Racism

Racism is a belief.

It is founded on a biblical principle in Western society.

More specifically, in the evangelical interpretation of what the followers believe is the divine word of God.

The Old Testament, taken from the Jewish faith, the Torah, was Christianized to be believed to be infallible.

It is the literal truth.

So Yahweh, God, laid down the rules to Bronze Age society and mandated their truth.

Everything a place and a place for everything.

Each person is born into a set of circumstances that God has prescribed for their life.

To wish for and to want anything better for your life is a sin against the will of God.

A poor person wanting to have money.

Sin.

A woman wanting not to be beaten by her husband.

Sin.

A slave wanting freedom.

Sin.

To change your life is to change the will of God, which is a sin.

We are not to want more than what we are given.

This is why in the Charles Dickens tale of Oliver Twist, when the orphan boy Oliver asks for more gruel, he is seen as a sinner.

He is depraved, going against the will of God.

No matter if he is hungry, starving, wanting more than where God has put you is evil.

Racism is a belief.

To paraphrase Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most racist hour in America is that hour in church every Sunday.

The second most racist time is the hour that proceeds in Sunday school. 

I was raised Evangelical, a Quaker.

I can affirm what Dr. King has said.

The tenants, the foundations of racism, are taught in our places of protestant, evangelical houses of worship to the faithful as the foundation of society.

More than once, I listened to the following tale from the pew.

Noah built a boat.

He and all the animals, including his family, his sons, and their wives, rode out the storm.

When the land was dry, Noah was thirsty and decided to make wine.

He planted the seeds, grew the grapes, made himself some new wine, got drunk, and passed out.

While he was passed out, his sons performed some unnatural acts upon the sleeping Noah.

God got upset.

He visited a curse upon the three sons of Noah.

Upon Ham, he cursed him with being black.

That's why we have black people today.

Their blackness is an outward sign of their inherited sin.

That is why black people as lesser in the eyes of God than white people.

Do you understand the problem?

Racism is a belief.

Whtie religious people are defending their faith in God and the order of the universe when they are standing up for racism.

To present any kind of rational argument before a racist is useless.

Have you ever tried to get someone to give up their religion?

Give up drinking drugs?

Unless they see their problem, it's impossible to elicit a change in mind and heart.

Once a person is a racist, their fate is set in granite tablets.

Like weeds in a garden, racists will always be with us.

But we don't have to let the weeds take over the garden of humanity.

We can keep racism in check.

We, the people, have that ability.

That power.

Because together, we are stronger than any Bronze Age story.

Together we have the power to demonstrate a better way of life.

A life where harmony makes the very stones sing.

As night is as to day, the light of justice, of freedom for all must rule our lives.

There is a kind of philosophical idea that we need opposites to understand what is right.

The beauty of life is to see the wonder, the miracle of the diversity of humanity.

All wanting the same things.

Life, liberty, freedom, and love.

Love asks more, never less.

Add love, find hope.

Peace

DFrey

Say Her Name

Breonna Taylor’s death and subsequent charging only of the officer that shot into other apartments and not the two who did and who shot her and killed her is an obvious cover-up.

Covering for bullies.

Covering for racism.

Covering for a white apartheid that says one race gets justice, everyone else doesn’t.

Racism is not a thing that will smoothly go away.

Racism is a belief, and like any belief, it has its promoters and followers.

It’s priests, and it’s laypeople.

Ultimately we will never get a leopard to willingly change its own spots.

Ain’t going to happen.

Which is why we move forward, why we march, why we shout, why we talk, why we listen.

Why we work together.

Why we get into good trouble.

We that believe in justice for all will lead us to that better world where the brotherhood of man awaits us.

Justice comes in ways we do not always expect.

Yet justice will always answer for those that ring the bell of freedom.

Peace.

Hello?

The media has a collective cognitive disorder.

The media reports news and then forgets what information they say.

When the Pandemic first struck America, all news sources put up CDC charts of potential total number of deaths over time.

Does anyone remember those charts?

When you looked past a year, those numbers mounted up to 500,000 to a million dead.

Every day you can hear the media wince about why this President acts the way he does.

They seem to forget they tell us one week he's a sociopath malignant narcissist liar, and the next week it's totally ignored.

Why does he keep lying?

I'll acknowledge that the media is providing a service.

Not everyone is up to date on every turn of current events.

Like those that enter a public building today have to be reminded there is a plague killing a thousand plus people every day, and they need to wear a mask.

Some people, very human, may not realize it's still killing people.

They have to be reminded.

So the news purveyors do a rehashing a gentle reminder to their consumers of what was on the previous day's menu.

Yet the media forgets what they say as soon as they say it.

The biggest one in the past year, which continues every day, is what the media said about the mortality rates for black and brown people.

After the first two months, studies of mortalities rates demonstrated that black and brown people were more adversely affected by COVID.

Black and brown people died more often than white people.

It was said over and over and over again.

Then by June, we start to get a set of silly questions out of our news hosts.

Why are the President's supporters not wearing masks?

