HOW NICK CANNON MADE ME WRITE ABOUT SLAVE MOVIES AGAIN

            I really, really wanted to move on from talking about slave movies, but, like Al Pacino, whenever I try to get out, they pull me back in.  Actor and comedian, Nick Cannon, like so many others, wants a richer expression of black life in film, something with which I agree 1000%. Most of the objections to slave movies have been based on not wanting to endure the pain our ancestors bore, or not wanting to feel like victims.  Nick Cannon’s rationale hit me like a brick upside my head.  He tweeted:

“If I see another d@mn slave movie…AARRRGGHHHH!!!!!  I think they keep making them because they want to keep Black folks on edge!  They don’t want us to get to comfortable!  Yeah we know about Obama…But don’t forget about Toby!”

                         

I’m trying really hard to get this straight.  The incarceration rate for black males is six times that of white males; The Supreme Court recently gutted the Voting Rights Act resulting in more than a dozen states moving to disenfranchise black voters.  Innocent black children are  being slaughtered daily by mindless, black gang members, who have no idea as to who they are, or what their place in the world should be.  An entire prison industry has grown up based on the incarceration of black males. White folks have taken up shooting black folks for sport (a la George Zimmerman).  Black folks are constantly demonized by the media.  And while all this is going on, it’s next to impossible to get black folks who aren’t on a specifically political site to read anything that relates to the black struggle, and Nick Cannon worries that “They don’t want us to be to comfortable.”  Mr. Cannon, it is not the white establishment that doesn’t want black folks too comfortable.  It’s conscious black elders like me who don’t want black folks to be too comfortable.

The same war that was going on when Africans were first kidnapped and brought to this country is still going on right now. It is no longer the same physical war that divided this country in the mid-1800’s.  It is never-the-less a real and important war of ideas and power.     It is a war to determine who will define reality.  Who will define Black people.  Who is truly entitled to all of the rights and privileges associated with citizenship in the United States.  Right wing propaganda machines (television and talk radio, as well as some mainstream columnists) pump out racist bile every single day, while black folks are far too busy keeping up with the sports scores or the Kardasians to notice.  History is being re-written everyday in a thousand different ways to eliminate Black contributions.  This past summer I took a visiting relative on an architectural boat ride in Chicago.  The tour guide stated that the best way to understand the city was to start with the history.  I beamed with racial pride as I anticipated the obligatory acknowledgement of Chicago founder, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable.  Instead I was treated to stories about the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, neither of whom actually set foot on what was to become Chicago.  More than ten minutes in, Du Sable was mentioned, almost in passing, with the notation that he is “regarded by some as the founder of Chicago.”    

The racists who trivialize slavery are the same racists who point to Obama and declare this a “post racist America.” They are also the same folks who refuse to recognize Obama as the legitimate POTUS.  The Jews rubbed their noses in the Holocaust until they got a whole country!  We couldn’t even get forty acres and a mule.   We are the ones who should be pointing to Toby, NOT the power establishment. Rather than keep beating my head against the wall, I’ll let Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen make the rest of this argument for me.  He is far more eloquent on this subject than I could ever be!

I sometimes think I have spent years unlearning what I learned earlier in my life. For instance, it was not George A. Custer who was attacked at the Little Bighorn. It was Custer — in a bad career move — who attacked the Indians. Much more important, slavery was not a benign institution in which mostly benevolent whites owned innocent and grateful blacks. Slavery was a lifetime’s condemnation to an often violent hell in which people were deprived of life, liberty and, too often, their own children. Happiness could not be pursued after that.

Steve McQueen’s stunning movie “12 Years a Slave” is one of those unlearning experiences. I had to wonder why I could not recall another time when I was so shockingly confronted by the sheer barbarity of American slavery. Instead, beginning with school, I got a gauzy version. I learned that slavery was wrong, yes, that it was evil, no doubt, but really, that many blacks were sort of content. Slave owners were mostly nice people — fellow Americans, after all — and the sadistic Simon Legree was the concoction of that demented propagandist, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a lie and she never — and this I remember clearly being told — had ventured south to see slavery for herself. I felt some relief at that because it meant that Tom had not been flogged to death.

