Haunting Conversations

Conversations from times past
Replay in my mind—
Things I wish I'd said
Angrily spilling from my lips...
People I want to go back and shame
Blend with present people of less offense.
I try to let it go—
It's in the past and everyone has moved on;
But you never understood my anger
Expressed or unexpressed,
No conclusion was made, no treaty forged.
So I replay it in my mind—
Was I wrong? Was it you?
Why were things never resolved?
And this unfinished conversation lingers
Long after I've forgiven.

Photocredit: Unsplash.com/Christina

Fruit of the Spirit: Meekness (feat. DJ)

Season 1 Episode 34

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5 KJV

What does it mean to be meek? It’s a word we pass around but rarely define or dive into. Matthew 5:5 tells us the meek will inherit the earth, which means we should probably know what it means. DJ joined me as we tried to make sense of this Fruit of the Spirit and apply it to life.

About DJ

DJ and I met in the young adult ministry at our church. He participates in our Sabbath school and Bible study discussions, and like most of us, is trying to grow in his relationship with Christ.

Important Verses

• Numbers 12:3
• Psalm 37:11
• Zephaniah 2:3
• Matthew 11:29
• Matthew 12:19-20
• Matthew 21:4
• Galatians 6:1
• Ephesians 4:1-3
• Philippians 2:3
• 1 Timothy 6:11
• Titus 3:2
• James 1:21
• James 3:13
• James 4:6
• 1 Peter 2:23
• 1 Peter 3:15

References and Footnotes

1. I apologize for my air conditioner being so loud in the background. It was too hot to turn it off!
2. Philippians 2:3

Fruit of the Spirit: Patience feat. Derrell (Part 2)

You mean to tell me I can’t just wake up more patient? Patience is like a six pack, you have to go to the gym, sweat a little, feel gross, and wake up in pain a few times before you can claim the honor. So maybe it takes two episodes to talk about, too.

Season 1 Episode 21

¹⁰Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
¹¹Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
¹²Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
¹³Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
¹⁴Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Romans 12:10-14 CSB

