politics

Slaps and Kisses: Black Voters Beware

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Last week, I watched as 12 jurors in Donald J. Trump’s election fraud trial convicted him on all 34 counts. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for United States president, is now a convicted felon. But to hear him tell it, this historic trial was nothing more than a blip on the screen.

His now being a convicted felon is significant, though.

Monumental really.

It is something that has never been seen before, at least in these United States of America.

The last person who was under this type of scrutiny was former president Richard Nixon, who submitted his resignation from the post before his term ended. Nixon was ultimately pardoned by his predecessor, Gerald Ford.

But what does it say about us, the Republican Party really, when you allow a man who is also facing legal jeopardy in Georgia and Florida, to even be allowed to take a third shot at the presidency, at being the Leader of the Free World?

What does it say about us when participants in the Fake Electors Scheme (in support of Donald J. Trump’s Stop the Steal Campaign) are being indicted in states like Wisconsin and Nevada?

What does it say about us when the insurrectionists who stormed the U. S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 are serving jail sentences while the person who lit the fuse, Donald J. Trump, is taking a third shot at the presidency, at becoming the Leader of the Free World?

It says more of us need to see the writing on the wall. Donald J. Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are trying to play the U. S. electorate for fools, make us suspend belief in what our ears are hearing, our eyes are seeing.

Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are quick to say that we Black people should more closely identify with Trump because U. S. jurisprudence has never been on our side. Disproportionately, Black Americans have been incarcerated at higher rates than any other racial/ethnic group.

Last I checked, though, Donald J. Trump isn’t Black, he’s white. As a white man, he is the beneficiary of unmerited privilege, while Black people have been browbeaten by past slavery, ongoing oppression and micro-aggressions since our Black African ancestors arrived in captivity on that Virginia shore in 1619.

So, why is he equating his real crimes with the plights of Black Americans and Black American criminal defendants?

Because the self-proclaimed emperor is now wearing no clothes.

In short, his fraudulent behavior is now on full display, and he’s afraid.

He seemingly wants us Black people to use our votes on November 5, 2024 to save him from being convicted and incarcerated. This desire seemingly is at the forefront of his mind, even though he and his conservative Republican acolytes were the proponents of campaigns that successfully terminated Affirmative Action, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and banned books written by Black American writers from public schools and libraries. Ultimately, Donald J. Trump and conservative Republicans are undeniably endeavoring to dictate what we Black Americans can and cannot say about white supremacy, racism, prejudice and discrimination.

If you’re Black, this is all you need to know. Donald J. Trump does not have, and has never had, our best interests at heart. This is nothing more than another one of his con jobs. Consequently, any Black person voting for him on November 5, 2024 should have their Black Card revoked.

A person should never be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek when they’re violently and repeatedly slapping you across the face.

Donald J. Trump knows winning the presidency will give him the power to make his federal charges go away. However, he will still have to answer for his state-level crimes in Georgia, where he tried to pressure state officials to find one more vote than he needed to receive the state’s Electoral College votes.

Again, we Black Americans have been about the business of saving the nation’s soul since our Black African ancestors’ 1619 arrival. We, more than any other racial/ethnic group, want the USA to live up to its creed, that all men and women are created equal, that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A historical analysis reveals that we have fought back against our enslavement and oppression both violently and nonviolently. At the end of the day, the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in our hearts allows us to remain nonviolently resolute in our quest to work with like-minded individuals to create a more perfect union.

On November 5, 2024, let’s use our voting power to excise the cancer that is Donald J. Trump and irresponsible, conservative Republican leaders from our body politic.

Democracy and the Rule of Law must prevail.

No human being is above man’s law…or God’s law.

###

“March of the Compassionate Neighbor” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.

Compassionate.

Neighborly.

Two words with different meanings but working toward the same goal.

The Literati say they are adjectives that modify nouns.  I say they become active verbs when they are embodied in a person, in a people.

There have been protests, there have been marches.  The one I think about most is the 1964 March on Washington, where the keynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr.

This march produced results, specifically passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But then there was the one in 1965, at Selma’s Edmund Pettis Bridge, where then Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman John Lewis and other black residents were beaten with sticks wielded by white police officers.

Bloody Sunday, they call it.

Black bodies bloodied by white lawmen, white lawmakers, for wanting to participate in the franchise – local, state and federal elections.

These are the marches I think about, the ones that resonate with me the most.

No, I wasn’t there.  I arrived in 1968, 16 days before an assassin’s bullet ended Dr. King’s life. 

Nor was I there in October 1995, when Louis Farrakan invited Black American men and their non-black allies to something called the Million Man March. 

I may have not been present that day, a small speck among the sea of black men, but my spirit was.  Watching this event play out on TV, I prayed that the nation would look past Farrakan’s fiery rhetoric to hear his admonishment to black men.

