Thanks Giving. A great "story"

In 1620, Pilgrims  seeking religious freedom with the blessing of King James VI (of bible translating renown) had endured a harsh winter many had succumb to hypothermia or died of malnutrition.  When the spring came they co-operated with the native American people and learned how to fish, hunt and farm and the following year had such an abundant harvest that they invited the natives who taught them how to survive to an autumn feast to celebrate.  I've been hearing that since I was in kindergarten and it's a great story, but unfortunately that's all it is, a STORY.
             
            The MYTH that the United States was started as a "religious" colony is a myth.  Since the 1490s when Spanish ships were returning from across the Atlantic laden with gold and silver the rest of Europe (especially England) took notice). There were 102 people aboard the Mayflower, 49 of those were Pilgrims and that 49 included women and children.
           For more than a century Spain had been bringing back untold wealth from the "new world" and England wanted its share.  They figured the best way to do that was "giving" land to English citizens who would be willing to simply occupy it.  There were those aboard the Mayflower who dreamed of finding gold, but unless they traveled south to Mexico, it's unlikely they ever saw any.

           Let's examine the pilgrims. They were members of the "Puritan" sect of the Anglican church OR Church of England. They were vehemently opposed to Roman Catholicism and felt the "mainstream" Church of England was too tolerant to immoral types. They felt the church should have been more active in the lives of the average citizen. In other words they wanted a theocracy as evident by the fact that throughout the 1600s they tried and executed persons for witchcraft. Supposedly the "pilgrims" got help from the Natives.
           That IS true, it has however been subsequently shown. that the indigenous people had NO IDEA that the Europeans had planned to stay. They presumed the Europeans were merely visiting and the Natives were doing the DECENT thing and not letting a group of incompetent people starve to death.  The would later learn at gun point as  the people of Africa and India would later discover that the British had no intention of leaving.  The fact that some of the land was given to religious fanatics DOES NOT mean that America is or was ever intended to BE a religious colony.

           European indentured Servitude was a harsh existence. It was essentially becoming someone's slave for a period of up to seven years at the end of which you'd be granted freedom and land; however, there were many unscrupulous businessmen who had indentured servants. Servants were often beaten, given just enough food to survive and there were laws which could add time to one's contract of indenture. In other words if a servant offended his contract holder, months or even years could be added to his contract. Some indentured servants assaulted or even killed those holding their contracts. More often than not they ran away and hid in other towns.
        The colonial solution to this was the enslavement of the African. The African did not have to be freed. You owned the African for the entirety of his life. In fact, colonies like Virginia made freeing an African slave so prohibitively expensive,  that it was cheaper to keep him/her.
       American slavery was simple. More slaves equaled more wealth. You could get a breeding pair and work the man to death knowing that his children will be your property. You could take liberties with his wife and any children she had would also be your property (thanks to colonial laws). Odd that those who believe that America was founded as a religious colony never express how the book of Exodus (NEAR THE FRONT) so vehemently opposed it.
 
                   The goal of this piece is NOT to bash the United States. I love this country, but I'm NOT a fan of fairy tales.  Am I opposed to "giving thanks"? No, I do so every day and I think we should all be grateful for what we have. I'm glad that I don't wake up each morning hiding from secret police and death squads dispatched by some dictator, but I'm also aware of the fact that MOST of the countries which HAVE dictators, secret police and death squads were once colonies of European nations who entered to take gold, silver, tin, tungsten, ivory, rubber, oil and in some cases even people.
          There is a popular racist theory that states that black Americans like myself should be especially grateful that we were spared the gut wrenching poverty and warfare of Africa by having our ancestors kidnapped and sold as livestock. That ignorant theory ignores the fact that Africa in the early 1500s was wealthy and had several strong governments and societies like the Songhai, Mali and Mandingo, not to mention the Great Zimbabwe. The "grateful negro" theory also ignores that the Dutch & French incited inter African warfare to promote political instability and get gold and slaves cheaply amid that instability.
       In other words, to make themselves rich from 1500 to 1900 Europe and later the United States would take the wealth of Mexico and all countries south, Africa, Asia and Australia. We don't have to hark on that, but we'd be fools to forget it or to simply pretend that it never happened.