 

           

WHY BLACK FOLKS MUST EMBRACE OUR PAST

I have never felt more strongly compelled to write a blog than I am to write this one.  The Doug Banks syndicated radio show, which features adult conversation call-ins mixed with music, recently asked the question of its audience as to whether Hollywood was exploiting slavery with all its slave films or if they were trying to tell the story of African Americans.  Banks wondered aloud why Hollywood makes such films if black people don’t want to see them.  I couldn’t listen to all of the callers, but those I heard expressed ire at seeing their forbearers treated worse than animals. 

A few days later, I picked up a copy of the Redeye, a free weekly paper published by the Chicago Tribune, aimed at younger people, and read a column by a young African American, Ernest Wilkins, who explained why he had no intentions of seeing the slave film, “12 years a Slave,” or any other films dealing with slavery.  Wilkins wrote, “I have no interest in seeing guys who look like me being treated like cattle.”

I’ve been deeply troubled for some time by the apparent disconnect between younger
African Americans and their history.  Helplessly I’ve watched as the lessons gleaned in the late ‘60’s and early 70’s (a time of political and cultural renaissance in the black community) were not only lost but eviscerated as evidenced by  black women being regarded as female dogs as opposed to “Nubian Queens, ” young men showing their underwear, and the list goes on. The reasons for this disconnect are myriad and complex.  Yet the reaction to the film”12 years a slave” has finally given me something tangible to begin to address this issue.

I am not writing this to castigate any African Americans for having reservations about vicariously experiencing slavery through film.   Such unbelievable cruelty toward one’s people is indeed difficult to watch.  It’s painful for me to watch as well. I am writing as a village elder, trying desperately to send a message to subsequent generations (and perhaps to some members of my own generation) on why our entire story- be it slavery or ancient African dynasties- must always be told.  First, the enslavement of black folks is NOT something for which we should feel shame.  The shame in slavery falls on the perpetrators, not the victims.  While there is no pride in our having been slaves, there is enormous pride in the fact that we persevered.  No matter how much self hatred they tried to beat into us, no matter how much denigration, humiliation and terror they tried to strike they could never, ever, kill that indomitable will to be free.  The more harsh the treatment, the more painful its presentation is to watch, the greater is the accomplishment of having survived it and gone on to incredible accomplishments.  You cannot judge a race without at least having an idea of the starting point.

Second.  Just as Neo Nazis have tried to deny the Holocaust, today’s racists deny that slavery was all that bad.  Powerful and influential people like Rush Limbaugh, the unofficial Godfather of the Republican Party, and Glen Beck have created an alternative universe in which white folks are the victims of black oppression!!  Over a year ago I wrote “Consider that the Texas Board of Education just a year ago tried to eliminate the word “slavery” from the slave trade in textbooks and rename it the “Atlantic triangular trade.”  It’s not just white racists.  Negro activist, Ben Carson further trivialized slavery when he said that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery.   Movies about the holocaust have to be painful for Jewish people to watch.  They’re painful for me to watch.   But Jewish people, quite rightfully, will never let the world forget what was done to them during that horrible period.

Third.  In his column on why he won’t see “12 Years a Slave” or the upcoming remake of “Roots,” young Mr. Wilkins reports, “nothing will change.”  Once again, this is an understandable reaction of frustration with the status quo.  But the reality is that nothing will ever change, at least not for the better, until we at least understand the issues that framed and formed the problems we have right now.  The underdevelopment of the African American community, the crime, the poor schools and poverty,    all have their roots in slavery.  Without a historical context, one could only assume that black folks are just horrific underachievers.  That is why the racists are so keen on denying or whitewashing slavery.  They maintain that the current plight of many black folks, just like slavery itself, is nothing more than a manifestation of the natural order of things. 

