Let's Remember the Jena Six are Still Just Boys

The definition of racism that I was raised on, "Is the use of one's power against another because of the color of their skin. By definition this can only pertain to white men. Others may have prejudice, but only white men hold all but a few positions of power and influence." I have been aware of the Jena Six as they now have become famously known, since at least the spring time, if not the mid to late winter. The Jena Six are six black young men, teenagers, who got arrested for getting into a fight over three nooses being hung by a couple white students on a tree at their school. Mychal Bell is the only student to be tried and convicted as an adult. He was convicted of aggravated assault as an adult by an all white jury from an all white jury pool. And now is sitting in a prison cell with older men as if his detention is a solution to a problem that has its foundation in repression and division on such a level that nothing else can shine through. Our country is still divided by the color of a person's skin. As a white man, I find it imperative to acknowledge this as justification of our ability to understand all of the problems and divisions that keep us, as a people, separate and unaware of our similarities as a nation. The District Attorney of Jena had come down hard on a group of kids I'm sure he felt vindicated acting against. He stood up in front of the whole school population and said, "I could wipe away your lives with the stroke of a pen." Something I'm sure he didn't want to have go any further, but a threat I feel probably in-sighted a bigger level of anger and resentment than had he kept his comments to resolving the issue for the whole community. Maybe keeping his word was the only motivation he had for following through. Knowing the ensuing aftermath, I don't think his comments were well thought through, or necessary. Having followed Mychal Bell's case for at least a few months has a allowed me to not only get the official story clear, but to hear perspectives from a white retired school board member, a black retired school board member, the mother of one of the Jena Six, and an interview of a couple of the actual Jena Six, including Mychal Bell, right after he had been arraigned, on Democracy Now. I've noticed how this has polarized even conversations in Philadelphia and ignited repressed feelings that raise our consciousness to the Civil Rights movement in the 50's and 60's. Had these kids been able to have a discussion in school about nooses being displayed to everyone, I think the anger expressed would probably have been shown in a way that everyone involved could have understood it much quicker. Putting ourselves in the middle of any situation without allowing both sides to find comfort in the other parties point of view is a major problem to many of the issues that we may resolve someday. The confusion of how this could be happening today I feel is more than valid, especially by people of color, who's families have had to fight so hard for so long for a chance to help allow equality to reign. I stand in solidarity with a way of living that sees it more beneficial breaking down barriers and looking at differences in a way that allows all of us to find their benefits. A world that allows its barriers to be broken down and its people to look each other in the eye to understand equality has no greater strength. Our finding ourselves witnessing a situation like this is a clear sign of not only progress, from the masses of people who already can define this situation from a standpoint of equality, This is also an example that will empower us to when we look at all the people involved as individuals responsible for each of their actions. No one was more at fault than any other. The white students hanging nooses from trees are no less guilty of enraging all of us, than the six black students who allowed their anger to get the better of them. Those white students I believe deserve just as much an opportunity to understand the line they drew in their community. I'm sure they have had no way of understanding the perspective of the black students. I have found hearing another person's perspective is a much better tool than forcing one's opinion on that person. My people of all color's but also, my white family has done everything to allow me to see a different perspective than the one the level of division that came before. I have spent enough time in my city to get an idea of most people's feelings about what it was like back then, and what remains the same today. September 23rd is the 50th anniversary of the forced Integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Minnijean Brown-Trickey was one of the first black students to walk through the doors of Central High School. Returning to Central High School recently, she and a couple of filmmakers made a documentary about Little Rock today. In it she found herself in a class room segregated down the middle, white and black. She said,"...we still line up on two sides of color. And if we keep on saying and talking about and doing the same things that we’ve been doing forever, we’re going to stay the same. And I’m really sorry for us." Finding ourselves at the cusp of such a momentous anniversary, I can not begin to think what the future might hold, could those of us, who have grown out of this struggle, would talk with those who don't know or remember the lessons learned 50 years ago. We are one people in this nation. Our diverse backgrounds lay influence to both our differences and gifts that show our ability to overcome hardship and to open up new points of view from those solidified by no other opinion until now. With all of my hopes and prayers, I send this message in the spirit of allowing all of us to put down our anger for a moment to see the other side and to look at what makes us nothing but the same. We may give ourselves the opportunity to see not only that the people we feel polarized against are inferior, but maybe find some similarities that help us as individuals to be better people ourselves. In a time when we are being forced to acknowledge all of the people who feel forgotten and mistreated. Those who have been locked away and completely separated from the benefits of our society are the first to deserve our acknowledgments as human beings and deserving of our support. They have more reason to be show they can evolve and be different than anyone right now wanting to do the same thing. May we all make a better world by healing the wounds we have before looking anywhere or doing anything else to change it.

