When I'm Thinking, Does California Forget About Itself?

When I stepped into the sunshine of Southern California, a year ago, I knew I was standing on the richest soil next to the Big Apple. I didn't question that more money was made here than all but whole countries. The only exception for Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In 2005, I read from work done on www.cafr1.com, Los Angeles, alone, had well over 11 trillion dollars in recirculating surplus. Yet, I just witnessed a year of people losing services because the Governor couldn't find enough to fund the state economy. Between Californians and the U.S. Congress I've watched Nancy Pelosi start off by saying I hope a National Healthcare plan is passed by the end of the summer. Now, a whole month after summer has ended, I have watched a whole chamber full of adults bicker and discourage any referendum, so it seems the two sides have nothing to talk about. The biggest opponents to the manifestation of the legislation, are the only ones who would benefit from the extra funding. Is it not enough? When health care reform came up in the 90's, it was stymied at the tune of why are we allowing government further into our lives? Now with the added persuasion of adding to the self-pride of our nation, we have given our highest post, to an African without enslaving him. His wife, a full blooded American, and her mother a permanent resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. What exactly do the American people think lesser of you? When two factions take sides, and forget about all the onlookers, does it matter what you have to say about each other to the other? When you see the benefit of making an act, but decide not to establish that for the backlash of the industry you are actually suggesting to subsidize, nationally. What do we think when you say higher premiums will have to be instated for those already paying for their own complacency? Weren't you just telling me this was supposed to free me? When I asked myself why am I not pounding down the doors of those who represent me? I wondered, would Nancy Pelosi feel more motivated knowing she was going against her word? Or does her work just give advantage to making it something else. I never voted for somebody so I could wait for them to work lesser than. I sat there in May, finding myself completely unemployed, my insurance just canceled with a bit of optimism in my tears. If you, my now established Representation in the United States Congress, if you allow yourself the advantage of what the people you represent stand by, you will be able to enact any law that makes their lives better and we, I believe unequivocally would sustain your post because not only are we support, Optimism would replace pessimistic shadowing of the actual benefit to the industry that seems replete in impending demise. $862 billion dollars extra to the Healthcare Industry is a far cry from negating their ability to run a business. $86.2 billion dollars adds that much a year to the security of this industry that just a few years ago was so mismanaged than hospitals were unable to handle the doctors just finished Med school, more hospitals still closing than those being openned. So, without belittling their addiction to backpedal people's inquiries into how does this industry really function. Let me first say, I want to support you. I think I have a wonderful ability to see where appreciation is warranted and reformation dignified. So, I am well aware, as I am sure the health care industry will quickly make note, that a good percentage of those paying for heath coverage will see a good advantage and I want to emphasize Good advantage, to opting or changing to a National Coverage plan that makes it easier on the individual to afford health care that entitles us to substantial heath coverage in the event we become ill and need treatment. I can imagine most doctors can see the advantage to increasing the number of people who have coverage lessening the percentage of people who find themselves in making emergency care, their only care, because they actually waited to deal with a health issue until their body was broken. A hospital I'm sure is going to see the added cushion of subsidizing coverage advantageous, as more patients with coverage leveling the ebb and flow of facilitating business into the black, again. Imagine an insurance carrier appreciating the extra security of the American people ensuring their bottom line. I pale to compare their rhetoric, rather a better ability to maintaining a high level of care for all they serve. I am aware that insurance is supposed to be as competitive as the stock market. Those being big shoes to fill, are we to really to believe that more money is lost by securing subsidy for an entire industry, lends to insurance companies making less money? As the stock market pays more in the long term, than day to day, wouldn't insurance companies fair better