Some things I believe.

I got an e-mail from someone in the majority population who wanted to know what I believe about certain things. He caught me a little off guard, and I had to think about it a little bit.

Anyway, after getting my thoughts together, I came up with a few things. So Mr. e-mailer, I hope you are reading my blog, because here are my answers:

I believe that there is something or someone more powerful out there than all of us; I just don't know what or who it is yet.

I don't believe that any organized religion can anymore get you into heaven (if there is such a place) than wishing on a star.

I believe that some of the people that claim to be religious leaders will occupy a very hot part of hell (if there is such a place)

I believe that two consenting adults should have the right to do what they want in the privacy of their own homes as long as they do not hurt anybody else.

I believe that a woman should have the right to do whatever she wants to do with her body.

I believe that if men could have babies there would be drive through abortion clinics.

I believe that at least 30% of the white folks in this country wish that black people would just go away.

I believe that some of the most racist people in America go to church every Sunday morning.

I believe that 30% of white folks in this country really get it, and really do wish we were all equal.

I believe that of that 30%, only 3% of them have real power.

I believe that if Katrina had hit Seattle and not New Orleans George Bush would have been on the ground the next day.

I believe that allot of white (and black people) in America place less of a value on a black life than they do on a white one.

I believe that the death penalty is wrong, and isn't a deterrent to crime.

I believe that the biggest "drug dealers" in America have names like Merck, Smith Kline, and Johnson & Johnson; and not Biggy, Ice, and Slick.

I believe that people don't care about the rising murder rates in America's cities, because it's young black men killing each other.

I believe that global warming is a man made phenomenon.

I believe that there are lots and lots of people getting rich because of the war in Iraq.

I believe that Americans are too preoccupied with sex, and not preoccupied enough with stopping violence.

I believe that there are still African Americans in America who wish they weren't black.

I believe that 90% of black conservatives don't believe the shit they say on a daily basis.

I believe that Malcolm and Martin wanted the same things for black people.

I believe that black people should put their race before their nationality.

I believe that suicide bombers are some brave ass mother f*****s; even though they believe some twisted shit. If you don't believe me, tell me how many people you know that would be willing to strap a bomb around their waste and blow themselves to smithereens because of some sick belief system?

I believe that the FOX NEWS CHANNEL is one of the most dangerous and racist corporations in America.

I believe that Dick Cheney always wears Victoria's Secret lingerie under his suits. (I really do)

I believe that with age comes wisdom.

I believe that the entire AfroSpear(Sphere) movement through cyber-activism will be a real force in this country one day.

I believe that I am closer to finding Lark Voorhies, and when I do find her, unfortunately, that will be the end of this blog.

Not Again!

ST. PAUL, Minn. - A party that asked students to come dressed “politically incorrect” has prompted an investigation by Macalester College officials who learned one student was costumed as a Ku Klux Klan member and another wore blackface with a noose around his neck.
Students at the private school told administrators about the Jan. 16 party on campus.
“My initial reaction was shock,” said Paul Maitland-McKinley, a member of the Black Liberation Affairs Committee, a student group. “I thought, this can’t really happen on my campus.”

A campus-wide discussion is planned for Tuesday.
“We hope we can start a deeper dialogue on ... why these types of activities hurt people and why they get the kind of response they do,” said Jim Hoppe, the school’s associate dean of students.
The student newspaper, The Mac Weekly, quoted senior David Nifoussi, who attended the party, as saying it was meant to be a satiric comment on “things that would be considered taboo in most situations” at the liberal school.
Macalester is the latest in a series of colleges to investigate student parties and incidents that have involved racial overtones.
Earlier this school year, Trinity College and Whitman College had parties where students showed up in racially offensive costumes or blackface. At Texas A&M University, students made a racist video that apparently was intended as satire, and a fraternity at Johns Hopkins University was suspended after a “Halloween in the Hood” party displayed a fake skeleton hanging from a noose.
The Macalester party was held a week before spring classes started and did not draw a large crowd, Hoppe said.
Macalester President Brian Rosenberg sent a statement to students, faculty and staff members condemning the offensive costumes and party theme.
“It is important to understand that the college condemns and will not tolerate activities of this type,” he wrote. “It is deeply disappointing that Macalester students would be so insensitive and demonstrate such a lack of understanding of the college’s values and mission.”

" I thought this can't really happen on my campus"

Well that's your first problem Paul, it's not your f****ng campus! And the sooner black folks like you stop buying into that bull sh** the sooner you will realize that there is nothing to be surprised about when a bunch of your white college peers make fun of your ass.

Folks, let me apologize for yet another cut and paste job on my post. But hey, sometimes real life comes in the way of blogging and the field just has been way too busy to post the way I want to lately.

But I have to address yet another politically incorrect bash at one of our fine institutions of higher learning: Like what the f**k? Frankly, the field just cannot understand this phenomenon, and in order to get to the bottom of it, he went straight to the source. That's right, the field sought out one of his "white friends" to explain just what is the fascination with all things black and ghetto with these seemingly normal college age white kids.

