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From“Jefferson, Liberalism and the Human Service Paradigm”
Not withstanding recent data that purports improvements in some of the following areas, part of the reason for the poor academic performance of urban students, youth crime and economic development may be in the philosophical approach to addressing these and other issues adopted and advocated by liberal elites. This is not to discount the deleterious impact of insufficient funding on a national scale and the contributing role of corruption and negligence by local government leaders, but in my estimation it is the originating design and overarching intent of many social service enterprises that predestines failure or marginal results. This overarching notion or grand design may be loosely defined as "form over substance" and it may have its roots in the belief system of the"Inventor of Modern America".
From“Why We Must Choose Reparations”
Two and a half centuries of enslavement and virtually one hundred years of oppression left far too many Blacks in dire circumstances, suffering from economic, mental and emotional trauma. What African American people needed then, as they do now, was first, the circumstances to collectively and individually determine their own fate as human beings and second, control of massive financial resources. The “Great Society” programs addressed neither. The ridiculous argument posited by many ordinary white Americans and Negroes that almost 40% of blacks are now in the middle or upper class is totally irrelevant. I doubt whether Israel has been denied any of its reparations funds because of the country’s financial condition. That the U.S. finally afforded blacks the opportunities inherent in the constitution only means that the country did something it was supposed to have done centuries before.
The struggle for justice for African Americans must be framed around reparations because it is about responding to an unimaginable, protracted crime against the humanity of blacks born in this nation and therefore subject to restitution. A reparations settlement must be commensurate with the breadth, scale and scope of the crime. It must insure (or at least facilitate) self-determination, and it must provide huge, vast resources, significantly greater than those provided by the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War Two.
From “If There Was Ever A Man”
Ultimately, what has truly defined my father over the years is his immense capacity to love. During my early years in college, I remember trying out for a play at a church near the campus. It had been rumored that a young lady was interested in me, and she was also auditioning. Anyway, the director asked us to recall an incident in our lives that might make us cry. I told the story of how I had broken my wrist at school many years before when I was about eight years old. I had spent the night in the hospital after they had wrapped my wrist and lower arm in a cast. Other boys in the room talked about how long they had been recuperating there, some weeks, others months. They tried to convince me that my stay would also be an extended one. But Dad had told me before the procedure that he would be there the next day to pick me up. And so I confidently exclaimed that my father would be there, just as he had promised. And sure enough, after he left work, he was there. My eyes welled up as I recounted the tale, not from sadness but just because it reminded me of how fortunate I was.
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The Myth of Rock and Roll
“For the last thirty years, mitigating the importance and denying
the reality of the black origin of rock seems to have been the modus
operandi of cultural critics and music writers who represent the white
corporate media structure. The result has been the virtual whitewashing
of the rock and roll story, and the elimination of black music from the
genre as it is currently constructed.”
“The first rockers established the voice as the music’s primary
instrument. As it would forever be, singing was the fundamental dynamic
of rock and roll. Great, powerful, sweet and poetic, singing is the glue
that has kept rock together and at the top of the popular music
industry. It is the soul, passion and creativity of the rock and roll
singer that sets him or her apart. A rock and roll singer must have
soul, must have rhythm and must appreciate the blues.
“Country and western music is not an originating element of rock and
roll and such a definition would certainly have been atypical of what
Alan Freed, the disc jockey who popularized the term, would have stated.
But, after forty some years of misinformation and distortion, this is
the accepted notion of rock and roll. It is a notion that clearly links
the music to a genre – country and western –that is often associated
with white people. In doing so it minimizes the actual union of
so-called rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and thus the seminal role
of the black community in its creation.” | |
