Transcending the Aggressor's Mentality-Discussing Race in the United States
57Challenging Cognitive Dissonance Ahead...Proceed With Caution!
Learning to Listen
Every day I am bombarded with stimuli of all types, as is every other person on this planet.
Each of us selects which of these inputs to pay attention to,
The long-bearded man in ragged clothes holding a cardboard sign asking for change......
The filthy stray dog running wide-eyed down the street thinking to him or herself about who knows what....possibly trying to find its way back to something possibly remembered as warm or caring...maybe thinking about laying alongside mother way back when...
When I would come home from school during my late junior and entire senior years of high school, a part of my day, along with my family's, would be to watch Rush Limbaugh's old telivision show during the early Clinton years...
I was also familiar with the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and was hit with a 12 ounce bottle of Jack Daniel's dose of Apocalyptic Biblical inevitability inculcated with the belief that everyone in the world was going to want to kill me and my family while Satan attacked our group from within...another shot every Saturday.....maybe a follow-up round on a Wedneday or Thursday (if my grandfather/elder "Chosen of God") came out for Bible studies.... I am not writing this with a tone of sarcasm, and I hope that is not lost in transcription...
But I stray from the point...
i was taught to be wary of those outside of our family/church group, and were constantly reinforced with a sense of superiority in that we were "the only group in the planet chosen by God for the End Time message"...
When I first went to school I attended a local Lutheran School. Most of the kids all attended the adjoining Lutheran Church, but I did not. My worldview looked at them with a mix of pity and suspicion because I believed that my family held the golden ticket, the secret scoop..the direct pathway to the true God.....and not these others..
We, as kids, were tasked with memorizing whatever books of the Bible my grandfather told us to, and anything additional my father would have us do. We would recite from rote whenever requested or required.
When I transitioned to public school in the third grade my reading ability, not comprehension per se, but pronounciation and familiariarity with complex words and grammar made me a standout in associated classes, which added to the budding superiority complex within... But, when talking to other kids about God, my ability to use the Bible and the reinforced reasoning and fear perpetuation techniques (the Protocols of Zion, etc.) of my grandfather, enabled me to alter the perceptions of other youth....
I questioned the ideas that my grandfather would preach...and wanted them to not be true, in all truth, because I wanted to live my life, but the courage to stand up to and truly challenge the authority structure of my grandfather would be tantamount to treason against God...so courage to do anything of that sort, to challenge "legitimate" authority, was not something that was not indoctrinated into my being....I was taught to be humble and respect adults, teachers, government officials and others because of these titles...my best friend's father was also my sixth grade teacher..and over all his requests that I call him by his first name I would always still refer to him as Mr. ......
Rush Limbaugh....
He said many things that my grandfather said, he was on television wearing a suit-appearing very professional and knowledgeable.... From "illegal aliens" to "ungrateful" African Americans he would, to a 17 year old suburban "White" boy in Los Angeles at least, convincingly demonstrate how the United States, the beacon for all that is righteous and true in the world regardless of its "past blemishes", was being destroyed by those who have not been found "worthy of acceptance", or unwilling to accept the "right way" (Jim Crow and his associates aren't so bad, are they?), and something had to be done right now......right now....they are taking over...
And then there was "rap music."
The radio stations, being all I had access to (and very limited at that) didn't share rap/hip-hop that attracted me. The songs talked about things that I could not identify with...drug use, getting the groove on with the females..partying partying and..fighting and killing for no real reason....
I did have a part of my life where I was in with a group of youths that dabbled in gang life, but I only found my moments to participate within the time limits of school, when I wasn't being supervised boot camp style at home...or when my dad would forget to pick me up and I'd be able to disappear for a bit of time....
I still didn't touch drugs for the lightning bolts from heaven/all-seeing condemnation of God was enough to keep any pangs of desire or curiousity tucked well away.. and never developed the desire to hurt someone else because of geographic location of residence....when friends died, which some did in our pre-high school years, my value for self-preservation trumped any reinforced feelings of artificial pride..
With this said, my ability to identify with what "Power 106 FM" and "92.3 The Beat" played....
It wasn't until after I got out of the Marines that I really paid attention to what was actually out there, instead of what the radio played...from KRS-One, Del the Phunky Homosapien, and Immortal Technique, and reanalyze some of those the radio did put out, like Tupac Shakur.
Instead of focusing on what I was being fed, either through religious or television personalities, I embarked on a journey to answer the questions I held inside myself, through whatever means I could. When I attended university I used the institution to further the researching I was already doing, as opposed to arriving without having a purpose or focus aside from getting a piece of paper......I had a mission to accomplish, and I still do.
I hope that more minds can be altered.
I have no way of realizing how any given person here right now reads this or perceives rap/hip-hop, but I hope that both of the attached videos can be listened, analyzed, and compared. I also hope that any ambiguities, in terms of ability to understand the language of either videos, will be equally searched out and clarified...
May sterotypes, archetypes, and generalizations in life continue to break and fall......
May this new Solar year bring us all greater insight and perception towards ourselves and one another...
Comparing Communication Methods and Transcending Stereotypes
Sources Cited
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Immortal Technique!
"May sterotypes, archetypes, and generalizations in life continue to break and fall......
May this new Solar year bring us all greater insight and perception towards ourselves and one another..."
Yes. Seconding this.
I'm just glad to have the opportunity to do this... thanks.
I just submitted a comment and then tried unsuccessfully to edit it. I'll post it again, and perhaps you can delete the unedited one.
In case anybody doubts the need for affirmative action, here's a story about a black man who returned to Ohio from fighting in WW II to find that he was barred from playing golf on public golf courses.
