Entitlements

As a child, I grew up on welfare.  I am ashamed of that fact.  All of my parents were able to work when I was subjected to the humiliation of poverty.  I can remember programs that were aimed at the poor that just kept us in poverty.  There were things designed to relieve the stress, but not solve the problem.  Monetary stipends ran out and left you waiting days until the next check came.  Food stamps were always just under enough and the doctors that took the medical card were rookies and amateurs truly "practicing" medicine.  When I went to college, I got financial aid.  It was a different type of entitlement.  It was one that paid back.  When I graduated, I got a job and have not used public assistance since.  Growing up was wonderful.  I know that rough times can come again, but entitlements made it a lifestyle.  As I grew up, that sense that someone should give me something because I am poor enough to qualify got on my nerves.  People would ask me for a ride in my new car with the thought that I could not say "no".  They asked for money, they did not pay back and expected me to write it off.  The completely lost their dignity because they were poor.  Did affirmative action make us better, or did it make us bitter?  Did it change our lives or did it change our mentality?  If entitlements were meant to change people, then why are there generations of people living in the same housing project that they grew up in?  Why are 2/3 of black men still unemployed or incarcerated?  Did social security really secure my future or did it jeopardize it?  Will I be working at WalMart when I am 65?  It is enough to keep you guessing for a really long time.

America

I can remember a day when me and God were having a conversation about where I was going in the world.  He told me that he was not calling me to help only black people.  He was calling me to help anyone who was in need.  In my life, there was a silent statement that is fading in the sunset.  That statement was that we were supposed to prefer helping black people over helping white people or any other people.  It was never spoken, but a silent rule.  When I began to have serious political thoughts, I often voted for candidates who were supposed to help black people.  I realize that prejudice is on both sides of the line.  When President Obama was elected, I saw folks dancing in the street based on the thought that he was going to really do something for black people.  At the same time, you can’t find a hand clap for Clarence Thomas or Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell.  They were seen as not for black people.  I found that anyone in that type of government cannot have a preference for any race when you were elected to represent everyone.  I wonder how preachers can preach a gospel that will build up one group and tear down another when he is not called just to his own native people, but to the entire human race.  We alienate ourselves and close ourselves with the message of Christ that is ecumenical.  Once upon a time, Christ was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, now he has given the clarion call to the lost sheep of the world.  In order to fully understand that calling, we must stop penning ourselves in and allow ourselves to enjoy all that America has to offer without pointing the finger and rejecting.  At one time, the chains were put on by society, now the chains are put on by those shackled by society.

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Affirmative Action

I remember the day I went to college.  I came from a small town with absolutely no preference.  We all went to the same school, the same mall, the same Pizza Hut, the same everything.  There wasn’t enough resources to have a white side of town and a black side of town.  The town was only 45 blocks long and about ten miles wide.  Some folks called it a two horse town.  I walked to school one Saturday morning and took my act test along with all of  my other peers.  I was happy with my score.  When I got to college with my score and my scholarships, I was herded into a group of people and told that I did not have to have a good ACT score because I was black.  The assumptions were so telling.  Without even asking, I was told that I was from the urban jungle and that I had to come from a home that had no money and that my race did not score well on standardized test and so on and so on…….  I even had that attitude from some of my professors.  Even the skills that I was not good at were contributed to the fact that I was black and not the fact that it just was not my skill.  This all changed for me when I met a teacher by the name of  Dr. Suggs.  He taught black music and many African Americans took the class.  Some of us thought that it was a blow off class.  That was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken and I am so glad that he was a wakeup call for us and the University.  For those who expected preference, he gave them a much needed comeuppance.  For those who thought we were only as good as an eleven on the ACT, he gave them a comeuppance too.  Affirmative action opened the door, but it also gave the impression that there was no way that I can open it myself.    It allowed me to come in as a supposed inferior and not that I had not worked my tailbone off to be there.  All I needed was for there not to be an impediment to me opening the door and we would know if I could open the door for myself.  Unfortunately, I worked in the office where the preference was abounding and I saw students who were allowed to come and add a little color to the campus who weren’t ready for it.  Sometimes, I cried when I saw how they struggled and I prayed that they could recoup the skills they had not come to college with.  Instead of opening the door, why not make the school right around the corner of their homes better.  Give them the tools and not just open the door.  When I look at the works of the Cross.  Jesus did not just  forgive our sins, he sent the Holy Spirit so that we could become better people.  He made it so that we did not have to run to the altar every month trying to atone for sin.  He put his laws in us and gave us a better hope established on better promises.  His blood took away the sin and his spirit gave us the righteousness inside to stay that way.  Now, that is affirmative action.  It causes change that goes well beyond stepping your foot in the door only to have to walk back out because you are not prepared to come in the door. 

