Special to the Mirror by Chas Cornweller
(Wayne – I began writing this article last Thursday, fully intending on explaining my vision or ideal of being self-aware of one’s personal racism. An unfortunate side effect everyone incurs from time to time. I use the term “Woke” because when I first heard it I was intrigued. I love words. You know that. So, what began as a minor exercise to excise my own demons and face a reality few us will even acknowledge became this diatribe. Little did I expect this past weekend’s events in Charlottesville to echo my words. Few us could have…I finished this on a Tuesday morning, spent, broken and ashamed. Ashamed that what I had written was true. Ashamed for the whole human race and the pain we have caused to one another. Ashamed for the silent tongues and the harden hearts. Ashamed that as I enter my golden years, the very same issues I saw as a child, I see today. I look to a blameless god, and ask…Why? Thank you for publishing. This is my heart. Chas Cornweller)
“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” Malcolm X
So, what does it mean to be “Woke”? Dictionary: Past and past part of Wake. In African American vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE) woke is the derivative of awake, rendered as woke. As in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.” But it’s intended content has a much, much more powerful meaning. As in, “I was asleep, but now I am woke.” Still not reaching you? Awake…dictionary: Awake adj. fully conscious and alert and aware: not asleep; synonym: see aware. Now put “Woke” in the context of knowing issues. Especially issues regarding the status of African Americans. Do you get where I am coming from yet? Woke is being not only aware of the strife between cultures (I refuse to use the word race because for me, its very own usage indicates division and better than/less than connotations) but empathic to these issues. The Washington Post recently did an article regarding Millennials and their take on major issues facing America today. Of whites, three percent listed police brutality as being a top problem in this country. African Americans, however, were at twenty-seven percent regarding it as a top problem. And herein, lies the problem. After fifty years of Civil Rights legislation and law. After fifty years of affirmative action and equal opportunities for African Americans. After fifty odd years of a dismantled Jim Crow system, we still have perceived disparages between cultures. Whites still fear blacks, blacks still fear whites and the wheel still turns against poverty.
Have we made forward strides or are we standing still as a society? Well, yes and yes. Legislatively we have progressed. Emotionally we are stagnant. Society has made great strides and the acceptance of African Americans into the fabric of Government, Education and the Private Sector is hardly an issue nowadays. But, individually, we are tight lipped and reticent to admit major failures throughout our country, not just in the south, but north, east and west. The entire country burns from within with a scorn and a distrust of one another that cannot be rooted out by laws and professional positions.
The legacy of this nation is a deep and troubled one. Fraught with deceptions, mass murders, land grabs and war. It also is/was seen as a land of hope, second chances and unlimited resources and riches ready to be had by anyone with the gumption and disposition to work hard enough to make it work. But not everyone had that chance. For some, it was not a land of second chances, but of a last chance of survival. For others, it was the beginning of a string of deceptions and ill-conceived notions that never quite panned out. And lastly, for those already here and established for millennia, it was the beginning of the end. This is the true America. That sad fact is prevalent in every library in the nation. You just have to dig deep enough to see it.
Individuals, however, are another story. For good or for bad, Americans made their marks. No matter the skin color, no matter from which continent they set out. Some even ended up in those history text books I just mentioned. For better or for worst. And when you read this history you begin to see the melding of the American citizen. You learn of how Crispus Attucks died alongside four others through a volley of British musket-balls. Or the story of the ship Amistad, her capture by slaves and their commandeering her to safe passage. Nat Turner and his failed uprising here in Virginia and the costs it bore. Of Frederick Douglas who won his freedom and was educated and became a standard by which slavery was shown for what it truly was by his powerful oratory and books. Of Thomas Garrett, a white man, who assisted over two thousand slaves to freedom. Of Louisa May Alcott, who wrote Little Women and was a staunch abolitionist. The Tuskegee Airmen, the Freedom Riders…President Barack Obama. The tapestry of America is rich with those that could and did, despite adversarial injustice and steep uphill climbs. Being “Woke” is being aware of this and much more. Not just being aware, but understanding just how difficult it was being such people. That each and every one of them was/is a human being with just as much going on in their heads as you and I. People with families and husbands and wives and children to support, lives to lived. No one asked to come to America to be ostracized, bullied, beaten and murdered for being different. The beacon of light that shone from these shores was intended to be quite the opposite.
But, equality never was evident here. The moment the first Europeans (Spanish) stepped ashore, they asserted their self-perceived superiority over the native inhabitants. By using religious reasoning and superior weaponry to subdue and suppress a culture they neither understood nor never quite got over fearing. This pattern would continue for nearly four hundred years, resulting in a near genocide of Native Americans on a scale of nearly fifty million (highest estimate) souls between 1492 and 1892. Aside from the general assimilation of a few hundred thousand Native Americans, white Europeans completely decimated a culture and multiple civilizations. On a scale comparable of Germany’s crimes of the 1930’s and 1940’s, just without the efficiency.
It is a known fact that, by the establishment at Jamestown, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British explorers were using Africans as ether servants, slaves or yeomen alongside ship captains. It is also a known fact that Columbus himself, enlisted the assistance of one Pedro Alonso Nino during the first voyage of 1492. The Moors (Muslim Culture from Northern Africa) had inhabited most of the Southern and Northern regions of Portugal, Spain, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages before being driven out by the kings of the northern regions. By then, many Africans had assimilated into Western Europe culture by the time of Nino’s fateful voyage with Columbus.
