Tag: blogger

I Knew it Was a Mistake the Moment It Was Over

Portia Banks smoothed out the wrinkles forming in her dress, and picked at imaginary lint. She took it all in, snapping imaginary pictures of memory with her eyes as she scanned the room. Bachelors in Computational Journalism from Stanford University, Exceptional Research and Development, the list goes on and on. She wondered if it was all worth it, her name on the door, this office, or the prestigious position she found herself in. She’d come a long way from the dirt roads of Mississippi to a position as one of New York’s top Journalists. And while the check would be huge, she knew it was a mistake the moment it was over.

“Come on now, I know that look. You do know this is the biggest client we’ll ever have; ever.”

Simon fixed his glasses and stared intently at Portia, trying to understand her logic. The woman had talent no doubt, but as Assistant News Editor he had worked side by side with this talent for over two years and a mule could not be more stubborn. Of course he couldn’t say that, Portia was always on a prowl for any glint of racism from her white counterparts, even finding it where it didn’t exist. She believed all Europeans were born racists and that no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t help themselves in their feelings toward blacks. Still, she had managed to become one of his best friends which awarded him the truth concerning her level of racism. Although she wanted him to believe she held this grudge against whites, their friendship told him otherwise. In any event, to take on this case would put The Journal Chronicles on the map and Portia knew it.

“We’re talking about the biggest dollar signs you’ve ever seen in your life. Huge,” he spoke with his hands.

“Trying to persuade me with money is never a good idea Simon you know that. Besides, you do know money is not everything?”

“No, as a matter of fact I don’t.”

Portia laughed, “You’re such a liar.”

“And your such an idiot,” said Simon standing.

“Whatever”, said Portia gathering paperwork from her desk. It was Friday, the most exciting yet busiest day of the week, everyone trying to take weekend vacations and submit final story ideas to the big dogs at the same time.

“I just don’t care much about the man,” she said continuing, “What is there to know about a man we already know everything about?”

Simon looked at his watch; he had exactly two minutes to convince her to take this case. Otherwise it would go to the competition and Anne, the wicked witch of the west who pretended to be their boss, would never let him hear the end of it.

“That’s just it. How do you know we really know him? Because the TV says so? I’m not going for it.”

Portia smiled at Simon as he went on. She was wondering where he’d put his soap box and knew it was only a matter of time before he stood on it. She stopped daydreaming and turned the mental volume back up on Simon’s voice.

“We’ve got an opportunity to present a fresh story, a new look. To gather information about the success of the world’s biggest fragrance chain since Victoria’s Secret, Scentology. By delving deeper into Xavier’s most intimate thoughts, we have the opportunity to present a fresh story. We don’t care about his written rebuttal, let CNN fight over that. Anderson can hold that down…”

“Don’t try to be black Sy…” laughed Portia.

“Portia! WHAT WE WANT is the exclusive hard core truth. WHO is Xavier Thomas?

That was a year ago and Portia cursed herself for having to live the answer to that question. With every nerve in her brain there was an explosion threatening to obliterate pieces of reason. Painfully, Portia sought desperately to understand how she’d allowed herself romantic involvement with this man. Her face contorted, as she floated in and out of consciousness. The womanly intuition she’d always counted on to save her, could not assist her now as she tried not to choke on her own blood. Laying on the bathroom floor, a tattered mess in this abandoned building, where Xavier had just tried to kill her for discovering that he was a clone.

Silent Supporters MayChallengeDay16-17

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Dare I capture a photo of last nights meal? I suppose I could upload it to IG. At least then you’ll know I’ve eaten, right? Or maybe I’ll weigh my self-esteem against the number of followers, out of which only a handful are actually interested. What if my anniversary was yesterday? Does it cheapen the experience that I didn’t post about it?

We live in a world so dominated by technology and by sight that we rarely take the time to notice the small, silent, and seemingly insignificant. Usually, when we think of supporters we hearken to those who are outspoken enough to make themselves known. Visible. These are the commenters, likers, subscribers, and followers. After all, without this kind of support, how do we know if we’re doing something worthwhile? Is our content life changing or are we wasting dashboard space? Well, this thought led me to the intriguing world of the silent supporter. You know, that person who supports everything you do on the low. You may find them listed among your every social media outlet. Silent Supporters. The people who support your every endeavor but never have anything vocal to say. Instead they hang on to your every word in the background, taking it all in, applying, researching, and agreeing in the dark.

