As someone who loves books and learning, I believe there are some books that as a Black person, as an African American, I just have to read and keep in my collection for my children to read. I’m not talking about the drama-filled books that you find at Wal Mart by the check out stand or in the book club rotations. No, I’m talking about the books that bring our history to life and make us think and connect the dots so that perhaps once we gain a better understanding of how we got HERE, we can make some personal as well as social changes to help us get THERE.
Currently, I’m reading The Souls of Black Folk. In reading The Souls, I had a light bulb moment when reading over the successes and failures of the Freedman’s Bureau and the Freedman’s bank and the affects their eventual collapse had on the psyche of black people during that time. It occurred to me that we are still feeling the residual effects today.
I’m older and a little bit smarter than I was say 7-8 years ago, so I’m paying more attention to my finances and the legacy, inheritance I will leave with my children. In The Souls, it talks about how many of the ex-slaves began saving their money with the Freedman’s bank only to have the bank collapse and along with losing their money, losing their faith in man, government and banking institutions. And so it clicked to me that this issue that we have as a people today with saving and credit, etc. is borne out of a fear and faithlessness that was created over a century ago. And in order to combat this issues and provide for our children a different existence, a different way of dealing with money we have to 1) stop blaming our parents and our parents’ parents because they were doing the best with what they knew, and 2)gain some understanding for how their “way” became to be and know that they thought they were ‘protecting’ us and, 3)armed with that knowledge we must now seek to teach ourselves and our children about the financial systems at work so that we can end this cycle of forever struggling.
The best way for us to protect our children today is to arm them with the knowledge they need to grow wealth and control their own destiny.
For those of us who did not take African or African-American Studies courses in college, and have only heard about these types of books, but haven’t read them, it would behoove us to take up “arms” and read. For those of us who did take those classes and haven’t touched the books since taking those classes, it makes sense to re-read them now that we are older and a little bit more mature and hopefully wiser so as to get a better overstanding of the information that is being brought forth. Then, perhaps collectively and singly, we can take a serious look at the problems that prevail in our communities and take on the tasks of eradicating them for good so that we all can grow and prosper.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Holiday Greetings
Reposted from a listserve...
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasions or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
Disclaimer: no trees were harmed in the sending of this message however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasions or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
Disclaimer: no trees were harmed in the sending of this message however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Situations
1. Exactly how long should you wait to receive a "Thank You" when you deliver a birthday gift to someone before calling them to say, "I just wanted to know if you were enjoying your gift".
2. I have a friend, who for all appearances, is quite successful. I've been knowing this person for almost three years now and I have yet to hear them say that life is good. It's always my life is shit. I'm just trying to figure out what is it that they are searching for that keeps them feeling this way. Well, I guess that's not for me to figure out but for them to figure out. I only hope that I don't become the person that is never satisfied. Right now, I go through these 3-4 year spurts where everything is good and then I get restless and I go back to school or have a child, right now I'm thinking of going back to school or entering a training certification program. Am I looking at my future when I look at my friend??
3. My sister, I love her dearly, but I want her to get out of this f'ed up situation that she is choosing to stay in for "fear of failure". She has been separated for the 2/3 of her marriage. Her "husband" lives with another woman and she dates other men. She wanted to refinance her house, but where she lives your husband has to also sign regardless of the fact that he has NEVER lived in the house. Well, fool decided to use that as a bargaining tool and unless my sister dropped the child support case, he was not going to sign the papers. So what happened, she lost the refinancing and the money she paid to have the house appraised. And she still doesn't have any child support money. Damn.
4. BD2 is calling me with all kinds of attitude because the income withholding order did not specify "how" the money should be deducted from his check. So now he wants me to call over the world to find out how it will be done. I just don't understand why it is men look to us to carry the load all of the damn time. This is a pattern with him that is really annoying particularly because he's someone who is always trying to tell everybody else how to handle their business.
Men are such interesting creatures. They present one way and then flip it on you later. They want to pound their chest and show off their "manhood", but then they are looking to the woman to handle everything. They plant their seed and have children that they like to parade around in front of their families as if to say "look what I did", but then behind closed doors they don't really want to take care of them. I just don't understand it!
2. I have a friend, who for all appearances, is quite successful. I've been knowing this person for almost three years now and I have yet to hear them say that life is good. It's always my life is shit. I'm just trying to figure out what is it that they are searching for that keeps them feeling this way. Well, I guess that's not for me to figure out but for them to figure out. I only hope that I don't become the person that is never satisfied. Right now, I go through these 3-4 year spurts where everything is good and then I get restless and I go back to school or have a child, right now I'm thinking of going back to school or entering a training certification program. Am I looking at my future when I look at my friend??
3. My sister, I love her dearly, but I want her to get out of this f'ed up situation that she is choosing to stay in for "fear of failure". She has been separated for the 2/3 of her marriage. Her "husband" lives with another woman and she dates other men. She wanted to refinance her house, but where she lives your husband has to also sign regardless of the fact that he has NEVER lived in the house. Well, fool decided to use that as a bargaining tool and unless my sister dropped the child support case, he was not going to sign the papers. So what happened, she lost the refinancing and the money she paid to have the house appraised. And she still doesn't have any child support money. Damn.
4. BD2 is calling me with all kinds of attitude because the income withholding order did not specify "how" the money should be deducted from his check. So now he wants me to call over the world to find out how it will be done. I just don't understand why it is men look to us to carry the load all of the damn time. This is a pattern with him that is really annoying particularly because he's someone who is always trying to tell everybody else how to handle their business.
Men are such interesting creatures. They present one way and then flip it on you later. They want to pound their chest and show off their "manhood", but then they are looking to the woman to handle everything. They plant their seed and have children that they like to parade around in front of their families as if to say "look what I did", but then behind closed doors they don't really want to take care of them. I just don't understand it!
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