Volume 4 Issue 12…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… March 30, 2001

Note: The DISH is based on themes from T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution. According to the President's Initiative on Race, "The issues that this book brings to the forefront are important in our efforts to achieve the goals set forth by the President for the Initiative. This work will serve as a solid resource for us as we begin to examine these critical issues." For your copy of T.H.I.N.C., The DISH or to submit comments, contact ICIM, Inc. at (404) 244-6023. The DISH © 2001

by Yohannes Sharriff Smith

Beautiful Black Child,

Fill the world with wonder.

Breathe life into exhausted hopes.

Your pure innocent nature,

not yet hindered by the evils of this world, forever change those you touch.

Help us to honor the love still living in slave quarters.

The blood shed and pride fed to European insecurities.

Whips struck lashes like lightening

across a horizon of shackled African bodies.

Field hands wounded and bleeding

run North for freedom.

Escaping the Klan,

Communing with natives in the swampland.

Recaptured stretched necks

suspend in midair from Southern trees.

Nooses dangled strange fruit burned bare.

Blistered ebony backs frying in the Mississippi sun.

Crisping while picking cotton, crying a soulful moan, as stalks pricked overworked fingertips.

With impunity that Massa bastard raped your Queens forcing father to watch.

All endured 'cause da baby can't go hungry.'

Do not let fear rob you of your gift!

You are special!

Lead the way for the future to follow.

Defy the odds and let your light shine in defiance.

Sheer brilliance blinding the faithless and guiding the believers.

An ever glowing tribute to your people.

Beautiful Black Pearl,

the inhumane condition you have endured for thousands of generations transforms you.

Glory belongs to our ancestor's sacrifice.

Darwin is the witness.

Evolution is ours;

we possess the will to survive.

Beautiful Black Butterfly

Rise as the sun

with your dreams firmly in hand.

Boldly place them amongst the stars,

ever burning spectacles for the world to gaze upon.

Beautiful Black People,

Let our audacious ascension emulate the Nile River.

It began as a few struggling drops.

As time passed,

its surging growth overcame obstacles

defeating whatever lay in its path.

Refusing to allow the world to define it,

our existence instead defines the world.

We are an unstoppable force, shaping the universe.

All lips shall utter these words,

"Black is Beautiful."

Beautiful Black Child, this is my prayer for you.

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro will be the ripe old age of eight years on April 16^th . Asked what he wanted for his birthday, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro replied, "All the cake I can eat, other good stuff and special treats and a date with a mature woman."

by Abyss

It seems like I was given a sentence

Let's take the ghetto for instance

Life without parole

I was looking for a model that rolled

Not a role model

Chasing dreams in a bottle

Trying my luck in Lotto

Picking 6 straight and box

Trying not to be the one laying straight

Six feet deep in a box

Everybody looking for a way out

I was that troubled man like Marvin Gaye

Traumatized daily before I lay.

How many dues would I have to pay

Before I see a better day?

Memories are bittersweet

Moms died my book feels incomplete

I thought I found a lighter side

But on May 1, 1997 my moms had to ride

With Jesus no doubt.

Before she left me

She told me I have nothing to worry about

At that time I didn't understand

But in that short time I had to become a strong man

She raised me against all odds

Live right and put my faith in God

Was the message

It was hard to decipher

Through the tears and stressing

But she knew I would get the lesson

So I will never forget where I came from nor where I'm going

God knows I'm an earth angel my Halo just ain't glowing

Thank you for the tribulation and trials

Through my hardest times

I could see one set of footprints for miles

I hope you can visualize this scene

When you see it

It is then when you know what life means

About Me: Abyss is Derrick Graham, a 30 years old Jacksonville, FL, by way of Detroit MI. native, who currently resides in the metro Atlanta area. His poetry is the epitome of real. He writes from the heart and soul of a man in tune with his inner child. He hits your Mind, Body and Soul in a way that leaves no doubt about his message, which is why his stage name is Abyss. His gets deep. Abyss is cofounder of Live Poets Society L.L.C., an entertainment company with a medley of specialties, which include the spoken word stage production, A Troubled World.

