Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Illusion of Freedom: Why Wakanda Matters

Preface:  THIS IS NOT A MOVIE REVIEW. REPEAT AFTER ME:  THIS IS NOT A MOVIE REVIEW.

I finally saw Black Panther three weeks after most of you viewed the Marvel film on Opening Night.


It has replaced Iron Man as my favorite Marvel character – and that was no small feat.

Freedom - (noun) 1) the quality or state of being free; independence 2) exemption; release 3) ease; facility 4) frankness 5) unrestricted use 6) a political right; also see franchise or privilege

But neither of the two sentences you just read matter as much in the grand scheme of things as the illusion of freedom that Wakanda symbolizes versus our very own dark American history and its mirage of nirvana since we all know the American Dream is truthfully a pipe dream for the select few, the privileged, and the occasional model minority who inevitably is placed upon an ivory tower of a pedestal only to be assaulted to the point of self-destruction as the proverbial paper king propped up by outside forces far greater than he or to live an isolated existence not unlike the Wakandans.

Who wants the illusion of freedom Wakanda affords? All of us, especially black people. Africa has long been the incubator of most of what the world has learned over the centuries:  without her human capital and vast assets, the world would be a vastly different place. King T’Challa does everything in his power to protect his nation from allowing vibranium to fall into the wrong hands yet he ultimately fails in obtaining it. He also had to deal with imposter syndrome as he learned how to serve the nation as king only after the death of his father T’Chaka; certainly, there are moments which we all doubt our qualifications in fulfilling a new role.

What is the illusion of freedom pertaining to Wakanda? Is it a truly black ethnostate which citizenship is granted or denied by a litmus test of sufficient blackness with Popeyes chicken, Lexus dealerships, no more credit reports and student loan payments, and Baptist churches rocking on every other corner each Sunday morning around 11 am? In the movie, we learn that Wakanda is perceived by the UN as a third-world country rife with goat herders and farmers until their way-too-advanced-for-the-stereotype is unveiled as a model society of futurism: Note Shuri’s lab as proof. Alongside the multiple Black Panther outfits designed to absorb blows and regenerate with vibranium, it was a virtual time machine proving the genius of Black women in STEM disciplines, aka #blackgirlmagic. Unfortunately, those same illusions of freedom we perceive in Wakanda mirror the dreadful conditions the rest of us have had to survive in. Like children who have spent too many years in the foster care system seeking a permanent place to call home, we were abandoned by those who were supposed to love us unconditionally and forced to overcome a world that considers us disposable with nothing but sheer determination.


Why does the illusion of Wakanda matter? It’s because we are compulsive believers, plain and simple. We want to believe in someone or something so badly that we tend to jump from one temporary idea or trend to the next hoping that it does not disappoint us along the way. I see no issue in being a dreamer; however, a compulsive believer inevitably looks gullible due to the fact he or she is following every fleeting wind and every pretty little lie than confronting the ugly truth which greatly terrifies them. It is reflexively traveling through life as lemmings that the illusion of Wakanda reigns so prominently this season; in about six months or sometime after the Black Panther DVD lands in stores, it may or may not matter but for a few weeks. Besides, the bootleg copies have been on Fire Stick for quite some time. For example, one layer of how white supremacy is indoctrinated into our young people is through the media and our schools. Case in point:  how schools teach black history. Instead of including it as a 24/7/365 standard, students end up only hearing about Martin and Rosa with some bits of Barack, Michael, and BeyoncĂ© among others in a period of nineteen days. If that isn’t enough, think about how we find ourselves indoctrinated by the Democrats and Republicans; both parties are filled with liars, yet we tend to lean toward one or the other based on the sweet sound of fables to our ears. Given the facts, the independent class of voters should be vastly more numerous to the tune of holding all candidates’ feet to the fire instead of only the ones we do not support.

