Letter to Martin 2023

Following MLK Day: Hope springs eternal…

My dearest Martin,

As I look back and reminisce, I can remember how passionate you were about our people and uniting us all. Today, I am grasping the hope that what is happening is leading us to a positive outcome. I am grasping. I am wishing. I am praying.

 I weep now because it seems like all the you did, and that your dying, were in vain. I weep at the hatred and hostility that is prevalent today. You believed in human nature, that people were innately good, and that we could overcome oppression by appealing to the good in everyone. You could not have known, just as we didn’t realize, that in white supremacist culture, in the white supremacist Christian religion, and even in the white supremacist bible, the only people who matter are white people and the god they worship the only god they know, is money. They serve their god by gaining power, not the power of the one true God, but the power to control and manipulate people and situations to what they believe is their greater good. The most disappointing thing about the world we now live in is something you consistently warned us about, something you described as “Man’s inhumanity to man”, and we see it daily as more and more Black and brown people become disenfranchised, homeless, helpless, unemployed, hungry, and angry. Because of their misguided beliefs, they believe they are doing what is right, and they have no way of knowing they are headed for eternal destruction. We try to warn them, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. Divine providence will indeed catch up to them, so we just work, watch, pray, and wait.

We have, in all the years since you were taken from us, been trying to combat the blatant racism that plagues every day. We have tried to get everyone to work together for the common good, to work toward a better world, while white supremacists have been spreading their hatred and vitriol. “The appalling silence of the good (white) people” has turned into denial and neglecting to correct and redirect their own people. We find ourselves now caught up under the leadership of people who are racist, hateful, and, more than anything else, dumb and ignorant, and even though we try to lead people to the peace and harmony that you spoke of, they have the belief that even the worst white people are far better than the best Black and brown people.

Dear Martin, they have spent years, and loads of money, trying to wipe us out, trying to make our children bend to their wishes by making certain they are distracted, undereducated, rude, hateful and resentful. In many ways they have succeeded, but the white supremacists have ignored the fact that we have passed on the knowledge you reinforced to us, the knowledge that we are KINGS. They accuse us of “grooming” the children, but they think we are ignorant enough to teach our children the attitude of servitude. We have “groomed” our children to understand that, although the odds seem to be against them, they must be prepared with knowledge, wisdom and common sense, and intelligently “best” them in order achieve our rightful position in the world. Because of the rules white supremacists have set, our children have become more educationally prepared than theirs, a condition that makes their children, their young, hate-filled offspring kill their parents, their children… mass shootings of people who have done nothing to deserve their wrath. They have filled their homes with weapons of mass destruction, and they have been diligent in teaching their children, and some of our children, that violence solves all of their problems, that they can conquer the world by spreading terror.

Oh, Martin, we truly believed that you and God sent Barack Obama, forty years later, to lead us to the Promised Land, and we were disappointed that, though he tried his best to help heal the nation, he was thwarted at every turn. He achieved many good things, but he was not able to overcome the prejudice and bias of the country. We knew, Martin, that you sent him, because Barack Obama knew and understood the audacity of our calling… the Audacity of Hope. We now know that his mission was a reconnaissance mission, a fact-finding, deep dive into the madness of their culture. Now, even with the odds against us, we have made strides toward having the leadership we need, to beat them at their own games, to steer us away from the foolish and deadly path we have had to walk for years. Our young leaders know now the boldness it will take for them to truly take the lead, to make our way out of the “pit” that is the way of white supremacists, truly Satan’s minions. Our young leaders are armed with knowledge and fired up, ready to go.   

In the fifty-five years since you were taken from us, we have had dynamic leaders and passive leaders; we have made advances and we have had setbacks; we have had positive results and we have had failures. Above all WE HAVE LEARNED, and WE ARE TEACHING the young ones. Please, Martin, keep inspiring us to greatness, keep encouraging us, keep sending us messages of HOPE AND PEACE AND LOVE. Even though we cannot see you, all these years later, we still feel your presence.    

