Thursday, August 16, 2012

Freeing: Why I Closed My Facebook and Twitter Accounts

I did something very freeing, very liberating today.  I closed both my Facebook and Twitter accounts.  This is something I had mulled over for months and months.  I felt they were both huge distractions and in many ways futile.  The internet has its' uses and so does social media, but in the end a lot of it lacks depth.  

How many people are really friends on social media?  In real life it's difficult to gain genuine and honest friends that will sympathize and walk life's journey with you, be there when you need them. I gave much thought to this, and began to wonder why am I on here (Facebook and Twitter)?  My reasons were not good enough to keep me on. 

Social media is an outlet to procrastinate even more.  It helps to feed the ego on many levels.  I'm not eager to stroke anyone else's ego, and I want mine to be under control, so I'm not running to have mine stroked.  I don't like what these sites do to people in a lot of cases. It contributes in its' own way to the deadness of present day existence.  This "fast food" "get it while it's hot" thinking applied on social media really affects the brain in negative ways, I believe. It causes a kind of attention deficit disorder.   In the end we get less and less done the more time we spend on them.  Even if we're not posting regularly or just remain mute, lurking in the background, we're rushing to see what someone else is saying, doing, or posting.  I just don't have the time anymore.  For those with this kind of spare time and it doesn't tamper with their brains in a bad way, I applaud them.  

If you post important information, how many really read it and digest it?  I've noticed my reading online.  It's not as deep and thoughtful as when I'm reading booksI do a lot of skimming to be honest. Even the majority of the articles I post on Twitter and Facebook I skim through more than actually read them.  

My personal thoughts that I post?  Who really cares in the end?  People read and move on in a herd or solo to the next quote, rant, piece of advice, junk reasoning.  It all goes up in a puff of smoke and is soon forgotten in a matter or minutes if not seconds.  

While I'm playing around on social media I could be finishing up and starting new magazine queries and sending off poems.  In the last four years I've started writing two books.  Both are on the shelf now along with my ideas, just collecting dust.  I'm going back to MY books, MY ideas.

I started to evaluate where I want to go with my writing offline in the last couple of months.  I think I have what it takes to become a very good writer.  This is not only my opinion, but this has come from some other people for a long time now.   Sure I need more polishing in the craft, but I feel I can get the rust off with diligent work and by staying focused.  I want to get paid for my work.  Social media is in the way at this point.  Plus I don't like the idea of wasting my time and enriching even more the rich owners of these sites all at the same time. 

Facebook will always be there to go back to if I want.  However, I really wish they would offer the option of erasing accounts permanently.  Perhaps I will go back to Twitter before its' expiry date in 30 days, but I plan to be frugal with my time on it, on both of them.  

It's  past time for getting busy and fanatical with my work offline. If I'm blogging on here, I can express myself more broadly.  I will get a smaller audience, but blogging is cathartic for me.  If the audience isn't honest, it's fine with me to just write for myself.  Still with blogging I will not go overboard.  I will keep my time minimal, posting once or twice a month as I have been doing all along.  I continue to heed the advice of a Facebook friend who is an author and used to write for The New York Times (I wouldn't want to work for that outfit though), to "stay away from the blogs if I want to be a serious writer." She's old enough to be my mother, and I've read one of her books which I really liked. It had a literary quality to it.  

Sure, in today's brave new world of writing, the internet's importance cannot be overlooked.  I respect that, and I will use the cyberworld to my advantage.  I will continue to utilize it and post my thoughts, but I will never use Facebook and Twitter the way I once did.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Self-Hatred and Dark Women Scorned

I'm posting two photos on this post with the hope I don't get in trouble because of copyright laws.  If someone (the owners of at least one of them) says anything, I will swiftly take them down.  

This is going to be a long, rambling piece, but this is my blog and not a scholarly paper.  In the end the overall subject matter will remain on the same road. If it sounds like I am generalizing, it is not my intention to, but to always say people are generalizing when there is a serious issue diverts from the importance of that issue. 