Why is the President saying you don't have to wear a mask?

Why are the President's rallies requiring attendees not to wear a mask?

These questions require a memory.

The news hosts told America that black and brown people die at a higher rate than white people.

These questions require deductive reasoning.

Conservative America posting to each other over social media shared this scientific data that COVID kills blacks.

The news hosts ask, why are people not wearing a mask?

The answer is racism.

The second the news media said blacks die at a higher rate than whites from COVID was the second that white apartheid America took off their masks.

It is why white racist America will not put their masks back on.

A side note, that's 37% - 40% of Americans, which is the current President's base.

COVID became a plague that kills them, not us.

This lack of cognition is genuinely an all too human response.

Did you know that McDonald's has a new breakfast sandwich?

Did you see that rat running away with a slice of pizza today?

Did you know we landed on the moon?

Humans take in information at all speeds.

Instantly and not at all.

News organizations report the news they don't necessarily understand what they are saying.

They speak before they think.

They drill into the middle of a story and are proud of the hole they made.

But they all seem to have a problem with the bigger picture.

If problems could be solved by throwing a switch, it would have been done long ago.

No, problems in any society are an ugly mixed meat sandwich.

Everyone in their camp thinking they got the best sandwich.

Each camp willing to go to war over the selection of condiments.

What we all need is a bridge of information.

A conduit of truth.

A concierge of just the facts.

Some good people keeping track, making connections, doing the work of analysis of the facts.

The leaping from headline to headline will make a nation weary.

The wind will always be with us…

It is up to each of us and together to lean into that wind to get truth.

Listen more.

Serve we, the people.

Listen.

Peace

DFrey

Truth Will Out

It starts with…

Ate a cookie before dinner.

Took a dollar from your mother's drawer.

Told the girl at school she was ugly.

Truth will out.

That day when you smoked a cigarette.

The time when you got drunk.

When you forgot the birthday of your child.

Truth will out.

Speeding.

Ignoring.

Justifying.

Entitling.

Truth will out.

The reason why you lost your job.

The reason why you can't say I love you.

The reason why you don't care anymore.

Truth will out.

Truth is fact.

Fact is the truth.

The President lives in a world of his own lies.

An adolescent fantasy world where nothing matters but his own mortal satisfactions.

We are right to say where are the strong, who can be trusted?

Truth will out.

Truth will out means the facts, the truth will be known.

The President lies, and these lies are killing us by the thousands every day.

This President's followers want the chaos; they want the deaths of those who want a world where everyone is equal.

Where everyone has justice.

Everyone has it in their power to be the worst or the best they can be.

A bird doesn't say, can I fly?

It flies.

No one is keeping them from flying with the rest of the flock.

Why do we believe that others are to blame?

Why do we choose to live in a fantasy instead of truth?

Why does this President prefer his lies to fact?

Why do so many want to believe in the lies this President tells?

The answer has been blowing in the wind since the foundations of this Republic.

A system based upon racial inequality where the whiter you are, the more justice you reap.

This is a fact in America.

Facts are stubborn things.

How do you change facts?

You change the conditions of the question.

You stand for justice.

You speak up for equality.

You march for good trouble.

You demonstrate through words and deeds that you live a life of compassion for all.

The lies are exposed.

They perish.

The truth lives.

And then it happens…

Follow truth; it will lead us all to the brotherhood of man.

Peace

DFrey

Forgotten

Rural America and urban America, are they really different?

Both are underserved by their elected leaders.

Both suffer from the absence of economic investment.

Both see the absence of real jobs.

Both are forgotten by educational institutions.

Both lack 21st-century infrastructure.

Both have stagnated wages.

Both shop at the only store in town, the dollar store.

Both cash their checks at a Payday Loan.

Both have lost hope.

If they are both so alike, what keeps them from seeing each other’s plight?

Racism.

Racism.

Racism.

I am white.

Was raised in the middle of white racist suburban, rural America.

Where everything, including God, is defined as the head of the white race.

Where the first question you ask is, where is that person from?

What is their race?

A queer reality permeates the community of white America.

White America believes the thing that keeps them from being in the same boat as black and brown people is their whiteness.

Somehow whiteness grants a boon, a step up, a benefit of the doubt.

Given the right circumstances, the rich, the wealthy, the aristocrat, the ownership class will invite them to their cash orgy.

It’s their witness that grants superiority even in the face of poverty.

The poverty of ideas.

The poverty of faith.

Poverty of spirit

The poverty of honor.

The poverty of community.

The poverty of empathy.

The perverse fear of reverse discrimination is real.

If equality was somehow made real, it is firmly believed black, and brown America will take revenge on white America.

As it was told to me over and over by one racist relative…

Universal health care…

If I had a broken leg and a black guy had a fractured leg under liberal Democrats, the black guy would be treated first, get their treatment for free, and I would be told to go elsewhere.

The idea that justice for all floats all boats is a fairy tale to racist America.

You are either on top or on the bottom.

This real fear keeps racist America from seeing their reality.

They have been forgotten.

They have been forgotten just as much as black and brown people have.

