WASHINGTON (AP) this article was taken from Huffpost speaking to the state of African-Americans and Latinos saying they are losing economic ground when compared with whites in the areas of employment and income as the United States pulls itself out of the Great Recession, the latest State of Black America report from the National Urban League says.
The annual report, called “One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild America,” noted that the underemployment rate for African-American workers was 20.5 percent, compared with 18.4 percent for Hispanic workers and 11.8 percent for white workers. Underemployment is defined as those who are jobless or working part-time jobs but desiring full-time work.
The report also said African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed. The unemployment rate for blacks was 12 percent in February, compared with 5.8 percent for whites.
“Many Americans are being left behind, and that includes African-Americans and Latinos who are being disproportionately left behind by the job creation that we see,” National Urban League President Marc Morial said.
Despite the dismal numbers, an analysis by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found African-Americans significantly more optimistic about their future standard of living than whites, regardless of income level, education or partisanship. Overall, 71 percent of blacks surveyed in the 2012 General Social Survey agreed that they have a good chance of improving their standard of living, outpacing the share among whites by 25 percentage points.
The survey found high optimism even among blacks who say racism is a cause for economic inequality.
Such findings illustrate “a level of optimism in the African-American community and it’s important to lift that up,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which released similar findings this week in separate research.
The National Urban League is pushing for several economic measures, including an increase in the minimum wage, an issue being debated in Congress. Democrats backed by President Barack Obama want to force election-year votes on gradually increasing today’s minimum to $10.10 by 2016, an effort that seems likely to fail in Congress. Republicans generally oppose the proposal, saying it would cost too many jobs.
“More must be done in post-recession America to try to help people and help communities close these gaps,” Morial said.
The National Urban League derives its numbers from an “equality index” that is based on nationally collected data from federal agencies including the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With full equality with whites in economics, health, education, social justice and civic engagement set at 100 percent, the National Urban League said this year’s equality index for blacks stands at 71.2 percent, a slight improvement over last year’s index of 71.0 percent. However, the economic portion of the index dropped from 56.3 percent to 55.5 percent.
The equality index for Hispanics improved to 75.8 percent, compared with 74.6 percent last year, while the Hispanic economics index declined from 60.8 percent to 60.6 percent.
The report for the first time ranked large American cities from most equal to least equal when it comes to income equality and unemployment equality.
Memphis, Tenn., ranked the most equal for Hispanics when it came to unemployment equality, because in that city the Latino unemployment rate was only 3.8 percent, compared with a 6.5 percent unemployment rate for whites. For blacks, the Augusta-Richmond County, Ga., metropolitan area was most equal, with a 13.3 percent unemployment rate for blacks and an 8.5 percent unemployment rate for whites.
When it came to income, the most equal city for blacks was Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., where the median black household income was $44,572, while the median white household brought in $57,252. For Hispanics, Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla., was most equal, with median Hispanic income of $39,434 and median white income of $44,014.
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Let me offer a few thoughts concerning the current political discourse revolving around the health care bill. I wonder, how can the conservatives claim to be Christian and love God who they cannot see, but cannot love the people who they work for and can see?
The Affordable Health Act is something that all moral people of other nations provide their citizens with the ability to afford medical treatment when they are sick. We know that we are being poisoned by the food we eat, air we breathe and probably everything else we encounter in our environment that many think is by design; it allows the cartels to profit. However, we have a great president who has won the Nobel Peace Prize and have accomplished something that no administration has done since the idea of health care reform was first introduced over a hundred years ago.
I’ve watched the outrageous antics displayed during town hall meetings where the opponents of something as morally correct as helping the sick be able to afford the cost of staying alive – “act a fool”. Many of these folks are Republicans, and it’s safe to assume they call themselves compassionate conservatives or Christian Conservatives. Yet, they display such outrage and bigotry over an issue that would greatly benefit the lives so many human beings.
These same folks are all for bringing democracy to countries around the world to care about those people, but they apparently are not willing to accept it here unless it is financially beneficial to them. At a town hall event, a news report covering the issue asked someone attending the rally; what are your concerns? She said, “We want our country back”. As if the country was overthrown. The elderly woman went on to say “she wanted to restore the country back to what the founding fathers wanted in the Constitution”.
I looked at her wondering if she was aware that the Constitution was signed in 1787 by all white men excluding everybody but them. The founding fathers she referred to lived in a time when they owned human beings as chattel and women had no rights whatsoever. Nonetheless, she was correct in that the Constitution affords us the right to free speech no matter how ridiculous it might be. I suppose this is the hypocrisy of democracy.
