by the courts, may feel good to some, but not even those punishments or " more jobs" will change the situation, if We ignore the anger and frustration that Our youth must necessarily express in a negative way, if We don’t afford them options/opportunities to make good choices.
Consequently, it seems that our efforts need to be concentrated on building Our communities better from their most basic unit: the non-adult human being. Clearly, if there is one thing that We humans need in the world today, it is community-building skills. Youth sports, more than anything else, is about community building. After all, Our youth have a great deal to learn in order to competently replace Us and, in turn, pass adequate knowledge and ability on to those who will follow them – that is, the yet-to-be born.
Sports participation allows young people to resolve the anger, fear, sadness, and frustration which results from their feeling of powerlessness, through the personal strength of positive energy and group support, instead of various expressions of anti-social behavior. It also familiarizes them with experiences of either having success, or, at least, trying to succeed. To be sure, mastering skills in most activities, whether for business or pleasure, requires using energy in a positive way, relying upon patience, concentration, and creativity. Doing a sport is no exception.<
Finally, Our youth, aren’t alien creatures. Rather, they came from Us. Their language, and, therefore, their thoughts, along with their actions are all based upon behavior inherited from Us. They are part of Our communities. To paraphrase the great philosopher Kahlil Gibran: Before one is willing to get rid of an oppressor, s/he must first get rid of the oppressor from within. Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
Humiliating the Panthers
Dear friends,
I was quite
incensed both yesterday and today as some clown, on Facebook, masquerading as an African
American, posted a picture from 1970 where some Philly Panthers stripped for
authorities after a raid that was led by super-scumbag Frank Rizzo, the top cop
back then who later became mayor.
Nevertheless, it's a hugely false abstraction to compare the a displaying of the
Emmett Till horror, as well as lowlife Frank Rizzo's stripping Panthers in
1970, within the context of exposing it to people of today, just as it is with
the murder of Dr. King, without
revealing the relationships between all of those occurrences and their
connection with the continuation of both local and federal government actions
to demean and humiliate, especially African American people.
Moreover, as
someone who had to walk around in the daytime with a pistol on my waist, and
sleep at night with a shotgun beside my bed and the pistol under my pillow,
while police cars surrounded our offices, and occasionally helicopters hovered
above as they routinely performed “combat exercises”, it angers me that that
photograph is not accompanied by the question "why did those Panthers
undress?". After all, we were always ready to fight!...Consequently, I
always saw it as an inside job.
That is, I always thought to myself that the
Philadelphia Police Department had infiltrated a local Panther branch (since there were about seven of them all over
Philly)...worse yet, since there were females there too, I can't imagine an
African American woman stripping naked in public, as some of them
did...therefore, whoever pulled his or her clothes off first was the police
informant\collaborator who got the others to join in.
Finally, jealous of the
Panthers, many self-hating black journalists and college professors have brought that
incident up as an excuse to snicker at the Panthers, when in fact their
cowardly selves, including my old friend Cornell West, were too scared to stand
up to our oppressors.
Read full post
Sunday, September 1, 2013
On Forgiveness
“…for African Americans and other oppressed people, especially Christian ministers/missionaries have, for many years, conveniently, urged us to embrace this notion of "forgiveness"…”
Dear friends,
On Facebook and other forums, I continuously hear about the notion of “forgiveness”. I strongly denounce the notion that one person should "forgive" another person for an insult committed against one's self!. That is, if someone hurts you, then s/he must first forgive himself or herself and redeem himself or herself by righting the wrong. Otherwise, that person hasn't grown, by you forgiving them when they've done nothing to make up for the unsolicited and unwanted insult that was thrust upon you.
Consequently, to me, it is a shallow expression of moral superiority, if not a mockery of it, to allow a person to remain in a bed of deceit and wrongdoing, instead of, at most, waiting to give that person a chance to redeem himself or herself. Besides, if you forgive the insulter, and that person hasn't attempted to redeem himself or herself, then you will suffer mentally and emotionally, inasmuch as that will clearly affect your self-esteem. This happens to victims of sexual abuse every second of every day, particularly females, since females are sexually assaulted, often by a relative or family "friend", literally, every second of every day, somewhere in the world!!! It's bad!!!