I think silent supporters are great and may actually be the backbone to success because they are the people who do. Act. Apply. Listen. Now success is more so determined by the personal standards of the individual, but from the basic perspective of the kind of primary support we all need to keep going, silent supporters play a significant role. They are the people you inspire every day but you will never know it. Well, if your paying attention you just might. You see, the silent supporter doesn’t say anything, his presence alone is necessary. He’ll follow you any and everywhere as long as you have something to say. The point is: don’t lose hope and don’t give up. There are people who actually follow your advice, except you won’t know it because they choose to instead put it into practice. (They laugh at your not-so-funny jokes too). And when it comes down to investing, these are the people who put their money where their mouth is, hanging on to your every word and taking into account the wisdom of your perspective. Makes you consider the weight of influence we each have on every single eye that scans across these blogs. It’s really something if you think about it. As individuals we make such great impacts on so many people worldwide and we would never really know to what depths. So then, what are we giving them? Is it something worth having or a waste of someone’s time? Are we givers of life or takers? How will your blog influence someone today? You choose.

Success is not always what you can see. Silent Supporters are out there. They are listening, they are watching, and they are learning. Never lose sight of that.

Define Your Goals #MayChallengeDay14-15

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I always say that I don’t really sit down to seriously write a book until I know how it ends. The reason I stick to this strategy is the same reason most of us have such a difficult time reaching our goals: We don’t define them. If I don’t know where I’m going with a story, the ultimate ending, I usually have a hard time getting into the flow. The flow. Its that first draft stage where you put your head down and you do not come back up until the work is done. Not even for air. You worry not about the technicalities of the work or what other people are saying about the publishing industry. Those things will become nothing more than a distraction. Well, at least to me (I can’t speak for you). So, as for me, once I do get started I can’t  worry about typos, editing or what Stephen King said. Not right now. Not in that moment. At that point I’m just trying to get the basic layout on paper. But how can I lay the foundation that will lead me to a certain point if I don’t know what that point is? I cannot build a brick house until I know I want it made of brick, least I lay the foundation with straw.

The same can be said of our life, our blogs, or whatever it is we set out to do. One thing I’ve learned over the years is the power of patience. Oh patience! I was in such need of it. If I could have bought endurance in a bottle I would have done it. I realized that my lack of patience was draining all of the potential out of my work. Why? Well because I was rushing an idea and not sitting down to seriously analyze what it will take to bring that idea forward. And not only to bring it forward but to seriously consider the plausibility of the idea. Does it makes sense? Is it real? And not only is it real, but do I believe in seriously reaching this goal that I have set for myself or is it just a dream? I hear people talk a lot about following your dreams. People are fond of dreaming, but as long as we are still dreaming our goals will be just that: imaginary.

Anyone can set goals. We’ve all been to school or to some educational setting even if it were our own living rooms, where someone told us to sketch out our short term and long term goals. In short, many of us know exactly where we want to go, and where we want to be. The problem is not the goal itself. It’s not that it is too difficult or too simple. The problem is that we have no clear vision of how we plan to get there.

The chart in this post is a great start. Make sure that your goals are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. I tried to think about which of these was the most important, but I think they all are. If your goal is not specific enough then it won’t be measurable. If goals are not measurable then they won’t be achievable and a goal that is achievable is naturally also not realistic. If your goal is not realistic then there is no real time limit that can be placed on it. Which in turn means its more likely to stay in lala land than put into action.