Thinking randomly today...
not so quietly, nor mostly to myself...
It was my generation that screwed up. The generation before us got a whiff of what they called "upward mobility", and by allowing us to go to "ivy league schools" and experience affirmative action, we "moved on up to the big leagues". Unfortunately, we lost the concept that we had grown on since slavery... that we needed to look out for one another and help one another. Just as slave mothers and fathers looked out for whatever children were left "after the sale", we needed to keep looking out. With the help of "them" demonizing the drug culture and sending young strong Black men to jail, sometimes for NOTHING more than smoking a little weed, we moved into their gated communities, where we were not wanted nor accepted, where our "neighbors" didn't know our names and wouldn't allow us to know theirs because they were teaching HATE in their houses while we were trying to teach love in ours... but we had cut off Grandma and the cousins because they still lived in the "hood" and we had no family reinforcement. We started to worship money, brag about the high-priced, low quality stuff we could buy, and shame folks who couldn't afford what we could. We worked like DOGS to make that money and dared Black men to quit jobs where they were being disrespected by calling them dead-beats, especially when it came to paying astronomically stupid child support set up by government agencies that were already making us pay more and higher taxes than our "neighbors." We allowed child support enforcement to take men to court for "getting behind", taking away their driver's licenses so they couldn't work, telling them that they should take jobs "flipping burgers" to make money to "catch up", knowing they never would be able to. MY GENERATION let that happen, and taught "feminist" women to say they didn't "need a man"... when Black women have never needed to be feminists... We women messed up by taking femininity out of our own 'equation"... when we should have been adding "wifely." We won in the boardrooms but started denying satisfaction in the bedrooms. We men and women, made it necessary to take our children back, when we shouldn't have let them go in the first place. We expected "integrated schools" to help raise our kids, when those we were integrated with had no intention of raising theirs... They care more about their PETS than they care about their kids, and they prove it by opposing gun control while it is THEIR KIDS who keep getting shot up in school shootings. I will stop preaching now... but there is so much more I could say!!

You don't see Black kids shooting up schools... instead you see Black kids getting sent home, suspended from their "Christian schools" (what a laugh) because their hair is deemed "inappropriate" the way it grows out of their heads, and getting reprimanded for saying "yes ma'am"... for HAVING MANNERS!! Black schools don't get shot up because WE only kill people we're mad at... and unfortunately a few who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. They don't go in inner city schools with guns because they'd get beat down or shot by guns bigger than theirs because our SURVIVAL INSTINCT kicks in and we protect our own. Even weakened as we have been by their influences, shamed and bullied by them because they are jealous of how beautiful we are, and allowing our children to commit suicide because they don't know how beautiful WE are, but they ought to know because every style they have adapted and adopted has been OUR STYLE. We encourage our kids to go to college, even when we know that some don't belong there (there is PRIDE in being a great plumber, electrician, bricklayer... and we OWE THEM RESPECT) and we set them up for failure in a big way. We allow our girls to place more value in fake hair and out of control bodies (big butts and fake boobs) than they place in strong minds, high ideals, and helping to encourage and assist our "boys" in becoming STRONG MEN.

We allow our girls to settle for "sharing men" because that's what white women have been doing all along... they let their men make slave babies right under their noses and didn't say anything about them spending their money to buy the slaves they made babies with. We have young Black people talking smack about being "mixed" and being all confused when we all know we need not be confused...one drop of Black blood makes you BLACK!! We have people using us (have you noticed how many commercials have "mixed" couples... more with the man being white thanks to Prince Harry) because they know we spend money, and more and more, our economic value to them is being reinforced. We know that they might be upset with Black Lives Matter, but they know that it is TRUE... they NEED us. They need us to work, vote, spend, CONTROL... because that fool that they support is so out of control he's gonna get us all killed. It is time for MY GENERATION... the BOOMERS... to do something to fix what we messed up. Although we are thinking it's time to retire and sit back, we have two generations of young people that are playing "catch up" in the COMMON SENSE and GOOD MANNERS arena. We messed up... Now, we need to FIX IT!!

Is Disrespect Okay?

Luke 6:31 (King James Version)

³¹And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

Thomasine Bolling Hill

                It is a current trend for people to outwardly disrespect others, with no regard for their feelings, or for correct behavior. Biblical teaching and the teaching of former generations precludes this trend, however it is a lack of training that allows this trend to worm its way into current practice. Correct behavior dictates that all people should be respected, simply because they are people, regardless of whether their beliefs, nationalities, and cultures are the same. Under the guise of the premise that one must give respect to receive respect, blatant disrespect is being practiced on a daily basis, and our society excuses, and it seems sometimes, encourages it. Even children in schools, as young as kindergartners, disrespect teachers and administrators on a daily basis and it is allowed because parents allow and even encourage it, calling it the child’s right… “Freedom of speech”. In a society that is so steeped in political correctness, why is it okay to encourage moral and behavioral incorrectness?

