Saturday, January 20, 2024

The Pride of Life from 'Girl Frenzs'

Straight Talk
pages 230-239
by Bridgette Billingsley
 

Girl frenzs, there is nothing more beautiful than a newborn baby coming into the world, watching that child take their first breath shortly after the doctor spanks them on their bottoms. Isn’t amazing how a woman carries a baby in her stomach for nine months until the baby is fully developed, then the baby will come out whether the mother is ready to deliver or not.

Childbirth is a process; it’s a certain order that has to be implemented before the mother can deliver. Sometimes, circumstances and things happen during the process that causes the mother to deliver early. During the pregnancy, the mother and baby(ies) are one flesh. The unborn fetus is dependent upon the mother to survive. That’s the way it is with us and God. 

Just think about human life for a moment. We are made from liquid (sperm) and eggs (female reproductive organ). Isn’t that amazing? A human life like you and I made from liquid and eggs. You know, girl frenzs, God put all of our organs and different body parts inside us. He brought Adam, the first of his creations, to life from dirt. Adam didn’t exist until God formed him from the ground, breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life, then Adam became alive. He created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. That’s why we are called wo-man because we were created from the womb of man. 

God is amazing to me. I get so excited just thinking how our Father in heaven can just speak something and it will come to past. Adam and Eve were the first two human beings that God created, and guess what, they didn’t come about from sperm and eggs, but their children Cain and Abel did. What I’m trying to get you to understand, girl frenzs, is that God is magnificent; he can do anything! There is no other God or human being that can create life from dirt. Do you agree? Only the true and living God can do that.

Girl frenzs, do you ever think about how Jesus left heaven and came to earth in the womb of a woman? Think about it for a minute. Jesus was in heaven with God, sitting on the right hand side of God. After God created the world, he created Adam and Eve. They disobeyed God’s commandments in the Garden of Eden. God put them out of the garden. Their seed multiplied after they became sexually connected. Adam and Eve through their disobedience to God, sinned, entered the world. Before they disobeyed God there was no sin in the world.

 Throughout the Old Testament, people offered animal sacrifices for their sins. God accepted their sacrifices and forgave their them over and over again. Girl frenzs, open up your Bible and read some of the Old Testament books and see for yourself how ungodly people were and disobedient. They were to God before Christ came down to earth. God was then and still is now patient and slow to anger. 

God became so disappointed with the way people were living on earth and their disobedience he was going to destroy the world. God refused burnt animal sacrifices any longer from his people. No one on earth had any other sacrifices to offer up to God on our behalf. So, God decided he would provide a sacrifice that would return the world and mankind back to him. Jesus was the answer for the salvation of the world.

Can you picture Jesus’s face when God his father asked him to come to earth and live among his people? Can you picture Jesus’s face when God his father asked him to give his life as an offering to him? Can you picture Jesus’s face God the father told him he would have to come to earth as an unborn infant?

Jesus was obedient, he didn’t refuse his father not one time.

Imagine if God would ask some of us to do what he asked Jesus to do.

Can you imagine some of the responses he would get. Such as, “No way I’m going to die for those folks” or “Lord, you got to be kidding me. I don’t know those people, they’re on their own.”

“You want me to be a baby in somebody’s stomach! Oh, no way. I can’t do that.”

“Lord, you know I would if I could, but you caught me at a bad time, check with me later on.”

Girl frenzs, you know how crazy and proud people are today; they might come up with all kinds of crazy answers.

Jesus, as humble as he is, took on the form of an unborn fetus and was placed in Mary’s stomach by God the Father and the Holy spirit, and stayed there until Mary gave birth.  Girl friends, that’s good news to my soul. Thank you, Lord! Can you imagine Jesus our Lord and Savior, God’s precious cargo being placed in a virgin’s womb and being born into this world?

Girl frenzs, there’s nothing more beautiful than a newborn baby coming into the world. Jesus willingly left his home in heaven to come down to this cruel world and live among ungodly people. Jesus had everything in heaven. He had riches, he had powers, he had authority over the angels, he had love everlasting. He had life everlasting, and he had a loving and powerful father who loved him exclusively. But he willingly gave up everything to come down here on earth to be hated, mistreated, and beaten to death by the very people he was asked by his father God to come and save. 

Girl frenzs, isn’t that something! Can you see Jesus in your mind as a precious little baby. I know he was the most beautiful baby ever born in the history of mankind. The Bible says, “God loved us so much that he gave his only son.” God didn’t want to destroy the world. He lives you and I (Jn 3:16 kjv).