Slavery was a legitimate enterprise prior to and after the discovery of America. It became interwoven within the fabric of American culture during its earliest years. Rightly or wrongly, it became the backbone of the economy of the Americas. From the mines and labor fields of South America, to the islands of the Caribbean with its sugar cane and tobacco plantations, to the large plantations dotting the deep south. Enabling large profits to, though minor in numbers, genteel landowning whites, who, by mere positioning, were also the law makers and political leaders; able to mold society to fit their needs. African slaves, all women, and poor white males had no say during the early years of colonial rule and early colonial freedom. The revolution itself came about from the ire of the very rich and their chaffing under colonial rule from abroad and many unfair tariffs placed upon them. Not until the Stamp Act of 1765 did the effect trickle down to the average white merchant, farmer or tradesman to galvanize a fermenting revolution. Westward moving whites were also angered at a colonial rule inhibiting expansions into the Allegany’s and known Indian territories. In truth, though the Revolution was fought with Militia and Continental troops comprised of lower classed whites and some African Americans (very, very few were allowed to fight-most attended as servants and cooks), the ultimate exchange of power was between the rich white men in England and the rich white men in the colonies. The South maintained its economic power structure in the form of slavery and the North maintained its economic power based on cheap labor, international shipping and the coming Industrial Age. The stage was set for a future, inevitable clash.
That conflict came less than seventy-five years into the new nation’s birth. The bloodiest war on American soil ended five years later with casualties of war dead in the hundreds of thousands. Total casualties from the results of imprisonment, disease, accidental death, wounded and missing for both sides, number in at over a million men and civilians. This at a time when the total population was just over thirty-one million souls. So, three percent, give or take. Two major objectives were accomplished. One was the re-uniting of the original colonial states, along with other newer states, back within the fold of a nationalized Federal government with its central laws. The second was the Emancipation of all African Americans from slavery and the abolishment of slavery. Three years later, all African Americans were granted citizenship with the ratification of the fourteenth amendment. But the white power base had other ideas.
Jim Crow was established in many of southern states and eventually made its way into the fabric of the entire American justice system and in short, institutionalized. Not until the mid to late fifties did these issues gain center stage through such seemingly innocuous situations such as segregated armed forces, school and transportation systems. When many white, middle class Americans saw the brutality happening in Mississippi and Alabama, in reaction to integration and installing black equality, project from their small black and white television sets, the lies of Jim Crow were exposed and broken. The Civil Rights act was signed into law in 1964, granting equal access to ALL people to a system once reserved for only white, rich land owning males. It seemed America as an intolerant and non-inclusive society had turned a corner. I am old enough to remember the signs coming down. I remember my school being integrated, with one or two African Americans to a classroom and then the following years; an equal balance. But I was mistaken. I still heard rumblings of dissent. Many of my white friends were either frightened, angry or just plain hateful to this perceived intrusion into their “exclusive” world. I noticed that many of their parents were bitter and angry as well. I noticed, also, that mine were not. I was too young to put those pieces together until I was much older. There remained an “air” of mutual distrust between whites and African Americans, up until I went thru school and out into the work place.
Years later, I made a very good friend of a co-worker of mine. He and I did the exact same job at the firm that hired us. We had a friendly competition between us and our work. He was a graphic artist and a very good one at that. He also was very proud of his heritage and his blackness. At first, this intimidated me (for reasons I can only surmise), but as we became good friends, I came to admire his views on his ethnicity and he on mine. He introduced me to a musical group named “Arrested Development”. I was very intrigued by their sound and their story telling. Interestingly, through this friend of mine, I began to see an inside glimpse of his world. He was very honest with me about his perceptions of black/white relations. This was the time of the Greek-fest incident in Virginia Beach where we both resided. The movie, “Do the Right Thing” had just come out and Public Enemy was leading the Rap/Hip Hop charge. After that incident, we had many honest talks about what were the causal events that led up to broken windows, stolen items and general mayhem on a quiet summer night at the beachfront. I do not have the time, nor inclination to go into all of what we spoke about, but; I was being woke up. Rodney King’s taping of his beating was just after this event. And we discussed this as well. You see, there are two sides to every coin. If you truly listen with ears fully engaged and eyes awake and open to emphatically understand, you will see something you may have missed before.
What happened in Charlottesville this weekend is inexcusable. Truly. This is no longer about heritage, nor about great-great-grand pappy lying under a tombstone in his private’s confederate uniform. Neither is it about the flag he carried, or even the generals he followed. This is about hate. It is about eyes that are closed and hearts that are hardened and words that burn the soul as soon as they touch the ears. This is about the lynching’s that occurred by the hundreds just over eighty to a hundred years ago, that went unresolved. This is about Rosewood, Florida and Greenwood, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street. This is about Emmitt Till and Medgar Evers. This is about a Baptist church on 16th street on a Sunday morning in September. This is about an anger and resentment that runs as deep as DNA as much as spirit runs in the soul. This is about tens of millions of privileged white well off Americans who allowed these atrocities to happen and did nothing. This is about an America that has not “Woke” to its real issues and its real cancer and its real face, that face; the rest of the world sees.
So, the next time you enter an elevator as a white man and see a black man in a jogging suit or casual clothing, will you flinch? Will your mind begin to doubt? The next time, as a black man, a police officer pulls you over, will you start to wonder if you’ll make it home? Or the next time any of us sees a Latino mother with four children, two of whom are toddlers; buying her groceries with WIC stamps, will you be scornful, will you exude shame? Or that time you jokingly said to a friend after seeing a gay couple together, “I wonder which one is the wife?”. Or will you smile after you’ve entered that elevator and offer a greeting? Will you cooperate and answer questions respectfully from that police officer? Will the picture of this young mother with so much on her hands and heart affect you and cause you to ask yourself, why? Why does the richest nation in the world still have poverty? Will you treat those that are different from you and your values just as cordially as someone who shares your values? Do you see this multi-colored, multi-faceted, multi-cultural – diversity as a threat or as an embrace of all God’s creation? Are you “Woke”?
