PRISTINE LIFE EXPERIENCES

PRISTINE LIFE EXPERIENCES

Sometimes we take for granted our experiences - most of which many folk say we don't control or expect. As I review my own chaotic life, I'm forced to let loose a huge guffaw realizing that, viewed all together, my activities form a unique pannoply resembling the life of a Black 'Perils of Pauline!'

Have you ever:

• been kicked in the chest by the back legs of a friskly horse which'd just had water right after eating oats? (Lucky for me the kick merely lifted me off the ground: it's a farm 'no-no' to give water to a horse right after feeding it oats!)
• at age seven, received a response-letter from Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House?
• harvested black walnuts, spread 'em out to dry for later use in deelishious dark chocolate fudge your Mother made?
• become a Boston, Massachussetts Debutant at the Sheraton with Sir Arthur Fiedler at the scene?
• had your middle fingernail - right hand - permanently disfigured by the tusk of a big black boar named (by yer Dad) "Joe Louis," as you were feeding him (the boar) a banana peel? (Careless, careless - it coulda' been worse!)
• milked cows? - placing a crudely-made wooden stool under a cow, dodging her smelly, poop-stained swinging tail and fidgety back leg; balancing the metal pail under her teats and, leaning yer head on her warm stomach, pulling on her sometimes sore teats and directing the hot milk flow into the pail (or sometimes into the nearby cat's mouth) - listening to the welcome 'squish-squish' sound of the spray hitting the pail and the rising milk? (I am smiling - almost back there remembering - it's something you'd never forget and you'da' been lucky if that durn cow didn't step right into the bucket and turn the whole mess over!)
• proudly plowed an entire field - driving the family tractor - all the while breathing in the unforgettable aroma of clean, fresh, newly-turned dark earth? (I can smell it right now!)
• learned to shoot a .32 caliber handgun in a deserted field in Barbados, West Indies?
• dug up a basket of asparagus - it's planted in beds and you use a V-shaped cutting tool to harvest it under the ground - it grows right back the next week!?
• prepared chicken for dinner from A to Z: catching it after a hectic farmyard chase (bird cackling in terror all the while); wringing its neck (or using a short hatchet to chop off its head); sticking it into a bucket/pail of steaming hot water, then (pee yew!) plucking the soaking wet feathers off the body (you'll know first hand what's meant by 'bumpy chicken skin'), butchering the bird with a sharp knife - separating the parts at the joints, seasoning the meat, frying the bird, serving it to the family, washing the dishes afterwards and then disposing of the bones later? That's 'A to Z!'
• journalistically-covered The March on Washington - in 1963 - for your British-based Afro-Caribbean magazine, "Flamingo;"?
• gone through 24 hour 'natural childbirth' labor on Guy Fawke's day in London, England?
• called out BINGO! numbers on your own TV Show in Barbados, W.I. for the Lion's Club?
• given birth to a fat healthy baby boy after 8 hours of labor?
• crashed the White House in Washington, D.C., met and shook hands with JFK as the White House Photographer, Cecil Stoughton, captured the exciting interaction on film? (Two different shots)
• been rescued in Central Park, New York City, by a mounted policeman ("Hold on! I'll save you!") as your own horse bolted with you rendered incapacitated with uncontrollable laughter?
• walked into a NYC Bellevue Hospital operating room with four or five masked, gloved, robed doctors - hands up - standing facing you - behind an anesthetized, gigantic, reddish Black male lying prone on the operating table - huge exposed erect blood-engorged penis standing straight up in the center of the draped bright green sheets? (A Head Nurse compassionately steered an embarassed student nurse - me - quickly away from the guffawing MDs who'd set up the entire scenario as a joke)
• joined a fast-walking group of Trinidadian/Tobagonian males to tramp across the jungle in Trinidad, searching for orchids? (I was the only female - and was hoping to stumble across a 'mackawell' - a huge boa constrictor - I like snakes!)
• planned and implemented the first Women's Polictical Caucus in Barbados, West Indies (Although American citizens are not supposed to be involved in the politics of other nations)
• testified at the New York City Human Rights Court of Judge Maldonado as an Expert on racism/colorism;
• been written up by the Harvard University Professor 'Skip' Gates African American National Biographical project? (available in its entirety elsewhere on the Blog: www.caroltaylorword.blogspot.com )
• ridden a cow?
• in 2010, received a personal note from President Jimmy Carter in response to your letter to him praising his anti-racism/colorism remarks made by bigots about President Barack Obama?
• rescued a Canadian citizen from the clutches of the police when she was snatched up at 6 in the morning and had called you for help?
• invented the http://www.racismtest.org? (which every hueman being should take)
• landed with your hands wrist-deep in two smelly cow-poop patties and been unable to move (with your Mother howling with laughter at your unenviable plight)?
• threatened by the U.S.A. State Department (which'd compiled a foot-high file on you - retrieved copy with huge black redacted items marring the pages - under the FOIA) with the loss of your American citizenship at the same time as another country was asininely-giving you an oxymoronic 'opportunity' of 'registering as a Barbadian citizen' or 'you may be declared a prohibited immigrant!' (talk about the fear of becoming a 'woman without a country!')
• invited to lunch with an American Ambassador; tea with Harry Belafonte at the Russian Tea Room in NYC; dinner at NY's Waldorf Astoria with the Premier of Guyana, Dr. Cheddi Jagan; Indian cuisine in London, England, with Grenada Prime Minister Eric Gairy's Attorney General, Keith Alleyne, Q.C.; an interview with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson at London's posh Cumberland Hotel; London dinner with Guyanese writer Professor Ian Carew; supper with famied sociologist Lionel Tiger, London again; drinks at your home in Barbados, with Prime Minister of Barbados, The Hon. Errol Walton Barrow, Esq.?
• flown in a tiny beechcraft plane up to Albany, New York to meet with Governor Averell Harriman?
• invited to the Merv Griffin Show in Cleveland, Ohio - by Caravel Jet, after saying publicly that "Integration is the quaint conceit of the white man that all Blacks wanna' be white!"
• coined the term "colorism?"
• met and spoke with Malcom X the night before the 1063 March on Washington?
• sat at the feet of the famed Trinidad/Tobago Historian/Political Commentator C.L.R. James?
• played on a soccer team - half male, half female?
• water-skied on a circular table top?
• been arrested in a Broolyn, New York courthouse with Rev. Al Sharpton, Attorney William Kunstler and others (held overnight - rescue-represented by Attorney-at-War Alton H. Maddox, Jr.)?

