Why race? Why now?

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Those are the questions. With a new president the country has been buzzing about race. Is the race issue over? Have African Americans finally arrived? You may have seen or heard these and other issues discussed on TV or radio. CNN is doing a part 2 to race in a few days.

They trot out the so called experts and they espouse all the power words, and phrases guaranteed to up the viewership. However, race remains a complex sensitive issue on our national and local landscape. Have you ever wondered why?

Tell me how did you get to be white or black or yellow or red? How long have you been white or black? Where did the concept of race by color come from? Who started it? In fact what is race?

Most conversations around this issue start at the end or in the middle. The assumption is you are what you already think you are. Well, what if you are not? What if you are something else and didn't know it?

What is culture? Who defined it for you? What is your heritage and who defined it for you? Where did you learn about these things? How do you know any of it is true? These are just a few of the questions from the buzz words around race. Upon close inspection and examination how they are used in present context may not stand up to logic and truth.

What if they didn't? What if this race issue was just something made up? What difference would it make? Before you answer that think about it and think about it deeply. Those are just some of the topics and issues we will address straight forward in the Red Pill II training. Let me assure you we will address some issues and facts that can be life changing if you look deeply enough.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

[B. Crittenden Freeman]

Mr. Black, the lack of "any real response" is to be expected. Having said that, I find myself in the usual psotion of stating my truth (or stating truths) and then people choosing to direct anger towards me. However, if I may share... I would suggest the lack of any "real response" is
1. a dynamic indicative of the culture
2. people waiting for others to blog (meaning they are "afraid to be first".
3. a reflection of people not wanting to walk through race issues.
4. perhaps de to following the path of Mr. Obama.
But, overall I would suggest that most are hesitant to post due to past negative experiences.

B. Crittenden Freeman

Clifford Black said:

I find it strange that a topic that is talked about so much (race) is not generating any real response.
Mr. B.

[B. Crittenden Freeman]

Hello Al, Yes I'll take a shot at it.

The expression is "white privilege". you wrote "white privilege is a set of advantages enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). "

Yes. It exists. Do I have scientifically researched & documented data to support my conclusion? No. Can I get it? Yes.

Aaron (Al) Lewis said:

While we on the subject of race what about the notion of white privilege? Is there such a thing or is it something someone just made up? I copied this:

White Privilige -In critical race theory, white privilege is a set of advantages enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). Theorists differentiate it from racism or prejudice because, they say, a person who may benefit from white privilege is not necessarily racist or prejudiced and may be unaware of having any privileges reserved only for whites.

Now what stands out for me is the word theory. What is a theory? Has it been proved or is it just a strong belief or opinion? I dare say to make my reality on someone else's opinion sets me up to be thought for instead of thinking for myself. What do you think? Before you answer that you may want to find out what a white person is. For that matter you may want to know what a black person is also.

Anyone care to take a shot at it?

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Barry, while I wouldn't dare answer for Mr. Black, he is amply qualified to do that for himself. I do what to address the past negative experiences. I can see why after having experiencing some of those past negative experiences myself. In part that is why I think this symposium so pertinent. Not being properly armed with the FACTS on race I was dependent upon other's definitions and theories around this issue.

I found it strange that these so called experts could impart some much information, but never shared their sources or pointed out to the classes how they were able to pull it together. They never taught me how to think this through for myself. They simply put out some information, told me that was the way it was, if I baulked or buck I would be besieged with comment like , "That is the opinion of the learned Dr. So and So", yet the good Dr. never was able to tell me how to know for myself. I found that quite interesting.

The result of all the different trainings I have attended on race, diversity and multi-culturalism still came up extremely short, for me. That is not empowerment, that puts me in a position to have someone else think for me and makes me dependent on their information.

No, we object to negativism, we only welcome what can be trued.

[Rawin Thutmose]

"...we only welcome what can be trued." (Aaron 'Al' Lewis)

A replicating example of “true”/"truing" (How to True)

In construction (whether it's with building materials, words/language, mathematics [relationships]), “true” is about everything being lined up correctly. Your lines should be perfectly vertical (plumb) and horizontal (level), and your corners should be exactly 90 degrees (square). 

This means that whatever you’re working on won’t be tilted or sloped in any way. 

Every element of your orientation must be exact. Nothing should lean in any direction. If just one corner or one line of what you’re building isn’t straight, then what you’re doing won’t be true (in other words, the structure [words/language, buildings, objects] will "Lie"; "Lying" down. 