Last week a Facebook friend posted the photo below on his page.  The FB friend is  blogger and Middle Eastern analyst Sukant Chandan who sometimes appears on PressTV and Russia Today.  Sukant also writes and speaks against white supremacy and how it affects and cripples non-white populations.  Look him up on YouTube and check out his blog Sons of Malcolm

This photo generated a good deal of comment on his page. (Click to enlarge.)  I wish even more people would have commented.   Perhaps some felt it wasn't relevant to them, since the issue pertained to how a certain group of black men perceive certain types of  black women and black females in general.  Two comments that were posted stood out to me.  One was by a white female who commented that black women are considered less attractive than other women.  An Arab female said that she didn't consider many of the black entertainers in America, for example Beyonce, to be black. I can't fault her for obviously not knowing enough about the racial dynamics of this country. Most people don't take the time to dig deep pass the top soil.  She obviously is looking at the construct of race from a Middle Eastern perspective where a lot of Arabs have black ancestry because of the concubinage of African women. This is something many of them seem to be in denial of, but I know some of their history, and I have been told aspects of it by Africans and read and heard about their lineage from other resources.  What the young lady might not know is that in America's past even the minutest amount of African ancestry translated over into a person being black. Even if she looked at the present day, the president is always referred to as the "first BLACK president" when he is racially mixed and very rarely pays attention to the needs of black folk.  He grew up and went to school in white surroundings and now works in the interest of powerful whites.  There are few blacks on Wall Street.  None of the mega banks are black controlled.  The state of Israel on which he pledges undying and unquestioning support like all presidents before him is not a black nation and is currently making it loud and clear they don't want black skin refugees from Africa to darken their white nation.  Last year he had a hand in the bombing of Africa and the killing, rape, and displacement of blacks in Libya.  Most whites and blacks in this country see him as black.  I really don't see him as fully black.  But to separate racially mixed blacks into a separate group only alienates them into a tiny isolated group because most whites will never accept them as white.  Blacks have always generally accepted and welcomed them. As for Obama's rejection, we just make believe that he doesn't ignore us. For us blacks to deal with such pain and the realization that once again there is "no one who really cares about us," we stay in a pretend realm where we tell ourselves that he is one of our own at least, almost a member of the family, and as long as he's a first "one of us" we're happy.  Crumbs are an accepted part of our existence.

What do you think of the photo above of these guys and their statements?  I don't listen to their music.  The one I know most about, but even that is miniscule, is Kanye West.  He came on the scene clean cut, singing about Jesus Walks, and now his music has turned disturbing and shallow like much of what we call music in this culture. I only remember Ne-yo's first song because I liked it for its' rather soft and romantic sound.  It was a love song, but I don't even recall its' name.  

Do the comments on the photo attributed to them surprise me?  No, because my eyes are open to the world.  Black women are the most overlooked and less appreciated group in America, and because most of the world has been brainwashed through the media into believing only one standard of beauty exists, women who are dark everywhere is generally less valued.  Looking at the entertainment business worldwide, the female singers and actresses in America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia even occasionally in Africa have similarities in look. They mostly have the same hair length, similar hair color and hair styles, the dresses and other garb are close to the same in style, the makeup is applied the same, the same body types.  It's all cookie cutter images like men who wear the standard business suit and an tie. 

Western culture applauds sameness, and this sameness is a white ideal.   My mother says that everyone wants to look like a Barbie Doll now.  If you look past the lust of wanting these "paragons of beauty" or wanting to be like them, you will see that what the media puts before us has conditioned us to like basically same image.  

Are Kanye, Ne-yo, Lil Wayne's alleged words an anomaly?  No.  Many black guys have aspired to get a "yellow," "red bone," "high yalla," "mulatto," "light skinned" black woman for a long long time.  Nothing new there. What is stunning are the amount of black men rejecting black women now.  Could what "influential" black guys say and do have a bearing on the average black joe's perception about which kind of woman is desirable and which kind is not? Mostly certainly. A lot of black people view what they see on TV as timeless wisdom.  They don't understand that the TV provides not only entertainment but propaganda. Sure there are nuggets of truth and reality scattered here and there on the tube and in movies, but generally what the media and entertainment have to offer creates a spiritual and intellectual paralysis.  

Light skinned black women with long hair have been the trophy women long before this generation began to say openly on YouTube how they bear a distaste for black woman or very dark "sisters."  Black ball players and entertainers have for quite awhile married light skinned black women. Once racial laws changed and blacks could marry other races in this country, black ball players and entertainers married white women.  I have often thought it was nice that actors like Denzel Washington and Samuel L.Jackson married women who didn't have that "little extra," light skin or whiteness.  Like some say, "they married dark sisters."  Perhaps they are secure in themselves and their identity.  