Time
00:01:29	Ree:	Hey guys. Welcome back to the PSALMS to God podcast. Once again I have my friend Derrell here, and we're talking about patience. So this is the second part of the last episode. If you have not already listen to the first episode on patience, you will definitely want to check it out. I try not to do 2 part episodes where you actually need to listen to them in a certain order, but this time I think it's best if you listen to the first episode first and this one second, because there is some continuance of conversation and we probably will be referencing things from the previous episode since it was actually one conversation. But without further ado this is the rest of Darrell and I’s conversation about patience and what we've experienced concerning patience in life.
00:02:23	R:	So Derrell, let's continue our conversation on patience. Looking back, how do you feel about those injuries?
00:02:33	D:	Like just that fast... Like I said, the second I tore my knee, I thought I was done. I thought that was it. And I was like “Man, I spent my money. I invested all this time. I spent all this time away from my friends and family.” And to be chasing this one thing, and it’s possibly over. ‘Cause I thought I had torn my ACL, MCL, PCL.[1] Come to find out a meniscus is actually a very commonly torn ligament. It’s something runners tear all the time. Sometimes they can be back 2 weeks, 6 weeks. ‘Cause I had to have the surgery, my whole recovery period was 6 months, but I was up on my feet and walking after 2 weeks of surgery—from surgery. Actually I was walking a week after surgery. In 2 weeks they cleared me to go back to the gym and start working out again. Light stuff, but I could start working out again.
00:03:22	R:	It's better than nothing.
00:03:24	D:	So, when I say like patience is something that taught me. I had to have patience. But patience isn’t just about... Because some people think I need to be patient about—patient in traffic you know? Like sometimes there’s gonna be traffic, you have to have patience. Because one thing people say, “I really got to get to such and such.” Well, what if this traffic is keeping you from getting into a collision up the road? How often do people think about that? Or how about when you leave the house but you say, “Aw man, my left my bag at the house. Now I have to turn around.” Well, take the time. Be patient. Go back and get it, because what if the reason why you left that, and you had to go back was a drunk driver was going to be caught speeding through a red light you were going to be at and that could’ve hit you? You know. So, when you think about things like that, like sometimes patience is for the virtue, and sometimes people want the now, now, now. When you gotta let things—just take your time.
00:04:34	D:	My dream didn’t just come out of nowhere. I actually thought about it. I sat down. I looked at my finances. I looked at how am I going to get to and from. It took me working from job to job to get to a job that will allow me where I can work from 6-2 and then have the rest of the afternoon off to go wrestle. A lot of jobs don’t allow people to work from 6 to 2pm&mash;6am to 2pm—
00:05:01	R:	You right![2]
00:05:02	D:	My sister tells me all the time that’s really unheard of. But I have a great job, that's flexible, that allows me to do what I need to do for wrestling. So in the grand scheme of things, all the pieces fell into place at the right time. At God’s timing—He has perfect timing.—
00:05:23	R:	Yes! God is great at that.
00:05:25	D:	😂Yeah, like that whole saying of “I’m not going to be there when you want me, but I’ll be there right on time.” And when I tell you, every place along this journey this journey of wrestling, He’s been right on time. It's been an amazing ride thus far and like my wrestling career has just taken off as far as being on TV, but I’ve just been truly amazed at how I had dreamed of being one of those guy that I saw on TV and here I am tomorrow—April 27th—I'm going to be on Ring of Hour TV.
00:06:02	R:	Yeah!
00:06:04	D:	😂 So it’s just, patience. I learned a lot about patience. And you learn a lot about patience in even with wrestling. When you first start you’re low man on the totem pole[3] and you have to put in—in the business it’s called paying your dues.
00:06:24	R:	Yeah, that's true everywhere. You got to pay your dues everywhere.
00:02:28	D:	For those people who don’t understand what paying dues means, if you understand Greek life then you understand having to be humble and having to be a neophyte at some point in time, and paying your dues. So, or like if you’re on like a varsity team, like in high school. Or I don’t know, you were in the band, so I'm pretty sure freshmen had to go get the water.
00:06:55	R:	Yeah, rookie status.
00:06:58	D:	Yeah, so everybody understands paying your dues. So in wrestling, paying your dues means showing up early to unload the truck, build the ring, set out chairs, do security during the show. Once the show’s over, break down everything, pack up the truck, go back to wherever the ring is stored, unload the ring, and do it all again next weekend—and have a smile on your face when you’re doing it.
00:07:54	R:	Exactly.
00:07:27	D:	So, and once again, a lot of guys don't make it because they don’t have the patience to deal with that. They just want to come, throw me in the ring and I want to look great. And it’s not that simple. You have to pay your dues; that’s just a part of patience. I had a lot of patience. I did it with a smile on my face. I actually was head of security while I was paying my dues. So I don't know how I got put in that position. It was just, I didn't think the way it was being run was being run correctly, so I stepped up and when I did it there were no more issues. So I don't know if
00:08:07	R:	Hey, that means you did something right!
00:08:09	D:	Well, you know, my pastor always says if something bothers you, then that’s your calling and you go do it.
00:08:15	R:	This is true.
00:08:16	D:	So at that time I was like, this isn’t being done right, so let me take it. But yeah, that’s my testimony on patience and where it’s gotten me thus far.
00:08:29	R:	Yeah! Thank you for sharing that. You know I struggle.
00:08:32	D:	No problem.
00:08:33	R:	I struggle with patience. One of the things I realized... So before I do each of my episodes, particularly on the Fruit of the Spirit, I look up like all the references to that Fruit of the Spirit in the Bible, and I'd like to tell y’all that I read every single one of them but that would be a bald-faced lie.
00:08:56	D+R:	😂
00:08:58	R:	But, I read as many as I can. And when I looked up the stuff on patience. You know, of course a lot of the stuff that you were talking, about about how going through tribulations and having endurance is part of building character and part of how God gets us where we need to be. It also aligned our goals with His timing. But one of the ideas crazy things that I realized is that as a looking at the Fruit of the Spirit, I felt like patience—whooo! Excuse me!—I felt like patience was the backbone. Like one of the things I've been noticing is that they’re, I don’t want to say interchangeable, but in order to have one of them you need the other. So for instance, like in order to love somebody, you have to be patient with them. But in order to be patient with them you have to love them. And so, like almost all of the Fruit of the Spirit, you can go through and see this correlation. Like in order to have joy you have to have patience; in order to have patience you kind of have to have joy, ‘cause you have to be content at the state that you're in in the moment.
00:10:16	R:	And I realized that—I know at least speaking for myself, probably for other people—the reason we struggle with each of these Fruits of the Spirit, particularly probably self-control, is because we don't have patience. And when I thought about it like that you know it it made me realize how important it is for me to slow down. And you know, one of the things you mentioned about like pride. We were talking about like what you thought you wanted. I think that ties into patience, as well. Like it's our pride that keeps us from wanting to wait, ‘cause we just want it now, and it's like a selfish instinct.
00:11:06	R:	And I I just thought it was interesting, because when I look at things... Like when I first started, I was making a list of things that I was good at being patient with and things I was bad at being patient with. And then I started to realize that there were still correlations between the two, and that it's really how quickly do I lose my patience. You know, you already know I am a person, I am guilty of road rage.
00:11:44	D:	😂
00:11:47	R:	It's sad, because it's not really about getting to the place. It's not usually like oh they're driving too slow and I want to get there, or anything like that. For me it's usually about the principle of the matter. So I almost always get road rage when I feel like somebody is in the wrong, but they're coming for me. So you have the person that cuts you off in traffic and then they honk at you, and I'm like “Why are you honking at me? You cut me off!” and then all of a sudden I'm like super angry. And you know I think when you said you know that your pastor said when you see something wrong or something bothers you, that’s you know you're calling. I feel like I just have this passion for like the principle of the thing. That's one of the like the number one things that like when I see people doing something that's clearly wrong, and then like being boastful about it, that it drives me up the wall.
00:12:53	D+R:	😂
00:12:55	R:	And I often wonder. Like I feel like sometimes we…Like there's the lack of patience, but like you shared your whole journey for becoming a wrestler. And I feel like sometimes we just want to take the easy way out, and so we see things that bother us, and we think like “Oh I should do XYZ. This is what it would take to fix it.” And then we’re like “Oh, that's a lot! I don't know if I can do that!” And so we try to stay back. But I think that that also makes us even more impatient, if that makes any sense. ‘Cause I feel like, because we're not fulfilling the purpose that God is calling us to, there's like this wrestling inside of us that shortens our patience even more.
00:13:57	D:	Right. Wow that’s awesome. That’s an interesting way to put that.
00:14:04	R:	Yeah. That's what I've been coming to the realization in the past couple of weeks.
00:14:09	D:	To me, I just think if everybody took the time to actually practice what they preach about patience, the world might be a little better. But like, this is like a big thing. So I attend a mega church, and every week when we get to the benediction, not even before we get to benediction. When Pastor gets to altar call, those who are already saved and already baptized or who just don’t want to be in church any more, get up and start leaving. 1 - because they don't want to get caught up in all the traffic. It’s a mega church and of course, once church let’s out, everybody trying to get out. And so traffic gets backed up trying to get out the Church. But, however, altar call is a time in which people are making the decision on whether or not to accept Christ into their life as their Lord and Savior, or they want to be baptized, or join the church. And the thing that he says all the time is, “At one point in time, you were the person who walked up here”—
00:15:32	R:	Yeah.
00:15:33	D:	The —“and when you did there was somebody in your row clapping and saying “Amen,” and encouraging you to come along. So how dare you get up and leave at this... Which is probably one of the most important times of this person’s life.
00:15:49	R:	Yeah can you imagine?
00:15:50	D:	And you’re just leaving! Huh?
00:15:52	R:	I was going to say, can you imagine if like somebody was like “Oh I want to get baptized,” and Peter’s like “OK, come, let's go get baptized,” and Paul's like, “I got places to be,” and he just bounced?
00:16:04	D:	😂 Right, Paul’s said I gotta go move my camel, cause I don’t have time to be out here with y’all no more.
00:16:11	D+R:	😂
00:16:16	D:	So when, stuff like that, like why can't we just be patient and wait? Like we're all, we all have the same goal. We all want to leave, but It’s not like the parking lot’s not going to get empty at some point in time. So stuff like that. It’s like we put our mindset of priorities in the wrong order. Why not stay and support our brothers and sisters who are trying to make that decision within themselves. When yet they’re being distracted, ‘cause you know, you got to pick up your purse, pick up your jacket, get your Bible. If you got kids, you got to get all their stuff together. You’re making a bunch of noise trying to go one way, but you trying to listen to Pastor make his plea for your soul. 😂
00:17:00	D:	That’s just one aspect. When you’re on your job, how many times have you seen a coworker, you know, they not acting themselves or they might be in tears. But you see them and you keep walking. I don't want to get involved. Well, what would happen if you took the time to just say, “Hey I don’t know what you’re going through, but I'm going to pray for you.” You know, and you might not want to get in their business and say “what’s wrong?” ‘Cause you could open up a whole ‘nother door. Just say I’m going to pray for you. You know, and you never know how that might change somebody's lives, but because we're all so, “I ain't got time to deal with that today.” You might have left that coworker sitting there. And then, but you don’t know what your prayer, what you just saying “I'll pray for you,” or “let's pray, so that you can get through this,” or that “God gives you the strength to get through this.” You know, you never know what that would do to somebody, or what that could do for somebody. And I just think that we're all in a rush, and we’re also focus on me, me, me, me, that sometimes God wants you to take time, be patient, and care for somebody else.
00:18:15	R:	Absolutely. I've definitely been trying to strengthen my patience. One of the things I think for me... So one of the things that I think, I don't remember who told me this, but somebody once told me that when you ask God for something, sometimes you got to go through a little pain to get to it.
0018:40	D:	Oh man!
00:18:41	R:	I know you go to the gym, so you're very aware of the saying “No pain, no gain.”
00:18:47	D:	Correct
00:18:48	R:	And so we were talking about patience and they were telling me, you know, like if you're asking God for patience, He got to give you something to give you patience. Like you don't just wake up one day and suddenly you’re patient. Like you got to go through the struggle to develop the patience.
00:19:04	D:	Right. It’s taught. It’s not understood right away.
00:19:13	R:
Photocredit: Unsplash.com/ABruno Nascimento