Whoa! Lemme' stop with this next one - although there are loads more of my experiences you might be able to read about when I publish my (completed) controversial Autobiography!

• been invited by the emminent Black Congressman Rev. Adam Clayton Powell to "come and speak at the Church!"? (I'm done for now!)

BROTHER MALCOM X WAS RIGHT:

BROTHER MALCOM X WAS RIGHT: -
(About 'Chickens Roosting')

As the 'experts' endlessly prate about who made what mistakes in determining the cause of the latest terrifying attempt of international immolation (Detroit Northwest Flight #235'- Abdulmutallah's underwear-bomb), recollections of the accuracy of Malcom X's predictions about the United States of America ricochet through my mind.

Similarly, echoes, of the adage "What goes around - comes around" also flicker through my consciousness and when I look at the images of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallah (who looks like a startled nine year old - a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding automobile) I'm nearly overcome by a sense of ineffable tristesse at the pitiful stage of our world's counterproductive development of 'victims victimizing victims.'

Indeed, the more (white male-dominated) media in the U.S.A. try to present Abdulmutallah as a raging terrorist, the more he comes across as a hapless victim of monstrous manipulation.

But these efforts, along with other attempts at displacing responsibility for the adversarial nature of the world's 'military ping-pong' affairs will ultimately fail. I'm reminded of the prophetic phrase, "...the worm turns..." and all the endless doublespeak, by hypocrites who know better, about "intelligence failures," "secure areas," "let him through," "war on terrorism," "holding them responsible," "retaliation" and the ultimate vacuous 'wool-puller,' "national security," - which catch-all phrase is used by war dawgs who want to continue to scare the bejeezus out of a gullible public.