Erik Killmonger’s plan to help black people globally falls flat not because it was so farfetched as much as it fails as an indirect result of using the colonizers’ strategies against them. Was he a bit too woke for the moment? Not necessarily; some of us who have always been able to eat at the kitchen table only know that existence relative to the very real and somewhat literal struggle we all have endured in the Western world daily as we fight to overcome white supremacy and simultaneously maintain the few traditions our ancestors could keep as their own. Consider this:  When the slaves who survived the Middle Passage only to spend the remainder of their lives in bondage lost everything, why were they given Christianity – and only the small bits contextualized to break their spirits from certain royals to emotional children incapable of growth and maturity beyond their physical appearances? The movie does not answer this in a concrete fashion since it follows the story within a story of an angry Killmonger avenging his father’s death in the Oakland high-rise apartment only to learn his blind ambition is his downfall.



How does the illusion of freedom in Wakanda affect us today? We have never not been accused of “being extra”. Just as cosplay actors show up in full attire for Star Wars movies, some of us purchased if not borrowed African regalia (I’m looking at the guy who showed up dressed as Prince Akeem of Zamunda from Coming to America, among others) for a MCU film that the profits would more than likely not make it to our communities. Wakanda gives us the opportunities to dream and see ourselves as kings and queens as well as the colonizers whom we have studied and now emulate. In addition, when N’Jobu – Killmonger’s father – is awakened to the harsh reality of being black in America, he is led to search for a solution that has escaped us for multiple generations. Those generational curses continue looping themselves until we finally confront them not by marching, singing, and praying alone but through forceful changes that often are quite uncomfortable to the powers that be. As a result, T’Challa’s elitist view ends up limiting Wakandan influence throughout the world – a consequence of “Father knows best” not being the best policy. Just as we are the seed capitalists who birth, raise, nurture, prune, and mature our blackness in its most organic form only for the colonizers to rape, pillage, and otherwise appropriate the hell out of our greatness as their seasonal entertainment, we sometimes maintain our originality to our own detriment losing our very identities! Does anyone remember the Whole Foods craze a few years ago when some trendy gentrifiers identified collard greens as the next great super food?

Instead of placing ebenezers at every possible location by throwing large sums of money around in lieu of facing our issues, we can break yet another generational curse by creating a real sense of community. It may sound a bit Pollyannish because having a specific building means squat if it is only there as a backhanded token for a lifetime of bad behavior- in America, this happens far too often. Corporations join the communities we live in after being wooed with low taxes and an overly willing workforce, raid the talent pool, promote ideologies contrary to our own, and at the first sign of trouble, pack up and escape like nothing ever happened but they left us this shiny new building or a five-figure check that was more that likely written off as a gift for tax purposes without any way to converting it into a living endowment. This illusion of freedom of Big Brother being benevolent toward us pacifies us into remaining complicit of the world surrounding us by handing us smartphones to watch WSHH fights and doing it for the ‘gram; did you know Israel is expelling its African population as MAGA-types are pressuring 45 to open the American borders to white South Africans soon to be displaced from lands stolen centuries ago as doors are being slammed shut in front of black and brown people from Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and Namibia, among other so-called shithole nations?

We all know Wakanda is not a real place except in our imaginations and for one weekend, the airport in Atlanta – and this is what Stan Lee intended when he created Black Panther along with the rest of the Avengers. With his way-too-progressive-for-the-era comics, America was not ready for a majority-black nation particularly one that regenerated its energies from our own melanin which some considered toxic.

Some objects are not what they seem to be.

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Sunday, February 25, 2018

Be Easy

Over the eight months of serving my church as a deacon, I have picked up a reputation as the peacemaker and a problem-solver. Because I am still in the learning stages (in truth, we all should always remain students – the instant we stop learning is when we stop living) of the real work, I am having to accept the limitations and ailments of the ministry at hand:  Not everyone is happy to see me, and with one untimely move, I risk the brunt of a tirade. Please believe I’ve laid on some grenades in my day, even when I thought I was right and could not be told otherwise. Rather than sow the seeds of discontent and associated bad behavior, Ephesians 4:2 tells us to be gentle.

Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other. Ephesians 4:2

Back in 2003 before he took on more of an activist role, the rapper T.I. told us to “Be Easy” from his second album Trap Muzik. This is the same principle; just because we are supposed to be completely humble and gentle does not mean lay down and become a softie as many of us think – and sometimes act – upon our impulses to the detriment of Kingdom building. All being loud does is make a mockery of what we do and/or what we proclaim to promote. Being gentle shows a gratitude for the smallest service rendered and tolerance for the pains in the hiney who do not serve us well. It puts up with the boisterous and bothersome citizens; for kindness to children is a crowning mark of a good and humble servant. In other words, be easy or it’ll be a long day.