The problem is, has, and will ever be the wealthy.

They have gone by other names, aristocrats, the rich, the ownership class.

However, they remain the bane of humanity.

The takers.

Racism continues to blind us to the simple truth of greed.

If only the plight of racism could be waved away overnight.

But it can’t.

It is as much a fact as it is a belief in the human heart.

If we are to come together, somebody has to reach out a hand of compassion.

Somebody must be strong and say, welcome friend.

Someone needs to say my table is open; come eat and be joyful.

That someone can be you.

You can be the bridge where the forgotten meet.

You and I can be hope.

It begins today.

Now.

DFrey

Peace

Sports

There is nothing like taking away the bottle from those who indulge in indifference to bring attention to what really matters.

Indifference is a kind of drug.

Indifference numbs our sense of responsibility.

It numbs our compassion.

It numbs our hope.

It blinds us to brutality.

It makes us deaf to the sounds of injustice.

It cripples our will to stand for what is right.

Sports is the novocaine injected into the jaw to keep you from feeling the pain in society.

Have you ever heard sports called the great distraction?

A pastime?

What are we being distracted from?

What are we passing over?

The answer has always been to keep us happily gilded and not question why things are the way they are.

You give a child a toy and tell them to go play so you can do the thing you want to do.

You do this because you don't want to take the effort to engage with the child.

You don't want to take responsibility because it's inconvenient.

You have better things to do.

You. You. You. You.

Distraction.

Sports play their part in our society.

In and of itself, it is not evil or good.

It is a thing that can be enjoyed.

But ask yourself why this President and his supports were so gung-ho to get sports back?

Distraction.

Today right now, the NBA leads the way to stop the distractions.

They have the power of its members as does the rest of sports to focus the attention of a nation.

They have the power to break the stalemate of indifference.

They have the ability to address our broken police force.

When a thing is broke, it's broke.

Some things can't be repaired any more because its integrity is broken.

COVID came along and removed some of our distractions.

George Floyd's brutal death and the indifference of the officers who killed him burned into the hearts and minds of all those who saw the video.

Enough is enough.

Time and time again, the integrity of our police force has been demonstrated to be broke.

Broke.

When a thing has been repaired over and over again and still doesn't work?

It's time to get a new thing?

Am I right?

Responsibly, responsibly our old broken police forces should be set aside.

And in its place, a new force created.

A new force reimagined.

What it should be.

A clean slate.

Some things broke can't be fixed; you have to get new.

This time genuinely based on justice for all.

Our current police to no longer be the defacto guardians of white supremacy.

To truly protect and serve all.

No longer can they see themselves as the Marshall in a lawless territory to be judge, jury, and executioners.

But to serve and protect a diverse society.

Some things broke can't be fixed.

You have to get new.

Peace

DFrey

How

How to help the blind see?

How to help the deaf hear?

How to help the numb feel?

Obligation.

How can I help?

How can I matter?

How can I walk the walk?

Compassion.

How to run?

How to reach?

How to be hope?

Love.

The acid that will dissolve any democracy is willful ignorance combined with intolerance.

Willful ignorance is defined as individuals who choose to ignore reality.

A preference, a choice, not a mistake.

Willful ignorance is tied to spiritually to entitlement.

I am owed, I deserve, I’m next in line, I will take at the expense of others.

Consequences are not for me.

Consequences are only for those that are unfit, unworthy, on the other side…

Willful ignorance, intolerance, entitlement, these are walls of fear built by humans.

They are high, they are thick, they are not fragile.

Many have tried to attack these walls directly and always with no effect.

You may win a battle but not the war.

Not only will the individual rebuild these walls, but the community that they protect will assist.

People who live protected behind the walls of willful ignorance, intolerance, entitlement are numb to voices in the streets.

They are numb to the images of despair.

They are numb to the feelings of loss.

How do you reach them?

Why would you want to reach them?

Haven’t they placed themselves above humanity?

Haven’t they walled themselves off from human kindness?

Haven’t they buried themselves in the dirt like the living dead?

Yes, they have.

Fear will always have the potentiality to make all of us do bad things.

For those that have been given much, much is expected.

If you know how to swim and someone is drowning, love says save that person.

If you know how to stand and someone has fallen, love says help them up.

If you know the truth and someone has lied, love says speak up.

Someone has to be the adult in the room.

We are not here to save those that are already safe.

If you are reading my words more than likely, you are in the choir of hope.

To round out our choir, we need all the voices of the earth.

That’s why we care.

That’s why we fight.

That’s why we sing.

We are not afraid of the fight for justice.

We will stand outside the walls of willful ignorance, intolerance, entitlement, and call to our brothers and sisters to come join us in a beautiful land.

A land where fear has its place.

A land where the walls of fear can be stepped over.

A land where love leads the way.

Peace

DFrey

Hope Again

To feel fear in laughter.

To know hate in singing.

To touch anger in a smile.

Despair in a smile.

Hopelessness in a glance.

To feel real pain when someone falls.

Your heart stops at the clash of loud sounds.

