A Look in Shadows.

2 Black women definitively grounded in their African roots.

As I see it:

We, African Americans, lock ourselves into our ancestry by hair too late in the long history of our relationship with Europeans. It is not spiritual paths African Americans, for the most part, follow; it is fashion. Locked away in our relationship with Euro-Americans is a past in our present that senses where to place one's self in their estimation of ourselves, and who we are as a people.

Rastafarians made stands in the early 20th century in Jamaica because they'd gone home through scripture and culture back to Africa as their Mother's land. That spiritual power preceded the fashion of locking kinky hair during a time when the dreadlocks made the statements conformity could not make! The dreadlocks of the true Rastas, and the holy people in Black lands is far away from the conformity Black Americans embody and deny in one glance towards white Americans for acceptance.

Having a job depends upon their understanding and acceptance of our culture. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6/30/18

Is There This in Life: our Answers?

Naked Black woman. Deep beauty, overwhelming powers. This is a book cover for Chika Unigwe's book titled, "On Black Sister's Street"

"Is this lust? No, this is power, the power of beginnings. Every Black man needs to develop himself, to ready himself for the 'one'. That is just one story told here..." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 6/10/17

Is This Lust? 

https://www.instagram.com/isthislust/ 

body of Iskra Lawrence by photographer, Heather Hazzan is a white woman.

photographer, Doug Ochoa took this photo of Abby Parece. There is a lot of trust between the two!

I don't know what inspired William T. Stoddard to write this after seeing the photographic work of Doug Ochoa, but it deserved a listen:

"Criticism often produced a feeling of isolation, a feeling of you and me, separated by a great divide. We learned many defense mechanisms at an early age, thinking that a good defense would be the best protection from further reproach.

We have continued this approach as adults. Whether it’s a confrontation with a stranger on the street or an argument with our partner in the bedroom, we believe that we need good excuses to explain ourselves and good logic to defend ourselves. We behave almost as though we were professional negotiators, our own little lawyers." [May 24, 2017]

the Solid within...

"When one is void of critical thinking, they will accept lies and fall into the trap of accepting the status quo which will eventually cause them to be defined and confined by their oppressors..." Dr. Sinclair Grey III 

woman swimming with a Humpback whale in her dream.

ORIGIN OF

Sacred Feminine Presence elevated as a heavenly power,

Our Original Need

Our original need is to be one with God, but what does that really mean?

Much of history has left religious people centering upon the highly articulated needs of the path, upon certain formulae for recovery, and, of course, upon the emotionally satisfying and real experiences with God that provide the joy of life.

Then, we have more level-centered realities, where religion, equated with need, is set out for the young to comprehend a beginning point—with God, with religion, with faith, with character building and development, and with love.

We even have people trying to rescue others, but how much of this is original to the point that it addresses the need, and the questions that arise out of it, as to how to be one with God?
Even if God speaks through an object, God's voice might be muffled or heightened, characterized by flavor or accent, raspy or fully functioning to purpose, where purpose is understood (for all), in subject and object relationships.

At a time in history when God is specifying Her Needs, it is important that people understand need itself.

We do not have much of a record of anyone expressing what God’s Needs are. We can default to logic, saying that if God created humanity as She Herself is, or as He Himself is, then certainly since people as children of God have needs, they are enough like God to specify what needs God has.
Our problem is that after the Human Fall, people are unaware of what aspects of their needs, whether past, present, or future-focused, are either original or linked to a fallen legacy. Clearly, in terms of needs, people need to know what is original.

Moses, (a man), Jesus, (a man), and many other men, set about to address need, using their positions to explain to others about God, but their very need to understand need was based in their God-given original masculinity. What about women, when do they get to discover the same—that is, that their very need to understand need is based in their God-given original femininity?

We've rattled the cage of history, because history had the daughters of God calling out to Heavenly Father too many times at the expense of themselves, at the very expense of femininity found in all aspects of woman, women, girls, or infants. We found ourselves, not unlike those with dry mouths, unable to find the saliva to lubricate the very mouth of woman God, while men, men saw saliva of woman, women, as the gift of conjugal love—they rejoiced in it, for themselves and for their partnering in marriage. But did they (men) learn to ask the critical questions as to why God gave woman saliva for herself?