Finally, (I use the word loosely for I haven’t begun to scratch the surface) a people with no history have no future.  Without a shared culture and history, you do not have a people, you have a collection of individuals who look alike.  I’ve met young people who celebrate the M L King Holiday, and the “I Have a Dream” speech, but have no idea of what Jim Crow was.  Should we bypass the water hoses and church bombings of the ‘60’s as well, because they are too painful to watch?  History is not something in books about people with whom we have no connection.  By the act of living, we are participating in the same history in which the slaves participated.  If our young people understood that slaves risked their lives to learn to read and write, then maybe they would have a greater appreciation for education.  If African Americans are ever to advance we must embrace all of our past, painful though it may be.  If our ancestors could endure, the least we can do is acknowledge!  This embrace must be done in a sense of pride in the enormous obstacles that we continue to strive to overcome.   Sankofa.  We have to look back to move forward. 

www.williamgriggs.net    william-griggs@sbcglobal.net

TEA PARTY IS THE MOST JEALOUS LOVER

“If I can’t have you nobody can!  I’ll kill you before I’ll see you with his filthy hands on you!!!”  So goes the insane cry of the man who sees his spouse or lover as a possession, rather than another human being.  It is the cry that usually precedes the killing of the spouse or girlfriend, usually, but not always, just before the perpetrator turns the gun on himself.  As long as this mentality plays out between two individuals it is universally regarded as pathetic weakness, irrationality and plain nuttiness.

But what happens when this sentiment is expressed, not by a spurned lover, but by a portion of a population that feels entitled to total ownership of the society in which they live?  Nonsense, you say. No political faction would destroy its own society just because another faction is in power, you say?  Then let me introduce you to the Tea party.

The conventional wisdom says that the Republican/Tea party is against the Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obamacare, precisely because they know the public will love it and thereby doom their prospects for power in the future.  As reprehensible and selfish as this position is, it appears to have merit.  We know that the Republicans are willing to do just about anything to regain/maintain power.  Yet there is another level of analysis that even further elucidates the madness that is coming from the right wing of this country. They want their country back.

They have said it a million times: they want their country back.  Obama has no business being president, simply because this is not his country.  Just ask Donald Trump.   It belongs to white people, and they want it back.  They don’t just disagree with him-Democrats and Republicans, by definition disagree- they hate him.  Never before have so many politicians of the opposition party been so deathly afraid of having their picture taken with the president.  Despite Ronald Reagan’s racism-from his opposition to a M L King holiday to his support for apartheid in South Africa-  black athletes went to the White house when their teams won championships during the Reagan era out of respect for the office.  A trip to the White house by a sports team has never been a political event or endorsement.  Now. white athletes like Dan Hampton of the Chicago Bears and two members of the 1972 Dolphins routinely refuse to meet with Obama because they don’t agree with his politics???!!!  Puhleeze!!

They want their country back, and if they can’t have it, no one can.  Hence, the government shutdown.  They have already marred the credit rating of the United States with their debt ceiling shenanigans.  So, yes, until this government is back in white hands where it belongs, they are willing to destroy it and a lot of its citizens who depend upon it.  So, now that we know the jealous lover/ husband /would rather kill  this damsel/nation rather than let Obama keep his filthy black, defiling hands on it, the only question that remains is where this jealous lover turns the gun on himself after the murder.      No analogy is perfect.  And this one gets tricky because there are two parts to the perpetrator: the ultra right wing voters who voted in the Tea Part candidates and the politicians themselves.  I don’t think Tea Part Congressmen are any smarter than their constituents, but I do believe they have better survival instincts. 

The voters are the serious murder suicide perpetrators in the jealous lover scenario.  They have proven themselves willing to vote against their own best interests, and those of their children to get this black man away from their  government.  The uninsured voting for candidates who will make sure they never have any health insurance are the true believers, willing to drink the Kool Aide in a New York minute.  There was the federal employee who was laid off because of the  government shutdown who voted for the candidate who promised to shut the government down.  Now he’s dismayed that he’s out of work.  He voted Tea Party because he believed that the federal government THAT EMPLOYS HIM is too big!!! 