African-American Golf Pioneer Bill Powell Dies at 93
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: January 1, 2010
Bill Powell, who was honored last summer as a racial pioneer in American golf more than 60 years after building a golf course while he was shunned by the sport he loved, died Thursday at a hospital in Canton, Ohio. He was 93.
The cause was complications from a stroke, the P.G.A. of America said.
In August 2009, when the P.G.A. of America held the 91st annual P.G.A. Championship in the Minneapolis area, it bestowed its highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, on Mr. Powell.
According to the organization, Mr. Powell was the only African-American to build, own and operate a golf course in the United States.
When he returned to the Canton, Ohio, area from England in 1946 after serving in the Army Air Forces, Mr. Powell, a passionate golfer since caddying at age 9, was denied a chance to play on public courses. When he tried to get a bank loan to build his own course, he was rejected.
Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier in major league baseball was still a year away. The nation’s golf courses, like much of America, remained segregated. And the P.G.A. of America’s bylaws barred nonwhites from membership, a ban that remained in effect until 1961.
But Mr. Powell, a security guard for the Timken bearing and steel company in Canton, was undaunted.
“It’s distasteful when you get turned down,” he told The New York Times in 2009. “You have a little pride. You say the hell with them. You say I’m not going to badger. I’m not going to beg them. So I said I’ll just build a golf course.”
And so he did.
With financial help from two black physicians and a loan from a brother, Mr. Powell bought 78 acres on a dairy farm in East Canton.
Doing most of the labor by hand, helped by his wife, Marcella, Mr. Powell seeded pastures, tossed aside boulders and pulled up fence posts. In April 1948, what he called “this crazy dream” came true. He opened Clearview Golf Club with an initial nine holes and welcomed players of all races.
There were incidents of vandalism in the course’s early years — flag sticks were removed and ethnic slurs scrawled — but the course flourished, and Mr. Powell expanded it to 18 holes in 1978, having bought a total of 130 acres. The Department of the Interior designated Clearview as a national historic site in 2001.
“He was just obsessed,” Mr. Powell’s son, Larry, the Clearview course superintendent, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2009. “He put all his efforts mentally, emotionally and physically into accomplishing his goal.”
When Mr. Powell, bent by age, was honored by the P.G.A. of America, he received congratulations from President Obama and former President George H. W. Bush. And he was accorded four standing ovations by the audience of more than 600 at the Pantages Theater in Minneapolis.
Seated in a large leather chair, he read an acceptance speech that his daughter, Renee, a pioneering figure in women’s pro golf, helped him craft. In it, he explained why he had built Clearview. “I did not want other people who wanted to play the game of golf to have to suffer the indignities that I had,” he said.
He closed with his credo: “Stand firm. Never give up. Never give in. Believe in yourself, even when others don’t.”
William James Powell was born in Greenville, Ala., then moved with his family to Minerva, Ohio, some 20 miles from Canton, as a youngster. He played golf and football in high school and attended Wilberforce University in Ohio, a historically black school, where he was a member of the golf squad.
With few decent job openings for blacks, Mr. Powell was hired at Timken as a janitor, but a few months later he became the company’s first black security guard. Returning to Timken after the war, he worked nights to support his family while building his golf course.
When Renee was 3 years old, Mr. Powell designed a miniature golf club and gave her lessons at Clearview. In 1967, Renee Powell became the second black woman, after Althea Gibson, to play on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. She competed on the tour until 1980 and is now the head pro at Clearview.
In an e-mail message, Renee said of her father, “Early on we found that we had to share him with the world and what a gift he was!” In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Powell, who lived in East Canton, is survived by twin sisters, Mary Alice Walker, of Akron, Ohio, and Rose Marie Mathews, of Minerva. His wife died in 1996.
The National Golf Foundation presented its Jack Nicklaus Golf Family of the Year Award to the Powells in 1992.
But Mr. Powell cherished a tribute beyond the spotlight as well. In 1997, as he told The Akron Beacon Journal, he was thrilled when two white women drove from Atlanta just to play his course.
“They shook my hand and thanked me,” he said. “They said I have a piece of history here, and they wanted to be a part of it. Can you imagine?”
Another excellent hub. I really like this Tim Wise person. What he says is truth. Thank you Mr. Deeds for the article on Bill Powell. There are so many experiences that I would like to share with you as they relate to this hub that I know you would be able to identify with but I will save them for another time. It is too painful for me right now to talk about it. Keep up the good work.
Lisa, feel free to share whenever you wish....I'm glad to be serving a purpose.... It's too bad so many others are wrapped up with identifying with the aggressor....
Have a wonderful evening...
Heard this speech by Wise before. Very good. I attended a lecture by author Walter Williams (The Historical Origin of Christianity) and a woman (part Irish, Native American & Black as she says) tried to argue down Williams claiming to be "enlightened" and "part of the whole" blah, blah, blah. She went on that she was so beyond race so we blacks should get beyond studying that we are direct decendants of Ancient Egyptians as Williams was proclaiming.
And it suddenly dawned on me, where were these "New-Age" whites 500 years ago when the world needed them and she was actually making brilliant comments, but in the wrong auditorium, her ass needed to be at one of those kooky Tea Party Town Halls saying that. Blacks have long since assimilated into white society so much, that we now use white peoples drugs and live in white people's prisons. So we need to close ranks and rediscover ourselves and history and role in the world scene from the beginning.
I absolutely agree Pointblank.....well said!
Ralph Deeds Level 6 Commenter 2 years ago
Thanks for acquainting me with Tim Wise. The journey of transformation you've apparently undergone is encouraging. In my experience few people make that journey.