keeping a few billion established solidly every year, just for having more people covered, than solely relying on those who can afford the $400 or so a month it costs to maintain a policy for an individual. In ten years, without having to start over, isn't that just $862 billion dollars, as an industry, you are being offered to circulate with the rest of the gobs and gobs of millions and billions you have been able to perpetuate up to this point? Having watched this debate with an eye on the door, I realized the vulgarity before I walked into the theatre. I am to be an observer of something that could benefit my and millions of others lives and you'd rather have the American people sit back and watch one belittle the other so it becomes hard to even fathom for you, our representatives, that their really is a viable option to be considered? I wonder what effect it would have if we suspended session until you had the advantage of hearing what everyone of your constituents felt about getting support with their rising medical costs, with the advantage of getting coverage, that they were never able to get before. Finding yourself at the table of those in need is a much different position than those who are getting paid, I understand. Don't let me over step your already determined boundary. I hope to influence your ability to see optimism in doing something beyond what you may have been able to notice on your own. I have experience handling state subsidized health care. Never for myself, as I am too able bodied and as I expect white, to be able to be considered able to qualify for coverage, but my son and his mother were covered and are still covered since his conception. I wonder could my experience though as a young person lend to the motivation of acting with what you have, rather than making unclear what you can't use without others' establishing their own support. I have spent the last year in the second largest city in the United States, where the municipality of Los Angeles has slashed $131 million from its faculty, services and infrastructure of public education, while the city and state government have established a lawsuit so far from handling the stalemate because no one wants to educate poor indignant folk. I able to remember a time when the school district I grew up in 3000 miles away was facing $141 million and $180 million dollar deficits in consecutive years. Instead of saying, "Oh yes, massah! Thank you massah! I appreciate you giving me air to breath, and light to see with, massah!" I witness of 2000 students who congregated outside of city hall in Philadelphia (1996) to show our representatives both locally and statewide how much its students care about the system they navigate each and everyday. Standing together, the police department still considers it one of the most peaceful actions ever to form amongst the daily migrations of this Country's first Capital. When a "Rainy Day Fund" was established instead of funding the gaps in the subsidies of Public Education, we watched as kids found no heat in their classrooms, over $400 million establishing itself in the state's reciprocating and open slush fund. To find any governments ability to subsidize more than it has before, all we usually have to do is look at it's quarterly or annual financial report. Many annual comprehensive financial reports clearly showing how much, in Surplus, that agency has reciprocating. Lending the idea and ability of even more growth in future years, not less. By having a pile of cash to invest, a reciprocity manifests that increases growth of whatever it funds, and returns rarely negate the educated and established dividend of market security. So, when a mayor says, "No, we won't fund this because it's the state's obligation," or the Governor says, "We cannot authorize any more allocation of the People's funds." Let us all stand up and openly profess, "Mayor, why not suggest where the money could come from, not where it cannot be authorized. Mr Governor, We The People have spoken." If it's not to your face, openly testifying their personal or collective needs and willingness to share with you what you may not understand otherwise. We at work, on the bus, in the grocery stores and malls, on the streets, and while we live our own lives, all consider each others' needs and means with our own. If you cannot hear what we say, when we say it? I would appreciate the opportunity to tell you when to look, where to look and what you should expect to hear, just to get the message clear. You might be surprised to learn the advantage of taking care of those in need, rather than maintaining behavior that has always allowed you to turn away your ear. In the end, a decillionaire has 3 and 1/3 more to the power ten than a trillionaire, and I hope the motivation concedes behavior need not maintain conscience about our responsibility to the planet, individual and facilitation of our collective ability any longer.