So, for example, if I borrow $100 from you and don't pay it back, then why should you forgive me? However, if I forgive myself, and come up to you with the $100 at a much later time and ask for your forgiveness for not paying on time, that's a whole different story. Then you can show real moral superiority, by letting that person pay you back. Otherwise, you are drugging yourself into thinking that you have done something good, when you have not even shown the courage to reject another person's insult directed towards you, by him or her asking for forgiveness without redeeming himself or herself first. Again, it affects your self-esteem.
Finally, the person who is not remorseful about having hurt you won't care either, so you've done nothing to help either of you...You just allowed a criminal to get away with a crime, so to speak. There's nothing good about that! Moreover, for African Americans and other oppressed people, especially Christian ministers/missionaries have, for many years, conveniently, urged us to embrace this notion of "forgiveness", as if the social/citizen insults have ceased to occur.
Peace & Love,
G. Djata Bumpus. Read full post
Dear friends,
On Facebook and other forums, I continuously hear about the notion of “forgiveness”. I strongly denounce the notion that one person should "forgive" another person for an insult committed against one's self!. That is, if someone hurts you, then s/he must first forgive himself or herself and redeem himself or herself by righting the wrong. Otherwise, that person hasn't grown, by you forgiving them when they've done nothing to make up for the unsolicited and unwanted insult that was thrust upon you.
Consequently, to me, it is a shallow expression of moral superiority, if not a mockery of it, to allow a person to remain in a bed of deceit and wrongdoing, instead of, at most, waiting to give that person a chance to redeem himself or herself. Besides, if you forgive the insulter, and that person hasn't attempted to redeem himself or herself, then you will suffer mentally and emotionally, inasmuch as that will clearly affect your self-esteem. This happens to victims of sexual abuse every second of every day, particularly females, since females are sexually assaulted, often by a relative or family "friend", literally, every second of every day, somewhere in the world!!! It's bad!!!
So, for example, if I borrow $100 from you and don't pay it back, then why should you forgive me? However, if I forgive myself, and come up to you with the $100 at a much later time and ask for your forgiveness for not paying on time, that's a whole different story. Then you can show real moral superiority, by letting that person pay you back. Otherwise, you are drugging yourself into thinking that you have done something good, when you have not even shown the courage to reject another person's insult directed towards you, by him or her asking for forgiveness without redeeming himself or herself first. Again, it affects your self-esteem.
Finally, the person who is not remorseful about having hurt you won't care either, so you've done nothing to help either of you...You just allowed a criminal to get away with a crime, so to speak. There's nothing good about that! Moreover, for African Americans and other oppressed people, especially Christian ministers/missionaries have, for many years, conveniently, urged us to embrace this notion of "forgiveness", as if the social/citizen insults have ceased to occur.
Peace & Love,
G. Djata Bumpus. Read full post
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Are they Civil Rights or Human Rights?
Dear friends,
The ever-reactionary US government has, conveniently, diminished all movements, along with their activists, that oppose the actions of the aforementioned government to being in the same league as the sterile movement of the Sixties that died with Martin Luther King. For example, today, ridiculous media and other endorsed spokespeople, call the great revolutionary and Black Nationalist Malcolm X, a “civil tights” leader. Huh? To be sure, about that, Malcolm is rolling around in his grave.
But this diminishing the significance of our human rights just mentioned above can be seen in the inability of African Americans to drink from certain water fountains down South as being called a “civil right”. Being seated fairly on a bus may be a civil right. After all, at least you can get on the bus – or walk. However, when, in fact, all humans must consume water/fluids in periodic intervals or they will succumb, it is a violation of one’s rights as a human being to not be able to drink from any particular public fountain. . This also applies to public toilets.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
The ever-reactionary US government has, conveniently, diminished all movements, along with their activists, that oppose the actions of the aforementioned government to being in the same league as the sterile movement of the Sixties that died with Martin Luther King. For example, today, ridiculous media and other endorsed spokespeople, call the great revolutionary and Black Nationalist Malcolm X, a “civil tights” leader. Huh? To be sure, about that, Malcolm is rolling around in his grave.
