#YODO (You Only Die Once)

We all are familiar with the story of Harriet Tubman tasting freedom as a young girl and later as the conductor of the Underground Railroad – and if you have not heard it during Black History Month or the recent consternation about her gracing the $20 bill, then go slap your elementary educator or parents for omitting that critical piece of American history for whitewashing the past and/or simply not paying attention. During her formative years, she recalled hearing Bible stories from her mother including the account of how Israel escaped the clutches of Pharaoh to show her a God that desires freedom for His people.

Tubman first tasted freedom herself when she slipped into Pennsylvania from Maryland.  Yet she found herself dissatisfied because she was cognizant of the thousands of other black slaves still trapped in bondage, just as the Israelites were in Pharaoh’s Egypt. She led more than a dozen rescue missions to rescue those still in slavery, dismissing the personal danger. “I can’t die but once,” she remarked.

Don’t let the Old Line State motto fool you – Maryland was a slave state and the Keystone Stare wasn’t exactly a liberating locale as many slaves furthered their freedom journeys north to Canada and New England thanks to safe houses, the Quaker society, and those citizens sympathetic to the cause of equality.  

Unlike most of us, Tubman knew the truth of Matthew 10:28.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. – Matthew 10:28

Jesus spoke these words to the disciples as He sent them on their first mission knowing they would face danger, ridicule, threats, and not everyone would welcome them warmly. So why would He expose them to the risks? Read Matthew 9:36 to understand the answer below:

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. – Matthew 9:36

When Tubman couldn’t forget those who were left behind, she showed a picture of Christ who did not forget us when we were trapped in our sins. Her courageous example has inspired many movements including the sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement to remember those who remain without hope in the world.

You may be able to kill the body, but the spirit lives on through eternity via the true freedom found in knowing and serving Christ.

Dear Mama, You Are Appreciated

About this time thirty-eight years ago, my mom was only a few months’ pregnant with me.

The GOAT rapper 2Pac is going to get some serious airplay over the radio over the next several days following the death of his own mother Afeni who was a revolutionary in her own right as a Black Panther. “Dear Mama” has become a defining song of our teenage years regardless of upbringing – just one of those seminal classics that everyone could relate to whether we were rich, poor, middle class, or somewhere in the struggle. Despite my reputation back then of a good kid, I had a very dry wit that got me whooped and sometimes cussed! For one, I was scared to come home on report card day in junior high as well as all of the times I came home with broken red Urkel glasses:  what was my mama’s firstborn honor student doing getting by with Cs in pre-AP classes? Perhaps she was unaware of the bullying I took for the two years at CJHS, but that’s just water under the bridge many years later. I mean, it wasn’t like we were dirt poor and routinely ate ketchup sandwiches for dinner; nonetheless, we were nowhere near affluent nor even “hood rich”, as so many of the other kids in Friendship flaunted the fruits of their families’ hard work. Then again, we (the community as a whole) were primarily in working-class two-parent households with a handful of exceptions in the mid-90s (different commentary for a different time).

Although my mama didn’t teach me how to make a dollar out of fifteen cents, she certainly taught my brother and me how to stretch out those dollars we did get from hard work to maximize their value. She is the person who gave me the reason to really appreciate secondhand shopping as my wife has found out in recent years. You know, it’s hard to go shopping for jeans when the average pair retails for $45 and up, especially for fat pit masters.

Mama:  You are appreciated.

Yeah, I reminisce on the stress I caused over the years:  It was hell hugging on my mama from the Clark County Jail. It’s also a story I’ll never share. Fortunately for me, that charge was expunged from my record after some restitution; otherwise, my professional dreams would have been dead on arrival. Beyond that (and before I started dating my wife), my mama is quite Afrocentric and I dated mostly white women. Hey, she was a homecoming queen at Gould High some forty years ago and if you’ve been there for anything aside from dealing with traffic court, then you would know ole G-town in 97 percent black. Post-integration, most of the remaining white families ran to Dumas or Star City if not elsewhere – there were too many poor people for a private “whites-only” school in that town.