And you know for me, my journey through grad school was a lot like your journey to wrestling—minus the physical injuries, but I feel like I got some like mental and emotional injuries going through grad school. And you know that was like one aspect of my life where I think I really developed patience in terms of like education, learning, my career... I learned a tremendous respect for people who are homeless, people who are struggling, because of the nature of my research. But I didn't necessarily get patience with interacting with people. Being a computer scientist— Y’all, funny story! I also have an undergraduate degree in Mathematical Sciences, that I also do not use.[4]

00:20:07	D+R:	😂
00:20:13	R:	Sad day for Mathematical Science. But it's a great tool; it was a building block. But you know in computer science, you don’t necessarily learn or cultivate patience with people. And so one of the things that I felt called to do recently was to help with the youth at the church. People were calling for help with the youth, and I know what it means to have people of varying ages with their hands into the youth. So there's there's something to be said about having someone that's closer to your age that's been through what you've been through but has like a little bit of wisdom but isn't like your parents’ age, that can kind of like talk to you and do things. And so I agreed to be a mentor. How I went from being a mentor to being a teacher. I don't know how that happened, but somehow that happened.
00:21:21	R:	And you know when I first said “OK,” I was like “I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I have the patience. I don't know if I have the skill-set. Like I don't really know about this.” But the more I go into it, the more I realize late “Oh Shiree, you got to go through it and succeed.” One, you have to succeed because these are the children. These are the youth. These are the young minds that are coming in to Christ, and if you screw this up. you done screwed up big-time. Like you can't screw up somebody else's salvation. And then I was like God is calling you to do this, so you got to learn patience. And like in order to learn it, you will have to go through it.
00:22:08	R:	So, you know, it's a thing. But it's also a blessing, because I found that, you know, just like in your story. There are valleys, but after every valley, God will give you a mountain. And you know, sometimes I'll be sitting in that class like I don't... I don't know what's going on. I don't know how to take control of this class. I don't know if I should like go zero to a hundred, or if I should go back all the way off. I don't know how to handle the situation, but then like one of the students will do something or say something or they'll take control of class, and I'm just like mystified by how things fall together and how things happen. And I'm just like “Wow. So God is here and He's handling the situation.” All I really gotta do is show up and trust Him. And that's that's the definition of patience just show up and trust God.
00:23:07	D:	Absolutely.
00:23:08	R:	😂
00:23:10	D:	At this point, absolutely. That’s all you have to live by. Just show up and trust God. I don’t know, you know. I’m thankful for where I am. It was a complete surprise, for me, but I know that God is working and He has a plan. So at this point, I just literally show up and trust God with all that I do.
00:23:36	D:	Absolutely. So thank you so much for coming. I know your time is precious! Thank you for coming on the show and sharing all of his knowledge about wis—ah, wisdom. I was trying to say wisdom and knowledge at the same time, got all kind of tongue-tied. But yeah thank you for sharing knowledge and wisdom about patience and for sharing your testimony.
00:24:07	D:	No thank you for having me.
00:24:10	R:	Of course! Before I let you go, do you have any final words to share with the listeners?
00:24:21	D:	The thing God wants you to experience, He’'ll put you through a test to see whether you pass it. And whether you pass it or not, you will be tested with that thing time and time again. So if the thing you need to learn is patience, He might test you today, and if you pass it today OK cool. But then tomorrow, will you pass that test again? You know, that's kind of His way of like building upon your foundation, your level of patience. You now people will say “I’ve reached my highest level of patience today.” Alright, well, how can we get another level added to your patience?
00:25:07	D:	No matter what it is—whether you’re dealing with anger, whether you’re dealing with trying to forgive people—you're going through something now, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to go through something even worse later on, but you’re going through this now. Trying to work on forgiving people because you’re going to need this foundation of forgiveness down the road. And that just applies to anything that He's trying to teach you. So if it's patience, patience isn't just going to be applied to your life right now. It's being taught to you right now, because a foundation needs to be built. That way, later on down the road, you can fall back on what you already learned to help you through that experience.
00:25:56	R:	I feel that.
00:25:59	D:	I hope that helps.
00:26:01	R:	Yeah. I love it. Thank you
00:26:04	D:	You are welcome.
00:26:07	R:	Alright listeners, thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that will make you think about patience. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And I will see you guys in the next episode. Bye

Temper, Temper

Sometimes people try your last nerve! A friend once sent me 2 Timothy 2:24-26 to help me put my anger and lack of patience in perspective; it did wonders for me, so I want to pass that on to you.

Season 1 Episode B

Forgiveness

I used to think I was good at forgiveness. One of the things that comforted me about my short temper was that at least once I've said what I need to say, I'm done with the situation. Over the years, I've had to work on (re: allow God to fix) what it is I say in these situations, but I've always been able to let go afterward. Near the beginning of the year, I realized that there were actually 3 grudges I held. All 3 are cases in which I bit my tongue and never expressed how I felt. This year, I've been working on letting go of these particular grudges; I've already succeeded with 1.

