About Indifference

ELDER TALK


It is lost today how important it was for these individuals (Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, and other prominent Negroes) to be in the public eye, and why their behavior was, and had to be above reproach.

Prior to the assumptions of these times we tend to make about 20th century, Negroes had to be above reproach at every level of their lives to be above average, and successful in the white world. White people's general assumptions and convictions about Black people were carved into stone, and the preservation of our integrity, and race pride were profoundly important to us. In addition, being killed by white folks, and judged by low evaluation standards made daily life a strategic operation. The sophistication it took to work, and live in those times did not have the assumptions of present day belief structures today's youth seem to embrace.

Black and white kids today believe the lies, the misrepresentation of their histories, and undisciplined where they should be disciplined these young people tend to believe racial equality has occurred without work, or input on their part, or collectively. A deeply felt "Oh, shit!" moment is what they need to wake up from the slumber of their childhood, and what their childhoods failed to introduce them, and prepare them to become!

I can think of, and share a number of things, and expand their worlds in this medium, or in their presence, but I have learned the number of students is but a handful hard to attract. One need not cast pearls to swine. If there is hunger there is want. If there is need there is a seed. If there are seeds to plant the land will ask. If someone wants to die let them die.

These are my words.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
3/27/19

Nate King Cole and Maria Cole.

Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald at the top of their game!

Afraid, Aware!

Cindy Crawford, a study of a woman. 

Cindy Crawford. She was a young woman when she entered the public collective of memorable white American beauties. She singularly changed the standards of beauty, as all accepted standards are in white estimation, into something relaxing the rigidity of the standard historically held over other races. That is a lot to say, even harder is to have spent time understanding the racial ideologies in place in the West, the play of sexual dynamics in politics, white conquests, and Europe's dominance over every sphere of existence. As a man, a father, it was my responsibility to learn these subjects from the unique perspective of an American Indian and an American African!

For a little woman, Cindy Crawford was on multiple magazine covers, and being studied introspectively by many thinking people in African American communities. She may or may not have known about it then, but surely as she lived longer it became evident. I am not privy to her views on race, and race and beauty. If she has shared any views, young women need to get their heads out of their clouds and ponder what she may have said, and did not share.

My perspective is mine, but I am fully aware of how far Americans praise and worship youth, as if it staves off aging, and dying. But, since my own youth the fallacy of this tendency has always been evident. Unlike millions of American youth, I sought, listened to and studied what the aged and wise had seen, and learned, and wished to pass down into the next generations.

Without historical reference readily available to them many readers stop here. The curious, who are seeking the truth, raise questions that hopefully will lead towards truth, and deeper understanding about the circular nature of truths governing daily life, and public policies. It is work.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
November 18, 2018

Cindy Crawford was born February 20, 1966 and is a former American model and she fine!

Nude study of Cindy Crawford! 

MURDER, as business.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, departs after officially opening V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design museum on January 29, 2019 in Dundee, Scotland. Photo by Max Mumby. 

"Behind, and beneath the hoopla around the royal house of Britain is the menace of their dark history. It is a foul, bloody history stepped over each time acclaim is raised over the romances of British royalty, but not forgotten by non-whites, who need more than validation. Many recoil in disgust over the way these people's dark history is not addressed, as we are made to feel we should get over it. But, how is that possible when it is still profitable for them their ways of subjugation?" - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2/7/19

American ME.

Photographer Vern Jensen captured Aliya Mathiesen 

at Pasadena City Hall, March 2016, rejoicing!

"… White American youth are enjoying their illusion of freedom, and their vindication from past misdeeds done by their people. As recently as the other month, when a young Black man was found hung in a trailer park in Virginia, yesterday became today. The lynchings have not stopped, and the cultural vibe of white people's right to take life to get other people's stuff is as vibrant and enforced as ever before. Their defensive structures are stronger under Trump's administration, and whether liberal, or conservative, the benefits extend to both kind of white people. 