It's at once amazing and morally repugnant to me that I've not heard one single commentator, prognosticator, analyst, academician or Heaven forfend, politician - be honest enough to admit publicly that there's no such thing as "national security!" Please! If one continually dumps excrement in what they're fond of calling their 'backyards,' there will one day emerge an untenable stench! This hegemonic behavior of the U.S.A. on the world stage (invading over two hundred countries - mostly of color, like Grenada, Iraq and the Philippines in the past howmany decades) has evolved into escalating instances of what is hypocritically described as "terrorism" (the pot calling the kettle Black) but in reality is understandably-antisocial "payback" for perceived and actual injury.

The more the West (including Israel, Europe) continues to treat countries of color as their fecal 'backyards,' all the while waging inernecine military raids for resources/raw materials like oil, the more horribly-desperate huemans will be persuaded that 'going out in a blaze of gory' (pardon) and taking Western perpetrators with 'em, is better than living a hopeless life.

Question: Is there a subliminal 'fear-of-Blackness' connection between the U.S.A. war dawg military occupation of countries of color and white males' refusal to end the Death Penalty in the U.S.A.?

Under the present circumstances, I take no pleasure in remembering that other apt verity: "What ye sow, so shall ye reap!" The West sows - and the world's people reap/weep!

WHAT TOOK 'EM SO LONG

WHAT TOOK 'EM SO LONG?
'The Fatally-Flawed 4000'
by Carol Taylor
(First Black U.S.A. Flight Attendant)

My, my, my. According to the New York times, Jan. 4, 2010 article by Adam Litpak, the American Law Institute has decided to end its '...intellectually respected support for the Death Penalty system in the United States of America,' and just 'walk away' from the issue.
Well scratch my heinous!

The unmitigated gall of those 4000 judges, lawyers, law professors, (I'll bet mostly white males) 'we-say-we're-for-justice' foot-draggers has to be seen to be believed. They posture in the unearned privilege of their white skin color, pretending to the public that their 'justice system' has been operating as a level playing field, despite the rampant racism/colorism. It's nauseating.

Euphemisms abound, as they use expiatory terms about 'efficacy,' 'deterrence,' 'fairness,' 'equity' and 'justice' - to avoid accountability for supporting an untenable Death Penalty system (which DNA tests have proven has killed many innocent people of color in this hostile-to-color country).

Against this murky background, such terms make a mockery of any notion of democracy - (it is really "dey-mock-us-you-see," said a young Rastafarian man to me some time ago).

Contrary to the American Law Institute's fanciful ideation about 'justice for all,' ("all who?) it is impossible 'to make the Death Penalty "less arbitrary" without first dealing a death blow to the pandemic color discrimination infesting the criminal justice system. Get real!

You'll forgive me - a Black person who's been on the ugly butt-end of untreated racism/colorism all my waking life, if I'm less than sanguine about the credibility of a bunch of white-skin-privileged males' pronouncements of good intentions just because they've 'better-late-than-never' ended their unconscionable 'respected support' for the Death Penalty System (Litvak's article does say 'System' - doesn't it?).

Justice Antonin Scalia et al.s' prating about the Death Penalty equals empty words, words, words - 'whistling Dixie' in the face of the enormous inhuemanity to a multi-colored population. This is tantamount to the irrationality reflected in the mainstream media when they cover issues and pointedly ignore the ever-present effects of untreated racism/colorism in every arena of people activity.

The U.S.A.'s criminal justice system is broken - precisely because of its inherited untreated racism/colorism - denied too often - which urgently requires extirpation, by the continuous administration - of the www.racismtest.org [posted on www.Discussrace.com] - with Follow-up Ethnotherapeutic Counseling to counteract the massive colorist conditioning by our education systems, which fail miserably to teach their students who their most distant ancestors are: the Black African originators of huemanity!

Shame on anyone trying to explain away the soul-sucking color-bigotry of so many thusly-miseducated/conditioned legal folk! Their pretense of "fairness," blithely engaging in self-serving research, flinging around pettifogging expressions like 'race-of-victim-effect' and 'race-of-defendant-effect' are really blathering exercises in obfuscation. (Anyhow, it's not 'race' it's 'color,' - talk about euphemisms!)