Bright lights burn.

Brilliant color stings.

Tears flow on your face; they do on mine.

Your joy is my joy.

Your fear is my fear.

Your hope mine.

Have you felt the thrill in a song?

Have you felt the melting of a heart?

Have you sung with the voices of the forest?

Do you converse with the steady mountains?

Does the sea speak of a better world?

Can you feel the individual's dreams, the group, the city push you into giddy laughter?

Can you feel the loss of one life push you into darkness?

Do the waves of ignorance beat your mind?

Does silence crack your skull?

Being an empath does not give you clairvoyance.

You feel real pain, real pleasure from other people.

But those feelings don't tell you why?

Why are they afraid?

Why are they in love?

Why are they resentful?

Why are they angry?

Other people's emotions, especially for me, anger boils on my skin like acid.

I can see a lie before it's even told.

But a funny thing about being an empath?

You can't see your own fiction.

I had traveled a life, not knowing that the fourth wall of my spiritual existence did not exist.

I did not know my back door was wide open, letting in all the unregulated terrors of the human mind into my spirit.

That open back door swung so broadly that it let in all the fear, the darkness without boundaries.

Until I decided I couldn't take it any longer.

I had to leave.

But as I was going out the door, a voice caught me.

A voice that pierced the real darkness that filled my eyes.

A voice that called me back to the living.

A voice of hope.

It is really late to find out at age 55 that you are an empath.

I've lived again these past 5 years and learned a lot about myself.

It explained a lot of the secret misery I kept.

The secret pain.

But that voice of hope asked me to live again.

To again begin.

And I meekly said I will try once more.

Once more to help heal hearts and minds.

This world can be a better place.

For all of us.

Try to see the world through the heart of another.

You will find you are also in that other person's heart.

They want what you want.

Peace

DFrey

Listen

We, the people.

What did you hear?

These truths are self-evident.

What did you hear?

Created equal.

What did you hear?

Perfect Union.

What did you hear?

Establish justice.

What did you hear?

Promote the general welfare.

What did you hear?

Secure the Blessings of Liberty.

What did you hear?

I'll lay down even money you didn't hear what I heard.

Like the husband who only hears what he wants to hear.

Like the child who doesn't hear the word no.

Like the establishment employee who doesn't hear your problem.

Like the wait staff who doesn't hear your order.

Humans hear what they want to hear when they want to hear it.

Our beliefs color our communications.

If we believe in fairness, our ears are open to new directions.

If we believe in nothing, our ears are unfamiliar to the suffering of others.

If we believe in hate, we are deaf.

A recurring theme I would like to elucidate is perspective.

The Constitution of the United States of America was not written for all of us.

It left out women.

It left out people of color.

It was a document about securing the rights and freedoms of white landowners who were standing against a generational white aristocracy.

We, the people, took a while to be noticed.

We, the people, were the squeaky wheel on the shopping cart of democracy.

We kept on keeping on being in the ear of those who had already secured their freedom from oppression.

Funny how the oppressed once granted freedom will always find something they believe they are superior to.

Freedom is not willingly granted.

No.

And to keep our freedom, we have to make a good noise.

We have to form a choir to keep the music of freedom in our elected leaders' ears.

That's why we organize.

That's why we vote.

This is our duty no only to our past, but to ourselves alive here and now and to those that will come after us.

Freedom is just a word if it's not followed by hard work.

If you can hear my voice and are comforted, then you are part of the choir.

If you hear a noise, it's a good thing.

It means you're not deaf yet.

Peace

DFrey

Brotherhood of Man

Love will never ask you to subtract.

Divide.

Exclude.

Love asks all of us to add.

To multiply.

To include.

What side of the equation are you on?

Humans are peculiar.

They can hold two contradictory thoughts in their minds at the same time.

Love you, neighbor.

But not those people.

Feed the hungry.

Not them.

Care for the sick.

They deserve what they got.

Our lives matter.

Their lives don’t.

COVID came along, and at first, there was a unity of mind.

Beat back the grim reaper.

But on the day when the media pointed out that black and brown communities got sick at a rate 2 to 4 times that of white communities…

The fight became their problem, not ours in racist white America.

I was raised in white racist America.

I know what they say behind closed doors.

I know what they say at the dinner table.

The church.

At work.

They cannot imagine themselves as equal to a black and brown person.

They cannot imagine sharing their good fortune with a black and brown person.

They cannot imagine a community where all work towards a common good.

They have cut themselves off from humanity.

Believing in a certainty passed down through the generations that white makes right.

How can we appeal to those that have locked their minds with the shackles of hate?

How do we get hearts to open to feel once again what it means to be human?

Have you ever tried to move a blob of jello with a needle?

You can’t do it.

The individual can make a lot of noise, but the jello won’t budge.

What is needed is hands, many hands, a community, a society, a nation coming together with a purpose.

The purpose is to drop hate and lift hope.

The outcome is through all our effort together; the mountain of racism has no chance.

We can lift that mountain out of its self inflicted darkness.

A better world is our goal.