In her rage, she also said she does not want the government in her life making medical decisions for her. Hmmm – but it is ok when it’s the insurance company’s and HMO’s. The woman claims “Obama wants the government to kill old people, socialize medicine, and take away our Medicare”. The lady who looked to be in her seventies and was wearing a t-shirt that said support the troops obviously did not understand that both entities are government systems providing medical services that are socialized. I’ll bet receives and takes advantage of Social Security.
The most disrespectful was a sign that had the president looking like Hitler, arguably the worst man to every live. This might just be the reason for the all the Nazi remarks that could very well be a codeword for N- — (n word), just like they throw around words like communist or socialist, when referring to our president. Let’s be clear, the real issue is the face of what America looks like; a black President, Department of Justice head – black, a Latin Supreme Court Justice the new faces of ultimate power that are no longer all white men.
I don’t have to go back thirty or forty years because these people are the same ones we saw last summer attending rallies held by President Obama’s campaign opponent. However, I am old enough to remember the Jim Crow era when bigotry was a way of life and segregation was the law of the land. The problem is, I think, most African Americans have forgotten what it was like to be “Colored” and in spite of wanting to forget it, I believe we are witnessing a “Columbus Experience”. By that I mean, we are discovering America or at least that segment of the “Real America” the now former Governor decried during the presidential campaign. Because, the actions of these people are eerily similar to the racism of a time I’d hoped to never see again.
If we were to witness the Second Coming of Jesus, another question would be; what would he say about you? Believing and knowing that his life was lived in service of the least of thee and also died to save us – I wonder if he would react much in the way he did with the thieves in the temple. I am certain he will not be happy! Frankly, if he does those people who pretend to love him will quickly find out that he is not going to be happy. He is not going to be happy! And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
Let me share this ridiculous article I read today in the Huffington Post. Since they don’t have a way of sharing, I want to give them their just due and re-blogging it to my audience. These clowns are saying what they’ve been saying since the first day they hide behind the sheet. And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
The leader of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is tired of “a few rogue Klansmen” ruining the group’s reputation, and argues that the group is a non-violent Christian organization.
“We don’t hate people because of their race, I mean, we’re a Christian organization,” Frank Ancona, the group’s Imperial Wizard, told Virginia’s NBC 12 on Thursday. “Because of the acts of a few rogue Klansmen, all Klansmen are supposed to be murderers, and wanting to lynch black people, and we’re supposed to be terrorists. That’s a complete falsehood.”
Ancona’s group has come under fire from residents of Chesterfield County, Va., about 20 miles south of Richmond, for distributing KKK recruitment fliers in people’s yards since January.
“We picked ours up out of our driveway and threw it in the trash,” Sarah Peachee told NBC 12. “We weren’t interested in even reading about it.”
Ancona defended the strategy, however, citing a boom in KKK membership across the country since 2008.
“In the last six years that I’ve been president of this organization I’ve seen the numbers probably triple,” Ancona told NBC 12. “The funny thing is the same neighborhoods where you’re saying there are people who don’t want the flier are neighborhoods where our members live, and neighborhoods where people are sympathetic to our cause and are glad to hear from us.”
Although Ancona insisted that the KKK is not a hate group, he added that “We just want to keep our race the white race.”
“We want to stay white,” Ancona said. “It’s not a hateful thing to want to maintain white supremacy.”
Similar activity by the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was reported in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, in December, after promotional fliers were found in several driveways throughout the town.
“You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake!” the fliers said, according to the Chicago Tribune.
I have lived long enough to have witnessed a lot of history and there always seems to be one constant – “Nothing is as it seems”. As a child I can remember was watching terrorist [the KKK] marching through the rural area where I lived carrying crosses.
I have also seen those strains of thinking espoused by the John Birch Society, the so-called religious right, compassionate conservatives, and other right-wing groups during the segregated days of 1950s and 60s. Now there is a new repackaged conservatism that is a diverse movement with many philosophical threads and tensions who call themselves the Tea Party.
In my view, the rise of the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a throwback to the old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since Roosevelt as unconstitutional, to include many civil rights initiatives. The reason, I believe, is because, from their view, the government became socially conscience and began to address the needs of the elderly, the poor, and the least of thee. This element of society typically perceives these issues as dangerous threats to freedom and to the well-educated elitists that support “American values” or as they say “Real Americans”.