No More Fighting

It's taken me till today To get better at not blaming others. To Understand you know more than I do. Mine eyes are for me to see. Were it up to me I'd get bored of what I was saying before I've convinced you to listen to what I meant. So who's too small to talk back? I spent my whole life getting better, it took me two minutes to be born. Was it a curse or my first breath, the first blessing, That was all I needed from us all. A man with a gun knows how strong, but a man who understnads and listens, In his palm, the gun could fall. If the bullets speak in response, to something, Where'd the argument start? If you won't listen to me because I'm too small? Who's to say you hear anything by standing too tall? I've fought my baby sister, friends, my parents, kids I didn't even know, dults, Ministers, maybe not my own. politicians, but didn't open my mouth teachers, cause who knows, police, no that man does not need another blow. Doctors, by no fault of their own. Masons, well, silence fell. Shriners, um allah for all? Catholics, well, don't hate it all. Protestants, english men deserve another call. Muslims, a man deserves to tell. Christians, even Mormans, and especially Unitarians. course, who raised me at all? Yet, to you all, I still found a piece of me inside of you to hold onto. The greatest obstacle I've encountered in life should be myself. Yet, with tooth and nail, I've managed to mangle all that I hold dear. Attempting to unfold reality beyond before. You just wanted my grace. So, what's worth fighting for? You take what I give you, and counter and trace, till nothing is left, except, of course, waste. To conquer supposed to include won, But when said and done, Who knows where they come from. When a man bent on smashing another to smitherenes, One word could deflate his motives, no harm done to anyone, not him, not me. How do we put up with, Why don't we wait out for it? Was it permission we bid for, this ability the ultimate from the rest? Again, Is it me you must listen to, or what's inside of you? If Ghandi said it was Love the only true manifestation in the universe, Negativity, still nothing at all. Who's to say nurturing that need detracts at all from the progress of a masterpiece beyond everything kept small.

I Remember Being Born, I Saw You Come out.

Baby You Came into this World, As if you'd been lynched. Heart rate faint They were going to cut Your momma's poompoom, As if teamwork wasn't only your's (you two) Till late. Just to sample fate, It was my dyress, Which left breathing, A test. My lungs unconvinced, Necessity, at rest. You, untwirled and unsquoze, Filled the room with the most beautiful cry, As Red a face can get. I looked into your eyes, Your embilical, my lance to confess, Separation, Impalement, Relied. Brand new, Both your wound, And air to your skin. We gazed at eachother, Through all eternity, a new beginning, Your guidance begun. I remember, How blurry my first gaze. Unfamiliarity, but the world within, Nothing akin. My mother's swollen body, My first glimpse, As they rolled me by, When. But I made sure that, She above her bed. I had but a moment, My first connection, them. I still saw her, though. Eyes hollow, Jaundice set it. Skin so tawt. Through the foggy window, As the rolled me by her bed, To partitioned, Sterile, somewhere. My lungs burning, Air, forcing them. Partitioned Procedured without you, Mama. You, Asleep, Just them. No one knowing that I'm speaking, can't even listen. If all I was supposed to, Fill my bags with hot air, Oxygen in the blood again. They kept me on a ventilator for 24 hrs, back then. But having been forced to watch them work for me. I knew how to breath, the second breath in. They weened me off ventilation, meticulously progressed, Thin. I lived away from my mother for six weeks, As they called it healing, My isolet kept my temperature in. Freedom, My mama's nipple, Suckle, A hard thing to work in. Had the doctor's Waited any longer, "Who knows" would have made it, She and I'd be dead. Were it not for one doctor, A black man, My savior, In. Not many endure What premature beginnigs Win. Finding myself struggling to Match the rhythm of a machine, Only tolerance, Patience, Win. What elation We al must have felt. No breathing tube Still in. The same way I started breathing, A bicycle, My transportation, then. But before I lent my tricycle, My parents, Walking, A chore to them. Imagine, Finding me, Making do, Just showing off for a friend. See man, When you came out, All wrapped in your embilical. That last push? Left your ability in. Your momma gave it her all, And we got you, in the end. I hope someday, You and I can talk About how blurry the world was, When we first stepped in!

