REDNECK IN THE WHITE HOUSE

George Balanchine (l.) dancing with Arthur Mitchell, who challenged the idea that black bodies were not suited to classical ballet. He danced with George Balanchine's New York City Ballet in the 1950's and 1960's. Arthur Mitchell the first Black dancer to become a leading dancer with a Ballet Company poured deep into the soul of Blacks an otherworldly sense of wonder. Who were we? some asked themselves. It is an odd, untruthful assertion because European culture created and dictate an emotional retardation only their relationship with Africans gave them gradual release from to be able to dance at the ability one sees today. Being ungrateful people Black folk 'needs' to know this history in relation to slavery because white people are not fond of, or capable of telling this truth. Gratitude is not their forte. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Jan. 6, 2017   

Factories in the North hired both black and white workers. The young boys and men in this picture worked in a glass factory...  

Factories in the North hired both black and white workers to work for next to nothing in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. The young boys and men worked in factories, toiled over hot steel, dug coal mines, and scratched a living out of too much work in horrible conditions to eat a little, and house their families in the squalor of slums across the nation. A lot of resistance raged against workers in the 20th century from the major players of industries. A lot of blood was shed by Pinkertons and local thugs hired by business owners to squash the unions calling for fair treatment, better hours, insurance, etc. All of these were things important to people who had come here from Europe, where the feudal system seems, in retrospect, to be embedded in so much of Euro-American thought and sensibilities as unions and the call for good jobs subsides today in the wake of what the likes of Donald Trump in collusion with the early barons and tycoons of industry resurrects as a rallying call to 'Make America Great Again!'

Not understanding this subtly has cost many a citizen the price of admission into the legacy of what makes up the so-called American Dream as the realization of simple dreams like feeding one's family, and caring for them when they fall down injuring themselves is eaten away by the corporate idea of business, government, and care. Belief in undermining a president because he is African and American will cost those largely white citizens when the people who fought against universal health care count their good fortune to be in Congress to gut and do away with what has been the bane of American business: the cost of health care, and insurance for the poor.

Donald Trump's ability to cloud reality with the breath of his ancestral link to the vicious racism of his people has breathed in the notion that ignorance of the complexity of international affairs, building community at high levels of government for the common man, and overseeing the wide berth of what actually makes this country great in its fashion will be the knot tied around the necks of the trusting idiocy embraced as patriotism. Americans across the racial divide vote against their best interests on account of race, not understanding that race is a social construct not based on good will toward all, but is the philosophical base of an ideology to justify within themselves the evil they (white people) planned to inflict upon millions to get what they wanted out of them and the world! Out of fear, deep seated fear Black, and Red people have found ways to avoid telling the white people how they are actually seen in the world with Donald Trump doing such a fine job at that. Problem is white Americans prefer being dismayed rather than looking into the mirror Trump put before their faces and made them listen to his words, and see his intent as the truth to his character.

Those who do have the power to be the truth, embody the truth who are not afraid to speak the truth to powers in Congress, and any area government influences thought and resides needs to speak to the lay person engrossed in not knowing enough to be global citizens; whose failure to see into the face of the mirrors they hold within, the mirrors children reflect into the adult worlds, the mirrors Trump used to campaign with, and the historical facts repeating over and over again will cost their grandchildren's lives a great deal of freedom, money and loss! These people will remain on the side of Trump's narcissism playing the victim unable to see anything else. But how pitiful that state is for the person, the nation of people looking up to leadership to know the deeper levels of human kind, the spectrum of conscious awareness, global responsibility, and national behavior held accountable to the greater good of all our president will not be able to uphold because these attributes are not a part of his make up, who he is, or within his capability to embody and work from!  

If the cost of racism isn't paid, struggling to fight the enemies we have created will be the next order of business, in fact the primary order of business.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Jan. 6, 2017

First Mexican actress nominated for an Oscar, Katy Jurado