This color-riven society should've abolished the Death Penalty years ago - and the American Law Institute damn well knows it!

The Emperor has no clothes!

Carol Taylor R.N.
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225-4935

TO BE OR NOT TO BE -

TO BE OR NOT TO BE -

What - a literary snob? Honestly, I can be as compassionate as the next person, but something wrenches my gut when I'm watching some otherwise credible person speaking earnestly on TV and suddenly out of her/his mouth pops what I call a slimy 'word gripe!'

The latest one - on the show "The Doctors," she's explaining how one relaxes: "...so you just lay down..." AWK! - as soon as she uttered that 'lay-lie' twistup I felt my stomach lurch - I kid you not! Then, in a rare moment of self-analysis, I pondered over why such a mistake would elicit such a response - but it does.

I actually groan aloud when they yelled "CONGRADULATIONS!" - there's no 'd' in 'Congratulations!' (But even Obama with all of his couth and charisma and education, unfortunately, puts a 'd' in that word!) AWK! and don't forget TV's GawkShow Hosts Jerry Springer and Maury Povich with their "Congradulations." DOUBLE AWK

Then, the pseudo-fastidious primly prate - "...the book's entitled ...anthropomorphically granting the inanimate pages some weird level of huemanity - like it's owed something! No, Fool, the book is titled."

And when some primetime prig comes out with "...they left my wife and I..." NO! They left "...my wife and me...!"

I'm in a good mood, so I'll forgive WBAI's Hugh Hamilton, who usually speaks pristine English, his "dezisions" for now.

But what about those sappy faces blithely spouting off about "this documenary?" - totally obliterating the 't!' I can't stand it! Then, a few days ago some popsie blathered on with "...definilly..."! I do believe she meant
"definitely." What the deuce are they teaching in those schools?

Well, if I hear one more person talking about a famous individual as 'a renown' person, I will hit somebody until they learn the correct "renowned!"

What about those TV ads using "less" instead of 'fewer?' "Less commercials, less dollars!" OWITCH! And one which actually gives me a fierce headache - "a free gift!" PLEASE!

Some of the most unfavorites! - TV's Marvel Scott's "A sad tragedy;" No bumble, not both - a tragedy is sad! - those verbose politicians; "...well, I will, in the future...I have, in the past...I am, currently" What's wrong with the past/future/present tenses? - or will relying on accuracy force them to keep their patter down?!!!

And how does this one grab you - "...a man was fatally killed..." eh? Perhaps after he was "verbally speaking"... or "seeing visually...?" This insanity is truly escalating though ( not "excalating!") -
escapades" - NOT "excapades" and February's coming up - (NOT "Febuary" thank you) and please, it's 'library,' NOT "liberry!"

And WBAI Radio, Ayo Harrington, it's not "documenary," it's 'documentary!' (I should think that's 'elementary,' not "elemenary")

It's not "chu" it's 'you,' - not "govenor" but 'governor' not "electorial" or "mayorial" but 'electoral' and 'mayoral!' It's not "hopefully" it's 'I hope!'

Finally (but, believe it - the list goes on) we'll end with one of the most offensive-'cause-it's-so-wrong - "irregardless" instead of 'regardless!'

Oh, and one apparently not wrong but too long, unnecessary and pretentious: "disenfranchisement" instead of 'disfranchisement!'

Now let me go work off the irritation I've dredged up listing so many of my 'word gripes!' More later - and there are more!

AFFIRMING THY BLACK AFRICAN ANCESTORS

AFFIRMING THY BLACK AFRICAN ANCESTORS
"Teach The Youth The Truth"

Far be it from me to say, "You really missed it!" - but if you and your family weren't basking in the vivid ancestral atmosphere at the Brownsville Heritage House recently at the Warrioress Jean Wilkins Dember MHS 19th Annual "AFRICANS UNITED FOR SANITY NOW!" Commemoration ceremony - you really did miss it!