Black men, you must do more to stand in the gap for your black women, your black children, your American nation.   

These marches had goals, righteous ones.

But then January 6, 2021, happened. 

The Stop the Steal Rally.

An event organized by supporters of a former United States president.

The individuals who came to Washington that day weren’t compassionate or neighborly. 

If anything, these insurrectionists were livid, driven by hatred for their fellow man, their fellow compatriots, all because their candidate had lost his bid to serve a second term as the United States president.

The question that we, members of the US electorate, must ask ourselves is what hope did these insurrectionists have in reclaiming something that had not been stolen?

Why didn’t they just stay home, accept the loss like so many others have done, support the peaceful transfer of presidential power?

That’s what the citizens of democracies are expected to do when voters duly elect a new leader to office. 

But that begs another question.

How are we supposed to act in times such as these?

Times when absolute truths, facts really, are ignored, disregarded.

Times when news of candidates’ criminality, indiscretions, don’t disqualify them from running for political office but instead allow them to lead by double digits in their party’s statewide primary elections.

Times when marches led by the descendants of enslaved Africans are wrongly contrasted with one that served the purpose of one person, the defeated former president.

The Christian Bible admonishes us to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.

These united states of America can be great, but they can never be great again.  That’s because they have never been great. 

Enshrined in the United States Constitution is the pledge to create a more perfect union.

Why?

Because our Native Americans ancestors had their land stolen from them.

Because our Black American ancestors were enslaved and oppressed.

Because our Asian American ancestors were relegated to concentration camps on US soil during World War II.

Nothing great about denying people’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The fact is, I’m not better than you, and you’re not better than me. 

We’re equals.

Equals that become better individuals, better unions, when we acknowledge the gifting that has been bestowed upon the other. 

But we don’t stop there. 

We also go out of our way to embrace and comfort others when the weight of the world weighs them down.

I am your Compassionate Neighbor, the guy who lives with his family next door.

Love me.

Work with me.

Pray with me.

March with me.   

###

Copyright 2024, Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.

To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.

Is Religious Liberty Really Under Attack?

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Church and StateQuestion?

Can someone explain the correlation between religious liberty and its involvement in modern-day politics? The more I listen to (and read Facebook and Twitter posts) from religious liberty proponents (primarily Conservative Republicans), the more confused I get.

I thought religious liberty was supposed to be about people of different faiths being able to freely practice their religions. However, Conservative Republicans aren’t saying that. They seem to be saying the religious liberties of Christians are the only religious liberties under attack while blatantly suggesting it doesn’t matter how the followers of these other religions are treated.

Conservative Republicans have it all wrong. How the followers of these other religions are treated does matter, resulting from the fact that religious liberty is nothing more than being able, again, to freely practice one’s religion in a democratic society. That doesn’t mean you discriminate on the basis of skin color or life choices. For us Christians, it means we more fervently fulfill the commission that Jesus gave his disciples prior to his Heavenly ascension. In other words, we have to convince the sick and the lost that our god is the one, true God. And, yes, we hold onto our beliefs, values and mores, but during our ministerial outreach, we relate to the persons instead of the behaviors.

We Christians have to get back to sowing seeds in the hearts of men on the grassroots level. Once these seeds have been sown, let God be God. All he wants us to do is keep loving on folk by relating to them as persons, not alienating them further with rebuke, contempt and disdain. Like he did with us, God will also reveal himself to the individuals we minister to. Personal revelation about what it means to be a child of God is what causes Christians to live selfless and righteous lives.

This religious liberty talk is making Christianity the laughingstock of modern-day religions. It shows the lengths we will take to avoid our obligation (saving souls) to humanity. For some strange reason, we think government officials (in the executive, legislative and judicial branches) should be in the business of saving souls. They’re not. They’re in the business of securing votes and, once elected, doing the bidding of the Corporate Cabal…I mean the people. And right now, many of us are being bamboozled, allowing these government officials to create a narrative about our religious freedoms being under attack. The last time I checked, I’m still able to attend church services and bible studies. Christian ministers also have the right to decline requests that would have them officiating same-sex marriages.

Truth be told, religion has no place in politics. All we citizens can hope for are elected leaders who execute, legislate and adjudicate laws that are fair, equitable and just, and preserve peace and prosperity for future generations.

Django Unchained, Or The Spark That Moved Me

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

ImageBy now, many of you have seen the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained.  I have watched it several times, and my admiration for the story, and the actors that brought it to life, continues to grow.  But what you need to know about Django Unchained is it is the spark that moved me to write ADINKRAHENE: Fear of a Black Planet.

