It's Just an Open Response to Ekow N. Yankah and a couple other THINGS

Dear America,

I believe the children are our are future

Teach them well and let them lead the way

Show them all the beauty they possess inside

Give them a sense of pride to make it easier..

yes, happy tuesday.

and this girl is beginning with the opening lines of a Whitney Houston song, Greatest Love of All! [and my deep appreciation for the mother-lode of lyrics available online....everything from A - Z, including G x]

Becoming a hit, getting the chorus occasionally stuck in our heads, and being completely overplayed for what seemed to be decades, pop culture embraced this cheesy, sappy, sugary sweet song right from the start -- because it was Whitney!  Pretty sure nobody else could have pulled it off...just sayin'.

Gosh, she was gorgeous, and talented, and so full of life!  

Rising into stardom after being raised singing gospel in her church, she made it -- and she did it with her heart in the right place.  What broke her spirit, and maybe her heart, was everything that came with it -- the high life, the fame and fortune that accommodated luxury and indulging in all the things that have the power to change us, inside and out: drugs, alcohol, associating with people who don't have our best interests at heart while partying until the wee hours of the morning.

Although it didn't happen overnight, the fullness of this lifestyle -- the people, the profession, the passion --  preyed upon her, slowly and over time; although she may have tried to correct the course, Whitney lost sight of the greatest love of all and eventually the lifestyle killed her.

The thing is -- what is true for Whitney, is true for all of us -- that being, we are always at choice to change course, to make good decisions, to listen to that still, small voice inside ourselves that knows the way (the right way, right?).

Yeah, we often like to ignore that voice.

But on this day, on the old G Thing, this is just the start of something going on inside my head, across this land we call America, and even across the globe, and it has much to do about nothing and everything. 

If we do nothing -- we lose our heart and soul.

We must do everything to pay attention to our children; I mean, talk about impressionable, right?

So here you go-- in response to an op-ed in the New York Times, November 11th:  Can My Children Be Friends with White People?   by Ekow N. Yankah.  [(@ekownyankah) is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.] 

Second paragraph:

It is impossible to convey the mixture of heartbreak and fear I feel for him. Donald Trump’s election has made it clear that I will teach my boys the lesson generations old, one that I for the most part nearly escaped. I will teach them to be cautious, I will teach them suspicion, and I will teach them distrust. Much sooner than I thought I would, I will have to discuss with my boys whether they can truly be friends with white people.

to paragraph six:

As against our gauzy national hopes, I will teach my boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible. When they ask, I will teach my sons that their beautiful hue is a fault line. Spare me platitudes of how we are all the same on the inside. I first have to keep my boys safe, and so I will teach them before the world shows them this particular brand of rending, violent, often fatal betrayal.

"Gauzy national hopes," Mr. Yankah?  Good one.

Oh dear sir; mine may be pink, but certainly not gauzy; if you wanna conversation about it, let's start at my dreams being pink, and frilly, and happy......and yes, at peace with my fellow man,  no matter the color of skin.

Teach them suspicion and distrust?  Oh that is a fine start. 

Should I be now teaching my little white girl the very same thing, but in reverse?  And when I say reverse, it is in every sense of the word -- as in, ass backwards  and in every possible way taking any of the strides this land has made across race relations to a brand new low?  It's a new low -- given we have seen America at its worst before, and now you want to go back?  This is YOUR answer? 

And in spite of having a pretty normal childhood yourself -- as you say...

Let me assure you that my heartbreak dwarfs my anger. I grew up in a classic Midwestern college town. With all its American faults, it was a diverse and happy-childhood kind of place, slightly dull in the way that parents wish for their children. If race showed in class lines, school cliques and being pulled over more often, our little Americana lacked the deep racial tension and mistrust that seem so hard to escape now.

This doesn't make any sense.

But what does make sense is your anger towards this new president, Mr. Yankah -- that seems to be the root cause:

 Of course, the rise of this president has broken bonds on all sides. But for people of color the stakes are different. Imagining we can now be friends across this political line is asking us to ignore our safety and that of our children, to abandon personal regard and self-worth. Only white people can cordon off Mr. Trump’s political meaning, ignore the “unpleasantness” from a position of safety. His election and the year that has followed have fixed the awful thought in my mind too familiar to black Americans: “You can’t trust these people.”

oh wow..."you can't trust these people."
(no comment)

so sad
so sad
so sad

and as for your rather jaded opinion of Martin Luther King's dream.....

