God & Poetry Saved Me from Suicide

For years I have been asked what motivated me to start writing. I have only been able to give part of the truth when I told people that I used writing to help me cope with issues. The other part, the most important part of this answer, has been an uncomfortable story to tell. I have hinted at the truth, only alluding to the answer because I was afraid to give full disclosure and worried about how the answer would reflect on me. This is not an easy explanation; it is the hardest story I have ever had to tell. However, what I experienced is all too common and not talked about enough.

I have never danced around the fact that I suffered from depression most of my teen, preteen years, and some of my early adult years. Unfortunately, the illness was pervasive in my household throughout my childhood. My mother was a serious sufferer of depression and I silently fell into the same pattern, as I struggled to understand what was wrong with our family and how I could solve the problem. In our apartment in the projects, there was a broken woman in a dark room on one side of the wall, a sad little girl crying everyday on the other side of the wall, and a boy I could not understand down the hall. This scene went on for years. In addition, self-esteem problems, the absence of my father, and poverty were all issues that I understood too well too young. Though I understood the issues, I did not understand why they were a part of my life or how to escape the problems associated with them and the emotions I experienced as a result.

My depression became even darker when I was about twelve years old. There are many things I cannot remember, but of those I can recall, I remember hating everything about myself and my life and believing that no one loved me, not even God. I believed that my dark brown skin was jet-black and ugly and that I was the sole source of problems in our home. I hated waking up in the morning; each day seemed to drag on and I could not see a reason for my existence. I began to pray for God to kill me in my sleep at night. I had convinced myself that no one would miss me if I was gone, not even my family, who was doing the best they could to help our family while trying not to upset our situation even more. I thought that if I died in my sleep it would be quick and painless. I was convinced that death would be my only peace, but a few more years would pass before I would actually get the courage to consider killing myself. Yet, when the moment arrived, I stood in the kitchen with the lights off and a knife to my wrist. I had never felt more desperate and ready. With tears running down my face, I stood ready to relieve myself of all pain. As I stood in the kitchen, I prayed one last desperate prayer, If you will give me one reason to live, just one God, I won’t do this. But I just cannot take it anymore. It was the last prayer I felt I had the energy to pray, and I had given up on God. I had wondered why I had seen my mother pray so much, but it seemed that nothing about our lives had changed. I had witnessed her praying through the crack of her door and reading her bible multiple times a day when I was child; yet, she was still so unhappy. I could not understand what prayer was supposed to do, but I knew it had to do something. I wondered why I felt the need to mimic her example, but still could not see the benefits of praying. Just as I finished my ultimate plea for a reason to save my own life, God spoke to me so clearly it was as if He was in the kitchen with me. He said three simple words, Write about it. It was such an unfamiliar experience and voice that I doubted myself when I first heard the words. He repeated, Jamie, write about it. It took me a minute to compose myself, but I dried my face, put the knife in the sink and went to my bedroom. I found my school notebook and starting writing words on paper.

I began writing paragraphs about my feelings and the anger with my life and my situation. I wrote when I was happy, angry, frustrated and depressed. Some of my writings were dark and filled with rage, but the more I wrote the more I was able to release the pain that I felt. I frequently heard God speaking to me as I wrote. Sometimes I wrote multiple times a day, and sometimes I would go days without writing. Yet, I knew that my pen was my savior and it was helping me to escape my pain. Though nothing was changing at home yet, things were changing within me. I started to feel hope and my motivation to become successful drove me to excel in everything I did. Mediocrity was never acceptable; my performance always had to be exceptional. I believed that my exceptional performance would help to change so many things about my life, and though I did not see much progress, writing continued to give me hope.

After my ninth grade year of high school Mrs. Sylvia Smith (formerly Hawkes) encouraged me to enter the public speaking contest at 4-H Short Course. Given my talkative history, she thought it would be the perfect competition for a girl in an agriculture club who could not have farm animals in the projects. I loved all famous black orators, and I secretly wanted to be like Dr. King one day, though I never thought it was truly possible. I thought the writing I had been doing for the past few years might help me write a speech for a contest. My paragraphs became poems, and my poems became my first essays. I became a competitive speaker who was more enthused by sharing a positive speech than by winning; though, I went on to win and place in most of my competitions. Speaking validated my calling to share hope with others.