The actual Congressmen who shut the government down aren’t quite so self destructive.  They have told lies that would have made Adolph Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebels  (Goebel’s mantra was the bigger the lie the better) blush.  They know their constituents will back them no matter how destructive their actions.  They  also  know that they will have cover from both the right wing media a la Fox News and the mainstream media.  No matter how egregious their actions, no matter how bold the lies they tell, the mainstream media, in the name of objectivity will come down somewhere in the middle, and blame both sides. And by the way, the Congressmen who shut down the government to keep people from getting health insurance all have excellent health insurance.  They thrive while their constituents suffer self inflicted wounds. 
They deserve each other.  It’s the rest of us I feel sorry for.  I don’t know if we can keep them from destroying this country.

PAULA DEEN, BILL O'REILLY, RACISM AND SAGGING PANTS

Who determines what racism is acceptable and what racism must be punished?  What are the criteria?  What has happened with Paula Deen and Fox “news analysts” (wink, wink) Bill O’Reilly has, for me, accentuated to whole question of racism is acceptability.

Paula Deen, as I’m sure you know, has been tarred and feathered for her use of the n word and other alleged really silly, racist remarks.  If it weren’t for the fact that Deen’s language and views came to light within the context of racial and sexual discrimination in her business enterprises, I would have dismissed her comments as the musings of an old, relatively harmless, wannabe Scarlet O’Hara.  I still wouldn’t buy any of her products, but it isn’t as if she was going to recruit anyone to follow her on the path to the glory days of the Confederacy.  Deen’s comments were expressed in a conversation, not to millions of listeners on radio, like those of O’Reilly. 

O’Reilly dropped any pretense of being anything but racist in his response to African American’s exhibiting the audacity of being upset that the unrepentant George Zimmerman was acquitted at killing an unarmed black teenager. Think the U.S. justice system treats African Americans unfairly? Then you “simply hate America” or suffer a “victim mentality,” according to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

 The veil dropped further in his response to President Obama’s call for a dialogue on race.  O’Reilly who knows absolutely nothing about Black folks or what we go through (he was SHOCKED to learn that we behave in restaurants the same way other human beings behave) lectured black folks on why we are the cause of all our problems.  O’Reilly’s response to Obama’s call for a conversation on race was to tell black folks to stop having babies out of wedlock. Does this mean that no out of wedlock babies would have prevented Trayvon Martin from being killed?   This is the same misdirection tactic that was used during the Civil Rights era to cloud and confuse the issues.  Back then it was, “you just want to integrate so you can marry my sister.”   

   The noise generated by O’Reilly and the other propagandists at Fox News does serious damage to race relations.  They deliberately misinterpret anything regarding black folks, and as a result, pretty much preclude any serious conversation about race.  Yet because O’Reilly and Co. have avoided using the n-word, and the fact that their audience shares their willful ignorance and hatred, the only consequences these hate mongers will face will be increased ratings. After all, O’Reilly and his cohorts at Fox can’t be condemned if they don’t use the n word.

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                African American reporter/anchor Don Lemon  touched off a firestorm when he joined O”Reilly’s call for an end to out of wedlock babies and added a couple more rules- notably pull up your pants, and stop using the n word- as a panacea for America’s racial woes.   Lemon’s comments sparked a lively debate on the Melissa Harris Perry show that focused primarily on the sagging pants.  My own feelings are that we go too far in extremes when dealing with the sagging pants issues.

                On the one hand, we know that the right wingers will use anything, including sagging pants as a justification for all ill that befalls the African American community; including their proclivity for shooting us.    (We probably wouldn’t have been enslaved in the first place, if it hadn’t been for those sagging loin cloths we wore back in the day).  Those of us who feed into these arguments, like Lemon, become pawns in the propaganda war against African America. 

