Peace and Perseverance

Peace and Perseverance

  For the first time since 2004, a woman was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. And to make it a triple treat, there were actually three women given this distinct honor this year; and it could not have been given to 3 more deserving human beings. I simply could not let the momentum pass without singing their distinguished praises myself. I would like to introduce you to 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Honorees:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

 Ms. Sirleaf is a 72 year old Harvard trained economist. She became not only Liberia’s first female President in 2005, but the first on the entire continent of Africa. She is the reigning president and is coming up for re-election. When she took office in Liberia, she was seen as a reformer and peace maker. She was nicknamed the “IRON LADY”.

Leymah Gbowee

  As head of the Women’s Peace and Security Network, she was honored by the committee for mobilizing women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the war in Liberia and to ensure women’s participation in elections. Ms. Gbowee brought together Christian and Muslim women against the power of Liberia’s warlords. In addition, Ms. Gbowee has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after the war.

Tawakkul Karman

  Ms. Karman, a 32 year old mother who heads the human rights group “Women Journalists Without Chains”, has been a leading figure in protests against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. She is known among Yemeni’s as “the Iron Woman” and the “Mother of the Revolution”. The Associated Press adds that “Ms. Karman is a conservative woman fighting for change in a conservative Muslin and tribal society”.

  All three of these women should be commended for doing exemplary work. They can be held as an example to all women and all people everywhere. Just to further my belief that sometimes we must step up when others are stepping back. These women and their predecessors have paved the way for those that will follow; creating social awareness and a promise for the great things yet to come.

  As a woman, I want to thank you for shining your light so brightly.

Marked By Misogyny

Marked by Misogyny

Misogyny.

  This particular topic…I have pondered for close to a month now. It is an issue which of course affects me personally. But for those that didn’t know, or weren’t aware…misogyny is hate of women. Now I realize that this blog will cause people to stir and grumble about it. That actually is the point, and recently I realized that unless you shine light on issues…people will behave like it isn’t even there. And as I have learned when talking about injustices due to race, religious beliefs and bigotry, as a whole, people would rather it not be discussed. But since I am a woman…and it affects me directly, I am not willing to wish it away.

  There will be some people that will say that I am wrong, or that I am making something out of nothing…however, since it is hate against an entire group of people it does warrant an educated discussion.

  Women are often the scale in which manhood is decided…for instance, “you throw like a girl”, along with other various names that men or boys are called that refer to a female or her body parts…used to demean and isolate boys or men.

  Why is it socially acceptable for women to wear a garment usually termed “masculine”, such as jeans or pants…yet when a man or boy wants to dress in attire termed “feminine” he is ridiculed? Why is a girl being called a “tomboy” acceptable but a boy being called girl-like…or anything similar, but not as kind…is an insult? Why is it that we make fun, or create jokes about males who are in the Ballet, nurses (instead of doctors), beauticians, or various other gender biased professions?

  I suppose that who ever started and carries on these ridiculous ideas about women…never really has had a REAL woman in their life. And I say that because the strongest people I have ever known in my life…are all women.

  A woman was chosen to carry an embryo for 40 weeks and give birth to a baby weighing usually around 7-8 pounds. Why do we go to our mothers when it feels like the world is crashing down around our ears? I know men, who I find extremely masculine, that lean on their mothers when their troubles have gotten too heavy. How many men do you know that look for someone they can count on when seeking a wife? Would you feel like you could count on some one weaker than you?

  Let us not confuse compassion, and kindness for weakness. They do not go hand in hand. There have been women throughout history that have broken through barriers created by their male counterparts…which I can assure you makes them anything but weak:

1910 Alice Stebbins Wells became the first female police officer in the United States…she joined the L.A.P.D.

Early 1800’s Molly Williams (a slave) became the first female firefighter in the United States…coincidentally…she was also the first African-American female firefighter also.

1870 Esther Morris became the first female judge in the United States, in the preceding year she helped secure the right for women to vote in the Wyoming territory…where the ratio was 6 men to every one woman.