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Sentimental Journey

I grew up in a society that had a soft spot.  The more I look back on it the more I am sure that there was a soft spot.  Certain crimes got their attention and their hearts.  Drug addiction was like a big forgivable black whole.  I saw women crying over their sons who were “caught up “ in drugs , like choices were not involved.  I then saw the same women, buying food stamps and selling their WIC coupons.  Was it still not a crime?  The same women who wanted mercy for their sons who were menacing society, could find no love in their heart for the Klansmen menacing society.  Some sins and crimes were just sentimental.  There was a soft spot there.  We often pick and choose those who get justice and those who get mercy.  I am so glad that I am not God and I am glad you aren’t either.  God’s mercy is not political or sentimental.  He rains on the just and the unjust.  His justice is Universal and his vision is not clouded by sentiment.  He is impartial only looking for one thing and that is the blood of Jesus.  He gives mercy to the thief on the cross.   He goes out of his way to see a woman by a well.   He heals a man cutting himself in the cemetery and he is the good Samaritan, who helped an innocent victim who had fallen among thieves.

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Victicrat

Victims are people who have consequences of actions not necessarily begun by them.  These are the people who were given a raw deal.  These were the people given a bum rap.  They are the unfortunate recipients of another’s actions and unfortunately the problem is theirs.  Ownership is a hard pill to swallow.  I can remember when I had many consequences from actions not begun by me.  It was simply on my plate and served.  For years, I sat in the black church and told my story until people got tired of hearing it.  It took me a while to figure out, but then I got it.  It was not their problem. Why should they own it?  Most of the problems they glorified were to perpetrators.  I was the one who took care of the drug addicts children and the wayward mother’s children and the abandoning father’s children.  I received the action of the perpetrator, but all the programs were for drug addicts and single mothers.  I was a victim that was ignored.  I took my problem and decided that it was my problem to solve on my own terms.  I actively sought the help of people who could help me solve my problem.  One of the greatest times in my life for rebuilding was when God led me away from black Pentecost into a predominantly white church with progressive African Americans in them.  Being a pregnant high school drop -out got you pity, but no praise.  They were looking for black people who could cut the mustard and I sliced that puppy up into a thousand pieces.  I healed there.  I enjoyed my time there.  When I realized that it was better for me to own my problems and solve my own problems, I stopped depending on the pastor and started depending on God to guide me to make the right choices in my life.  My realization caused me to become a card carrying black conservative republican.  I have no apologies for who I am because I found myself in the hard knocks of life.  It has been a pleasure, finally taking hold of my life and choosing what is the best course.  When I don’t, I will own it because that is my problem, not yours.