                Respect is free, as is common sense, but, unfortunately, everyone does not have it. It is a common sense practice to respect others as one wishes to be respected. The easiest, and most fulfilling, gift that one can give to another human being is respect, regardless of that person’s station in life. All are equal in the sight of the Creator, by whatever name that Creator is referred, and all deserve respect; whether that person is a teacher, a pastor, a janitor, a homeless person on the street, a mentally disadvantaged person, Protestant, Catholic, Moslem, or Jew.

Is disrespect okay?

Never.

Choices

Choices…

To Ronnie in memoriam

November 16, 2015

Before you disappeared down the scary addiction rabbit-hole,

You chose someone to take your place.

You didn’t know, nor did I,

That we did not fit into his model… that you and yours were not good enough for him.

If anything, because you knew he had been down that very same hole… without my even telling you,

You thought he’d understand, and be able to help yours, your son especially,

To navigate the darkness he would encounter,

And steer him clear.

You thought he’d help your daughter to appreciate herself,

And refuse to resort to looking for love in all the wrong places.

You thought he owed you that, at least, for all you were giving up for him.

Instead, his choices took him in a different direction,

And you were so disappointed, because by then, it was too late

The entrance to the rabbit-hole was closed, and you were forced to watch

The only available choice… one of which you did not approve,

One who took only and never gave, who required too much of us, because he thought

He deserved it. A true child of privilege, like you never were. You had heart.

You were not the only one who made bad choices… even if, especially when,

The choices were made out of love.

My Thoughts on Baltimore 2015

Although I have a "militant streak a mile wide", I have never been a promoter of violence. That said, I truly understand the frustration our young people feel, especially our young men. The odds are stacked against them. They are disrespected on every side, and they are angry. I know...

Ever since Roots aired in 1976, I have not been able to comfortably watch the mistreatment of my people in cinema. I get angry. I am angry and I don't try to pretend that I'm not. I realize, however, that anger does not, in and of itself, beget violence. Violence is a useless and unnecessary response to injustice, which is really what the Civil Rights leaders were trying to teach us many years ago. Anyone who has ever been in a fight will tell you that the issues that fight resolved were nothing compared to the inner issues that had to be resolved in our own minds afterward. If I believed that destroying other people's stuff would somehow make me feel better, I would have been tearing up the world, but I know it doesn't happen like that.

Violence from anyone is wrong, and the smallest, youngest children know right from wrong. Babies know when what they get ready to do is wrong, and they look to adults for validation. They wait, while reaching toward the shiny object that is off-limits, for parents (or any adults in the room) to say, "NO!" They reach more than once, and the "NO!" must be continually reinforced. It's a hard job, but the designation PARENT dictates the necessity for doing it. The job description of parent should contain the disclaimer that it is not a popular position... the employees hate you, the hours are long and grueling, the stress is oppressive, and the pay is lousy. However, the rewards, when a parent sees that a responsible, well-adjusted, respectful and respectable adult is the product, are phenomenal.

Last night was not the first night many of those young people had been out in the streets. Many young people go out every night, just waiting for something to happen, for something to "jump off". Sad, and angry at the world, they go out. They should have been at home reading and studying, but they were out. They should have been playing video games or reading to their younger sisters and brothers, but they were out. It was a school night, but they were out. They should have had something constructive to do, but they were out. They should have, at the very least, been peaceful, as the gang members even asked them to do, but they didn't think they had to, because they were out. They were out because they don't fear the police, although their parents do fear the police and the law in general. Their parents know about consequences, and they are not about to have to suffer them. Parents have learned, the hard way, to protect themselves, even at the cost of their children.

Anyone who knows me knows that I tell everybody I was more afraid of my mother than I was of the police. There were many times when I avoided dangerous situations (not always, but that's another conversation) simply because I was afraid of what my mother might say or do, and I respected her, my family, and my own reputation. I knew that, when she said she would kill me, or that she would leave me in jail because she would never have bail money, even if she had a million dollars, I truly believed her. She didn't lie. She had control, even when I was dozens of miles away from her. At 58, after she has been gone from my consciousness for almost 20 years, she STILL has that control. I catch myself looking around sometimes, to see if she is walking up behind me, and watching my language, which can sometimes get out of hand,  just in case she is.