Years ago when my fraternity visited Central Elementary School to read to the students, my friend Shannon reminded me to not get frustrated when they would squirm around on the floor during circle time or if they chose to ignore our instructions during center time as this was likely the freest they would feel before their parents/grandparents/guardians would pick them up. After I observed the Arkadelphia native navigate through fifteen children without ever raising her voice, I noticed that even in the most tenuous moments of stress they were laser-focused on the three adults in the room as they took behavioral cues from us. Sometimes we would speak softly, and sometimes a calm silence to the occasional mean word was the best response:  Bullying went winless when we came over from Henderson State those afternoons.


Remember Jesus is gentle and humble in heart, and if we ask Him, He will recreate us in His image. 
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Sunday, January 28, 2018

Martin, Environmentalist

One thing that gets slept on about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is that the civil rights leader was quite the environmentalist. Most of our friends and associates in both the public and private spheres were so quick to quote something from the “I Have a Dream” speech each January 15th yet marginalize the context of his own words and actions the other 364 days of the year. Certainly it is true that Brother Martin departed this life a poor man – advancing black causes tends to thin out the pockets of its primary advocates – but the larger takeaway is the fallacy that money alone does not matter as we pillage our way into untold profits is nowhere near the principle of Leave No Trace, which merely means leave the world a better place than we found it. After all, our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom…Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

As the American government sets its budget annually, why is it that the Pentagon gets an obscene amount of loot yet the day-to-day social programs get short shrift and blamed for the deficit? Is annihilation of a darker-hued people a larger priority and protection of whiteness by default (and American exceptionalism) at all costs than following through the basic promise of symbolizing a shining beacon the rest of the world can only hope to emulate? What does that say to the hungry families who have only the churches to rely upon for sustenance?  Are the disabled among us simply throwaway citizens? As a bonus question, what is the real reason for propping up Israel for the past seventy years knowing it has the world’s second strongest military after our own as we tell children to buck up and deal with the hardscrabble circumstances they were born into not limited to citizenry? I’d like to think we all have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment; imagine having to stand outside at the bus stop wearing a respirator or not being able to swim in the same now-murky creeks our parents skinny-dipped in as children.



Consider the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike just days before his assassination in 1968. On its face, King was advocating for equal pay for black and white sanitation workers in Memphis as evidenced by the I Am a Man signs the marching crowd wore in protest of their substandard living conditions and pitiful work environments.



Understand we do not have a concrete set of statements either expanding or dispelling King’s own environmental stance for the movement took off after his death. Ecological thinking – the precursor to the green movement we all know, like, and occasionally loathe depending on the Toyota Prius driver doing 10 below in the left lane – was in its infancy and reserved in the ivory towers of academia prior to the Nixon White House establishing the EPA a few years later welcoming green technology and society to the mainstream where it was formerly marginalized by hippie culture. Beyond the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act which all makes environmental concerns mandatory for major actions undertaken or permitted by the federal government and guarantees that all public environmental concerns will be heard.


What if I told you environmental quality was also interrelated to an inescapable network of mutuality regarding the locations of our landfills, chemical waste management facilities, and industrial parks in towns large and small? Hear me out.

When cities seek locations for landfills, where do they typically end up? In rural or impoverished areas away from current population growth, or among the less affluent and/or where other historically discriminated citizens reside. Eventually, sprawl happens, and those dumps end up moving further and further to the outskirts to another poor area until the two are forced to coexist. In Florida, I recently noticed that on one side of the Florida Turnpike was a landfill albeit neatly manicured in appearance and across the toll road, a nature preserves for the most endangered creatures indigenous to the southern part of the Sunshine State.  In many areas, that dump would cause homeowners’ property values to drop – who would want to live next to last week’s garbage? Only those who were redlined into the area or unable to afford housing elsewhere, that’s who.

