We Have The Opportunity Now To Look

In My Earliest Of Years, My Mother Was A Huge Force In My Life. She Was For All Intents And Purposes, A Single Parent. My Father Had Abandoned Us. He Was An Alcoholic And A Physical Abuser. My Mother Lived Through That Tyranny And Made Her Living As A Domestic Worker. She Was Uneducated But She Brought High Principles And Decent Values Into Our Existence, And She Set Lofty Goals For Herself And For Her Children. We Were Forever Inspired By Her Strength And By Her Resistance To Racism And To Fascism.

Since I Have Escaped The Harshness Of The Economic Bounds Of Poverty, I Have Stayed Very Connected To It Spiritually. I Reside And Live And Go And Socialize And Exist Among Those Who Suffer Daily From The Relationship That They Have To Poverty, Black Men And Women Who Are Incarcerated. Actually, All People Who Are Incarcerated, Not Just Black.

We Have The Opportunity Now To Look At The Two Billion People In The World Who Suffer From The Most Abject Poverty, Hunger, Disease, And Devastation. Add To That Another Two Billion People Who Are Just Plain Poor. If You Look Into The World Of Those Caught In Economic Oppression, Illiteracy, Disease, And Sexism, Then You'll Understand More Clearly What We Have To Do.

There's An Old Saying In The Days Of Slavery, There Are Those Slaves Who Lived On The Plantation, And There Were Those Slaves Who Lived In The House. You Got The Privilege Of Living In The House If You Served The Master To Exactly The Way The Master Intended To Have You Serve Him. That Gave You Privilege. Colin Powell Is Permitted To Come Into The House Of The Master, As Long As He Will Serve The Master According To The Master's Dictates. Now, When Colin Powell Dares To Suggest Something Other Than What The Master Wants To Hear, He Will Be Turned Back Out To Pasture.

Poverty Continues To Exist. Its Appearance Seems To Be Relentless In Evidencing Itself Not Only To All The Things We Experience Here In America, But Certainly What We See Globally. And I Don't See Anywhere Any Philosophical Analysis That Suggests We Know How To Get Out Of This.