[Rawin Thutmose]

[Clifford Black]

Namaska Bro. Barry!!!
Glad to hear from you. I am happy to address your questions, because from prior interactions I know you are a serious person. Also I am aware that serious people like yourself are not interested in unfounded opinions and or assumptions about the realities that affect them as people.
In regard to your inquiry about the need for qualifications let me offer this thought. My Aunt discovered that her home was in need of electrical repair. She also told me that her pastor had said that he could fix the problem. I then asked her what were his qualifications relative to electricity. She told me that he was her pastor and he just knows about things. My advise to her was that she may want to depend on a repairperson that has the best quality of information, about electricity, in order to determine quailfications. A lack of qualifications may suggest a lack of quantity regarding information about electrical matters. This could create a dangerous situation. I advised my Auntie that the repairperson with the needed qulifications may be what you will need in order to prevent greater damage to your premise. In most cases even a contractor (who can build a house) will call the person with the greatess amount of insight into electrical matters.
Let me attempt to address your second question about the quality of people and the information that they might use to fix a problem. At some time in your life, like myself, you may need to have an operation on your heart. When you are the person, on the table, receiving the operation there is going to be an absolute interaction between yourself and the surgeon. The engagement is in most cases based on trust. Be of great care.
Relative to #3 let me say this.
I, like you, find myself fascinated by President Obama and his organizational skills. I have also had great respect for James Brown and his ability to sing, produce, organize and to accomplish. I do remember feeling that even though I love his song about being Black and Proud he is not qualified to be involved in a conversation about race {R] on the Merv G show. James Brown's song did not qualify him to be an electrician. President Obama seems to be bery good at his job, but he is also not an electrician.
As a side note.
My Aunt had her preacher deal with the problem. Her house burnt down!!!
Our hope is to help construct a greater capacity for perception so that if you need to rely on intuition, YOU WILL KNOW!!!!!!!!!
B. Crittenden Freeman said:

Hello Mr. Black. Nice to be chating here. A few questions first.
1. Why does one "need qualifications"?
2. Why must qualifications be "proven" or experience be "proven" before acceptance or engagement occurs?
3. I find Mr Obama's skills quite fascinating.

Thank you.

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Barry first off let me apologize for the typos in my last reply. I was on my way to the gym and my wife was rushing me, I didn't take time to proof and reproof what I wrote. Secondly, on one post I was signed in under her name. That was me posting back to you, not her, but I think she feels and thinks the same way.

Again I think this training has the potential to be dynamic and I would hope it will start to generate a whole new way of talking and thinking about this issue. As you are aware in our training we avoid argument at all cost. We especially avoid arguing anyone's opinions and beliefs because opinions and beliefs are not necessarily real and by their very meaning not provable and therefore it is feckless to argue them, pro or con.

I suspect because of the subject matter the attendees will be filled with opinion and belief so I think it important that we deal with that up front in a respectful and clean manner. If our opinions and beliefs could have navigated us through this morass of upsets and confusion it would be no need for any training around it.

You grok?

[Tim Johnson]

A friend of mine suggested I come to this site. I am interested in this training, but I have some scheduling conflicts that I cannot cancel. First, will you be doing the training anyplace else? If so when?
Ok so I am a member of MKP and have attended a few of their training around multiculturalism. I am a white male. I make an above average salary and I live well. I don't remember much about the civil rights era. I was born in 1960 and by the time I came of age it was over. I live in a city that is deeply divided along racial lines. Most of the city officials are black. Most of the judges are black, most of school board members are black and most of the city is black.

I am not complaining about that. They do about a good or a poor a job as anyone who has held the positions. I do have a few close black friends. We avoid talking about race because none of us really know what to say or what to do. So we end up avoiding the topic. That was one of the reasons I attended the trainings on race. I wanted to know and see what, if anything, I could do to bridge the divide. I did not get much from them. I left thinking I was supposed to feel guilty because of my personal achievements that they called white privilege. Somehow it just didn't add up for me. I also got the impression that if I did acquiesce to their way of seeing things I would not up in the organization.

I do not come from a rich or privileged family. I studied hard, made good grades and scored high on the college entrance exam and got a lucrative scholarship at one of the better schools. As I result I competed for and was awarded a great job on Wall St. Two years ago I left NYC and came back home, I still make a good living, but I must say the racial climate here is much more polarized that what I am used to.