The journey requires all our effort today and tomorrow and every generation to come.

Won’t you join me?

Love asks more of us every day of our lives till we lay ourselves down.

Peace

DFrey

For Adults Only

Europe before the second world war was not unified.

After the ravages of World War II, a community grew that wasn’t there before.

Death and destruction poured over everyone leaving no person unharmed.

War is hell.

Deep ethnic and aristocratic barriers remained after the first world war.

Europe didn’t learn from its previous mistakes.

However, after the second failing, it did.

It learned about humanity.

It learned it needed community.

It learned it needed communication.

It left behind its childhood and became an adult.

It put away childish things.

The war matured European society.

This is not to say that there are no problems today.

Every child who becomes an adult, even a group of nations, will have its own personality disorders.

Its own childhood traumas.

It’s own unique set of problems, scars, challenges.

But the event of the Second World War had an unexpected effect.

The adolescent mind previously developed into a young adult.

Cataclysm does that.

Disaster and those that live after having their minds focused.

Priorities grow.

What is essential becomes paramount.

What is not essential is left behind.

The United States of American is an adolescent society.

It has never matured.

Its focus is about self, what I can get, not what I can do.

It has never suffered bombs burning down its cities.

Millions of its men, women, and children killed for no good reason.

The city on the hill has been spared apocalypse.

However…

2020 has drawn a line in the sand.

Time to put up or shut up.

COVID-19 has ridden into the streets of America on a pale horse.

This country will see death like it has never seen before.

The basic math is horrendous on what the casualties will be when this virus finally two to three years from now goes away.

And what of the after?

Ignorance will be checked for a time.

A Community will arise.

People will talk about their shared experiences.

Their grief.

Their love.

Their hope.

Their shared sacrifice.

A new America will stand up.

Beat but wiser.

With maturity comes wisdom.

Comes love.

Comes peace.

Peace.

DFrey

Hate

The prey of hate is ignorance.

Ignorance is our natural state of human awareness.

We are all born ignorant.

We don’t know how to hate.

We don’t know how to love.

We don’t know how to give.

We don’t know how to share.

We don’t know how to take.

To lie.

To steal.

To kill.

We learn upon the knee of those that we trust.

We learn from those we admire.

We learn from those we fear.

We learn from those that threaten us.

Have you ever asked yourself who are your teachers?

Your ignorance may have been lifted by a school teacher.

But generally speaking, organized industrial, governmental teachers are only the Shepards of society.

The root of learning hate begins before we can speak.

Hate begins before we can ask questions.

Hate takes the unformed mind and plants its seeds both deliberately and unconsciously.

Deliberately hate enforces obedience to an idea.

Systemic racism.

There are rules to society, and those rules must be obeyed, or the society will collapse.

What will collapse?

The power structure of who gets the benefit of the doubt.

Who gets the loans.

Who gets the jobs.

Who gets the opportunities.

Unconsciously the traditions of hate are passed down from generation to generation.

The veneration, the worship, the religion of hate.

Have you ever asked why you believe what you believe?

Have you ever asked your leader of faith why they believe?

You see, the answer you will most likely get is because they believe through faith.

Faith.

Faith in who?

Faith that the person who told you a story was telling the truth.

Here’s a story.

Once there was a village of farmers, and a stranger came to town who obviously was a man of faith.

He told the villagers that there are black bandits in the hills, killers, who will soon attack their village.

The villagers were afraid, what can we do we must run away!

The man said he has an idea.

Maybe if they gave him half of their abundance, he would offer this to the bandits and maybe?

Maybe…?

They will go away.

Thank you, kind sir, thank you, you must have been sent by God to protect us.

The man took the abundance of the village and went away.

The prey of hate is ignorance.

Peace

DFrey

Legacy of Fear

You were not born to be a monster.

You are not a creation of evil.

You do not have to pledge your life to cruelty.

There is no requirement to carry on a legacy of fear.

Trust is earned.

Trust should never be given to tyrants.

Tyrants come in many forms.

There are those in history.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao…

There are those in our neighborhood.

The old person who won’t allow children to play in their yard.

The manager who won’t report workplace failings.

The elected leader who only cares for their self and not for the community they were elected to serve.

Then there are those that live in our circle.

Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, niece.

Friends.

We all know them.

People who treat others not as they expect to be treated.

That uncle, who is referred to as being that way…

Everyone knows not to cross them.

They are the soldiers that carry on a legacy of fear.

Everyone enjoys their stories.

Their superficial charism.

But no one doubts that knows them that if they believe they are right and you are wrong, you will never change the outcome.

They are damaged people.

Broken.

Broken and reformed into spirits that are blind to empathy.

Just as a person who is born blind, they have no knowledge or understanding of what color is.

They don’t know despair, fear, sorrow, happiness, love.

They can only, to the best of the intellectual capacity, imitate human emotions.

These people rise in power…

Always.

We allow these people to be our elected leaders.

Our clergy.

Our police.

Our leaders of organized crime.

They are all of a kind.

They distribute a legacy of fear.

