Monday, May 28, 2012

The Greatest Pain I Ever Felt (Part I)

The greatest pain I had ever felt occurred 20 years ago while I was a student at Grambling State University. I remember I was working nights, after class, at the university’s health center at night in the cleaning department as a participant in the university’s work study program to earn extra money to pay for food and other living expenses. I liked working there because when I would I would go on breaks, I would casually slip into one of the nurse’s offices and talk on the phone while my supervisor would be in the break room eating and talking with the nurses who were working the night shift. Well, this particular night, I discovered that I could make long distance phone calls courtesy of the health center. The first person I called was my favorite aunt in Dallas, Patricia. We started our conversation off talking about college and how everything was going for me. I asked about my cousins and other family members who also lived there in Dallas.



Then, we began to talk about the birth of my first niece, Sheila, by my younger sister, Tisha. I made the comment, “Aunt Pat, Sheila looks just like Tisha when she was a little girl.” “She sure does.” my aunt responded. My aunt went to something that would change my life forever. “You know, Rico, Sheila looks just like her mother the same way you looked like your father, Carl.” I paused for a moment. I suddenly felt this overwhelming sense of fear take control of my body. I cautiously asked, “Aunt Pat, don’t you mean Terry?” “Aunt, Pat, My father’s name is Terry.” At that very moment, I heard a jerk in her voice that I will never forget. It sounded as if she had been surprised by something or she had let something slip out of her mouth that had been a deep secret up until then. She did not even bother with trying to correct herself. She just came out with it. “Boy, your mother hasn’t told you yet?” She asked. I said, “No.” “Told me what?” Your mother hasn’t told that Carl Jackson is really your father and not Terry Richard?” I told her that this was the very first time I had heard this news. Needless to say our pleasant conversation had turned sour.


We attempted to carry on the conversation, but I just couldn’t. I believed at that time, she thought she had to continue to talk so I would not feel bad about her blurting out such a revelation the way she did, therefore attempting to explain the situation as much as she could. In my mind, she had said enough for one night. I let her off the hook by telling her that I was about to get off from work and I had to go. Before I hung up the phone, I had to ask her how this Carl Jackson person looked. She responded very quickly, but sensitively, Rico, go and take a look in the mirror. With that being said, we hung up. I immediately called my mother to get some answers because I was both hurt and curious the same time.


I immediately called my mother and told her what my aunt Pat had told me. Her response to what I told her pissed me off at the time because it seemed that all she was concerned about was her and her precious secret that got out. I told her that my aunt Pat had let it slip out that Terry wasn’t my biological father and instead a Carl Jackson gets the cigar. She angrily responded, “ Pat talks too damn much!” “She tells every damn thing!” She went on to rant and rave about how little the relationship meant to her when they dated the very short time all those years ago when they were teenagers. “There was nothing between us!” “I didn’t even like him!” “I don’t know what I was thinking!” “It was just something that happened and it was over!” “When I met Terry, Carl was not in the picture!” “I was already pregnant with you when I met Terry and he took care of you!” I interrupted her ranting and raving about herself to tell her that I was coming home the next day because I was not up to going to class the rest of the week.


We said our good-byes and hung up. I packed my books and left work early that night. I walked half way home in a daze. I was in total shock. I could not believe what had just happened to me. Here I am, twenty-two years old, and just now finding out that the man whom I was led to believe by my mother and the rest of my family to be my biological father, really wasn’t my biological father. I felt betrayed. I felt stupid. I felt alone. I felt a sense of not having an identity. I was angry at my mother for keeping this information away from me for what I perceived as selfish reasons. I felt a big gap opening up inside of me. Up until age twenty-two, I thought Terry Richard was my biological father. Trust. He was most certainly never a father to me growing up because I never saw him that often. I never really liked him because I had nothing in common with him. He was just the only connection I had as far as knowing who my father was. I had a sense of identity. I was content with the belief or the story that he was my father and I had even adjusted my life to this thinking. Now, that would all change. I wanted to know more about this Carl Jackson.