By John Burl Smith

Listening to Dot expressing utter exasperation with the ugly Americans booing Serena Williams at the Newsweek Masters Series Tennis Tournament at Indian Wells California revived emotions from a previous ugly encounter. It was in Middletown, Connecticut at the National Poetry Slam Championship in 1997. A time warp like Pleasantville, being white was a necessary criterion for receiving a competitive score. Rudeness toward out-of-towners and favoritism toward local performers by audiences and judges left no doubt regarding the outcome. Having earned the right to be there, Yohannes' final performance was a statement of pride in his craft and ability to communicate his message. Like a Stealth from the stratosphere, the mad bomber dropped truth like napalm, charring their WASP sensibilities to a crisp with Beautiful Black Child.

Fondly, that moment is remembered as the day Yohannes found his reasons for doing what he does. Serena's family will see Saturday, St. Patrick's Day (3-17-01) as a defining moment, when everything seemed to be slipping away, under the worst of circumstances. No one would have blamed her had she lost. Instead, Serena answered the questions, "Who am I and Why am I here?" As "CutLov" would say about the dirt court in Riverside's "Walnut Grove" and his toughest challenges, "You have to find that place you can go where everything is peaceful and loving."

Watching Serena gather herself, I knew she had zoned out back to those concrete courts of Compton, hitting with Venus at a family get together. Serena's fans understand she will never be everyone's favorite. However, in being ours, she allows us to share her victories and defeats as her family. We relished Papa Williams' pride watching his baby make her statement to the world about who she is and her right to be there! John 2001

Disgruntled feels: For a grandmother, life is more than what you make it. Life is a landfill where anybody's garbage is dumped into it. Think about it!

Disgruntled says: The trend toward more testing is a pretext for social policies based on racist views of human intelligence. It boils down to the most divisive perspective of mankind, much like Dubya's strict construction of the Constitution and his intention to stack America's judicial system with judges who believe Article 1 Section 2 is still the law of the land.

Disgruntled wants to know: Presidential negative jawboning is an extraordinary thing, unprecedented really. But, George W. Bush Jr. needed a $1.6 trillion tax cut for the wealthy. This MBA thinking is what we are conditioned to expect from Bush. Except for The DISH, mainstream media were silent until Bush's negative jawboning started wrecking havoc with Wall Street's numbers. Now, the media are looking for someone to blame other than Bush for the psychology driving the market. Do you need more proof that Dubya is a media creation?

For a number of reasons, the end of Tavis Smiley's contract with Black Entertainment Television (BET), which is owned by Viacom, a white-owned conglomerate, comes as no surprise. First, Smiley, the black host of BET's only serious talk show, oftentimes speaks to black issues. Whenever we speak seriously about American black issues, we become persona non gratia. Those who do speak are cast in a negative light and called racists, radicals or worst to minimize them and belittle whatever they say. Second, American mainstream media dumb down on things black, just look at the homogenized white of American television. Third, Viacom will never give Smiley what he is worth; it is the American way. A black man, Smiley will never get Viacom nor Robert Johnson, the black CEO and founder of BET, to value his contributions using the same yardstick used to measure his white counterparts. The first law of America is, black equals less.

Smiley's relationship with BET ended as expected. With the contract severed, the buzz is support Smiley. BET recently came to Canada, and blacks there are already complaining about the negative stereotypes the cable station pushes in its programming. Personally, Smiley was the only thing BET aired that I watched. Notice the past tense. As of this week, I am boycotting BET. I was never into lewd videos that portray blacks as morally loose. Anyway, it is time black people got serious instead of sexy and silly. BET and Smiley have parted company, now we should show Viacom and BET that we do not appreciate their brand of programming.

On Saturday, March 31, 2001, U.S. Representatives Cynthia McKinney and John Lewis are holding a town hall meeting or congressional hearing in the Ronald McNair High School Auditorium in DeKalb County, Georgia. According to flyers circulated by their congressional offices, citizens are encouraged to attend to learn about the election process from experts, share their experiences and frustrations and help elected officials make sure every vote counts.

Georgia Senators Max Cleland and Zell Miller have been invited to participate, along with other elected officials, civil rights activists and Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox. The meeting is from 10 AM - 1 PM. McNair High School is located at 1804 Bouldercrest Road in South DeKalb County.