 Girl frenzs, if this chapter doesn’t help you to see how much God loves you, then you will probably never ever know. 

Girl Talk

Girl frenzs, Mary was a virgin, a clean vessel for Jesus to dwell. Remember I told you, God’s spirit can’t dwell in an unclean temple, meaning our bodies.  God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. When sent to earth in the form of an unborn fetus, he could not put baby Jesus in just any body. The body he chose to carry his precious son was clean and had never been touched by a man. God wants us to keep our temples clean so his Holy Spirit can dwell inside us. It’s our comforter; it leads us and guides us in the world.

God found favor in Mary. He sent an angel to tell Mary that she would give birth to the son of the most high God. Can you imagine how afraid Mary probably was when she got the news that she was going to have a baby? Mary knew she was virgin!

 Read the story about Mary in Luke 1:26-38. Mary was a servant, a yielding vessel, allowing God to use her as he so pleased. Girl frenzs, we need to have the same attitude as Mary and allow God to use us for his glory. 

Soon after Jesus was born, his life was threatened by King Herro of Egypt. God’s angel appeared to Joseph and told him what God wanted him to do. Joseph didn’t ask any questions; he did exactly what the angel told him in a dream. Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus escaped Egypt safely. Jesus grew up just like us in a fleshy body. He was a child; he grew and became strong and filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. At the age of twelve years, Jesus was in the churches, sitting around older men listening to them and asking questions.

Jesus didn’t do things other children his age did, such as play. From the time he was old enough to talk, he was all about doing the work he was sent from heaven to do. Girl frenzs, you do realize that Jesus was God in the flesh? Can you grasp that! God took on a fleshy form to come down and save us. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. It's called the Trinity. They are the one in the same body. 

Girl frenzs, God’s powers are so great our small brains won’t ever be able to comprehend his greatness and the magnitude of who he is. He’s God all by himself. He doesn’t need us, we need him. He’s the creator. He hung the moon and the stars in the sky. He’s huge!

Girl frenzs, when we say yes to God without hesitation, concerning his will for our lives, God will bless us for being his servants. God wants to use us, but we have to be yielding, clean vessels ready to be used. Mary the mother of Jesus was blessed above whatever she dreamed. Mary was proud to give birth to our savior; she knew God would take care of her. Mary will forever be called blessed by everyone who knows her or reads about her. Mary received the greatest honor God can pay.

Girl frenzs, Jesus understands our every weakness because he was tempered in every way that we are today. But Jesus did not sin. Whenever we’re going through rough times, we should go boldly to God and ask for his mercy and grace upon our lives. God will be kind and help us.

God sent Jesus to bring his message to us. God created the universe by his son; Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. Jesus holds the world together by his own powerful words. After he did what he had to do on the cross to wash away our sins, he sat down on the right hand side of God Almighty in glorious heaven.

The scripture says, “When God brings his firstborn son into the world he commands all his angels worship him.”

“When God speaks about the angels, he says, “I change my angels into wind and my servants into flaming fire.” 

God never said to any of his angels “sit at my right side until I make your enemies a footstool for you!” This footstool is underneath Jesus’ feet, meaning “hell.” All those who are Christ’s

enemies will be under his precious feet at the end. God’s angels are merely spirits sent to serve people who are going to be saved. Isn’t that great! God sends angels to help us along the way, and we have the Holy Spirit leading us, and guiding us into the truth.

Spiritual Talk

 Girl frenzs, I hope you remember how much God and Jesus love you! When you understand the depth of their love, it will help you stay faithful to God and Christ. God made Jesus lower than the angels when he came on earth to die for the sins of the world. God crowned Jesus with glory and honor and put everything under his feet, because he suffered death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. 

We are merely people of flesh and blood. When Jesus became like us, when he died, his work and mission was to go down to the pit and destroy the devil. He also rescued souls that were held in slavery by their fear of death. Jesus came to help us. He had to become like us to serve God as our merciful and faithful high priest and living sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.

 Jesus paid the ultimate price for us. His death. Without his shedding blood, we would all be dead and lost in sin forever.

 Girl frenzs, we all must learn to let go of all our foolish pride. We walk around putting ourselves above others, thinking we’re all that and a bag of chips. We’re nothing without Christ in our lives. Nothing!