But this diminishing the significance of our human rights just mentioned above can be seen in the inability of African Americans to drink from certain water fountains down South as being called a “civil right”. Being seated fairly on a bus may be a civil right. After all, at least you can get on the bus – or walk. However, when, in fact, all humans must consume water/fluids in periodic intervals or they will succumb, it is a violation of one’s rights as a human being to not be able to drink from any particular public fountain. . This also applies to public toilets.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Dr. Martin Luther King's manifesto - Letter from a Birmingham Jail
"Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world."Dear friends,
While there have been many Black leaders, both male and female, who are deserving of a memorial statue, at least, one of those many is now finally being recognized. Moreover, while Dr. King's real views have been trivialized by a government- and corporate-controlled mainstream media and other North American cultural institutions as "A dream", the real work that was done by centuries of activism - and still goes on - has brought African Americans and many others to this point, and is captured in a letter that is, to me, Martin Luther King's manifesto. It appears on the link below. Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham Read full post
Is Miley Cyrus Racist?
Dear friends,
All of this brouhaha about Miley Cyrus is directly tied to the continued use and embrace of the moniker "white". That term only perpetuates racism. After all, many Latinos and Asians call themselves "white". The term white is nothing more than a mean-spirited claim that people make in order to be pot of an artificial "majority" group.
In fact, right here in America, before Adolf Hitler's sick fantasy about an Aryan race, Irish, Polish, Italians, and Jews were not even considered white. Still, the George Zimmerman privilege that people enjoy by calling themselves white is evident by the fact that those who call themselves white feel disempowered not to do so.. Again, they are just being mean-spirited!
Moreover, one of the major problems is: in a socially-stratified society such as ours, one can be a member of an oppressor group and an oppressed one simultaneously - the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle proved that point quite adequately. Therefore, females who call themselves white, as well as homosexuals who do that, often blur the distinctions between those who are oppressed and those who oppress.
Yet, to me, all of the complaining about Miley Cyrus has little merit, since Tyler Perry movies and television productions, along with fake scholars like Michael Eric Dyson, and "jiggerboo" Jay-Z, because of the consistency of their attacks against African-American people, are far more harmful in terms of both verbal and audio images for all youth, especially those of African descent.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732 Read full post
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Presidential Conventions of 2012 and Religion
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." - Karl Marx
>
Dear friends,
It's interesting that ALL of the speakers at both of the political conventions 2012 ended their addresses with religious salutes. And so, while such gestures may bring warm feelings, temporarily, to many, at what point will humankind take responsibility for realizing our true essence and seeking to relate to each other and what we do, in a way that will bring genuine peace and happiness, without us havin
Finally, we cannot appreciate our true essence as a species, much less ever find real peace and happiness, as long as we obscure its existence through religious claims that do not reflect our behavior as species beings. Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus
Read full post
>
Dear friends,
It's interesting that ALL of the speakers at both of the political conventions 2012 ended their addresses with religious salutes. And so, while such gestures may bring warm feelings, temporarily, to many, at what point will humankind take responsibility for realizing our true essence and seeking to relate to each other and what we do, in a way that will bring genuine peace and happiness, without us havin
to engage in the drama of politics?
In his often, deliberately, misquoted work called, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right - Introduction, the great Karl Marx offers, "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."Finally, we cannot appreciate our true essence as a species, much less ever find real peace and happiness, as long as we obscure its existence through religious claims that do not reflect our behavior as species beings. Cheers!
G. Djata Bumpus
Read full post
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Can Jesse Jackson Rehabilitte Paula Deen - and himself?
Dear friends,
Aren't there ministers where Paula Deen ;lives? Why did she choose Jesse Jackson as a "spiritual adviser"? Look at his former charges like slimy Bill Clinton, the groupie who had his child, and his own son!
Sound fishy?
G. Djata Bumpus
http://politix.topix.com/news/6754-jesse-jackson-agrees-to-help-deen-reclaim-herself Read full post
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Bradley is a Wpman and Obama is a Man?