Meaningful friendship is not just a feeling. It is not simply being able to share a beer. Real friendship is impossible without the ability to trust others, without knowing that your well-being is important to them. The desire to create, maintain or wield power over others destroys the possibility of friendship. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous dream of black and white children holding hands was a dream precisely because he realized that in Alabama, conditions of dominance made real friendship between white and black people impossible.

Let me first give you a little two cents on this idea of meaningful friendship; you can't have real, meaningful friendship by group, or by an entire swath of country and Americana all at once.  This kind of friendship is PERSONAL!  It is INTIMATE!  It is shared experiences with another soul, most likely of like minds (again, having nothing to do with color of skin), over a common interest, or something, that grows -- naturally and organically.  And that kind of friendship is rather priceless, if not hard to find, no matter the color of our skin. 

And certainly -- after my fifty some odd years -- sensing that if you find that kind of friend, a certain and steadfast trust comes with it, almost by default, as the two of you have earned it over time and effort and whole lot of mutual respect and love.

Martin Luther King was speaking of this "famous dream" -- on behalf of the Greater Good -- because, I believe, as a preacher,  as a deep thinker, and as an American who truly cared for race relations -- HE truly BELIEVED we could achieve it! 

Matter of fact, I STILL BELIEVE IT!

So - teaching our children well, in my mind,  means teaching our children to believe it, too.

And not only believe it like happy endings in a fairy tale, but believe it in the core of their very being -- as if they were actually raised with the understanding.   Not stopping there, that they can be not only be a part of this dream coming true, like bystanders, but actively apart of this dream  --  intimately, integrally, and honorably connected in the very creation of this dream coming true. 

It does not have to stay a dream.

Dare I say to you, Mr. Yankah -- teaching YOUR children suspicion and distrust is NOT the way.

How many African-American families have been teaching this, do you know?  Has this been a hidden agenda and generational course correction all along, that all of us white people simply don't know about?   [G side note:  the Political Editors at The Patriot Post have just put up 2016 statistics on hate crimes...and it's worthy of a read.]

ah oh.  now look at what you've done; now I'm starting to feel a wee bit angry....

I have to stop thinking about this.  My head and my heart and my soul hurts like a motherf@&***(

Let's go in another direction.

France:  2017
The French courts are considering to allow adults to have sex with thirteen year old's -- only with their consent, of course.   Read all about it, here.  Or  here. 

This being now the occasion, when answering the age-old question of when having sex with a child isn't rape, leads us frantically to another question -- just how in the world did we get here?

Much of the comment feed dwells in the realm of the bad influences arising from the influx and homesteading of families bound to the Islam, which permits the gross, yet widely accepted, allowance for grown men taking sexual advantage of children, beginning as early as kindergarten.

But no matter its origins, France is embracing this new age where sex with children will be generally, and widely, and unconscionably, be acceptable?

As we meander from teaching our children well to protecting them first -- this girl suddenly realizes that we may be going back to the stone age there, as well. ugh.

One last thing in the news, as we play with this idea of teaching our children well, and protecting them as best we possibly can -- let's move on to the GQ's idea of the CITIZEN of the YEAR.........drum roll, please........................Colin Kaepernick.

The guy of mixed race who was adopted by a white couple, given everything he ever needed, and made it to the NFL, only to become the poster child of a downright perversion of the truth surrounding systematic racial bias within police departments nationwide.  [As you know, we have discussed that here on more than one occasion....and we will not go there today....But feel free to read old G things....they will surely delight, but I digress.]

So the CITIZEN of the year goes to the citizen who doesn't even choose to vote?   Who doesn't salute the flag?   Who wears socks pocking fun at the PoPo -- personifying pigs as cops, or is it cops as pigs?  And after being raised in a country famous for capitalism and all the benefits of a free market --  citizen of the year goes to the guy who loves Ernesto 'Che' Guevara  -- a radical,  militaristic, guerrilla warfare fanatic who dreamed of communism healing all wounds and societal issues?  The guy who is now whining his way through the court system because he failed at doing his job, and doing his job well?  This guy is named CITIZEN of the year?  Wow --  if this is the new role model for all of our kids to follow, then we all need to go to our rooms until we are ready to talk about it without yelling and screaming.


Nearing the end of this day, this blog, something tells me more than anything else, the choices that we make, who we associate with, and what we give our attention to, becomes our tomorrow - both large and small.