What the Bible Says About Forgiveness

One of the pastors at the church I attend has been doing a series of sermons on forgiveness, which has been extremely helpful in tackling this issue. We usually think of forgiveness as something we extend after someone apologizes for hurting us, but actually, forgiveness can and should be offered before the person apologizes. After all, Jesus died for our sins before many of us where even born.

Forgiveness is not Optional

Forgiveness is like exercise, we need to stretch and
do it constantly to stay in shape.
Photocredit: ShutterStock / Lee Torrens

One of the sermons the pastor did was entitled "If You're Not Forgiving, You're Not Forgiven." Think about it, if I can't forgive you for something minor, how am I to expect God to forgive me? Furthermore, if I think you are unworthy of forgiveness, is that not a judgment?

There are numerous places in the Bible where we are commanded to forgive (Luke 17:3-4, Matthew 18:21-22, Ephesians 4:31-32, and more). It seems almost unreasonable that Jesus tells the disciples we should forgive someone 70 times 7. In the context of the passage, it's safe to say that Jesus wasn't giving us a literal number to go by, but simply expressing that forgiveness is endless. One of the things that makes the Lord our God is that He is a forgiving God. This is a hard request to truly follow, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can learn to truly forgive the way God does.

²¹Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? ²²Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.Matthew 18:21-22 KJV

In our discussions about forgiveness at church, we always come back to the issue of setting ourselves up for failure. For instance, an abusive husband may apologize after every offense, but that doesn't mean the woman should stay and continue to let him abuse her. It's important for us to recognize that forgiveness is not about keeping our relationship with the person exactly the same. It means not harboring negative feelings about the person and not wishing harm on the person.

My Grudges

I decided that to help me loose these grudges, I needed to confess and refocus. Perhaps you've experienced similar situations and are also in search of a way to forgive, or may be you have pointers. Nonetheless, I plan to share with you a little about each grudge I've held in this post. In a follow up post I plan to detail how a shift in focus is helping me let go of the grudges and forgive the people who angered me.

An Institution

The shortest grudge I've been holding is actually directed toward an institution, not an individual person. The combined actions (or inactions) of people who represent this institution have caused me to develop an extreme distaste for the institution. Despite the institution being located midway between where my parents live and where I currently live, graduating from the institution, and having numerous friends who attended the institution later and still attend the institution or live in the area, I have never been back—not even for my own graduation. In the years right after I left, any time someone mentioned the institution I was quick to explain all the horrors I experienced there. I left angry, but I never resolved that anger.

Less than a month ago, a coworker who also attended that university noticed that I have tons of paraphernalia from the other two universities I attended but not a single item from this university. When he questioned it, I didn't go into a tirade, but I could feel in my heart that none of that animosity had dispersed. I may not have unleashed the detailed explanation of why I refused to buy anything with their logo, but it was all bubbling beneath the surface.

I vented pretty much the whole situation to a person who actually is working to actively change the culture of the institution. When that person confided in me that I wasn't crazy and that it was a known problem, it may have subsided my anger a little, but it didn't pacify me. Perhaps it's because most of the people who created those negative experiences are still there. Perhaps it's because I've never seen the changes this person has made. I don't know.

What I do know, is that the Bible is very specific about forgiveness of individuals. Although my grudge may not be with the particular people who caused my distress, they are intrinsically connected to the situation. I cannot explain why I'm angry with the institution without reflecting on them. I know that negativity is not something God would want me to hang on to. That's not to say that I should deck my car out in stickers supporting this institution or go from house to house singing their praise. However, I should be able to discuss the university without feeling anger, disgust, and animosity. So, in the follow up post, I'm going to reflect on the good that happened while I was there and the blessings that came from the experience.

The "Racist"

In high school, there was a guy in my class that said the worst things. If microaggressions had been a word I knew back then, that's how I would have described his speech. He seemed to hate blacks, Hispanics, poor people, non-protestants, etc. He always had something rude to say, but I learned quickly that he enjoyed the argument and unfortunately, he was like Trump; you couldn't actually have a logical conversation with him. So, in a combination of pettiness and mere desire to simply get out with as much sanity as possible, I purposefully refused to debate him. I wouldn't take the bait or respond to his foolishness because I knew it ate him up that he couldn't express more of his ideas.

At the beginning of the year, he commented on my Facebook post with some foolishness in reference to "the flag protests"—sigh, it's not a protest of the flag people!—and I lost it. Although the comment I left in response wasn't particularly scathing, it was direct, straight to the point, and a little too harsh. To my surprise, he was confused. After the confrontation, I realized that I shouldn't have responded quite the way I did and sent him a Facebook message both explaining my anger and apologizing for the way I expressed it. Again, to my surprise, he actually apologized for his behavior in high school, explaining that he had grown a lot since then and though he couldn't remember specific details, I was right about his behavior then. He still doesn't understand #BlackLivesMatter or the fact that protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem is not a protest of the country or the flag, but I walked away from the conversation with a neutral opinion about him. (It probably helped to find out that he did not vote for Donald Trump.)

This situation was actually a major player in my decision to work on letting go of the few grudges I do still have.

The Church

The last and oldest grudge I've held, once again, is not toward a specific person, but a group of people. That grudge was to the church I grew up in. If you've read many of my posts, you already know the story behind that.

This is the weirdest one because when I stopped to really think about it, I really love the people at that church. It just goes to show how a few dark moments can overshadow a lifetime of good. Luckily, that also made it easy to move past those moments that really tainted my view of that church. I still don't agree with everything they do or some of the doctrines they teach, but those are not personal disputes. When I sat and thought about the good that was accomplished by this group of people, the community that was created, and the values they instilled in me, I quickly realized I was focused on the wrong things. These realizations will also be in the follow up post.

Focusing on the wrong thing really might be the root of most anger and grudges.

Helping Others Let Go

God gives us plenty of examples of forgiveness in action and He explicitly commands us to follow His lead in forgiving our fellow humans. Forgiveness is a true act of love, and until we understand love, we can never offer true forgiveness. I'm really working to cultivate this area in my life. One of the things I realized is that who you surround yourself with also makes a big difference in how well you are able to forgive. Our friends and family are usually the first people we vent to in times of distress. Because they love us, they often pick up our grudges as their own. We dislike people because they hurt our friends, and we get angry about the situations too. So, when the topic comes up, we enable and promote their grudge. For instance, if you bring up the institution I mentioned earlier to my parents, they too will become angry and have negative things to say about the people/institution. This doesn't help me to move forward.