One walks in to the Brownsville Heritage House, is cordially and with true African hospitality and warmth, greeted by Sister Queen Patricia Deans, Director/Curator, and is immediately positively overwhelmed by the sheer number of variegated displays, paintings, photographs, crests, drawings and artifacts reflecting the glorious activists, notaries, martyrs, diplomats, politicians, writers, historians, philosophers, warriors and Black African ancestors, among too many others to herein awesomely describe.

As we sat, almost stupefied amidst such ancestral splendor, listening to Sister Jean Dember's soul-stirring presentation on Black Panthers activism, it was as if someone had opened up the tops of our heads as the atmosphere and information about our Black African selves flooded in - creating new synapses in our Blackness-starved brains. I was fervently grateful that my own son (and accompanying invited-by-me guests) was aslo breathing in the soul/psyche-enriching experience: you can't buy such vital encounters!

And, as if being flooded with the thought-provoking regalia of the museum and the enriching information by Mrs. Dember were not stimulating enough, when she presented and described the incredibly delicious completely vegetarian delicacies for us (to first taste and ) then to devour, we could hardly express our delight and gratitude for her obvious care and preparation (she and her supportive husband Clarence had driven in to Brooklyn's Mother Gaston Boulevard all the way from West Babylon, Long Island!) for this project.

One is struck not only by the number of interesting artifacts but also by the prose describing them and especially the evocative messages emitted by various 'Oh-so-conscious' artists: for instance, the stark hand-drawing of an obviously-anguished Black man's muscled back, with a loaded slave ship as his spine! (My entire psyche shuddered in the shock of sudden recognition as I saw it!) (Talk about on-the-spot much-needed psychological/psychiatric counseling for us Blackfolk!) Dr. Joy deGruy's description of Post Slavery Traumatic Disorder immediately was called to mind - along with the admonitions of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing about Black male jeopardy in this hostile-to-color country.

Can I also share with you the consciousness-smacking start I got when I beheld the Michael Jackson "Afro-ed Michael" montage of multi-photo-ed headshots of him before he straightened his hair? (What creative-thinking brain could dream up something like that?)

Another amazing display of Black African creativity was the painstakingly-laid out church scene where the artist used specially-treated ordinary brown cardboard material (which most people discard) to fashion singers, spires, seats and statuary, all somehow commanding onlookers to stare continuously wondering how he did it. I found myself returning and returning to 'see what I hadn't seen before' - not wanting to miss any part of it.

So, if you've ever longed for the opportunity to invest in providing your children/family/relatives/loved ones the experience of 'a quintessential showering in a Black African milieu,' - a kind of healing 'steeping in BlackAfricanness' - do not hesitate to take them to the Brownsville Heritage House (even though you did miss the AFRICANS UNITED FOR SANITY NOW! unique event, you can still enjoy memorable times at the Brownsville museum - well-named "Heritage" House!) (718) 385 1111

[Teachers, take your students here!]

This article comes in the spirit of: www.racismtest.org [posted on www.Discussrace.com]

Just How Hurtful Is This 'Color' Thing

Just How Hurtful Is This 'Color' Thing?

Well, guest testimony on the recent "Tyra Show" revealed that people in Chatanooga, Tennessee tried to run down two young Black girls "...because of their color..." Another guest, saying he was 'Black and Mexican' (illustrating the colorism involved in calling some folk by national origin but calling people of color - a color) and that he doesn't like Mexicans (himself). How truly hurtful are both incidents!

Further injury, of course, is Tyra's use of glaringly counterproductive rhetoric (probably stemming from her middle-white-American producers' usage): non-meaning phrases like "bi-racial," "interracial," "race," "raceS,"** "mixed-multi-racial," - all muddying an otherwise educative program on color - not 'race' Tyra! (**There is only one hueman race)

It's obviously way past time for a national debate on racist/colorist language usage; the sooner the better, so that influential folk like Tyra and others don't continue to perpetuate the untreated racism/colorism which so pitifully still rends the fabric of our society.

It is obvious also, despite admitted progress in some areas, that this country remains a 'hostile-to-color' place; examples of this abound and no more illustrative of this ignorance were the statements of many of Tyra's studio guests - like the white mother of two brown children who said, incredibly, that "I don't see color" - and I'm sure she had not a clue that she was therein denying the hueman worth of her own offspring!