The irony of my life was that most people never knew my living situation or that I lived every day for many years in depression. They had no idea that the outspoken honor student who was a member and leader in almost every school organization was smiling on the outside and praying for a reason to live inside. School gave me validation, and education gave me liberation. Seeing the success of others gave me hope on the day that I almost gave in. I am thankful that God saved me and I am living in every single moment of this life. As I hold my son, I am reminded of why I am so blessed to see every day and I frequently think to myself that I almost missed this wonderful life. Each night when I talk to my mama, I am thankful that God created such a beautiful masterpiece out of the shattered vessels that we were. When I stand on stages and talk to audiences, I think about how I almost missed the chance to share such important moments with others. All of the pain I experienced equipped me to be as strong as I am today. All of the hurt I felt gave me the compassion that I share with others. All of the depression I experienced made me appreciate true joy. All of the brokenness in my home was to bring my family even closer together in God. My friends and family frequently make jokes about how much I cry when I get emotional, but when I think of all the years I spent crying tears of pain, I want to make up for them by crying tears of joy. I am not perfect, and neither is my life, but God’s will for my life is being perfected each day. I have been freed because God and poetry saved me from suicide.

American Injustice for Black Men: Part II

It’s funny how a young white male killed 14 people and wounded 50 in a Colorado movie theater and there was more focus on his mental illness than the dead and harmed. It’s funny how a young white male killed 20 children and 6 adults at an elementary school and repeated stories about his mental illness struggles were the main headlines for many news websites and stations. However, when black male Ismaaiyl Brinsley went on a spree killing his ex-girlfriend and two NYPD police officers, it was hardly mentioned that he too had suffered from mental illness. Brinsley had a history of suicide attempts as recently as last year. Yet, he has been tattooed as a cop killer and murder, and little focus has been given to the unfortunate loss of his estranged girlfriend. Instead, media and society have used this incident to claim that the protests in New York and across the country have sparked this unfortunate situation. Brinkley’s mental illness issues and history have been used as ammunition to make it seem that black Americans are unruly and uncontrollable. Henceforth, the deaths of black men are justifiable in attempts to hurt them before they hurt others. I laugh, but not in a comical way. I laugh in a sick, demented, this-joke-is-too-dark, darker-than-my-too-black-for-America-skin way.

I have struggled for the past two years to control the anxiety and anger I feel towards America as it allows its racist face to show. It has been hard to accept that America has made no progress at all. Yes, laws were created following the death of Dr. King. However, what I have learned is that these laws were written on paper in attempts to pacify blacks, not to actually correct a problem or force American society to change. For that is a much bigger issue. One cannot unteach systematic racism or force individuals to stop making their offspring feel that they must remain separate to be superior. Therefore, the result of individuals teaching racism at home is the development of an unjust neighborhood which leads to a biased community which creates partial leaders which infiltrates an unfair country thus creating a divided society leading to a broken world.

Brinsley’s case has not justified police actions across the country; it has confirmed what I suspected. Black men who commit the same crimes as their white counterparts are presented in different manner and portrayed as beasts, thus creating an automatic sense of fear in society. Purse clutching and unwarranted deaths will be at an all-time high as America continues to paint images of Trayvon Martin dressed as a hoodlum who created fear in his own neighborhood, Mike Brown as an overly beastified pit bull who could not even fall at the shot of a bullet, Eric Garner being so large that his very voice overpowered a cop, and Tamir Rice needed no questions asked because 12 year-old black kids should not play with toy guns. Our own community leaders will continue to turn their backs on the youth who are ready and radical enough to fight by using the weak excuse that “blacks kill blacks every day” as if whites do not kill whites also. My fear has become that those who hold the real power will not work to make impactful changes.