Now, parents are not allowed to strike that kind of fear into their children. From the time children enter school especially, they know that they can depend on the law to protect them from their parents. I was made aware of this when my daughter entered kindergarten. She came home and proudly announced that her teacher had told her that, if I spanked her, she could dial 9-1-1, and the police would come to help her, and so I could never spank her. Because I cared that her teacher, for whom this was her first teaching job, be aware of this misconception, I contacted her and explained that she needed to explain to the children the difference between parents correcting children, in love, and parents beating and abusing children. I also laughed when she said my daughter came to her that morning and asked her when I was supposed to bring her clothes, because, if I couldn't discipline her, she couldn't live with me. She did a superb job, but she would never have known it was an issue if I hadn't bothered to tell her.

It was an issue for more parents than me, but parents just didn't seem to know it. They bought into the negativity of the media coverage of parents getting arrested for disciplining their children and the adoption of new laws that supported jail time for parents, even if their children did something as simple as missing days from school. They bought into the psychological and sociological data that condemns parents for promoting violence, if they discipline their children. They even bought into the hype that teaching children respect was somehow teaching them to be subservient and cowardly. They allowed their children to be rude and disrespectful, out loud, even if it hurt the feelings and damaged the self-respect of others, claiming "freedom of speech". There were parents like myself, who quietly taught our children, especially our boys, to be respectful, watchful, and disciplined in their deportment, but, gradually, we became the exceptions rather than the norm. We allowed that to happen, without really understanding what we were doing. It became an issue of education, or the lack of education and enlightenment, an education which should have come from our homes. Parents began to feel helpless and hopeless, not fully understanding that,  if they didn't discipline their kids, the streets and the justice system would do it for them, and that would be disastrous for all involved.      

One thing I know for sure is that there shouldn't have been any fighting or looting or burning in the  streets. These young people should not have taken the risk of tarnishing the memory of Freddy Gray, or any other African American male who lost his life unjustly. They should have known that none of these young men would have wanted that... no person in his right mind would have wanted it. They should have started studying, thinking, coming up with ways to change this scenario, and obliterate this obscene and obsessive violence against others, especially our own. They should have, like the gang members who were trying to stop them, pledged to form a band of brothers... intent on making things right. 

Black Lives Matter: What has happened to our children?

On this past Monday, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, students from Virginia Commonwealth University took to the streets and stopped traffic on Broad and Grace Streets during rush hour, peacefully, silently. It was their seventh march since Thanksgiving, and the march that prompted the Richmond Police Department to ask urgently for dialogue to commence. The students who were interviewed cited the differences in the treatment of VCU's white students who "misbehaved", who were not arrested, harassed,  or given any reprimand from the police or the University.  The students were incensed and passionate, but they were peaceful. I was proud of them.

            The appalling issue was that there were no students from Virginia Union University or Virginia State University present. Surely, so I thought, they must be aware that this matter affects them, too. They compete against each other in athletic events, and party together on the weekends, and the press which defames and degrades affects the HBCU students even more than the students at VCU ( a PWI.. predominantly white institution) should spur them to action or at least support. The schools are in close proximity, and because of social media, it would have been fairly easy for them to communicate their intentions and elicit support  from their peers, but that didn't happen. I was disappointed.

             I knew that the current dilemma over funding and administrative inconsistency was prevalent in the minds of many of the VSU students, but I also knew that the funding issue was part of a larger political effort to further disenfranchise Black youths, who, in the eyes of the public, are unruly miscreants who really don't deserve to get assistance in raising themselves above the poverty level.  So, because of my weekly contact with over 75 VSU students, I decided to ask them about Martin Luther King Day, and what it meant to them. I expected them to at least know about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and to have some idea about the marches and sit-ins which gave them many of the simple freedoms they now enjoy. What I discovered was that they knew fairly nothing about the movement, nor what it actually did for them. It was not presented as a part of their history lessons in school, or in church, nor was it taught in their homes. The only thing they knew about was King's "I Have a Dream" speech, but not even when or why he made it, and that was only presented to them during Black History Month in their schools. I was saddened.