“The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place”. Donald Trump
“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities; whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we would want to be treated”. John F. Kennedy
“Even today we raise our hand against our brother…We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal we continue to sow destruction, pain, death. Violence and war lead only to death”. Pope Francis
“The three touchstones that woke Buddha up – sickness, old age, and death – are a pretty good place to start when crafting a tragic tale. And if we need to get more specific: heartbreak, destruction, miscomprehension, natural disasters, betrayal, and the waste of human potential.” Paul Di Filippo
About the Author
Let’s be “woke” to the fact, that the Left is trying to trap our president into an impeachable act. If he had condemned the Charlottesville marchers, he would have been accused of denying that they had a constitutional right of free speech. He did make a statement that he doesn’t agree with any hate positions.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when liberal men are afraid of the light.
Typical of comments such as these…to throw shade on truth and enlighten no one. Pray tell, “enlightened” me to what it is I fear…
If a Republican doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Democrat doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.
If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a Republican doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don’t like be shut down.
If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.
If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.
If a Republican reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Democrat will delete it because he’s “offended”.
Republicans respect the opposition opinion
Democrats will assault anyone who oppose them.
If Republicans have a rally, it’s peaceful and they leave the place cleaner then when they got there.
When Democrats have a rally, they loot and destroy the businesses in the area, and trash the place where they gather.
I really had a good laugh over this “Blue Hoss”. Number one, this was just a cut and paste exercise for you. We’ve all seen it before. But on the ‘If a Republican is a homosexual, he quietly leads his life.’ I nearly blew milk out of my nose. No, they don’t…They rant and rave about how homosexuality is a disease of a demented mind attached to a lifestyle that they smugly abhor, all the while standing beside a clergyman both demanding more money to fight the evil scourge of homosexuality and to help outlaw it by legislation. Months later, the Republican is discovered picking up a male prostitute and booked for indecency and an ends up with an “exposed” alternate lifestyle. That is pretty much “boilerplate” for “Republican Homosexuals”
Please enlighten me Blue Hoss, what it is I should fear…try and be original this time. I don’t get into discussions with folks, who phone in their view points. Have a great day! Chuckle.
I am not well versed in the ways of sodomites. I am free, though, to copy and paste as I please.
I’m a grown man, so to even use, let alone ruminate on such an insipid juvenile term as ‘woke’ is beneath this forum.
BUT!!!!! I’ve seen the light regarding GLobull Werming!!!!! All thanks to Paul and Chas here.
So, I am happy to join them in totally railing AGAINST the wave attenuators for the harbor!! To insert such insidious, nature denyin’ MAN MADE monstrosities into the harbor for MERE FILTHY LUCRE is a step too far!!!!
Wht, such attenuators would impede the natural cleansing action of the waves, resulting in a toxic stew of fuel, dead fishies and garbage from all the lazy folks waiting for a DPW guy to pick up the trash!!!!
So yes, now that Paul and Chas have……..heeheeeeheeeeeee…..’woken’ me, I stand with them AGAINST the attenuators.
Howzat for wokey wokey?
Oh, and btw? Where was the angst and anger when the BLM and Occupy and ANTIFA scum were rioting and damaging property and assaulting people?
Sorry Mike, don’t have a dog in that hunt. I didn’t even see the article about the wave attenuators for use in the harbor. If you would be so kind, link me to the article and I’ll read up on it and comment if you wish. As for your derogatory comment of the usage of “Woke”. It just goes to prove my point. Thanks. I am wise enough to know that there are some that’ll never be “reached”. Jesus, his self, even realized this small fact. Thanks for reading the article though.
Yo, Mike, what it is, dude?
Where you been at?
What’s the haps?
And Mike, you still seem to be having trouble, serious trouble, it would seem, with that imbalance between your male psyche and your female psyche that has both the Freudians and Jungians up this way quite concerned about you, because believe it or not, people really like you, Mike, and they only want the best for you.
I mean, check it out, Mike.
In here, where you seem to be operating from your left hemisphere, you are telling everyone that you are standing with me and Chas Cornweller in RESISTING the Attenuators proposed for the harbor, when I don’t have a clue about any attentuators, and frankly don’t give a damn if some filthy rich folks’ boats are rocking because of the waves, it is the ocean, afterall, and have never said otherwise, and at the same time your left hemisphere was making that post in here, your right hemisphere was over in another thread, “Chas Cornweller: Open Your Mind to Climate Change and Sea Level Rise,” telling everyone that I and Chas AREN’T resisting tooth and nail the wave attenuators, even though you are, so my God, Mike, you need some help here, dude?
Your split personality has you literally coming forward and going backwards at the same exact moment in time, and Mike, that would have to seriously mess up the mind of even the strongest among us, so people up this way are praying for you, Mike, and they wanted you to know that.
And Mike, that cough you have developed in here is terrible!
It sounds like you are choking on a bigly hairball you just can’t quite get coughed up;, and it is getting worse all the time.
Look at this history, Mike, on August 10, 2017 at 12:09 pm, this is what that hacking, racking cough you have developed in here sounded like:
Buwahahahaha,
And just three minutes later, Mike, August 10, 2017 at 12:12 pm, look what it had already developed into:
Buwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I got to tell you, dude, and this is as a friend, that is not natural, Mike!