1917 Loretta Walsh was the first woman to enlist in the military; she joined the United States Navy.

1995 Lt. Kelly Flinn became the first female B-52 Bomber Pilot.

1849 Dr Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school.

  These female pioneers broke through some thoroughly masculine career fields…I can assure you it was not an easy task. And I am certain that like most things, they were heavily scrutinized in their every move. However it did not stop them from making the way for other great women in history and in our lives.

  So the next time that you consider the weaker of the sexes…perhaps you should remember…just because you might say it… doesn’t make it so.

  It is true that women did not choose to carry children, we were created that way…but I have never spoken to a single man that said he could withstand all that birthing a child entails. Remember when we are belittling the women in our society…that means YOUR mom, YOUR grandmother, and YOUR daughter…do you really think she is weak?

School is Out

School is Out

  I have been searching for inspiration so I could write about our public school systems, as when I am inspired, you can always see the message the writing is trying to bring to you. You can not imagine how blessed I felt when this subject matter came up in the post a day suggestion link…I have been smiling all day. Well…I hope you enjoy…lol.

I think the very first time I had really opened my eyes to the public school system was a few years back during November, which was Native American History month. Since I was raised and speak often about my culture to my daughter…she began to wonder why the school would post signs all over the place saying it was Native American History month…yet none of her teachers ever talked about it. She came home one day looking rather, puzzled and frustrated. I asked her what was wrong and we began discussing the problem she had incurred while asking when they were going to learn about the Native American History. Her eyes swelled up with tears as she went on to tell me that her HISTORY teacher expressed to her that Native Americans have not contributed enough to our society to actually warrant having an hour set aside to discuss them. I comforted her the very best that I could, trying to explain that sometimes people are oblivious to how their responses could affect others, and I told her I would go to the school and talk to their principal.

  I did as I told her I would, and asked the principal why it was that Native Americans could have a month dedicated to them by the federal government yet they had no place in the class room…at least not in my daughters class. I was told that it wasn’t that they had not contributed anything to society; but that November was really more about Thanksgiving and Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World.  I expressed my disappointment in the school even suggesting that people from my culture contributed nothing to the way we live now and even then. 

  I had always found it offensive to know that our public schools would only take one month out of the year and dedicate it to Black History (February)…as if so few contributions were made by African Americans that it didn’t warrant more attention. It was true that in her school in particular, there were times when 2 African Americans were spoken of, other than during February…those would be Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver (we live in a huge peanut state).

But it troubled me more to know that even when studying the Black History in February, they would only cover the basics…Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Carl Lewis, Rosa Parks and Rev. Jesse Jackson. There were pictures of Malcolm X, but no discussions because #1 he was too controversial and #2 he was not Christian. It was at this point when my head would begin to swell and the headaches came flooding in. I had to sit my daughter down and ask her…do you know who Medgar Evers is. She shook her head, I explained that he was monumental in the civil rights movement; in trying to put an end to segregation…all I got was a blank stare. Then I asked her, do you know what Martin Luther King Jr did that made him famous? She said plainly, he made the I have a dream speech, and then he was killed. She had no idea what was happening in our country at that time, she had no understanding as to how truly awful black people were treated, for just trying to do what everyone else was doing…living. All of this was oblivious to her; she had never heard anyone say anything about public lynching’s, about separate water fountains and bathrooms. She didn’t realize that black people could not go to the movies with white people, that they were treated as second class citizens. All of this disturbed her greatly; especially given the fact that her father is black…she was offended. We all should be offended, especially if we have schools that ignore the parts of history that are controversial. I had to explain to her that this is why there are so many problems today, a lot of people are still angry…because there never seems to be any balancement. I expressed to her, like many other things involving other groups of people, there is no way to make up for some injustices in our society. There are something’s that throwing a bandage on will not cure...but rather, it leaves a huge scar to remind us that we were wronged. I want to talk about James Reese Europe with you right now…but believe me that is another blog completely…lol…I digress.

  I realized at that point, if she was going to continue to stay in public schools that I would have to become extremely involved in what she was being taught. And once I learned that the school really didn’t want my two cents worth, I would just teach her, from home. I would teach her all of the things that the school system left gaps in. I know I should have been more involved to begin with, but I was just thankful that by the time she was in the 6^th or 7^th grade…I was paying close enough attention to what she wasn’t being taught to help cushion what she needed to know.