About a Son, for a Father Part 1

In the movie Baraka, the "Balinese Kecak Chant" is a moment to be reckonded with. All men of the tribe, all focusing their energy in a straight forward movement, moving centrifigally in both clock-wise and counter clock-wise directions. Together. In unison. All by the call of the one elder to lead the group. But the circle splits and half of the men are flattened by the overpowering cackle and taunt of the other men standing, and directing themselves like machine guns and fighter jets strafing young men flat in their tracks. All said and done, they seem little compared to their counter parts. This ceremony has lead me to better investigate the ideas that lend to how men are supposed to be. Inertly we know the repercussion of negative actions, but more often than not, men and women will expect certain behavior over other behaviors. As if by sure chance, the men standing, fall, and the men flattened raise up in their own empowered will and effortlessly engauge their kin with the same resolve and refuge that their relatives had directed towards them. This act of conflicts both great and small, both foreign and domestic, all under the watchful eye of an elder who will call for each change in the mantra. Fathers, sons, cousins, uncles, grandfathers and grandsons, like those who came before them. All together and all unequivately different. The triumph that they're together, generations, living on the same things that have sustained and nourished their ancestors. I met a young father the other day who deserved my audience. Like most fathers who live with out their children, we had many things in common. Drama, abuse, and verbal retorts that would corrode the slickest PVC laid by the best. I found myself just watching, listening...Remembering. How hard it had been for me, when my son was born. Managing my own life was hard enough, but it took me forever in 6 months to just get used to the idea that I was going to be a daddy. I remember sitting there, no way I could miss the little one forming in her womb. Finally, one day it just dawned on me, if it's a given you grow in there. And I've been growing out here for a couple decades by that point, it couldn't be so hard having to do it with someone so up in my face. My life went from what am I gonna do about, or for myself, to including someone else. Now I understand we all do things differently and some things come to others harder than the rest of us, but together, we have always overcome the hardest circumstances, why not little ol' me? What could be so bad about making my intention help this manifestation, this beautiful child of ours, our past and future made easy, cause now, it could learn to eat for itself. Who would want to question his worth? Neither his mother nor I have ever not made our best intentions to focus on his own. But here I am, having surpassed his 5 birthday in March, living 3000 miles away from my little boy because his mother and I cannot talk without the 3 syllable spoken being an insult. I'm living away from that, listening to a young man swear by his own convictions, and in the same breath devising the next way to stay at par with his child's mother. No amount of judgement from others will ever be able to understand how much this man wants to be there for his child. All of us fathers can remember how unnerving it was to handed this human being incapable of lifting its own head, and having to figure out how not to get poop on our fingers as the sure mechanics of sealing another poop screen around our child's behind becomes something above rocket science. Having the opportunity of that first year together, we, he, me, She made a lot of sense. Without a job (I was fired when he was 3 months old), without anything beyond the bills paid, and our bellies full. We added cable, and a few amenities never thought possible on just unemployment, wic, and 200 dollars of food stamps. Yet, a year later things became so hectic and nasty that I began my ever present struggle of worrying about Aviv's well being. While at the same time ducking the nastiest rhetoric that has left my family unable to resolve this conflict, but everyday watch it get worse. For any readers just happening upon my post, I would like to clarify. This is the worst, most horrific place to be as a father. In any case, the best I could do was manage a place on my own, make my own business and handle the world with Aviv every couple days, or every other week. He and I dealt with a lot when he became a year old. Mama, while she has the best intentions, needs someone to let her in on why dad's are so important. Or weren't the groceries brought upstairs every week. Diaper duty was a great contrast to you two, while he suckled. A man becomes a man by the men he has around him. I'm not allowed around my son, without his mother's permission. A feud that was sparked by real alarm on my part and a decision imparted to her that has left no room for Aviv to have any idea of the benefits I was imparted as a child. Growing up where I did, in the time I did, gave me the most open and