                On the other hand, sagging pants ARE offensive, and no one is offended more- no one has to look at them more- than the African American community.   Almost every time I see these young men wearing the drooping pants, I have an internal conversation with myself.    First I acknowledge how thoroughly disgusting it is to have to see these folks’ underwear.  Then I tell myself, that the man/child is just a product of his environment, doing what everybody else does- like most folks- and that he might be a very decent honorable young man, despite his sagging pants.  (I really shouldn’t have to work that hard).

                For me, sagging pants are not the disease, they are the symptoms.  They are not the cause, they are the effect.  American society, (black and white) has been deteriorating for quite some time.  The reasons are myriad, but among the biggest are deteriorating and, in the Black community, declining hope. These young people are not the source of the problem.  They are the result.  When we understand this, and can block out the noise from racists and their Negro subordinates, we may be able to move forward along with waistlines moving upward 

WHO REALLY KILLED TRAYVON MARTIN?

                             

Who really killed Trayvon Martin?  We know that George Zimmerman,  who had the nerve to say he thought black folks owed him an apology, and who also said that he would do it all over again because killing an innocent unarmed black teenager was “God’s will,” pulled the trigger. (For the life of me,  I cannot stop equating him with the Polish nobleman in the movie Maverick whose greatest desire in life was to kill an Indian(substitute black for Indian).  But did Zimmerman act alone, or was he merely a tool of a much larger conspiracy?  Who is responsible for cheapening the life of young black males to the extent that they created George Zimmerman?  Who really killed Trayvon Martin?

Could the real perpetrator have been the justice system in America?  You know, the one that would never have arrested Zimmerman in the first place, had it not been for the public outcry, and that subsequently prosecuted Zimmerman with the kind of zeal found usually in a child being forced to eat his vegetables.  We’re talking about the same justice system that sentenced Marissa Alexander, a black woman, to TWENTY YEARS in prison for firing a WARNING SHOT to keep her abusive husband- a man against who she had a protective order- at bay.  Apparently, Ms Alexander did far more harm to the air into which she fired, than Zimmerman’s shot did to young Martin. 

Ms. Alexander’s case has become something of a cause célèbre and I pray she finally receives some sort of justice.  But what about Chyvas Peoples?  He received thirty years for defending himself with a pen knife against a vicious attack by EIGHT gang members.  The list of injustices against black folks is far too long to enumerate here.

Who really killed Trayvon Martin?

Was it the media that has demonized Black folks in general and Black males in particular to the extent that Zimmerman could feel justified in profiling and killing Trayvon?  During hurricane Katrina the images of blacks were so distorted that the National Guard that was sent to rescue people wanted to shoot the black folks who ran toward them for help.  Of course this demonization of black males goes all the way back to slavery as a means of justification for the rape of black women.

Who really killed Trayvon Martin?

Could it have been the almost countless black thugs/zombies who have been so dehumanized by society that they see no value in human life and shoot into crowds of young black folks hoping to kill somebody, thereby further devaluing black life? 

Perhaps it was the Powers That Be who created these black thugs/zombies by building urban reservations (commonly referred to as Projects) –high rises separated from the rest of society by expressways and railroad tracks where poor people were heaped on top of each other until an inevitable subculture of violence and indifference to human life emerged.  Once a sufficient incubation period for this subculture had elapsed, the results of these Frankenstein styled experiments were unleashed upon the rest of the city. (I’m speaking of Chicago, now).  The result has been mayhem so profound that the local media doesn’t even bother to name the victims after bloody weekends.  They just give out the figures, Twelve killed, sixty wounded over the weekend, even further devaluing black life.

Who Really Killed Trayvon Martin?

Could it have been the financial community that disinvests in the Black community?  Or the educational system that consistently leaves a child behind.

Who Really killed Trayvon Martin?