           President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving in November of 1863, but it didn't become a national holiday until President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it one in 1941.  I'm of the opinion that if you're going to give thanks do it every day because as most combat veterans will tell you every day above ground is one for which you should be thankful. If you're going to conjure up a story in which religious fanatics who stole land and eventually INTENTIONALLY spread small pox to those from whom they stole it are cast as "noble pilgrims" seeking "religious freedom",  then don't expect the descendants of those from whom they stole it or the descendants of the slaves  bound to that land for the entirety of their lives to enjoy it as much as you do. Save me a slice of white meat and some dressing. "Happy" Thanksgiving.

How to "Thank" a Veteran for Their Service.

"Thank you for your service." I want to say this expression came into existence in the early 2000s during the George W. Bush Administration shortly after the "War on Terror" started.  These United States treated service members returning from Vietnam like pariahs near the tail end of the war and until the first part half of the 1980s. It was a losing effort and George W. Bush didn't want to see American veterans mistreated as they returned from the war to which he was sending them.
               Then president Bush said to "Thank" a veteran for his or her service and people began doing so.  I've heard it so many times that it almost sounds like "gesundheit" when someone sneezes. People SAY it, but does it actually MEAN anything?

             The United States has ALWAYS treated our veterans with dignity and civility...right? Hardly. During our revolutionary war John Latrens the son of a wealthy South Carolina planter who raised a regiment of slaves to fight for the Continental Army. The Congress promised Laurens' men their "freedom" in exchange for fighting for their new country. Laurens died in the last weeks of the war and all the slaves who'd fought in his command were unceremoniously returned to their masters. They were given what the U.S. Marine Corps would affectionately call "the green weenie" a nice Corpism for "you've been screwed."  Laurens' regiment were NOT alone, men who fought with Washington had been promised pensions but the congress reneged.
            At the end of the American Civil war pensions were paid to disabled vets, homes for veterans were established, but after 1900 the pro veteran sentiment wore thin as many questioned WHY we were still paying pensions to men who'd lost arms, legs and their sight or why it was necessary to have homes for them some 50 years after their war had been fought. Men returning from World War 1 were denied pensions promised to them and staged demonstrations in Washington DC which turned into riots.  The federal government after the riots gave the veterans what had been promised them.
            Before world war two ended congress decided that the returning veterans would get a better deal than their predecessors who'd fought in the first "war to end all wars". They were given a "GI  Bill of Rights." G.I. stood for Government Issue and was also a term American Servicemen called themselves to imply that much like the clothes they wore, beds on which they slept and boots they were they were interchangeable  parts of a huge machine run by Uncle Sam.

          While World War II era vets did get educational benefits and could get low interest home loans, their issues with post traumatic stress were essentially ignored and trivialized. The same applied to veterans who served in the Korean conflict. Because of intense media scrutiny, American politicians in the post Vietnam era decided that the mistakes made during the war in Southeast Asia would not be repeated. Veterans who suffered from post traumatic stress had access to mental health services. Those who had been in contact with harmful chemicals like Dupont's "Agent Orange" could receive medical care and pensions.

      Present day, on Veterans day, American Vets are thanked for their service. Big corporate restaurant chains will give vets a free cup of coffee or a meal on the day in question and veterans will  be bombarded with "thank you for  your service." I would like to say to corporate America, rather than giving vets a cup of coffee,  a stack of pancakes or an order of hot wings, hire us.
Give a man or woman who has a sense of discipline a JOB.  HIRE someone who can work with people with whom they might not agree, but will put their personal issues aside and put the job and the team FIRST.  Employ a man or woman who knows how to meet a deadline and knows the meaning of the words respect, loyalty, duty and honor.
      If someone were to ask the average Veteran if  they had a choice between a JOB and a cup of coffee, I'll wager the veteran would probably go with the former. Personally I'd say "both", but what do I know. You want to honor a vet or "thank" them for their service? Give them a job. You'll both be glad you did.

Western Civilization and Sliced Bread

A few years ago I was watching election coverage on a cable channel and a panel were discussing election results. One of the panelist was a member of Congress named Steve King whom I believe is from Nebraska.  Someone asked King a question about minorities and he pointed out that the greatest thing to happen to native Americans & Africans and even the rest of the world was being introduced to western civilization.
          He went on to say that the persons of color who occupy 75% of the planet would effectively be backward savages had they not been enlightened by benevolent Europeans who brought them culture and technology. The rest of the panel sat stunned as if he'd just publicly relieved himself on the desk at which they sat. One of the fellow panelists asked "You don't honestly believe that do you?" He said that every major invention had come from Europe of people of European dissent and he could think of no BETTER civilization. There was an awkward silence and in that brief silence part of me wished that someone would have walked up to him and caved in the back of his skull with a mace.