Adruma Victoria
March 2, 2017
written to folks subscribed to African Psychology Association 

Sacred African Woman

Negroes & lies

Harriet Tubman about slaves said...

Tempting...

This was the lowest black votes since 2000!!

I'm am just so tired of the African American community, always complaining, ranting and raving, and continues to stand still. You allowed your feelings about missing the Obamas, Bernie over Hillary, voting for third party candidates, writing in candidates, and furthermore just not voting, to drop the ball this election season. Never ever say that your vote does not count when you saw how important even the smallest towns and counties vote counted last night. African Americans want to talk about this and that life matters, but refused to beat the odds of democrats winning back-to-back.

Learn to stop allowing Media-bias behavior and fear to continuously "ENSLAVE YOU"! I've been awake, I'd hope that you'd one day wake up too! -  Corey Hymes Jr.‎ Nov. 9, 2016 

Trump & the Negro People.

Black Studies & Critical Thinking


It's so disappointing to see black people boasting about voting third party or not voting at all yesterday. Do they not understand that Trump won by small margins in critical states and their wasted third party votes/no shows could've possibly stopped him? You allowed white supremacy to win! Why don't they understand this? It's like talking to a brick wall.

I saw black people reposting all of the conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton not based in facts. Hillary Clinton worked as a civil rights lawyer. She fought for racial equality in schools before becoming a politician. I saw all of us rallying against the wrong person. And for what?

How did we allow ourselves to be so easily fooled? Why are we our own worst enemy?

- CJ Peterman‎ 
November 9, 2016 

CJ Peterman, the simple answer to the complexity of your original thought and questions is somewhere in the midst of the definition of, and the distinction between freedom and being free. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories (Nov. 9, 2016)

"There are reasons not to vote, but no good reason is not enough reason not to vote in this country. We are smug in our luxury, and convenience, mostly unmindful of a world without that 'option'. Unknowingly, this has led many toward an aloofness now fashionable as chic, when in fact it is arrogant a presumption to have as a political stance.

These are my words." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories  

Critical Theory

crit·i·cal the·o·ry

noun: critical theory: a philosophical approach to culture, and especially to literature, that seeks to confront the social, historical, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. The term is applied particularly to the work of the Frankfurt School in Germany. It is a School of thought of Theorists and their Works who were interested in theories regarding the role of the State in civil society and the economy and the ruling elite manufacture of the peoples consent to their own oppression through ideology and institutional power and control over them.

Definition: Critical theory is a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. Critical theories aim to dig beneath the surface of social life and uncover the assumptions that keep us from a full and true understanding of how the world works. It was developed by a group of sociologists at the University of Frankfurt in Germany who referred to themselves as The Frankfurt School.


Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities. As a term, critical theory has two meanings with different origins and histories: the first originated in sociology and the second originated in literary criticism, whereby it is used and applied as an umbrella term that can describe a theory founded upon critique; thus, the theorist Max Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."[1]

In philosophy, the term critical theory describes the neo-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which was developed in Germany in the 1930's. Frankfurt theorists drew on the critical methods of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Critical theory maintains that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.[2] Critical theory was established as a school of thought primarily by five Frankfurt School theoreticians: Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Erich Fromm. Modern critical theory has additionally been influenced by György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci, as well as the second generation Frankfurt School scholars, notably Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas's work, critical theory transcended its theoretical roots in German idealism, and progressed closer to American pragmatism. Concern for social "base and superstructure" is one of the remaining Marxist philosophic concepts in much of the contemporary critical theory.[3]


Mereana Taki Definitions

The two meanings of critical theory—from different intellectual traditions associated with the meaning of criticism and critique—derive ultimately from the Greek word κριτικός, kritikos meaning judgment or discernment, and in their present forms go back to the 18th century. While they can be considered completely independent intellectual pursuits, increasingly scholars[who?] are interested in the areas of critique where the two overlap.[citation needed]

To use an epistemological distinction introduced by Jürgen Habermas in Erkenntnis und Interesse [1968] (Knowledge and Human Interests), critical theory in literary studies is ultimately a form of hermeneutics; i.e., knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions—including the interpretation of texts which themselves interpret other texts. Critical social theory is, in contrast, a form of self-reflective knowledge involving both understanding and theoretical explanation which aims to reduce entrapment in systems of domination or dependence.

