Oh Say Can You See

It's possible to see the "ideal" of America by standing on certain of its "mountaintops."

Why is this important?

Because America's creativity -- as expressed through its individual citizens -- is jammed up by the imbalanced relationship between African Americans and European Americans. This imbalance was set when they met and is part of the nation's continuing past.

As a country, we've been able to get by with intermittent spurts of creativity, much of it coming from our European-American side, which has had access to more of its cultural tools. Such tools are essential to creativity and development.

This "mountaintop" view of America's ideal that I'm talking about allows us to envision the foundation upon which African Americans and European Americans can bring balance to their relationship. And while both sides of this social equation would reflect growth and development, the flow of creativity from the dammed-up African-American side would be mind-boggling.

I know that my argument needs a lot more amplification. So check out these "mountaintops" and I'll get back with you on a follow-up.

MOUNTAINTOPS

"I have a dream" speech
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
August 28, 1963

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends — so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today..."


Inaugural Address of
President John F. Kennedy
Jan. 20, 1961

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."



Gettysburg Address,
President Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

"We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us."


U.S. Constitution (1787)
Article I, Section. 2.

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Terra of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."


Thomas Jefferson
Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.


John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher. Locke's book "Two Treatises of Government" (1690) strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

Locke believed that people by nature had certain rights and duties. These rights included liberty, life, and ownership of property. By liberty, Locke meant political equality. The task of any state was to protect people's rights. States inconvenience people in various ways. Therefore, the justification for a state's existence had to be found in its ability to protect human rights better than individuals could on their own. Locke declared that if a government did not adequately protect the rights of its citizens, they had the right to find other rulers.

'You Are Not Alone'

The sounds coming from the bandstand in Handy Park just across from my Beale St. office are so familiar to me after three years that I often tune them out. This afternoon, my ears were primed for receptivity because the park had come alive after a winter respite.

I recognized the lead voices running through selections of blues and R&B. Then I heard something that made me look out the window. It was different voice, a much younger voice, a Michael Jackson-sounding voice. I mean the Michael of the early years.

My view is such that I could only see half of the performer. So, I took a break and walked over to the park. The “voice” was through by then, counting money collected in a “Tip the band” bucket.

The “voice” had ventured to the park with an equally small friend, who was riding a bicycle. As they exited, newly earned fans stopped the “voice.” They hugged him and had him sing into their phone to someone on the other end that they were determined had to hear the “voice.” He obliged.

I later encountered the “voice” further up Beale St. This time he was on the bike. “Was that you singing in the park,” I asked. “Yes,” he said, nodding.

I gave him my “tip” – enough for him and his companion. “What’s your name,” I asked. “Kevione,” he said.

Kevione is 9 years old. And the song he was singing in the park? “Michael Jackson. ‘You are not alone,’” he said.

Back in my office, I did a Google search and I found the words I first heard Kevione sing. Check out these opening lyrics:

“You Are Not Alone”

Another day has gone
I’m still all alone
How could this be
You’re not here with me
You never said goodbye
Someone tell me why
Did you have to go
And leave my world so cold

My morning with Ben Franklin

For me to play a bigger part in the completing of a more perfect union in this country, I need a more complete understanding of its history. At least that's what came to my mind this morning.

I woke up at 5 a.m., 45 minutes ahead of my alarm. I decided to go in search of Benjamin Franklin, and I found him right where we last talked -- in the pages of "First American."

We picked up our conversation with Franklin about to make his second trip to England. It's the middle of the 18th Century and the Colonials -- with Franklin's evident hand -- have taken the position that the colonies must have a political structure that allows them to work in concert for the common good. The "good" at this point namely is to ward off danger, particularly from the French-"Indian" collaboration.

The Colonials still are loyal British subjects and Franklin actually travels to England to get the official support of the homeland.

I decided to review a few pages before picking up from my book-marked spot. Two passages jumped out at me, maybe because I have been immersed in guiding the Tri-State Defender's African-American History Month Section.

In the first, Franklin is having dinner with Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Morris and one of Morris' associates. Morris remarks that he rather likes the thought pattern of Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote." Panza is offered a government and responds by asking that it be a government of Africans because he could sell them as slaves if he could not agree with them.

Morris' associate asks Franklin why he stays on the side of the Quakers. "Had you not better sell them?"

Franklin responded, "The Governor has not yet blacked them enough." H. W. Brands -- author of "First American" -- recounts Franklin's later amplification that the governor had labored "hard to blacken the (Pennsylvania) Assembly (of which Franklin was a part) in all his messages, but they wiped off his colouring as fast as he laid it on, and placed it in return thick upon his own face."

Several pages later, there is this sentence: The Franklin party -- consisting of Franklin, William (his son), and two slaves: Peter and King -- arrived in London in late July 1757."