They learned the lesson of fear from those they respected.

Those that they feared.

Not understanding that fear is the foundation of evil in the world.

It is the cornerstone upon which hate builds the temple of racism.

We who have not submitted to their stories have a duty to expose them.

Their stories of how the world works, who is on top, who is on the bottom, cannot stand against the light of truth and of love.

Love trumps hate.

Love trumps fear.

Don’t ask someone for help who cannot see you are drowning.

We cannot ask of this President for assistance.

He and his supplicants cannot give what they don’t have.

We all need to take responsibility and rise up to the challenge and vote into office leaders who can see.

Who can hear.

Who can feel?

If we are ever to have good things on this earth.

For everyone.

Peace.

DFrey

Freedom When

When you grow up, you let go of your past.

A past where you believed in fairy tales.

Our Republic is growing up.

You and I have felt the growing pains.

This pain is the conscious awakening of letting go of a mythical past.

There have been enough cracks put into the story of this nation that the light of truth is shining upon the interior, the heart of what we define ourselves as a nation.

Our foundations were built upon the god-given belief that slavery was a right and just part of society.

The belief that some men were more valuable than others.

White men believed themselves superior to all other races.

What this nation fought for was not the freedom of all men but of white men.

The tyranny that was overthrown on September 3, 1783, allowed the white man in this newly formed country to breathe in the freedom denied him by millennia of aristocratic sovereignty.

The Revolutionary war ended white male bonded servitude.

There was no regard, no thought given to women, let alone brown and black people.

Today 2020, brown, black, and all women are still waiting on that same freedom to be won for them.

Who put those cracks into the American story so that we can see we are not who we say we are?

Every person who swung the hammer of justice that's who.

People have been hammering on the thick heads and dense hearts of this society for a while now.

Recently COVID-19 rang the bell of justice, asking us all to take care of each other.

Only half the nation responded.

But it shined a bright light demonstrating that we don't care for our sick, the old, the unemployed, the poor.

Recently the tyranny of man reached out and claimed another soul George Floyd.

That knocked another hole in the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a people.

Who the police really protect and serve.

Every day, little holes are chipped through the shell by every person on social media.

The story we told ourselves in the past was better than the reality.

That's what stories are.

Our problem as a society is, are we writing and believing in a story of fiction or non-fiction?

Every society that has been recorded goes through an evolution.

It grows.

This society has very high ideals.

A high bar it set for itself in that original story called the Declaration of Independence.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But as of late, there haven't been enough writers for a better future.

Too many prefer to sit back and dream about the past.

Too many prefer to fight against the future and worship the past.

Too many prefer to shut out change, build walls, and kill to keep equality just a dream.

Those preferences are the desires of the foolish.

What rights are enjoyed by the majority cannot be denied to the minority.

An idea which keeps getting in the way of determinism.

We are the dreamers.

We are the heroes.

We are the hope.

We can make a better world today, not tomorrow.

Today.

Now.

Even now, we are writing a new story you and I.

Let's revise our story, shall we?

Let the end of the past be the beginning of the future.

A future where all children are welcome in the story of freedom.

Peace

DFrey

Drop Hate

When I became an adult, I put away childish things.

When I was blind, I could not see the suffering.

When I was deaf, I could not hear the cries for freedom.

When I could not walk, I rolled in my own intellectual filth.

When I was mute, I did not speak up for the oppressed.

When my heart was cold, I could not feel.

I could not feel.

Age does not create wisdom.

The original idea is with age, you gain experience and learn from mistakes.

Humanity teaches us again and again, our willingness to commit the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Age does not create wisdom.

Humanity is like a forest.

In a forest, you have life growing at many different rates.

Some fast.

Some slow.

Life progresses to maturity through a broad scale.

Some seeds fall into the earth too early.

The late winter snow kills off the blossoms.

Some fall too late.

The waning sun, the cold earth, the seeds never burst through the ground.

They lay dead, never to see the sky.

We who walk through the forest only see those that were successful.

We don’t think about the tens of thousands of seeds that had potential but were wasted.

A seed in the forest.

I became an adult.

I stepped out of my seed and created a life beyond self.

I opened my eyes and saw that the war between the states had not ended.

I opened my ears and heard the same cry for peace down darkened streets of this nation.

I stood upon my legs and joined the march in the street.

I found my voice and spoke truth to power.

My heart beat in my chest, and I could feel.

I could feel the pain of the confederacy of hate inflicted on my country.

My mind was opened.

I heard a voice call my name.

It said to put away the hate.

Put away my pride.

Put away my will.

Put away the stories given to me by damaged people whose stories were given to them by damaged people.

Put away an evil past and make right a glorious today.

Love asks more, never less of each of us every day.

If we are adults, then it is time to put away our toys in a proper place.

The adults need to tell the children, to find the courage, to say no.

No more.

Every society has had an awakening.

It is not unusual for a people, a nation to realize that their past was a mistake.

To promote, to honor, to defend a mistake in the light of truth is an evil act against life.