 Pride has deceived many people to think all they need is a good education and a good paying job, and that’s all that matters in this life. Making a lot of money and living large isn’t anything without Christ in your life. Nothing!

Girl frenzs, don’t you know the devil was a beautiful angel; he was the head angel in charge of praise before he got all puffed up with pride. He was called Lucifer. He wanted to be greater than God and got kicked out of heaven. You have to realize, girl frenzs, God is the source of where we receive all our blessings. God owns everything on earth. We have to humble ourselves and allow God to use us for his will.

 Stop saying what you’re not going to do and start saying yes to God. God gave us his very best, and you without a shadow of a doubt Jesus is the best gift ever given in the world. Don’t you want to give your best to God in return? There’s plenty of work to be done yet in these last days, but the workers are few.

Let’s all of us stop fooling around and start getting serious about the work of the Lord. What we do for the Lord is all that’s going to matter when we are before God in the day of judgement.

 I know when I face God I would love to hear him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into my rest.” We all have to work for the Lord! Let’s get busy! Jesus had a purpose when he came to earth and so do we. We’re not here to just live mediocre lives. We’re fooling ourselves when we think God is going to accept anything from us that’s not our best. We have to make an effort to give our best to God! 

Mediation questions for this chapter:

Girl frenzs, are you living a mediocre life, just hanging around taking up space in the world? What are you doing that contributes to the work of the Lord?

 Girl frenzs, are you willing to be a yielded vessel for the Lord to use for his glory? Why? Why not?

Girl frenzs, are you willing to pray and ask God what it is he wants you to do in his Kingdom? Why? Why not?


Girl Frenzs
By Bridgette Billingsley
Tate Publication, 2014
book can be purchased on Amazon

Thursday, August 10, 2023

'Women and Their Work' gather to talk about their lives, their communities, history and the world

 ____________________________________________

PASSGES, a series of workshops, readings, performances, and other related art events took place in a context of feminist research, group support, and cooperate activity. It extended the definition of an art event to include consciousness raising and the possibilities of cultural transformation. It was an event in which group process and relationships deriving from it were the central achievements.

As one of the requirements for the participation in PASSAGES, women were asked to be willing re-examine their own--and society's--attitudes concerning sex and race, especially as portrayed in the arts and the media. The idea behind such investigations was that the women could then transform and share their findings with the community at large in an art/cultural event.
                                                                                                           Denna Stevenson
                                                                                                           Creator of Metis
                                                                                                            PASSAGES: Women and Their Work 

___________________________________________________________

Women and Their Work participants: Theresa Macias, Kit Fontaine, Debbie Dew, Deanna Stevenson,
Glee Ingram, Delores Carkuff, Helen Cox, Teresa Anderson, Dorothy Charles Banks, Rita Starpattern, Carol Ivey,
Peg Runnels, Olive Spitzmiller, Orena Dennis.
photo by Millie Wilson

D
uring the summer of 1980 in Austin, Texas at the Laguna Gloria Art Museum I participated in a three-day event that started July 18, 19, 20. It sponsored by Denna Steveson, creator of Women and Their Work, specific specifically created for women of all ages and diverse backgrounds. It appeared to me that each woman participating in the event were already in full bloom of her womanhood and her own self-acknowledgement. There might have been a few women struggling like hell to reach these points in their lives.

The sisterhood of minds consisted of poets, authors, performers, artists, and women who just wanted to verbally tell their stories. We were encouraged to submit some of our work for a magazine, in which our works would be published. As a poet I submitted a number of poems, five of which were accepted. I smiled as I read the poems I submitted. I remember the sassy language that popped in my head as I wrote the poems, especially "pavlov's dog" and "you  . .  , who is not hipped at all". "pavlov's dog" was inspired by a discussion in a psychology class.

A couple of days ago I was searching for a particular book in my small library when I pulled out PASSAGES after all these years. One author wrote about her fascination with laundry. She combined her life experience in poems and a historical essay. Another interesting piece caught my attention was the poem, Virgin Whore, written by Peg Runnels and Susan Shaw in photo below. The poem tells of the journey that all girls go through on their way to womanhood only to end up being called a "Bitch! followed by "Woman!"

VIRGIN WHORE

by Peg Runnels and Susan Shaw

I am the first
and the last
Iam the honored one
and the scorned one
I am the whore
and the Holy One
I am the wife
and the virgin
I am the barren one
and many are her children
I am the silence
that is incomprehensible
I am the utterance
of My NAME

Text, Cnostic Gospel

photo by Delores Gunter
sitting Peg Runnels and Susan Shaw
Virgin and whore are states of mind. Virgins and whores are incomplete women: women who need men for identity, women afraid to be whole, women who haven't come to terms with their sexuality.