  Then on April 16, 2007…the most gruesome thing happened. Cho Seung Hui, a 23 year old Virginia Tech Senior; went on a shooting rampage and he killed 32 students before turning a gun on himself. This was the worst massacre in United States history, and it happened in Virginia…where we live.

  Myself, personally, I was physically and emotionally spent on that day. We kept getting updates throughout the day as more murders and injuries had been reported. I was worried about the state my daughter would be in, as she came in from school. At that time she was 13, she had never experienced such brutality in any event. So, she comes in, and is laughing and talking away. I was a little confused thinking she took this very well. I decided that perhaps this was her defense mechanism taking over. I gave her very basic information about it and left it at that; thinking that they would speak to the students about it the next day and offer counseling, as there had to be students disturbed by this act. After all, this event happened at a school, where children were supposed to feel safe and secure. After school the next day, she came home the same as the day previous. I asked her if they talked to the students today about the shootings at Virginia Tech. She said, very simply…..no.

  I became very frustrated by this, and went to the school and asked why they would not discuss something that happened so close to where we were, geographically…not to mention that it happened at a school. I was bluntly told, it wasn’t in their curriculum, and to take time out for this discussion…would set them back a day. I was livid.

  Not only did they not mention it, they didn’t think about the 3 children going to that school, whose sisters and brother went to Virginia Tech. So in short, the school system did not feel that the worst massacre to happen in a school in our country, EVER, was worth a discussion.

  So back to our original topic, what do I think about our public school system? I think it lacks adaptability, it lacks information, and it fails to give our teachers stretching room where they can determine where the students need to1 be, as opposed to where they are. I feel that the school board is so concerned with funding and accreditation that they have lost the reason the schools are even open.

  We only need to look at what happened to the schools in Atlanta, Georgia to know that…the only difference in those schools (where teachers falsified tests, because there jobs were threatened)…and other schools across the country is that Atlanta got caught. Atlanta school district got caught being greedy, and as an end result the public school students became expendable. School stopped being about what the child was getting out of the school and became; what can the school get out of the child. This is such a sad state of affairs, but it is reality.

  What do I think the answer should be? Pay teachers more; the really great ones can be priceless to our children. School boards need to look for teachers that look outside of the box, a teacher who encourages free thinking with intelligent reasoning. We need smaller classrooms, children learn better in a more intimate setting. Right now we are stacking the odds against our children…they are innocent and deserve better.

  Lastly, if you can spare the time, I suggest homeschooling. Children need to know what is going on in our world and often this is found in the experience of life and not in a text book. How can I learn about current events in a text book written 5 years ago? As the public at large we need to step in and participate in our educational system, we can not trust that our kids are getting the best education possible…unless we participate.

  Education today isn’t what my education was, but we can’t just throw our hands up in defeat…we must make strides towards a solution. Our children will be the soundest investment that we ever make. They don’t raise themselves and we can’t let them educate themselves. We must become steadfast and consistent in their lives, showing them that what they are doing is important to us. It may be as simple as going to your child’s classroom randomly…showing our children that we care and showing our schools that we are holding them accountable. Just my take…

Imagine

Imagine

  Imagine what it would be like if we could love without borders. We weren’t separated by boundaries, or titles. All of our countries were nameless…our eyes oblivious to colors and hues of one another’s skin tones. The color and textures…styles and length of out hair was just thought of as a way to further beautify ourselves…and not used to identify our differences. Our accents could change depending on who we were speaking to…and every one thought that it was cool to be able to look and sound differently at a moments notice. Wouldn’t it be nice if religions had no control over how we treat each other? Or if we did not use our religions as reasons not to be kind or loving towards one another? Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world that taught its children to love EVERYONE, no matter who they were or what they looked like? Imagine that we never had to live in fear…that we could just love each other openly…without judgment. We could just concentrate on being kind and peaceful towards one another…without any ulterior motives.

  I know this seems like a crazy fantasy to you…unrealistic. It’s okay for you to say it…often I have been told that my ideas of what mankind is supposed to be is a childish fantasy…something to be laughed at.