Remembering September 11th, 2001

In remembering what happened September 11th, 2001, I remember all the people who were around me and all the differences in the world becoming one. I remember I was in Wildwood, NJ at a hotel called the Lollipop with a large group of adults with special needs and being awakened to what I assumed was another breakfast I had slept through. My buddy ran in the room and said, "Rob, Rob they're attacking us, they're bombing us, they just set off a bomb at the World Trade Center!" Groggy eyed and stiff from only a few hours sleep, I sat up as he turned on the TV, and as it came into to focus, I got to see one of the first replays of the first jet slamming into Tower 1. The next thing I noticed was the silence. The silence that all of us can remember experiencing that day all across America. The only word that comes to mind in Eerie. Immediately all the staff began to congregate in my room, or at least all the black staff. I don't know, but I've always been the token white kid most places I congregate. People began to pray, talk, I remember most of us were all holding hands, staying connected. NO ONE took their eyes off the tube, and that was when I realized that every television in the whole Hotel was turned on and replaying this whole experience as it unfolded and we continued taking care of our folks. What a weird way to experience this, I remember thinking. We have all these people whom we're caring for, showers, medicine, shaves all were being administered as the whole nation, was experiencing the most direct undermining of security and our sense of integrity on a collective level. I remember walking along the boardwalk the rest of the week and all of the people, surrounding me, of color experiencing a sense of appreciation beyond any perception they could ever remember. Admittedly, I couldn't fully buy it. Being one to have put forth tremendous effort to break down barriers instilled even by my relatives, I couldn't understand how we couldn't see through the facade. But I understood how much being an American meant for people to put down their shields and swords maintained for so long. Later that winter, I met up with a friend of mine, whom I hadn't spoken to since I was 12. He and I had had a falling out about me being racist just cause I was white. I had never had anyone tell me that before. He and I had grown up right behind each other, our back yards connecting. I had become his friend one day when I was 7 and I had only been in Philadelphia a few months. He had been throwing a ball to his dog in his backyard, and I had had the opportunity to throw it back to him when it had accidentally landed on our side of the fence. We, of course started playing catch, and after exchanging names in our pajamas, we started a friendship that was inseparable for the rest of our childhood. Until one day, when we becoming men, we were confronted with a demon our father's had just barely extended themselves further from. I didn't talk to him again until I was 17. After September 11th, 2001, making his acquaintance again, we found ourselves speaking on the most pervasive issue of current events and he turned to me and said point blank, "That is the only day, I didn't feel like a black man." He went on to tell me how he was able to walk outside and white people actually would smile at him. He said for the rest of the week, he had no idea where was, cause America was not the America it acted before. But how long did this feeling of togetherness actually last? How did we go from tragedy, to acceptance to a regression of not only social interaction but our very foundation of our inherent rights as citizens of the United States of America, as I remember in the call for Security. Might I remind our prying minds that race became citizenship. We immediately closed our borders to anyone but one very evasive family of note. We allowed our legislature to enacted motions and laws that not only profiled people of distinct ethnic description but also undermined the sure basis of our form of Democracy. It wasn't a month after the Patriot Act was signed into law that I was waiting for a train to arrive at 30th St. Station. A group of several Amtrak Police briskly walked up the corridor and began to question a man who looked to me Indian, but definitely of south-east Asian origin. First one officer approach and asked the man for ID, as he went to fumble for his wallet and very graciously cooperate with the officers request. The 4 or 5 other officers that had been just to his left closed in and completely surrounded this man, who had nothing but a briefcase with him. In the space of thirty seconds, they had asked him for his ID, encircled him, began interrogating him from all sides. He showed them his driver's license, his INS identification. He stated where he lived, how he was getting there, where he was coming from, what he did for a living, and even told them as much about his family as he could squeeze in as these officers barely gave him room to breath. He fumbled with his belongings, tried not to make any motions that might raise their already tense reactions. With