I was raised to make some man a wonderful wife. Of course that meant being a virgin.

"MEN NEVER MARRY THE GIRLS THEY SLEEP WITH."

I was taught to know my place and to keep it clean.

I wanted to be like Mother and Grandma and like Aunt Cora who always wore a girdle, even in the summer.

"DON'T LAUGH SO LOUD. DON'T WIGGLE. DON'T GET DIRTY. AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, KEEP YOUR KNEES TOGETHER."

I lived in terror of getting caught playing doctor with the boy next door. I knew about "bad girls."

"BOYS WILL BE BOYS. IT'S UP TO YOU TO SAY NO."

The worst thing about being about Being a Sweet Thing was the waiting. Always waiting. Waiting to be noticed. Waiting to be asked. I smile a lot. I would think, I'm not pretty enough. So I smiled more.

"YOUNG LADY, THAT SKIRT IS TOO SHORT. MARCH BACK IN THERE AND WIPE OFF THAT MASCARA."

I cleaned my body until I squeaked. I sprayed, I softened, I deodorized. I made my body desirable, so they would notice me. And they did. They always noticed the PARTS.

"LOOK AT THE TITS ON THAT ONE." "I"M A LEG MAN, MYSELF."

Tits, thighs, ass, boobs, jugs, jugs, knockers, cunt, bunny, beaver .  .  . is this the virgin?

"DON'T BE SO UPTIGHT; I'M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU." "IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME, YOU'D PROVE IT. COME ON. TRY IT; YOU'LL LIKE IT."

I married at eighteen. Marriage has its boundaries, too.

"DON'T STAND TO NEAR THE WASHER REPAIRMAN; HE MIGHT GET THE WRONG IDEA. PRETEND YOU DON'T SEE HIM EYEING YOUR BREASTS. IF A MAN STOPS BY WHEN YOUR HUSBAND ISN'T HOME, TALK THROUGH THE SCREEN.

                                                Don't be too clever.
                                                   Don't dance too close.
                                                Don't hold a man's gaze too long.
                                                    Don't go out late at night alone.
                                                        Don't challenge.

That's enough "don'ts." Isn't it about time to stop playing Virgina and Whore?

I want my own life, my own sexuality.

Even though we're not whole yet, I think we're getting closer. Don't you?

I suppose. Last week a man called me an Amazon, and I felt proud.

Really? last week a man called me salty.

                                                            Virgin!
                                   Whore!
                                           Lady!
                                     Tramp!
                                            Snow White!
                                                  Rose Red!
                                     Spinster!
                                                  Madam!
                                      Nice!
                                                 Good!
                                      Protected!
                                                   Experienced!
                                       Martyr!
                                                    Bitch!
                                                     WOMAN!

_________________________________________________________________


 poem by dorothy charles banks

you . . .  who is not hipped at all

you try to impress me
with your hip
bullshit talk 

while 

at the same time
try to turn 
me on
with your slick
tight pants 

showing

a faint impression
of your manhood

I look at you
and smile to myself

 when i go sister
and jump loud on you
you get embarrassed
and pretend 
to blow
your nose

i laugh
as you stand
 in front of me

your pretend 
 manhood
draining from you
African nose
                                               
your curse at me under
your scotch and water breath
as you reach for
your glass to leave

i'm glad you caught
the hint

(C)
_____________________________________________________

THE HISTORY OF LAUNDRY PASSAGE

by Frieda Werden

I must admit that I have always been fascinated with laundry. Some of my earliest memories involve laying a sheet in the middle of the living room floor, covering it with dirty clothes, and tying it into a bundle, to be picked up by the laundry service.  Or, I remember my mother kneeling beside the bathtub doing the wash by hand at a time when we had no laundry service or washing machine. To me the laundry is intimately connected with poetry. One of my earliest memories of writing a poem is of myself at the dining room table of my parents' home. I was in high school, and literature was a means of transcending fate. The poem I was writing went in part:

The wild wind hurls into the street
Old overalls with patched-up seats;

But undershirt and pantaloon
Hanging docilely from noon to moon
Til plucked in haste by weary wives
With hair contrived to make it curl.