We have work to do; we have a duty to uphold order, to preserve the integrity of our relationship with the whole AND with each other, individually.  And although this stance is nothing new on the old gthing, it may all begin and end upon what we say to our children.

It will take every parent to tell their children --

"first, I am here to protect you 

and to love you with my whole heart."

Second,

"we must choose to find the good in all people, 

no matter the color of our skin -- 

let us trust each other

 to say and do the right thing, 

no matter the situation. 
AND this begins with YOU, honey --
 be good,
 trustworthy, honest, caring,
loving, and the best
you can possibly be and  
good things will happen."

Third,

 "choose the greatest love of all

-- to love yourself -- 

then, aim to find the Great Spirit inside you

 that guides you, 

helps decipher between right and wrong, 

and blesses you with a unique purpose in life.

--- Finding something Greater than ourselves 

to dwell upon, to place our attention, 

always seems to be a good idea...

For it teaches us good things:

 things like humility and grace,  

instilling an attitude of gratitude and courage, 

even during the most difficult of days 

(and those days will come)."

Oh I could say more,

this girl could probably rattle off a hundred things to say to our children, en masse.

But this is a great start; better than Mr. Yankah's approach, right? 

[Mr. Yankah is off on the wrong foot just by buying into the myriad of false narratives trumped up by the leftist media and liberals in general.  It would do him a world of good just to stop listening to those voices, and listen to what his heart taught him during his childhood....but what do I know; I'm just a girl, you know.   teehee]

The thing is, at the end of the day -- it's a beautiful thing to have this free will playing hopscotch with us each and every day; for it gives us everyday, imperfect human beings a chance to change our ways...to change course... to believe we can become true friends, if it is meant to be....and to believe in Martin Luther King's Dream.

It all begins with the very next step we take, along with the very next words of advice we give our children.

oh this girl can dream 

and believe the dream can come true indeed.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's an Ode to Kickin' It with What We've Got Thing

Dear America,

happy monday.

it was Whitney Houston who once said something to the effect of ...

'God gave me a voice

to sing

and when you have that

 what other gimmick

 do you need to have.'

Enough said.

And that is what it's all about today.

It is truly fascinating to me how we all find 'our thing.'

Is it by accident, by luck, by perseverance, by hard work, by the gift of the Almighty through the balance of time, toil and ultimately, transcendence?

The ability to succeed in life --  given whatever it is we have to work with, no matter how grand or damned our beginning -- is a constant challenge to humanity; while leading this charge is what's known and widely assumed to be a gift or a curse, that thing called free will.

Sometimes things just don't go in our favor...
take for example the last couple of weeks in the NFL.

The Cincinnati Bengals -- who didn't lose a single game in the regular season -- lost to the San Diego Chargers in the first round of playoffs.   Oh they could have lost a game or two along the way...but nooooooooooo, oh snap...they lost the one game that, for all intents and purposes,  was for all the marbles.  Season over.  See you next year when you can try it again.

Now let's take a look at the Manning family.  Dad played football and then dad raised two boys to play football.  All quarterbacks,  All stellar careers.  Playing as if all the stars aligned and became one with the football.  Eat.  Sleep.  Hike.

[And speaking of which, I know what you're thinking given my so-cal roots...but you should also know me by now -- it's a happy day when Peyton wins, right kissy?...GO DENVER!]

The thing is, we do our best with what we're given and must quickly get over it with what we're not.

There it is, the key to life. 
Boom. 
And just like that...
So unexpected...
Out of nowhere...
how does she do it?

It's what I do...

But take for instance what just happened to me right now -- as I was just settling in to write my little heart out and in my head, lamenting how the holidays have kicked my hardworking, industrious little butt to the curb...

Ring-y ding-y went the phone -- and making a little extra money was on the other line.

Cha-ching.
Backspace.
Change of plans.
Old G thing has a new play on the day. 
And suddenly, life is like a box of chocolates again.

It's okay; it's not time to hit the panic button yet, the Head Coach is staying; a couple hail Mary's from now and this girl will be back.  [But can I just say before I go that I can't believe I ever rooted for Chris Christie. ugh.  totally disgusted with myself for that miscalculation.  You wanna talk about gimmicks....]


Need something to read in my absence?  GO to Hillsdale, the Imprimis from December, A Rebirth of Liberty and Learning, by Larry Arnn, President.

It offers a great, quick hit comparison between our Founding Fathers and today's deadbeats.  And we'll pick up on the fifty yard line when we come back...no telling which direction we will go.