It is an old story. It is the fabric of American life. What Black folks can do is the same, and slightly different from what the Red Nations need to do to do more than survive. The other ethnic groups know how to protect their individuality, their culture's dignity, and we all have access to how we gave up so much to recover from the ravages of white conquest, and not lose more in modern times. 

What did our ancestors have that we need today? 

That is all." 

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

Feb. 01, 2019

Aunt Betty. She was the slave of Mr. Walker, at Faunsdale, and was the cook for Rev. Mr. Harrison, Rector of St. Michael’s. The picture, taken in Aunt Betty’s home, shows a typical cabin... - Joan Johnson 

the African People + the Terrorists

Royalty has its way of expressing itself outside the vernacular of Europe with profound dignity and the lightness of play with the essential elements of spirituality, in the context of what is ancient about African traditions. This is far away from the pretense of British royalty, which does not repent playing its game, as if its evil has nothing to do with its stench, its practiced cruelty and the Arabic terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.! This kind of denial is unique among apex predators. It is a blindness protected by fear: fear they created and sustained in others, and by the techniques that employ servitude with gratitude colored by fears of 'them'!

This is a language whites, for hundreds of years, have refused to acknowledge but know; didn't want to accept, but outlawed taking humanity from other people they don't respect. That's a puzzle? Imagine being the grandchild of an ex-slave negotiating a life among masters of terror, who claim not to be the terror they generate!

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
September 3, 2018

Royalty has its way...

Goodbye Nancy

TRIBUTE 

This passing really got to me. In my era, Nancy Wilson set a high standard copied by millions of Black women. In those days, white men held death over Black lives that didn't matter to them. One of the distinctive elements impossible to touch, or harm women like Nancy Wilson was an intangible passed down grandmother to granddaughter...

She was a powerful influence on me as a man, and a musician. Since, my start in music Nancy Wilson was one of my favorite singers in the world and there were only five. But, I have side stepped my grief for a moment. I had a big gig maybe a decade or so ago where she was one of the major artists. My wife wanted to go see her sound check.

I didn't want to. I'd been in many sound checks. But, that wasn't the reason.

When we left the stage I'd been performing we walked to Nancy Wilson's stage. The cats playing with her I was very familiar with, and had admired a long time. After the trio's sound check Nancy Wilson came out for hers. I about passed out. I whispered into Jan's ear, and said, "Jan, that's your only competition. If she beckons consider me gone." ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Drum 12/17/18

Nancy Wilson, June 29, 2007, performs at her Swingin' 70th Birthday party 

at Carnegie Hall in New York city. photo by Rick Maiman. 

"This is around the time, the only time I shared a venue with Nancy Wilson." 

Discovery at Monticello Plantation.

With the return of the deep feel of white men, in the White House, dominating and demeaning, and taking advantage of all and everything around them; it is appropriate to return to the many milestones and people who embodied and instilled this into this country. One of the primary men was Thomas Jefferson. The following is an article on Thomas Jefferson to get a feel of how he is regard in the fresh revival of his time under the lead of Donald Trump.


Thomas Jefferson’s iconic Monticello property in Virginia is a national landmark that scholars have long been studying. The plantation estate and the people who lived and worked there hold a significant place in the history of the nation. While there is a great amount of documentation about Jefferson’s primary home, archaeologists recently launched a new initiative to reveal more about the original activities on the grounds. It was amid those efforts that researchers made a discovery in that completely stunned historians. Read on to find out more about the groundbreaking find! 

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, primarily resided at his Monticello plantation in Charlottesville, Virginia before he moved to the White House in 1801. Now regarded as a historical landmark, Jefferson began construction on Monticello (which mean “Little Mountain” in Italian) in 1768. 

The sprawling grounds have been well-studied, and an image of the plantation’s main house is even ingrained on the back side of the U.S. nickel. Despite great scrutiny of the estate over the years, a recent discovery on the property revealed details about a long-held mystery that utterly shocked historians. 