his voice nervous and quivering, he spoke clearly and directly to each inquiry and no one else in the corridor but me, all the way at the other end, said a damn thing about this absolute disgrace unfolding in front of us. I remember stomping my feet, and my fists on the floor and bench I was sitting on. I stood, and yelled to everyone around me that this man deserved our being his witness. I raised the opinion that maybe at one point most of us had immigrated to America from somewhere else. But not a person turned back to acknowledge this man any further. They had all seen the police surround him, and watched the situation unfold. But all of us being white, no one put down the paper they were reading and showed this man any dignified sign that they were aware of the demeaning nature of what was going on. Having propped myself up against a pillar, it didn't take long for these officers to realize that this man was not the threat they perceived, and as my train was being called, they returned his ID to him and he and I on our perspective stairways made our way to the platform for the trains we were to commute on. I remember this experience much more than I could remember the idea that we all became equal, even for a short period on September 11th, 2001. I remember a state of confusion that everyone seemed to have a real recognition of. But any level of equality I felt was clouded by a decisive and deliberate persuasion of the best way to deal with the sense of loss we all shared together, at the same moment, with the same ideals that were to keep us safe not moments before. It is, on this anniversary of the fall of the Twin towers, of the explosion of Flight 11 and crash into the Pentagon, that we as a nation stand up and recognize that with our vision cleared and ability to seek the truth not diminished, but strengthen by the healing of time. That it is our duty to reaffirm the essence of what it means to live in a democratic society. That we as a people must demand that our representatives work for the betterment of all the people who live within our borders. That they are not to overlook their duty to bare the reigns of our collective responsibility to make a better nation than we had before. In loving memory of those who lost their lives because of the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, and the eternal support our Nation is in dire need, I write this piece to add to all the love and appreciation we hold to the betterment of all that surrounds us. Peace and Blessings.

As another Sunday marks a revolution of the World

The Greatest Things I've Never Been Able to Do... I've had this knack for taking issues to problems that affect the whole world, or ones that just effect us as individuals and finding solutions that could really work, daily. There's just one problem, I never seem to know who to share an idea with to make any of the bigger problems resolve themselves. It seems with most of our efforts saved for making money, most people find it difficult to let go of our common practices and look at an issue for its resolution. I rarely have an idea I don't see the benefit through charity. Imagine blocks of solar panels all across North Philly paying for the energy usage of the poorest families in the city. Imagine all the guns in the city (I live in Philadelphia) being put down. Imagine public transportation being free. Imagine prosecutors facilitating investigations and litigation to the truth, not persecuting more people into a system that can't imagine light ever shining through. Where a resolution allowed all parties a sense of redemption that fulfilled the void now laying dormant to any procedure being practiced. These not being issues easily changed, I'll wait for more people to recognize their significance before I try to go about any serious social change. But the ability is there to allow the things that plague our society to become beneficial, instead. No one seems to find all encompassing issues like these feasible. I mean, when we think about them, our brains start spinning, spiraling, and chattering away about how things are, how they're going to be and how they can't be any different. How sad an outlook. How dis empowered we become when we consistently give our choice over to how things appear right now. I have to say, I have never been able to do anything different, while my mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to make sense of how things are. I will say it is important to be able to recognize, to become conscious that your mind is racing. Once we can recognize something we can move on from it. Let it go and make it into something we do want, that we can enjoy. This is the natural progression our closed door practices miss. One train of thought does not dictate to more than one reality. When you fight with or for just anger, you provide nothing but the chance for more anger. To fight to recognize your anger lends to the ability to overcome your anger and create a mood and/or use other emotions to manifest much greater power than creating rubble. We have been fighting a spiritual war but it's been more like