I started to wonder about Peter and King and longed to hear their overlapping stories.

Franklin's view of slavery evolved, and to understand the end point, I have to know the beginning and middle. And to understand America and where we are, I have to understand Franklin. That's a large part of why I am reading this book and having this conversation with him.

To be continued...

In the beginning was the word...

It is important to get children to talk; keep working to get them to talk; slaves do not talk.

The structure of unity and the 'Grammar of Freedom'

I am convinced that the desire to be part of a unified whole is natural. In the social sense, however, unity does not just happen. It has to be structured.

Now, we are living out the disunity of slavery. We have to regroup.

The center point for regrouping is the American Creed penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. President Abraham Lincoln glimpsed the essential nature of the creed on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg in 1863. President John F. Kennedy spoke to the absolute need for personal responsibility with the creed in his inaugural address in 1961. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked the nation to come present tense with the creed during his "I Have a Dream Speech" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

My bridge to this line of thought was/is Dr. Nkosi K. M. Ajanaku, ESQ., Chief Researcher/Founder of the Future America Basic Research Institute. He packaged the creed, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy and King into usable history through something he calls the new science of Humaculture - the science of raising babies according to their natural human capacities.

Humaculture exposes the slave communication system that perpetuates slavery. In it's place Humaculture roots a new Grammar of Freedom that is marked, in part, by the absence of the black-white racial designations that lock us into dysfunctional thought patterns.

This 'program' is being interrupted...

I was 30 years old before I started to get a grip on the fact that my desire to rid the nation of crime, poverty and racism had gotten me no further than dealing with surface social issues. I didn’t have a handle on “basic research.”

Basic research tells you who and what a thing is in its original design. And in the context of the new Humaculture science, basic research tells you who a baby is, what the capacity of the baby is at birth, what happened to the baby socially, and how the baby can make adjustments to align with its capacity.

I had a conversation recently with Dr. Nkosi K.M. Ajanaku, Esq. He is the chief basic researcher for the Future America Basic Research Institute, which he founded in the early 1970’s. In 1985, he got me started on looking at myself through basic research. Now, 25 years later, I’m listening to him with fresh ears as he shares his objectivity about how he sees me and my “possibilities.”

I’ve agreed to a series of 20-minute conversations. The ground rules are that we just talk “facts.” It’s not about me doing anything at this point. I’m making what I got out of those exchanges public, thinking that what I received in response to my decision to get some objectivity about myself might be helpful to others interested in examining their own “possibilities.”

My first session was Saturday, Jan. 30. Here’s Part 1 of what I got:

• African-American boys had to be suppressed in the early parts of the 17th century. There was no other way we could have the system (of slavery) unless you suppressed the boys; because they would naturally challenge things.

• African men decided to go with the “master” and leave their position and memory of how they functioned in Africa to protect the women and children. The males were the “gates” and everybody had to readjust.

• For the boys, the image of man/men in Africa was taken away and replaced with the image of the person in charge – European man/men. Special schools evolved for this. They were for girls too, but especially for boys.

• The new mold of man/men set in and became institutionalized. Over a period of time, boys never saw a model in the neighborhood of man/men.

• The good thing is that this changeover was no more than taking on a new program. It didn’t take away the natural capacity to have an image rooted in who African people are. It still hasn’t evolved to that, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t.

• We haven’t evolved away from our natural capacity to think. We’ve just got a bad program.

A Tale of Discovery...

On the coffee table in my living room I keep copies of the National Geographic magazine lovingly passed on to me by an associate who knows of my fondness for well-turned phrases and provocative subjects.

The December 2009 cover asks the question, “Are We Alone?” The subtitle reads: “SEARCHING THE HEAVENS FOR ANOTHER EARTH.”

The author – Timothy Ferris – is described as a stargazing veteran with a California observatory. Astronomers, he said, have identified 370-plus “exoplanets,” which are worlds orbiting stars other than our own. Eleven of these have been photographed; the rest have been picked up by something called “spectroscopic Doppler technique.”

Writes Ferris:
“No planets quite like our own have yet been found, presumably because they’re inconspicuous. To see a planet as small and dim as ours amid the glare of its star is like trying to see a firefly in a fireworks display; to detect its gravitational influence on the star is like listening for a cricket in a tornado.”

This weekend, I thumbed through the article again. Afterwards, I immediately picked up my copy of the “Urantia” – which I have read twice – and randomly opened it. Here is the last verse on the page I turned to:

“Your planet is a member of an enormous cosmos; you belong to a well-nigh infinite family of worlds, but your sphere is just as precisely administered and just as lovingly fostered as if it were the only inhabited world in all existence.”

I think I hear the theme music from the “Twi-light Zone.”