In the grand scheme of things, everything matters. Who would want to eat three-eyed catfish caught from parts of the Saline River or hunt bulletproof deer that roam the riverside for their survival if we are dumping waste indiscriminately only because doing the right thing is more trouble than simply leaving trash where we litter?
How does this explain places like Flint and Mound Bayou and any other community of color that has a disproportionate percentage of poisoned water supply in the name of profit as city, state, and corporate leaders sit by idly reaping the fruits of job creation or time has forgotten about and the resources necessary to maintain a decent filtration system have dried up?

“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

Then we have light pollution, which we all are guilty of to one extent or another. When was the last time we went outside to pitch-black darkness and only saw the moon and stars? For the sake of our health, do we even shut down our bodies long enough to get proper rest despite those bright blue smartphone screens that inevitably keep us awake much longer than necessary? Maybe this is a reason why some of us clamor to exit the grid and live simply. Since we do have to share Planet Earth as a temporary home, the least we can do is take care of it; in King’s view, it would be foolhardy to integrate schools or lunch counters if the same concern were not exhibited toward the survival of the world in which to be integrated.

We will never know the extent of King’s positions regarding the environment as he was not only taken too soon from us but also those opinions were not as fully formed into a context we all can understand as the famed civil rights stances. What we do recognize is he maintained more than a basic understanding of how the world and its inhabitants (man, animal, plants, etc.) are all intertwined to ideally make this place work smoothly as God intended, and even within his own sermons, had the uncanny knack of connecting the dots to express a related issue of the day. In this context it could be appropriate to add environmentalist to the list of descriptors of the greatest American of the past one hundred years.











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Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Jesus the Social Justice Warrior

One of the greatest debates in the 21st Century has been the role of Jesus within Jewish society and the Biblical interpretation of His own capabilities regarding justice; depending on the framing of the congregation which we may worship in, Jesus has been viewed as either a deliverer or a shining example of pulling one up from his own bootstraps – rather, sandals. It has also often been stated that the co-opting of Christ is what has driven so many of our youth and emerging adults away from the Church due to how the lowercase churches routinely mistreat and dismiss them either shortly after graduating from high school or at the latest, their early twenties when they see the hypocrisies of religion for the first time leaving them so shaken they avoid the tax-free havens of outward piety and ostentatious worship centers permanently. Yet they seek something more noteworthy in their lives as Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and eventual ascension represented some two millennia ago.

When one hears the term social justice warrior, or SJW, what is the average stereotype? The pejorative term is defined as a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views by repeatedly and vehemently in arguments on social justice via internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought manner solely for raising his or her own reputation. Because a passion – or life’s work – has not been fully identified, the young warrior climbs on every hill in protest not knowing the systemic manner of how justice is meted unequally. Recall the Occupy movement earlier this decade which gave the rise/reintroduction of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to the national limelight:  The same twentysomethings who were protesting wealth disparity with 1 > 99 bumper stickers on hybrid cars were exerting their political influence in addition to following a prime lesson Jesus was teaching the Jews the first time around in Matthew 26:11.



Understand shaming the poor is anathema to everything in the Gospel as fortune, fame, and prestige comes and goes. One can build a house of straw, and at the first gust of wind, that house falls apart. Why is that? Earthly treasures are not meant for us to live for alone; as the little pig who built the straw house learned, nothing without a firm foundation is going to last long. Ditto for those who build their names and affluence on the backs of the less poor and disadvantaged. In this context, SJWs are no better than the Pharisees and Romans they intend to castigate when we look at their own braggadocio as they talk loud but stay in the house when it is time to clock in for work. Their ideologies do parallel that of the “Jesus Freaks” and “Promise Keepers” from the 1990s in the sense of being simultaneously overly zealous and surprisingly superficial.

To those people, Jesus reminds us collectively that we cannot have it both ways. The Book of Matthew explicitly outlines the reason why in Chapter 6:  a confused soul is one who loves the ideas that come with social justice yet yearns to maintain the trappings of a privileged existence. Consider the plight of Nicodemus the dashing young ruler who had heard Jesus teaching and was so intrigued he met with Him at night only to depart saddened when he was told to surrender his worldly treasures to come follow Him.


No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

But didn’t Jesus flip over the moneychangers’ tables?

Or touch the leper, healing him in contrast to expulsion for immorality?