It sounds like a real serious virus you have contracted, and Mike, please, please, please, because we all care so much for you and your intellectual prowess, please get that checked out before that hacking cough covers a whole paragraph instead of just a full line of print and then some.
Chas Cornweller, when you say “So, the next time you enter an elevator as a white man and see a black man in a jogging suit or casual clothing, will you flinch? Will your mind begin to doubt?” who exactly is it that you are speaking to, besides yourself in a mirror?
Who on earth flinches when they see a black person, Chas Cornweller, either inside an elevator or outside one?
What world do you live in where white people flinch when they see a black person?
It must be a strange one, is my thought, Chas Cornweller, because I don’t get flinch around black people, and I don’t know of anyone who does.
In fact, I took a poll, and the most common response to the question, “Do you flinch when on an elevator with a black person in a jogging suit or casual clothing,” was “that’s a stupid question, why would I flinch around a black person and what is the black person supposed to be wearing anyway, a tuxedo?”
Or what about this one, Chas Cornweller: “Or the next time any of us sees a Latino mother with four children, two of whom are toddlers; buying her groceries with WIC stamps, will you be scornful, will you exude shame?”
Who is that aimed at?
Is that the type of crowd you run with, Chas Cornwweller?
I see women all the time, Chas Cornweller, buying their groceries with WIC stamps, including Latino mothers, although I don’t type-cast them as you do, and you know what, Chas Cornweller?
It is none of my ******* business how they buy their groceries, because nobody appointed me their keepers, and unlike Hillary Clinton, who has her long pointy nose stuck everywhere, I keep myself out of their business.
Are food stamps illegal or unlawful to buy groceries with, Chas Cornweller?
If not, then why are you and your friends looking down on these people for using them and then feeling guilty about it, while trying to lay a guilt trip on the rest of us who are not similarly afflicted, as if we were some kind of bigot or whatever because the people you run with are?
And this one: “Or that time you jokingly said to a friend after seeing a gay couple together, ‘I wonder which one is the wife?’”
Help us out here, Chas Cornweller, what exactly is it that you see wrong with the question?
Gay people do differentiate, you know, as to who is whom.
We had a gay dude running for congress up this way who was listed as the wife of a Facebook founder, so again, what is wrong with the question?
Is it impolite?
Is it immoral?
Is it illegal?
Or is it just something you personally don’t like, and so, want to force everyone else in America to think like you do?
And isn’t that a hallmark of ISIS, as well, Chas Cornweller, forced thought control?
And Chas Cornweller, what about vigilantes and vigilante “justice” and vigilantsm?
Where do you stand on those, where vigilante is defined as “a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily,” or “a self-appointed doer of justice?”
Should we have vigilantes in our modern society, Chas Cornweller?
Is there room in modern society for vigilantes?
If the cause is right, like suppressing the speech of those we don’t like, or don’t agree with, should we encourage people to be vigilantes, do you think?
And what about vigilante justice, defined as behavior that resembles or matches that of vigilantes with vigilante justice describing the actions of a single person or group of people who claim to enforce the law but lack the legal authority to do so, although the term can also describe a general state of disarray or lawlessness, in which competing groups of people all claim to enforce the law in a given area?
If the cause is right, Chas Cornweller, say suppressing the public speech of someone who says they are with the KKK, should the people against the speech who want to suppress the speech have the right to engage in vigilante justice, because everybody knows the KKK stands for racism and hate?
Do you think, Chas Cornweller, that when Hillary Rodham Clinton stood up before her army of acolytes and followers and called other Americans she didn’t like or care for a “basket of deplorables,” that she was encouraging the vigilantism, defined as “law enforcement undertaken without legal authority by a self-appointed group of people,” that we recently witnessed in Charlottesville, Virginia?
Was that righteous vigilantism, Chas Cornweller, because it draws its roots from the mouth of Hillary Rodham Clinton?
What are your thoughts on that, if you care to share them in here.
Chas Cornweller, speaking to you as someone older than you who is not at all hostile to you in here, do you realize that what you are doing in here is called “projecting?”
When a person such as yourself has uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, and those are human, Chas Cornweller, as you would know from reading Buddha, who had a handle on such things, having started life as he did as a warrior who was the son of a king, they may project these onto other people, assigning the thoughts or feelings that they need to repress to a convenient alternative target, which is all the rest of us in here, and you know what, Chas Cornweller, that is insulting as all get-out to people, and it generates hostility, even in someone as well-adjusted and mild-mannered as myself.
What you are doing in this thread is called “complementary projection,” which is assuming that others do, think and feel in the same way as you, and that is insulting as well, Chas Cornweller.
It is related to a phenomenon associated with democracy called “tall poppy syndrome,” where anyone who doesn’t think or act like the majority gets chopped down, which serves to maintain the groupthink the majority needs to keep itself a majority.
Coerced thought control in other words, which is anathema to a loyal American citizen.
And Chas Cornweller, what on earth is this obsession you seem to have with Jim Crow?
Most people in America today don’t even have a clue as to what Jim Crow is or what it means, so it means nothing at all to them, nor should it, because Chas Cornweller, Jim Crow is dead.
So why do you trey to keep reviving it here?
Why are we discussing something like Jim Crow that only existed in the Democrat party-controlled south after the civil war?
Is it because you think we are all a bunch of racists salivating to bring back Jim Crow?