Writing these posts has become painful to me, for it seems that this is an issue which has no beginning or ending. I struggle to find a solution for a problem that has existed for so long. I do not think America truly wants a resolution because to destroy the image of the black man is to destroy the black family. It is not a point of pride to draw this conclusion. It is disheartening to know that the struggle of a black man in America is so serious and scary to realize that I have no answer to change it. The only power I truly hold is to pray and train my son to be a fighter, because one day he will be a black man in
America.

Journey for a Day, Impact for Life

Today was life altering…even more profoundly, it was life changing. The woman who was my first inspiration to write therapeutically passed last week and I found myself deeply saddened that one of my dreams had not and would not ever be fulfilled- meeting Maya Angelou. For months I had talked about visiting her childhood home and getting a visual connection with the place I had heard and read about that transformed her life. I figured over and over that I had time to go, that not only would Stamps be there, Maya Angelou would be alive when one of the most grand moments of my life occurred. I took into light consideration that she was approaching a delicate phase in life and that there was only a matter of time before my dream would fade with her. Yet, reality struck last week and I suddenly felt the urge to make my visit happen immediately. I felt wounded, even broken hearted, that fate had brought about a situation that I could not fix nor change. And Stamps, Arkansas was the closest that my budget and body could get to Ms. Angelou.

I am not sure what I was looking for by going to Stamps. I was not sure what I would get when I got there, nor was I sure of what the traveling experience beheld. I thought others would think that my journey was a little crazy, so I shied away from telling people what I wanted to do and instead shared what I needed and I why I needed it with only a few people who wouldn’t question my motives whether they understood them or not. I got more than I bargained for when Breonda agreed to travel with me and Mrs. Whitfield was eager to go.  We took to the road early today with tribute balloons to be released in Maya Angelou’s honor waving wildly in the back seat of the truck. Excitement made this short journey seem long, but each mile did not seem to matter as we got closer to our destination. However, a lingering question loomed in my mind: what would we do when we got there?

This question would fulfill itself in a capacity that I never imagined. As we passed a beautiful scenic lake we came to the end of a road with only two directions to turn. The GPS said we had arrived in Stamps, Arkansas. To our right were a church and some houses on a country road and to the left was what appeared to be a highway. After mistakenly turning right onto the country road, I turned around in a stranger’s yard just past a white church sitting on a V road. We headed towards a highway which passed the back of the lake, over the railroad into the middle of Stamps, Arkansas. A few people were outside, and I was indeed nervous about what we should do next. The truck led us to the downtown area, which like any Southern country town, was dead on a Saturday afternoon. But, there was a single boutique open, with a young black woman and a middle aged man standing inside. “Forget it,” I said aloud, “This is the country. Let’s ask questions.” I parked and exited the car. We approached the young woman and the man, inquiring about any place in Stamps that honored or recognized Angelou. She told us that unfortunately, there was no street named after her, no landmark, not even a local plaque with her name on it. The town barely showed any recognition for this woman, but she knew someone who could show us the store that her aunt and uncle ran if we had time to wait. She made a phone call and we casually browsed the beautiful shop lending our patronage, partially for her beautiful items and partially for her kind help. Within minutes, a man and woman entered the shop and introduced themselves as Jerry and Dora, former residents of Stamps.

Jerry was much too young to have known Maya Angelou personally, but he did know her Uncle Willie who was still running the local store when he was a kid. The store was gone and so was Uncle Willie, but he could show us where the store and the home were located. He could also tell us a little about her visit to Stamps in the late 70’s when he was 12 years old, but he had some ladies who could tell us more information than he could. My eyes lit up; the trip was already beginning to be more than I had expected. We smiled and told him that anything he and Dora could offer would be a delight to us. I felt like we had hit the jackpot!

We followed Jerry back in the direction that we had come from. The familiar route led us to a house facing the road towards the church and country road where we had made the “wrong” turn only minutes ago. We pulled into the yard of a small and neatly trimmed white house. As Jerry and Dora spoke with the woman on the porch, I surveyed the area. At the church across the street three small puppies rolled in the grass. One puppy dragged his two legs behind him and crawled only on his front paws because he had been hit by a car nearly a month ago. (I’m still working on a way to get that puppy here and find him a home.) Still, the all of the puppies looked peaceful and happy and played in front of the church happily. On the church door was a wreath and a few feet from the front door was a large wooden Easter cross and a young tree with a black bow tied around it.

