Video: Children of Africa

 I love children,  and I love Africa.  I regret that I have no kids of my own, but I don't regret not having any in this country.  I wouldn't want my children to be tainted by the wrong values this place says you must have to be a human and have worth.  I wouldn't want the racism of here to slowly kill their spirit and self-esteem.  I would have loved to have been married and have kids in a more traditional society in which community and family were the second top priority after devotion to God.   

I lived briefly in Africa once.  I know how much life and friendliness African children can have.  I've seen similar liveliness and joy in Turkish children, another country where I've also lived.  One of my greatest joys was to have a Turkish child kiss my hand and then place it on his forehand.  This is a traditional sign of respect for elders in Turkey.  

This video was posted on a Facebook page devoted to Africa the other day.  I wanted to share it here.  Even though these kids are poor, they are happy and act like children should. 

African Leaders Seek Ways to Woo Diaspora

I ran across this article yesterday: African Leaders Seek Ways to Woo Diaspora.   

Before I was introduced to Turkey, I've long identified with Africa because of my experiences in Peace Corps in the 1990s. 99% of the time I have felt highly welcomed by Africans from the continent.  I also love the Turks because my skin color never seemed to matter to them, and some of they have long wanted me to live among them permanently.  But my first identification is with my African heritage.  It is the essence of who I truly am.

World incidents last year made me refocus more strongly on Africa again even though my heart had never really left it.  For all the Africans I've met with a strong and true African identity and love of their continent and us in the Diaspora, I have nothing except fondness and love. 

I am member of a Facebook group for Africans who want to have a hand in leading their continent out of centuries of shackles and invasions to a new day.  I was honored to be invited into the group, and they have an application that can filled out for volunteer and other work.  I plan to fill it out because I hope I can do all I am able with my art and my mind (my basic base of talent) to help my people.  I want to see an African Renaissance because I know that more parts of Africa was great besides just Egypt.  Africa is the continent of many kings.  I don't know if it was flattery from some African friends, but years ago I was told I resembled members of a royal tribe from Ghana.  There is a great power play for Africa now between Western and Eastern people.  

Africa is a contradiction, both rich and poor.  I have become a Pan-Africanist, and want those in the Diaspora who are balanced and proud and with something to offer and who will not harm Africa even more, those with honest and unselfish intentions to unite with our cousins in Africa and elsewhere. 

I don't know the details of it, but I read briefly last year that Dr. King seemed to be moving toward a kind of Pan-Africanism before he was assassinated.  Walter Fauntroy who was close to Dr. King alluded to this in an interview after he returned from Libya on a peace mission.  

Walk Into that Midnight

On Tuesday I left Turkey, and on that same day my uncle, one of my mother's younger brothers, went through surgery.  I arrived in my hometown, the same place he had the surgery on Wednesday. It takes about fourteen hours or so to fly from Istanbul to the east coast of the US where I live.  

Friday, yesterday, my uncle died.  Like my aunt said tonight, and my mother agrees with her, it is almost as if he was killed.  He left his home, even drove himself over 25 miles to the hospital on Monday. He probably had no idea that he would not return alive.  He was concerned with his packing, that he take everything with him that he needed, his medicines, etc. He was about 66. He walked into that midnight yesterday. 

I am shocked, appalled, suspicious because I know that America lies about it being superior to all countries in medicine.  I fear negligence.  I fear experimentation because America has a history of experimenting on the poor and the black.  My uncle had just retired.  America is a hard place that I fear more and more as I get older.  I have moved from distaste, dislike, loathing, to out right fear now.  

We will all walk into that midnight one day like my uncle did.  Some of us will go happily.  Some will go with get fear and regret.  Others will go suddenly and will not know what hit them.  Others will go through profound suffering before they make their exit, and they will either remain blind or learn some or all the mystical secrets that God could never teach them fully when times were easy and good.  