Because she was a stay-at-home mom until I was in ninth grade, I knew I could always depend on my mama. Let’s say I left my lunch bag at home or forgot homework:  Mama came through for your boy. I generally brought a sack lunch from home from the sixth grade onward until I discovered the virtues of the cafeteria’s taco salad/spaghetti/baked potato/nacho bars, and then I had to remember to keep $1.20 for those lunches.

More, she was my Sunday school teacher because I stumped my last two instructors with questions that they could not answer when I was in elementary school. As a result, I probably picked up more insight of real Christianity than most of my contemporaries from her than what most of the parochial schools would have taught me including the Catholic school across town I nearly was enrolled into as an extremely bashful child. My mom also helped unlock the genius in me and has been the one to somehow push me into being sociable even when I would have rather gone to work at Taco Bell on 3^rd and Oak or stayed in the gym every other Saturday night shooting hoops and grabbing rebounds alone.

Thank you, mama.

Thank you for introducing me to funk music during the rise of gangsta rap, R. Kelly, and grunge rock like The Spinners, Sly & the Family Stone, and Earth, Wind & Fire that I can iron that hard crease into my Levi’s 560 jeans and Tommy Hilfiger button down shirts.

Thank you for putting up with me in those teenage years when it could have been easier to take me out of this world you brought me in – and the quick reminder when I uttered “black boys don’t study” in ninth grade on report card day. I was destined to be a different fish in a sea of mediocrity of which looks to be an incomplete grade at the present moment.

Thank you for being an unwavering moral compass even when it was uncool to go the right thing. Although I didn’t understand why you were so strict, I definitely appreciate it now as I try to figure the best way to raise little Caeli.

Shout out to both of my black queens – Karen, the one I call mama; and Chastity – the one I married about five years ago and is Caeli’s mama. You are appreciated.

Of course, I have a slew of other mamas and much love to them too. See, I didn’t forget my aunts, neighbors, mother-in-law Edna, Wilma, Carol, Terica, Shirley, or Phyllis in her eternal rest.

I thank each and every single one of you. There’s no way I can pay you back but the plan is to show you that I understand.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Grammar Problems: Why I Hate Your English

Your English sucks.

I write, therefore I am. pic.twitter.com/JNJ5I3FWJu

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 23, 2016

I know you’ve heard me speak many moons ago in something less than perfectly crisp, well-enunciated English. Call it colloquialism or regional dialect in an age of YouTube and social media or whatever you want, but our “slanguistics” – the manner which we use slang  in modern language – varies from one generation to the next. For example, those redheaded Sallies our fathers and grandfathers once cavorted around with are renamed Becky:  same woman, same game, same feeling only another name.

I can point out our pedantic flaws because 1) I was an English major in college; 2) I taught the subject for several years; and 3) my weekly blogs from AD&AD require proper English for mass comprehension. This means that I am an authority of the English language. If you don’t like it, then you have the opportunity to redeem yourselves every day.

If you can't spell or follow basic grammatical syntax, then I have a serious problem with you. #grammarnerd pic.twitter.com/8MqH9L93Wu

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 4, 2016

Why do I hate your English? I have a litany of reasons below:

1.      The use of the gratuitous “s”:  Believe it or not, Wal-Mart is singular. Sam Walton’s ashes would turn over and over every time someone termed his company stores as “Walmarts” unless you indeed were going to two or more Wal-Mart locations. If you do that, please tell me which one has the shortest checkout lines and the most authentically cheerful associates so I can spend more of my hard-earned money there. More examples include the following:

·         Krogers

·         Mens

·         Wimmens

·         Chirrens

·         The Internets

·         Miami Heats

2.      When we make plural words singular. In the midst of her griping about the ‘letric bill being sky high, Big Mama also has a penchant for making plural nouns singular, i.e. lips loses the “s”. You’ve heard her tell us to “stop smacking our lip” at the dinner table. I wouldn’t correct her for there is a real possibility that one could go home without an upper or lower lip.

