DUMBshit

This falls under the category of dumb shit. It should be one word because it sums a mentality. I read this story once. I don't need to read more or dig deep into it because all across the United States dumb shit expresses itself in the projects, and the culture of Black America time and time again in the same way with the same voice.

Ohio has an uncanny record of producing high achievers in every field of endeavor. Check it out. It is outstanding a history. Before slavery ended it was a safe haven for runaway African slaves. Today many don't know how to conduct their lives with their ancestors, or hear the stories of the land they live upon. They have become the Fat Takers. Tony Farmer is no different. Only 18 years old this boy had a promising college ride playing basketball in front of him until dumb shit assumed its customary place in his thinking and committed him to do dumb shit.

Tony Farmer pleaded guilty in July 2012 to kidnapping, felonious assault, robbery and intimidating a victim stemming from his altercation in April 2012 with his former girlfriend, Andrea Lane, in the lobby and parking lot of her apartment complex. His girlfriend? Why would a man, a boy in this case, commit these crimes upon his ex-girlfriend who I assume he courted once? That don't make sense to me because its dumb shit. Dumb shit tells a nigger to fight for his woman in a way a man never would. This 18 year old boy exercised the gift of the tutelage he received growing up to resolve conflict and attacked his ex after she refused to reconcile their relationship.

His former girlfriend told the court, "I know he was a good person. I hope he still is." His mother said he had been a young man in love and 'made a bad decision'. His high school coach said, "If you give him a chance, he's in good hands." His English teacher said, "Instead of his massive height I see his massive heart."

The boy spoke to the court after facing his Andrea, and her family with his apologies, and said, "I'm really not a bad kid." and asked the court for permission to finish his senior year and get a basketball scholarship. The judge apparently unmoved reminded him of the apartment video that showed him kicking her head and the look of fear on Andrea Lane's face!

Interwoven throughout this boy's story are voices we will all recognize and have insights into. I saw the video of the boy's reaction to the judge's sentencing. It broke my heart. It tore at me leaving part of me in pieces. He is a child standing six feet and seven inches in the air who will have to grow up in a cruel institution with men who have violated innocence, and crushed many a spirit worse than their spirits have been crushed. This hurts me to say it, but I watched that boy lose his life, and become a slave. Let that settle in your spirit, reader. Listen to that and what it sounds like in a society that boasts its claims of freedom, and is not outraged that slavery was never completely abolished!

Tony Farmer is dead in his spirit. His story is the sad state of the thinking of millions of Black Americans. The allegiance to the ghetto, and the attendant mentality is composed of the crude materials the Earth herself cannot use to restore life and agility. This young man had the incredible notion that he would get a pass in the white man's court for felonies against his own kind! It pains me witnessing these contradictions as many times as I have, but there is a solution. This boy will learn the solutions hopefully. But to learn them in prison? I hate that outcome, but the nigger mentality has to pay its costs until he learns the first lessons of power: to unlearn all he knows. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.22.12

Tony Farmer crumples to the ground while being sentenced to prison by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Pamela Barker. photo: Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer

MADAME C.J. WALKER'S A'Lelia Walker

Yeah, that is a helluva story. I heard it once a long time ago. It gave me a lot to think about raising my children.

A'Leila Walker (June 6, 1885 – August 17, 1931) was an American businesswoman and patron of the arts. She was the daughter and only child of self-made millionaire female Madam C.J. Walker.

symbol of SUCCESS in Black America

Bern Nadette Stanis, actress GOOD TIME, * author of  Situations 101, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly , and her book of poetry: For Men Only

Wasicun Sapa

New York woman smoking a cigarette in 2007 by the Sartorialist !!!!

“I have long been baffled by the notion of Black Americans finding and speaking their language as if there is one lost somewhere. In the 1960's it, the notion, awoke something deep within that generation. Back in the 1920's there was a move towards those kinds of discoveries, but there has been no significant advancement towards that end. During the years of slavery history reports the efforts of Africans to keep their languages on the Southern plantations. Each generation had its own challenges, and each generation lost a bit more until it appears to be a glimmer overshadowed by an urgent need to be validated by White Americans. The Cheyenne met Blacks in the late 1800's and called them, in their own tongue, Wasicun Sapa, Black White People. The Cheyenne saw something very clear today's Black American apparently does not, or cannot see…” – Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

New York man's style reminiscent of Thelonious Monk by the Sartorialist in 2007

Black Panther movement 1960's

black massage therapists at work

Guns & money

“There has to be an active majority who voice their outrage, and out of that a small group of people of action who will do practical things like create a citizens board with the authority to pass judgments against the police in WA. The Black Panthers in their time armed themselves, stood and observed the police in action, reported them, and in short, acted within the confines of the law. It was impossible for the police to do anything against aggressive citizens who knew the law. The Panthers became a force to be reckoned with. They created community within their community, and the voice of the People became a force to reckon with. The US government was afraid, and outraged. Our government began a campaign to undermine what began as community development into a national security issue. Elevated to national security the right to kill insurgents became the law of the land, and the killings started.



