“Those that scraped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escapted...It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of... [The pilgrims] gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie.”

"The treatment of enslaved Black people was generally characterized by degradation, dehumanization, and fatal brutalities. The violent tactics of whippings, rapes and executions was a normal way of life for them. Men were stripped of any form of pride and self respect by being humiliated in front of his family. Women were often taken from their husbands and raped at their owner’s discretion which further diminished the black man’s sense of self worth as well as the woman’s self esteem (Dubois, The Souls Of Black Folk, 1903).

The brutal treatment of Black people continued well after slavery legally ended, through the days of Jim Crow, Civil Rights, and, to a certain extent today. The trauma caused by this psychological brutality resulted in severe damaged to the mind of the victims, which manifested as an identity crisis, self hate,  low self worth, and  a distrust of the world at large. This mentality has been passed down through generations.

Today, conditions such as low socioeconomic status, social deprivation, inadequate education, high unemployment, and the criminal industrial complex has reinforced this negative mentality, which has and  still affects behavior in the Black community today, including young black boys."

"Being kind to black people can mark you for life, so consider this when you encounter racism and wonder why more people don’t stop to offer help."

"...I still wake up in the morning and check out reality carefully, as I would touch a sore tooth with my tongue, as I have woken up after someone has died or I've needed to incorporate some other piece of shocking news. In times of integrating something big and awful into my whole being, I often wake up thinking, 'Something's wrong. What is it?' And in this case, what has gotten into my system in a new, visceral, cellular level, is that racism is wrong. Is that racism and unconscious white privilege are radically, red level blinking light, call 911, wrong. Hold the presses, stop business as usual, put down your remote control and listen wrong. Not just before the Emancipation Proclamation, but now."

“'Many actually went out of their way to purposefully ignore me, and they wouldn’t even make eye contact. I’d approach them and say, "Happy Thanksgiving," many of them I wouldn’t ask for any food or any kind of money, and their inability to even acknowledge me being there was very surprising,' he said, noting that five people even asked him to leave."

"Even the most complex cult doctrines ultimately reduce reality into two basic poles: black versus white; good versus evil; spiritual world versus physical world; us versus them."

"Breitbart: 'Obama administration paves the way for sharia law.'”

And all in the name of "Freedom",...

 

Let's see, we hit the main cult divides this morning, didn't we? I did black/white skin. And NewAge vs. atheist thinking. But something important's left out. Oh yeah - their old buddy, religion:

"The Muslims, who are a part of an Islamic group called Seleka, bound five people and threw them into a crocodile and hippo infested river."

As you can see, nothing can happen without religion,...

 

In comparison to North American and Caribbean slave narratives, the North African slave narratives were written by white Europeans and Americans captured and enslaved in North Africa in the 18th and early 19th centuries. They have a distinct form in that they highlight the otherness of their Islamic enslavers, whereas the African-American slave narratives call their fellow Christian enslavers to account.

Some captives used their experiences as a North African slave to criticize slavery in the United States, such as William Ray in his book Horrors of Slavery. Slaves in North African suffered from many of the same conditions as their African counterparts in the United States, including hard labor, poor diet, and demeaning treatment. But, unlike those in America, slaves in North Africa could often escape their condition by converting to Islam and adopting North Africa as their home. Converting to the dominant religion to attain freedom was not an option for American slaves.

I kept talking about Heaven on Earth, Heaven on Earth, but nobody's catching my Heaven on Earths:

The media is talking about the shutdown in mostly secular terms. Big mistake. This is a religion story and to ignore that aspect is like trying to report on the Taliban without mentioning Islam. The media blame the Tea Party and call them crazy. But the media has missed the real story. It’s not about the Tea Party’s politics, it’s about what made the Tea Party’s politics so crazy to begin with. This is a religion story to end all religion stories.

The reason we don’t get the straight story from the media is because of undue respect for religion on the one hand and a refusal to believe that religion is still so important on the other hand. Deference waits upon scorn. And between these two attitudes the real story gets ignored.

I wondered why everybody's ignoring my Heaven on Earths,...