Paul, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I am sorry I do not have the time to address all of your comments. I just want you to know, this article was a personal one, rather inward looking than outward accusing. If it came across that way, I misspoke. The questions I was asking, I’ve asked myself. If anyone felt convicted, then, yes…I was asking them as well. But, if in any of these situations you are fine with yourself and feel a general ease in all situations, well, more power to you. Please let me in on your secret.
As for me, yes…I have been in situations where a great unease occurred due to the fact of my own self -made and held prejudices. Do I feel wrong in feeling that way, you bet I do. Do I also realize that others hold prejudices as well? Yes, I do. I cannot always control my situations or my reactions. The grocery I frequent is a magnet for the homeless and societies’ outcasts. Ninety-nine percent of the time I am at ease crossing that gauntlet. I have learned to not answer to “Hey Yo” or some manner of call. It does not help their situation that there is a liquor store just six doors down. Now, did you see what I did there? I presumed every soul standing outside of the Fat Cat Food Mart is a down and out alcoholic and a worthless bum. When maybe, one or two of those poor, shapeless and listless souls may actually be hungry. OR maybe need another quarter to round the fare for a bus trip home. Maybe they need a little cash to buy baby food or a quart of milk for their preschooler. But, I assumed the worst. But, you know what else I do? I usually change into the rattiest tee I own and a pair of weekend yardwork shorts and my oldest pair of Sperry sailing shoes to present myself at this grocery. And you do know why don’t you? To fit in…to be left alone, to be considered poor myself. This makes me feel safe.
Sure, someone is thinking…why not open carry? That’ll nip it in the bud. I say read…Matthew 26:52. There’ll be no nipping of buds from me, friend. To carry a gun means someday you’ll have to use it. That is a line I refuse to cross in this lifetime…even at the cost of the ultimate from me. Stupid? Selfish? Just asinine, silly liberal commie logic? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, it’s my life…my path and my answers when I come before my maker and tally up.
Lastly, I do not believe in suppression of any speech, hate, stupid, lies…any of it. Idiots got a right to be idiots. This article was about me…and you. And all those who look to a better day, when we stop having to put on those rotten sailing shoes and go forth to get the wife a lime for her evening toddy. I am just a small, small cog in the wheel of progress. And because I have not seen enough grease lately…I tend to squeak. If that irritates someone…then it just tells me they are listening. Thank you for your kind words, friend. Hope all is well with you.
p.s. I just saw your last comment on here. I will briefly answer you. No, I was not projecting. I am not blaming others. Or that was not my intent. These are personal issues with me and understanding as a White Male, just what is to be “Woke” to the humanity in all of us. As far as Jim Crow being “Dead”. Don’t kid yourself. I am old enough to remember the signs here in the South. I remember integration of the public-school system. Perhaps it is finally gone as far as law is concerned, but the attitude lingers. And there are some laws that get passed that just don’t fit all society. Gerrymandering here in the fine state of Virginia comes to mind. I don’t believe it hurts to ask the difficult questions. Perhaps it was poorly written, but my intent was to have others identify in them, their own short comings. If the shoe fits, as it were. But, no…I was not pointing fingers. Only at myself.
p.p.s. Paul, and please no more Hillary. As the old monk said…” Are you still carrying that old woman? I put her down twenty miles ago.” Peace.
Chas Cornweller, I at least appreciate your candor and yes, COURAGE, in expressing it.
Get that poison out, Chas Cornweller.
Go buy yourself a nice little box that calls to you as one of those places by the shore that has such things, and carefully put all that stuff in it and then gently close it and even more gently, put it on a shelf and leave it there, never opening it up again.
You see, Chas Cornweller, being poor, and having been born poor, I lack the pretensions of the more affluent classes in America, so other poor people don’t confront me any.
I can call poor black women who look downtrodden “Ma’am” and not be diminished by it in any way.
I can walk by a bunch of black dudes hanging out on the sidewalk and acknowledge their presence and say “gentlemen” as a form of greeting as, I make my way by.
And Chas Cornweller, I’m a twice-wounded combat veteran, so those poor people, or the black dude in the elevator don’t bother me or scare me in any way.
So I can afford to be gracious to those people.
I guess that is my secret, Chas Cornweller.
Not a very complicated one, is it – as the Chinese say, to gain, you have to invest in loss.
When you figure that out, the path is clear.
Man, am I glad I give you a hobby Paul. All I had to do was poke once and viola!!!! A diatribe.
And Chas? Sounds like ‘woke’ is jus the way you describe your guilt complex. One I do not share.
God Bless America, may He help us regain the pride and place we lost to vile ‘progressivism’.
Yo, yo, Mike, dude!
What it is?
People are always glad when you come into the drama like you, sort of walking in from the wings in the middle of a scene to put a big gob of spit on your finger and stick into the leading person’s ear for some slapstick comic relief, which people crave these days.
And Mike, I know these times are so confusing to you, with this label and that label being flung in your face all the time, so that you no longer know up from down (Mike, people like you and they are praying for you, that you lose all this angst you are experiencing in here, so don’t despair, dude, it’s not as bad as you think it is, it’s always darkest before the dawn, so endeavor to persevere), but Mike, there are no real Progressives in America today.
If there were, we would not be saddled with the corrupt and inept government we are saddled with, because that’s what real Progressives are, Mike, people who are against government corruption.
Uh, Mike, well, ah, you’re not for government corruption, are you?
Is that why you hate progressives?