  But I have seen children, of different race, creeds and religion…just playing together. Not asking who or what they are…not shying from one or the other out of some unfounded fear. I watched them for hours before…listened to them giggling and swinging, climbing on playground equipment and going down slides, playing jump rope or four-square…doing nothing but being children. It made me think how they can do something that their adult counterparts have not learned how to do. And at that time a young girl , about 5 years old wearing a blue t-shirt and a pair of blue jean shorts with straight blonde hair pulled back in pony tails tied with blue ribbons came up to me and asked if I could help untangle the jump rope for her and her friend. I, of course, said I would be glad to…and asked which one was her friend. The little bright eyed beauty said the little girl with her hair in braids…the one wearing the red shirt. I told her that I still couldn’t see her…as there were a few children with that description. And she laughed and said…she’s the one wearing the leather sandals and is jumping up and down. It was at that moment I realized everything that I needed to know. The reason these children were able to live in harmony was because they didn’t realize their differences. That little blonde hair girl never once said to me that her friend was the little African-American girl with the braids, or the little Asian girl with the red shirt on…she was just a little girl with her hair in braids with a red shirt and sandals that was so excited about me fixing the jump rope that she kept jumping up and down. And how you might ask were these children able to play in harmony without racial discord, or religious indifference? They were able to do so, not because they were different than many of us were, at that tender age…but because they hadn’t yet realized that society doesn’t want them to love each other. The young minds hadn’t yet experienced hate due to race, religious views or geographic location. They didn’t think anything was wrong with playing with children who spoke with accents unlike their own…and there was even a child there who was unable to speak at all. And yet they still managed to communicate with one another…without frustration or biased views. They didn’t hold one another responsible for their parents not working…or for some terrorist attack…or because they had to go to bed at a certain time. They simply enjoyed each others company. They played and held hands…the chased each other, and if one accidentally fell, the others rushed to help them get up. It was simply not just the most perfect day I had experienced in a while…but it was enlightening. Enlightening because they showed me that the people who tell me that my vision for mankind…was NOT an unrealistic fantasy. These people had simply not experienced these young highly evolved beings…whose greatest fear was to be called away from play…to go home.

  The beautiful things that we need to know are all around us…we just need to remember to open our eyes…and my hope is that we do it before it is too late.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

When did I last say goodbye?

When did you last say my name?

 If I knew then what I know now…

What would I have changed?

 Would I have been less rushed?

 Would I have visited you more?

 Would I have held you close… like a secret…?

Only for me to know?

Would I have laughed with you more?

 And nagged a little less?

Would I have told you over and over?

 How your life made me feel blessed?

 Would I have had deeper talks?

About creation and our paths…

Would we have spent more time joking

 And letting the bad times pass?

 Would I have called you everyday?

Like I knew I always should…

As I watch my hands tremble…

Wishing now if I only could.

And I know I should try

To send you a smile…

For God lent me

HIS angel for a while.

 You let me borrow your shoulder

 When I needed my very best friend…

Showing me that I wouldn’t break,

 But it was okay to bend.

 You wrapped me in your love

 In your own Melissa way…

And showed me it may look bleak…

But I would be okay.

 You never let me give up on me

 Or on my GOD…

Saying”the stars are your compass…

Your pen is your rod”.

 You armed me for battle

And when the war began…

You stood right there beside me

 Where you had always been.

 Thank you for never… doubting the belief

 That I would love you forever…

But forever was too brief.

 So on your birthday

 I wanted you to see…

I will love you to the end,

 And thanks for the memory.

The Race is On

The Race is On

    What do you call it when a police officer can stop a driver of a car, for what ever traffic violation, and ask for verification of legal status in this country? What would you call it if I told you that if that individual didn’t have the documentation on his person, that he could be detained up to 48 hours, until further verification can be made?

 What would you say if I told you that it is not only a violation of the Fourth Amendment to detain anyone for the sole purpose of verifying immigration status, but also has never been required for Americans to even carry Government issued identification at all times.

What if I told you that if you gave a neighbor a ride to Wal-Mart, and got pulled over for a broken tail light, and your neighbor turned out to be an illegal immigrant…that you could charged with a criminal offense of harboring an illegal immigrant and charged up to $20,000 and sentenced up to 5 years in jail? I wonder what would happen if you were a taxi driver, or a greyhound bus driver, given those circumstances.