To roll in lies, to bathe in hate, to inflict pain with words, acts, or symbolically with statues is tyranny.

The tyranny of man against man.

It must stop.

Put away the past.

Embrace the power of love.

Peace

DFrey

What You See?

Look over there.

What you see?

A woman is walking a dog.

There is a Starbucks cup on the tree lawn.

It’s cloudy today.

Look over there.

What you see?

A young black woman is playing with a Hispanic child.

There’s a delivery at the door.

A cop grins because he killed some guy.

Look over there.

What you see?

Congress deaf dumb and blind.

Senate deaf dumb and blind.

President mocks humanity.

Look over there.

What you see.

I see fear held so long that it has burned out compassion.

I see hate so deep that there’s no turning back.

I see change coming.

A child yells.

A mother weeps.

A daddy lost.

A dream destroyed.

Look over there.

What you see?

Through tears, I see truth setting minds free.

Through tears, I see justice push back.

Through tears, I see our hope is here.

See it?

It’s right in front of you.

It’s you.

You will remake the world.

You are our hope.

What you see?

Peace

DFrey

Heart Of Darkness

Where does discrimination come from?

Why do we allow people to suffer?

What is the belief that allows us to kill?

When was the last time you admitted you were wrong?

Where was the last place you cried?

Why can't our leaders hear people ask for their freedom?

What will people say about you behind your back?

When will racism end?

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The other day a man woke up.

He may have had a plan for how that day may have wound up, but…

We all can recognize that how it ended up was not what he intended.

Like so many people before him, fate chooses us without asking.

George Floyd woke that day and did not know he would be dead before the sunset.

George's life, like so many of ours, is lived day by day.

Yes, we have an idea of where we want to go, but getting there remains hidden.

Only a few superficial people ever believe they are important.

None of us wake up and say I'm the best.

Well, almost none of us.

No, we each try to get a piece of happiness each day.

Some days it works out others it don't.

George Floyd was murdered by the police.

The police woke that day and didn't know they were going to start a fire that would burn around our collective consciousness.

I can't breathe rings in those policemen's ears.

I can't breathe rings in the streets of America.

I can't breathe rings in the hearts of people across the world.

Dr. King was right.

The dark night would not hold its power over the hearts of humanity forever.

If there is a night, there will be a dawn.

Those that were faithful to pursue justice for all carried the light of truth before us.

The truth being racism will never end.

However, the arbiter of racism is justice equally applied to all.

We have a lot of old rules in this Republic.

Rules meant to keep one People in power.

Yet over there just two weeks ago, the sunlight of justice comes up on the horizon.

That sunlight makes all those rules of the past now appear to be foolish, full of holes, old, dusty racist ideals.

Rules wrote can be unwritten by better ideas.

People in the street marching towards that brotherhood of man.

George Floyd blew a trumpet blast and brought down the walls.

Hero's are not created; they happen.

Let freedom ring in the morning's holy light.

As George's six-year-old daughter said, "Daddy changed the world."

Peace

DFrey

Us Became Them

Not so long ago, COVID-19 was seen as a crisis facing the world.

Today in America, it is not a problem.

We marched over the dead to hundred-thousand and will continue to ignore the hundreds of thousands that will come in the weeks and months ahead.

The virus is only a problem for the marginalized, the ignored, the takers.

Them.

Why is that?

America sees everything through Race.

The cancer of slavery on this nation burned out the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of white America.

Left and right.

Rich and poor.

Like an open infected wound, it has burned through the long night since 1864.

The smell of racism lingers in the air like fresh-popped corn.

America cannot do anything without first asking will it benefit the minorities.

Minorities in white America is only Black Americans.

All others need not apply.

The racial animus, the hatred, the focus of who caused economic poverty in white racist America is on blacks.

This virus has become a convenient scapegoat for our racist leadership at the local and federal governments and law enforcement.

An easy excuse to do nothing to help and protect.

When COVID was a plague that could be caught by anyone, it was something to take action upon.

But, as soon as the media reported that Black America was incredibly hard hit with the loss of life, racist America realized they had a blue light special.

COVID provided a way to decrease those on welfare.

COVID provided a way to eliminate those pension checks.

COVID provided a solution to decrease those sucking federal dollars through Social Security.

The bonus was it was hitting black and brown communities the hardest.

Or so white racist America believe…

Prejudice feeds upon stories that support it.

You, as an individual, may like donuts.

If you hear of a study that says donuts are good for you, even if it’s not true, you’ll smile and be confirmed in your prejudice.

Humanity has told stories to each other, especially when drunk, that support their world view.

Humanity tends to dismiss those stories that do not fit into the world order that they believe is true.

The virus has a story it will tell.

COVID 19 is not the flu, it is not a cold.

It is a virus that will burn its way through the population of the earth until everyone has been infected.

In three months, only 5% of the American population has been exposed to the virus.

In three months, we went from zero dead to over 101,000.

If the past is prologue, then by the time the remaining 95% of America is infected, 1.5 million lives will have been lost.

That is the foreword of the COVID 19 story.

What of the story of those who lived during this time of COVID?