All – I normally do not like to respond to my own article in the comments sections. I will however, from time to time, address others who want to put their two cents forward or even make disparaging remarks regarding my writing. But, let me state here, quite clearly, this particular article was meant to open your eyes to my own personal demons. I was being honest and quite forthright with my own honest assessment. For a select few to eschew my words and twist them into a political diatribe in order to belittle me or my ideas, is beyond the pale. At least I have the intestinal fortitude to bring forth ideas (whether you agree with them or not, is not my problem) and sound off, with what I hoped; would be food for thought.
But, it is quite obvious to me, that some of you don’t care to think. Your minds are set and for you, a good defense is a good offense. Honestly, with this particular article, I didn’t intend on reaching your kind. You’re tapped…finished, already in the till and awaiting the next great commandment to go forth and bloviate over.
I see and experience almost every day the seriousness of racial issues. To deny me this fact, is lying to yourself and saying to me, that I am one lying. This country and her peoples are experiencing residual injustices from nearly four hundred years ago…from one hundred and seventy-five years ago…from less than sixty years ago, up until today. For one to be blind to this fact, only perpetuates the obvious. So, do not deny me my own vision of my own self. I freely acknowledge that I have lived with white privilege all my life. I also admit that I have been with and heard and witnessed racism more than I care to mention. I finally admit, that I have done little to alleviate racism. That it is difficult for me to know when I have crossed a racial boundary into social misstep. But, I am trying. I am looking inward to see what it is I need to change about me. That’s more than I can say from two thirds of the commenters here. So, if you nothing to contribute. I rather you not comment. Thank you.
Chas Cornweller, while we are on this subject of slavery that seems to trouble you so, as if you bore some kind of personal responsibility for oppressing people who were dead hundreds of years before you were born, were you aware that Sharia Law of the Muslims governs slavery as an institution?
Consider the Shafi’i school of Islam, for example.
Shafi’i legal scholars, like Maliki jurists, another school of Islam, dedicated a significant portion of their legal analysis on slave law, and the slave law literature discussed ownership rights over slaves captured in war or purchased in slave markets, the duties of the slaves, punishment of slaves who steal or have illegal sex or commit other crimes, rights of men to force sex on a slave with or without consent, requirements of master’s permission and the process by which a slave can legally marry, inheritance of slavery by a slave’s children, how masters can will, gift or sell their slaves.
As you can see, Chas Cornweller, it is a subject into which a lot of intellectual horsepower was poured.
And might I say, Chas Cornweller, to help rid you of some of this misplaced white guilt you are experiencing here, that these are not white people we are talking about here setting this law on slaves.
In their war doctrine, Shafi’i jurists established four valid choices before Muslims, after any successful raid or war against unbelievers, regarding civilian male and female captives taken – execute them, ransom them and demand wealth for their release, exchange them for Muslim prisoners with the unbelievers, and condemn them as your slaves for own use or to sell them.
Simple, isn’t it, Chas Cornweller.
Some Shafi’i jurists suggested that captives may be released without ransom, in some cases, under Islamic law, and the legal scholars also developed the doctrine for emancipation of slaves of those who convert to Islam, at the desire of the master, and their consequent rights as free person.
The resultant Sharia doctrines on slavery remained in use, in parts of the Muslim world, till early 20th century, when they were abolished under global pressure for secular human rights in matters related to slavery.
The Shafi’i school did not consider slavery, including sexual use of slaves, as anything other than a transaction of goods.
Al Shafi’i and Abu Hanifa (founder of Hanafi Sunni school) compared sexual use of slave with marriage.
In both cases, stated Al-Shafi’i, the essential similarity is that they are both a transaction granting sexual licitness for compensation.
Buying a slave girl gives the Muslim man the legal right to have sex with her, with or without consent.
The difference between paying for a slave girl and paying for a marriage, under Shafi’i interpretation of law, is that the man has more limited access rights over his wife and his children from the Muslim wife having property inheritance rights.
Shafi’i scholars also clarified that while a Muslim man can legally have sex with slave girls he owns, a Muslim woman cannot legally have sex with slave boys she owns and any such sexual activity is zina.
Like other Sunni schools of Sharia, in Shafi’i school, a slave must have his or her master’s permission to be married.
However, Shafi’i school required that the slave must get the permission before marriage, unlike others which allowed the Muslim master to grant permission after-the-marriage.
So, Chas Cornweller, perhaps here you can see that the institution of slavery was hardly an American thing, although yes, of course it existed here, because at this nation’s beginning, it was simply an extension of Europe, being nothing more than British colonies, at a time when the British had a monopoly on hauling slaves in their ships.
Consider, Chas Cornweller, as you ponder what responsibility you personally might have had in the slave trade, or support for the slave-o-cracy over here long before you were even born, that for well over 300 years, European countries forced Africans onto slave ships and transported them across the Atlantic Ocean.
The first European nation to engage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade was Portugal in the mid to late 1400’s.
Captain John Hawkins made the first known English slaving voyage to Africa, in 1562, in the reign of Elizabeth 1, making three such journeys over a period of six years.
He captured over 1200 Africans and sold them as goods in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
Is that some of the white guilt you feel, Chas Cornweller?
Getting back to that subject, to start with, British traders supplied slaves for the Spanish and Portuguese colonists in America, but as British settlements in the Caribbean and North America grew, often through wars with European countries such as Holland, Spain and France, British slave traders increasingly supplied British colonies.
The exact number of British ships that took part in the Slave Trade will probably never be known but, in the 245 years between Hawkins first voyage and the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, merchants in Britain despatched about 10,000 voyages to Africa for slaves, with merchants in other parts of the British Empire perhaps fitting out a further 1,150 voyages.