raising a child than a battle for blood. Maybe in battle blood is spilled but those commanding such actions miss the actions of the rest of the world. We, the people, find ourselves automatic experts from perspectives expanding from immediate input. Some of us have been on the killing fields, some of us have dressed their wounds. While well more of us have heard their stories and the stories of others that have taught a bit of the differences and lessons we continue to live and utilize to help others. What else would it be for if it wasn't supposed to end. The greatest opportunity and power an individual has lies in the ability to allow your wounds to heal. The more we use the same skills over and over again, we lose our skills to find other ways of doing things. It's not that greater opportunities are missing. It's that our vision becomes so narrow that we forget to allow more rays of light to enter. We have plenty of soldiers who have come home from war. A majority of who were kept at their post much longer than we agreed or they expected to be there. The betrayal they feel will be mended by the gifts that the rest of us have. Their ability to accept love and appreciation will become effortless in time. Patience is never something constant nor immediately available, especially with such tragic memories so close at hand. I know. I've had to wage war with demons who fought me from the inside and that war is harder than any enemy you have ever faced. I felt so lonely and isolated. When my emotions were all stirred, I had to fight from allowing them to bubble over because I knew the struggle I was experiencing was because of something I had already made sure was over. I spent a year and sixth months fighting One night. No one around me had any idea how to help because there was only one other person who had any idea what it was like for me. Most people never go through something so terrible that they relive it in so many different ways. Maybe it's been the difference between the boundary of what we live in one lifetime and the experience of our soul's reincarnations that gets jaded. The boundaries of which find time as the main stabilizer and healer. All I know is I can feel a lot more love today than I could 4 years ago and five years ago I couldn't think of feeling anything other than what was trapping me, weighing on my shoulders and a sense to keep moving forward. Those were the only two things I could accept, everything else waited so I could get better. Only then did the energy that actually keeps us together show itself to me, again. To all those who have come home from war...Welcome home guys, whether its from the service or a cell, the love is here...don't worry...when you're ready you'll find it right where it's supposed to be. Peace.

While I Sit and Wait

God made me see a bigger picture. God taught me to walk through it. God said, "Just Listen, you'll find your place." God said, "Just do what we taught you." God said to me, "Walk right though it." God said, "Don't let them use you." God said, "Don't let them feed you." "Thanks God, I love you." God said, "Know who are you talking to." The La-Kota say, "Listen first." Rastas say, "One Love." Christians say, "Give thanks." Buddha said, "We are all one." God said, "The whole world is see through." My neighbor said, "Show us your movement." I said, "I want to show people that they can cry again, not out of self pity, but just for the sure act of feeling emotion, again." I cried for the first time in a long while, two days ago and have cried everyday since. Not out of fear, pity or vindication but for the spirit within to mend and cleanse excess baggage. You know my face looked younger, and my third eye began to relax. The creases in it seemed to shed backed up emotions just needing to unwind, as my tears streamed down my face, my face tried to figure out what to do, the scars began to melt away. A healing took place and the hold left more space than it promised before. I hadn't cried like this for four years. Now, about King Solomon's court, I'm not going to allow Aviv to stay in the middle... I'm not going to pull his legs as you rip out his arms. I'm not going to allow you to horde us in what's basically a step into jail for a three year half black child just to give he and I only two hours together a week. He deserves more! And if you won't let me give him what he deserves, I am not the one to tease him with what he could Have! When he and I are allowed the freedom to run and play like we're supposed to, and you can see how we are together. I will have the opportunity to love him the way he deserves. I hold no responsibility for the separation put between Aviv and I, for I cannot even talk to him on the telephone. Repeated conversations with his mother show she is incapable of even imagining a different position from her current one. As for the Court's opinion, I cannot change your prejudice about the roll that a father and mother have to a child. I will say separating any of the parties without some way of finding a cohesive resolution, especially for the child, to exert influence is the greatest example