Wednesday, December 31, 2014

A True Black Man, Quiet as a Mouse, but all About Power.

A  brother with a quiet resolve
One mouse has already changed the world.  Not Mickey Mouse.  It's the mouse at your fingertips.  I have learned so much from it.  The world's economy is an ecommerce economy: we get our news online, watch movies online, date online, and shop online.  But our voices are online, too. Lately, with the events of Ferguson and exposure of police-instigated deaths of Black men in the U.S., that little mouse has made us all roar like lions on the #Twittersphere.

On #Twitter, especially, we speak our minds, we share ideas, and we are all pitching something for people to hear.  But, truthfully, raising our online hands to speak is like an audience member in a stadium yelling, "Choose me! Choose me!" amidst the cacophony of other people yelling the same words.  Can one hear anything else yelling herself?

Everyone is selling their jewelry, marketing/editing/writing services, and books, and I am no different.  After all, this blog is about my novel.  I do want to get followers so that when my novel does come out, some of you might be inclined to read it.  So, I cannot pretend that I do not want some level of notoriety or recognition through writing my book (I just don't think you need to know what I look like). Would I like for it to be a bestseller? Of course! But I have no delusions. I am grateful for each read that I get on my blog, here, and I'll be equally grateful should any of you purchase my ebook.


All the above kinda-sorta leads me to this brother that I met on Twitter.  When he likes what you tweet, he retweets it. He might say a couple of words to you, now and then, such that whenever I got an RT from him, it really meant something to me.  Then, I started to wonder why.  His Twitter avatar shows a handsome Black man with a kind face that also shows resolve, a Malcolm X kind of quiet.   He has a cool Twitter personality. Understated. And powerful, because he's not saying, "Look at me! Listen to me! I'm more important to listen to!" I recognized and understood his true depth when he tweeted a link to a Vimeo of a British documentary that totally shocked my conscience (first video), about how Americans have always been duped into being consumers more than people of conscience. It has confirmed what I always believed; but to realize that our consumerism was orchestrated as far back as the early 1900s was mind-boggling.  So, somehow we got to dialoguing on our direct message and I learned a bit about him. Who is this man, who seems too cool for school, who is perfectly alright with sitting on the sidelines?


The @TrueBlackPower handle belongs to Carl. He lives in Michigan, went to a four year university, but couldn't finish. He was happily married until he lost his wife to an aneurysm.  He grew up in a family that believed in striving, and had small home-based businesses (soul food dinners) in their local neighborhood. He is a student of a martial arts style called Isshinryu Karate.  He explained it as an Okinawan-based style of marshal arts derived from peasants who found ways to fight off invaders using common sense or practical tools and methods. He explained that he was bullied, growing up, and martial arts has equipped him with the tools to "redirect the pain and disappointment from many."


A quiet warrior.  

His moniker says it all. And so do his tweets: they are informative, commanding one's attention.  This brother keeps his nose to the grindstone and channels information for Black and other followers who want to be educated about the great history, culture, and sociopolitical plight of Black Americans.  His tweets are selective and each one is a treasure trove of information. Almost every tweet has info worth reading.  Given his tweets, and acknowledging his choice of identity, I thought to ask him via email where his head was at where Black people are concerned. His answers to my questions about what we regular folk can do about our circumstances were very commonsensical, real, and, though brief, are worthy of repetition:

Q: What about our economic situation? How do we, as Blacks, handle the economy?

A.  The problem is that many of us get stuck. We become used to one way and when things begin to change, we reject the change so we all suffer from generational stubbornness.  We also lack resources knowledge, and pride.  I'm all for celebrating our accomplishments as a people but many times it's condescending and used against us.  We should learn where we live, and understand that we cannot trust the financial industry. That's the first step for economic empowerment. The second is to just do our thing and keep our mouth closed while doing it. Third is to use and know all defense mechanisms for our survival and teach it through the generations.

Q.  How do we reconcile Blacks' contribution to the rampant commercialism in this country; are we not victims of it, too?

A.  The "haves" use media and culture to psychologically keep us, "the have nots," down, which is why the Internet is so dangerous. We now have the ability to research and think for ourselves. Nowadays, ignorance is voluntary. As for our victimization, Blacks are victims because we love our families and want to protect them and provide for them. But, of course, our families are in danger.  The suffering of our people is not as worse as our not fighting back.  We must go about our business, collectively, leave petty differences alone, and be realistic. In moving forward, disruptions are going to come our way, and will always be the case.  But we must adjust quickly and with purpose.  Once we learn to adapt and adjust more quickly, and with purpose, and we do our part for each other as a people, we will assert our power, sending a clear message: enough with the B.S.

I'm highlighting Carl on my blog because he is an example of how the struggle will be won: quietly, purposefully, and with resolve.  @TrueBlackPower

Explore more on Google + links below - I have not vetted the sites, so please research at your own peril. 

Happy New Year.  I wish all readers a prosperous New Year.  And thanks for reading my Blog!

Friday, December 19, 2014

A poem: "Our Beautiful Black Struggle."

 
Our struggle.

Our drama.

Our fortitude.

Our strength.


Our capacities for kindness.

Our diverse hair lengths.
















Our skin color tells the whole world to behold.

Our hue is our badge...and yes, it is bold.

Our blackness.

Our brown-ness.

Our tans and our yellows.


Our genes in all races (though they murmur and bellow).


Our wheeling.