Not ever having been British, Chas Cornweller, I accept no responsibility whatsoever for their actions in that regard, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone force responsibility for what the British did before I was born on me today, starting with this BLACK LIVES MATTER crowd., as if no lives but theirs have any value.
Getting back to slavery and your white man’s guilt, historian and Professor David Richardson has calculated that British ships carried 3.4 million or more enslaved Africans to the Americas.
Only the Portuguese, who carried on the trade for almost 50 years after Britain had abolished its Slave Trade, carried more enslaved Africans to the Americas than the British (the most recent estimate suggests just over 5 million people).
I’ve never been Portuguese either, so I accept no responsibility for anything they did before I was born.
Estimates, based on records of voyages in the archives of port customs and maritime insurance records, put the total number of African slaves transported by European traders, to at least 12 million people.
The first record of enslaved Africans being landed in the British colony of Virginia was in 1619.
Were you involved in that, pray tell, Chas Cornweller?
Is that where some of your guilt stems from, that even though you weren’t born, you didn’t step up to the plate to stop them?
Did you know, Chas Cornweller, that the establishment of the Royal African Company in 1672 formalised the Slave Trade under a royal charter and gave a monopoly to the port of London, and of course, since money was involved, the ports of Bristol and Liverpool, in particular, lobbied to have the charter changed and, in 1698, the monopoly was taken away.
British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands so that in the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year.
By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade and of the 80,000 Africans chained and shackled and transported across to the Americas each year, 42,000 were carried by British slave ships.
The profits gained from chattel slavery helped to finance the Industrial Revolution and the Caribbean islands became the hub of the British Empire.
The sugar colonies were Britain’s most valuable colonies and by the end of the eighteenth century, four million pounds came into Britain from its West Indian plantations, compared with one million from the rest of the world.
So who benefited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Chas Cornweller?
In the Transatlantic Slave Trade, triangle ships never sailed empty and some people made enormous profits with the Slave Trade being the richest part of Britain’s trade in the 18th century.
James Houston, who worked for a firm of 18th-century slave merchants, wrote, “What a glorious and advantageous trade this is… It is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves.”
Between 1750 and 1780, about 70% of the government’s total income came from taxes on goods from its colonies and the money made on the Transatlantic Slave Trade triangle was vast and poured into Britain and other European countries involved in slavery, changing their landscapes forever.
In Britain, those who had made much of their wealth from the trade built fine mansions, established banks such as the Bank of England and funded new industries.
Here, Chas Cornweller is a listing of who profited from the slave trade:
• British slave ship owners – some voyages made 20-50% profit.
Large sums of money were made by ship owners who never left England.
• British Slave Traders – who bought and sold enslaved Africans.
• Plantation Owners – who used slave labour to grow their crops.
Vast profits could be made by using unpaid workers.
Planters often retired to Britain with the profits they made and had grand country houses built for them.
Some planters used the money they had made to become MPs.
Others invested their profits in new factories and inventions, helping to finance the Industrial Revolution.
• The factory owners in Britain – who had a market for their goods.
Textiles from Yorkshire and Lancashire were bought by slave-captains to barter with.
One half of the textiles produced in Manchester were exported to Africa and half to the West Indies.
In addition, industrial plants were built to refine the imported raw sugar.
Glassware was needed to bottle the rum.
• West African leaders involved in the trade – who captured people and sold them as slaves to Europeans.
• The ports – Bristol and Liverpool became major ports through fitting out slave ships and handling the cargoes they brought back.
Between 1700 and 1800, Liverpool’s population rose from 5000 to 78,000.
• Bankers – banks and finance houses grew rich from the fees and interest they earned from merchants who borrowed money for their long voyages.
• Ordinary people – the Transatlantic Slave Trade provided many jobs for people back in Britain.
Many people worked in factories which sold their goods to West Africa.
These goods would then be traded for enslaved Africans.
Birmingham had over 4000 gun-makers, with 100,000 guns a year going to slave-traders.
• Others worked in factories that had been set up with money made from the Slave Trade.
Many trades-people bought a share in a slave ship.
Slave labour also made goods, such as sugar, more affordable for people living in Britain.
end quote
Missing from that list, Chas Cornweller, is my name, which is why I sleep well at night and feel no guilt and no shame today about the slave trade.
But focus in on this, Chas Cornweller, for where that guilt should repose – West African leaders involved in the trade who captured people and sold them as slaves to Europeans.
Black people taking black people as captives and selling them to WHITEY as slaves.
How about that, ain’t it?
How come it is we never hear that aspect of it discussed over here, that but for the blacks in Africa capturing their black soul brothers to sell as slaves to WHITEY, WHITEY would have had no goods to buy?
If there is ever to be a real, truly honest discussion of slavery, shouldn’t that also be on the table?
Any thoughts?
Cheesus, Chas………..shake off the guilt. Sharpton et al have really done a number on you, buddy.
Had we NOT deviated from MLK’s admonition to judge by character not color we’d be in the America I spoke of………one comprised solely of American Men and American Women…….and not be engaged in the identity politics of the left.
If you worked hard, paid attention in school and supported your family by your efforts you have enjoyed NO PRIVILEGE because of it. You simply did the right thing. Don’t let others tell you what you owe them.
Here I have to say I agree with you wholeheartedly, Mike, especially the last sentences.
What a ****** up world this has become when working hard to better yourself is viewed as something to be ashamed of by those who wish for the endless hand-out.
Paul, Amen.
A good day to all, and a better weekend.
As to Hillary Clinton, Chas Cornweller, she is not gone, not hardly.
I just heard her on the radio news reading from her new E-BOOK, “How I Became a Two-time Loser,” and boy, did she sound terrible, like a bitter old hag.
