Black People : If The BLACK Family Survives: So Will WE-!

[chuck]

Chuck:

The analysis has to come first...

The agreement on it second...

Then we come together to develop a plan of action...

I honestly believe we overthink things. We can go into history and so on but at the end of the day we KNOW that statistically fatherless homes and broken families is a detriment to our community. We KNOW that over 85% of ALL prison inmates are from fatherless homes. We KNOW that unless we do something differently than we are doing today the trends concerning fatherless homes will continue to increase as they have for several decades.

We also KNOW that fatherlessness is increasing in the white community as well, therefore, we cannot blame it exclusively on racism, oppression, or the white man. We also KNOW that blaming it on racism, oppression, or the white man will not fix the problem, nor will it lead to fixing the problem.

We KNOW that the bottom line is that we have to handle our business. We KNOW that we as a community have to promote, encourage, popularize, incentivize, and embrace marriage and the family. Nothing else will accomplish the task reversing the trends so that the Black family survives.

I demand that every man within our community make a commitment that they will never father a child that they do not have the intent to have that child live under the same roof he provides for himself. If he cannot provide a roof for himself, he needs to commit to not concieving a child. If he is not prepared to give a life long commitment to meet the physical and emotional needs of that child and to prepare that child for an independent and productive adulthood, he needs to commit to not conceiving that child. Until we have high expectations for our men and send the clear message that we must all act in a manner that is not destructive to our own community, we will continue to experience the conditions we are today.

 

[chuck]

To One And All:

First:

You comments etc. are both appreciated and welcomed...

Second:

As time goes on, I may well be adding your insights, etc., to my own and/or an ever expanded overview...

Third:

My and your and our opinions etc. do matter to us?

Also what matters is that we do remember only representing one person, unless and until our comments, etc., win over others to our point(s) of view, as well...

Yeah, brother FB, I feel and hear yah:

But, at best, yours is an idealized take, i. e., in the midst of passion (or lust) a lot of concending partners aren't even consider the possible aftermath of their not always thought thru behavior(s)...

Simply put:

We're just not carrying on the traditions etc. of a once great people over here...

Instead our folk need to be taught birth control, via whatever schools they get sent to...

Otherwise later for anybody's myths about our alleged supersexuality ad naseum...

As was and is true of other things said and written about us:

It's a tad bit self serving...

And when it comes to the possible consequences of unprotected sex:

One word...

AIDS...

But, we're only choosing (another key word here) to let our egos overrule our good sense, if we continue to operate on an 'ignorance is bliss' mindset...

The root word of choosing is choice:

And like any other group of human beings, some of us make bad ones, whereas we need to clue them in on why it is saner and safer to make better ones...

Thing is:

And not disrespect initended nor meant?

We also have to make a clear distinction between preaching and teaching...

Some things the schools our young people go to fail to teach them at all...

Some of the adults around them are bad role models too...

So part of our mission is to come together here/there/everywhere in order to develop alternatives, i e., as regardless this lackluster rite of passage,
etc., which is an obvious explanation of the very issues and problems we're now coming together in order to help to resolve in the first place...

Even families are reflections of the cultures etc. we live in the midst of:

I. e., only via very self serving policies/practices, etc., most (if not all) of the time related to welfare clients, etc., is how the larger (mostly white controlled) mainstream society (and via surrogates at that) telling us what their (not our) take is on us to begin with...

Hence what we're also up against is a lot of excuse making towards people such folk kinda sorta have come to believe can't take care of themselves:

And for their own sake?

That mindset has got to be replaced with a true believe they can!

No...

I didn't mean to either belittle your comments or ramble on about my own...

But...

What we are involved with has to be placed in not an idealized and a truly realistic context...

No...

The dependance of some on the public sector didn't take place 'overnight'...

And...

It won't be ended overnight either!

But...

We gotta start somewhere...

 

[CITIZEN]

The history of one black family

As told to my father, by his great-great grandmother Jermimah(sp?):

She did not remember her parents well. Her mother was sold away while she was still a baby. Her father and several "aunts" took care of her after that. She did remember when her father was sold away. She remembered crying for a long time afterward. The "aunts" took care of her as she did not have any other family there.