Or talk with the Samaritan woman about her faith publicly at the fountain during midday?

Did He say He is here for the poor and oppressed?

Did He anger the political elites when He declared God as sovereign and solely worthy of worship over Caesar in the polytheistic era?

Would He refer to the Religious Right as a brood of vipers?

Did He feed five thousand people with two fish and a few loaves of bread?

Lastly, did He heal someone on the Sabbath?

Matter of fact, Jesus did all of that and then some. To say Christ is a social justice warrior alone is a gross understatement and misses the point of His soul-saving existence. Jesus was the King of the Jews but let us forget He was mocked, ridiculed, spat upon, and sentenced to death by crucifixion!


What I have found is the version of Jesus Christ that people tend to disagree with is the one that does not assuage their wee feelings. “My God is nice, sanctimonious, and He wouldn’t do such things as being a rabble-rouser!” Child, please! What they are looking for is a sad-looking Caucasian sugar daddy with long hair to excuse their imperialistic tendencies of supremacy and justify the status quo just so they can make it to the nearest Applebee’s by noon each Sunday. With the perception of Christians being a bit soft, it does more than rock the boat when His followers express anger or in the case of black Americans over the course of the past hundred years or so, nonviolent protests (see Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Colin Kaepernick, as examples) are met by the vilest of white Christianity so uncomfortable when injustice is brought face to face. Our Lord and Savior knew this was part of taking on a physical form that certain death was imminent – and in a few days as we observe Brother Martin’s birthdate and life, most Americans will recite his now-whitewashed “I Have a Dream” speech without any respect to the complexities of the principalities and spiritual wickedness he fought that some days seem in vain thanks to the Trump Administration, Congress, and most state Legislatures across the country rolling back the few advances made. Even in the more presumed socially progressive climes, few things strike fear like seeing a small group (three or more) black men exercising their First Amendment rights – ask their real opinions of Black Lives Matter and I bet you’ll get the contrived answers from Fox News that it is a terrorist organization instead of our generation’s civil rights movement for demanding accountability within law enforcement and the legal system!

Turning up didn't apply to all Americans

The Christian rapper Lecrae spoke of the historical context within the picture on his social media accounts (either Twitter or Instagram, I’m not certain anymore) and was immediately called a racist and SJW, among other labels proving that even his blackness supersedes the Gospel in the minds of his onetime followers.

If you desire to push the issue further, ask which Israel is referred to as God’s chosen people – the one in the Old Testament namely the days of Moses’s exodus from Egypt, or those inhabitants of the right-wing state established in 1948 with America’s help.

Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:9

I was going to find a supporting example of how Jesus was not a social justice warrior, but you know what? My Father which art in Heaven is a deliverer, and to say otherwise is a clear contradiction of not only my own faith but also the words we sing out of mouths every single Sunday morning. As often as we sing the words from Charles Jenkins’s “Awesome”, it would be quite the hypocritical travesty if we placed conditions on how we acknowledge God for delivering us from one situation or another as judge while others prioritize street (and today, social media) justice to mete out their preferred brand of fairness; providing for us in our most destitute moments; curing the seemingly impossible ailments of the world such as leprosy, smallpox in most of the developed world, and working the minds of talented pharmacists and chemists to invent solutions for a better quality of life; protector of the poor and disadvantaged in a climate which favors the overly well-heeled privileged; and a host of other superlatives. Furthermore, African-Americans Christians who are so frequently praised for their willingness to forgive even the worst of offenders (see Dylann Roof) have endured the worst of slavery; Jim Crow segregation; capital punishments for seemingly minor and often falsified offenses (read: looking a white person in the eye or sharing a sidewalk); a justice and political system blatantly slanted against us for 399 years; and some of the more covert aspects of white supremacy not limited to the Talented Tenth principle.

This also included the culturally-driven motto instilled by our parents to become “twice as good as them to get half of what they have” not for recognition but for basic survival.

In 2018 terms, would Jesus side with those without family health insurance, or those who voted to take away access from the less fortunate?

Does the 1% really need another tax cut when time and time again, the small business owners who have formed the middle-class struggle to stay afloat?

Where are the landfills located in most communities? Why does Flint still have dirty water?

Who do our representatives serve, the people or their financial backers?