As friends and family, we have to remind ourselves when we are getting upset on behalf of other people, and we have to remind ourselves that our reactions should be Spirit-filled. By all means, we should advise our friends to get out of dangerous situations, but we should not feed into their anger nor should would bring up the past knowing that it will provoke anger. Our responsibility as their brother or sister in Christ and as their friend, is to help them heal.

Ecclesiastes 7: Wise Sayings

Ecclesiastes 7 continues Solomon's profound look at the purpose of life. Solomon ponders the difference between birth and death, emotions such as sadness, anger, and happiness, how to prolong our lives, and more.

Introduction

Ecclesiastes 7 continues Solomon's profound look at the purpose of life. Solomon ponders the difference between birth and death, emotions such as sadness, anger, and happiness, how to prolong our lives, and more.
Top

Death Versus Birth

We celebrate birth and mourn death, but Solomon tells us death is more important than birth. Later, he says the end is better than the beginning, so why don't we see it that way?

When we are born, we don't know anything and we can't do anything for ourselves or for those around us. We are but a burden on those around us. As we grow older, we become more helpful. We are able to contribute to society and achieve purpose. It is when we die that our legacy is sealed. In many cases, death is actually a call to action.

In 1955, a young boy named Emmett Till was brutally murdered. The subsequent image of his dead body sparked outrage around the country and was a catalyst for the Civil Rights' Movement.^[1] Similarly, when Jesus died on the cross (and was resurrected), He became the catalyst for our redemption.

Further, as long as we are alive, there is more we can do. Once we die, or come to our end, nothing else can be done.

Sadness Versus Laughter

Would you rather laugh or cry? I'm pretty sure you said laugh, which means you were also confused when you read Ecclesiastes 7:3. Solomon tells us sorrow is better than laughter. Solomon's advice is actually contrary to what we teach today. Today, we teach people to seek happiness and cast out negativity. While I think we should expel negativity from our lives, I understand what Solomon is saying.

In life, we learn from misfortune. Whether it is through the death of a loved one, a loss of love, sickness or injury, we turn these experiences in to wisdom. Most of the lessons I've learned in life were accompanied by sorrow or fear, not laughter. The time for laughter is after the sorrow has passed or before it has hit. Solomon is reminding us that if our whole life is nothing but laughter, we will become fools because we never learn wisdom.

Anger

Consistant with the rest of the Bible, Solomon once again tells us to resist anger. Solomon reminds us that dwelling on anger is a trait found among fools, not the wise.

Live Longer

When I was in high school, I watched a movie called Raise Your Voice which shook loose something I knew, but hadn't really thought about. The key event in the movie (which happens in the beginning of the movie so this isn't a spoiler), is that when two kids sneak out to attend a concert, one is killed in a car accident. Although good things eventually happen for the surviving character, it took me back to the 5th commandment. God tells us if we obey or parents we will be granted longer lives. Our parents speak from experience; just like God's rules are meant to keep us safe, so are our parents' rules. What's more, when we break those rules, we often put ourselves in danger to hid our actions.

Solomon echoes this sentiment in Ecclesiastes 7 by telling us that the key to living longer is being prudent. When we make wise decisions, we lower our risk of fatality, increasing the chance that we will die of old age. For instance, if we drink heavily, we increase our chances of health problems such as a liver failure. We increase our chances of being involved in altercations (drunk people tend to have short fuses since their inhibitions are lowered). We increase our chances of dying in a car accident if we drink and drive. Solomon is telling us to think through our actions and make wise decisions.

Holier Than Thou

For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.Ecclesiastes 7:20 KJV

No one likes a person who has a "holier than thou" attitude. For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it refers to people who think they are more righteous than those around them. Generally, they tend to be judgmental, pointing fingers at everyone else's sins but ignoring their own. Solomon reminds us not to be like that. No one is just; everyone sins.

This verse doesn't just remind us not to judge, but it reminds us to forgive. We all make mistakes and if we are following God, eventually we seek repentance. Just as God forgives us, we should forgive our fellow man—Jesus tells us to forgive our neighbor 490 times ()! We cannot expect those around us to be perfect. We also need to forgive ourselves. In the beginning of our walk with Christ, we will stumble most as we make changes in our life; during this time we can be discouraged if we are too hard on ourselves. Remember, we all mess up at one point in our life! The important thing is that we learn from our sins, repent, and ask God to help us overcome temptation.

Finding A Woman

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.Ecclesiastes 7:26 KJV

Verse 26 is one of the more interesting verses in the chapter; at least to me. When I first read it, I wasn't exactly sure what it meant. Solomon starts the section (in Ecclesiastes 7:23) stating the difficulty of finding wisdom and he concludes with the difficulty of finding a woman.

A woman in the Bible symbolizes the church (Jeremiah 6:2). While the fact that a man can be found but a woman cannot lends to notion that this woman is literal, it also seems as though it could be talking about a church. Based on verse 26, this woman or church is trouble; at her core, there are only traps, which tells us she is full of gimmicks and trickery. This could easily apply to a real woman or a church built on false doctrine. Her hands as bands implies she restrains those who come to her. The Hebrew word translated to bands esur, which means bonds or chains.^[2]

Whether this references a literal woman or church, believers will be able to identify these traps and escape them while sinners will play right into her hand.

Unnecessary Inventions

Photocredit: Unsplash.com/Alex Knight

Ecclesiastes 7:29 brings up a point that is more relevant today than it has been in all the years since it was written: man's desire to invent unnecessary things. We pride ourselves on our ability to create new technology, but often our creations are more harmful than helpful (like guns or weapons of mass destruction). God gave us everything we need, but we're always trying to invent something new. Whether its seemingly harmless, like adding to God's word (i.e., false religion) or physical objects, these invents lead us astray.

References

1. "The Death of Emmett Till". History; visited September 30, 2017
2. "612. esur". Bible Hub; visited October 12, 2017

Broken History

Dreams are the privilege
        of those who sleep—
Sound and restful moments,
But I don't sleep.
When I close my eyes,
Light gives way to darkness
        and in the darkness I hear
The slow and deliberate cracking
        like glass shattering
The echo of clanking and tinging
As the pieces of my heart fall to the floor
I need the Light to find all the pieces
The heat of its fire to melt them back together.
But I never get it back the way it was,
There's always a blemish
        a missing piece that just wouldn't fit.
And the fire...
Remnant flames that won't go away—
Can I channel the flames into emotion—
Make moves, start a revolution?
Or will I close my eyes and dream.