               it's been said that "winners write the history books" and given that I live in a country founded BY western Europeans it stands to reason that every history I read prior to attending college was told from the point of view of the western European who felt it was his DESTINY to rule a country that covered a continent. It spoke of the indigenous people who lived on the land as "hostile" and treated them as "obstacles" to progress.  In passing it mentioned small pox depleting their numbers and Americans killing buffalo for sport until their numbers dwindled.  It mentions slavery ONLY in the context of a civil war but barely mentions the people of color who were slaves on tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar plantations from the days of British colonialism until the end of a civil war fought by those who wanted to ensure the right to own them extended for all eternity.
              My history books barely MENTIONED the Jim Crow laws written in the 1870s which remained on the books until I was a high school senior in 1988.

       
             When I studied the WORLD'S history in college I learned that Africa had NOT been a bunch of cannibals with plates in their lips who ate white explorers in pith helmets, but vibrant civilizations like Zimbabwe, the Egyptians, Cush, Sheba, Ethiopia & Mali. I learned about 14th century King Mansa Musa who was said to have been the wealthiest man who ever lived. A legend says that when he made a haj to Mecca his caravan gave away and spent so much gold in tribute that he collapsed several small economies.  I learned about Africans trading in gold and diamonds and metal foundries in Zimbabwe which predate anything in Europe but that never made most of the history books I'd read before.
           I learned of people in central and western Africa who invented farming techniques that were exploited in the United States when their descendants were sold into slavery and brought to the Carolinas. In high school I'd never heard Mansa Musa's name and the only African kingdom I'd heard of was the Egyptians, but the history I learned said that they were Europeans. Truthfully Alexander the Great took over Egypt and the Ptolemaic Greeks DID eventually rule Egypt, but the original Egyptians did NOT have fair skin. I read about the European "dark ages" after the collapse of the Roman Empire" and the renaissance which came about to rise from it, but don't remember ever reading about a "dark age" anywhere in Africa or Asia.
 
             I learned about the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, India, China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan and how when the Chinese invented gun powder they initially refused to use if for military applications as they considered it too inhumane. I learned about Indians inventing the concept of "zero" and Islamic scholars devising Algebra. I learned about how mechanical clocks and paper were invented in China, (papyrus had existed in Egypt centuries earlier) and at the time Europeans still used sun dials.
                I learned of the civilizations of the Americas which had languages written in glyphs. I read about some native cultures who had systems of government not unlike direct democracies which had councils.

           The purpose of this piece is NOT to speak ill of western civilization, to paint it as one of conquest or anything of the sort, but merely to point out that HAD Europe simply traded with Africa, Asia & America the way they traded with one another, that the world in which we live would be a much different place. We wouldn't have random "Supremacists" who were brainwashed to believe the patronizing, racist justification some had for Europeans plundering the world for her riches and that Kipling's "White Man's Burden"is just a poem written by a man who was born into a charmed existence in an "India" created by a British East India company for its executives who ruled with brutality as they took, tea, spices cotton and all they could from the conquered people whose culture they denied had defeated the armies of Alexander the Great centuries earlier.

The Apprenticeship...

When I was growing up my dad didn't believe in the concept of an "allowance". He told me at a very early age that in the real world people only gave you money if you did something to earn it.  My dad was a paint contractor so he figured I could learn HIS trade.

           From the age of nine whenever I needed money I put on my painters whites and earned money as I learned the construction arts of dry wall installation, painting and applying wall paper. Dad's deal was pretty straight forward, initially he paid me minimum wage, but eventually my salary went up as time went on.  I spent part of every summer, many weekends and sometimes some evenings doing jobs with my father.  The summer of 1985 he came to me with a deal I couldn't pass up as he wouldn't give me a choice.  There was a HUGE job at a hotel that was coming up and it paid more than he did. Dad's jobs were small commercial properties like strip malls and office parks but mostly residential. Residential was dad's bread and butter. This was different, he wasn't the contractor on this one, he was just another guy applying wall paper and he'd gotten me a job as an "assistant".
         
           There were only two painters assistants on this job and our job was to sandpaper dry wall and later to clean up excess plastic tarps and wasted wall paper.  The other "assistant" was the supervisors son. Unlike myself he showed no enthusiasm for the job. He was a quiet blond kid who had a permanent look of disinterest on his face.  It was a large building and there were several crews operating at once on different floors. I mentioned to the boss' son that if we separated we could get more done, that is I'd take the odd floors and he the even. He dismissed that idea and said that the day would go by faster if we worked together.
        