Holy cow was all I could think.
She really sounds bad, Chas Cornweller.
It brought my mind back to a Daily Intelligencer article entitled “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Surreal Post-Election Life” by Rebecca Traister on 26 May 2017, wherein was stated as follows:
Remembering Election Night and the inauguration, I can’t help but think that Clinton’s ability to set aside her own feelings might be useful but perhaps not entirely healthy.
I ask her if she’s ever been in therapy, and she shakes her head.
“Unh-uh.”
“No.”
“I have not.”
When I express surprise, she allows, “Well, we had some marital counseling in the late ’90s, around our very difficult time, but that’s all.”
She shrugs.
“That’s not how I roll.”
“I’m all for it for anybody who’s at all interested in it.”
“It’s just not how I deal with stuff.”
end quote
After listening to her voice on the radio today, Chas Cornweller, as someone older than she is, it is my thought that she really should re-consider her position on therapy there, for from the sound of her voice, she really needs some.
She seems to have this obsession now, from what I understood her saying, with this feeling that Trump is always standing there behind her, breathing down her neck, which she said creeps her out big time, especially as no one is really there.
Sad when you think about it, Chas Cornweller, but hey, I think it is hubris, and let’s face it, Chas Cornweller, in the end, she brought it on herself with her denunciation of white people in America as a “basket of deplorables,” which hate speech by her has led directly to the recent violence you decry in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships; Hillary Clinton will be known as the mouth that started a civil war, and what a pitiful legacy that is to leave behind you, so no wonder Hillary is so bitter.
The poison of hate in her is eating out her soul.
As a fellow American, Chas Cornweller, who like you is very pretty sick and tired of narrow minded, ill-educated people taking facts and twisting them into ditto headed rants such as is going on today in connection with these statues of long-dead Confederate soldiers (without those statues, where would all the pigeons go to congregate), I once again have to salute you in here for having the courage to start this dialogue in here involving your fellow American citizens, and I have to salute Wayne Creed and the Cape Charles Mirror for hosting this much needed dialogue between real American citizens.
You have brought up several points in here that I have taken the trouble to retrieve and bring down here so they don’t get lost in the fray.
First of all, Chas Cornweller, when I read this thread, and frankly, Chas Cornweller, I have to admit that I had a hard time with that, trying to find a point you were making, with all that reference to all these past events, I did not think of it as being autobiographical.
The first part was a lot of history, and then you came to the second part, or what I construed was the second part, and there, I thought you were being admonitional, and there is where my thought of you projecting and insulting us came from.
But you cleared that up, for which I again salute you.
There are three parts of your comments that I want to focus on here, because I consider them important:
First, this:
But, you know what else I do?
I usually change into the rattiest tee I own and a pair of weekend yardwork shorts and my oldest pair of Sperry sailing shoes to present myself at this grocery.
And you do know why don’t you?
To fit in…to be left alone, to be considered poor myself.
This makes me feel safe.
end quotes
Chas Cornweller, speaking as someone older than you who considers you a friend, and speaking as someone who is a poor person, albeit one with some dignity that keeps me off sidewalks with a jug of T-bird or Ripple for company, it isn’t what you wear outside that makes you safe, it is what you are inside.
You don’t blend with poor people by dressing like a poor person, Chas Cornweller, when you are not a poor person and never have been.
To the contrary, you would look to poor people just as you are inside, except wearing shabby clothes as a form of camouflage.
You wouldn’t blend because you don’t know how, so you should just be you, Chas Cornweller.
Just saying.
And here you are in here, Chas Cornweller, actually carrying on a conversation with a poor person, which is me.
No offense intended, but does it surprise you that a poor person like me can actually use real words like an educated person would to carry on a conversation instead of a bunch of pig grunts and squeals and clicking noises and such to converse with a better-off person such as yourself?
The second point is this:
Sure, someone is thinking…why not open carry?
That’ll nip it in the bud.
I say read…Matthew 26:52.
There’ll be no nipping of buds from me, friend.
To carry a gun means someday you’ll have to use it.
That is a line I refuse to cross in this lifetime…even at the cost of the ultimate from me.
Stupid?
Selfish?
Just asinine, silly liberal commie logic?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
But, it’s my life…my path and my answers when I come before my maker and tally up.
end quotes
CHEERS for you and right on, Chas Cornweller, because whoever gave you that advice is an idiot.
Guns solve NO problems and the use of a gun would create big problems for you, starting with the fact that unless you really have it in you to actually use it on another person, with intent to do real harm to them, any predator seeing you as prey is going to take that gun from you, slap you silly with it and then stick it up your *** and pull the trigger, and there goes Chas Cornweller to meet his maker, and you would be missed, Chas Cornweller, so don’t take that gun to town expecting good to come from it, or protection.
I don’t carry guns, and you know what, Chas Cornweller, I don’t want one and don’t need one, and I respect you for feeling the same way.
And here is the most important thing you have said in here, and these words deserve to be heard, especially today:
Lastly, I do not believe in suppression of any speech, hate, stupid, lies…any of it.
Idiots got a right to be idiots.
end quotes
Isn’t that so true, Chas Cornweller!
Now, if only this holier-than-thou POLITICAL CORRECTNESS CROWD telling us all how we have to think and act, or they will pepper-spray us, and throw rocks at us, and hit us with bats or paint-filled balloons could hear what you are saying there, what a world this could be.
Thank you for saying it out loud in here, Chas Cornweller, for all the world to hear, and hopefully, stop to consider.