No matter how much each one strives, 
This is the essence of their lives:
The moon and sun on wash unfurled
Upon the clothesline of the world.

With the magic of poem making, the control of rhythm, assonance, rhyme and other devices. I hoped to exorcise the demonic vision of an adulthood I would shorty enter.

In looking at women's history, I am struck by the fact that women's accomplishments have taken place against the background of the daily tasks that no one did unless it was the women. The laundry is exemplary. Heroic deeds have been formulated around it: the first recorded strike by women laborers in Texas was a laundresses' strike in 1873.

It was generally Black women who did the laundry in the early days of what is now Texas--often free women of color who had come to the area because Mexico's anti-slavery constitution made it possible for them to exist here. When the Republic was formed and the new laws of the Republic--founded as much as anything to permit slavery--made free women of color a nonexistent class, each woman had to petition the legislature for special dispensation to remain the state. In the Texas Archives, there are a number of these petitions signed by upstanding male citizens of Galveston, the husbands, perhaps, of their clients. on behalf of well-known laundresses such as Zilpha and Zelia Husk.

Around the Mexican border, Mexican and Mexican American women also got into the laundry business. An oral history of an elderly El Paso woman reports that her sister once worked in the El Paso Laundry, a giant commercial laundry on the edge of Chihuahita--the poorest Mexican neighborhood in the city, located on a bend of the Rio Grande. There women slaved in the heat without fans through the hot summers, washing, feeding the sheets into the mangle (known as "el mango" to the workers)--a machine that could mangle hands as well as sheets. After a long day, the women could come home exhausted, wringing with sweat. 

After the ideas of the Mexican Revolution made their way north of the border, a 1911 laundry workers' strike in El Paso increased the wages of laundresses to $1.50 a day. White women in El Paso complained because maids would no longer do housework for less than the $1.50, they could make at the laundries; the strike had raised the wage floor of women in the city. 

One of the best documented laundry stories, and the one I told in detail in the performance of my passage, is the story of the Belton Sanctificationists who started taking in washing in order to build a self-supporting women's religious and economic community.

_______________________________________________________________ 

poem by dorothy charles banks

Pavlov's Pog

like one of Pavlov's 
experimental dogs  
your mouth waters
as your trembling
hands travel to
toy with the
diamond filled
pyramid lying
between my
right &
left thighs

I hear your breath
rushing from
you in short gasps

I hear you panting
in labored agony

when I ask if
you are one of 
Pavlov's dogs
you hurriedly say
"Yes" and ask

"Who is he"?

I knock your hand &
face away

turning on my side

sliding out of bed
leaving you 
panting alone
      
I was not raised to
make love to
Experimental Dogs

(C)

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Alabama's Senator Tuberville says Black folks want to get paid reparations for committing crimes

Here we go again! Some spoilsports will kill a wet dream! It seems that White folks will never learn to do their homework before opening their mouths. African Americans always gives them reason for pause and confusion.  Ask a White person if Black folks are discriminated against they will flip the script and say “they” are being discriminated against by Black folks! “They” are the ones being treated unfairly.

Treated “unfairly” is how former football coach Tommy Tuberville feels. A senator who represents Alabama, was cheered by an all White crowd at a Trump rally in rural Minden, Nevada, Oct. 10, 2022. They assured Tuberville that he was on the right track. Like throwing a football, he threw a metaphorical brick to get approval from the crowd. And then he went into hiding. He did not want the media asking him about the controversial remarks he made.

But! Alas! Tuberville, a hope-to-die Donald Trump supporter, had to come out of hiding. The media demanded an explanation regarding his remarks at the rally. He said he was talking about crime does not race. He also threw Black Lives Matter and Antifia into his explanation. In earlier years he was a birther who believed that presidential candidate Barack Obama is not an American, and his birth certificate would tell who he is, and where he was actually born.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R)
Tuberville was a coach at Auburn University for 11 years. He personally recruited Blacks to attend the university because of their potential to play football. In his job as a coach, he asked Black parents and their sons to follow him down the Yellow Brick Road that would lead to success, and a future career in sports.

To enhance his performance at the rally Tuberville raised his voice as if he was angry. “The Democratic Party, they have a majority. They could stop this crime today. They could say, some people say, well, they are soft on crime; they’re pro-crime because they want to take over what you got! They want to control what you got! The want reparations because they think people that do crime are owed that. Bullshit! They’re not owed that!" Tuberville wowed the rural crowd when he said “Bullshit” to reparations for Black folks.