With the fall of the Panthers the notorious gang, the Crips, arose out of the rubble. At first clinging to the spirit and tenets of community passed down by the Black Panthers the community held on to the singular hope of community development African-American style. And then a train loaded with weapons showed up on mysterious night and pushed darkness into their souls, and the Crips became a terror in the national consciousness under the social pressure of the larger communities who expected Black and Latino communities to die on the asphalt. The gang rivalries between the Bloods, the Crips has grown into a millions of dollar industry for the criminal justice system, and the film, music, and fashion businesses as the body count across the country has deepen the blood levels on American streets beyond what any individual can survive in, and maintain sanity.


This is a short history lesson, and insight. The train? Witnesses in the early 1980’s recall a train full of guns, and ammo that appeared unmanned in Los Angles one day. The early members of these gangs who survived the last three decades remember how the guns got into their communities.


It takes a warrior to build community in the United States.” –Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

LISA NICOLE CARSON'S POWERS

Lisa Nicole Carson burst on the scene in the 1990's with a burst of wind, energy and motion that staggered mainstream America (white folks) with her boldness, and the confidence in her womanhood that for a long moment stopped the endless prattle of white women moaning over their issues of ineptitude, and body angst. Her confidence in herself was molded, by her own admission, by a few things including her relationship and understanding of the relationship with her father. Her beauty was a jolt to the senses every time she showed up on a talk show, or on a TV show. Her voice exuded a bit more than confidence. Her opinions of her power were statements of fact, and I can’t recall her apologizing for anything.




All of these thoughts swirled around her bust. Her breasts. The deep brown of her eyes pulled men into a hope of being her lover, and the center of her storm, and on the tip of her tongue envisioned their name dripping like honey slowly past the firmness of her chin down between the thick line between the breast on the right and the one on the left. Men who were strictly leg, or feet men could not help but stare in awe at her breasts. Pious men peaked from their high lofty places, poets wrote short and long verses about the strong and beautiful way she carried those breasts, and other men simply came on themselves with lust. Thousands of intelligent people pondered or wondered aloud at the way she handled herself in the public eye with all that ass, all that mouth, and those breasts! Many of us gathered with our friends to talk about her and gawk in amazement at her pictures or wait for her appearances on TV watching without breathing until her scene was over. Ministers, laborers, fathers, old men, lesbians, everyone had something to say about Lisa Nicole Carson.

But the bottom line of her attraction when all erections went down, and the excitement of her presence bled away into the doldrums most people’s lives return to the fundamental questions around survival, being one’s self, and the power of a woman, and most importantly, power of the self; something else surfaced. She became a gauge, of sorts, to many who were seeking strategies to live better, and deeper. Lisa Nicole Carson’s father, her family and her cultural heritage gave her a strength that spoke of a super power on levels above mere monetary estimations. She was, and probably still is, a combination or series of contradictions in the eyes of the weak-minded. Her sensuality, and sense of style came from a cultural affiliation of spirit that did not rely upon the estimation of homosexual men who set the theme, tone, and standards of evaluation of body type, fashion, or beauty. Her evaluation of the fashion industry and natural sense of self flew into the face of an industry that places great stock in women’s insecurities, more often than not generated by the fashion industry with its contradictory stable of players, image makers, and assault victims.

It is brutal on the soul to be the victim of the sexual conduct of predators who pounce upon, alter, and destroy the theme of young lives with their lust, the careful aim of their dicks into the bodies of boys and girls. Lisa Nicole Carson burst into the American spotlight with a value system based upon her truths, a father’s love, and an African woman’s sensibility, power and presence as she rules, or rather governs like African women do in traditional market places all over the African continent. She was the very reason white parents, for centuries, allowed their children to be raised by African women. African women’s contradictions, defiance, and play at submission, their ability to manipulate the illusions of white men away from their evil ways into the dark corridors of sexual liaisons with the women they enslaved and placed hopes of raising a family was the very seat of power in a world of white supreme sense of order and power of a world they examined and created from a distorted value system.

To play between the legs of a woman whose people are merely chattel to you, or to nestle their faces between the big brown or black breasts of women who will mother your white children into an adult who will dominate the Black race is to play with a fire. And cool waters cannot contain the heat of that fire because the fires of white men who conquer and take cannot relate to the very elements that will give peace to their souls, or rest to their consciousness. An African woman like actress Lisa Nicole Carson appeared to be a sex object, and was in truth a force, an elemental force incapable of being contained, yet if contained is not contained. ~Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

GABRIELLE UNION, a favorite actress of mine

Creator, Without the women we would not have
our lives,
Thank you and please watch over them and help men to stop
the
persecution and disrespect of women. The women certainly
are our equals.
Please keep guiding me to this understanding. ~ Bear
Warrior

Divinity, Sacred Feminine, Predators

"Should men define a woman? The ideal forms of a woman are the substances conspiring to be together within her that says, "I am beautiful. I am divine. Can you see me? You want me." How we as men respond to the sight of women is intimately connected to how we regard the vast concepts of femininity. If we are protectors we see something a predator will never grasp within and about women." ~Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

Beauty of Black Women - a promotion

photo of Niecy Nash, TV hostess, actress & comedian in 2009

Here is a wonderful site I found that caused me reivist this space again:

http://gorgeousblackwomen.blogspot.com/2009/03/dionne-farris.html

photo of Shaun Robinson, journalist, TV hostess in 2009

a boy & his knife

Listen to the story of a Grandfather.

