Wondering, A Birthday Tribute to My Mother...

Today would have been my Mom's 73rd birthday....

I wonder...

I wonder what she would look like...

Would she have aged gracefully?

Would she finally have the salt and pepper hair she so desperately wanted?

Would she still have the contagious smile and still be one of the nicest & kindest persons one could ever know?

Would she be a "fly" senior citizen?

Would she still enjoy sneaking away to Atlantic City to play the slots?

Would she still be afraid of heights, therefore afraid of flying, or would she be jet setting around the world with Miss Higgi?

Would she still love to garden and take much pride in a lovely yard?

On a cold, snowy night would she still open the curtains, pour a glass of wine, light a candle and watch the snow fall while relaxing and listening to some good background music?

Would she have found happiness and love?

Would she still talk incessantly and proudly about her children and now her grandchildren to anyone who would listen?

Would she???

Happy Birthday Mommy. I miss you so...

Please listen to this song; Eric Clapton, Tears In Heaven. It is so lovely and so meaningful to anyone who has lost someone..

Post Ferguson Non-Decision Thoughts

I have heard the non-decision of the not so grand "grand" jury of darren wilson's peers because surely they feel no kinship to, identity with or compassion for the defenseless young man who was murdered and left to die in the street. Obviously they don't even see him, his Family or our community as human, forget 3/5. This rings of old when racist whites openly killed, raped, lynched & terrorized Black folks, admitted it, went before a jury of their peers and laughed all the way right out the front door of the court house... The hate that has reared its ugly head of late is beyond sickening. It is becoming physically sickening...

As much as I hate to admit it, it is at times like these that I am really upset with Tavis Smiley. He allowed his ego and greed to get in the way and destroy a very powerful and effective platform he was building. He had a captive audience, he was keeping us informed and teaching us to utilize and respect the power of our unified voice, the power of our dollar. All it took was for him to tell his audience to inundate a business with calls and people did it, jammed up the switchboard until we were heard... If he threatened that Black folks would boycott a product or service, the tides changed and the corporate big whigs were begging to come on the TJMS radio show to apologize, to explain, to respond to our collective voice. Tavis had the perfect platform to empower, educate and inform the Black community and he threw it away...

Tavis was on his way. He had commanded respect and tremendous credibility and possessed a different appeal because he did not have the baggage that Jesse & Al have. Respect them both but their ships have sailed.... Brotha' Al compromised his effectiveness as soon as he took a high paying position with a major network. How can he possibly criticize and hold accountable the very hand that feeds him? Not going to happen. Brotha' Jesse, for whose accomplishments I have deep respect, has just lost his appeal and sadly groomed no one to pick up the mantle.. Shame... I surmise that because Tavis was becoming so effective, therefore threatening, he was lured away with TV shows and such. Oldest play in the book, Can't shut them up or control them?, then put them on your team... Works every time and sadly Tavis fell for it leaving the Black community hanging... No one since has so effectively galvanized our community...

As my Friend Vincent Collaso constantly reminds us regarding what should be our response to the Ferguson non-decision, this is a time for new strategies. Not to knock at all the hard work of our predecessors, they gave us the foundation, but those old strategies are predictable. Mainstream America expects us to get angry, burn up our own shit, call them whitie, cracker or some other derogatory name all the while keep voting them into office, all the while spending our hard earned money in communities other than our own, with persons who don't look like us or have our best interests at heart... Of course too they will throw us a bone putting a few folks in the limelight to make some of us feel good, making sure we all see it and keep in line...

As much as I wish that I did, I don't have the answer. My heart hurts too but something has got to give. We have got to have a new strategy and it has got to be all about organizing US and making decisions in our collective best interest, decisions that preserve our dignity and keep our dollars in our communities being spent on our goods and services, like pre-integration... It frightens me that Black America is becoming more and more peripheral in America as we sit silently waiting/hoping to be accepted, waiting/hoping to be thrown a crumb, satisfied that a few of us have "made it" while the rest suffer...

As Vincent Collaso, Maggie Anderson and many others are constantly preaching, its about economics folks!!! Turn off the boob tube and get involved! Conceive It, Believe It, Achieve It...

Again, it is at moments like this that I am truly disheartened that Tavis dropped the ball  and that no one, as per usual in our leaders, was in place or groomed to pick it up... He was on to something...

Believing In Us!!! Forever & Ever!!!

Just My Thoughts... Who will pick up the baton and get us running?

Apartheid in the Caribbean ~ BOYCOTT DOMINICAN REPUBLIC!!!‏

This is so despicable!!! Dominican Republic is denying and/or revoking citizenship to Dominicans of Haitian descent dating back to 1929, in other words Black folks!!!

" In September 2013, the Dominican Republic’s constitutional court passed a judgment revoking the citizenship of Dominicans of Haitian parentage born after 1929. People who had known no other home were suddenly stripped of their rights and made officially stateless."

While Dominicans of illegal status are joining in the demand for citizenship in the US, their country has deemed persons born and raised in DR and who have worked, achieved and contributed to the building of the country, as persons of no longer worthy of citizen status.

“Many Dominicans of Haitian descent are finding it impossible to access even the most basic of services such as health and education. They can’t send their children to school as they are unable to register them as Dominican citizens. They can’t work, vote or live a respectable and dignified existence. They are trapped in legal limbo, a form of ‘social suicide’ that is keeping them as second-class non-citizens. On a day-to-day basis even the most basic of tasks become insurmountable hurdles.

A few years ago while celebrating my 50th birthday in DR, I was appalled to see that Haitians were virtually treated like Slaves. Of course the Dominicans denied this. It did not occur to me at that time that some of those persons being treated so cruelly were Dominicans of Haitian descent. It did not occur to me that they would treat their own people so horribly! This government action confirms my observation.

One image that has haunted me is that captured on the attached photos. My heart stopped as I observed what looked like a scene straight out of American slavery; June 2010!!! It was shocking and appalling to see. While there I was highly critical of how Haitians were treated. These photos definitively illustrate my point. And now this..

"Yet Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian ancestry, who make up some 12% of the population (same as Blacks in the US), have often been said to be the drivers of the Dominican economy, providing cheap labour in droves. The Dominican Republic’s GDP in 2013 was almost eight times Haiti’s. The economic growth that the Dominican Republic has enjoyed has been built on the back of what was already an underclass. A poor, often black underclass denied most of the rights of lighter-skinned citizens. Toiling on building sites or on farms with little bargaining power or recognition. Sound familiar? South Africa?"

I will not visit Dominican Republic again until and unless they reverse this blatantly racist and inhumane decision. I hope that others will follow suit. Hit them where it hurts. Their economy depends on tourism. Make a statement. BOYCOTT DOMINICAN REPUBLIC!!!










June 2010; Dominican Republic

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