I am Just Trying To Keep It Real!

I haven’t done this in a while so let me post some uncomfortable historical truth about my race, culture and experience. To some this may be offensive material so please be warned. Some readers may want to stop reading at this point.

This fact has always been a part of the African American males’ experience.

Since blacks were allowed to own and drive their own personal vehicles, (A privilege that many of us take for granted.) it has always been and continues to be a very risky and life threatening experience for an African American male to be stopped on the highway by Law Enforcement, especially if he is by himself.

I will not bother to try to quote the statistic on the ratio of blacks to other races whose traffic stops ended in their deaths. I will not bore you with things that you already have been made aware of.

I just want to remind us that some of us live in a very different world than yours and our experience demands that we be more sensitive, more vigilant, more careful, more aware, more intuitive, more spiritual, more prayerful and more watchful in order to survive. Our instinct to survive is forged from surviving generations of oppression, murder, rape, subjugation, lynching and other horrors too inhuman to encapsulate in words. 

So when traveling the highways of our great and awesome democracy, please remember that there are still some crazy folks out there wearing law enforcement uniforms and carrying hate as a weapon in their souls for the annihilation of the posterity of those whom they would enslave.

Remember that a black man literally places his life in the hands of his potential executioner almost every time he is stopped by Law Enforcement.

I am just keeping it real.

Bishop O.W. Prince
#KeepingItReal

Suggested Links:

• http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/black-men-killed-by-whites
• http://www.theroot.com/photos/2013/06/unarmed_black_men_shot_by_police_20_sad_stories.html
• http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/15/police-shoot-kill-unarmed-black-man-seeking-assistance-after-serious-car-accident/
• http://www.occupy.com/article/black-man-killed-us-every-28-hours-police
• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/24/1226172/-Police-Guards-Vigilantes-shot-down-136-Unarmed-African-Americans-on-2012

What does the Bible say about men with long hair? / Does God have a standard for His men?

1 Corinthians 11:14-15

¹⁴ Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, ¹⁵ but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?

In this passage of scripture, Paul does not mean “nature” in the sense of “the natural world” or “Mother Nature.”  Obviously, Paul cannot mean that since in the world of animals all males do not have short hair and all females do not have long hair.  All we need to do is to look at the male lion, a common biblical animal, with a bushy mane and female lion with no mane at all.  Moreover, there is evidence that for first-century men to have long hair was considered a sign of effeminacy [characteristics of being a woman] and perhaps even homosexuality—something that Paul in Romans 1 considers contrary to nature.  When Paul says by “nature” he means how naturally it was for folks of his culture to associate long hair with femininity and short hair with masculinity.  Cross-gender behavior was not uncommon in the first century.

Paul claims that the long hair of a woman “is her glory.”  The way Paul is using the word “glory” in this text refers to the beauty of women’s long hair.  Paul understood, as most of us do, that Long hair can make a woman look attractive and beautiful and is identified as one of her important feminine qualities.  This fact is even true today.  All we need do is look at the attention and the money that women invest in their hair.

However, men who want to take on the feminine qualities of a woman, whether by wearing long hair, long braids or ornamented hair decorations are to be naturally considered effeminate, thus discredited as a man [shameful].

When it is so important for a male to have long dreadlocks or stylishly long hair hanging on his shoulder or down his back as if he where a female, he is taking on the characteristic of a female and thus has dishonored himself as a male.

Regardless of the cultural, social or personal reasons for a man wearing long hair, it is not a trait that the apostles approve of for born-again men.

As for whether this practice will condemn you to hell, I cannot say.  But is it that important to you that you would risk your eternal soul on a hair style?

The question that we should all ask ourselves is, “Do I want to meet the standards of God’s holiness or the stylish trends of the world?”

Do you have a heart for God or a heart for the things of the World?

REPENT!

The Trayvon Martin Murder

American justice is unjust with regards to the value of a white life to that of an African American, particularly a black male. It appears that the predominantly white American Justice System considers the life of a dog (referencing the Michael Vick story) more valuable than that of a black male teenager. I can imagine if a black man had shot and killed a white teenager in the same manner that Trayvon was murdered he would be arrested immediately without question regardless of his explanation and we all know I am telling the truth.

This takes racism to a new level.  It openly and undeniably reveals how insidious racism is in America.  It exposes the American legal system for what it has been and continues to be with regards to its heinous disregard for an African American life. 

The Trayvon Martin Story is not unique to American history.  However, it is absolutely unique to the African American experience.

It has been open season on African American males for as long as I can remember.  Historically, white men and some white women have murdered and stolen the lives and destroyed the families of countless African Americans with impunity.  We are murdered simply because of the color our skin or because we dare to look a white person in the eye when we speak to them or because we have a healthy self image and do not choose to think less of ourselves than we ought or because we marry out our race or have a mastery of the English language.  Regardless of the godless and surreptitious behavior of the predominantly white law enforcement agencies in America, the majority of African Americans observe, respect and obey the law. 

Now it is time for a change.  It is time for an unprecedented reaction to the criminal injustices of our justice system officials and the cold blooded murder of our children.  Our reaction should resonate throughout history and send an unprecedented message to the powers that be that our mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, sisters and bothers and God loving citizens are not going to tolerate or endure the murdering of our children any longer.  There has to be a change.  The Law Enforcement officers, government officials and law makers who have allowed this injustice must be exposed, replaced and punished.

Enough is enough and the time for change is now!  Rally our legal geniuses.  Engage our socially conscience and morally righteous activists.  Respect, protect and support those who are in positions of power and influence to impact and correct the disparity in the justice system.  Help the righteous leaders of justice expose and punish those who have violated human and civil rights.  Send the message that we will not rest until justice prevails nor will we forget the heinous crimes of racism or tolerate its poisonous attitude or behavior in our society any longer.

 Let me say one more thing.  Every since President Barack Obama became President of The United States of America, racist in America lost their minds and their civility –if they ever had any - and they have raised the level of their hate for blacks to new heights.  Not since the sixties have we ever seen more incidents of racist remarks, racist cartoon caricatures, racist signs and literature as we do today.  It has all been in response to a black man becoming president.  I am only stating what is obvious to most African Americans. 

 Racist have declared war on all African American citizens of the United States of America.  They have used every conceivable method to eradicate the world of black people – from medically unwarranted hysterectomies on uninformed and unsuspecting black women to the castration, murder and unjust incarceration of black males.  I was wondering when someone will notice and say something but no one did.  Therefore, I have.

Wake up America!  There is a war going on right on American soil that is more insidious than anything we have warred against on foreign soil.  It is time that we totally demolish the white good old boys system and tear down the strongholds of the enemy – exposing them for the clandestine cowards that they are.  Let us respond in the right spirit - the spirit of unity and justice not hate and revenge.  Those are the weapons of the enemy.  Our weapons are greater.  Our weapons are superior intellect and spiritual maturity honed by centuries of real life education, abuse, hardship and suffering.  Our weapons are not of this world but mighty through God.  They are the prayers prayed by the broken hearted and crushed in spirit.  They are the righteous acts of those who champion the cause of justice and equality.   They are the heart wrenching cries of a mother weeping over her murdered son.  They are the moans of a father in anguish over the killing of his only boy.  They are the promises of God who keeps His Word.

“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit…Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The LORD will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. (Psalm  34:17-21)

Amen!

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