Photocredit: Unsplash.com/Toa Heftiba

Humanity

Wake up to the sound of hope dying,
Outrage on every side—
We're not sleeping easy tonight...
We been fighting all our existence for change

FreeImages.com/Michael Bisgaard

But each change seems to bring us back to the same
This way of life—does it make us insane?
Is everything thing we do, all in vain?
We live in a world that has this perfected,
Where 2 million votes can't get you elected,
But 1 vote can ensure you're neglected
And the issue keeps just getting deflected...
Everyone talkin' 'bout they don't see color
Pretending they got love for one another,
But got us back in the '50s before Technicolor.
Duckin' and hidin', they avoiding the question
Fueling the fire, fanning the flames of aggression
It's just a sophisticated form of oppression—
Protest or stay silent, it doesn't heal the depression.
It's a constant cycle of hurt and of pain
But people are ok with everything staying the same,
So I gave up on humans being humane.

References

1. "Mistrial declared in Michael Slager murder trial". The Week. December 5, 2016

Why it Matters: A Discourse on Why We Won't "Shut Up" About Being Black in America

I was having a normal conversation about how working for pennies inspired me to do better in school, and in this I was offering the proof of the pudding in the story of how I tried to flunk myself out of honors my freshman year of high school, but was often the highest scorer on assignments all the years after my job experience. That's how it started. In explaining why I wanted out of honors, I said I hated my high school. So, the person asked for clarification, and I gave it. Some of why I hated my high school was resentment—I wanted to go to the high school everyone else in my family went to—but alot of it was the racial tension and the feeling of being isolated. Which brought about the question "why do you feel isolated from white people?"

Down the Rabbit Hole

As I pointed out to the speaker, that's a broad generalization. I can name several instances where I felt more comfortable and more "at home" with a white person than a black person. The conversation about my high school was talking about a specific group of white people. Further, it wasn't just a racial divide, but an economic divide, as well. So, the person—let's call him John Doe—corrects himself to say that I seem "normal" and he can't see why I would have a problem fitting in with the people in my class. Mind you, he started to use the word assimilate and caught himself, but that didn't stop that ideology from trickling into his philosophy. John might not have said assimilate, but it was obvious he meant assimilate...

Regardless, having a surface conversation with people is not the same as being friends with people or making a connection. Yes, I can have polite conversation with people all day (and I mean that literally, I'm a talker!), but that doesn't mean I feel connected to the people I'm talking to. The conversation John and I had is a prime example of it. While my classmates were hooked on Friends and Seinfeld, I was watching Living Single and Girlfriends. What makes these seemingly minuscule differences isolating is that the mentality of many people is their ideas are what's normal and everyone else is abnormal. The fact that I enjoyed different things was "odd" simply because I didn't like what they liked. Because they had never heard of the shows I watched or the music I listened to, and I didn't like the shows they watched or the music they listened to, there had to be something wrong with me. Which brings us back to the "white is normal" mentality.

"Black People Basically Didn't Exist Before the 1960's"

As I continued to explain the bombardment of white-only history, John repeatedly stated that before the 60's black people were oppressed, so there wasn't anything to teach. Little did he know that he proved my point exactly; we've been brainwashed to think the all black people did before the civil rights movement is be slaves. Yet, Blacks in the North were free; they might not have been treated well but they were free. Compound that with the fact that they don't teach any history about after the 60's, and you have a whole nation of people who think blacks have never done anything. We even think we never did anything! I'll save the ramifications of this kind of teaching for my book...

Instead, I offered the example of Jan Matzeliger, who created a machine to speed up the making of shoes.[1] Of course as a lover of shoes, this would be the first person who came to mind. John responded that this wasn't remarkable, that people like Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Well, you walk around in shoes everyday, don't you? I assure you I spend more time using my shoes than light bulbs (especially if its sunny out!). Further more, you're comparing a man who was denied nothing, inventing something versus a man who lived in a era when it was illegal for blacks to learn how to read! Even under oppression black people were succeeding in the occupations typically ascribed to whites of that era (inventors, writers, senators, etc.). Not the first black man to be a U.S. senator (Hiram Revels), but the second black man to become a U.S. senator, Blanche K. Bruce, was born a slave. What's more, they both became senators in Mississippi, i.e. the deep South.[2][3][4] You have Garrett Morgan, who invented the gas mask and the traffic light—with only a 6th grade education; Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught mathematician and astronomer; Thomas Jennings, who holds a patent for a dry cleaning process; Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who received an M.D. in 1883 (only 20 years after the abolishment of slavery), founded a hospital, and performed the first open heart surgery in 1893.[5][6][7][8] Black people have always contributed to a society that sees them as worthless. By suggesting that these inventions are somehow not worthy of mentioning in a classroom and continually arguing that we didn't do anything "remarkable" before the 60's only follows that same trend.

Black Literature

As we continued the discussion, the talk shifted to written work. During this part of the conversation, John admitted he didn't know who James Baldwin was. I knew he didn't know who Baldwin was, because "before the 60's blacks were oppressed and didn't do anything," despite the fact that Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain was published to critical acclaim in 1953.[9] While we read Poe, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whitman, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, black classics were completely ignored. What about Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Frances Harper?[10][11][12][13] Phillis Wheatley was the first published black female poet, and her works were published in 1773.[14] 1773, folks! That's almost 100 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Jupiter Hammon, a slave born in 1711 is known to have published something in Connecticut in 1760![15] To let John and my English teachers tell it, we weren't doing anything before 1960, though.

John countered my dismay at the lack of black literature in school with shock, because he spent a whole semester doing a play about one book by a black person. Wow, one whole book. From elementary to middle to high through college, you can only mention one book you've read by a black person and you can't even tell me the name of the book or who wrote it? #AllLivesMatter, though, right? I can't even count the number of books I was required to read that were written by and about whites, but I can name at least 10 without straining myself. As if boasting that one book did black literature justice wasn't evident of the disconnect John had, he confirmed it by proudly remembering that the main character's catchphrase was "yes'em." *side-eye* As in, the black way of saying yes ma'am or yes sir? As in, what black people had to say to whites in the south to avoid being lynched... I don't know what he read, but I'm convinced he didn't read legitimate black literature, which is probably why he thinks black people were sitting idly, wallowing in their oppression all that time before the civil rights movement. I need him to at least get on the level of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (or anything by Morrison, really) or Invisible Man by Ellison. I mean, really, there are countless influential black authors...