I remember walking across the campus on my way to the little trailer home that I rented at the time which was walking distance from campus still in a complete daze. I don’t think I noticed the other students on campus or even cars for that matter as I made my way across the yard. Suddenly, my daze was broken by the horn on a friend’s truck (Patrick Cooper) who offered me a ride home. When I hopped into the truck, I tried to act natural as if nothing was wrong. He asked me, “Wassup, man?” and I responded in what I thought was a calm way, “Nothing much.” He asked me if something was wrong and I just went into this stare, almost into a zone like stare. I began to speak slowly about my very recent experience with finding out about my real father. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to discuss it with anyone because the more I explained the sadder I became. I talked non-stop all the way home. While explaining my story, I felt myself beginning to breakdown in tears. I was able to hold them back until we pulled up into my driveway.


The tears came streaming down my face as I made my way out of the truck. “Take it easy man!” Patrick yelled out as I made my up to the front door of my trailer. I looked back with tears rolling down my face and responded in this hurt and quivering voice, “Okay, man! I will see you later!” I walked into my apartment and went directly to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed. I cried until I had no more crying left in me. I remember yelling, screaming, “How could this happen to me?” “Why me!?” That was one long, painful night of tears.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Why are so many Religious Blacks so gullible? So what if gays want to get married!?

Ok. The President ‘came out’ last week and publicly supported gays having the right to marry. Who cares? Newsweek Magazine even disrespectfully (in my opinion) plastered a picture of the so-called first Black President wearing a gay (rainbow colored halo) with a caption that reads “The first gay president.” The President giving a politically motivated supportive speech last week did not change any situations in my life. In case you all did not know, Obama is running for re-election in November. The Republican conservatives and any and all anti-Obama individuals and groups are hard at work to make sure that he does not get re-elected. The President ‘coming out’ in support of gay marriages seems to have done exactly what the Obama haters wanted to be done, which was to create an emotional debate in his black voting base. I used the word emotional because the Pew Foundation on Religion reports that Black people are the most religious group in this country, with Hispanics being not too far behind and whites in dead last. This says a lot about our mental health status as a race. The right-winged conservatives assume that Black voting is usually based on emotional moods or emotional status during an election season. Therefore, this style of voting is usually void of any sense of intelligence when dealing with politics and  even race.


Religion has almost always been used (ever since the very first Afrikans were kidnapped and brought over here to America for slavery purposes) as one of the main tools of manipulating Black people, therefore, maintaining the ability to control and entire race of people with a damn scripture that supposedly came from some Jesus figure or from some god. Now, you have these Negro preachers all on television challenging and even condemning the President for his supportive statement of gay marriages, citing biblical reasons for their dismay. Negros, please! Get off the gas! Let’s go back into history for a moment. Let’s go back to the slave plantation where the Negro preacher was actually created. Look. The black preacher is more of a danger to the Black community than the KKK, Nazi skin heads, and even a neighborhood gang. He or she is even more of a sell-out than those Blacks who played a part in the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.


The Negro preacher is a hired hand for white racism/white supremacy. Meaning, he/she ain’t worth a damn to us. The Black preacher was selected and groomed to be a voice for the slave owner’s plantation agenda. NO BLACK PREACHER HAS EVER BEEN “CALLED” TO PREACH BY GOD! This is a longtime myth that so many black people have been passing down from generation to generation.


On the slave plantation, the Negro preacher was given the slave owner’s version of the Bible on to further the mental initiation of servitude and obedience to the massa. His job was to drive home the point to the slaves who attended church services that ole massa and the conditions on the plantation were not so bad and besides they were all going to get a reward in heaven when they died for all of the physical and mental suffering they were put through while here on earth. Sadly, many too many of us still believe this old hype.


He was a trusted slave that pledged his allegiance to the plantation and its owner. In return for his allegiance, the trusted preacher on the plantation was given the better of the scraps of food from old massa’s table while the other Afrikans had less. He wore somewhat of a better grade of clothes and he was even allowed to wander about the entire plantation and even in the massa house, with little questioning or even being harassed. So, one might ask, “Rico, do you feel this way about all black preachers today?” Well, if he/she is currently teaching out of the very book (Bible, which is missing several books) that has kept us enslaved mentally for over 500 years in this country and afraid to stand up against white supremacy and white racism then yes. I feel this way. I don’t trust any Negro preacher who does not believe nor teach an Afrikan-centered doctrine. Rev. Jeremiah Right teaches and African-centered doctrine. Malcolm X taught an Afrikan-centered doctrine. Noble Drew Ali taught and Afrikan-centered doctrine. I even like the doctrine of the Honorable Minister Farrakhan and Elijah Muhammad. If your Negro preacher isn’t teaching this way, he is teaching you to be a religious, self-hating slave to white supremacy.