I was speaking with my mother tonight before we both went to bed. Then I prayed in the darkness while I lay down for insight and peace in this terrible society and time.  Yes there is a God, and He is not just the gift giver of things that so many, especially in such a society as this feel they are entitled to.  He is also the absolute and final judge of us all.  Some of us He has given insight to.  This insight is called wisdom, and throughout the ages God has created various degrees of special ones who used their minds in ways most of humanity was too shallow or afraid to.  In the last decade my insight has grown, but like I told mom tonight, my acceptance of what happens in this world is lacking.  I hope God will help me to accept things, not as in agreement with, but as in halting the worry and constant questioning so that I may be at peace.  

It is very difficult for me to accept things the way they are.  I don't understand and yet both understand why there is racism, war, hate, petty minds, sheep that go in the flock to various types of slaughters. The answer is sin.  I have read all of my Bible and even a number of the extra Biblical books, so I know, yet...  Then I think of Jesus, other prophets, and other men and women of insight and courage who could not rest or remain silent in the evil ages they lived in.  I am not the only one, but many are beginning to agree now that we live in a very evil age, the most evil and the biggest hidden agenda to make everyone the same, a robot, a zombie, comes from the Western world.  Here is so much selfishness and ugliness, but unless you have insight and wisdom you will overlook the extreme ugliness and futility of this time.  But there are some who have great power and beauty in their minds.  Most are not famous or are trying to come into their own.  I follow a few on Twitter, a few of them are my Facebook friends.  My mother is one of the great ones.  It goes beyond book learning because some of the wisest people I know are not highly educated.  Ignorance and narrow-mindedness reside in both the educated and uneducated.  This is something much more bigger and timeless than the average person can comprehend. We are connected to each other and history has not ended, but some segments have created a bastard and a monster that has encircled us all, and they want the good and wise remnant cloned into being like everyone else or eradicated.

Some of us in my family want answers about why my uncle died.  He had blood clots and low blood, and it was many weeks before he was operated on.  Why did it take so long?  Why did he appear to be recovering on Thursday, but had passed away on Friday?  If he had been an animal, since we have so many in this society who value animal life over human life, would they have rushed to take care of him?  I have to ask these questions because of the place and time I am in. I must ask these questions because I am a black person.  

I had wanted to take mom to the hospital so we could be with him, but mom told me not to go since the weather was so hot and like most places here, the hospital would probablu be like a deep freezer. I am sicken by too much air conditioning.  

My father and my uncle were feuding, but I feel my dad was in the wrong. I had warned months ago that it was not good to be angry over such petty business since both of them are not young, and people can die unexpectedly.  Once they are gone, the guilt of what could have been said and done will linger much longer than the anger.  This is what the wrong kind of pride can do.  I see a lot of it in too many people.  It is almost encouraged in this "culture:"   Dad is like most Americans, whereas mom and I understand the interconnectedness of humanity and are unselfish.  However, mom and I will not tolerate bigotry and evil.  We don't believe that we can change the ways of the evil, dishonest, and selfish by example.  I don't know if mom was idealistic once, but I was once and believed that people were basically good. I don't now.  I've been hurt and betrayed too much. 

I hope my uncle had made his peace with God.  I told my mother perhaps it is best he died when he did because terrible times are coming to this country. I believed in 2008 that the US would not recover from its economic woes, and it has not.  You can't go around the world and level countries and kill their leaders, make yourself judge, jury, and executioner above God and don't think you will not suffer a similar fate to those you killed or oppressed.  I don't care if the oppression happened a few hundred years ago because sooner or later God will be the judge even if it hits your children or great grandchildren.  I do believe in the sins of the fathers being visited on the children because often the children are just like the fathers.  Call me cruel or heartless, but the truth tellers of the past always said "hard" things.  Take some time to read what Jesus and others said.  They did not mete out ear candy and junk food for the soul and intellect.  The charlatans and quacks of today do that, and we have plenty unknown, less known, and well known of that troop.  There will be great bloodshed coming to this new Sodom and Gomorrah. People call this Rome, this is the second Sodom. Perhaps it's good my uncle is gone so he will not have to witness what will come within the next 5 to 10 years or less.  I believe it is coming. 

Rest in peace my uncle.  Rest in peace all the good and innocent who died recently and on back. God is merciful in the end, and He knows when is the best time to take us away from this place and permit us to walk into that midnight.