BILL MAHER EXPOSES THE RONALD REAGAN MYTH

This essay is a shout-out, a kudu, to Bill Maher’s commentary on June 7^th on Ronald Reagan’s true place in regards to the Tea Party.  Maher skillfully and accurately dissected and destroyed the notion that Reagan would be too moderate to be a member of the Tea Party, when in fact he was the father of the Tea Party.    On that program, Maher stated:

“Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay,.

anti-intellectual who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable taste for the military industrial complex and said Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom.”

Maher went on to enumerate a litany of ills that Reagan visited upon this country.  I cannot resist adding to that litany that Reagan also raised the interest rates and  restructured the repayment of government backed school loans that has resulted in the current crisis of so many college grads returning home to live with their parents; expanded homelessness from an insignificant issue to the current crisis, waged war on the poor to the extent that his administration tried to have ketchup classified as a vegetable, and exchanged drug treatment for incarceration resulting in the grotesque number of African Americans  incarcerated today.

It boggles the mind that a president could create such a mess and remain so incredibly revered by so many Americans.  From airports to highways, venues have been renamed in honor of the virtually canonized Reagan.   Had they been able to squeeze him in, they would have added him to Mount Rushmore.   Even more tantalizing is the fact that this love affair with Reagan did not begin with the rose colored glasses of short and failed memory.  He has been revered (by a large portion of white folks and regrettably, some Negroes) since he became president.

Despite the awful wounds Reagan’s draconian social policies inflicted upon  American society, Reagan’s true significance lies even more in his transformation of the soul, character and ethos of this nation.   By appealing to, elevating and expanding the very worst of American instincts- that psychology that created the doctrine of manifest destiny and justified slavery- Reagan became in my humble opinion, perhaps the most significant president of the latter half of the twentieth century.  While he was in office I stated that it was no coincidence that the most openly racist president since Woodrow Wilson was also the most beloved.  I also wrote in a column that appeared in the Chicago Defender that Reagan rescued (white) America’s psyche at the cost of her soul

Reagan not only appealed to racism, he made it fashionable.   He kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi, a place famous for only one thing: the murder of Civil Rights workers.  He was the first presidential candidate to be endorsed by the KKK.  He  supported  apartheid in South Africa.   When forced to sign the King Holiday into law, Reagan praised racist senator Jess Helms and NOT M.L.  King Jr.   Reagan came into office at a time when America had actually lost a war to people of color (Vietnam).  That war was the result of America- champion of freedom and free elections- scuttling the elections in Vietnam because the U.S. did not like the man (Ho Chi Minh) who reportedly would have won the election.  The arrogant  notion that white Americans were the Chosen People and Guardians Of The Planet,  Infallible  Masters of The Universe was, if not on life support, at least gravely ill. Until ….

Ronald Reagan, upon a noble steed, rode to the rescue.  He declared that America had every right to intervene in the internal politics of Vietnam.  He declared that the U.S. did NOT lose that war militarily, but because of the evil bureaucrats, representing an even more evil government in Washington, cost America that war.  White Americans who headed huge corporate and financial institutions that stole billions of dollars were not at fault for any problems in the economy.  Rather it was the lazy, thieving Negros on Welfare who cheated and took money out of the pockets of hard working red blooded, real  (meaning White) Americans.  All his constituents had to do was click their heals three times and they would recognize that they remained  the rightful guardians and masters of the universe.

I remember listening to pundits wrestling on the radio with how this president could mess up so much and never suffer any repercussions.  (He was actually known as the “Teflon President” because nothing could ever stick to him.)  I called the station and opined that his Teflon coating was made of racism, and the fact that he made white America feel so good about being white would also preclude any of his missteps from ever sticking to him.  The air went dead.  I finally asked why there was so much silence.  They replied that there was nothing to say, because I had spoken the truth.