Dear friends,
Bradley Manning a seriously, mentally ill person. Moreover, his objectifying women is incredibly sexist!...why do so many women who consider themselves "progressive" justify such behavior?
After all, since when does being a woman defined as having long hair and wearing makeup?. He needs help - not confinement. The Obama administration, I am told, has charged more people with espionage than all other past presidents combined. Yet, African American people still foolishly support him!. It's a damn shame!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57599677/bradley-manning-i-want-to-live-as-a-woman-named-chelsea/ Read full post
Bradley Manning a seriously, mentally ill person. Moreover, his objectifying women is incredibly sexist!...why do so many women who consider themselves "progressive" justify such behavior?
After all, since when does being a woman defined as having long hair and wearing makeup?. He needs help - not confinement. The Obama administration, I am told, has charged more people with espionage than all other past presidents combined. Yet, African American people still foolishly support him!. It's a damn shame!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57599677/bradley-manning-i-want-to-live-as-a-woman-named-chelsea/ Read full post
3 Black male youth murder Aussie visitor
Dear friends,
As I've been saying, for years, all of the attention given to mentoring black male youth means nothing, if you aren't giving the same attention to our female youth (who are the ones who will have the black male youth), as well as creating genuine communities where there will be plenty of grown men available to offer wisdom and experience to all of our youth...
Otherwise, if we keep placing so much emphasis on young Black males only, we will simply be promoting Male Supremacy which is the basis for all human oppression and exploitation. So nothing will change!. Moreover, one of these low-life teenagers lived with his father. We can not be angry with George Zimmerman, and not be equally angry with these three fools! Peace. G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57599336-504083/christopher-lane-australian-baseball-player-killed-by-bored-okla-teens-police-say/
Read full post
Otherwise, if we keep placing so much emphasis on young Black males only, we will simply be promoting Male Supremacy which is the basis for all human oppression and exploitation. So nothing will change!. Moreover, one of these low-life teenagers lived with his father. We can not be angry with George Zimmerman, and not be equally angry with these three fools! Peace. G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57599336-504083/christopher-lane-australian-baseball-player-killed-by-bored-okla-teens-police-say/
Monday, August 19, 2013
Russell Simmons attacks Harriet Tubman/Black people
"Once again, under the guise of being “comics”, some pathetic African Americans are mistaking self-deprecation for-self-degradation."
Dear friends,
I was channel surfing late Saturday night (8/17/13), when I stopped at a program called Comedy TV or something.
A young black male comic named Billy Dee Washington had just come on. At first, he actually sounded funny mimicking someone who told him that when they go to a comedy show they don’t want to think; rather, they just want a laugh. That was, apparently, supposed to be some type of prelude for what was coming. I should mention here that his audience was all European American.
At any rate, the aforementioned comic went on to say “I just found out that my great-grandfather was a runaway slave...he ran away because my great-grandmother was a bitch.”...The European-American audience halfheartedly laughed. In other words, even some of them found it offensive.
When I was talking with one of my daughters ,yesterday, she mentioned that Russell Simmons had come out with a tape call the Harriet Tubman sex tapes, and that Spike Lee and others were incensed..
Once again, under the guise of being “comics”, some pathetic African Americans are mistaking self-deprecation for-self-degradation. In this short interview below Russell Simmons tries to explain away his self-hatred and disgraceful lack of consideration for African American people, although he likes to collect our dollars.
Additionally , stirring people up by using controversy , for the sake of it , is a very negative , poisonous approach to creating union between people .
One Love!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnwDKcpc1RE
Read full post
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Who really benefits from Stop and Frisk policies?
"if in fact the issue is safety, then how does violating both the human and civil rights of especially African American and Latino men and boys make the aforementioned males safer? I mean, are they deserving of such social comfort from the abuse of police/other citizens?"
Dear friends,
One of the biggest problems in the structure of any society lies with the fact that: in order to operate in a cohesive manner the various cultural institutions such as the government and its instruments of threat capacity through the courts, police, and military, along with slightly less coercive institutions like schools, churches, media, and many others, seem to necessarily embrace a “collective conscience”.