The MC training really turned me off. I didn't like being preached to or have concepts told to me and I had to accept them. I feel very angry about that. I don't like anything being forced on and though MKP says they are not forcing, that is not what the undertow looks like. I know a few men in MKP that checked out because of this initiative. So I have some questions:

Is this training anyway related to the Isms and Issues, Multicultural Series 101 etc or the Bridges of Boundaries training?

Exactly what is your curriculum?

Will there be any attempt to force or coerce your viewpoints on the target audience?

What are you qualifications to facilitate this trainings?

How long have you been doing it?

I don't not mean to be offensive I just don't want to be talked down to or told what I have to believe or think again.

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Tim, thanks for posting. Sorry you cannot make this training. Yes, there are plans in the works to hold the training in other cities. Presently we are negotiating with Kansas City, MO, about a training there and I just spoke with a person in Indiana today about sponsoring the training there. As soon as I know anything definitive I will post the dates and locations.

I will address your questions and concerns to the extent possible.

You asked: Exactly what is your curriculum?

Our curriculum is exactly what we stated. We will be facilitating issues and information on race, but more to the point we share with our participants how to find out and know for themselves what they want to know about race in its past and present form. That is no easy feat particularly because of all the errant beliefs, ignorance and myths it has been shrouded in. Upon investigation you may find that some of the common notions about race are simply made up without a scintilla of evidence to support their existence. Now if it appears that I am being vague about how we do this that is intentionally so. We are after all presenting it in a training and if I were to reveal our techniques and modalities online the training could lose its effectiveness and impact.

We are preparing follow up online training and courses to help people evolve and enhance their learning experience. More will be detailed as we get closer to the training.




You asked: Will there be any attempt to force or coerce your viewpoints on the target audience?

I think you will be presently surprised to find that not only will we not force or even suggest you believe anything we, meaning the facilitators say, but we will insist that you never take anything anyone says as gospel until you check and true it for yourself. We think that is empowerment in its greatest form. Then you will know how we came to know. We know that is a far cry from what people are use to happening in trainings such as this. However, you may meet many inner road blocks on your pathway. This training as my spouse is fond of saying, "Aint for the wimpy."



What are your qualifications to facilitate this training?

How can anyone declare qualifications in something as sensitive and as important as an issue that defines people? I could tell you about degrees, but I am sure you have witnessed the degreed talking heads pontificate mounds of confusing misinformation tinged with emotion or half truths. What I can tell you is a short story of how I became interested in this subject matter.

I am what people would call a person of color. Personally, just being a person is all I refer to myself as. That is good enough. Does that mean I am color blind or one of those guys that believe race doesn't make a difference? No, I just think that to be typecast by my melanin content or lack of is a poor determinant of ones mark.

I am a member of MKP. I was initiated in April 1993 in the Memphis New Warrior Community. Right away the issue of race became an issue and grew to gigantic and cataclysmic proportions in a short time. That fascinated me. Here was a group with some processes so powerful as to change men's lives, yet on this singular issue I saw men go numb, retreat, become enraged, avoid, lie, breakdown with grief, become highly aggressive and exhibit the whole range of emotions except joy.

When the break finally came and it came with alarming speed. I witnessed helplessly from the sidelines my dream of being connected with all men shatter right before my eyes. It seemed to have a life force of its own. The "shadow" was so powerful that no amount of will could hold us together and I am man of resolute will.

I later was a founding member of Inward Journey African American Council who sponsor The Underground Railroad Training Odyssey. It is an initiation into personhood for people of color. Through that effort and my connection with some MKP people I was involved in the Racial Healing event that occurred in Chicago 1999. That event became part of the impetus of what was to become the Multicultural effort in MKP. Let's just say I am one of the original participants in that effort. I did attend a couple of their trainings. I too had some issue with what was being presented. I couldn't quite put my finger on what I was thinking or feeling, but it was obvious to me I didn't feel complete. That is not to say it had no value. I think it did. It just didn't satisfy the kind of curiosity I had with the subject.

As a result I threw myself into uncovering this most elusive concept called race and most especially the dynamics of it in the USA. It was in 2003, after almost losing my life on this very day, six years ago, in a terrible car accident that a few weeks later my life would change unequivocally. I was reintroduced to a man who would point out to me just how erroneous my thinking had been about race and variety of other subjects also. That man is Mr. Clifford Black, who I have the honor to be working with on the Red Pill training.