What brand of the Gospel is being espoused in the church today, the original words of Christ or the bastardized American Christianity version defending white supremacy?


For those who are offended by SJWs, what is your idea of equality? The gradual kind like the South has allegedly attempted since Brown v. the Board of Education? Or maybe the “sit in the corner like a good colored boy and we’ll get to it. We take care of our own” coded phrase which means we get the leftovers, if anything at all as they suckle the government’s teat until it shrivels.

The next time people question if Jesus was a social justice warrior, kindly remind them He was hated for speaking the truth about the powers-that-be and preaching love instead of overthrowing Caesar and the Holy Roman Empire. An unsung teaching of Christ – which was also applicable to black America as recently as 1968 – was to excel within the frameworks of the law; just as the Jews paid taxes to Caesar as they were lawfully required to do (see Matthew 22:21 or Romans 13:1), self-sufficient black communities thrived in the face of American racism often to the chagrin of those in prominence (Tulsa, Rosewood). Once we take respectability politics out of the equation, we grow a greater appreciation of how we have been delivered from spiritual wickedness in the highest of places as well as the daily struggles suffered and tangible proof of this has manifested itself throughout American history from President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation to the Supreme Court ending segregation and for one blustery November 2008 night, the election victory of now-former President Obama culminating the dreams of so many of our elders and ancestors.

Modern SJWs would be better served by learning and following the example of the ultimate social justice warrior Jesus Christ who did not need the verbal affirmations at every corner nor bask in the puffery we occasionally fall for calling it Kingdom Building nor did He thrive on slamming His critics alone without providing a teachable moment.












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Sunday, December 31, 2017

Good Riddance to 2017

I must admit 2017 was a very difficult year but by the grace of God, we made it!

From my employer being sold to an out-of-state conglomerate to finding out I am diabetic, this has been a particularly challenging year. Of course, let us not forget what happened January 20 when Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on a stack of Bibles as the grifting began and racists felt emboldened to say whatever they wanted without consequence; many of us have taken extended breaks from social media because we just can’t clap back on every single troll or bot without wasting valuable emotional and spiritual energy for the larger war.

I really don’t remember much exciting about January, and what I can recall, is none of your business.

February led to the usual Black History Month posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and of course, the blog yet this is also the month I found out I am diabetic. Years of eating like a kid not limited to devouring cases of honey buns have led me to a daily regimen of pills along with the overdue need to start exercising daily. One awesome thing happened:  my dad and Caeli shared a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese! What a place for him to celebrate turning 70 years old for a birthday party – why not do it at the same time as his only granddaughter’s second birthday with the rest of the family this time?

Locally, the church moved back home from a completed restoration! Thanks be to God, the contractors, congregation, staff, and everyone who had a hand involved in the nearly six-month-long project.

On March 1 Heritage Environmental Services bought Rineco for an undisclosed sum. So far, all it has meant was the 300+ of us still have jobs.

In April, we got to see our friends Will and Misty in Helena-West Helena as they opened the Freeman Playground in memory of their son Freeman – and Caeli’s first friend from the NICU. Of course, it seems like every time I make that drive down Highway 49, it is always raining. Fortunately for us, no squirrel decided to take his own life by riding the car’s wheel this time and I didn’t have to have a discussion over a parked red car. Because we really didn’t stray from home much, this was easily the longest trip by car the three of us made all year.

May was a harbinger of 2017 at large:  forgettable save Caeli’s first trip to the zoo and the Africa Day festival in SOMA.

As an omen that 2017 may not be that shabby, June marked two significant events:  Caeli got her ears pierced, and I was ordained as a deacon at our church. I have the piercing video up on a different blog – hats off to the ladies working at Claire’s that weekend for keeping our little trooper distracted long enough for her to not slap them both away. As for my ordination, I want to thank God, everyone who pastored me over the years and the older deacons I learned something from, Chastity and Caeli for sticking with what became a three-year process that periodically frustrated me, Mount Zion for seeing it in an outsider to serve them in the ways of 1 Timothy 3:1-14, and my home church Greater Friendship for showing up. Had Rev. Johnson tripped me up when I was being charged, we might have had to put the gloves on and gone outside.

