Obama’s War: No TIME It is Not!

I know the success of magazine articles are often crafted around catchy phrases and provocative thoughts; however, the phrase appearing on the December 14, 2009 issue of Time magazine, though it may be catchy is a thoughtless revision of history: “It’s His (Obama) War Now.”

Time, (Joe Klein), you are in the wrong “arena” when you write this war is owned by President Obama. It is not. If a president must be named in this response to the September 11 2001 attack on United States citizens, it must be President Bush. This conflict is a Bush administration conflict; some would even say, more specifically, that it is probably a Cheney conflict since the word on the street is that Cheney is the one who actually made the “real decisions” in the White House. Still others would be justified in saying it is a response to the Taliban/ Al-Qaeda mess. Bush, Cheney, Al-Qaeda, Taliban— this is a cancerous tumor that seems to be growing. However, it is not owned by our current president. Barack Hussein Obama was sworn into the Presidency of the United States on January 20, 2009; the Afghanistan conflict began long, long before that date.

Let’s be clear: The Afghanistan conflict is a cancer President Obama is attempting to cure, and, sadly enough, the (young) American soldiers will be the ones on the frontline. We need to applaud President Obama and the troops for attempting to clean up this mess. Those are the articles that need to be written and, indeed, the prayers that need to be prayed—for the troops. We need a cover story from TIME that reads: “Americans: Praying for their SOLDIERS.”

Who cares if President Obama doesn’t deliver a speech employing the storytelling techniques of a Ronald Regan. That was the Reagan way; we don’t need a puppet president; we need a president with his own method of talking to and with the American people.

Tagging the war on Obama coat-tail might sell issues of Time, but it is a representation of how history becomes a revisionist lie. The purpose of journalism is not to revise history; the objective is to report history. If we start saying that the war is Obama’s, that is what we are doing. The truth of the matter is this: President Obama is simply attempting to clean up a mess. Let’s get the facts right at the beginning so we won’t have to rewrite them!

Health Care Reform

Right now the Health Care Reform Bill has me thinking about the old man I met at a bus stop years ago. He and I got to talking about hospitals, and he told me that he didn't like to "go to them much. Always ask for your insurance card."



Well as I think about the old man, African American, and after days of listening to the CNN reporters talk and moan on about Health Care reform, I am telling myself that I need to read the bill for myself. Afterall, how can I, as an American, support a Bill I have not read. That question is, of course, rhetorical. The question needs no answer. What needs my attention is the bill. Just what is the Health Care Reform Bill and why do I believe Health care in America should be reformed? With that being said, the reality: The bill is over 1000 pages. How many Americans have the time to sit and read the contents of the bill? That is where our representatives come into this conversation that I am having with myself. We must trust our representatives to make right decisions for folk who don't have the time to read over 1000 pages. Trust, that is what it comes up to--trust. I hope that the representatives who have a good health insurance plan will do the "simple" thing--work on behalf of the folk, like the old man, who don't.



If I never read thebill, I can say that if I live in an American where every citizen can not receive health care, then reform needs to take place and quickly.

With that being said, I do get a sense, or maybe I should say, there is a feeling moving around in my stomach urging reform. Why? Let me tell you when I go to the doctor or the emergency room the first question I am asked after my name is "Do you have insurance?" I am reminded of the old man, African American. Lately I have been thinking about the Americans who are asked that question. The answer that every American should be able to give is, yes! My insurance and assurance: I am an American citizen.


Now to the Health Care Reform Bill--

Take 6 Concert at Loma Linda University

In celebration of African American History Month, the School of Religion's Humanities Program Presents Take 6 on February 14, 2010 at 6:00 pm at the Loma Linda University Church on the campus of Loma Linda University located in Loma Linda, CA.