Just as you were suspicious, so was I when appeared before him for I was tired of people telling me what something meant, or should men for and to for me. I was relived to discover his manner and delivery was the completed anthesis of that way. Instead he asked me rather than told me into seeing how my thinking had trapped me into believing confusing and sometimes even contradictory information around this issue we call race. It did not happen over night and in fact though I have been at this with due diligence for almost 6 years now. I still find myself the student, still learning, still searching, still questioning, but light years away from where I was in thought and feelings 6 years ago.

How long have you been doing it?

Actually since I was 4 year old. Mr. Black and Catherine will have to answer for themselves. They both have unique stories about their coming into consciousness around this matter. I say 4 because that was the time I found out something was different and perhaps inferior about me simply because I was colored, I mean Negro. That was way back in 1957 in Memphis witnessing a woman I loved dearly, my 70 year old great grand mother, being forced to stand while a so called white person and a male at that, sit while she held a bag of goods. To this day I do not understand a system or a people that would allow that to happen. Well actually I do understand it, but the sheer stupidity of it is staggering. More on that at the training.

It was a thought that has never left me and I dedicated my life to understanding and fixing it so that it will never happen to a woman or child again. Hear me that I have tried a cornucopia of methods to figure out what was up under this. After years of intense study I came to see what formula we have been operating under and it is a bad formula. Our mission is to start a new conversation about race, one infused with truth, not conjecture, not some made up bugaboo, not some fantastical, though glib, approach to something that has caused some many people so much pain and confusion. What I am referring to is as tangible as the nose on your face because it is real and it is real because it is true and can be traced and trued.

By the way, no offense taken. I appreciate and welcome honest well thought out questions.

Hope this helped,

One Aim

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

For all who are interested there is an internet radio show that I host relative to this subject matter. Today the topic was "Race in America." The shows are all achieved. Go to www.blogtalkradio.com/wroi Look for Underground Railroad. You can also listen to other shows. One of my favorite is Super Learning. Check these shows out also.

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Barry, you were an attendee of the original Red Pill training in Denver, CO. What was your experience like if you don't mind sharing?

[Aaron (Al) Lewis]

Here is something I posted on another site a few years ago. It is so befitting today:
Jensen writes, “Nearly everything in civilization leads us away from being able to think clearly and from being able to feel. If we were able to do either we would not allow those in power to kill the world, to kill our non human neighbors, to kill humans we love, to kill us. And once we have been inculcated into this thinking that is not thinking, this feeling that is not feeling, the culture does not need to do much to continue to confuse us. We will continue to confuse ourselves with all of our not-thinking and not-feeling.

We will gladly do this because if we did not confuse ourselves, if we allowed ourselves to think in a way that really was thinking and feel in a way that really was feeling, we would suddenly understand we can stop the horrors that surround us and we would suddenly understand what we need to do to stop the horrors – the problems are not cognitive challenging-and we would start to do it”.

He goes on to write, “ Several thousand years of inculcation and ideology all aimed at driving us equally out of our minds and our bodies, away from any realistic sense of self defense, have gotten us to identify not with our bodies and our landbases, but with our abusers, with governments, with civilization. This misidentification is a marker of our insanity, and it is one of the things that drives us further insane, that leads to further confusion, that leads to further inaction. Break that identification and one’s course of action becomes so much clearer.”

He then writes and this really hits home hard for slaves and ex-slaves, “ There is a world of difference between free men and women – free creatures of any sort – deciding whether to fight to defend their freedom, whether to fight to not be forced into slavery; and slaves deciding to fight for freedom they’ve never known at all. The latter are less likely to fight, because their default, their experience, the state which all others will be judged, is that of submission. They breathe it in from childhood, and drink it in their mother’s milk, consume it at the table and learn it from their fathers. Gaining freedom in this case requires a long and arduous series of conscious and willful acts, many of which will be opposed, not only by their owners, but perhaps more effectively by all their training as slaves, by the myriad ways they’ve internalized the needs and desires (and psychosis) of their owners, and more effectively still by the ways they’ve come to accept the status quo, the default, the existence of the system of slavery as anything other than what it is: a system of slavery”

Lastly, he pens, “Far less likely to fight back than slaves are those so deeply and thoroughly enslaved that they no longer perceive their own slavery. In this country people are rarely imprisoned for their ideas because they are already imprisoned by their ideas. The wage slaves of today aren’t ripe for revolt because they don’t know that they are slaves and no more free than the slaves of yore, despite the fact that they think so.”

Endgame

So what do you think about this passage?