“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",...

 

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

ELLE France's beauty editor, Jeanne Deroo, who is French (the folks who want you to know, despite their disgusting history, are not racist) "honoring" a black person (non-racially) because (after France's long, evil, and bloody racial history) she didn't know she was doing wrong - until someone black told her. I'm surprised she listened then. 

That's how things "work" in totally non-racial environments non-racial blacks (try to) maneuver non-racially - otherwise, they're out of the non-racial jobs the non-racists, like Jeanne Deroo, hold over their trying-to-be-non-racial heads - which is as fair and non-racial as it gets.

BTW - Jeanne Deroo will apologize (has apologized) and the controversy's all over, for her, now.

That's totally fair - by NewAge standards - and completely non-racial,...

Reading/thinking. Thinking/reading - it's nothing but trouble:

"Mr. Jennings, who died in 1874 at age 75, did not discuss his personal difficulties in his memoir, but Ms. Taylor and others say he encountered many hardships. As a slave, he was forced to live apart from his wife and children, who lived on another plantation. And he seems to have chafed under Mrs. Madison’s ownership after her husband died.

Articles in abolitionist newspapers uncovered by researchers at the University of Virginia’s Dolley Madison Digital Edition, an online collection of Mrs. Madison’s correspondence, reported that she treated her slaves poorly. In March 1848, the Liberator newspaper published a letter charging that Mrs. Madison had hired out Mr. Jennings to others and then kept 'the last red cent' of his pay, 'leaving him to get his clothes by presents, night work, or as he might.'

The letter also said Mrs. Madison had refused to free Mr. Jennings, as her husband had wished. Instead, she sold him to an insurance agent, who in turn sold him to Senator Daniel Webster for $120. (He promptly set Mr. Jennings free and let him work off the debt as a servant in his household.)"

My, my - let me tell you what crossed my mind:

Since I know ever more realistic (and, thus, ever more horrifying) images of America are coming - so it's going to get really, really dark out there - can we just cut to the chase and agree that calling history "black," early on, was the right thing to do?

 

Remember:

The colors spread like blood because it's a map of mass murder,...

Here's an idea going around, amongst my friends, anyway:

"No More Slave Movies; Show Us as Kings and Queens Too"

I agree with the "too". It's important, that Hollywood finally makes movies about black successes in history, but here's what I also see:

   

 When you have over 400 years of untold American stories - on the brutality (and length and breath) of slavery, slaves outwitting slavers (brilliantly) the effects of slavery today, then Reconstruction and it's lies and failures (also length and effects), followed by the Civil Rights Movement, etc. - not only is it a crime how few have been told, but it's harmful to society not to mine them so we can, all, be on the same page culturally. Blacks, whites, and everyone else, need to know these stories:

Like studying the noxious, and obviously taboo, topic of NewAge (to understand our current "spiritual but not religious" culture) our racial politics - especially when it comes to identifying bad actors - too often make little sense because, as I've said, they lack context. 

We simply have to look back - to know how we got here:

And why some still resist,...

 

Having suffered under this weight for so long, as a black American, there's something about the truth, and boots - and running around the world - that seems relevant to my predicament. Never you mind. I wrote a blog about it, and it goes a little something like this:

"France Remains Most Racist Country In Western Europe"

Cue the accordion music - for the always-enamoured American press:

Unlike TMR, they've told us everything,...

 

 

 There's a new movie about a black girl who stopped slavery in England or something. I knew nothing about it or her.

And somebody in Mississippi is learning new things, too:

  "It is clear that slavery continues to have lasting impacts on our society. We are not living in a post-racial America. Disproportionate levels of poverty in the African American community are just one manifestation of slavery’s lasting legacy. In order to confront today’s societal ills, we must engage in a conversation with the past — one that can be truly painful, but at the same time, necessary."

 

A new Rock band likes driver training soundtrack vocals.

While USA Today has seen fit to do a new piece on Stanislaw Burzynski - learn that name. 

Crush him for fun.

The Pope wraps it up with a searing new message on The Scarlet Letter and related matters.

Nothing new about that, unfortunately,...

 

This is exactly as I pictured it - using my psychic powers for "entertainment purposes only" of course:

"Schools Will Take ‘In God We Trust’ Posters,...to Teach History"

Now watch:

Next, we bomb Japan,...

 

Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives

What else is TMR supposed to do with this?