Freedom came when she was still too young to care for herself. Some of the young adults went to the cities. She stayed behind and continued to work. Many of the young adults came back after not being able to support themselves in the cities.

Instead of a family reunion, we have "Big Meeting" every year. This is a gathering of all the people that lived in that area (called "The Garden Patch" by the elders, Dooly County by the rest of the world). Even though not related by blood, we are family.

Fast forward....
My father grew up with his grandparents, mother, step father and sister. The men combined their resources to get the house. His grandmother took care of the home issues while the other adults worked. The neighbors helped each other too, keeping an eye out for each other. If a woman's husband was abusive, she knew she had safe homes to go to and he knew he would have some questions to answer when he sobered up. Fast forward again: My grandmother has early dementia and wants to stay at home. So her neighbor moved in with her so that she is never alone. Another neighbor takes care of meals. And my father and his sister make sure the bills are paid.

SO YES, IF THE BLACK FAMILY SURVIVES, SO WILL WE. OUR GREATEST STRENGTH IS EACH OTHER...WHICH IS WHY THEY ALWAYS WANTED TO TEAR US APART FROM EACH OTHER AND OUR CULTURE. IN HISTORY, THERE HAVE BEEN SLAVES, IMMIGRANTS BUT NEVER SUCH A PUSH TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER LIKE WITH US. WE MUST HAVE BEEN FIERCE!!! AND WE WILL BE AGAIN!!

 

[chuck]

My Story (More Or Less):

The one ancestor--given the name --William--my granduncle--the oldest--was just eight...

My other ancestor--ironically enough--given the name--Napolean--was just six...

It is my guess--because some are a true reflection of their convictions--sometime before or after their fathers and their own haijj--Muslim neighbors etc.-- who felt or thought no loyalty to those non believers--which they too easily resorted to selling into slavery--via Arab Muslim middlemen-- to white slave buyers--betrayed my ancestors--because they were opposed to it...

Add this to that:

Both were sold on the slave block-- to the representative of a Mississippi slave holder--in-- then-- the republic of Texas--because by the 1840's the importation of human beings-- in the states of the Union-- was prohibited by the laws of the nation...

I admit to knowing little or out about either aformentioned fellas (when they came of age):

I do know of and a little bit about the son of the one--who was also my grandfather--James Andrews Senior...

So-- y'see--for me-- the backdrop is MANDINGO (the movie) not ROOTS (the TV mini series)...

And, though as a young man he had no business even being in those backwoods at the time, (but he was a young black hustler playing them old games of chance--i. e., dice--cards--etc.), how heartless and thoughtless for those other three young white men--probably drunk at the time--to have hit him in their truck as well as to leave him for dead...

He lost part of a leg:

Not his life!

Hence--uh--his real luck held out...

Above and beyond that:

One of the children the older man brought into this life-- (via my grandmother Caussie Fluker)-- was my dear gone (though not forgotten) mother: Ruthie...

She was all of the things a father usually associates with their sons:

Do know and understand why I'm well aware of the African female warrior spirit...

You ever saw THE RIVER NIGER:

She was like the character Cissely Tyson played and played well...

So I also kinda sorta wonder if some sisters will also have to be like the character Pam Grier played in THE THREE O. G.'s?

Hence it's an understatement some of our young (or not so young) teens and adults are stuck on 'stupid' big time...

A 'tough love' staunch was called for last week--let along yesterday:

We can afford to baby some folks only so long...

Then-- it's their time to either give it a rest-- or stand up on their own too!

Life was and is on the raw (and the real) for some of us who post on these forums for some understandable reasons:

So the descendants of such folk already knew and understood far too well why other folk got sold 'up the river'...

The river was/is the Mississippi...

Feel me:

Dig that too?

Anyway:

Mine is just one story...

I tell you all of this to explain what it means-- to me to --'keep it real in the field'...

Simply put:

My folk were and are remain among the field blacks...

It's like that:

And that's the way it is...