            Because I am an English teacher with a passion for history and a keen interest in African American studies, I launched into a history lesson that went back to slavery and what it meant for and to us, and proceeded through reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, into the Civil Rights Movement  and finally into Black Lives Matter and what prompted the current movement. I made it a multi-media presentation, by utilizing websites to find pictures, videos, and recorded accounts to make it more interesting for them. I did this "on the fly", since I had no idea that morning that there would be a need for the lesson, but I'm always flexible, and I could relate this to the autobiographies they were scheduled to submit as part of their weekly assignment. I asked them what the people who lived through each era could possibly include in their autobiographies. I was reminded that, at the last Black Alumni Weekend, the first I had attended at UVA, I learned that we were pioneers in many ways and we had no idea of our impact on the students who followed us.  Many students were interested, or at least they pretended to be, but some were convinced that I must have been fabricating some current issues. I knew that I had to prove to them the realities of being Black in America. Knowing that the journal reading/response for this week was "Literacy Behind Bars", by Malcolm X, I knew I had opened a door for further instruction, discussion, and learning.  I was inspired.

            In order to refine my presentations, I have access to the thoughts, opinions, and input of some more "seasoned", non-traditional students at the community college, in my African American Literature class. I am depending on their insight and experience to point me in the direction I need to go for the latter half of the semester in my freshman writing classes... the half that deals with critical thinking and writing. To get them started thinking, I planted an idea. I asked them, as they walked through Southpark Mall, and shopped in the only stores that many of  them have access to, to pay attention to the fact that there were security people who follow Black people around as they shop... moving when they move and stopping when they stop. A few of them had already noticed, but many of those who hadn't, vowed to pay attention. The few who had noticed had also noticed that there were white kids, in the mall, who were loud and disruptive, and some who were even observed shoplifting, but no special attention was paid to them. I asked them how they felt about it, and they were quick to recognize that it didn't just happen at that mall, but also in the malls and stores close to their homes. They talked about Black kids getting busted for doing nothing more than staying in one place together for too long, and white kids just being told to "move along". I explained to them that Black Lives Matter is what that is all about... that Black people, especially young Black males, can get busted, beaten, and even killed, and it didn't seem to matter to anyone... until now. I'm on a mission!    https://www.facebook.com/thomasine.b.hill/about

Ordinary Care: I listen far better than I talk...

I just love listening to my elders. They can teach me so much.
I have become the driver to my septuagenarian family matriarch, and she has no idea how she blesses me every time we go somewhere, even if it's just to the doctor's office.
Take yesterday, for instance...
First, let me say that, when you roll with older people, you must be prepared to talk about any and every thing, and switch subjects at the drop of a dime. Also, know that, even the most educated, elegant, and refined of them, when they are passionate about something, their language tends to get a bit "bawdy". And, they READ EVERYTHING!!
She asked, "Have you been reading about Bill Cosby?"
Before I could answer, she said, "He's as old as hell.... Why do you think they waited this long to bring this mess up?" Pointing her finger at no one, she said... "Follow the money!!" She proceeded to talk about entertainers and athletes, and how it is common knowledge that they  have followers, hangers-on who have a need to find their place in the limelight, so they go to a grown man's hotel room, late at night, alone, to have drinks and do "whatever else", and they get paid in the process. "They know what's going on, and they know what's going to happen, but they go anyway..." Her voice trailed off, while she thought for a moment. When she spoke again, she said, "He is about to reinvent himself, to do something big again, and they're trying to stop him!" Satisfied with her assessment of the matter, she stopped, and I pondered what she had said. I thought about her, and how she had, in the course of her 57-year-career, reinvented herself, upgraded her skills, studied to make her skills marketable, and moved up in her field... and even though she swears she has retired, I sense only a transition.
During our comfortable silence, she had been thinking, and suddenly she said, (and I felt like I was coming in on the middle of a conversation she had been having in her head), "and those girls who have come forward at UVA... What were they thinking when they went to fraternity parties alone, drinking?" Since it is both our alma mater, I wanted to hear what she thought. I had had this conversation with my "daughter-in-law" (my son's best friend, who I adopted as my own, married a Wahoo) the night before last, and we both agreed that it is a rule never to go anywhere alone, especially at night, in Charlottesville. That was true, even in the '70's, and she assured me that it was still true when she was there, and she graduated in 2013.
"What are mothers teaching their girls these days?"
I thought back a couple of weeks to my daughter's return to ODU for Homecoming, and realized that, although she left home alone in the middle of the day, her entourage was waiting for her in Norfolk, and they were together the whole time. The same thing goes when she goes to D.C. She even nixed a trip not too long ago because the friend who wanted her to go was an unreliable companion... and she wasn't about to get left by herself!!
So... why didn't these girls know that?
My septuagenarian mentor said, "ORDINARY CARE... that's all they needed to know. Mothers have been failing their own children, boys and girls, by not teaching them ordinary care!"
You heard the lady... Ordinary Care!