Jerry walked from the house with a small lady with a mini-blonde afro and glasses we got out of the truck. We were excited! She introduced herself to us as Maurine, not Ms. Maurine, Maurine. She had the energy of a young girl and the sweetness of my grandmother. We introduced ourselves and Mrs. Whitfield told Maurine that I was a writer and a major fan of Maya Angelou.  Her eyes lit up and she embraced me, saying that I looked like someone she had met before. She told us she was a much younger than Maya or as they knew her, Marguerite, but she could show us the land and tell us what she did know. Marguerite had been good friends with her sister, her cousin, and another man named Willie. Many of the others who had been good friends with Marguerite had passed already, and very few people were still around. Maurine told us that Maya Angelou had been to their house for dinner and to hang out just as she got ready to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She told us that if we could walk, the land where their house and the store were located was just down the street. As we walked, we passed the house where I had turned around because we were traveling in the “wrong” direction. Maurine told us the past few days had been crazy with statewide and national news stations coming down to view the town where Angelou spent the most important years of her life and had written about in her autobiography. Her sister had been interviewed and would be appearing in a documentary in the next few weeks. She stopped in front of a trailer with a huge tree in the yard and told us that this was where there house once stood. A few feet from the trailer, she showed us where the general store once operated. She laughed and talked about how Mr. Willie (Maya’s uncle) was handicapped and would allow the children to get their own cookies and candy from the jar. They would load their pockets with goodies they bought, or supposedly bought, with the money that they supposed to use for school lunch. Maurine spoke very highly of Maya’s grandmother. She said she was a tall and graceful lady, who was well-spoken, “like a teacher,” she said. “That’s why Maya was like she was. Her grandmother was always so well-spoken and graceful,” Maurine said. It was instilled her, I thought. She even told us that she did not personally know the teacher who helped Maya come out of her mute stage, but she knew who she was.

Suddenly, it all seemed even more real for me. She had been here- in Stamps; what she had been through to become Maya Angelou was real. I wanted to cry, no really, sit down on the grass and weep, but this was not the time to fall to pieces and have to explain something that I still could not quite put into words. It seemed that images described on paper had now become tangible. The tangibility of these images made the capability of being great more real.  

We continued to talk and a few passer byers waved and one even stopped to welcome us. I told Dora, Jerry, and Maurine about the balloons and they said that they wished they had known I was coming and they would have rounded up the community. But they did not know I was coming and I had no idea I would meet them. We talked about the lack of respect shown to Maya Angelou by the community and even disrespectful remarks made about her by community officials. Dora talked about the hopes of at least getting a street named after her and determination to pursue this for a woman who of deserving of so much more than having her name tattooed to a dusty street.

As we made our way back to the house and prepared for our good-byes and journey to the lake to release ballons, another older, thin lady was walking into the yard. “That’s my sister, Mary B., “ Maurine told us, “she knows more than I do.” Maurine’s sister told us she was Mary B., not Ms. Mary B., Mary B.  Maurine told her of our journey, to which she seemed excited. Mary B. hugged us and reiterating many of the things her sister shared adding details. She talked about how Maya Angelou was no guest at their home; she fixed her own plate and ate to her delight when she visited. She told of how their family member Tessie played the piano and Maya sang gospel songs when she visited before she wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Mary B. said she had read most of Maya Angelou’s books not because she purchased them, but because she would send a test copy to their dear friend and he would let her read it after he had finished- the raw, uncut scripts. My emotions were so charged, the atmosphere was than I could process at the time and I’m still taking it in. After several more minutes of talking, we told them we had to proceed to the lake for the balloon release so we could start our journey home. However, there was no denial that we did not want to leave and I do not think they were ready for us to.

