Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory may be the only person on the planet right now who I can listen to talk about the current state of racism and oppression in America. It's just too late to discuss being a victim or to pay too much attention to the illusionary, "Oppressor."

If every human being is a spiritual being having a human experience, then being a "victim" ... or a "perpetrator" are merely roles we either choose to play or "attach" to and have difficulty letting go of. (This is only background babble because by now, most folks know this already... at least intellectually, if not emotionally.)

Dick Gregory has worn many hats. Among them being, social activist, comedian, writer, and entrepreneur, grandfather, and spiritual adviser ... but the thread that weaves them all together is that he is a healer. A "social counselor" that tells both the emperor and the field hand that they have no clothes ... that they've forgotten who they are ... and like the father, chides them to the point of awareness that yes, they can and must ... do better.

Please play the video below. Like Dr. Phil, John Bradshaw, and Jesus Christ, I too agree that the burden of unnecessary guilt and shame lie at the heart of America’s ills. I hope you’ll "YouTube" all his videos. He speaks to the healing heart of us all ... black, white, yellow, brown, red … male, female ... et al ...

The Meaning of Your Life?

One life to live ... for whom?

Living in a time and place where all around us are messages promoting hoarding and spending, it's very easy to lose track of what really satisfies you. So much so that many don't have a clue. America is increasingly getting ... fatter. Oh yeah ... there's so many reasons, right? But the main one is that fork at the end of our wrist.

Furtunately for us, a couple of people in San Francisco got together and started a microfinance startup named Kiva Microfinance is using the internet to bring normal people together to help alleviate poverty in Uganda .

There have been years when I made pretty good money, and other years when I made squat. But the primary constant element that determined the quality of my life was ... people. How did I connect with? Whom did I touch or allow myself to be touched by. In today's increasingly alienated world of violence, suspicion, and hatred, it's ... almost vital to find something worthy to integrate into my life. I can give a few bucks to some body standing on a corner looking for a handout (... a quarter that may go directly into the pockets of the beer industry...) or I can log onto Kiva and for as little as $35.00, have a positive, sustainable affect on the lives of an entire village of (industrious) people. For more on the story, visit : "Jewels In The Jungle."

Log onto the site. Have fun. Feel good about yourself. Feel good about others ....

Farm or Go to College FREE?

• Okay, so not everyone wants to move to the country.
  
  
• And not all black folks seem to be eager to move "down south.
  
  
• And younger people may have so many other dreams than ... to become a farmer.

One of the most exciting new opportunities I've heard of ... in my life! ... is a current program that is sending young black males to college F-R-E-E !!

Black male college grads are in such short supply that they are now sending us to college free. (That's too sad to laugh at.) But it's true... there are about 13 black universities and other colleges who'll pay for your college. Here's the info:

For information about the Call Me MISTER program, please contact us through one of these methods:

Email:

MISTER@clemson.edu

Telephone:

Call toll-free : 1-800-640-2657

Mail:
Call Me MISTER

203 Holtzendorff

Clemson University

Clemson, SC 29634

Moving In Christ

I've reached a point where to continue posting info without including comments about the religious experience I've been going through that brought all this about ... is casing me to pause. I wanted to keep "church and state" separate. But I see now, it won't be easy because God pervades all ... and the devil is very active these days.

Let it suffice to say right now that all the difficulties I've been through in my life has been a result of my forgetting a relationship with God. When we do, God often removes His hand of Grace from us and allows those who love darkness (both human and spirit) to attack us. This has been soooo weird .... but this is a mild description of what happened to me.

But I can now go with confidence ....anywhere ... urban or rural, because I'm aware of the utter necessity of "moving in God's Will" ... not mine~and not man's nor woman's. The new "real" blog will have to have a separate page to document the spiritual calling we who are feeling the call to self-sufficenciy and healthier living through Green farming.

Mother Jones Highlights Environmental Racism

Environmental Racism:

Silent Existence

We all know it exists. Predominately black and people of color living near Richmond's Standard Oil Refinery ... cancer clusters and nothing is done.

The old Navy Shipyard at San Francisco's Hunter's Point... again, more cancer clusters, asthma and high rates of other diseases ... yet little is done.

But my question is ... WHY do people continue to stubbornly stay where the job situation is bleak, and health risks are enormous? Moving is a simple answer for many, but there are some for whom the answers are more complicated.

Read Mother Jones articles on this and other related issues- "Black Gold"

Then, glance below and think about:

• Different ways to live
• Different ways to parent
• Different ways to work

Small Farming for Profit and Stewardship

North Carolina farmer Alex Hitt and his wife Betsy have worked their 26 acre farm in Graham, N.C. into an environmental gem and profit center. "Over the years, Hitt has reduced acreage and labor by improving their soil with cover crops, concentrating on high-value crops that grow well in the area. What he has not reduced is profit, thanks to direct marketing through the Caroboro Farmers Market and Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery store in the area.

"Each acre returns a minimum of $20,000 annually, while four high-tunnel greenhouses (that shelter young or delicate crops) bring in $1,000 per crop. The Hitts embrace their small scale, growing 80 varieties of 23 vegetables along with 164 varieties of cut flowers on just three acres. Alex and Betsy were winners of the 2006 Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program." (~Reprinted from "Small American Farm" magazine, January 2007 issue.)

Alex and Betsy Hitt will deliver the keynote address at this year's Future Harvest Alliance Conference in Hagerstown, Maryland, January 12-13, 2007. Learn more about this and other Future Harvest-CASA information on their website at: http:/www.futureharvestcasa.org/, or email to: fhacasa@verizon.net.

So Much Land To Be Free In

During the Great Depression, many people fled the drought-stricken region that stretched from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle. The struggles of those who stayed are the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Timothy Egan who follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains during the Depression, going from sod huts to new framed houses to basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out.