3.      I hate it when we eighty-six possession. Roscoe did not bust his butt for years making his trademark chicken and waffles for us to say “Roscoe Chicken and Waffles”. Put some respect on the possession and include the “’s”, as in “Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles”. Ditto for Chuck E. Cheese’s and Dave and Buster’s, Wendy’s, or anywhere someone had the temerity to place his or her name in the business title. 

4.      More of the gratuitous letter, this time the letter “r”. I get it. We love Tyler Perry, especially when he dons women’s clothing to play Madea and captures her local color masterfully with such phrases as “Hellur, Madear” to speak to the matriarch of the family. I have no idea what an “idear” is, I recognize Obama not “Obamer” (or what white conservatives call him, Obummer); and the damn remote controller is NOT “mokentrolla”. Of course, when a black man invented the remote controller, he had no idea that the device would be mangled as badly as it has become by our lexicon! Besides, it changes the channel – and sometimes, the nearest child to the television serves as the role. Trust me when I say I remember the days of Channels 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, and sometimes 38.

5.      On today; on tomorrow; on yesterday. Look, we know what happened today or yesterday, and what is scheduled for tomorrow. Drop the “on” and simply use the day; it really isn’t that difficult.

6.      Valentime’s Day. If he were still walking the earth, St. Valentine would aim those sharp-pointed bows at our behinds every time he heard us mispronounce his name. Just as librarians cringe when folks say “lie-barry” instead of library as if the first “r” is nonexistent, Saint Valentine would love for you to enunciate his surname.

7.      Even more gratuitous misuse: “The”. I acknowledge that many of you use the word “the” as our crutch to define any noun we cannot physically place our hands upon such as “the AIDS”, “the Facebook”, or “the Twitter”.

I don’t consider myself a grammar Nazi yet I dislike the ways the English language is used by so many of us. Then again, I’m just getting old and expect everyone to use the Queen’s English as we were taught in schools to convey our arguments saliently.

Use commas or risk being called a psycho cannibal. #grammarnerd pic.twitter.com/LRKRszlg1m

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 12, 2016

Think about it:  our parents did not use “bomb” in the way we invoke the word. Back then, a bomb was (and still is) an explosive while we Generation Xers call great things bomb, ie. that not-so-great Kriss Kross album from junior high Da Bomb or “bomb-a** ish.”

Poof.

I still hate your English.

America's Six Million Dollar Problem

The United States of America has a $6,000,000.00 problem.

Notice the number six with six more zeros before you get to the decimals. What would you do with six million dollars? Hopefully pay off all of your debts, especially Sallie Mae and whatever unsecured credit owed.

But six million dollars seems to the be the going rate for black death in officer-involved civil settlements. Is that kind of a belated reparation, which we are worth more dead than alive? What does that show for our families and those who have to pick up the pieces after our untimely demises?

Truth. pic.twitter.com/8fwglaqjAY

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) May 25, 2016

Take a look:  The city of Cleveland announced a $6 million dollar settlement with the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice eighteen months after he was killed by former officer Timothy Loehmann while playing with a toy gun at a park near his home.

Baltimore awarded Gloria Darden – Freddie Gray’s mother - $6.4 million as a settlement for his death in police custody. So far, two of the six officers who have stood trial were found not guilty; the other four officers’ day in court is ahead.

In Little Rock, the Ellison family got a six-figure settlement and a park bench to continue his legacy while LRPD absolves any responsibility for the retired officer’s execution.

Even in New York, Eric Garner’s family reached a $5.9 million settlement with the NYPD.