I don't advise people on who to date or marry. People are free to date and marry whomever they want, but there is no denying some don't marry out of love or respect.  Some marry or date for selfish reasons, to make a statement, rebellion, sex, to try out something different, to garner attention, and the one that's been going on throughout history, finances (economic security). They feel a certain type of woman on their arm will bring the reward of more acceptance and envy.  It becomes not a quiet testimony to genuine love, but a contest and a game, an ode to selfishness and the  usage of another human being.  This applies also to women. I'm not a black female male basher.  I note faults in both sexes.  Sadly we women do not have the moral high ground either.  Too many of us have our agendas and hidden motives too.  Like the old Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack song went, "Where is the love?"

I'm very concerned about what these guys supposedly said and how much this kind of thinking have over taken some black male minds. These guys have allowed themselves to be transformed into the Stepin Fetchits of our times and don't even realize it.  The slave and Uncle Tom acts are still going on, but in more sophisticated and or raunchier forms.  It's sad, but what is even more disturbing is when someone like Halle Berry, considered a great beauty, admitted in a Reader's Digest article that even she had battled with self-esteem issues about her looks and that she feel most black women in America felt downtrodden in that area.  I'm glad she was honest because it is not easy being a black woman in America.  It takes a lot of strength to maintain a sound mind and heart here. 

Off the scales and charts disturbing and disheartening was an article that Psychology Today ran last year by Satoshi Kanazawa who is a writer and works at the London School of Economics.  Psychology Today published “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”  and then because of a fierce outcry against it removed the article from its' website.  They later apologized and fired Kanazawa.  Black women can't win for losing. Even the Japanese guy had to get on our backs.  I phoned their offices in New York to complain.  Kanazawa gets a high from political incorrectness and outrageous comments no doubt.  In a way I can stand people like him who are openly racist more than those who pretend to appreciate a group.  It's much more difficult to figure out a counterfeit liberal at the beginning than an neo-conservative.  Neo-conservatives and conservatives most of the time don't try to play it both ways to the extreme that some fake liberals will.  

At least Kanazawa was open about his brainwashing and that he was trying to peddle bigoted nonsense as scientific theory.  But truly how many worldwide really feel this way about black women and other dark women of color, but will never voice it in public?  How many women worldwide are traumatized and broken because they can't look like a white woman. I like to know my enemy and as fast as possible. Until then I keep out my mental magnifying glass at all times.  

What is even more tragic is how little has changed.  Listen to what Malcolm X said 50 years ago. 


A person's honor and dignity should be right up there with love of God and family.  It's not about following a group because in some groups there is misguidance and we end up having to compromise ourselves. Ask yourself.  Are you doing your own desires or are you permitting yourself to be  programmed?  I see a lot of intense self hatred in groups across the board.  I've known about Indians using skin bleaching creams for a long time.  I was a little surprised because skin bleaching was popular with some black people in my parent's day.  A few months ago I read that a skin whitener is being marketed in India, so women can bleach their private parts. Self hatred will drive people to ridiculous, humiliating, and even dangerous lengths.  Skin bleaching has also reached parts of Africa.  NPR ran this article in 2009 about the globalization of skin whitening. 

Darker young women worldwide are feeling less desirable, being rejected for natural or fake blondes, silently existing in a state of depression because white is the standard of beauty.  Years ago when I was in Botswana, a Zambian friend made a statement that would completely transform my thinking. What she said would be shocking to the person of an average mindset.  My friend and her husband were expecting a baby. Both were charcoal black, but I thought they were so cute.  I just loved them to death and enjoyed their company. Barbara was so full of life, and her husband John was a little gentleman who was very friendly and helpful.  My friend said one day that she hoped the her baby would be as black as pitch.  Now that was a radical statement that has stayed with me ever since.  Before I met them I had already dated a Somali student when I was in college. He was very black with aquiline features, a goatee, and what blacks here would call "good hair."  I thought he was gorgeous, and that accent...  He wrote my name for me in Arabic. I might still have the strip of paper he wrote it on somewhere.  Plus he was a truly educated and sophisticated man who was working on his Ph.D. He introduced to my first African writer, Chinua Achebe. 