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Nathanael

There is an interesting dialog happening between two people in the Bible.  One by the name of Phillip who was a follower of Christ and one by the name of Nathanael.  Phillip seems to have come in contact with Christ and is a believer.  Phillip does what all good friends do, he tells his friend about the Messiah called Jesus of Nazareth.  I have heard about Nazareth and from the viticrat language used, we say, “Can anything good come from Nazareth” .  It is our way of justifying living like a sewer rat.  I have always hated talk like that.  People who sit and romance about food stamps and government cheese like that stuff was “the bomb”.  I have even heard people say, that they would rather live in the ghetto than in the suburbs because the people are more real.  I go home and laugh about that.  Nazareth was not comely because of its location.  The Bible states that it is despised because of its goodness.  It just was not a good place to be from.  There was a lot of wickedness in Nazareth.  This is the place where Jesus was almost thrown from a cliff.  It is the place where he had become so common as a carpenter’s son, that he lost relevance as a Messiah.  He says that a prophet is without honor in his own home.  Take your briefcase and go twenty miles out of town and you will be a hero.  I remember my sojourn away from my “so called “ home.  I realize, thoroughly that it was the leaving that made me special.  I earned awards and degrees and ordinations and titles all to come back home and be belittled because I was not married.  There is really no place like home.  Can anything good come from Nazareth?  That is a question that came not to deceive for Christ told him, that in him was no guile.  Guile is deception.  What you see is what you get.  There was no reason to fake the funk.  Nathanael was not a “yes man” grinning like a Cheshire cat and then slinking off to corners to finish his conversation.  What he felt about Nazareth was a plain as the tag on your shirt.  There was no pretense.  What I like about Christ is that he answers Nathanael who wanted to know how he knew him.  Christ said, that he saw him under the fig tree before Phillip called him.  Christ saw him.  Christ was looking for him on the horizon out of all the people he could have seen, he saw Nathanael.  The gift given him for his candor was an open heaven.  An open heaven is free access to things in the heavenly realm.  Nathanael received the gift of sight to see the angels ascending and descending.  He got a chance to see what no one else would see.  All this for daring to be honest about the way he felt. 

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This, That and a third.

Something was said to me about being a black woman and I have yet to form a response, but I know the response will not be recieved well.  It is the response that black women can't find black men because there is something wrong with them.  I won't argue on those grounds, but you have to bring in some truth and let it speak for itself.  Roughly a third of black men are in prison.  Roughly a third are unemployed.  Roughly a third are ready for marriage.  This leaves about two thirds of all black men being unprepared for marriage.  Black women seem to prefer black men and don't date outside of their race often.  I have never had that inclination.  Color is not as important as religion.  I simply ask that before we compare apples and oranges, that we acknowledge the lack of enough oranges to make the Holiday punch.  There aren't enough black men for black women.  Black women are often told that we have to work with our men and are trained to marry beneath ourselves to be happy.  No one says that there are plenty of working white men who would love to love a sister, if she would give him a chance.  Instead of compromiseing on marrying someone who is on his third wife and struggling with employment, find a better man and compromise of the color of his skin.  Love does not have to hurt, nor leave you humiliated.

Purely simple

I did something wonderful about two weeks ago.  I went into my bathroom and removed all of my makeup.  I then left it off.  I have become so accustomed to wearing it, that I did not know what I looked like.  Can you imagine, not knowing the state of your original skin because it is hidden under layers ? I have been trying to do this for years, but every time, I get the gook off, I put it back on.  I understand why people pick the strictest of religions to put their faith in from this experiment.  Your life can become so cluttered by the antics of life, that you really can't see it for what it is.  You can mask pure blessings by focusing on defeats.  Life is not that hard to live, but we make it difficult.  We make breakfast about pancakes and eggs and bacon and tomatoes, when it could simply be a bowl of oatmeal.  One Sunday, I forewent the big Sunday meal and had a simple dinner prepared for one and was completely satisfied.  I think I need to dig in my closet and find other things that are cluttering my world.  I find that most of the time, I have changed looks, but kept the old clothes.  I like this pared down me.  Pure and simple.

Let the dead bury the dead

I have, at times, rejected the hand that fed me because I did not like what was on the spoon.  Then, like an idiot, I complained of being hungry.  I finally know how people starve in the land of plenty.  I finally understand that we can want what we want so badly, that what we have is inferior.  I have been spending time with people, who don't live in a palace, but they enjoy the living space that they have and they maximize it.  I am determined to spend this Christmas with the loving family that is reaching for me instead of grieving over the ones that are in the grave.  When I get done ruining my holiday at the funeral parlour again and again, the season of joy would be over and they will still be dead.