And the discussion on black literature didn't stop there... When discussing instances where students deliberately read the n-word from a book when then teacher had gone through lengths to blot out the word, John said blotting out the n-word in a book "ruined" it. Did he stop to wonder how many books he read that demeaned white people? Without even thinking I can name at least 4 books we had to read in school that referred to blacks as n*****s (and not just on one page), but even as I think, I can't recall a single book that uses pejorative language to describe whites (and we'll leave the fact that everyone else is just absent all together for another conversation). It's easy to be ok with something when it's not you that's being shamed. It's even easier to be ok with it, when you've never had the whole class turn to stare and view your shame because you were the only person in the room that this shame applied to.

The Concept of Being Black

As the conversation continued down this horrible and deep rabbit hole, so many random topics of discussion came up, among them was the concept of being black. To someone who has no idea what it's like to be a minority, maybe it does seem like we wake up thinking about our "blackness," but that's simply not the case. I didn't define myself as a black person, the white people around me did.

I didn't know I was black until a white person told me. Why do you think a four year old white person child came up to me on the playground and said "you're black and I'm white," as opposed to me walking up to her saying "you're white and I'm black?" You can argue that it's natural for children to be curious about differences, but the fact is no one in my family thought "white" skin vs. "black" skin was something worth noting. None of us ever came home and asked our parents why the white kids at school were white. If this child was simply curious about differences, it was because in her world, "white" was normal and my blackness was abnormal—again with the idea that white is the norm. What's left to wonder, however, is what her parents taught her that she felt it necessary to point it out to me as though it meant something... If this were the only experience I'd ever had related to my "blackness," I would gladly sweep it under the rug as an anomaly, but this experience is what every day life has been as black person. After all, it was only shortly after that that I learned the n-word at a traffic light when the old man in the car next to ours pointed at us and told his grad-daughter (also about 4 or 5 years old), "those are n*****s." It is in rare spaces that I am able to forget that I am what society calls "black."

Loss of Individuality

I shared the follow story with John. With a group of "friends," I played a spinoff game of charades where the object was to guess famous people (real or fictional). Each person put in maybe 6 people, and we took turns drawing a name from a hat (or a bowl, whatever). I put in superheroes like batman, spiderman, and magneto. Someone else decided to put in every rapper they could think of. After the third or fourth rapper came out of the hat, someone said to me "C'mon, you know we don't know these people why'd you put all of these rappers in?" Now you can argue that the inclusion of rappers was new to the game and since it was the first time I played with them, the logical conclusion was that I placed the names in. What you can't excuse is that someone took that opportunity to place those names in the hat. Why didn't the person put those names in before? Furthermore, when I said I didn't put them in, that person never said "hey, I put them in there." Years later, the people in the group remember it as the time I bombarded them with rap artists despite the fact that I told them I didn't do it.

Out of this experience, all John wanted to know was what's so bad about people thinking I listen to rap. It's not about rap. Truthfully, I don't really listen to, but there's nothing inherently wrong with rap. It's about not being allowed to have an identity outside of my blackness. It's about the fact that even when you interact with people frequently, even after two years of hanging out with these people, they still associate "black" stereotypes to me. None of these people bothered to crack their image of what a black person is supposed to be like to realize that I don't know the lyrics to most of the rap songs by the rappers they named, because my iTunes is mostly 90's R&B, Gospel, Jazz, and Classical. The issue isn't what type of music I do or don't listen to, it's about the fact that people don't bother to get to know you for you. This is a primary factor in feeling alienated as a black person in a room full of white people. Yes, I can talk to people and have conversations, but many times those people aren't actually listening to my side of the conversation. They aren't friends, they're acquaintances who pretend to be friends.

Black Hair

As I tried to explain this point further, I mentioned the time someone told me I looked better with straight hair. I didn't bother to mention the time I was walking in the mall and someone told me I was "too pretty to be black" or the infamous line dark skinned girls get: "you're pretty for a dark skinned girl." He wanted to turn it into everything other than what it was. He asked if I would get mad if someone told me I looked nice today, suggesting that implies I didn't look nice the day before. When I pointed out that saying you look nice today is not the same as you look better today, he claimed I was playing with words. Imagine you meet someone for the first time. Perhaps you think they're attractive. Depending on the situation and your personality, you're not necessarily going to walk up and say "hey, you're gorgeous." If you become friends with the person, you're going to see them all the time, their attractiveness will become normal to you, and by the time you're comfortable around them you'll probably forget to mention it or you've subtly hinted at it to the point you don't need to mention it. If something changes, say their hair, their clothes, etc., it's a sudden difference that you are complimenting. It doesn't mean that you prefer that difference to what you previously saw. I have plenty of shirts in my closet that are the same except for the color; I couldn't figure out which one I liked better so I bought both. It's the same concept; I like both, I don't have a preference. When you explicitly say "better" you are stating a preference. He kept trying to come up with other examples, but I shared this example for a reason.

What your preference is about makeup or how I dress is irrelevant; what you tell me about your preference in black hair is historical. The reason black people started to straighten their hair is not because we just thought it looked nice. Our natural hair was seen as unkempt, unprofessional, and later a sign of a revolutionary or black panther (power to Angel Davis #blackfistsalute). There are still occupations that require you to straighten your hair.[23] On top of bowing to conformity (assimilating as he slipped and said early in the conversation), when the Africans were brought from Africa to the U.S., they were stripped of their cultural heritage. They weren't allowed to speak their native tongues, they weren't allowed to practice their cultural habits/customs/etc. One of the things lost was how to care for our hair. Many of us straighten our hair because we don't know how to deal with curly hair. Even for whites with curly hair, this is not something taught in cosmetology classes.[24][25] For some blacks this maybe as simple as passing a flat iron over their hair, but for most of us this means chemically altering our hair. It has been suggested that Black women have a higher instances of fibroids due to the chemical relaxers we put in our hair.[26] At 27, I was told I have 2 fibroids. I haven't relaxed my hair since I was 22, just 5 years prior to this diagnosis. When I did get relaxers, I got the "Just for Me" kiddie version only 3 times a year. Most people relax their hair every 6-8 weeks; that's about twice as often as I did. Relaxers are known, without a doubt, to cause chemical burns and damage the hair.[27]

Jennifer Freeman as Claire Kyle on "My Wife and Kids

The indoctrination that we should alter our natural hair is such that I didn't know I had curly hair until I was in my senior year of high school. I had never seen my hair in its natural state before, and even then it really wasn't my natural state because it was relaxed. I went to several different stylists trying to copy the curly look sported by Jennifer Freeman. Not one of them ever thought to tell me to go natural; every single one of them relaxed my hair then tried to curl it with a curling iron.