So, some of the preachers have a problem with the President’s statement on gay marriage. A lot of us have a problem with the President’s statement on gay marriage based supposedly on what the Bible says about marriage. I will say this. I find it most interesting that some of these jack-legged preachers and silly religious Blacks have such a problem with the ‘gay issue” on a national level, but locally (or within their very own churches) they are silent. These very same objectors of gay marriage on a national level sit up in church every Sunday with a gay choir director, a gay organist, a gay preacher, a gay deacon, and even gay male or female couples. I guess it is ok for them to be gay all up in the church on Sunday morning as long as they pay their weekly lay-away-plan to heaven that most folks refer to as tithing. If you all are so concerned and are supposedly do in-tuned with what the Bible supposedly says about anything, maybe many of you should read in the Bible somewhere where it talks about healthy living and eating a healthy diet and not having all of these damn children out of wedlock! Yes. I said it!


Also, whenever something “jumps off” racially or politically in the Black community, the Negro preacher is always called to either calm the storm of Black anger or fan the flames of confusion. In this situation concerning the President’s supportive statement on gay marriages, these Negro preachers have been “called” to step out front to further fan the flames of confusion. Don’t be misled by these charlatans. They are on the pay roll. Gays wanting to marry should not even be allowed to serve as diversion to what we really need to be concerned about in the Black community. Do I need to go down the list of issues that need to be addressed? Hey, let them get married and let them get divorced like the rest of us. Oh. Yes. Gays get divorced too. Ask Ellen DeGeneres. Ask Rosie O’Donnell. Ask Melissa Etheridge. This list of gays to ask about falling out of love with their partner and getting divorced is long.


Black people, don’t get caught up in the biblical nonsense about a marriage supposedly being only for a man and a woman. Hell, based on statistics, straight men, straight women, and gays don’t really seem to care that much about marriage, especially in the Black community. What Black people should be doing is coming together to build up our communities, supporting each other economically, and raising the children that we decide to give birth to with or without a spouse.


In closing, I did not write this article in support of President Obama or the gay community. I wrote this article with hopes of bringing some semblance of clarity to people who may have gotten off track or who may have been distracted from the real issues. If you are an Obama supporter don’t get sidetracked with silly issues like gay marriage or gay rights. By the way, what exactly in the hell are gay rights? Don’t allow a paid spokes persons for white supremacy such as a damn preacher to speak for you. Do your own reading and research.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

The Disappearance of Black formatted radio

Earlier this week, we were stunned with the news of Tom Joyner and Michael Baisden being taken off of the radio in New York. These two radio shows reached the largest listening block of African Americans in this country. These two shows educated the masses during a many political elections and sounded the alarm nationally for injustices like the Jena 6 racial incident and the most recent, the Trayvon Martin murder in Florida. Even though these two shows are still operating strong in other markets across the country, New York was really major. A little over a year ago, Michael Baisden was taken off the air here in Dallas when the station he was on changed formats. They went from current RnB and soul to old school RnB classics only.


So, what does this mean? Any thoughts? Well, it all sounds political to me. Whenever national elections, particularly the election of a congress, senate and the president come around, you will notice the right wing conservatives becoming very busy with silencing the voices and rights of minorities in this country. Have any of you been keeping up with the republican push to force everyone to have a state id present with their voter’s registration card on election day? Have you heard where states like Texas are trying to force college students from out of state (which will mainly affect the HBCU attending students in Texas) to go back to their home state to change their voter registration to Texas before they can vote in an election when this has never been the case? When I voted at in elections in the town of Grambling back in the day all I needed was my college id card. Texas republicans are working to change this policy to make it more difficult for Blacks and minorities to vote in state and national elections. It is called the republican voter suppression movement and it is definitely coming to a state near you.