It should be made crystal-clear that no amount of money can replace a family member yet society in general casts judgment upon the recipients. Those dollars are characterized as a sense of closure and they smooth over the emotional or psychological damage incurred to the families often poor or lower-middle income. In a sinister way, hearing about the multimillion dollar settlements makes it almost acceptable to blame the victim for his or her unfortunate circumstances.

Bruh. pic.twitter.com/piKSMzoZfT

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 23, 2016

In other words, ain’t nobody gettin’ rich here.

Even if we were, that is 1) blood money and 2) once you average the settlement by the number of working years, it really isn’t much. Assuming Tamir would have worked from 16 to 65, that is 49 years on the clock somewhere. Divide the $6M by 49 and you’ll get a quotient of $122.4K annually during the course of his working life. With that coin, it sounds like a lot until…we factor in taxes, college tuition, raising a family, purchasing a home and its subsequent upkeep, etc. Taxes alone would have eaten a nice chunk of money! Even beyond that, attorneys’ fees and court costs eat up the bulk of the award leaving the families with little compensation from their already traumatic experiences of being victimized by the offending officer; the media; keyboard gangsters; a recalcitrant district attorney; and overzealous union members quick to protect the rotten apples who potentially could destroy the entire bunch.

The money is not going to bring anyone back from the grave, so why do we look at it like it atones for society’s sins? In the way the greenbacks are bandied around, they serve as a “sorry not sorry” apology that does not reach the root of the problem:  this is a corrupted system that does not value all lives, only a select few.

America does have a $6,000,000.00 problem today.

Perhaps it is the cost to incarcerate a man rather than to educate or protect him.

Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are. 

Don't do it! pic.twitter.com/QRGmmb7T8w

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) May 27, 2016

 

I Can't...For When #EffYoFeelings Is Too Harsh.

I’ve had some serious writer’s block lately:  Either the topics out there have already beaten more than the snare drum Nick Cannon’s musically gifted yet illiterate character works on Drumline or only a handful of people on this Earth would resonate with. My other problem is that after 273 blog postings, getting people to engage my debates and opinions is akin to working overtime for free .99 to appease those on the right who clearly do not give a flying flip about the energy I’ve put into this craft or the people on the left quoting the mess out of my lines without any semblance of citation or income stream flowing my way.

I really don’t care about what y’all say about my Nick Cannon comment:  Being a musical genius doesn’t exempt you from understanding sheet music. I understand he was in full character for Drumline (also starring Orlando Jones from the 7-Up! commercials back in the day), so I reckon I should let that pass. Besides, if that is the hang-up, then I have a slew of band director friends who gladly disagree.

I admit that I am regularly disengaged, but I'm trying to do better. It's hard caring about people who don't exactly value you, only what they can get from you. 

1.      Slow drivers in the far left lane. If I’m passing you on the right, then you need to move over. I’ll eat the ticket if I get caught, but there is this wonderful concept called flow of traffic. You passengers have other jobs when you ride in the Escape with me [Mama drives the Camry, meaning she controls the air and radio regardless of my own pleas].

Be a team on the road. We need you! pic.twitter.com/h9qAsvIRFE

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 17, 2016

2.      People who ask if I am going to homecoming. I haven’t been to a campus function since 2002 when I had food poisoning after eating at that horrid Chinese restaurant and puked all over my mom’s Malibu, so that’s fourteen years and counting. The friends I actually stay in touch with do not care for that 45-minute trip down an Interstate 30 that needs perpetual repair, and even then, I am persona non grata in Arkadelphia. Reread Black Skin, Blue Water to understand why.

3.      My patience is renowned the world over, but when I’m fed up…I can’t.

4.      First Fridays. I haven’t been to one of these so-called networking events in years, and even when I would show up, I was out of compliance with the night’s dress code. Surely a Gap baseball cap and black t-shirt would be passable among a bunch of ‘bougie’ ghetto folks who still haven’t let their undergraduate days go. Today, they are the ones who muck up social media hash tagging the crap out of everything they say and satisfying their thirst on the ‘gram.