Again, like the white mother of a dear friend of mine who told her beautiful Black son, "I hate you!" I can hardly think of a more hurtful situation than a mother actually forswearing the issue from her own body.

I can personally attest to the unfortunate and preventable hurtfulness which is, apparently, inescapably, unavoidably attached to people of color, worldwide, by the way. As the daughter of a Black father and a white mother who has had 'color-buffeting treatment' by multi-colored, miseducated people all my life, when I heard Tyra introduce the misled and obviously - U.S.A.-miseducated filmmaker of "Bi-Racial - Not Black, Dammit!" - I nearly had a blue cat! Give me a freakin' break!

Because of the monstrous miseducation systems - in the entire world, Victoria, not just in the U.S.A.! - which evidently refuses to teach its multi-colored hapless students about themselves - every single one of 'em descendants of the originating Black Afriicans - there still exists, again, worldwide, crass ignorance of self, viciousness (including color-based murders - especially by those suburdd-dwelling cops) toward 'others,' and everyday delivery of color-bigoted hurt.

Isn't it time to acknowledge, address and heal this hurt?

Sure! REMEDY: Start by administering to everyone, the www.racismtest.org* - and when dysfunctional responses to differences in color and culture are revealed, let that individual be referred to Ethnotherapy Counseling until she or he can THINK STRAIGHT about color and culture!

This remedy should be adopted by schools, universities, seminaries, business places, the military, government offices, political campaign organizations, medical institutions, courts systems, prisons - anywhere where hueman beings are making decisions about others.

Bumps,Lumps & Clumps:

Bumps,Lumps & Clumps:

Watch Yer Moles!

For years I've wondered about the purpose of moles. (Everything's on the Internet: wait a minute, lemme' go 'google' "moles" - be right back)

Okay, I got "Molesafe," explaining about clusters of melanin-producing cells and scary items about melanoma. Some of the other 'google' sites were about furry little borers. (Is this why they call spies "moles?")

As a nurse, I've notice that liness of moles on lots of people's bodies (including mine) run down what's called "the milk lines," down the sides of the face, neck, down the trunk, and into the groin.

And as I get older, the durn mole numbers increase. I got brown ones, (light, medium and dark) red ones (gazillions of the lil' buggers!), flat ones (usually grey!), bumpy ones, round ones, clustered ones - and they're all pesky!

I'm told if they're itchy, hie off to yer Dermatologist: Hey! Millions of folk in the U.S.A. don't have medical coverage! Quick, Mr. President: - give those people medical coverage!

Anyhow, since I've attained he privilege of being 'an Elder,' I've consulted my Dermatologist and had several of the 'in-an-uncomfy-place' pesky protuberances surgically-removed - no biggie; the devilish things are sent to a lab to determine if they're malignant; I'm only on tenterhooks for a week or so - until I get the good news that they're 'benign.'

I have observed others with all sortsa' moles - and I know we Blacks (and other people of color) get black, red & brown moles and I've even grown a coupla' what look like white moles...but do white people grow white moles? (I know they grow brown/black/red ones - does his mean they have 'Black' in 'em? Oh, Yeah, of course they do! ALL huemans are 'of Black African ancestry! Nearly forgot that.)

So, Holy Mole-y! I guess all a' we huemans gotta' WATCH our moles! What a thing! Worldwide mole-estation (pardon). I don't mean to make a mountain (of woe) outta' a mole hill! But I can't stop thinking that it's possible/probable that the pollution we huemans are sifting through the air, water, foodstuff (and cell phone and other EMF waves!) contributes to our steadily-escalating personal production of those little pesky pop-ups. UGH!

We're manufacturing moles up da' wazoo! I wonder if folk who live in (nearly) unspoiled pristine areas of the world (any left?) find fewer moles?

In the meanwhile, every time I have an itch, I'm poring over my body saying, "Oh, Lord! Is that another one of those "out-damn-spot!" multiple, multidimensional,multifarious, multitudinous, myriad melanin lumps?

Talk about lifes 'vicissitudes!' HALP!