of institutional injustice of all. I look for a system of balance, facilitation, mediation and resource. What I've found is an interaction fully crass, arrogant, self-fulfilling and completely removed from the idea of Justice or compromise. In a real world, we would put our resource into mending wounds, compromising with the integrity the bond of a child deserves and placing all resource at the fingertips of any person with the intent to empower the individuals with the capability of the system. With the reality being that the court has more than enough resource, I find that the only request I can make is for any and everything we might need to fully resolve this or any dispute be used above returning to any order previously made or using your authority to influence this situation into more of a disaster. Families do not need people to influence them to work. Support should be the foundation that would never allow any separation to dictate the stability of the whole structure. I know all of accusations to hold strong moorings.I recognize the polarizing nature and influence making such statements creates. Yet at no point was Aviv allowed the time or space to allow anyone to appreciate his own path to the truth. The steps taken were never to a level that sought the truth. I hold my statements as true, not for any vindication for it was not from my influence that he said what he said, but only that he be allowed to speak the truth he was seeing. I made a promise to a little boy to allow the truth to have an opportunity to show itself. I now place the responsibility on all our shoulders to sift through time to make sure we know what's true and what isn't. Aviv is only three years old. For him to use his cognitive and communicating abilities to speak about being the victim of such things, should humble us to his use of a tremendous amount of his very young resource. "I'm only a little boy," he'll say. To have his trust betrayed shows a level of self-fulfilling negligence that should not be allowed. Children are our future because through us they already see the past. It is not fair nor do they deserve to have to relive anything from lives, but given the opportunity to learn from our experiences. The differences between people has too great an influence on our understanding of the world. Taking our differences and finding strength to learn more about the world will open the door to unlimited resources, far beyond any inequalities we've felt currently. With this out look, cultural differences should be allowed to be expressed without any restriction and sequestered practice should be opened and allowed to be for anyone interested. Its integrity will always hold to its origins and no person may influence the true essence and wisdom of its practice.. Anything that could be used to harm, may also be used to heal. The benefits of diversity has more power than could ever be expressed in just words. Exploring diversity as reality will only open the world to healthier growth, all encompassing prosperity, and the benefit of all living things. Appreciating diversity has the ability to relieve any duty of self deprivation above a duty of responsibility. To allow anyone to empower themselves and others to accomplish any task. Diversity teaches humility, cooperation, growth, strength, commitment and dedication to the relationship we have with all things. I hold this as the true spirit of our country and government. Of its responsibility and its ability. The fact that this is not how it works is just a sign of a very adolescent character of its personality. The fact is there is more than enough resource. We have been biding our time to try to perpetuate something that automatically replenishes itself. I may not be an expert of this, but there are more than enough people who have studied the phenomenon that exuberant resources in the trillions of dollars have been found spilling over with increasing dividends with the ability to accommodate our whole population as well as the world without making a dent. How different things are when they change. The level we will reach without effort will be so drastic that when we're done we will have changed more about ourselves than anything we weren't paying attention to before. We'll have the opportunity to teach responsibility in every aspect that we choose to live. All old separations, all old divisions, any hierarchy will dissipate like fog on a spring day. Dissipating in the warmth of light rising above the horizon. Wounds and injuries will heal with greater circulation and space. Knowing what our resources actually are will give us the opportunity to make sure we never abuse what we have any longer. Anything that would tax resources would have a direct opportunity to stabilize its effect towards something better. Consciousness allows appreciation of all aspects of existence and ability. So all boundaries begin to disappear when responsibility finds its true purpose, the distribution of energy. Using our full capabilities to empower the state of this planet makes for such an efficient way to a level of openness that makes anything possible.