Let me be a critic for a moment. These compassionate folks tend to show their compassion, oftentimes, in support of big-business with their public rhetoric intended for their own self-serving agendas. For example, compare government today to recent history, i.e. the Bush years. This is amazing precisely because it underscored how far this element is to the extreme as it relates to mainstream America. When faced with a choice between supporting a large the horrors of Bush and Obama the reality is as stark as black and white.
A group called Tea Party Patriots that describes itself as “a community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!” Tea Party Nation says it is “a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers.” My question is to them; have they read the original Constitution? These Founding Fathers were really terrorists, and these same men were slave owners. They wrote Negroes were 3/5th a man, and denied women all rights. Is this what they want to go back too?
What’s remarkable is the extent to which the movement has displaced the religious-right as the dominant voice of conservative militancy. The religious conservatives have not disappeared. But these issues have been overshadowed by the broader anti-government themes pushed by the New Old Right, and the “compassionate conservatism” that inspires parts of the Christian political movement has no place in the right’s current order of battle.
This seems un-American to me, dangerous, and frankly just a resurrection of an America that even they have forgotten the horror of it. Let me digress, this is the place that invented racism through its apartheid like policies, so I guess that is their American way. And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
Under the pdf headline “Marissa Alexander to her husband: “I’ve got something for your ass,” the email, sent out by Corey spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard, said Corey wanted the legislators to have the information “should you be questioned about this North Florida case.”
Alexander, 33, is out on bond while awaiting a new trial on charges of firing a gun at her estranged husband and his two children. She was previously convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 20 years in prison, but that conviction was thrown out on appeal.
The email includes a three page pdf entitled “The truth about the Alexander case” that appears to be similar to a news release the State Attorney’s Office sent out last year.
The pdf points out that Alexander was arrested again for hitting Rico Gray, her estranged husband, months after she fired a shot at him. It also argues that Alexander was in the wrong when she fired at Gray, and was not in fear for her life as Alexander has alleged.
Attorney Bruce Zimet, who represents Alexander, said the facts of this situation are in dispute, and it’s wrong to say the state attorney’s version of what happened is “the truth.”
“We were certainly surprised and disappointed when we saw it,” Zimet said. “We don’t think it’s appropriate or factually accurate.”
The email was sent to thirteen state Sens. John Thrasher, Audrey Gibson, Rob Bradley and Aaron Bean and state Reps. Janet Adkins, Daniel Davis, Reggie Fullwood, Travis Hutson, Mia Jones, Charles McBurney, Lake Ray, Travis Cummings and Charles Van Zant.
All represent portions of Northeast Florida.
Gibson, a Democrat whose district includes portions of Duval County, said she was unhappy with the email.
“It was absolutely horrible, especially the mugshots,” Gibson said, referring to two separate mugshots of Alexander that were part of the email.
Other legislators could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Gibson said she doesn’t understand why Corey’s office sent this email to her and the other legislators in a case that’s still pending, but assumes it is because of the “warning shot” bill, Gibson said.
The Legislature is considering a bill, inspired by Alexander, that would expand the Stand Your Ground law to grant immunity from prosecution to people who fire warning shots when they have a credible reason to believe their lives are in danger. Corey’s office has opposed that legislation.
Prosecutors have also disagreed with Alexander’s contention that she fired a warning shot, claiming the shot she fired hit the wall and not the ceiling. Lawyers for Alexander filed a new Stand Your Ground motion last week saying she was in fear for her life when she fired the shot.
A previous Stand Your Ground claim was rejected in 2011.
Zimet said in his Stand Your Ground motion that he intends to introduce new evidence showing Gray’s history of abuse against Alexander and other women. He will also argue that Gray’s two underage children testified falsely at the first Stand Your Ground hearing because they were afraid of their father.
I wrote a piece yesterday about the latest black face to evolves as, in my view, insane. I was simply shocked by some of the African American views of the reported and video statements made by this guy. One said, “why are you [meaning me] attach this man because he thinks differently?” Let me be clear that my article was only regurgitating what was said, which was Obama was turning America into “Nazi Germany”. Actually, I think any sane person would have to view this as insane. Ok, I digress!!!
Every so often some fool of color is found by the oppressor who is, frankly offensive, to wave the flag for their agenda. In fact, these people are a disgrace to all people of color. We know there have been many overtime and in most cases they cloaked themselves in the guise of a Reverend. The list is long misguided include the likes of Ward Connelly, Allen West, Allen Keys, Herman Cain, Clearance Thomas, and unfortunately the latest Ben Carson.