Yet, what room does that leave for each of the individual members of any particular society to really think as a person who has a “sense of self”? That is, although we are social beings, each of us, even babies, exists as an individual. Likewise, police officers are each responsible for maintaining his or her own well-being.
Moreover, with both state authorization and a pistol, unfortunately, it is not difficult for one of these folks to take improper stock of himself or herself. In a society that is based upon White Supremacy (i.e., “white” rules); this leaves tens of millions of people who are not considered “white” to being possibly victimized, at any time, by state sanction. Did someone say Trayvon Martin?
Hence, the ongoing controversy regarding the Stop-and-Frisk policies of urban police departments in the United States is not about public safety. Rather, those humiliating measures are about control. After all, if in fact the issue is safety, then how does violating both the human and civil rights of especially African American and Latino men and boys make the aforementioned males safer? I mean, are they deserving of such social comfort from the abuse of police/other citizens? And why should such a large body of citizens have a vested interest in the proliferation of our society, when their dignity is violated solely for the purpose of affording the opportunity to certain police officers to inflate their shallow egos?
Finally, if a collective conscience is deliberately directed towards benefiting only specific groups here, then why all of the pretense of “freedom and democracy”? I mean, for the big corporations that control our society, how important is it to them to have police and military forces make sure that any collective conscience is profitable to the former, with no one stepping out of line.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Dear friends,
One of the biggest problems in the structure of any society lies with the fact that: in order to operate in a cohesive manner the various cultural institutions such as the government and its instruments of threat capacity through the courts, police, and military, along with slightly less coercive institutions like schools, churches, media, and many others, seem to necessarily embrace a “collective conscience”.
Yet, what room does that leave for each of the individual members of any particular society to really think as a person who has a “sense of self”? That is, although we are social beings, each of us, even babies, exists as an individual. Likewise, police officers are each responsible for maintaining his or her own well-being.
Moreover, with both state authorization and a pistol, unfortunately, it is not difficult for one of these folks to take improper stock of himself or herself. In a society that is based upon White Supremacy (i.e., “white” rules); this leaves tens of millions of people who are not considered “white” to being possibly victimized, at any time, by state sanction. Did someone say Trayvon Martin?
Hence, the ongoing controversy regarding the Stop-and-Frisk policies of urban police departments in the United States is not about public safety. Rather, those humiliating measures are about control. After all, if in fact the issue is safety, then how does violating both the human and civil rights of especially African American and Latino men and boys make the aforementioned males safer? I mean, are they deserving of such social comfort from the abuse of police/other citizens? And why should such a large body of citizens have a vested interest in the proliferation of our society, when their dignity is violated solely for the purpose of affording the opportunity to certain police officers to inflate their shallow egos?
Finally, if a collective conscience is deliberately directed towards benefiting only specific groups here, then why all of the pretense of “freedom and democracy”? I mean, for the big corporations that control our society, how important is it to them to have police and military forces make sure that any collective conscience is profitable to the former, with no one stepping out of line.
Liberation!
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Drones, Wars, and Money
"I guess having a personal God allows people to disregard their personal Good."
Dear friends, Just a few days ago, Pres. Obama ordered his umpteenth drone strike and murdered a bunch of people, many of them children, because the corporations who put him in office need to keep this country at constant war...even worse, many citizens - politicians and every day people alike, thinking of no one but themselves, go along with this carnage as long as they are able to keep their “jobs”. I guess having a personal God allows people to disregard their personal Good.
On the link below, is a 28 minutes long video about the history / evolution of the drone program.
G. Djata Bumpus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxT481YzHs Read full post
Dear friends, Just a few days ago, Pres. Obama ordered his umpteenth drone strike and murdered a bunch of people, many of them children, because the corporations who put him in office need to keep this country at constant war...even worse, many citizens - politicians and every day people alike, thinking of no one but themselves, go along with this carnage as long as they are able to keep their “jobs”. I guess having a personal God allows people to disregard their personal Good.
On the link below, is a 28 minutes long video about the history / evolution of the drone program.
G. Djata Bumpus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxT481YzHs Read full post
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