This love affair with the myth of Reagan has gone so far as to infect our first Black President.  While I have generally supported Mr. Obama, there have been times when he has deeply disappointed me.  I have come to understand that many of his shortcomings with regards to the plight of Black people are pretty much inherent in the nature of the “Negro Firsts.”  From Jackie Robinson to Sammy Davis Jr. to Nat King Cole, Negro Firsts have, by definition, had to be so palatable to whites- had to swallow so much degradation and humiliation- that they inevitably disappointed the Black community in some way.  That was the price they paid for those who would follow.  As president, Obama represents the ultimate in assuaging white folk’s fears of black folks.  But there is a limit; a point at which one can bend over so far backward that one’s spine will never straighten.  When Obama praises Ronald Reagan he has reached that point.

Violence Against Women In the Black Community

                The measure of a society – the measure of its cultural or mental health- can be gauged by its treatment of and attitudes towards women.   And by that measure, the Black community comes up woefully short.   As far back as a decade ago, the number one cause of death for African American women aged 15 to 34 is homicide by a former or current intimate partner.   In the aftermath of the murder of his girlfriend and suicide by pro football player, Jovan Belcher, CBS sports anchor, James Brown, reported that three women are killed every day in the United States by a domestic partner. 

Whenever a relationship- ANY relationship is marred by violence- that relationship is by definition, dysfunctional.  In the case of men perpetrating violence against women, the source of that dysfunction can   be found in two distinct, yet inextricably interwoven areas: faulty definitions and disconnected relationships within themselves.

Violence against women is often equated with power and control or rather, feelings of lack of power and control.  Feelings of lack of power and control often come from faulty definitions of two almost synonymous terms: “manhood” and “strength.”  Men are taught that being a man means being strong.  Being strong means sucking up pain and not letting anybody take anything from you.  There is something to be said for these definitions.  A man should be willing to protect his family and home.  And while some women say they want a sensitive man, those same women will run for cover if they perceive their man as being weak.  Somehow we’ve got to understand that strength does not mean brutishness and sensitivity does not equate to being effeminate.  

Over the years, I’ve been involved in all kinds of counseling sessions, both formal and informal, in which notions about manhood were the central themes.  More than once, during a counseling group I once conducted, a male would defiantly declare, “I do what I want to do.  I’m a man!”  My response was always the same.  “A boy does what he wants to do.  A man does what he has to do.” Often that response would generate helpful discussions about manhood and responsibility.

                Then there was the distraught cab driver I found myself counseling.    Suspecting his woman was cheating on him, he declared that he felt he was losing his mind and that he “might have to kill somebody.”  He was stunned when I asked him how long his girlfriend had been his god.  “You know you’ll be sacrificing your own life if you take a life over this woman.  And the only somebody that any sane person would give his life for is that somebody to whom he owes his life:  the giver of life.  God Himself.  Who else could be important enough for you to sacrifice your own life?  If this was just a mere woman, you could remember a time when you functioned quite well, before you even met her.    To whom else would you give total control of your life?  Your woman must be a powerful god!”

                By the end of the conversion, the cabbie had calmed down.  He came to understand that his manhood was not defined by the actions of his woman and that he still had control over his life. 

Perpetrators of violence against women do not see anything unmanly about it.  It is especially interesting to note that the example that brought this issue to a little light was a case involving a football player.   It’s a bit ironic that football players, who practice one of the MANLIEST of sports (I’m a lifelong Steelers fan, so I’m hardly against the sport) are among the most prolific in the most unmanly of activities: domestic violence.  

Football is considered manly because it teaches one to “suck up” physical pain; to fight through it.  Ignore it.  But what about emotional pain?  Unlike physical pain, emotional pain cannot be ignored.  It must be confronted and overcome.  The strength to overcome it is derived from a strong honest relationship with self.  That strength cannot be accessed if the individual has cut himself off from himself by focusing on ignoring pain without discrimination with regards to everything else that goes on inside a human being.  

                I tried to tackle some of these issues in my novel, The Megalight Connection, in which I developed the following question and answer session between a lad and his mentor:

What kind of discipline is required to have a proper relationship with a woman?

The kind that will allow you to love fully and completely, yet remain willing to lose her if it is in her best interest.  When you can do this my son, you truly will be a man.