Not long ago this man Jesse Lee Peterson who is president and founder of The Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), which is an American religious nonprofit organization dedicated to a conservative agenda. He is a Tea Party darling, which means he is a black man who’s sold his sold to the devil, which means – misguided. He has hosted a cable TV program and a syndicated radio talk show.
I had not heard of him and don’t usually pay much attention to folks of his ilk but after listening to him I was simply floored and embarrassed. Listening to him spew his venom had absolutely nothing to do with God or a ministry of any kind. But then the KKK burns crosses suggesting that their bigotry has something to do with God’s grace. It could be that his ministry is little more than a cult rather than a church. He gives credence to the term a sheep in wolves clothing.
I am going to be direct and to the point. For a black man in his middle sixties to have known segregation and racism to say he thanks “God and white people” for slavery. Adding, if it weren’t for the slave trade, blacks might have never made it to the promise land and described slave ships as akin to “being on a crowded airplane”. This is beyond insanity!!!
Another statement made is as troubling. He says women should not be allowed to vote:
“Women cannot handle power. It’s not in them to handle power in the right way. […] I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote. We should’ve never turned this over to women. […] It was a big mistake. […] And these women are voting in the wrong people. They’re voting in people who are evil who agrees[sic] with them who’re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction. And this probably was the reason they didn’t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman. They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.”
Peterson once established an annual “National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson” event that was held on a street corner outside his offices in Los Angeles, which received no public attention outside of conservative media. On September 21, 2005, Peterson penned a column for WorldNetDaily, in which he suggested the majority of the African American people stranded in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina were “welfare-pampered”, “lazy” and “immoral”. Peterson also criticized New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin for blaming President George W. Bush for his lack of response to the crisis, stating that “responsibility to perform legally and practically fell first on the Mayor of New Orleans.
On February 28, 2006, as a member of a student panel discussion at the UC Irvine on a Muslim cartoon controversy, Peterson described Islam as an “evil religion”, and stated extremist Muslims “hate us [America] because we are a Christian nation and we support Israel”.
In January 2010, Peterson issued a statement calling for the resignation of Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, saying “Michael Steele is a weak leader and he needs to resign or be fired. We need someone who’s not afraid to boldly promote strong conservative Republican ideas. The only reason Steele is still RNC Chair is because he’s black and the party is terrified of the implications of firing him.”
He has claimed, “Barack Obama hates white people, especially white men” and “Barack Obama is Jeremiah Wright Jr. He is the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus! He embodies the aspirations of every left-wing black group that wants to tear down this country and take power away from the “oppressive” white man. He’s not an obvious race hustler like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson; but Obama is a smooth pathological liar with a wicked heart”. WOW!!!
I can’t conjure any speech that would allow me to share my opinion of such people, because my mother taught me that if you can’t say anything good about someone – say nothing at all and saying nothing here speaks volumes.
I won’t go as far as Brother Malcolm and call him a “House N-Word” but he does remind me of my Uncle whose name is “Tom”. Now, we have a new addition to the long list. What a shame! And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
I once taught a college course where “The Mis-Education of the Negro” was the required class text. It was an amazing experience because I realized that the message remains relevant today. This great work was originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, known as the father of BLACK HISTORY MONTH. I feel this book should be mandatory reading for all African America’s – young and old.
As the class read the assigned chapters and we discussed them I was struck by the fact that we have not understood the powerful message contained within its pages. The thesis of Dr. Woodson’s book is that Negro’s of his day were being culturally indoctrinated, rather than taught, in American schools or not taking advantage of education period. This conditioning, he claims, causes African Americans to become dependent and to seek out inferior places in the greater society of which they are a part. This assertion is clearly evident nearly eighty-years later.
He challenged his readers to become empowered by doing for themselves, regardless of what they were taught: “History shows that it does not matter who is in power… those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning.”
Today with all the advantages concerning educational opportunities, business exposure, and social networking we are in the best position to succeed than at any time in our history. So the question is “why are we not networking and doing business with each other?” Every other ethnic community takes advantage these options to strengthen and empower themselves – while robbing our communities in the process. We will let anybody setup shop in our communities and take our money.
My point is: we must learn to do business with each other in order to gain wealth by keeping the money in our community. Some say; we spend TRILLION’S annually, and nearly all of it leaves our community within 15 minutes. Let me remind you that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. We can change the world but first we must change ourselves.