         Initially I thought I'd made a new friend,  but then I realized that aside from being the same age and on the same job, we had absolutely NOTHING in common.  We had no conversations of substance. He didn't want to talk about music, girls, politics, school or anything other than the car he wanted to buy how drunk he liked to get, how much weed he could smoke without his dad finding out and when we were either going to lunch OR getting off work. I soon realized WHY he didn't want to work apart from me. When we were "working" I was doing the lion's share of it.  He did as little as possible and only seemed to want to work as hard as I was when he saw his father on the periphery.  He did that act once when I stopped to go to the bathroom and his father showed up, he pretended that he had done all the work on our floor and of course who do you think his father believed. Other painters would later come to my defense but it was still a pain.
       
               I was on this job for a month before they told us that most of the hard work was done and they didn't need two assistants anymore. Guess which one of us was let go? Here's a hint, it wasn't the blond kid with the casual work ethic. I took the money I made and saved it for school clothes and didn't give the job a second thought until two weeks later when my dad told me that the supervisors son had quit.  Supposedly he told his father that he'd gotten tired of being on the site and that it bored him.  I laughed because I knew that he finally had to do some work for a sustained period of time and didn't have someone else for whose efforts he could take credit. He had to sink or swim and sank.

           I worked harder than he did and we made the same money, but when he had to do exactly what I'd been doing for a month he folded like a card table. Maybe he was smarter than I am. He figured out that all he had to do was show up and do the bare minimum and he'd still get paid.  He even took three "sick days" which he informed me were days when he was "sick of working." Whether he was a con artist or a malingerer I'll never know but he taught me three valuable lessons that summer: 1. Hard work is good for one's self esteem as you're either going to take pride in what you do or quit.  2. It's not WHAT you know, but WHOM and 3 and this was the most important lesson, every lie ever told eventually is exposed. You can only maintain subterfuge for so long before it's ultimately discovered and you're revealed as a fraud.
                  Regardless of my opinion of my former "co-worker" (I use that term ironically) he did at least show up on a job.  Little has changed as there are still young people working on summer jobs, but many more who simply wait for mom and dad to hand them what they want. I can't help but wonder, when did an entire generation stop equating work with rewards?

There was a Green Book?

I know a little about history. I won't say I "KNOW" history because neither I nor any other person who didn't live in a given time has encyclopedic knowledge of any  time period though some come close.  My parents told me about certain things which were realities of the segregated south of their youth and early adulthood. I was told about "sundown towns" which garnered that name because blacks could not be there after sundown for fear of their own safety.  I was told about restrooms, restaurants, hotels and motels where black business was NOT accepted and about clothing stores where black clients couldn't even try on articles of clothing they wanted to buy.
        My parents and some of my teachers who had survived the same thing told me about their experiences, but NONE of them ever mentioned The Green Book. The Green book was written by a former Pullman porter (rail road worker) who compiled a list of every black friendly hotel and restaurant in the south and published it in the north and midwest and made a nice chunk of change doing so.
   
        In 2018 a film by the same title examines race relations in America circa 1962. Our protagonist ISN'T a black motorist going across the south, but rather a Bronx tough guy who occasionally works as muscle for the mob who lands a temporary assignment as a chauffeur  a black concert pianist who is embarking on a tour of the deep south.  For simplicity's sake, let's call him by his Bronx moniker "Tony Lip". Tony earns this name because of his ability to seeming charm and BS virtually anyone.  Tony's character is supposed to represent the average working class white guy. He doesn't HATE black people per say, but his only knowledge of them is based on superficial contact & stereotypes. He embraces black music and what he perceives to be black "culture" without knowing any actual black people.
      Enter Doctor Sally a black piano prodigy who has been playing piano since the age of 3.  Tony travels throughout the midwest and later the south with Dr. Sally and discovers quite a bit about himself and his attitudes about his fellow man. Over the eight week odyssey Tony learns about elements of the black experience that he never knew existed that chances are most white people didn't know existed in the south for blacks at the time.
      I've always enjoyed the films of Spike Lee and Spike both HATED and dismissed this film as a white knight saving a helpless black man. I saw this film and disagree with Spike. I saw a  guy realizing that he didn't get it and neither did most of the people he knew.  Dr. Sally didn't need "rescue" he was in fact the person signing Tony's paycheck, the guy living in (as Tony put it) in a castle.  Dr. Sally's talent segregated him from most blacks and the color of his skin segregated him from everyone else.  In the course of the 8 weeks that Tony and Dr. Sally do their own version of "Driving Miss Daisy" in reverse, Tony and Dr. Sally grow and form a friendship and both are richer for it.  I'd recommend this film as a fun piece of history as it's based on two people who actually existed and no one dies in the course of the film. I recommend it as a nice buddy pic for anyone who knows what it's like to learn about someone else on an interpersonal level and make an honest to goodness friend.