I don't talk much about my private life, but I will here for a little to get my point across. In Botswana I also dated a Zambian that was charcoal complexion with light hazel colored eyes.  Usually I like men who are on the extreme sides of my complexion, much darker or lighter.  But in the end what is attractive to me is a man's character, mind, ability to maintain an interesting conversation, and the kind of speaking voice that he has, not his appearance.  It takes maturity to get past the exteriors, and most people don't have that capability since the media and world has shaped so many to behave like Pavlovian dogs.  

I've also dated a red haired Turk. At first I didn't find him attractive because he was too light in my opinion, but his looks grew on me. I don't know how sincere he was, but he said he found me beautiful. He also didn't have a problem with my natural (Afro) hair.  Many "brothers" over here would have a problem with my hair.  

Though Turkey is probably more racially tolerant for black people than many places, there is the issue there of color and class with some Turks.  In Turkey I was told by other Turks that the really shallow Turkish men were obsessed with blonde hair and blue or green eyed white women.  Russian women are highly prized. I flew back to the states a few years ago, and the person who sat beside me was a young Russian woman who lived in Florida. We talked to each other most of the way back, something that never happens when I sit next to "my fellow Americans.". I've had lively conversations with Turkish men and women on planes, a Nigerian, an Ethiopian, a Jew from Azerbaijan, a Russian, most of the people from other countries I've sat beside, but I've been beside one African-American and an East Asian, and like all the white Americans I sat next to they were silent the entire trip, closed off into themselves. Well, the young Russian woman was coming back to the states from Turkey too just like me, and she got on the subject of Turkish men and how she wasn't interested in going back there anymore because she was harassed too much. Some people tend to be in the unrequited love thing...  I don't know about other Russian women, but that one was not interested.  When I worked in Turkey I'd look at some of the Turkish girls and women who dyed their hair blonde, and I thought they were less attractive than their counterparts who didn't color their black or dark brown hair.  

On the Arab side and according to an Iraqi Tweep I follow, the white woman of choice among some Arab men are English and German women... Another blogger and Tweep (we mutually follow each other) Sarah, who is also Iraqi,  wrote about skin and hair lighteners in Arab cultures in her post Arabs & "The Marriage Fetish."  

Really a mind afflicted by self hatred because of an acknowledged or subconscious desire  to be a white person is a sad and diseased mind.  I have rebelled completely against this outlook.  I pledged years ago I would never spend money to have my hair permed again.  I love the texture of my African hair.  It's what God gave me.  How dare I despise what God bestowed on me.  I am a proud African person.  The title "black" as applies to me is denigrating and racist.  I have to put up with the term, but it is out of my soul now and is not a part of my identity anymore.  I am a proud African woman.  I go to the people who accept me.  Most of the Africans I've known over the years have, and I feel that I am genuinely welcomed and accepted by them.

No one defines me, no black man, white man, Japanese man, etc.  No one can force me to try and transform myself into their desired image.  If any man cannot appreciate me as my natural self, there are other human options on the planet for them.  Women who don't want to deal with my concept of pride and love to debase themselves on every level, might not want me as their friend either.  

Dignity is one of the biggest missing factors today.  I'm not worried about dealing  with a people all the time who looks down on me and whose ancestors oppressed mine.  I'm not worried about socializing with them or explaining myself to them.  If your definition of self worth has to come from being liked, being like, and being with white people all the time, you need to start asking yourself why do I have much intense self-esteem issues and self hatred.  I live in an era I thought I'd never live to see where scorned people are begging their former colonial masters and those who have killed and maimed their brothers and sisters and co-religionists just a few years ago  to come and bomb their homelands.  What is this madness?  

Sukant Chandan, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this post tries to educate people about the issue of white supremacy on his blog, Twitter and Facebook page.  I appreciate what he does for not only black people but for other people of color.  Now I'm not saying all white people are white supremacists.  I have a few decent ones on my Facebook and Twitter pages who speak out.  One or two even live in the US. I love people like them who are brave enough to be open about the facts and know what's going on.  But my concerns are with my own people and other people of color who want so badly to be honorary whites.  Please. Stop humiliating yourself.  Love yourself. Love your own people.  No, unrequited love is not the best kind.  It's degradation, and you wonder why you exist in a perpetual state of depression which you even refuse to realize that you're in.  