Here is a quote from the “The Mis-Education of the Negro”:
“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”
To the many who have read my blog know that I believe education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair. So I say it’s time to know where you came from to know where you’re going, if we are ever going to get there. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…
Some say America lost its innocence that fateful day in November 1963 in Dallas, Texas when the shocking news of the assassination of President Kennedy. One thing for sure there has been no shortage of conspiracies, theories, or doubt as to what actually happened on that fateful afternoon. Sherry merges modern CSI knowledge to examine the JFK Assassination in her new book – Enemy of the Truth: Myths, Forensics, and the Kennedy Assassination.
The Kennedy assassination is a particularly timely topic since November 2013 will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the shooting death of the 35th President of the United States. While the most studied murder investigation of the 21st century, it remains plagued by questions and a variety of theories. However, applying modern forensic investigative techniques to this high profile homicide can reveal new information—some of which is startling.
Sherry Fiester has applied current forensic disciplines to eight different aspects of the assassination providing scientific answers to some of the Kennedy assassination’s most puzzling questions. Fiester details how today’s trajectory techniques used to reconstruct shootings when applied to the assassination prove the shooters location for the fatal head shot eliminates both the sixth floor sniper’s lair and the Grassy Knoll. Fiester also addresses the abbreviated forward movement of Kennedy’s head followed by the familiar “back and to the left” movement observed in the Zapruder film, debunking the idea of two almost simultaneous gun shots to the head.
Fiester is a court certified expert in Louisiana State Federal Court and 30 Judicial Districts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida in Crime Scene Investigation, Crime Scene Reconstruction and Blood Spatter Analysis and Reconstruction. She is published and recognized as an instructor at state and national levels. In 1995, Fiester began to apply her expertise to the Kennedy assassination. Later that year she spoke at the 1995 Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) Conference in Washington, DC. Fiester was the featured speaker at the Dealey Plaza Echo Kennedy Assassination Conference in the United Kingdom in 1996.
A regular presenter at JFK Lancer November in Dallas Conferences since 1996, she is a recipient of the prestigious JFK Lancer-Mary Ferrell New Pioneer Award given in recognition of her contribution of new evidence and advancing the study of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Now retired from police work, Fiester is utilizing various forensic fields to promote a better understanding of the Kennedy assassination. The results have been a variety of speaking presentations and more recently, completion of the book, “Enemy of Truth: Myths, Forensics, and the JFK Assassination.”
Why I wrote the book: I believe the historical narrative of our country concerning the Kennedy assassination is distorted with biased and unverified information. Many people still believe in a single shooter, regardless of the scientific facts that prove otherwise. Sadly, the majority of the conclusions and purported facts concerning the death of President Kennedy are anecdotal, unrealistic, and incorrect statements kept alive by those who would prefer fabrications that promote sensationalism as opposed to the quiet reality of fact. I want to fight the unsubstantiated allegations that continue to rear their head, summoning the naive to join forces in a “truth is stranger than fiction” campaign.
Although imaginative and sometimes thought provoking, these theories rely upon the suspension of common sense and fly in the face of forensic research. I want to correct those misconceptions. Polls have consistently shown that the American public’s confidence in their government has steadily declined since the Warren Report was issued in 1964, and now over 80% of the people refuse to believe Kennedy was killed by a lone, deranged gunman.
The American people are convinced they have never been told the truth about the tragedy of November 22, 1963 and many will not stop in their search for the truth concerning his death and the subsequent cover-up. This book is part of my fight to bring the truth to light and restore accuracy to our history.
Most reasonable people realized that the Tea Party is just a reincarnation of the Confederacy and to that extent they have taken over the GOP, who are called conservatives, which in essence the same thing. Most of us know it was the Dixiecrats, who were the folks fought to keep slavery alive, morphed into the GOP. Some of this ilk has said, the Civil War was an invasion on the south because they who interpreted the Constitution correctly, which is why the succeeded.
Today these people express the same ideology as the confederates of old. Yesterday, on the Daily Show went to North Carolina to look at the effects of new voting laws where they interviewed Don Yelton who shared a candid admission that some say was breathtaking – I say true rather than depressing. This guy Yelton is on the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee who vigorously defended the new voting laws with racist ramblings.
The Daily Show comedian/reporter Aasif Mandvi asked him about the effects of the new laws, Mr. Yelton was forthcoming with the lack of a need for the restrictions.
“Right here in Buncombe County there’s always one of two that voted twice a year,” Yelton says. “That’s one or two out of sixty thousand” voters, he admitted.
When Mandvi pressed Yelton about the real reason for the suppressive changes to voting in the state, the GOP leader came clean.