There is an approach to each individual and each group that will stimulate growth in their lives, their imagination. Performing Rites-of-Passage ceremonies with young African-American men schooled and living in urban areas presents some problems that stand out against the background of their families, their neighborhoods and schools, and the general American culture.

Usually, schools and organizations seem to focus on young people from broken homes suffering from seemingly insurmountable conditions. One school in the Washington DC area had a visionary for a Vice Principal who felt that school curriculum devoted to spiritual, emotional and intellectual development of the individual would produce a better-equipped graduate. This Vice-Principal asked us to take some of his top students into the initiatory process of Rites-of-Passage work for four months work in our sacred Circle with a powerful array of the sacred tools of ritual, stories, mirrors, ceremony, the Sankofa bird, altars, and dialogue from an African centered approach.

Re-introducing the Circle to initiates returns them to the birthing place and its assurances. Returning to the Circle returns the initiate to the Womb. In this space stories begin a long process of learning, unlearning, trust development, and vulnerability.
One day near the end of our four months together we were re-telling stories about a weekend trip to a former slave plantation. We were having a great time. One of the young boys, I will call Adam, jumped up and put his arms around my shoulders.

“What are you going to do now, Baba Greg?” he asked.

The other boys got quiet and their eyes shifted and changed into alarm. I felt a slight touch on my neck and realized a knife was held to my throat. I relaxed. A long moment passed and Adam withdrew his arm, folded his knife and sat down smiling. I gathered the group energy and redirected it. The session couldn’t have ended sooner for some of the boys. They peppered me with questions about the incident and my lack of response. I assured them and asked they return the next day on time.

The next day they returned to a room barely illuminated by candles on and around a very powerful Warrior altar encircled by chairs. Contrasting the dark room with white raiment and dark solemn features sat an elder holding his berimbau across from my place south of the altar.
Spirit is fundamental to African core beliefs and structure and from this point the wisdom of African spirituality merged with the insights and maturity levels of the young men present. The ceremony began with a story. My story of the Warrior altar tied all of the teaching stories together shared in the past four months. The telling shifted group focus and ushered the ‘incident’ into the Circle. Adam was in the middle of the circle on a log west of the altar. From this point the boys took over as men in war counsel.

Five minutes passed before the 14 year old remembered what he had done. His peers rejected his initial apology. They were relentless purging, and plunging deep into his inner man, his stories, and his thought process until they broke through to his core and shattered him into pieces. Maybe half of an hour passed before they accepted Adam’s apology to me.
The ceremony broadened itself into the rippling lines of consequences on every level of being, of consciousness, the legal outcome of his actions and the violations to the circle. It was extraordinary. I was in a master class of reconciliation. Adam’s peers, through compassionate stories, lastly, advised him to confide in his parents. I built up what was broken and restored a new Adam to the circle and closed the ceremony.

The timeliness of ceremony faded slowly until someone noticed that two hours had passed. Jarred out of the experience I wrote hall passes for all, dismantled the altar and went to the school office. Upon hearing of the incident the Vice Principal called the police. The responding officer was enraged and not understanding why I took a day to report the incident. The administrator stopped the interrogation and explained that my work required I prepare the boy before turning him over to the authorities.

In the aftermath the boy was never criminally charged because I was never in fear of my life. It was near the end of the year but he was expelled. Months later his family moved down South. That experience is still rippling through those young lives and paradigms. The elder took the experience to UCLA and it has contributed to his reconciliation work with Israeli and Palestinian children.

As the intimate observer I knew it was better to have prepared the young man. Children in the early teenage years change in ways adults either forget or dismiss as invalid. The energy of boys changes into a centrifugal force and girl’s energy changes into a centripetal force of nature and magic. But children are forced into squares by society and religion. Our society forces an insensitive force on our children’s thinking process, creativity, and imaginations. Re-introducing the Circle to an initiate returns them to the birthing place and its assurances. Growth becomes inevitable.

I am a Keeper of Stories who remembers and understands his own childhood. To understand a notion about freedom one must understand its denials. Do we want our children to grow into adults by magic or by work? This is mirror-work. What the boys learn from me comes from my essence. My intent must be clear as water. Love and commitment to the growth of our young people must balance the task. The facilitator must develop his intent long before this work is done!

Gregory E. Woods, African Crow-Creek
©2007 Gregory E. Woods