“Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead.
But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life–longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.
And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.
And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
THAT is what my Pops told me when I was around ten years old – and it stuck in my mind. UNfortunately, in today’s post “9/11” world in the USA, it is much easier for today’s “Da Man” to find reasons to mess with young “minority” men – or any of us. In New York City, the police force seems more like an Army occupying within civilian spaces, ready to pounce.
I want to close my ears to this revisionist history, OMG!
ONE major aspect behind the cause of these recent Baltimore riots in the wake of another so-called Afro-Caribbean American male death in custody after an arrest, is the chickens coming home to roost upon the failed model of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others like Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, who empowered the Child Support State of disengaging and criminalizing thousands of American men while they took away the stigma of illegitimate, out of wedlock child bearing while encouraging women to raise boys without the benefit of stable and enduring marriage and a father in the house. You cannot legislate family togetherness via an uneven playing field that punishes one sex for what is the act of both sexes together! Without a father to command respect at the dinner table, the lessons of the 1968 riots after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in cities like Newark, New Jersey and Detroit (which never recovered from them), Baltimore and other big towns across the United States were never passed-down to sons. Therefore, we see them repeating the mistakes of that past and tragically, sadly fucking-up their own “hood”. It is obvious to me that those throwing rocks and disrespecting their police force spent too little time in class learning about our collective past in this country. Someone should school them as to the untimeliness of their tantrum – the beginning of tourist season. They cut their own summer job prospects visa v tourism to the Inner Harbor area and more. Dumb asses. It is time to have less “Child Protective Servces” intrusion and more traditional family values and empowerment of two-parent families – if it isn’t too late thanks to the political correctness police and politicians. I can hear the white people who used to live there in Baltimore County saying, “Its a damn shame. See what happens when you let a city get run by the Niggras [or whatever they call Blacks nowadays]?….Damn shame….Uh, Uh, Uh….”
Why have we re-segregated ourselves? The aim of the 1960s American Civil Rights movement was integration ! On this Baltimore, Maryland map below, blacks are to the west, or left and multiculturalness is to the east, or right.
By-the-way, How come white people don’t riot if a white criminal youth is shot by a non-white cop? To me it soo passe` to do it.
**Pickhit: I am troubled by an account that says Freddie Gray asked for an INHALER while in police custody. As an occasional Asthma suffrer, I can relate personally. Law inforcement would rather believe you had an illegal substance than a real congenital affliction even if you cry-out for it that you had in your possession when shit went down!
All of these “protest” rallies agains police are tiresome and misguided IMO (in my opinion). Maybe it is because I hae lived through the “real deal” of this struggle forty years ago and the outcome was that Black Americans finally “overcame” segregation in the USA. Then, the Moynahans and Reagans, upon flawed stereotypical thinking, broke the family unit of those who could least afford to resopnd; no one passed-down the message that my and my parents generation built, even though the population elected a brown-skinned President. It is very telling that this happens on Obama’s watch – he has done little to uplift the image of Black American (like me) and African-Caribbean males during his two terms, unfortunately.
Below is a video of a mother who deserves major props and I hope the “child protective services PC police” do not go after her for doing the right and necessary thing. A father/husband should have been on-camera as well.
Of course “Black Lives Matter”, it is 2015, not 1965 and everybody knows it. My advice is to revise, revisit and repeal those Moynihan “Family First” laws and begin to reunite all families in America again. Your thoughts?
Enough (respect) about Ted Williams (not the baseball great, the homeless “golden voice” bum guy), this post is for a true American “original”, a man who never fought any “bums”, because if he did, he knocked them all out quickly or toyed them into frustration, Muhammad Ali. The day of his sixty-ninth (69) birthday this year coincides with the national U.S.A. celebration of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior – two of the “greatest” born under the astrological sign of Capricorn, of “all times”! That, in and of itself, is inspiration for me to write about it here in addition to the fact that I gleaned that my beloved overseas is not fully aware of the magnitude of Ali’s presence and influence.
I use the first cut on this album…only the first few seconds of it, where he says is his trademark braggadocio of the 1960s, “I AM the Greatest!”, over the musical instrumental introduction of records that I play when I am lucky to have been on the radio during this holiday weekend through the years gone by. In the “business” we called it a “drop”. I am not that lucky this year because of aforementioned issues with “the way it IS” in “radio” nowadays (sux), however, rest assured that this post is to wish the best boxer of my era, a very Happy Birthday.
Muhammad, please forgive me for using the image to the left, it is the only vinyl that I own that represents you, and I respect your change of name, liking “Muhammad Ali” much better than your “slave name”.. We haven’t heard much about you, Muhammad Ali, lately – and given your age and the punishment that you took on your way to fame, that is a “great” thing!
Muhammad , the former “Cassius Clay” embodied all of the principled rebelliousness that shaped this reporter in my early teens. With the Vietnam war and the U.S. civil rights movement sculpting the lowdown discourse of those days, “Ali” was a lightning-rod of criticism and praise, depending upon which side of the debate (left or right we would say these days) you found yourself. I remember white guys really hating him; I remember black American guys really hating him (Joe Frazier “uncle Toms” we used to call them); I remember both of those groups rooting for him after came back from his exile and knocking out George Foreman or having empathy for him when Larry Holmes basically ended his boxing career in 1980. I think that at one point my own Dad didn’t like him, and that was mostly because Ali was one of the pioneers of the outspoken/well-spoken black American man and it was not fashionable for those of Dad’s generation to speak-out like Ali did. Dad soon came around to MY way of thinking, and we used to be anxious to listen to the live matches on WCBS 88AM radio and read the New York Post’s account of his matches, blow-by-blow, in the next morning’s paper.
But this is to celebrate the personality of Muhammad Ali. The rest of the cuts on this vinyl are his poetry, which may people forget about because of his politics. Ali was an impromtu, spontaneous poet! My father, the WWI Major, called him a “rhymin’ Simon” lol because Ali could break-off some verse l-o-n-g before anybody ever imaged “rap” or “hip-hop”. Imagine what Muhammad Ali might have been if part of THAT era? Many imintated his ring style (“Sugar” Ray Leonard, Roy Jones, Junior come to mind), yet none could ever duplicate his demeanor or playful and poetically prophetic mind. Please, when you remember Dr. King this weekend, think about another “great” who came concurrently to help us as a leader on the world stage (Ali went to places like the U.S.S.R. and China, et al when our U.S. government would not reach-out to them with detante or embrace and encourage perestroika). He became a true ambassador of our best qualities as a nation, much in the way that former President Jimmy Carter is these days. He may have other vinyl albums, but this is the only one in my library. Most of all for this discussion, Ali introduced the concept that a man could be “pretty”! What is your fondest memory of Muhammad (notice not “MOhammad by-the-way) Ali? Happy Cappy Birthday and “Ali bumbaye!”
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