Betwix and Between

There is a cartoon I saw of a Black man saying his prayers over Thanksgiving dinner. The next day he is rushing through a store shopping with anger on Black Friday yelling at others, "Get outa my way!"

Hypocrisy? No. It is something else. Americans come across as a kind of caricature of some type of creature that can be pulled anyway at anytime and any shape can be made out of them. It is strange.

Black Friday?

Americans don't seem to have the maturity, or wealth of knowing to be embarrassed about their clownish behavior. Who marketed this idea was a genius. They studied the vapidness of the collective thought life, and realized there is a continual supply of reactionaries who will always be pulled in directions with little thought outside themselves. It is weird. But, Americans live in a strange type of shell unmindful of the ripple affects of action, and detached from the social and spiritual components that keep community and nation's current in the flow of need and supply.

Then the profound truth beneath this is the average citizen does not know the dark bloody history of what is now known as Thanksgiving Day. Roots of what ails the soul of this nation is in the origin story of this holiday and this nation's spiritual tides are not from the sacredness of the moon but the key elements of this story between the Pilgrims and the Pequot, the Wampanoag and the Narragansett nations, to name three.

Start from there to understand why the black days for First Nations peoples and those from Africa are red with blood and white people's wealth is from those horrors that shaped their gratitude from killing thousands of people to the appearance of benevolence.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
November 27, 2016 

flag Red Black & Green

He, and we would be even more proud if there was substance behind the Red, Black & Green within the soul of Black Americans, and less showing up on the other side of the spectrum of economic development, and deep African spirituality, not opposed to being aligned with one's ancestors. The truth is we show up as regular consumers.

A flag. That Black liberation flag was meant for more substance than occasional appearances. Timidly, that symbol comes up, but really it has no power and is not acknowledged by any government. When such acknowledgement comes then that flag will make us proud. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

People have asked me over the years why and how I work with young Black youth who are in the gang and street life? It is an easy answer because boys will rarely attack the spirit of a father they long for, or never had. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.27.16