diverse world at my very finger tips. Everything growing up was about who people were, what they had contributed and why every person is so important to be able to contribute and sustain the whole. I went to public school and was able to attend each school my family thought appropriate. My parent's are white. His mother, not. Something I hold as a glimmer of what growing up in a city will entitle a person to look past any personal limitations and see why the tree is grander holding the soil, than sun light could keep it from flying off into space. We could have struggled living together, or left to handle our own residences. But the worst thing we did was deny that struggling to grasp the full picture of raising a child. Of finding out why it is so important to have both parents around to answer all of a child's questions would, could and will take our perpetual fighting into space, a place where it can't do anything but allow the real important stuff to take over for the real dumb shit. We never did. We never made ourselves to step up to the challenge. If only he were 18, 2 years ago, he could have let us both go and cared for himself in the ways that only we know how to mend ourselves. He was only 3. They would taunt me, on sundays about 9:35/9:40, in the morning. What do you think he knows? He's so little. He can't even talk right. And at 11:30 on the dot, he would walk out of my life again, until the next sunday. I hadn't done anything, tried to stick up for him. Tried to put forth my step to intiate those who work on these things daily. But slipped thru a crack. Managed myself, and him, but in a construct so far from anything the system has any idea how to engauge. He seemed ok to them and she and I more a conflict than they could see any deeper. I became an example, I am now one of many fathers not givien a chance to be heard in family court. I am sitting at the anniversary of the worst of what transcended my life as a full time single dad, to the lowest I have ever been. I was probably trying to find someone who would listen to Aviv rather than just to me. I found a truly gifted person in this respect. A man who had taught at my elementary school for generations. A man who sat with Aviv and I in his home for 3 hrs and fed us cookies till we spilt our milk. In these circumstances its not the most profound moments that reveal the greatest strength. It's anything at all. And Mr. V sat with Aviv ever so patiently and openly that afternoon. Allowing the story to unfold in both actions and gestures, we walked out of his house having found that we were not only distraught, but he could now very clearly articulate that he did not like it. It took another 5 days or so to have a city social worker interview Aviv, that by this time he was so far resolved in his own reconstruction of his experience that there was no way they could see anything wrong with him. He was by and large conscious that he had been upset, why he was upset, that the abuse he had experienced was not because of something he had done, but that it had happened to him and he did not like it. He was resolved, but too pink to be able to just tell anyone. He knew by this time that he only need trust those who earned it, and I knew how hard it had been to get him to express anything more than a blood curdling scream. We spent the following year and half held to only one two hour visit a week on sunday mornings at the Family Court Building in Philadelphia. He spent the first 6 weeks very confused and rightfully betrayed. I would look at him and have to take in the first outburst he would make in a week at the dishonor of having returned to a place before it's possession could be resolved to something better. The first time I saw him, he exclaimed, "How could you?!" But, remember he was only three, and after a few months he was resolved to this being the only time I have with his Daddy, we would play board games and build structures out of building blocks with our alloted time slot. This became such a routine that his mother would find it imperative to limit even these short and regimented arrangements that by last august, I hadn't seen him for 6 weeks, and wasn't going to until his mother deemed acceptable. Having to wait another six months to have the audience of a judge, I needed something else. By the end of August, I was somewhere other than Philadelphia, with the proposal that I could stay where I was, sitting in my lap. I spent what was meant to be a vacation away from it all with the notion that I entertain the idea of staying and finding work, instead of traveling back to my home. I thought long and hard. I finally accepted the idea that no matter how I channeled my energy. No amount of energy I expended was going to help this situation get any better. So instead of trying, I would stay, with the notion that only if I got a job working with children. That I would use the skills that I know best and give everyone else more than enough space to do what needs to be done to make this situation a life worth living.

Time For Us to Free Our Minds for Responsibility's Sake.

