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Inspired

Lines, lines, lines…seems the story of all of our lives these days. Yet, slowly but surely we are adjusting. Some adjust more easily than others,travelling along the road of least resistance.

With our everyday lives in this upheaval you MUST MAKE yourself take time out and slow it down a bit, notice the simple and beautiful things.. forget that many say I just want to go here or there, pick up this or that and get away from the reality nonsense. Many of us are “empty-nesters”, many are simply alone, therefore the challenges of meal preparation often falls to the way-side and take-out/fast food/delivery become the go-to plan. No matter how I try to resist I find myself in line waiting on food at least 3X’s a week. It proves both costly and annoying..but what to do?

This morning an INSPIRED situation was relayed to me. Here it is;

What would you think if after sitting in line at your local favorite fast food spot, for 20 minutes or longer, once you got to the window to pay the cashier told you it had already been taken care of. What you you think? My answer in this time of uncertainty and disdain.. I said,” I would think someone was paying it forward, what a nice kind thing to do.”

Later it was revealed to me the person relaying the story was the person who had actually done the good deed. I was not surprised but still I could not stop smiling. I will leave the who out of this piece, for I pay homage to her regularly. I will say this I was NOT surprised because I KNOW her and the nature of her being. I hope everyone has such a person in their lives to balance out the uneven times. I am now challenged to be simply INSPIRED for no apparent reason. I hope YOU, my audience, are as well.

Paralyzed

Physically it must be unbearable..captured, bound, unable to move. The inability to escape a situation. Yet,our minds can become just as helpless. I found myself in that place. Seeing so many things within the reach of my outstretched hand but somehow unable to muster the strength, the will to do anything but be aware of how close I was to the very thing I wanted or needed.  Still I hesitated.

Never does it occur to you that our very own emotions and subconscious controls us with such magnitude, that we are just frail little beings, unable to fend for themselves. Being paralyzed reminds us of that weaken state that is slowly or rapidly (depends on perspective) approaching..OUR  AGE/OUR MORTALITY.

Sometimes it hurts when we move this way, sometimes I cannot recall where I put whatever,  or a statement like , I sure miss so-in-so, they left us here far too soon, becomes far too familiar. There is our task, to remember WE ARE STILL HERE! Battle against nature and the physical awareness, that we are no longer what we used to be.

I am a bit of an expert on a subject that I, by-no-means wanted to become an expert on. Yet it happened anyway. I sometimes sit in my place surrounded by memories, photographically and memory induced. I cannot believe I am not screaming to the tops-of-my-lungs in anguish and hurt. Believe this, it is not because I do NOT feel the pain. Rather it is because I often time am NOT able to truly comprehend what I have lived through, nor what I am actually feeling. I sit, awestruck, unable to move, and very much paralyzed.

Be it physical or mental that inability to move is still real. The helpless feeling is ever-present and overwhelming. What are we to do? The solution does seem obvious and simple..just move and keep moving, that is until you get stuck and stop. Then you are once again paralyzed.

The Cops ARE The Klan

For the purpose of this piece AND in my mind, there IS a difference between COPS and the POLICE.

To many in the African American community good cops are the exception, NOT the rule. I know this is not a popular thought pattern for our Anglo counterparts, but it is truth none-the-less.

It pains me to have to repeatedly write pieces that have this type of content. I long for the day when I can say “It once was…” that day is not here, not now . Therefore as the daughter of a black man, the wife of a black man, the mother of two black men, the cousin/aunt/ friend of black men and now the grandmother of a future black man I write from my heart, I speak from my reality, I bare my soul.

Once they rode cloaked in hoods covered by the night, they did the unspeakable while only their “kind” watched approvingly. When daylight came the evidence of their horrific INHUMANE deeds visible to all began to meet with scrutiny and judged unpopular they slithered away, waiting for an opportunity to rise up and show themselves for what they still were, again. Law, order, human rights and civility came to the forefront as the world watched. They were displaced, their Christian views and values could NOT stand up to the heinous acts they committed. Now they were the hunted, now they were the undesirables, now no one even the ones who had a similar physical appearance wanted anything to do with them. Their backers portrayed them as ignorant volatile characters prone to violence, not civilized beings like the people who paid for this organization to exist. The big picture was the klan is NOT anyone, at least not anyone you know or want to know.

In order to survive,they had to change. They had to fit in, they had to now more than before look like everybody else. They had to change their appearance;the image had to get an overhaul. After all if you are doing nothing wrong, why do you hide your face. Enter David Duke, clean cut, clean shaven in a suit. The words he spoke were clear and  rather soft spoken, he was not shouting. The illusion of reasonable was all about him, so HE and HIS kind started slowly”mainstreaming”. The hoods missing but the message still the same.  The klan looked different… on the surface.  Bare in mind all monster don’t scare you initially, because they look like the guy who lives next door or down the street. Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy lived next door to and down the street from someone too.

The image of the overweight sheriff with a southern drawl was transformed into a young college graduate and his agenda was..Law and Order. What better place for an aspiring klansman than your local police precinct AND furthermore he did NOT have to have a college degree. The new cloak of cover was a badge and the hidden agenda protected by the thin blue line. Brotherhood, camaraderie quietly protected disparaging treatment and illegal acts. Oh but what would we do without the police?

In the white community they visit schools, wave at the kids playing in the streets of their suburban neighborhoods as they slowly drive by. In the black community lights flashing, sirens screaming and when a police car drives by slowly it is because they are silently issuing a threat, not presenting reassurance.

I MUST again state all POLICE are NOT bad, all are NOT klansmen. Yet when the word reform is mentioned, there is a cry of FOUL. Why don’t you want to make changes in a system that clearly has flaws? When you say that there is NO WRONG DOING, the system works just fine..  you either prove you are uniformed or you are as corrupt as you are being accused of . “Thou doth protest too much”.  Let’s face it, the policing organization in general was infiltrated, PERIOD. Once again we find an organization needing re-packaging, re-imagining, re-purposing. These two organizations which, by all accounts, should be as polar opposite as can be still share a common thread. The image requires an overhaul, but do understand the image is NOT ALL THAT MUST CHANGE.