The Unknown Woman

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Wisdom is an unknown woman

her identity absent for too long now

a distorted image of degrees and formulas

neatly wrapped into the deceptive image

of professors and graduates of universities

with egos that stand taller than the academic buildings

from which they’ve misplaced their minds

creativity hung

twisted

in the silent hallways of repeated ignorance

wisdom is an unknown woman

hastening to make herself known to those who seek her

a radiant beauty of lawful lips she descends

into the beautiful body of instruction

only the most sincere men are courageous enough to approach her

and only the strong can be heard by her

for she whispers soft delicacies

into ears that wish her breath to brush upon their cheeks

but she is abandoned by men who do not delight in her structures

who believe her throne is a worthless scepter

that she wears like a burden

too foolish to know that there is nothing

that she cannot carry

But fools do not speak the language of wisdom

cannot hear the prayers coming from her tongues

the songs pouring forth from her words

wisdom is an unknown woman

to the man

to the woman

to the person

who values the knowledge of custom papers

with expensive ink,

this they chose over her

they cannot see that gold is but a little sand in her sight

and that silver is like clay before her

because her radiance never ceases

and in her hands is unaccounted

wealth

Black History Fun Fact Friday – Medical Apartheid

This Week’s episode of Black History Fun Fact Friday is the recommendation of Harriet Washington’s Groundbreaking book Medical Apartheid.

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Medical Apartheid is about the deliberate infection of people with deadly or debilitating diseases, exposure of people to biological and chemical weapons, human radiation experiments, injection of people with toxic and radioactive chemicals, surgical experiments, interrogation and torture experiments, tests involving mind-altering substances, and a wide variety of others. Medical experiments on children, the sick, mentally disabled individuals, and most especially Blacks, often under the guise of “medical treatment” go back for centuries.

 

ea_d_38868_0_MissEversBoysOne well-known case of experimentation on Blacks is The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African-American men in Alabama. Mrs. Evers Boys starring Alfred Woodard and Lawrence Fishburne is a movie modeled after this experiment. The men were told that they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government and for forty long years had to tackle the deadly side effects of a disease many of them didn’t know they had. Also, it must be stated that many of these men did not previously have the disease before the experiments began.

The Public Health Service started working on this study in 1932 during the Great Depression, in collaboration with the Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Alabama. Investigators enrolled in the study a total of 600 impoverished sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama. Of these men, 399 had previously contracted syphilis before the study began, and about 201 did not have the disease. Because these men were poor and often had no access to free medical care, the enticing sound of free medical care, meals, and free burial insurance for participating in the study prompted many of the most reluctant to take part. None of the men infected was ever told he had the disease, nor was any treated for it with penicillin after this antibiotic became proven for treatment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the men were told they were being treated for “bad blood“, a local term for various illnesses that include syphilis, anemia, and fatigue.

9780385509930_custom-11bb499dd9e2430b63af7a3b00d4cbf9b26dd62c-s6-c30The product of years of research, Medical Apartheid is an excellent book and source of study by Harriet A. Washington on the dark history of medical experimentation on Blacks from the colonial times to the present. She speaks in depth about the history of such organizations as Planned Parenthood and The Negro Project, known previously as The American Birth Control League (whose true purpose was to rid the world of so-called “weak breeds” who were downgrading the American population through a system known as Eugenics), to other frightening tools on unwilling and unknown people.

Throughout the 1840s, J. Marion Sims for example, often referred to as “the father of gynecology”, performed surgical experiments on enslaved African women, without anesthesia. The women—one of whom was operated on 30 times—regularly died from infections resulting from the experiments. In order to test one of his theories about the causes of trismus (locked jaw) in infants, Sims performed experiments where he used a shoemaker’s awl to move around the skull bones of the babies of enslaved women. He also addicted the women in his surgical experiments to morphine, only providing the drugs after surgery was already complete, in order to make them more compliant.

A documentary that is a great compliment to Harriet’s book is called MAAFA, an explosive exposé of the racist eugenics agenda of the abortion industry in the United States. It makes the case that, though abortionists claim to advocate privacy, women’s rights, and reproductive choice, their true motive is racial genocide and ethnic cleansing and goes back for centuries.

MAAFA can be watched for free on YouTube HERE.

Get Medical Apartheid on Amazon HERE.

 

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And that’s it for this week’s episode of Black History Fun Facts. Here’s Last Week’s Post in case you missed it:

Week #5: Negro Spirituals

What I Learned About Blogging, Writing, and Life #MayChallengeDay 11-12

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Sometimes we just want the easy answer. The easy answer, and the smooth path. We want to lower mountains, and bring them down to our understanding. And we want as many tips on how to do so as is possible; we want things to be as easy as possible. But what I have learned, whether about blogging, writing, or life in general is this: You can have all the talent, and all of the opportunity in the world but if you do not have the persistence, the endurance, or the discipline to keep working then you do not have anything. Determination is called drive for a reason, it moves you.