In his speech Tuberville implied that African Americans commit the most crimes, and they expect to get paid for committing crimes! He gave the impression that White folks, none of whom commit crimes, are expected to pay reparations to Black folks.

Often overstated by the media, actual data gets lost or deliberately overlooked. The media asserts that Black folks commit more crimes than Whites so it must be true. On the subject of reparations, the same media cannot make up its mind to backoff or sensationalize it.

Websters Dictionary defines “reparations” (a) the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury; (b) something done or given as amended or satisfaction.

White folks swear they know nothing about this chapter in America’s history. Some say Black folks are only looking for a free hand out, they say. Besides, no Black person today was ever a slave. Black folks should get on with their lives and stop thinking about the past.

To the contrary, issuance of reparations are not new. On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved Africans in Washington, the end of a long struggle. But to ease slave owners pain, in the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300.00 for every enslaved African freed.

Enslaved Africans received nothing for their centuries of hard labor. “Lincoln appointed aboard of commissioners to oversee the process of compensation, headed by the North Carolina abolitionist and New Times reporter Daniel Reaves Goodloe. The board reviewed more than  1,000 slaveholders’ petitions to claim more than 3,000 Africans,  close to the entirety of the dwindling population.

“Most of the petitioners received the full amount allowed. The largest individual payout was $418,000 for 69 slaves. Although the District of Columbia Emancipation Act marked the only time the federal government would compensate slaveowners, there is a longer history of slaveowners requesting and receiving indemnification for the loss of their chattel”. (Department of African American Studies, Princeton University.)

Jeremy Ellis, president of Clotilda Descendants Association said, “I think it would suit Sen. Tuberville to visit Africatown. It’s an area he is extremely familiar with since he recruited a number of his players there when he was head football coach”.

Located in Mobile, Alabama, Africatown was founded by descendants of Africans smuggled to the United States aboard a vessel called the Clotilda in 1860. Located three miles north of downtown Mobile, Africatown was formed by 32 descendants of West Africans. It was designated a Historic District and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Smithsonian Magazine: “Even though the U. S. banned the importation of the enslaved from Africa in 1808, the high demand for slave labor from the booming cotton trade encouraged Alabama plantation owners like Timothy Meaher to risk illegal slave runs to Africa.

“In 1860, his schooner sailed from Mobile to what was then the Kingdom of Dahomey under Captain William Foster. He brought Africans captured by warring tribes back to Alabama, skulking into Mobile Bay under the cover of night, then up the Mobile River. Some of the transported enslaved were divided between Foster and Meaher, and other were sold. Foster then ordered the Clotilda taken upstream, burned and sunk to conceal the evidence of their illegal activity”.

Tuberville might have been faintly familiar with the Africatown but not with its history. Black football players from Africatown are the reason he earned millions of dollars and trophies, neither of which he shared with the players. But that is normal in college sports. Steal the talents and health of athletes and drop them when they get injured or graduate. Still, Tuberville did not bother to discover the players’ ancestry.

“Many of the thousands of lynchings were directed at Black 

farmers in order to terrorize all Blacks and make them leave”

At the rally Tuberville did not mention plantation owners wanting to own Black Africans. Ownership of imported Africans was money in the bank. Tuberville talked about Blacks wanting what Whites have, but he did not talk about how White terrorists and slanted legalities stole land from free Blacks, who owned land wrestled from them by force, the law and violence.

Tommy Tuberville continued to skip history during his rally rant, leaving out hundreds of stories about Whites wanting what Blacks had. Steve Hochstadt wrote an article in the Black Agenda Report, August 14, 2019, describing facts in that Tubberville was not aware of.  His research took him to a history he was not cognizant of about Black farmers and Black landowners.

“Despite obstacles, many Black families had acquired farmland by World War I. There were nearly 1 million Black farms in 1920, about one-seventh of all American farms, mostly in the South. During the 20th century, nearly all of this land was taken or destroyed by Whites. Sometimes this happened by violent mob action, as in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, or the lesser known pogrom in Pierce City, Missouri, in 1901, when the entire Black community of 300 was driven from town. A map shows many of the hundreds of these incidents of White collective violence, concentrated in the South. Many of the thousands of lynchings were directed at Black farmers in order to terrorize all Blacks and make them leave.