There will be black faces, brown faces, white faces, Asian faces.

All those faces that no longer can tell their story.

Their hopes.

Their dreams.

The reason why they were born cut short because of the careless nature of humanity.

This carelessness of the value of just one human life.

Humanity has never been able to learn on its own.

Humanity has always had to fall and hit bottom before it can turn and lift itself up.

The story of America is a racial one.

Can a people of many nations, many creeds, many races live together?

Trust one another?

Care for one another?

This virus will remind us that love asks more of us each and every day.

We are all brothers and sisters in a good fight today.

We may lose a battle, but justice is on our side, we will not lose the war.

Peace

DFrey

A Time Not Seen

The day you were born.

Your first steps.

The moment when you saw the sky.

A time not seen.

The war of Independence.

The war between the states.

The war for human rights.

A time not seen.

Before smartphones.

Before telephone poles.

Before telegraph wire.

A time not seen.

The edge of the universe.

The edge of our solar system.

The edge of despair in the human heart.

A time not seen.

Like a toddler new to the world, America is about to take a step of fate.

It would appear reason and ignorance are evenly balanced.

The cliff is the virus.

Science and its companion medicine shout out warnings to step back.

This country has seen death before.

But not at the hands of so merciless a God as this virus.

It laughs at a few hundred thousand.

The grim skull of the virus will not be full until it takes millions of lives from coast to coast.

Too many want to step off the cliff to see what happens.

If only those who want to tempt fate were the ones to lose their lives.

You cannot stop a fool from shooting their own foot off.

However, the determination of those who want to ignore reality are committing a kind of social suicide.

They don’t want to go alone.

Their hatred of government, of laws, restrictions, of minorities, and women spur them over the cliff like lemmings.

The jaws of the virus feed at the bucket of the prejudiced.

What makes America the worse at handling this global crisis?

Racism.

Both ethnic and economic.

A time is rapidly approaching that has not been seen.

Unless and until there is an effective vaccine, the virus will mount bodies to the sky.

This country has not seen a million people perish in one crisis.

Other nations have.

Other nations came out on the other side.

Different.

Matured.

They came to understand the value of one human life.

We, as a nation, have not learned that lesson.

This nation is falling and does not recognize its descent.

Let us change the trajectory.

Let us challenge the fear.

Let us make this a time not seen.

A time where compassion is our guide.

A time where hope is the arm that comforts us.

A time where love asks each of us to do more each and every day.

Let us, please, see that too many have died.

Do something now.

Peace

DFrey

Fear

Where does fear come from?

Children are afraid of the dark.

What lurks out in the space unseen, unknown, unfelt, unplanned for?

But is fear a thing?

Is it something that can be touched?

Is it a monster under the bed?

Is it an entity that roams and attacks us without warning?

Or is it something inside of us?

Is it something we tell ourselves?

Specifically, is fear about us and not about fear itself?

There are, of course, many things to fear.

Spiders.

Paper cuts.

Snakes.

Auto accidents.

Plane flight.

Job loss.

Illness.

Death.

These are all things that, in their specific ways, can stop our plans.

But is that what fear is really?

Is fear a reaction to a force that has changed our schedule?

The COVID virus.

This virus has changed the plans of everyone on the planet.

It is going about what viruses do it is spreading and multiplying.

Our deaths are not its purpose.

Killing off its host is not suitable for any host in the long run because it doesn't allow it to succeed.

It wants cooperation so it can live.

Fear.

Our plans changed.

Those that deny the science are living in fear of the truth.

Their non-cooperation with social distancing and wearing a mask is couched behind a veil of personal freedom.

Our brothers and sisters are afraid of the virus and believe spitting in the face of reason will allow them to dodge the grim reaper.

Their fear allows them to take no responsibility for the despair, the death they will cause.

Ultimately fear is a scapegoat that creates a narrative of denial of personal responsibility to the community and self.

The Devil made me do it.

The virus needs no help to kill.

But who needs our help are those who live in fear.

America is going to live through a time that it has never seen before. Simple algebra can demonstrate real fear.

As the statistics demonstrate, only 5% of the US population has been exposed to the virus, with 85K deaths.

What happens when short of no vaccine and 100% of the population is exposed, how many people will have perished?

North of 1.5 million Americans.

That's the number the CDC has been gagged from telling.

That's the human tragedy that's being kept from the airwaves.

That is a real fear.

Yet fear can stimulate courage.

Fear can grow purpose.

Fear can challenge a people and a person to do what is right.

Without fear, we wouldn't know what love is.

Love will see all of us through this time.

Love will brush aside the terror of night to reveal the truth of the day.

See those that are living in fear and give them hope by your example.

Wear your mask with pride that you are saving other's lives, not just your own.

It is only through looking out for each other that we together will get to our joy.

Darkness is the nature of the universe; each of us is a light in that eternal night, which is why we each have an obligation to tend that light called hope.

The moon silent went on a stroll between the stars, and when it looked down on the earth there, it saw even more stars all the same above and below.

Peace.

DFrey