As we pulled up the beautiful lake, I thought about how it was the perfect place to release the balloons. I took deep breaths and promised that I would be a big girl, no tears. We headed up the walk path to the gazebo on the water and heard some familiar voices behind us. Dora, her granddaughter, Jerry, Maurine, and Mary B. were getting out of the car. They had come for the balloon release ceremony, turning the moment into so much more than I imagined. After organizing the balloons, I shared a short speech about the meaning of each color of the balloons I had chosen. I talked about how much Maya Angelou/ Marguerite Johnson meant to me even though I never knew her personally. I told the women how important they were to such a beautiful story and how our lives intermingle to create history. We prayed and then set the balloons free.  We shared a final round of hugs and kisses, thank you’s, and goodbyes.

I still cannot quite express my feelings in complete words. There are some experiences in life that are bigger than a moment and a day. They are bigger than one or two people. They are bigger than a small town or a big city. They change us; they make us. The help us become who we should be. This experience cannot be defined or completely explained because it is so much bigger than me. Thank you Maya Angelou.

Why I Love Dr. Maya Angelou and Marguerite Johnson

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” –Dr. Maya Angelou

The first time I realized how much I really loved Dr. Maya Angelou was not when I performed “Still I Rise” with Star Kids, nor was it when I heard “Phenomenal Woman” for the first time. It was when I submitted my first project on her life and, I read that she had lived in Stamps, Arkansas as a little girl and had gotten pregnant as a teenager. As a child struggling with my own problems, Maya Angelou became real to me- not as a famous writer or an actress, not as a civil rights activist and not as someone who was being flashed on television from thousands of miles away. She was Margeruite Johnson. I realized that she was, at some point in her life, just like me. She had been issued a predestined hand of difficulty and struggled to recover, but had chosen to use her experiences as ladder steps instead of the diggings of a deep, inescapable ditch. In her, I saw what I could be- pained, tried, molded, shaped, capable. My discoveries of who she was in her younger years lead me to follow and study her works more closely. What made her so unique? Why did her wisdom seem so infinite? How could I be more like a woman of her caliber in thinking?

As I grew up, I found that her story was not unique, especially for a black woman born in American during such a racially charged era. She had experienced many of the same things sufferers of poverty, unsettled parents, youth and the African American race had gone through. Angelou’s story mirrored those I’d heard from grandparents, mentors, and teachers of my culture. She was not an overnight success story; she was a constant work. Her autobiographies indicated that she had done many things that failed long before she succeeded. Her admissions of selfishness, irrational actions and escapades often frustrated me, causing me only a few years ago to be upset with her. I did not understand how the Maya Angelou she confessed to being in the past had become the golden matriarch that I now loved. I did not want to lose my admiration for her, because her work meant so much to me. For a better understanding of Angelou, I found myself analyzing me. I evaluated where I’d been, how I’d erred, and whether I was the same person presently that I had been before. I was forced to re-evaluate my disdain for Angelou and instead, appreciate her brevity for giving an uncut and non-watered down version of her journey not as Maya Angelou, but as Marguerite Johnson. Her stories were not journals of her present; they were reflections of her past. My best lesson from her- wisdom yields when we learn from that which has affected us.

I considered the seemingly unending number of struggles she endured- rape, lack of parental guidance during most of her youth, the lost of her grandmother, teen pregnancy, prostitution, job loss, single parenthood, racism, failed marriages and relationships and the list continues to go on. I then removed myself as a reader and critic of her work and instead viewed her as an everyday woman. Then I attempted to strip away all of the modern amenities to which I am fortunate and tried imagine myself growing up in a heavily racist and sexist society with a stream of struggles that rendered me unqualified and unworthy of success. I asked myself what I would have done differently in some of her situations; many times I had no answers. I counted the actions she’d taken to make positive contributions to mankind in comparison to actions taken against mankind. Needless to say, the list of positives far exceeded the negatives. I thought also about the legacy created for her son through actions that I sometimes felt were one dimensional in objective, but the reminder of written records and a long legacy soon washed the doubt of her true love for him away. She had given him the best she could and was leaving him with an unmatchable legacy and story. Finally, I was able to grasp a better understanding of why her wisdom seemed so infinite.