I was in graduate school before I realized that I was burning the curls out of my hair. When I stopped, I didn't know if I was going to have the curls I was aiming for (I don't) or if I was going to have a "nappy" fro, but I was resolved to love either. I ended up somewhere in between. My black sisters who've undergone this process (and it's not an easy process, but that's a whole 'nother post) and come out with type 4 hair have often been met with the rudest comments about having "slave" hair or that "natural isn't for everyone," when their hair is just as beautiful as anyone else's. Black hair has never been appreciated or welcome, because black people have never been appreciated or welcome; we've always been considered inferior, this is just a manifestation of that sentiment. On the spectrum of curly hair, the closer you are to a "typical" afro texture, the less acceptance you will find.

When I debuted my unrelaxed hair at home, people thought I'd lost my mind. It's not just white people who've been brainwashed to think we're inferior, we've been brainwashed to believe it! My little cousins wanted to know when I would revert back to my "real" hair, because like me at 7 years old, they had never seen their natural hair. They thought straight hair was normal; again, white equals normal, black equals abnormal. Little black girls (and boys) around the Americas are raised to think their hair isn't good enough because society promotes European standards of beauty. That's not ok, and when you say to me "you look better with straight hair", all you're doing is promoting and reinforcing white supremacy.

The History of Being Black

The root of almost every issue lies in history; it lies in the subconscious programming we receive daily and then exude as though it's "normal" and "ok." John's first reaction was not to acknowledge that at this point in time we should not be experiencing racial discrimination and injustice, but to compare racial discrimination to discrimination of men with long hair. In his attempt to belittle the experience of racial injustice, he didn't even think through the issue enough to realize that people are in complete control of the length of their hair. I'm not saying that it's right to assume a man with long hair is this way or that way, but he knows the stereotypes associated with whatever hairstyle he chooses and he is free to choose to present himself to the world with or without long hair. If at any point he decides that is not the image he wants people to have of him, he can change. I cannot change the color of my skin, nor should I have to. That would be the very definition of white supremacy.

As I explained this, the point still didn't click for John; instead he changed his example to being a short man. Short men are not being seen as threatening and thugs causing people to overreact and shoot them. Just this week an autistic black teenager who was participating in a cross country meet—I repeat he was running in a cross country race, therefore, he had on a cross country uniform—was attacked by a random man who "thought he was going to mug him." This man got out of his car—I don't know about you, but if I think I'm about to be mugged and I'm in my car, my reaction is to lock the door and/or drive off—and pushed the teen to the ground. On top of that, no charges are being brought against the man who admits he pushed the teen to the ground.[16] Just today, a black church in Greenville, Mississippi was not only vandalized with the words "Vote Trump," it was set on fire.[17] Are people out burning down the homes and worship places of short men? White supremacists have been burning black churches, cities, and businesses since the end of slavery; and if you didn't have a building for them to burn, they were satisfied to simply burn you. Two of the most prominent black owned and operated cities of the United States—Rosewood, FL and Greenwood, OK (otherwise known as Black Wallstreet)—were ransacked and destroyed while the inhabitants were massacred by white supremacists.[18][19][20] Do people follow short men around shopping malls assuming they're going to steal? As a short man, when you are out searching for an apartment or in a store do people remark that the area or object you're seeking to purchase is out of your price range without knowing anything about you? The only complaint John cited about the plight of short men was that they are less likely to get matched on online dating websites; guess what, so are black women and men.[21][22] He asserted that he gets talked down to because he's short; guess what, so do I (for being black, female, and looking 17). But, on top of being undesirable and spoken down to, I am subjected to countless consequences that affect my day to day life, simply because I'm Black. I get a whole new, made up identity that casts me as a single mother on welfare listening to rap not knowing who my baby's father is and eating fried chicken, meanwhile there's a group of people, some of whom actually hold positions of power (re: Donald Trump might actually become president), that hates me and/or thinks I'm from an inferior species...

Bucking the Status Quo

John was so content with the status quo, he couldn't grasp the fact that it's not about being PC, it's not about being offended, it's not about changing someone's preference about what type of hair they like. It's about educating people that white does not equal normal. It's about educating people about the history of why we have these preferences. He admitted himself that he had no idea about the history of black hair (yeah, because the education system only teaches you the white side of history). I bet he doesn't know who Madame CJ Walker is either; she was the first black woman in the U.S. to become a millionaire—self-made and before the 1920's.

Instead of understanding the why's of the issue, he conflated fact and opinion. He tried to suggest, going back to his short man issue, that "facts" were that being tall is more attractive. No, popular opinion holds that being tall is more attractive. That doesn't make it true, and that doesn't make it right. He was all about "just dealing with it" but that's exactly how things stay stagnant. White people have been telling blacks to "just deal with it" since they drug us over here. Blacks are slaves that's just how it is, deal with it. Blacks get lynched, just stay in your place and deal with it. Blacks get a subpar education, just deal with it. Blacks are lazy, just deal with it (Donald Trump is reported to have said this dozy).[28] Blacks are criminals, that's why police shoot you, just deal with it.

The ultimate definition of oppression and white supremacy is you telling me to bury my feelings because it makes you uncomfortable. You don't want me to talk about the issues that affect blacks because you don't want to trade in a normalcy that promotes white supremacy. You want me to be quiet, because you don't like hearing that you've lived your whole life unaware. You want me to "just deal with it," because you don't want to admit that America is over it's head in racial problems, that the America you've been taught is so great and so awesome has only taken a tiny step from where it was in the 60's. You don't want to hear that simply refraining from calling me a n***** is not enough. Well, you picked the wrong one.

Photocredit: Bettmann/CORBIS

I will speak out, I will shout, I will argue, I will protest, and I will fight. I'm not going to simply disappear. I am not the slave that simply got up and did her chores hoping not to get whipped; I am the slave that had an "R" seared into my flesh because I wouldn't stop running.[29] I am not the black woman who sucked it up after a long day of work and stood up so that whites could have a seat on the bus; I am Rosa Parks getting arrested because I refused to stand. I am not bowing to conformity to be acceptable for a television audience; I am Angela Davis wearing my not-quite-afro wild and free, I am Viola Davis taking my wig off on prime time TV. I am not the person who gives a talk and glosses over the most influential moments of my life to appease the white audience, I am Nicki Giovanni getting on stage expressing the truth of the experience, I am Michelle Obama telling you I live in a house slaves built. I am Beyoncé singing about afros and negro noses at the Super Bowl. I am Katherine Johnson, a human computer capable of sending people to the moon. I am Ruby Bridges, by myself in a sea of white faces. You can love it or hate it, listen or ignore, but the time has come for you to just deal with it.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.MLK Jr.

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