5.      Explaining to people time and time again that my time is valuable and that they do not have permission to block hours of it for me once I leave work.

6.      Rap music after 2005. I admit, I do like the Swishahouse, yet today’s lyrics are devoid of anything relevant that we all can get behind, i.e. trap music, anything Lil’ Wayne says, and stans.

7.      Working for fun, not funds…I can’t.

8.      You know the saying, “one monkey don’t stop no show?” I may not stop the show, but I can damn sure make it difficult to continue.

9.      When I turn on TV to watch the news and hear only talking points. If your groupthink per MSNBC, Fox, CNN, etc. is the best opinion you have, then it is considered garbage and needs to be taken out with the chicken bones that otherwise would break a disposal. Having an articulately formulated thought really costs nothing but a few minutes of reading the newspapers, websites, and magazines to research the issues.

10.  Call me old, square, whatever, but don’t you get the feeling that Drake is the rap version of Nickelback?

Catchy garbage

Just plain ol' garbage

11.  Although I’m likely to write in Barack Obama for a third term come October (I always vote early, preferably the first day the booths open), voting for Donald Trump…I can’t. Hell, voting for any Republican after the Tea Party takeover in 2010 ain’t gonna happen no matter how many MLK quotes they try to use around African-Americans or for the photo ops that pretend that they aren’t racist when we know otherwise.

12.  Tyler Perry shows. Like Nickelback songs, they all have the same tired pattern. Where’s the creativity and why hasn’t there been a significant deviation from the plays?

13.  People who binge watch Friends yet sleep on Living Single. Both shows are basically the same premise – until the final season of each, I don’t recall anything but a homogenous cast. Besides, Queen Latifah’s acting in the early ‘90s could give Jennifer Anniston a run for her money any day of the week.

14.  Mayonnaise. Who decided that this poor excuse of a condiment was so important for a good sandwich?

15.  Plantation mentality. If Harriet Tubman left people behind on the Underground Railroad, then what makes you think those same Negroes didn’t spawn off self-hating generations who worship the very words that Massa utters and the crumbs of the big piece of chicken left for the dogs?

I can't. https://t.co/6twdzZrvDd

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) May 22, 2016

16.  Grown men standing in Foot Locker lines on Black Friday and All-Star Weekend for the new J’s…I can’t.

17.  You say we live in a post-racial society yet call the First Family everything but a child of God. Keep in mind I do read many of your posts and threads – is an educated Black family with new money and all that power that dangerous to the hierarchy of white privilege? You #AllLivesMatter people have been pretty silent for a while as you support the orange bully and the Reagans; let your bigotry marinate on that.

Hi haters. @POTUS @FLOTUS pic.twitter.com/VUskuqUvX9

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) March 25, 2016

18.  First Take on ESPN needs to cease:  Send Stephen A. Smith to Fox Sports to coon for Massa; that station is Skip’s natural home, as is Colin Cowherd.

 

19.  The lost souls who turn up on July 4 and do absolutely nothing on Juneteenth. If I recall American history clearly, our ancestors were still enslaved on July 4, 1776 – freedom in America was limited to landowning white men back then, just as the Republican Party of today tries to return to that vestige of time. Lord help us all.

For some #SitYoAssDown winners, check them (and others) out at https://t.co/1DIFOtP2xm pic.twitter.com/v8hkylaiaA

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 11, 2016

20.  When your rims or system cost more than your car…I can’t. 

You know you're grown if you identify with everything on the right. pic.twitter.com/GahnL9SWyT

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) March 21, 2016

You know, I can go all day here but…I can’t.

When 2+1=3

No parentheses are necessary for this basic equation. In our case, getting to three isn’t as easy as we would have anticipated.