Movin' on Up...

I'll help fools move, but you EITHER need to feed me ...WELL or get me disturbingly drunk off GOOD alcohol. There are people whom you'd drive to the airport, give a kidney and for whom you'd take a bullet, BUT whom you wouldn't help move. Seriously, you'd take a slug for a guy but you won't help him move his late grandmother's piano. 
        Hey, wounds heal and chicks dig scars, but movin' a piano is a pain in the butt. Okay calm down if you REALLY don't want people asking you to move, you have to make them think that they REALLY don't want you to know where they live. Make 'em think you're nuts or at least bizarre or slightly odd. Here are a few helpful hints to help you get out of the "moving" draft.

1. Have an unusual "emotional support" animal. I'm not talking dogs, cats, exotic birds or ferrets. Get a llama and have him clad in silk pajamas and one of those pimp hats with a feather. Get an aardvark and put a Parliament Funkadelic shirt on him.  Michael Jackson had a llama. How many times did you see that muff-hugga carrying the end of a couch?


2, Three words: "Giant...Carnival...Cigar".  Carnivals and fairs occasionally give out foot long, thick novelty cigars as prizes. Go online and buy a GROSS of them and smoke the dang things AROUND that friend who juuuust can't seem to find the right apartment who seems to move every six months.  If every time he sees you you're blowing smoke in his face from this funky, cheap cigar...you're as out as Sean Hayes.

3.  Randomly bolt! When around someone whom you suspect will be moving soon, travel with him/ her by cab or Uber. When at a stop light, get out and run the hell off. If they later ask where you were or what you did, be amazingly vague and elusive.

4.  "Sister Christian" them! Everyone who's seen the film "Boogie Nights" remembers the "Sister Christian" scene. REENACT IT!  When the "friend" is over for a dinner or social gathering, LITERALLY hire a prepubescent Asian kid to light and randomly toss firecrackers as you're talking to them...and pretend he isn't there...or that you can't hear anything.

5. Refer to yourself in 3rd person.  "Rodney feels that we should go to Ricos for lasagne. Rodney thinks they're better than Demiglios." Not only will they NOT want you to help them move,  you'll be lucky if one of them doesn't lunge at you with a steak knife.

6.  Get a "title".   Insist on your friends referring to you as "your grace", "Your eminence", "Lord Balvaird" or "Grand Ayatolla."  It's annoying as (rhymes with duck). If it doesn't kill your invite to the big move then my name isn't "His Highness Prince Regent Jesse Handy"

7. Charlie Daniels.  Charlie Daniels is a talented country artist from the 70s and 80s  His greatest hit which was a crossover on the pop charts was entitled "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Play that song CONSTANTLY when around the friend whom you're trying to  avoid. No OTHER music from Charlie or anyone else...JUST play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" over...and over...and OVER again. If you're lucky they won't try to have you killed.

8. Bubba Gump them. If you've seen the film "Forest Gump" you remember Forest fellow developmentally challenged Army buddy "Bubba" whose knowledge of shrimp and how to prepare it was encyclopedic.  Learn EVERYTHING there is to know about a particular food...then ramble incessantly about it. IT WORKS!

9.  Get a CATCH PHRASE! I can promise you that if you punctuate every other sentence with "Well don't that butter your biscuit?" , "Aint that a soccer kick in the ballz?" or "Shave my butt and call me fluffy!" People will lift their OWN piano to see if they can throw it at you.

and FINALLY and this one is THERMONUCLEAR

10. The Hank Hill. Go to somewhere where either the person who you know will ask (or someone you both know) is getting their freak on and just burst in and say (in your best Hank Hill voice) "OH MY GOD IT'S SO JUICY!"  from one of the Thanksgiving episodes. Not only will they NOT want you to help them move, they might NEVER speak to you again. Of course the downside is...they might ask you to join.  Either way...good luck.