 What if you were told that as an employer that you had to E-Verify all employees if you have 10 or more, even if in the case of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, the Federal Government explicitly told the Supreme Court that the E-Verify program was strictly voluntary, and any state requiring employers to participate is to be preempted by federal law?

  Welcome to Georgia’s Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Reform Act!!!!

   Let’s just call this what it is….RACIAL PROFILING. And now the state of Georgia, just like the state of Arizona has made Racial Profiling a part of their daily life.

 I mean, lets be real, how do I determine who to ask for legal status? What guidelines do I have to tell me who to ask and who not to ask; keeping in mind that it is all going in to a database?

 Racial Profiling is very real, and it is being used to cause further separation of our country from within its own borders. I am sure I don’t need to remind anyone that the United States was never anything but a giant sanctuary for immigrants…and now we are punishing people for doing just that.

 I can not determine if this is more frightening than it is sad, or vice versa. We can not continually stand firmly silent on issues that seriously undermine what this country was built on.

 I have often been told that my ideas of peace and love of my fellow being…is made up of  unrealistic hopes and dreams; but the truth is that is exactly what people come to this country for. Can you remember when this country stood on the premise that anything was possible here, because we live by the standard that we are an extremely diverse and accepting culture? What has happened to us? Why are we allowing the very government we created to dictate to us…and instill in us….fear? We fear what we do not know and instead of reassuring us; our government is infringing up on us…what an American REALLY is or is not.

  We are all diverse…we come from different cultures, societies, religions and beliefs. But when we lose track of the knowledge that WE ARE ONE…we all lose.

Please join me in asking President Obama to help put an end to Racial Profiling.

http://www.rightsworkinggroup.org/content/sign-petition-tell-obama-take-action-stop-racial-profiling

 

Not In My Name

Not In My Name

On September 21, 2011 at 11:08 PM, Troy Davis was killed by the state of Georgia…even though he may not have been guilty…BUT…

NOT IN MY NAME

3239 people in the United States are currently under a death sentence…BUT…

NOT IN MY NAME

Since 1976, 1269 men, women, children, and mentally ill people have been SHOT, HANGED, ASPHYXIATED, LETHALLY INJECTED, and ELECTROCUTED by the state and the federal government of the United States…BUT…

NOT IN MY NAME

Alabama is the only state in our country where a trial judge can override a life sentence and convert it to a death sentence. And approximately 21% of Alabama’s death row was converted to the death penalty from a life sentence by a trial judge….BUT…

NOT IN MY NAME

The United States is currently one of the top countries, in regards to executing inmates…BUT…

I WILL NOT TURN MY HEAD

No one has the right to take another life…it is wrong. How do we know it is wrong? Because we are executing people to teach them that killing is wrong…and yet the lesson escapes us. We do not have the right to kill another human being. And please keep in mind…some of those human beings…were exonerated after they were already executed and laid in the ground to rest.

 I heard someone say the night that Troy Davis was killed…”An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. We cannot change what has happened, no amount of prayers, rallies, parades, or interviews will change what has been done. But we get to choose if the deaths were in vain…we get to stand tall and speak up. If we forget what happened, then we learned nothing from it. The facts are simple…it is more expensive to execute an inmate than to imprison him /her for life. And the death penalty has not deterred crime one bit…or we wouldn’t have anyone to execute. Finally, please never say it could not happen to anyone you know or love. Our system of justice is seriously lacking…if you are a minority or poor in this country, no matter what anyone tells you…you are guilty until proven innocent 9 times out of 10.

Today I ask that you stand with me…not to protect murderers…but to end the death penalty. We are becoming the thing that we hate…we must make a change.

THE DEATH PENALTY MUST BE ABOLISHED. I take this pledge because human rights and human lives are on the line.

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/c.6oJCLQPAJiJUG/b.7741827/k.62FF/Not_in_my_Name_Pledge/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=7741827&en=dmIPI6PPJcIYLgOSLbKULiM9LvL9KmN4LtI9LqNaIAK