Make it a Good Day, G
 

It's a Whitney Thing

Dear America,


so if this is a diary of America; which it kinda sorta is, aiming to record the cultural and political pulse on the day; then i guess i have to mention whitney.

Whitney Houston died last Saturday and her funeral is tomorrow.

Now, the news hit me probably like most Americans -- especially for those of us within the demographic who pretty much grew up with her; it hit hard... in the gut... like wow.... like whoa.

It was the kind of news taken with total disbelief, and yet, met instantly with no surprise.

We all heard the news and just knew, didn't we?

so sad.

bearing in mind the unthinkable similarity of being virtually the same age, the news hit a more delicate nerve; we're like the same but different --  as if it could have been me in some kind of twisted, warped imaginary world in which I would star (and as if I could sing...).

sure, she's black and I'm white, there is that.

But Whitney blossomed in the eighties, Check.
Whitney married the wrong man, Check.  Then divorced, Check Check.

Whitney's daughter is fifteen, Check.

[We even shared the same haircut for years, but now that's just being silly].

Aside from loving all the music on "I'm Your Baby Tonight..."



one of my favorite songs is:

beautiful.

But back on point, who am I kidding, 'we' are not the same at all; not even a little.

She found her voice at a very young age, then lost it in every way; while for me, now a stone's throw from fifty, I am finally getting around to finding mine.

We may have both grown up singing in the church choir, but her talents grew into a million dollar empire; for me, through the years thick and thin, I'm essentially living hand to mouth.

She let a man just ruin her; for me, I made lemonade (if only I could have turned it into a business).

After singing her heart out -- and by all appearances for those of us on the outside -- she lost sight of the greatest gift of all; while here I am, little old G, venturing to spend all my days searching and finding and living by faith.

Even with all the money in the world...even with more talent then she knew what to do with...even with the baby girl of her dreams...even with what amounts to the entire world being handed to her...none of it really mattered at the end of all her days.

She will never see fifty.

She will never see her Bobbi Kristina get married.

She will never experience true love again.

She will never sing another song for us.

so sad.

My heart is torn with the news that New Jersey is flying the flag at half staff in her honor; half of her life may certainly warrant it -- but, the other half of it most certainly did not (and hello...it's been like twenty years since she starred in The Bodyguard, with Kevin Costner).  A cultural icon of epic proportions she is -- and how; for if in fact they are "the future," what are we actually saying to our children?

Are we [still] glorifying the flamboyant celebrity factor at the greatest cost of all -- losing our sense of what it really takes to make and create an honorable life, the kind that thoroughly, and positively, and intrinsically makes the world a better place?   The fact remains, Whitney -- all on her very own -- left her honor and dignity tattered and torn.  She chose to self-destruct right before our eyes.  At some point, she knew she was heading for trouble.  At some point, she could have gone right, when she went left.  She was born free to choose all of it; let us never forget that.

If only we could return to the days of honoring personal responsibility -- instead of making excuses for personal, made uncomfortably public, failures.

The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, basically went to her defense -- saying this, from the Associated Press:

"Republican governor says he rejects complaints that Houston 'forfeited the good things that she did' because of her struggles with substance abuse.

'What I would say to everybody is there but for the grace of God go I,' he said on Wednesday."

Well there is that -- who are any of us to judge, right.  And I, for one, would love to whole-heartedly agree.

But with all due respect, Mr. Govenah, no, she's not me -- there by the grace of God I hope I don't go.

In the literal translation, let us all hope we are not all going her way.

Whitney made herself into a PUBLIC figure, becoming that one in a million standing center stage as a shining example of us all; and with that, as AMERICA has grown to put celebrity on a pedestal, the greater the liability for all of our children wanting to follow in her footsteps.  What we laud and applaud, the children listen.  What is interpreted as a successful, honorable life -- the kind that is worthy of the American flag to be flown at half-staff even -- says something; and in this case, it just might send the wrong message. Did we really need to go there?

just sayin' --
I would sing it for you, but that just isn't my thing.

but yes, there by the grace of God go I....and speaking of...

God must be glad he got her back in one piece.  My guess is they are probably having a little chat right about now.

But let us leave things here spreading the good news; as a believer, I trust God loves all the little children -- even those of us who lose our way or stray.

She is probably on his lap, not saying a word, grateful for the loving arms around her welcoming her home.

we just never know how many days we are gonna get...

Make it a Good Day, G

in keeping with the month's red thread...just where did Whitney's sanctity for her own life go?