I know that many of you read Mother’s Day for the Childless Couple two years ago and followed the Dad Chronicles throughout the past year about our daughter Caeli’s time in the NICU along with the many milestones she has reached and surpassed. However, this post is about how my wife has evolved to motherhood and my ever-growing love and appreciation of Chastity. Mother’s Day (it’s still a fairly new concept to us, as we’ve observed Punkin Day until last year throughout our nearly five years of marriage) is that date set aside for all of the moms who hold down the fort through thick and thin.

I’ll share one thing:  Becoming parents wasn’t as easy in our mid-thirties as say, turning on the Link CD or digging through the Gettin’ Laid mixtapes from the ‘90s that have their own file on Spotify today, lighting candles, pouring up the pink Moscato wine, and dropping flower petals down the hall to the boom-boom room. We wish it could’ve been that easy, but the journey for our little one is vastly more cherished than what could have happened on the honeymoon if not sooner.

Making 2+1=3 was not as easy as we (society in general) make it out to be. For us, I want to shout out thanks to God; the staff at Arkansas Fertility Clinic and Freeway Medical for helping us along and keeping Caeli-bug in motion throughout the five months she got to stay inside Chastity; our families, friends, neighbors, and church for their continued prayers; and my high school classmate/friend Dr. Clint Johnson for helping me understand what Clomid and some of the other medicines do to aid along a pregnancy. You know, I owe Clint a beer the next time I see him:  when he’s in central Arkansas, if/when we visit Fayetteville or any other part of northwest Arkansas, or at our twentieth class reunion (Go Wampus Cats!) next year. 

Adding two plus one to equal three was in effect a lot of work.

I’m not forgetting the 146 days spent in the NICU at UAMS and Children’s Hospital nor will I fail to remember the multiple visits to the pediatricians, therapies, doctors, and pharmacies to pick up necessities for little Caeli to grow up healthier, stronger, independent, and more beautiful every day.

Oops, I regressed; this is about Chastity. Even I need to be redirected every once in a while.

As loquacious as I can be at times, the words I want to use to show my appreciation for my wife tend to escape me akin to sneaky ten-pound catfish stealing the worm from a waiting rod and reel. It doesn’t mean I don’t value my significantly better half; sometimes words alone won’t get the feeling expressed effectively.

Thank you for carrying Caeli Elise for those five months and the 24/7 dedication to her growth and loving on her the way you do.

14 But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 

15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

- Isaiah 49:14-15

From feeding her solid foods to changing those awful blowout diapers without getting any poop on the sheets and teaching her peek-a-boo, thank you. This also includes finding all of the educational toys and books that we use to help Caeli develop at her pace.

I’m grateful for those nights I am at work when you have to hold down the fort to feed our little superstar that one last bottle and she starts to babble loudly in addition to playing with her toys for the next few hours causing you to forego sleep. Thank you – and there is a reason why I try to let you sleep in on Saturday mornings.

You just amaze me every morning how you’re able to fix yourself a hot cup of coffee, get both of you dressed, showered, and out the door within fifteen minutes during the week with a full diaper bag because it takes quite a bit more time for me to get Caeli ready to ride with daddy in the car and I am known for leaving out more than a few things. 

Thank you for being so supportive of the food and deacons’ ministries, especially now that more and more people see God in how you live and conduct yourself. You don’t have to buy that white dress for Communion Sunday yet, and if/when that day gets here, we’ll make sure the store has a better return policy in case it doesn’t fit as well as you would like it to fit.

You are the heartbeat of our team – none of this is possible without you. I mean, no one else could put up with my idiosyncrasies like you, not even my own mama.

More than that, you make motherhood look damn good.

Two years ago, we began another chapter of our lives when we made two plus one equal three. I love you and am forever indebted to your greatness as not only my wife but also Caeli’s mommy every single day. We no longer celebrate Punkin Day – today is your Mother’s Day!

Road tripping with @chatnes #CaeliStrong pic.twitter.com/6WV3hruger

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 30, 2016

Happy Mother’s Day, juicy.