Dr. Angelou is the first reason that I began write. I would be happy if I were only able to reach the bottom of the list of times’ greatest writers. Yet, I fear two things: not being knowledgeable enough to encompass true greatness and not finding an audience thirsty enough to receive true greatness. The number of people who see past a superficial society is limited. The focus on societal struggles has been obliterated by selfies, twerking, and being “liked.” And though I make claims to not be as shallow as some, I cannot deny that even I have been contaminated by modern media filth, causing me to often portray a commercialized image and occasionally present watered down versions of the truth. I feel that my growth in wisdom has been delayed and today I pondered how I could proclaim my undeniable love and respect for Dr. Angelou, especially when I have fallen behind in my own journey for more wisdom. The life of a writer is not about fame or performing on a stage. It is about growth and wisdom; two fineries which cannot be grown or bought but are worth more in value than any material purchase. By putting her life in writing, Dr. Angelou asks only that we take where she has been and what she has learned and pass it on to someone else- be it family members, students or a large audience.

I fell in love with writing because I discovered how instrumental writing is to the mental, physical, and sociological development of individuals. The very process of writing forces individuals to think and to push the thinking process past what seems obvious. It forces one to question what we hear and what we have been taught to think. It is a healing mechanism; it is a powerful tool that puts thoughts in a physical form to be passed on. Writing takes what the ears hear and turns it into what the eyes can see; thus, the pen is just as powerful as the tongue. There is a social responsibility to use the gift of writing in a way that is empowering and enlightening. This is what I gained through the constant study of Dr. Maya Angelou by way of Marguerite Johnson, and this is why I love her.

Phil Robertson: Maybe His Vision is Better Than Mine

I tried…I really did. I tried my best to stay under the radar on this topic, but it just won’t leave my presence or my mind. Now, some folks will get upset. I might get a few side eyes, some people might stop speaking to me, but the truth is the truth.

I have been quite disappointed with society’s response to Phil Roberston’s comments in GQ magazine. No, not the ones about homosexuals…yes, I think it’s wrong to judge others, but he is entitled to a religious opinion just like everyone else and we all face the same master. That’s who makes the final decision, bottom line. A strong opinion does not mean a wrong opinion; it’s still just an opinion. Let us move to the real issue at hand. The lack of discussion regarding Phil’s very strong inaccurate racial comments has left me in a deep perplexity that I just can’t seem to shake. Yes, once again, he is entitled to have an opinion, and no the family should not lose all they’ve worked for because of ignorance, but it’s not only the falseness of his statement that disappointment me, but the lack of negative feedback and the tremendous support of his comments by black people. I haven’t figured out if it’s because most people don’t know about the additional comments or they just don’t care.

We were rowdy and angry when Paula Deen admitted using the N-word and suggesting black people dress as slaves in a private home conversation fifteen years ago, but we swept the redneck’s (self-proclaimed) comments under the mud truck and kept driving. His comments were so strong that I must insert the quote directly from a source, for I do not wish to get one word wrong. According to the Huffington Post Phil Robertson was quoted as saying:

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person,” Robertson is quoted in GQ. “Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!… Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

I have no idea where to start with this tomfoolery. I suppose that the first question is: Phil, so because you did not see it, it did not exist? I suppose that the newspapers, televisions, radios, and millions of people who died at the hands of racial violence were all just figments of our imagination, too. According to you, the black folks were the typical foolishly depicted scene, singin’ and pickin’ cotton and doin’ a good ole dance for mista! They had hardly any clothes and money, they were massacred and beaten, all the while singin’ and dancin’ about how good Jim Crow is. Phil says he hoed cotton with the blacks and never heard a complaint. Phil, do you think a black person would be stupid enough to make a complaint about back breaking, low paying work around you, fearing the threat of being snitched on? I am quite sure you weren’t the good ole boy back then that you are now, considering you’ve been delivered and all.  And now, you can relate because you refer to yourself as white trash. Well, Mr. White Trash, did you ever have to sit at the back of a bus because of the color of your skin? Did you have to get your food from the outside window of the restaurant or sip from the “Niggers only” water fountain?  No sir. You only heard them singin’ and snappin’ and toe tappin’ about good ole mista.