[Real Conversation]

"Hi white friend" (Not his real name)
"Hi field"
"Hey man, I gotta ask you, you went to college right?"
"Ahh yeah field, the last time I checked, you need a college degree before you get a law degree."
"Yeah that's right. So tell me, when you went to college, did you guys have these politically incorrect parties where you would make fun of black people and black culture?"
"Field, since you are my friend, I think I can level with you; we had them all the f*****g time!
I mean you wouldn't believe some of the sh*# we did and said. No offense field, but we just didn't really understand the black sensitivity back then if you know what I mean."
"Yeah I hear you. So how come all of a sudden we are hearing so much more about this stuff?"
"Hey, it's the times we live in man. White kids dime out other white kids to college administration. They think they are being Gandhi or some sh** by doing that, and the next thing you know, the press gets a hold of it, and you have a national fu****g story."
"Ahhhh, I hear you white friend. Look man, thanks for the scoop, I kinda suspected this kind of stuff goes on all the time, but I just wasn't sure."
"Yo field, we are still cool right?"
"Hell yeah white friend, we cool."

Oh wait, I can't finish this post before commenting on a pair of shootings that took place in the home of the brave and the land of the not so free over night. One tragedy took place in a city that has come to know this type of random violence only too well. (Heck, just a few years ago we had seven people shot to death execution style in a drug house) But the other tragedy, took place in the very pale, very Mormon, slice of paradise known as Utah. "He looked like an average Joe" Yeah I am sure he did, how about that? Even an"average Joe" can do not so average things.

The Philly shooter was an "average Joe" too. At least to us here in Philly he was. But then, what's an "average Joe" to Philly ain't an "average Joe to Utah I guess.

Oh well, I guess the NRA spin people will be out in full force now. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" Mmmmmm, even if it's just an "average Joe"?

Some White Folks Get It

"Unconventional Wisdom Listen up, white folks: Your racism cuts deeper
By Alfred Lubrano
Inquirer Columnist

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column about white racism. What about black racism?, dozens of you wrote me.
How come I didn't mention the inappropriateness of ESPN analyst Michael Irvin's opining that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (of Mexican descent) must have had an ancestor who copulated with a black man to account for his superior skills?
Irvin, who is African American, is foolish , but that's hardly the point. I didn't think I had to say this because it's so obvious:
America is a white-majority country. When one group has substantially more power than all others, its biases, prejudices, and mouth filth matter more.
And if whites possess the keys to the White House, the executive suite, the law firm, the construction company - not to mention the gun lockers in the police stations - then what they think about black people has greater weight and consequence than what black people think about them.
Of course, black people can be as prejudiced as whites. I've lived it. On a day I thought would be my last, a group of black guys beat me down on a New York subway train; years later, black demonstrators spit on me and opened my head with rocks. In both cases, my only sin was skin color.
But lots more black people than whites have endured systemic, organized violence in this country. And my ancestors walked off the boats that brought them here unchained.
From when I was a kid, the croaks of racists slimed my ears. Today, neighbors in rural South Jersey take me for a coconspirator, referring to "them people" and identifying certain farm weeds as N-word-heads. In white neighborhoods everywhere, you can hear far worse.
Crime. Unwed mothers. Dope. Black problems, right? When I tell people that the white Appalachian neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, I once covered had the precise same pathologies, they stare at me dumbly.
It's poverty, not melanin. It's class-based misery. It's watching your kids crawl around without Pampers or hope. It's sucking down Ho Hos and malt liquor because the sugar and the buzz feel better than the boredom and terror of each day.
White working-class people I know erroneously believe that government programs such as affirmative action give African Americans unfair advantages.
If they had a genie's wish, I ask white folks, would they beg for their kids to turn black so they could enjoy all those goodies?
I lived below the poverty line for four years in New York and I still had it better than lots of black people.
It is true that working-class white people live tough American lives.
But store owners don't automatically think they're criminals, and their kids don't have to be warned not to mouth off to cops for fear of getting tortured with a plunger.
Some psychologists of race will go so far as to say that white prejudice is proactive, while black prejudice is reactive. America began with whites thinking of blacks as animals and property. U.S. history then moved to cross burnings.
We've since progressed, but if your people get lynched and shot enough times, you might develop suspicion of all the guys with the ropes and guns.
Today, lots of people are learning to interact. But racism is a hard-to-kill bacterium. How do I know? Many of you readers told me so, with acid e-mails and racist phone messages.
You hate that a white guy is saying this. White people have to say this. Or we're not getting anywhere."

Folks, whenever I read a column like the one above, I realize that there is hope for our country, and that there are white folks in this country who really do get it. I almost never lift an entire article but this one from my home town paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, was too good not to share with the rest of you. Yes, I loved the article, and I also loved this letter to the editor from a lady by the name of Laura Modon from Havertown, Pennsylvania:

"Your article gave me hope for the future of this country and the world.

In my estimation, you are one of a minute group of men with white skin who 'get it' and who have the courage to say so. (The others who come to mind: former President Jimmy Carter;Bono; former President Bill Clinton; professor and author Jared Diamond.)

In everyday life, there are fewer still whom I have met; my own father was one. You constitute a tiny minority of pale skinned males who acknowledge the understand that the poisons of hatred and bigotry- ignited by greed and ignorance, and initially released over 400 years ago in the forms of conquest and slavery-still permeate this land.

Talk about toxic waste. But their exists a cure; the necessary 'superfund cleanup' is very simple. It is truth, and its vaccine is education."

Damn that was deep. Right on Ms. Mondon, how soon can you open a school to bring others to that place where you are? Your sh** was profound!

The field is heading out of town for a few days for a little R&R and of course the Christmas holiday. I will bring my laptop of course. Hopefully, I will be able to do the whole mobile blogging thing while I am on the road. We will see.

Enjoy your Christmas, and go Eagles!!!!!