I finally found some semblance of a normal life in July when our new Delta V was hired! Thanks to Conner, I got to find out weekend life was like for the first time in a few years – and that led to purchasing the signing for the church’s food pantry:  On the very first Saturday after we placed them throughout the southside of Benton, we began to experience such a surge of clients as volunteers and members alike saw Kingdom building at work that we had to shut it down after ninety minutes! Sadly, my uncle Earl (Dad’s brother) passed away at the age of 81 from pneumonia.

Mama Bear decided I was worth sticking around with for another year, so we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary August 6 in a much louder venue than we anticipated (Sidebar:  Texas Roadhouse is a good place for a quiet meal said no one ever). Next year, the planning ahead will be a LOT better. In unrelated news, 45 decreed that that there were good people on both sides in the Charlottesville clash between protestors and the alt-right leading up to a woman losing her life and a man severely beaten. Caeli also graduated from Kidsource to a few months of playing with grandma until she eventually got into preschool.

When September came around, Dub Shack BBQ had started making its rounds via word of mouth while I began to figure out pricing and the margins of profitability that comes with barbecue catering. With a handful of pork loin dinners, I made enough money and gained confidence in the consistency of my own product that I could do well in this market. Remember my coming out of the diabetic closet? I’ve lost forty pounds this year without trying very hard – I’ve begun to drink more water, exercise a bit, and continue the medical regimen; imagine the difference if I had driven (or walked) five blocks down the street to the gym regularly.

October was a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane. No, I didn’t go to Henderson State’s homecoming this year; instead I went home for my 20th class reunion from Conway High the same weekend. Finding out from so many classmates that AD&AD has practically become required reading has provided a source of encouragement for me to continue the literary craft. I’d still be cool with an impromptu pop-up in a park or somewhere, Class of ’97 except great barbecue has to be smoked ahead of time. Apart from being a Wampus Cat, my grandma turned 90 years old October 14 and she was feted by multiple generations of my mom’s side of the family. We’re talking Kings from across the country taking over Gould, Arkansas for a weekend.

November saw Chastity turn the big 4-0 with the BIG CHOP, and Caeli also began preschool. For the unaware, the BIG CHOP is when all that unnatural perm gets cut from a black woman’s hair as she goes natural.

Although the calendar cannot turn quickly enough to 2018 in some aspects, December had some noticeable moments:  my 39th birthday, Christmas with the better and little CAs, we named our church’s next pastor, and the unforeseen effects of the GOP tax bill.

Maybe this hasn’t been that rough of a year despite the pay cut and the odds against us. Thanks for riding and praying with us throughout 2017, and for those who won’t make it to 2018 with any relationship to me, you know why.

Take care of yourselves – and each other.





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Saturday, December 30, 2017

Joyous Kwanzaa! Habari Gani?


What is Kwanzaa?

Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States and in other nations of the African diaspora in the Americas honoring African heritage in African-American culture from December 26 to January 1 culminating in a feast and gift-giving. According to founder Maulana Karenga, the name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanzaa, meaning “first fruits of the harvest”, although it has been shortened to “first fruits”. The choice of Swahili, a native East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Afrikanism although most of the Atlantic slave trade which brought people to the Western Hemisphere originated in west Africa. The seven-day season has its roots in the Black nationalist movement of the 1960s and established to help African-Americans reconnect to their cultural roots by uniting in mediation and study of African traditions and Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of African heritage.

What seven principles of Kwanzaa do we celebrate amid a world that loves materialism and sets it eyes on greenbacks, entertainment, possessions, and tribalism as its idols?

• Umoja (Unity):  To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichaguila (Self-Determination):  To define and name ourselves as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility):  To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our issues and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative economics):  To build and maintain our stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose):  To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity):  To do always as much as we can, in the way we can to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith):  To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.



To those trapped in the sunken place or simply unaware among us, this sounds just like socialism. In a capitalistic society such as ours, it is often wondered why some of us simply cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps when they made it against all odds AND the larger group supporting them. Kwanzaa refocuses the misconception that capitalism – rather, the pursuit of the American Dream – is anathema to promoting community. For Karenga, the creation of such holidays also underscored an essential premise that you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution by providing an identity, purpose, and direction.