From this perspective, much literary critical theory, since it is focused on interpretation and explanation rather than on social transformation, would be regarded as positivistic or traditional rather than critical theory in the Kantian or Marxian sense. Critical theory in literature and the humanities in general does not necessarily involve a normative dimension, whereas critical social theory does, either through criticizing society from some general theory of values, norms, or "oughts," or through criticizing it in terms of its own espoused values.[citation needed]

Developmental theory in Social Science

"Arguably, development theory is underestimated in social science. The notion that development theory counts for less because it concerns ‘merely the south’ while major developments in social theory are spearheaded by the west reflects a deep-seated prejudice. It reflects a (neo)colonial division of labour in the production of knowledge according to which theory is gener- ated in the north and data, like raw materials, are produced in the south (Pletsch 1981, Slater 2004). In this schema the advanced societies are supposed to be the mirror and guide for less-developed societies. This cogni- tive colonialism is passé on several counts. This kind of unilinear thinking is no longer plausible. Besides, development knowledge is increasingly relevant also in the north. The conventional distinction between developing and developed societies is less and less relevant – the ‘south’ is in the ‘north’ and vice versa. With the decline of welfare economies there is increasing polariza- tion within countries on account of shrinking public services. In the United States and the UK there is mention of ‘two-thirds societies’. Social exclusion nowadays is a problem that is common to north and south, east and west".

Jan N. Pierterse
Development Theory
Second edition

A Critical Observation



hat worn by a woman with no veins.

What is it like to have no veins? Is it a cold existence? With no lines to follow can the course of our life blood have courses to flow? The point made is directed at the menace photographers have become etching out the very lines that distinguish living from pretense. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4.25.16

 

Youth, Culture or Connection?

Peter Salama Photography

August 8, 2010 · 

 

hat & suspenders modeled
©2010 Peter Salama. All Rights Reserved

Startling! With so many successful photographers obsessed with posturing, and abstraction and pretense for the sake of pretense I'd forgotten there were photographers able to take pictures of the truly hip: a cool cat, a hip stylish sista with cool collected thoughts circulating in the coquette of her eyes. Until now I'd lost that memory. This is memorable for me. It stands out in a time when the most unhip people are showing up in cities calling themselves 'hip' who are far removed from what hip is. 

In all the decades of hip cats, and their women one distinction they held was where and how they fit with their city's memories and contributed to the dynamic of their city's stream of consciousness. Hip cats not involved in crime were directing in the way of youth older and more conservative types towards freshness and re-engagement with the young of their community or at times with their own youth. Because 'youth' doesn't die but transforms hip cats, unbeknownst to them, kept that spark active in the cities they engaged life. 

Today's so-called hipster, more hamster like, are isolated, huddled lacking the skill set to engage people of color, and uncomfortable with eye contact they simply bring property values up, and herd their children if they have children. More distressing is their propensity towards isolation that aggravates even the most tolerant of the older set. They are good for outdoor cafes, not festivals, at least not in Washington DC.   

Enough of that. Peter, I appreciate what you captured and reminded me of about urban life, and the cool of and the dare of being hip, fit and young. ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2.16.15

A School of Thought: ROOT WORK

house wife Elena Mae 

"Critical theory is a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. Critical theories aim to dig beneath the surface of social life and uncover the assumptions that keep us from a full and true understanding of how the world works. It was developed by a group of sociologists at the University of Frankfurt in Germany who referred to themselves as The Frankfurt School." - anon