"The single greatest task for conservatives is to fix their own leadership problems. In so doing they must avoid the single greatest mistake Obama has made, which is to rely on fantasy. The facts, however unpalatable. The truth, no matter how bitter.”

 So they're back to slapping themselves in the face - like it's instinct - admitting they can't stay rooted in reality.

"Fully considered, it becomes obvious that Rand’s views congeal into a fatally flawed philosophy. Even when stripped of its atheistic elements, Objectivism’s focus on radical individualism cuts it off from reality and causes it to wither under scrutiny. And as much as we might admire Rand’s deep-rooted hatred of collectivism, her philosophy is still just another utopian dream, a transvalued Marxism.

Ultimately, Rand’s egoism is irreconcilable with both Christianity and capitalism. In fact, since the system fails to have any true explanatory value, it’s difficult to find any reason to adopt Objectivism at all. Fortunately, we don’t have to buy into Rand’s philosophical errors in order to appreciate her fiction. We just have to keep in mind that instead of reading a 'novel of ideas', we are reading a work of fantasy."

 But they still can't admit they're doing it again. And this time, because they've lied to everybody - including themselves - so many times before.

"Rob Ford drug use leaves Conservatives uneasy, MP suggests

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander says federal Conservatives 'not fans' of hard drug users"

 Spoiler Alert: 

I think the betrayal of Benghazi line is done now.

"The French position on race is that you can come from anywhere and become French, as long as you speak French, adopt French customs, and act French.

That’s great, but they have a hard time with difference, people who maintain customs, dress, or religion that makes them appear different. And, in the case of black people, we are conspicuously different no matter how French we feel."

 "The facts, however unpalatable. The truth, no matter how bitter” is, conservatives have reduced the enterprise of governing to soap opera, displaying all the signs of bad actors (pun intended) who - like the French - are fun to watch, but still deserving of contempt and comeuppance.

  “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

 History shows the answers devised, for even the country's obvious flaws, were always long in coming, and most only after a long fight - why, that has to be so, is the question.

  “These Negroes, they’re getting uppity these days. That’s a problem for us, since they got something now they never had before. The political pull to back up their upityness. Now, we’ve got to do something about this. We’ve got to give them a little something. Just enough to quiet them down, but not enough to make a difference. If we don’t move at all, their allies will line up against us. And there’ll be no way to stop them. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

 I've always voted for nailing things down with facts.

  “I’m thinking about making a new cult for some extra cash on the side. What sort of preparations should I make?”

 That conservatives are back to adopting my position makes the question, of whether they are highly deliberative or of low I.Q., very real.

  "I love his premise that because Oprah is African American and successful, that means racism doesn’t exist.  If you want to talk about ignorance, that is absolute ignorance.  Seriously, racism doesn’t exist because there are successful African Americans?

During segregation there were successful African Americans.  Does that mean during segregation racism wasn’t an issue? This is the simple-minded ignorance that’s rampant throughout the entire Republican party.  It’s the kind of shallow talk that gets conservatives to stand and applaud because it sounds right—when in fact it doesn’t make any damn sense whatsoever."

I assumed they'd know how to pop a clutch, you know what I mean?

 

The family of Malcolm X has launched a lawsuit to stop the publication of a diary of the late civil-rights leader's last year.

The Diary of Malcolm X, a reproduction of a private diary kept as he travelled to the Middle East and Africa immediately before his assassination, is due to be published this week, according to Third World Press, a Chicago-based company. The publisher lists one of the leader's six daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, as a co-editor.

But in papers filed to Manhattan federal court, according to the Associated Press, heirs to Malcolm X say Third World Press does not have the right to publish it.

Don't forget, until white feminists dreamed of entering the workplace, it wasn't done in the West:

“To begin with, then, I should say that more than two-thirds of the negroes of the town where I live are menial servants of one kind or another, and besides that more than two-thirds of the negro women here, whether married or single, are compelled to work for a living,--as nurses, cooks, washerwomen, chambermaids, seamstresses, hucksters, janitresses, and the like. I will say, also, that the condition of this vast host of poor colored people is just as bad as, if not worse than, it was during the days of slavery. Tho today we are enjoying a nominal freedom, we are literally slaves. And, not to generalize, I will give you a sketch of the work I have to do--and I'm only one of many.”

"Nominal freedom":

A good description for how American History's taught today, too,...