“Other methods had a more legal appearance. Over 75 years, the Black community of Harris Neck, Georgia, developed a thriving economy from fishing, hunting and gathering oysters, on land deeded to a former slave by a plantation owner in 1865. In 1942, the federal government gave residents two weeks notice to leave. Their houses were destroyed, and an Air Force base was created. That site was chosen by the local white politicians. Black families were paid two-thirds of what White families got per acre. Now the former African American community is the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge”.

White terrorists wasted no time taking land from Black farmers and landowners. They took whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, fully knowing that the famers had no legal recourse. Tuberville intentionally hurled a touchy word at the folks attending the rally. He knew he would get a roar of approval from White folks.

Once again Tubberville failed to do his homework. Paying reparations have been dispensed in the past, long before African Americans began entertaining the idea.  Just to list a few:

February 19, 1942, World War ll, an executive order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent 125,000 Japanese citizens to interment camps. They were paid $20,000 each in 1990; 80,000 made claims totally $1.6 billion.

About 881 Aleuts, indigenous people from the Aleutian Islands, were deported to camps in Juneau Alaska. In 1988 around 450 of those who survived the ordeal received $121,000 each. The U.S. government admitted that the Aleutians were held on the camps longer than they should have been.

Reparations were paid to victims of forced sterilization and eugenic programs to rid American society of citizens deemed as misfits and degenerates. In 2013 North Carolina agreed to pay $10 million to victims. The payment was to be divided among the victims. Virginia in 2015, initiated a compensation program for victims who had the same government crime committed against them.

The noted “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” lasted for 40 years, drawing in hundreds of Black men used as guinea pigs. Some of the men were not offered a cure despite a cure for syphilis was discovered. After getting exposed by an Associated Press reporter, the victims filed a class action lawsuit. Ten million dollars was paid to the survivors, their widows and offspring. In 1955 the Tuskegee victims were guaranteed a lifetime of medical care for themselves and their families.

The year was 1923 when Rosewood, located in Florida, in Rural Levy County, was leveled by a mob angry, racist males. Rosewood was a small all Black community. The mob burned down home and churches after a White woman accused a Black man of trying to rape her. The man was lynched. The rebel rousing mob then killed a number of Rosewood residents and burned and set fire to structures. In 1994 Florida agreed to pay $2.1 million to residents that survived the Rosewood massacre.

By the hands of White police in Chicago, Black prisoners were subjected to torture, extracting confession to crimes they did not commit. Chicago awarded 57 survivors cash payments totaling $5.5 million. Rather than admit the payment was for crimes committed against these 57 prisoners, the payment labeled “Reparations.” Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel apologized for the torture of the prisoners, and mandated that “torture” be studied in public schools.

No one is paying African Americans to commit crimes in an attempt to take what White folks have, as suggested by Alabama’s Senator Tommy Tuberville, the Republican multi-millionaire. Not one Black person, who might agree with Tuberville and Republicans, would agree to contribute a dime to pay wanton criminals, no matter who they are.

Reparations are still a giant thumb in the eyes of White folks. It is their Achilles heel. As matter of fact, everything relating to Black folks is their Archilles heel. Reparations today would mean admitting to, and giving truth to America’s dark past; the willful participation in the slave trade; deliberately buying and owning human beings solely for the purpose of using them as free labor, and to acquire financial wealth.

To add on this rejection of reparations to Black folks, the wanna-be dictator governor of Florida Ron DeSantis, wants to erase the real history of African American in his state. He said in January that the high school Advance Placement course on African Americans studies is not factual. He said, “We believe in teaching kid's facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them”. He said the classes amounts to “indoctrination.”

On January 12, Florida’s Department of Education penned a letter it sent to Florida’s College Board. The letter stated that the AP class is “inexplicably contrary to Florida’s law and significantly lacks educational value”. All related European subjects are just fine as is and can be taught in AP classes.

Like his counterpart in Texas, Greg Abbott, has copied DeSantis dissimilation of Black folks and their history because neither wants White kids to feel guilty and responsible the actions of their forefathers. If slavery is not discussed, the Emancipation, how Africans ended up in the Americas, then students cannot ask about reparations and slavery. The “offended” can freely discuss how first president George Washington never told a lie. In rewriting history, text book authors can delete the fact that Washington owned slaves.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Whitney Latrice Floyd-Kerr: A celebration of life

A Celebration of Life

In loving remembrance of 

Whitney Latrice Floyd-Kerr

January 19, 1988 – November 9, 2022 


Service of Love
Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:00 AM 

Pastor Paul Jacks, Officiating
Lifeline Christian Fellowship
Round Rock, Texas 

Obituary

Whitney Lartice Floyd-Kerr was born January 19, 1988, to Laura Ockletree-Floyd and John Davis Floyd in Fort Hood, Texas. She received Christ at an early age and was baptized at Austin Tabernacle.