I keep playing these words in my ears. And, indeed, I feel at rest. These are African American male childs. They are the "Strong Men" that Sterling Brown honors. I imagine they will sing in the tradition of their fore parents. I imagine in their sound we will experience the middle passage. I imagine they will sing in honor of the 60 million and more Africans who are still at the bottom of the sea. I imagine they will remember, as they sing, the sorrow songs of Dubois. I imagine they will drag a linguistic lyric like Langston Hughes does in his poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers": "I've known rivers. . . /My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

I also imagine, because they are Christian, on the evening of February 14, 2010 these sons-brothers-fathers will set a spiritually provocative standard. Their jazz-styled religious and secular a Capella sound will stir our souls into a deeper relationship with Christ and a celebrated commitment to family.

I am looking forward to this Valentine evening. It will be bathed in a tradition that is honestly American. Have mercy!!!

The Right to Write Your Story

Writing: the concept. Everyone has a right to write, to know how to place words on paper, the right to be in the mist of writing all of the time. A student told me once that she had nothing to write about. This is what I said to her: Yes. Writing equals thinking, and I mean thinking on paper or on the computer. All of us are always thinking. All of us are always thinking about. . .

the way we treat our children. The way we understand ourselves to be is the way that we will treat our children. The children are our teachers: they teach us how we love ourselves. Love yourself? You will love the children that enter into your lives.

Claudette Colvin was a child that taught me how to love those who sacrifice their lives for me to live in a better America. She is a woman now, however, in 1955, she was a teenager. She was pulled off of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Why--because of the segregation laws. In addition Claudette and three other women went to court. The case: Browder V Gayle. They fought against bus segregation because it violated the 14th admendment of the constitution. The result: Bus segregation was ruled unconstitutional. Children: they teach us how to live. Claudette Colvin did that then, and as I remember her I am committed to doing that now. Today, I ask you to love a child. Children are our history; they are our now! Ichallenge you to write a story about a child. You have that right!!!

Children:

teach us how

we love, we hate

we live. Claudette

taught us how to be free.

PRECIOUS: YEAH!!!!

This evening I am rehearsing Precious in my mind, the movie, the nuances, the feeling, the characters, the precious girls of the world who are and have been brutually molested. I am here, over and again in my mind, over and again.

And I simply need to say thank you--Sapphire, Lee Daniels, Monique, Paula Paton, Gabbie Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe, and the other dancers of this movie. Precious is, indeed, a dance. A dance into the pain of abuse, the dance of survival, the dance of triumph. This movie is an opening to a conversation.

There are many, many feet, dancing through the planet that have been abused and they have not had a voice. When Precious says I feel "here," on what seems to be her first day of school at Each one Teach One, I felt "here" for her. I felt HERE.

Please go and experience Precious. It does not need my language to express how it articulates a very real dance. It does not need my language; it is :"here." It only needs my language to say on my marquee this evening: Go see this movie. If you are going healthy by attempting to find a way to always live better, Precious is "here," and it is a gift to every child who has ever suffered abuse. It is "here"; it is the destructive voice of every abuser. It is "here"; it is lessons learned; prayers that need to be prayed. It is "here." Precious is the spiritual holler that needs to be heard. It is, the jazz dance, pushing its way into survival. Dance with this movie; you will yearn to change. You will be compelled to pray for the enemy who abuses children; you will be changed. You will sing that song "Lord, change my name." You will want to be good because goodness that urges goodness in the world.

I imagine God speaking through the author, Sapphire; I imagine God directing the director. God's presence is in the characters. Precious is a gift: Receive it.


I am thankful for the art.

Day One

I am a Black Woman Going Healthy. There is much I could say about eating healthy. However, first I want to weigh in on the title of the blog. At first I wanted to name this blog Going Skinny, but if I am true to myself, I don't want to go skinny, I want to go healthy; I yearn, that's right, to go, to be healthy.

That's why I write--to be healthy. I am going to spend the next 90 days consciously working, cheering myself on. I am thinking about this and a student walks into my office for her research paper conference. What she tells me about meat and cancer is alarming. I am not a meat eater, but this is just another sign that I need to think, ponder, "go healthy." If you happen to run across this blog, I invite you to go healthy also. Oh, I am going to keep this real also. Like I want you to know that on this day I am weighing in at 170; I am twenty poounds down from my weight last year about this time. That's good, but in terms of the pounds I have a ways to go. My BMI is 31. Join me in health. Let's go healthy.