I am very pleased, gleeful, ecstatic when I see people of color taking charge of their self concept and loving their dark skin, curly hair, everything that sets them apart from being white.  Please look at this dark Indian lady's blog.  She's trying to spread her self confidence around to young Indian women who are depressed and hating themselves because in India even some of the song lyrics tell the dark ones you aren't good enough.  (Thanks Facebook friend Rasheedah Mullings Dagkiran for posting the link to the Dark and Lovely blog on your page and encouraging me to share it widely.)  

Every white person is not beautiful or handsome.  They don't have a monopoly on good looks.  There is beauty in every group, but beauty fades and if character is not there, the once beautiful woman or handsome man is the complete living dead.  There is nothing there.  Nothing left.  

It's not about the whites being the best on every level either. Their group has  held the reins of power for close to six centuries now.  They have the tools of promotion and subversion in the media, politically, technologically,  financially, and militarily to put out this false projection that they are superior humans on every level.  They are not gods, though some want us to believe they are. 

I look at some of the wisdom and literature from Africa and other Eastern cultures. When most whites in Europe were illiterate 800 years ago, Africans in Timbuktu were writing and reading manuscripts and books.  Some of the slaves brought to America could read and write in Arabic and used the script to also write in their indigenous languages.  Europeans not infested with religious bigotry and racism studied in Moorish Spain to broaden their intellect 1000 years ago.  Ancient Egyptian, Ethiopian, Persian, and Chinese cultures were advanced when most Europeans were in barbarity.  The Europeans (including white Americans) are new on the scene, and they have borrowed and stolen profusely from other cultures without having given anyone credit except themselves.  

Now there are white people I like, but I see their culture as colorless, tasteless, and just lame in a lot of cases.  Sorry, but I'm just being honest.  There is little or nothing to draw me into their conversation or jokes. You'd rather I'd be honest, wouldn't you? But perhaps you wouldn't.  Uh oh!  She's being an uppity one.  Perhaps I am...  I have known and been good friends with some white Europeans though, and I've enjoyed their company.  They were knowledgeable and knew a great deal about the world, but I think the ones I've been close to were perhaps a little exceptional.

As for the self hating Arabs and Muslims. What happened in Libya last year came about partially because of self hatred that a small group of expatriates and exiles held against themselves.  Of course, there is a vast variety of issues which helped to bring Libya down, but when I learned about the pogroms against black Libyans and sub-Saharan migrant workers trapped in Libya, I tried to investigate the situation with the few materials I could find.  

Colonel Gaddafi had moved over to the African fold, and a lot of Libyans outside Libya and some inside didn't like that.  Even his son Saif al Islam said in a lecture at the London School of Economics a couple of years ago that his father had leaned towards sub-Saharan Africa and more away from the Arabs because the Arab people are stubborn and difficult to deal with.  

Gaddafi embraced his African side.  His dad was dark, so why should he hate a part of himself?  To deny half of himself would have been schizophrenic thinking.  You can see his mom and dad briefly here  in an interview he did in 1976 on the BBC.  

American media rarely ever shows black people outside the US unless they're in sub-Saharan Africa.  They rarely show black people in Europe or the Middle East.  They never showed Gaddafi with black people near him or with him. When he came back on the scene here in 2009 and the West pretended to have allowed him into the club, it came out that the now elderly Gaddafi had female body guards.  There were snickers and giggles that Gaddafi was as mad as ever, but really he had the last laugh. For years he'd had female body guards.  Libya even had a female military academy.  Gaddafi's "Amazons" were not an ancient Greek idea but a throw back to the female warriors and bodyguards of some rulers in West Africa. Some historians say that the Greeks even borrowed from African culture.  Ex-slave, abolitionist, and traveler Olaudah Equiano said in his 18th century autobiography that the Greeks he saw in Ottoman Turkey danced in a way that reminded him of dances his tribe in Africa had danced.