And perhaps the last two lines are what really infuriate me. Phil says that pre-entitlement and pre-welfare we (black folks) were godly and happy. So here we are now a bunch of ungodly-angry heathens running around telling America that they still owe us the 40 acres and a mule that were promised but never delivered and a $300 per month welfare check.  Let me first clarify a few of his inaccuracies (which is honestly my biggest problem with his comments; how he feels about our race generally doesn’t matter much). Firstly, welfare is not a system that was created for black people. Name a time that America has ever done something solely for the benefit of black folks. *crickets* Ok. Welfare was first established around 1929 during the Great Depression and returned fully in the 1950’s when white Americans were struggling to find jobs. Black people, however, were taking the low paying house maid and paper boy jobs and making it with what they had. Big Mama has always known how to turn nothing into something! Even today, the statistics of welfare recipients are nearly the same for both black and white people (with most sites indicating that black people edge out white people by 1% in welfare recipients), despite the public misperception. I am still stumped by his term “pre-entitlement.” I suppose if black folks were to actually rally for the pay of 350 years of free labor, the number of patents for inventions stolen and marketed, the millions of wrongful deaths, and rapes and emotional trauma and abuse,  then one could think that we are going too far with a sense of entitlement. But since we have no casinos, no land, and the reparations that promised during the Reconstruction Era were repealed, then perhaps you do think that black folks have a sense of entitlement…to what should probably be theirs.

My disdain does not end there. I was more upset to see the number of black folks using the tired comment about “blacks killing blacks” as a reason to accept unjust behavior. It is a tired and pointless statement, which opens another can of worms that is connected to this work but not directly. (I’m sure someone will insist on an explanation, though.)Therefore, I get the impression that society believes Phil deserves a pass because we are a flawed people anyway.  But I will move on because…

Maybe I am wrong and Phil is right. There’s something different about this area of the state and rarely do I go public with these statements, but it’s true. The remnants of slavery and Jim Crow are still heavy in this area. The city has clear lines of segregation, and it seems to be to the preference of the majority to keep it that way. It blows my mind when I see esteemed supposedly well-educated and well-rounded individuals shuffle their feet and turn into buffoons in the presence of their white counterparts. I’ve watched a grown black man boss me around and then be afraid to look a white person in the eye. I’ve been shunned by people who say that I’m too haughty and confident because I don’t keep my head bowed and broken, and I don’t limit myself to conversations with only those who look like me. I was called a traitor when I switched from one school system to another and publicly un-applauded abruptly by an audience when they were informed of the school where I worked. Following my speech, an old black woman asked me why I didn’t work at one of the black schools. When I told her that black kids lived all over the city and I had left the black school because there was no full focus on the mission of education, she turned her nose up and walked away. I’ve attended a certain annual agricultural event and listened to the white man behind my god daughters and me ask why we were there and then give us a filthy look when he walked off. Even more so, I’ve seen the posts of those applauding the Robertson family and saying what good ole folks they are. And they may be nice social folks, but I’ve struggled with idea that behind one of those scruffy smiles is a disdain for my people.

Phil maybe you are right, and the picture you saw is an accurate depiction of where you’ve lived, not far out of the woods, staying close enough to your comfort zone. But, the evidence doesn’t lie sir, just like you don’t either. I don’t believe that the entire Roberston family shares these same sentiments, but one spokesperson does and for the remarks to be ignored and supported by the people he speaks against is sad. (I strongly admire the family for standing together and vowing not to continue the show; this is true reflection of family over money. That’s rare these days.) My fear is that our people will become so silent and complacent that we will undo the work that our ancestors died for.  And we will, once again, work in silence, but not beside Phil this time, for he will be our master.

HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/phil-robertson-black-people_n_4473474.html