One of the most powerful and thought provoking aspects of "The Worst Hard Time" is the fact that the Midwest has never recovered from the Dust Bowl exodus. Even to this day, farmers in the Midwest going bust. "All across the Grain Belt stand abandoned homesteads, symbols of untold stories of failure, flight from the land, and even suicide." They leave behing land, farm homes, barns, etc...

Perhaps to entice urban-weary Brits, even the BBC did a story on Mid West Farmers Going Bust. But the Reverse Black Migration Movement is not about trying to become prosperous farmers as much as it is getting out of the way of the insanity and ever increasing cultural doom that life in Urban America is for us. Therefore, land with a farm house and out buildings, electricty, and water already on it is a huge gift just waiting for us. I dream of small Intential Communities of like minded black people with vision seeing this opportunity and sizing it.

A common Buddhist quote is: "Everything Changes." Sadly, what is true for the "American Farmer," may be a good thing for black people seeking to join the "Back To The Land" movement. (Click here for Wikipedia’s write up.)

A Few Black Stats

A few stats...

• 65% of black children grow up without a father
  
  
• 1 out of every 32 Americans are either in prison, on probation or on parole
  
  
• Black women are three times more likely to be sent to prison than white women
  
  
• The Number One killer of young black men age 25 and under is AIDS
  
  

Wanna See What You're Missing?

Some black people will look glance at this blog and agree with its premise immediately. Others will need more convincing. So take a quick look at your room, studio apartment, or home in the hood, and then look at what you can have for shockingly cheap when you move out of the chaos and into nature.

United Country.com Just type in a state you're curious about or perhaps the home state of "your peoples"... and be prepared for shock and awe....

Ranch & Country.com Don't stop there. The web is full of possibilities. On the day I pulled up this page, they were featuring a "rustic cabin" in Colorado for $148,900.

The links above are simply the tip of the iceberg. Here's a scenic little country home ... national forest on 3 sides, a spring-fed pond, sheds and a barn on 36 acres for only $149,000!

Let's Focus on Solutions

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix it, but...

Black Solutions asserts that Urban America has become a terminal disease that is killing black folks. (Sounds funny, right?) We don't need to run down all the facts and figures, 'yall know them...

1. Despite all the killings, AIDS is now the Number One cause of death for black men 25 and under. (And no, they ain't catching nor transmitting the virus by themselves.)


2. The Public Health System is now officially overloaded. They don't have enough money nor grant services to provide individuals with known cures they already have.
   
   
3. Black Theology (black churches) are soooo out dated... still preaching that same old Santa Claus version of God, that didn't keep pace with the Space Age we entered 30 years ago... let along this alienated, technocratic, "New Millennium." Transpersonal Psychology says that "Addiction" is a spiritual emergency. Hence, we need ways of interpreting our current time in ways that will allow us to release our guilt and shame (not the guilt and shame of old Moses and his crew) as well as inspiring hope and showing us The Divine in This age.

We could be here all day just listing the problems, but it's better to go right into some of the solutions.

Check out Dr. Ridgely Muhammad of Muhammad Farms. The page is dated 2003, but maybe this will get you into some research. Leave a comment or two if you find something of worth.

Then have a look at what Paul and David Roach are doing with the West Oakland Farmer's Market.

And Social Commentary from Art a.k.a. Frank Pembleton wrote:

"I've always said that Black people are a rural people, and that we weren't meant to live surrounded by concrete. This whole western urban environment is partly responsible for our jacked up mental, emotional, and physical condition. Half of what we call "Blackness" or Black culture is southern culture anyway. Black people are in denial about our southern roots, because for too long we have associated the south only with terrorism and pain. The white man has tricked us out of our birthright. We didn't just escape from the south, we were also driven from our true homes, not in the absolute sense, for the south isn't a specific place, but rather, rural living, amongst nature, with trees, grass, vegetables, and flowers, is where we should really be. Folks don't even understand. This urban environment is partly responsible for the insanity around hypermasculinity. The whole construction of Black male identity as being only about "hardness" or toughness is directly tied to this urban nightmare we're trapped in."

What we're up against: http://www.ewg.org/reports/blackfarmers/execsumm.php

Why rural or farm life is one of the best choices for what ails us currently.

Land provides self determination. I remember my parents telling us how people who lived on farms like theirs back in Mississippi, were immune to the horrors of The Depression.

When you own your own cow:

• You have plenty of fresh milk
• You have fresh cheese
• You have cream…

When you own your own chickens:

• You don't have to wonder what you'll eat for breakfast
• You can even experiment with new omelets styles

When you grow your own vegetables:

• You don't have to wonder what type of pesticides are on your tomatoes
• You don't have to beg or steal

~You are healthy.
~You have dignity
~You are happy
~You don't see the insides of a Kaiser Stress Clinic
~The only boss you have is the bank … and God

This isn't a lifestyle change for everyone. Yes you can easily find 5-10 acres of land with a 3-4 bedroom house on it for under $150,000 (and MANY times under $100,000) in rural communities throughout the south and midwest, but you have to have ways of making money BEFORE you buy. This will work best if you deally:

• You have done your research and have started making money through the internet ("new economy")
• You are NOT afraid of hard work
• Want to live out your life peacefully or raise healthy children
• You are a business owner and you find a rural place about 45 minutes outside of a larger city (esp. one with a college or university)
• You're self-employed ... i.e. as an artist or writer
• You have a valuable trade
• You're involved with medicine, teaching, Biotech or hightech.

There are plenty of internet sites that will show you plenty of opportunities.

Urban life ain't getting no better, and unless you're very skillful in a LEGAL career field, it most likely won't provide you with anymore opportunities than it has in the past.