It’s hard to say what I want my legacy to be when I’m long gone. – the late would have been great Aallyah

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from MELLOW episode 7 of Keith Broke A Leg, this is Into the Wild 

 
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Why a Civil War, The Voting Rights Act and the Presidential Defeat
of a Carnival Barker Did Not End America’s Race Dance

written & edited by Kendall F. Person

Until this morn, I could never imagine the perils of a raided history having a chance at redemption. The attempted distortion of the present and past as we are playing witness too on an international political stage, leaves most in a state of utter disbelieve. How the United States of America – one of the most powerful empires in world history  –  could find itself balancing such a disgraceful fall from grace in only 240 years? How could 150 years after the fall of slavery, home  to the top learning institutions in the world, and every boy and girl still not comprehend, that the leaders at the time, took the country to a civil war, because they understood it had to be stopped if America was going to be a model for the world. How can we celebrate Martin Luther King in good conscious, when he died over a half century ago to end racial identity in a land populated by bloodlines directly traced, not simply all over the world, but to all people.  How can we ever raise our hands as the greatest nation again, if we do not conquer the one demon that continues to defeat us in a game of chess?

The devil is not in the details, it stands in plain sight. What is hidden and has continuously slipped by us, is how hard  many of us are fighting the same fight, yet we remain standing on different sides,  rarely giving our commonality center stage. So when the 2016 election ends, and either Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson or Donald Trump takes the helm,  the future moment of reason and peace, has been stolen, by a new uproar which has already been scripted and the sides rearranging. now.

How much space has been given to the  media centers and reporters for not backing down on untruths and all out lies. For not allowing history to be distorted on their watch. How many Americans ever truly believed the incredibly un-Presidential remarks about Mexicans and Muslims and my African American? But if not for the pitched battles politicians. the empowered reporters and every day people on both sides, in shouting down, then disposing of history altering lies, the country would have already been defeated. But we are so uncomfortable in standing firm unified, that  as soon as the jedi-mind players have failed, we immediately retreat back to the “home team” and create new reasons, why its us against them; rarely embracing the peaceful moments. As for the pedestal of reason, has it ever been reached?

When the south surrendered, the leaders should have unified their rank and file, but the bitter hate and selfish nature of man escaped. When the Voting Rights Act was passed into a constitutional backed law, the bitter may have adsorbed the loss, but the leaders kept the story of bigotry ongoing, When President Barack Hussein Obama (that is his name) stood front and center, absorbing the humiliation of 40 million people like a soldier when he showed his birth certificate to prove what we already knew, it should have been over. We all suffered in each of these moments, some more than others, but the moments when they are over if our leaders in churches and governments and schools and families had said  in a united voice “Lets move forward”, the race dance that has haunted and nearly destroyed our nation, by now would be over. But the masses retreat and the winners celebrate a victory and the righteous losers believe their voices too weak and the madness – even after suffering monumental defeats – emerges unscathed. But since we can see it, they cannot be the details (we tell ourselves) so we return back to the same places, that we just fought and won the ability to escape.

The significance of teaching and embedding the concepts of legacy and humanity and society and even the imaginative arts, have not been introduced into our curriculum and spiritual teachings and home nurturing on the level of math or football or technology  or even a free period named study hall. So the idea of making a conscious decision about what we leave here, is relegated to college. So we leave it to our leadership and preachers and parents and community leaders to think about the moments and relay them to us in a way that chips away at the race dance. But the madness had already run passed us, so each opportunity lost.

What would a leader say? Not even half of the cheering Trump crowds are racist, fear- mongering people, but they have hurt and pain too, and  this is what their leaders are telling them is true. And at 8:00am, those who believe inner city means darkness, go to the intersection of  whatever you believe is the most  crime intense, war torn part of your city, and you will immediately take note, there are as many people going to school or work or jogging or crying on the street because the money they spent on drugs was not disposable income – as other parts of the same city. So even after this unejoyable circus of an election is over, we will not celebrate that we made it through together, because  the leaders we turn to, are feeding us our outrage in advance. But that is not nearly as heartbreaking as the fact, that in that moment, we know it, but we turn away from the game at check,  gifting the madness   checkmate… again.

But fear not, as a loosely connected – through karma most – neighborhood of people, who will never stop pointing to the moments and banging pots and  climbing trees to be heard, because they truly believe that one day, perhaps centuries after our lives have gone away, that the voice of reason and humanity and peace will rule the world. And the recording of history now, assures their props. (big smile)

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