Free Hillaria, Free Aviv, Free Nathaniel, Free Me, Free Mumia who taught us to allow our dreams to go beyond the walls that separates us in deceit. Free Cathy Free Brittany Free Diana Free You Free We Free the information that bombards us from the TV Screen. Free the Animals Free the Trees From all the insanity that keeps us from communicating openly. Free our children Free our schools Free our windows so Freedom Rules! Free our Consciences so we feel whole. Free our minds so our bodies don't just reach for gold. Free our world from pollution's strangle hold. Free our direction to include us all. Free the blessings that break the mold. Allow the differences to take hold. Free the daily to explore what's more. Free ourselves from passing judgement on what we deplore, so we may expand and embrace love when it opens the door. Make what's light more important than supposed. You don't have to do nothing like it's a chore. Enjoy the moment, Look forward to what you expect, Allow the past to guide to keep going, Not sit on your chest. Allow what people tell you fall under your step, and do only what you need to, to follow your breath. Don't let the interference bind you your shackles have no locks, Except for Nathaniel and I wonder what goes on on his block. Except for Mumia who deserves, more than anyone, a kiss from a robin, than the rest of us do. Sitting in the deepest, darkest pit because it was easier to balance the lie than count to five and clear you. You know what for argument sake may she carry one from me, too. That goes for Leonard, too. I count the days till I get to sweat with you, With molten rock and grandfather's breathe, my choice, to live free with you. For Aviv, who, more than anything, wants to run around like the other kids do, and still asks to stay with his daddie, even though the court has said he'll have to make do. And to his mom, who feels responsible for all the abuse, but is too scared, she can't do what she knows we'll get her through. Free Cathy, because she was the first to take her story to the whole world. Cathy O knows that Diana really was the one who needed a way to shore. Free the people, So we may use the $80 trillion floating on our tax bills, to do more. No longer is the conquest necessary to breath, Our investments have shown us dividends to be perpetual And No Need ever - a better return to Harmony. Take your trillions upon trillions of dollars to do as you please. Just make sure that we eat. I bet we find that everything works out when you listen to we. One dictation holds the tone, But all voices make Ohm. When we sit down and you realize what you owe, We'll happily listen, you may find the cost to rebuild low. We build in harmony with what we know, imagine what could happen if we built with that we sow. The world of no matter turns to the world I know, And every single problem washed away, to show more. We sit in a paradigm set by our limits, Where we fight for space to say how we get it. Renewable resources cut for addictive collections till we have no more. When everything, all of our needs Are automatically provided for, by the little planet we call home. May we find the balance so long forgot That the earth begins to care for us Instead of watching her children settle for gore. As her body speaks We'll hear her through our hearts. The only one to guide us passed the wants and our have nots, Holding the lengths that haven't been freeing us from boundaries because of the cost. Imagine if oil companies turned to renewable energies that didn't cost a thing and thought became the only commodity to win. Imagine all those profits turning into smiles for Accomplishing what seemed the hardest feat. The only thing holding us back, Our egos calling, "Cheat!" A word to hide from our greatest fear, Change is what we need. Change an end to a means that perpetuates all our energy. A way to look at something differently. Something better, Something new, The only way to know what's true. The first thing to show us what went wrong and also, what we can do from now on. The limits only as big as your view. An end to a war does not mean we all come ashore. But an end to a war leaves opportunity to make something better than what's worth fighting for. The more voices we listen to, The less we have to do to make people find the means to do what we need to do. Making the world a better place the only thing that will heal our wounds. No matter what side you're on, You know that's what you really want to do. Putting things in front of this, Puts what's better to get tousled in the wake. Lost in a perpetual game of I forget, But I think this is the route we take. It matters, What's around us and what we take. You learn that quickly when you embrace. So whether it's a time for you to feel big or small, The benefit comes from you doing what makes everyone strong. Cause really what kind of world is it when you stand alone? Whether it's someone older Younger, Winged, Or tall, Stands on four legs, six, or none at all. If they have roots and trunks and leaves to shelter the world, There's a lot to be missed, when you're supposed to be more tall than them all. A know-it-all must compete with the differences in how we speak. Listen first A way without judgement. Strength only in what's weak. Try to find a bond that does not break at its weakest link and begin to leak. Remind yourself that a wound can heal. The path easiest followed always clear. Only those who want to get better, Heal. Our health the only way to see clearly, no end. That we must be able to communicate to change our Fate. That the challenge is only relayed by what makes us wait, Our decision stuck between that and what does this make. I thank my friends and neighbors for the strength we show, that helps the world grow. I just hope and pray our one big family begins to shape the world we live in with what we know, instead of waiting for that better world to just show. To all our relations... God bless us all.

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.