Our dealing.

Our hurt.

 









Our anger.

Our ability to speak truth to any stranger.


Our laughter.

Our humor.

Our creativity.

Our steadfast in the face of incivility.


Our passions.

Our sadness.

Our intelligence.

Our defiance against government intransigence.


Our Thurgoods.














Our Tubmans.
















Our Kings.




Our Truths.














Our Garveys.

 











Our Xs.
 









Our African roots.



Our ability to withstand the slings and the arrows.

Our greatness is world-known, right down to our marrow.


Our hearts.

Our smiles.

Our true reality?

We are innocent compared to man's inhumanity.













Copyright (c)  2014 by VL Towler 
All rights reserved. 
No copyright claim to photographs.

**** I just learned that another author used the title, "Our Beautiful Struggle," for his widely-celebrated book, which I have not read and about which I was not consciously aware until today 11/29/15. To the extent that I may have subconsciously heard it, I will be the first to state that the other author thought of the title first.






Saturday, December 6, 2014

This Year Will be a "Kwanzaa" Christmas.

When my mother announced to me that we will not be celebrating Christmas this year, I could not hide my shock. If you knew my mother, you would understand my reaction.

My mother has always lived for holidays.  When we were young, she would give us cards for St. Patrick's Day (in honor of her dark-skinned father, my grandfather, who was part-Irish), Happy Sweetest Day, Halloween, Easter, Christmas--you name it. I have boxes of cards from her over my lifetime.  She is always eager to take down the storage boxes for whatever holiday is approaching so she can decorate the house.  She does things in reverse order and it is always a source of rancor in our two-person household: I prefer to clean, then decorate; she prefers to decorate, then clean.

I get it.  She's had a very, very hard life in this country of her birth.  Her only country.  That denied her so much because she was Black and brilliant. When her career as a classically-trained pianist dictated that she would only be able to have a career in Europe, she opted to get married, instead, and raise six children with her husband, my father, a carpenter.  While raising us, working four jobs, and being in a marriage devoid of a true partnership and love, she overcame alcoholism and addiction to pills.  Finding happiness in other less deleterious outlets, like celebrating holidays, is essential, I guess. It beat drinking.

Ergo, for my mother--holidays were something to live for.

Until the Eric Garner verdict.

It is as though a light-bulb went off in her head.  She had bought into a system that only wanted her to buy happiness, not experience it. America wants Black money, but doesn't want Black participation in daily life. If we're on stage performing, making people happy, we're good to go.  But can we shop in any store we want to, walk down the middle of the street, even sell a cheap cigarette and not get killed? Black people can be killed for petty crimes, while society gets away with wholesale purposeful subjugation of a whole people because they had the temerity to stay alive and not jump overboard on the way to slavery in America?

And we are still alive. And boy, do we love to shop. We can look good, even if society hates us. We give money to a country that does not want us. Our whole government system is based upon our subjugation:

1. The electoral college was created so that Blacks couldn't numerically overwhelm the white electorate in the South.
2.  Grand juries are supposed to rubber-stamp a prosecutor's predilection for putting Black people in prison, disproportionate to our numbers.
3.  Corporations owned by White shareholders could get tax breaks, while Black men who could not find work were forced to abandon their families so their wives could get assistance.

But the one part of American life we are asked to wholeheartedly participate in is consumerism. And we are the most patriotic on the planet. The world watches us shop, then buys what we buy.  And we buy White.

Yes, me, too:

I used to buy designer Ferragamo and Bruno Magli shoes.
Tag Hauer and Longines watches.
The Tommy Hilfiger outlet has some really affordable buys.
Jones of New York suits when the brand was still good.
European bras.

I am not immune to wanting quality clothing and accessories.  But in whose pockets was that money going and was any of it going into the Black community? Of course not.

Black Americans need to stop supporting an economic system that does not support us.  There are millions of Black Americans who came to this conclusion years before my mother's light-bulb moment.

To Buy Black is not to hate Whites. It means you are proud of your heritage and support it.
Irish support Irish.
Italians support Italians.
Asians support Asians.
Latinos have businesses that support each other.

What happens when Blacks congregate?

We're asked why we're eating together at the lunch tables in school, segregating ourselves.
Black men are not allowed to congregate in threes.
Besides Barbershops and hair salons that specialize in Black hair care, economically, Black Americans support every race on the planet.
Certain institutions historically do not want Blacks to have rights--just spend money and make them rich.

In declaring this manifesto, are we planning to sever ties with our White friends? Of course not. We know that the pain of the verdict is felt in the hearts of many people who are not Black. We have spent numerous Christmas dinners with our close friends, who, though White, are like family, to us, and this Christmas will be no different. 

To affirm our ethnic solidarity is not heresy. It is pride. It is a conscious decision to uplift our brethren, economically.  We have been doing it for low-income job seekers as resume-writers for over 12 years now, but that's another story. 

Kwanzaa was always "in" in our family, but, now it's going to be 365 days of the year.

Black America may be late to the game. But the game isn't over. We can become the economic powerhouse that we should be. Buy Black. Support Black.

There are hundreds of businesses who have been preaching the gospel for years.  Here is a directory to get you started in your searches.


http://www.blackownedbiz.com/directory/
http://www.msoyonline.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BlackFolkHotSpots
http://www.blackbusinesslist.com/
http://bbala.org/

Add your organizations names to this list in the comments section. 








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