“The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt,”Yelton admitted.
And who is going to be affected by the law? Yelton, who had already admitted to being considered a bigot, was forthcoming with examples.
“If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks who want the government to give them everything, so be it.”
Don Yelton’s open admissions are both disturbing and telling as it, like Romney’s 47 percent comment, clearly illuminate the kind of denial of bigotry that exists within the hearts of these people. Of course, as is usually done for damage control the bigot has resigned but he leaves all of his like minded buddies to continue the insurgency. And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
Over the past week, all the buzz on social media has been about the famed gospel singer and Pastor Marvin Winans, who wouldn’t bless the baby of an unwed mother in front of the congregation of what he professes to be a church. You know they say you can tell when a church has fallen into apostasy.
Before I go further, did Jesus not bless the sick, cripple, crazy, murderous, lame, prostitutes and the adulterous. I’ll answer that! It would be a yes. In fact, it is written in all of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John). So the question then becomes who made this guy God? I am going to take the position that the church is a place for a sinner to be redeemed. Isn’t that the whole foundation of the CHRISTIAN principle – salvation?
LAW AND ORDER THEME!
As you know every good Christian believes they have the power to damn you to hell. I guess the comment of damnation will come my way. So I will start by saying Negro Please! Let me first say “there is a lot of money in the name Jesus and most Christians I know use the word God to impress rather than practice their faith. My spiritual belief is that one finds God in your heart and heaven in your soul.
There are historical facts to consider when it comes to the literal interpretation of Christianity or for that matter the Bible. First, there was no word “GOD” in any African language before the appearance of Europeans! Second, not one single word was written about Jesus while he walked the earth. Last point here: only two writers of the New Testament knew Jesus and they are not sure of that. Let alone, the first book was written about a hundred years after his death and the rest about two hundred years later.
Now, this is where the plot thickens; it was the Roman oppressors who fashioned what we now know as Christianity, ordered by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 AD, at the Conference of Nasia. It was then left to the Bishops and Catholics to administer God’s law according to the will of the earthly powers. From that time, the good book has had twenty-eight versions with the latest by the diabolical King James, who made it clear that this is his versions of God’s word.
The point here is this: DO NOT take every word literally or it from every fool before you! You know as well as I know that most so-called Christians have never read the Bible and will listen to anyone who stands in the pulpit with a robe and a collar turned backwards. This guy, as well as all others, are human and interpret the good book as they see fit to suit his or her agenda. Let’s begin to open our minds and make better choices as to the worldly people we “worship”.
There are too many crooks, fakes, and dare I say “pimps in the pulpit” and you know who they are: the Catholic priest, the Eddie Wrongs, the Dollar Man, the preachers of LA and others. It is time to put your faith in that what is unseen; instead of the men/women you do see. I don’t think Jesus is going to be happy about these misrepresentations of his teaching.
Lastly, it is interesting when I think about the little boy from Perfecting Church, who was denied a blessing – his name is reported to be Joshua. “You know Jesus’ name was really Joshua”. Joshua is Jesus’ namesake, and Jesus was born to a mother just like this mother. Therefore, for those who chastise the woman instead of the hypocrite. I say to that point, he or she who is without sin cast the first stone.
To be a Christian is simple; it is to live your life in the manner in which Christ lived! And that’s my thought provoking perspective…
President of JT Wills Consulting, Speaker, Author, Writer, Blogger, Professor/Teacher, Radio Host, member and past officer of several Business, Community, College Board’s, a Volunteer, and friend to many. Regardless of the worldly titles given, I prefer to be called a man.
It’s been said that there are no words that have not been spoken and no stories that have never been told but there are some that you cannot forget! “Legacy – A New Season” is the perfect complement to that statement.
It is the sequel and the continuation of “Just a Season” and a stand-alone story rich in history on a subject rarely explained to children of this generation concerning the African American struggle.
Just a Season is a luminous story into the life of a man who, in the midst of pain and loss, journeys back in time to reexamine all the important people, circumstances, and intellectual fervor that contributed to the richness of his life...
“Knowledge is power and power produces an understanding that education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair.” — John T. Wills
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WASHINGTON (AP) this article was taken from Huffpost speaking to the state of African-Americans and Latinos saying they are losing economic ground when compared with whites in the areas of employment and income as the United States pulls itself out of the Great Recession, the latest State of Black America report from the National Urban League says.
Thought Provoking Perspectives
Thought Provoking Perspectives 