THEY (Conservative Right-wing Republicans) don’t want to see Barack Obama re-elected as president in November. So, they are not playing any games or taking any short cuts. Politics is a dirty game. Next, you have the dumbing down of a people through the use of the media. Black talk radio in the past used to be the voice of the people. Now, it has become the voice of prank calls, a mad minute, coonery, buffoonery, sambo-ism, a man mimicking an old black woman reading church announcements, condescension towards callers, crude jokes, celebrity butt-kissing, along with forced, loud, over the top laugher with a gospel song being played in the midst of porno-graphic rap and RnB music.


Frankly, if “they” were to remove all of the current national black formatted early morning shows or afternoon drive shows, I would not care. Well, I would want to leave Tom Joyner because he does use his foundation and his celebrity status to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Black students. Michael Baiseden has become watered down over the past few years, but he does allow you to call in and shout your small business out. So, I would vote to keep him on with a few conditions. The main one I would have is for to stop his constant promotion of interracial dating between blacks and whites. I wish he concentrated more on the rebuilding of the Black family. He has never tried to bring white Jewish women and Palestinian men together on his or Nazi skin head men.


As far as Rickey Smiley and Steve Harvey…I don’t think that they should be removed completely from the airwaves all together. I think that they should just be moved over to satellite radio. So, for those who want to hear their brand of talk, they can pay a monthly subscription. It seems that all of the talk radio shows that we have are hosted by comedians, which is perfect for dumbing down a people. Comedians are non-threatening and people don’t take court jesters, fools, and comedians seriously. Well, what this really means is if Black people really want serious talk and real news from the radio, people like me will have to create our own media source that cannot be dedicated by the powers that want us to remain ignorant and laughing all of the damn time. However, for those in the Black community who want real radio, you must support it with not only your listenership, but with your finances as well. I am just saying.


You see, while we are busy laughing, the racial clock is being turn back. I wonder if the republican forces are going to go after the Yolanda Adams Morning Show or the Donnie McClurkin radio show. I doubt it. These are Christian/religious formatted radio/talk shows. Next to that laughing Black person, the religious Black person is even more non-threatening to the current republican  power structure.







Steve Harvey is at it again. He says “women should not date men who don’t believe in God.” “Those who don’t believe in God are idiots”

Steve Harvey is at it again. He says “women should not date men who don’t believe in God.” “Those who don’t believe in God are idiots”
First of all. Black women rarely ever don't Black men who don't believe in God. One of the first things that they ask a man on the first is “What church do you belong to?” This question has ended a many dates for me personally. It has even gotten to the point where I have serious considered even moving out of the south or checking the internet for dating website that primarily features slender black women, with their own hair (that is not chemically processed) and who are non-religious. Now, these same Black women date men of other races who don't believe in God, don’t have a religion, and who don't go to church. You see. Black men are held to a "PERFECT" and a "NO NONSENSE" standard while other men just have to be white, Asian, Mexican, rich, etc.

Next, Jesus is not God. God is God. ALL INTELLIGENT PEOPLE WITH GOOD COMMON SENSE and a LIBRARY in their neighborhood know that one does not have to be a part of a religion or belong to a damn church to have a belief in a higher power, the Creator, the Most High, and even God. It’s whatever adjective you choose to describe your Higher Power. So, having said this, the men that seem to be giving all these women the blues are the guys who actually go to church and have a religion. Atheists, Agnostics, and people like me, Spiritualists, are not out here pimpin’ women, lying to them, impregnating them and leaving them and the seed he helped to created behind to move on to the next conquest or having sex with other women and men (the down low-brothaz) outside of the relationships.

So, Steve Harvey all those brainless Harvey-ites need to get their minds and their information right. Maybe these sistaz should give the non-church going, so-called non-believing Black men a chance at romance. They just may run across the man of their dreams and stop living in dream-land. Hell, I figured if these same sistaz can date and have children by thugs who don’t pay child support, they should not have a problem with dating an atheist, agnostic, or a non church-attending spiritualist. At least these groups of black men have jobs, education, and no record of criminal activity in their lives. Well, most of us. LOL!! 