Clearly, election reform is an important issue. However, simply focusing on measures to upgrade voting equipment and standardizing the process, etc., do not address the lack of one-person, one-vote democracy which plagued Election 2000. This current push for election reform must focus on securing the equality long denied African Americans. It is the equality for which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died.

We encourage all area residents to attend this meeting, write, email or fax McKinney and Lewis about the need for real election reform to make democracy a reality in America. Tell them it is time to repeal Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution and abolish the Electoral College.

Contact information: Rep. McKinney -Email: cymck@mail.house.gov Phone: 404-377-6900 or FAX: 404-377-6909. Rep. John Lewis -Email: john.lewis@mail.house.gov Phone: 404-659-0116 or FAX: 404-331-0947.

by John Burl Smith

Run Children Run: The Dr. Milton C. Addington Award is presented annually to the best undergraduate in psychology. As an award winner and like most lay people, I believed the term intelligence described one thing, when it actually means something altogether different to professionals. Entering graduate school as a National Science Foundation Fellow, studying memory, learning and cognition with a specialty in fetal alcohol syndrome at Memphis State University in the early 1980s, I became intimately acquainted with the "intelligence scam."

To the uninitiated, intelligence refers to one's mental capacity, which encompasses their ability to assimilate information from the environment and use it to form appropriate responses to some demand. However, this commonsense approach does not satisfy the professional definition of intelligence. They define intelligence as one's score on a test such as the SAT. The confusion is the result of the nature/nurture argument and eugenics.

Aptitude is what most people refer to when they speak of intelligence. Aptitude is the capacity for learning. One's natural ability, talent or general inclination to grasp information needed to survive in a hostile environment, such as the one most blacks find themselves today. The nature/nurture argument refers to the Neanderthal/Homo sapiens gene dominance in humans today.

Neanderthal nature was fixed by limited mental capacities. Their existence was circumscribed by those mental boundaries. Nothing could be done to increase their capacities. Conversely, Homo sapiens, as humans today, had unlimited mental capacities. They nurtured their imaginative manipulation of the environment and increased their mental capacities. Eugenicists and segregationists teach the reverse is true. This outrageous view justified slavery, the 3/5ths Compromise and Plessy v. Ferguson "separate but equal."

Just as Adolf Hitler used Aryan characteristics as the norm to separate Jews, rob them and incinerate their murdered corpses, Americans used whiteness as the norm to segregate slave descendants and deprive them of their human rights of freedom, justice and equality. Intelligence tests are based on white normative judgements about what knowledge individuals should acquire by a certain point in time. By separating blacks from whites educationally and environmentally, blacks were prevented from getting information that whites had ready access. Run Children Run the normative and racist aspect of intelligence tests is the score is used to establish how much of society's benefits one is entitled. John 2001

by Dot

Conscious educators know social conditioning has psychological consequences. As a nation, America undertook extreme measures to prevent slaves and slaves' descendants from learning to read and write. The objective was to maintain them in a state of ignorance about their existence. This historical fact is ignored in the development of current social policies and education programs.

With the current focus on normative testing to end social promotion and to provide accountability measures, there are no programs to reduce the impact of previous social conditioning. In particular, the restraining bolt, which we know exists in black males learning to read, is ignored in programs to reduce gaps in testing scores between black and white children.

The restraining bolt is seen in the anti-intelligence peer pressure phenomenon observed among urban black males. It is the psychological barrier blacks must overcome to learn to read and feel comfortable with academic pursuits. If not overcome in early childhood, it can be a lifelong learning restraint. Without instituting remedial measures to counteract its prior social conditioning, America reversed social policy and pretended the past never happened. It is cruel and heartless; yet, this is precisely how America approaches public education. There are no programs to reverse the lynching of black America, so it continues as the victims are blamed for succumbing to social conditioning.

Just as the nation instilled the fear of learning over several generations, it must now instill a love of reading as part of the early childhood experience to remove the restraining bolt. Our children must be encouraged in academic, as well as athletic, pursuits. When we remove the fear of learning, we will reduce test score gaps between blacks and whites. It cannot be done overnight, just as it took generations to instill it. America pretends test score gaps are due to the intellectual inferiority of blacks by ignoring the historical social conditioning of slavery and institutionalized racism. Ending social promotion is one thing, educating children is something else entirely. We should not confuse them.

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