Apparently not only was Colonel Gaddafi a military man, but he also had a masters in history.  If you listen without bias to his talking, especially his speech at the UN in 2009, you will see that he was fascinated by history and knew history.  It was never talked about here that he was a co-founder of the African Union.  It was never talked about on the news about his projects to help Africans.  There are many photos on the internet with him and other darker skinned Africans.  It was never mentioned here in the mainstream media that he apologized for the Arab and Muslim role in slavery.  No other Arab or Muslim leader had cared enough or been honest enough to do this.  A lot of North African and Middle Eastern people didn't like Gaddafi for his outspokenness.  They also didn't like him because he pushed his Arab side of the world deeper into Africa when the others except perhaps Iran were racing to be carbon copy Europeans and Americans.  In a recently published book of essays called The Illegal War on Libya, T. West writes in his essay American's Black Pharoah and Black Genocide in Libya:

Qaddafi...embraced black Libyans as well as rights for females, unlike many of the Arab states aligned against the Jamahiriya government.  He was proud of this heritage and those Libyans who hated him sometimes reflected that hatred by calling him "Friz Head."  But as Qaddafi acknowledged in a satellite feed speaking to members of the Nation of Islam in the 1990s, "You see, your brother, Muammar. You see, they do not like me, see.  And this is because..." [At that point, he pulled off his kufi (his African cap), grabbed some of his hair, and continued, "...my hair is like your hair. You see, they do not like this...."  Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has also been brave enough to declare his African heritage openly.  

Just like many blacks hate and are ashamed of their naturally curly hair that just needs a little extra work (more moisture and regular washings) the Arabs were not happy with Gaddafi's fluffy and curly Afro. Some Africans in East Africa had worn huge (what we call) Afros long before they became the style in the 70s in the US. The hairstyle was a revolutionary statement before we even knew about it. 

Today black people in America are close to the top of the list of global self-haters.  We were on the right path in the 1970s, but the 70s are long past.  Despite our disconnect from Africa, we were seeking Africa back then. Now we love black women like Beyonce with her dyed, straighten hair with blonde highlights and scorn her little sister Solange's "nappy" hair.  Solange has been ridiculed by critics for having her hair like a "homeless person." Hmmm.  So with blacks, Middle Easterners, North Africans and others it's not only about racism but socioeconomic status too, huh?   I hear you, and this African woman knows where you're coming from too.  You think you are free, but you are in some real bondage.  Slavery is not always visible shackles.  I'm seeing too that people who have so much self degeneration have a common outlook not only with the people they want to be like (whites) but also with the ones they scorn...  I applaud the people who haven't fallen into this trap.

In conclusion I want to show you Lil' Kim. Please Google images of her over the years and you will see a drastic transformation. 




 I have never listened to her rap music.  I saw the following photo on a black consciousness page on Facebook. 

This is tragic.  People were viciously criticizing her.  I left a comment that I felt so sad to see this and it really hurt.  It always hurts me as a black woman to see black women like Lil Kim go nearly naked to get famous. The stereotype has long been that black women were easy and prostitutes.  It's painful to see people fall into stereotypes so racists can talk and say,  "You see they're so predictable.  I knew they would do that. Yeah, that's them."  But for me, I really don't care what a racist thinks or seek his or her approval.   I am worried about my people being destructive to themselves to get ahead, to be praised, this erasure of themselves, this mental incineration.  At the same time this affects the rest of us who are fighting tooth and nail to maintain our dignity.  

The entertainment industry does this to people, and it's worse on women, and for women of color it's devastating.  If you can't be the epitome of white female beauty, you must have yourself chiseled on, your color erased, your African hair denied, your eyes put out not in the literal sense the way the Byzantine Greeks did to their enemies or deposed rulers, but your eye color and psychic eyesight must be obliterated. You must be blinded and erased on every level. The ultimate aim is for the male and female peons, the spectators sitting back in lust to think, "I want her or I want to be like her."   They're so worried about the meaningless and the deranged that they never see what the real issues are.  This is what the big folks want... 

I didn't see anyone comment on the thread about the photo of Lil' Kim that she looked good.  We're pretty far gone as a people, but I guess maximum artificiality isn't quite appealing just yet.  Lil' Kim is a pseudo-white humanoid now.  Nevertheless, instead of bashing her, we people of color should be weeping for her, others, and ourselves.  Those of us who refuse to be dictated to and love who we are need to be out trying to open one or two eyes; this also includes myself now that I see how critical the need is to try to get people to flee ignorance and self hatred and denial.   From what I'm seeing and hearing everything is looking more and more like it's a cult, the cult of white supremacy.

In the end love who you are, what God created.  Realize there are many forms of beauty.  Love and embrace people for the right reasons.  The concepts that too many of us allow to drive our lives are meaningless and false in the end.   

A Class Activity With Two of My Youngest Students

It has been a while since I last posted.  I began writing a serious post this week which I hope to finish in the coming days.   Today an a...