I tried to show that being a man meant, among other things, the ability to love a woman (or anybody, for that matter) unselfishly.  Being a man requires a different kind of profound  strength to expose oneself to the vulnerability that comes with loving “fully and completely” while putting the other person ahead of oneself to the point of being willing to lose her if it is in her best interest.

True strength is not a matter of how much weight a man can lift, but rather, a matter of discipline.  True strength comes from having an honest relationship with oneself. It is a matter of being secure within oneself.  When we can come to this, not only will domestic violence dissipate, but we truly will be men.

                                                        

               

ARE GUN CONTROL OPPONENTS REALLY THAT PATRIOTIC?

An interesting dilemma presented itself on a rerun of the television series Bones.  The diabolically evil antagonist devised a scheme whereby he electronically drained the enormous wealth of one of the good guys while simultaneously threatening death to several innocent civilians.  The only way the good guy could stop the draining of his wealth would have been to break a life saving electronic link to the civilians.  The dilemma: save your own wealth or the lives of complete strangers.   Without hesitation, our hero chose to maintain the link with the victims, sacrificing all that he owned for their safety.  Painful though it was, it was the right thing to do.

That episode keeps coming back to me whenever the subject of gun control comes up.  Despite the fact that the United States registers more than 11,000 gun related deaths per year, people like the NRA’s CEO Wayne Lapiere scream bloody murder whenever the tiniest steps are suggested to curb this senseless violence.  Mind you, no one is talking about leaving law abiding citizens without guns to hunt or protect themselves.  They merely want to ban military style assault weapons and tighten control of the flow of guns, including stricter background checks as well as some other common sense proposals.  Given the massacres at places like Sandy Hook elementary school, and the ongoing slaughter of innocent children in places like Chicago, where a six month old baby was just shot to death , one has to wonder why anyone who isn’t a sociopath would object to such measures.

I believe the answer lies in the right wing’s fanatical paranoia concerning freedom.  The Right simply refuses to understand that absolute freedom and community are antithetical.  They cannot exist together.  Unless you’re in a nudist colony, the presence of other human beings means that you do not have the freedom to go around naked.  We have stop signs and traffic lights because multiple cars, as well as pedestrians occupy the streets.   Yet this childish and selfish world view, predicated upon the elevation of the individual above the group, persists as the foundation for resistance to any form of gun control.  In his recent speech before the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), Lapiere stated:

“ …our Founding Fathers knew that without the Second Amendment and that freedom, all of our freedoms could be in jeopardy.” 

This paranoia over freedom has permeated almost all right wing politics.  It, along with Grover Norquist’s pledge against raising taxes of any kind, has made compromise (which is the backbone of any democracy) almost impossible in Washington.  Consider what Chuck Norris, the martial arts actor,   had to say about President Obama in a video he made about the presidential campaign:

"If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack," Norris says. "We're at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don't change the course in which our country is headed."

Again the issue is framed, not as an honest disagreement among intelligent, patriotic, fellow Americans, but as freedom vs. EVIL.  And who could forget Ronald Reagan’s famous warnings that Social Security would mean the end of freedom as we know it?  Isn’t it ironic that it was Reagan who was famous for his use of the “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” adage and yet Republicans continue to fall for the “threat to freedom” ruse over and over and over again?

So why are the freedom arguments so hysterically hyperbolic?  My guess is that the hysteria serves as a smokescreen for how truly inane and unpatriotic the Right Wing positions are, especially on gun control.   Patriotism involves sacrifice.  The soldier who makes the ultimate sacrifice is considered to be the ultimate patriot.  Yet these people aren’t willing to give up anything- not even the time it takes to secure adequate background checks- to save American lives!    Can anyone tell me what is so patriotic about refusing to allow mentally ill people to be checked before giving them guns with which to kill other Americans?   Maybe if they shout loudly enough no one will question the logic that says that gun ownership is a God given right, but health care is not.