How do we celebrate Kwanzaa besides rocking our dashikis and laying kente cloth on our kitchen tables and couches?

Kwanzaa is a family activity – we all find a need to remember the ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to the decorations below, ceremonies may include drumming and musical selections, food and drinks, a reading of the African Pledge and the Principles of Blackness, reflection on Team RBG (the Pan-Afrikan colors red, black and green), a discussion of the African principle of the day or a chapter in African history and a candle-lighting ritual.

Families decorate their households with the following symbols:  mkeka (mat) on which other symbols are placed; a kinara (candle holder), mishumaa saba (seven candles, one for each day and principle), mazao (crops), munhindi (corn), a kikombe cha umoja (unity cup, typically a chalice unlike the one we recall seeing Lil’ Jon with years ago) for commeorating and giving shukrani (thanks) to African ancestors, and zawadi (gifts). Other supplemental representations such as the black, red, and green flag, African artworks and books symbolize the values and concepts reflective of African culture and contribution to community building and reinforcement.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not done it right to the letter as this has become more of an academic exercise than anything else despite the intrigue. Hopefully I’ll be more aligned with this aspect of the culture next year and come with some action and a better understanding of what to do. For anyone who attempts to marginalize Maulana Karenga, allow me to remind you that the so-called most revered American presidents owned slaves who built their personal wealth and a nation on the backs of my ancestors.

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Thursday, November 16, 2017

Ultimate Party Crasher

I swear this is the last one - don’t miss the opportunity to read this final chapter!

Throughout the year, I’ve had people ask me what happened to the Dad Chronicles and as much as they have enjoyed reading and sharing our story, I was utterly exhausted from putting keystrokes and pictures together as I told the stories of Caeli and Chastity – and sometimes, my own related posts. Living was too much fun as we found some semblance of normalcy and as our toddler has begun making friends of her own organic way, her story has become one of a typical two-year-old. For the Saline County residents who haven’t found time or the effort to joining us for a play date, you and your little ones are missing out on a good friendship and occasionally, better barbecue (There’s my shameless plug for Dub Shack BBQ)!

I’ve privately told some people I stopped adding to the Dad Chronicles way back on Father’s Day. Today is the real epilogue.
My daddy says thank you for reading my story 

Some thirty-one months ago, our journey through prematurity began with an unexpected bang at home; whether some of you believe in the power of prayer and positive thinking or not, thank you for linking spiritual arms with the three of us, our doctors and nurses, the receptionists, specialists, social workers, our coworkers, and anyone who could make a difference toward the outcome you’ve read and/or heard about. Through the scariest months of my life not knowing if Caeli Elise would live or die, God has reminded me time and time again that our only child is destined to be great in a world that is beyond okay with accepting the status quo of being good. Trust me when I say we appreciate everything from meals, multiple boxes of clothes and toys, the nursery which Little Miss Sunshine is a direct beneficiary of when she stays awake during morning worship, those gas and restaurant cards, and the rare date night [to Wal-Mart, mind you] where the most romantic thing happening is pushing a grocery cart across the store to replenish Pull-Ups, wipes, milk, and fruit without having to stop and readjust a carrying shoulder every few aisles.
Some little boy is going to hate my daddy when I begin to date

November 17 is Prematurity Awareness Day for those who decided to crash the party a little early – class, educational or religious background, financial standing, political affiliation, parental upbringing, race – none of that really matters as our babies are going to show up when they are ready. We also honor the angels who returned to eternity before they had a chance to see what the zoo outside of their incubators and cribs is all about due to varying complications not limited to brain bleeds, overworked hearts, rejected donor’s blood, hyperthermia, etc.



 A reminder to parents entering the preemie experience: You have the right to say no at any point. Don’t let that little-bitty word be a burden regarding how to care for your own child. Caeli has been through some rough ailments, poked, and prodded more than the average toddler yet she’s still our superhero. Is she spoiled? Yes, I’ll admit to giving her more leeway than I should have at times.

 Will she have another sibling? Lord knows, but I do not. You’ll have to stay tuned.



Look at the rewards of working hard: when Little Miss Sunshine sweeps the carport, she gets to park her Bimmer in it.





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