Thomas Jefferson was 26-years-old when he started building Monticello on land that he inherited from his father. The massive 5,000-acre plantation was primarily used to cultivate tobacco and wheat. But like many plantations of the time, Monticello has a controversial legacy linked to one of the dark parts of American history. 

to be continued... 

Speaking to our Unborn.

One of the puzzling things about white Americans I have noticed and puzzled over is this: Excellence in Black Americans was often a surprise, and deeply resented! In translation of how they feel about and how they react to Blacks excelling where they (whites) have believed no Colored could excel is brutality. President Barack Obama is experiencing the backlash of committing to excellence my parents predicted would happen to any one of us. In the short months after his presidency white backlash turns on itself and they begin to undo the quality of their lives to make a point. As millions of whites rejoice in Trump ravaging the legacy of Mr. Obama there is a lessening of the power of American dominance in the world-at-large. I don't need to point out any one thing. It just sits there as sad evidence. 

There was a sound made recently when nations snickered at the beginning of Trump's address before the UN... - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 10/11/18 

pregnant underwater by Gervel Jones-Sampson. [Feb. 2017]

Our Granddaughter

Erin Elaine fed by her great great grandmother. 

"I wonder aloud about how important it is for generations to connect when grandparents hold the family's newborns. One is coming from the place the oldest is getting ready to go to. It is an old and equal exchange. It is a necessity. The holding of one is the being held by another and in that embrace is the future, the past in the present moment speaking to eternity, the temporal and the magical parts of Life we can only express through touch and knowing!" - Gregory E. Woods,(Dawn Wolf) Keeper of Stories September 11, 2014 

Erin-Elaine with her Grandmother, Talia's mother July 26, 2014. 

Talia's mother is special and powerful in the way she carried Talia from birth to this moment when the privilege of holding her daughter's first born creates the circle started by her ancients with not an end to the possibilities of concentric circles developing around this embrace that holds more of the Life mysteries that keeps hope and possibilities accessible to the joy of being alive, being a mother, being a daughter and a wife to my son, Lemuel." - Gregory E. Woods, July 26, 2014 

Erin Elaine and her great grandfather, my father. 

After Daddy's Death.

I don't know about normalcy. Nothing returns to normal if it was in some kind of relationship with our fathers. I lost my father in March. A lot of what makes a son a man comes from and is within his father. What that means is different for each son and each father's death is different for each son. The similarities start with the loss and the fact that the shield you carry as a son is forever altered with the absence of your father alive.

It is an adjustment I watched my own father make when I was 19 years old. I didn't fully grasp it until standing beside my father's death bed with my siblings and from on high the weight of Daddy's essence ascended upon me, and my sister handed me Daddy's wedding ring. As the first born, obligations and the Unknown became part of the shields fashioned from what was learned and gleaned from Daddy's covering, his elegance and power and the legacy of shields he carried as a man with a wife.

These are my words in pain, release and revelation. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories {9/15/16} 

LOOKS BACK!

actors Ray Milland and Jean Arthur in the film, Easy Living, 1937.

My father was 5 years old when the movie, Easy Living, came out in 1937, the Depression was in full swing, and Daddy's father was one of the few who owned his land, and his house. During the Depression that was a significant reality. Strategically, it provided a basis for the assurance that one's family could live through so hard a time! For those like Granddaddy, who cared for those around him he became a centered and central force that created the feel of being held in a community of poor folks. It was during one of the heights of the violence of big city crime bosses, Jim Crow's reign of terror, and a time Colored folks, in the South, were purposely being forced to accept no more than a 4th grade education. That decade was struggle and accomplishment, survival and denial...

The movies were important. They held sanity together for thousands bringing together everyone in dark theaters in suspended reality that blocked the depression of the era!- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4/19/18

Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons and Tony Curtis behind the scenes in Spartacus (1960).

The movie, Spartacus, was good, and for the times extraordinary! But, the novel? It was the book that turned the country upside down! It was banned in the South! I did not understand that until I read it! The author's mastery interpreting Roman history gave the spiritual and the intellectual basis for the governing business of American life: slavery. It was an extraordinary read! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4/19/18