Whitney was a 2006 graduate of Stoney Point High School. She went on to earn a Pharmacy Tech Certificate. She was a devoted wife, mother and caregiver. Whitney had many wonderful attributes, but the greatest was her nurturing and loving spirit.

On February 26, 2008, she married the love of her life, Clinton W. Kerr of Round Rock, Texas. To this union they were blessed with two sons, Caleb Wayne (age 12) and Clinton Wayne Kerr, Jr. (age 9) She adored her family and was an excellent wife and homemaker. 

Daughter,Whitney Floyd Kerr, Laura Ockletree
Floyd, mother

Whitney is preceded in death by her mother, Laura Ockletree-Floyd; grandparents Rosie May and John Davis Floyd. Sr.; uncles Joseph Floyd and James Floyd; and nephew KeyVenuntavious Powell.

Left to cherish her loving memory are her husband, Clinton and their beautiful children Caleb Wayne Kerr and Clinton Wayne Kerr; father, John Davis Floyd (Brenda); mother-in-law, Evelyn Kerr of Pflugerville, Texas; grandmother, Marie Ockletree of Austin, Texas; grandfather, Dave Ockletree, Jr. (Billie) of Temple  Texas; siblings, Johnathan Floyd of Round Rock, Texas, Christopher Ockletree of Austin, Texas, Quincy Ockletree of Tulsa., Oklahoma, Sharita Ockletree of Round Rock, Texas And Garriet Howard, Teixeira Powell and Tiffany Howard all of Tuskegee, Alabama; aunts, Evera Wilkins of Temple, Texas, Sandra Ockletree of Round Rock, Texas and Mary Vaugh (Douglas), Brenda Pace (Robert), Yolanda Patterson (Ronald), and Espenolia Floyd all of Shorter, Alabama; uncles, Dave A. Ockletree (Latoya) of Vidalia, Georgia, and Lawrence Floyd, Ozell Floyd (Angelia) both of Shorter, Alabama; and a host of cousins, nieces, nephews and friends.

*****************************************************************

Just One Day

If I could come back just for one day
I know exactly what I would say.
To my family and friends, and those who I loved,
As a message from God who speaks from above.
I would say it’s okay to be sad for a while,
But what I really want to most is to see you all smile.
And for you to go on and live once again,
Allowing my memory to comfort your pain.
I know you all loved me with all of your heart,
And that none of you wanted for me to depart.
I don’t quite understand it all myself,
But I know you’ll get by with a little bit of help.
Yes, I would say to be a sad for a day
And to do what you need to do.
And then lift up your eyes
To the wonder of the sky,
And I know that I loved you all too!

You Never Said Goodbye
A poem for my wife 

You never said I’m leaving,
You never said goodbye,
You were gone before I knew it,
And only God knew why.
And a million times I needed you,
A million times I cried,
If love alone could have saved you,
You would never have died.
In life I loved you dearly,
In death I loved you still,
In my heart you hold a place,
That no one could ever fill.
It broke my heart to lose you,
But you didn’t go alone,
For part of me went with you,
 The day God took you home.

 ************************************

Order of Service
Prelude

Old Testament
Pastor D.W. Townsend
Winn Memorial Baptist Church,
Elgin, Texas

New Testament
Rev. Paul Jacks
Lifeline Christian Fellowship
Round Rock, Texas

Prayer
Rev. Paul Jacks

Selections
“Precious Lord”       "When I see Jesus"
Paul March

Remarks

Eulogy: Rev. Paul Jacks       Benediction: Psalm 23:1-6

Pallbearers
Tyrone Grant    Anthony Green   Willie Warren
Johnathan Floyd   Quincy Ockletree    Chris Floyd

Acknowledgements 

The family of Whitney Latrice Floyd-Kerr would like to say a special thank you to all the friends and family who are here to attend, and to those who are here in spirit. We are deeply appreciative of all the kindness shown to us during our time of bereavement. May God richly bless and keep each of you in His perfect peace

Internment
Cook Walden Memorial Hill Cemetery
Pflugerville, Texas 78660

Funeral Service
King-Tears Mortuary, Inc.
Austin, Texas 78702