You see, Django Unchained is a story that casts a black man as the protagonist (I know, I know, Marc H.  Django the hero didn’t kill Candy the villain, but he did get his woman back.).  In an era where black men are rarely the ones saving the day, we have to tip our hats to Tarantino.  He ran against the grain because he seemingly knows that we contemporary African Americans are still salty about the way our ancestors were treated.  You could even argue that our ire is intensified even more when we see and hear Republican politicians and Conservative thought leaders attacking the gains that this country made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s. For some strange reason, these unenlightened Americans want their White American brethren to think something was taken away from them when this piece of legislation was passed.  They’re wrong.

For this reason alone, I will be using this series of books to skewer the Republican Party.  I assert that the Republican Party has been co-opted by the Corporate Cabal (i.e., White ruling class), and members of the Corporate Cabal have sold their souls to the demonic Satarian Empire. How else would you explain the GOP ‘s insensitivity to African-American challenges and concerns?  The Devil must be making them do it.  I just hope the unenlightened become enlightened through the reading of my words.

There has been talk that racism and discrimination are things of the past just because America elected its first, black president.  Yes, electing Barack Hussein Obama as the leader of the free world is, and always will be, a good thing, but that doesn’t mean we’re now judging people by the content of their characters.  If anything, the cracks in our unity are becoming more evident, and they are becoming more pronounced because GOP leaders don’t want to relinquish control of the plantation. But they have to relinquish control because we African Americans, like Django Freeman, will never again pick cotton…without compensation.

I still remember seeing an elderly, white woman dragging her husband out of the theater during Django Unchained’s opening weekend.  This was done within the film’s first hour.  She obviously was taken aback by the level of violence that Django, a black man, exacted against the bigoted, white slave owners.  I readily agree that Tarantino’s brand of violence left little to the imagination.  But why should it?  We African Americans know that slave owners and Jim Crow criminals exacted a similar kind of violence against our ancestors.

Adinkrahene T-ShirtIn ADINKRAHENE: Fear of a Black Planet, I give you a cast of altruistic black characters that have been chosen by the one, true God to rebuild what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Beloved Community.  But I counter their altruism with Black-Out, a black militia group that is committed to avenging the deaths of our fallen African and African-American ancestors by any means necessary. By pitting the Adinkrahene Reparations Management Syndicate (ARMS) against Black-Out, I hope you, the reader, will be able to see why all of us – red, brown, yellow, black and white – have been called to become Progressive agents of non-violent change.

-0-

A Hard (Yet Not-So-Hard) Decision

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Combot

Combot from Adinkrahene: Fear of a Black Planet

All writers know we are never at a loss for content. Topics to write about are all around us. But 33 pages in to my first novel, Adinkrahene: Fear of a Black Planet, I almost felt compelled to toss it.

No one, especially unenlightened Whites, wanted to read about a syndicate of powerful, altruistic Blacks, I thought. They especially didn’t want to learn that these powerful, altruistic Blacks were God’s chosen people, humanity’s only hope against an imminent alien invasion.

The decision to forge ahead was initially a hard one. My visits to local bookstores and movie theaters left me disappointed. Very rarely did I find Science Fiction and Action and Adventure titles featuring African and African-American characters whose sole purpose was to save the day.  Most of the Black characters I read about or saw supported the efforts of White heroes.  And the fact that traditional publishers and the major Hollywood studios were slow to accept stories featuring strong, black characters had me thinking a market didn’t exist for these types of stories.

I decided to forge ahead because the story in my head had to be told. It had to cast powerful, altruistic Blacks in more powerful roles. It also had to shine a light on the racial politics that work to demonize members of the Black Diaspora so unenlightened Whites will have an easier time justifying their racist attitudes and actions.

I know the story isn’t going to sit well with some of my unenlightened white brothers and sisters. In this story, I assert that the Republican Party has been co-opted by the Corporate Cabal, and the Corporate Cabal is being manipulated by the spawns of Satan, for crying out loud. But because my story plays on the prejudicial behavior of some members of the Republican Party, it’s easy for most Americans to see why I would try to make such a connection. A party who prides itself in respecting all Americans’ individual rights to life, liberty and happiness is wanting to impose policies that deny these same rights to racial/ethnic minorities, women, college students and immigrants.

And it is my contention that the Devil is making them do it.

Today’s Republican Party supports the implementation of tougher voter restriction laws, even though studies show voter fraud has never been a problem.

Today’s Republican Party voted over 50 times to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which, to date, is serving over eight million Americans.

Today’s Republican Party questions the legitimacy of America’s first, black president, saying no to his proposals even though most, if not all, of his proposals originated with Republican legislators and/or Conservative thought leaders.

Today’s Republican legislators speak disparagingly about African Americans, women, college students and immigrants at town hall meetings and fundraisers, even though their own 2012 post-election autopsy showed they stand on the side of the 1 percent and place profits over people.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they are taking these extreme positions.  First, and foremost, they are trying to fan the white resentment that exists in this country.  Unenlightened Whites resent the fact that African Americans were “given stuff” following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  What they consistently fail to consider is the maltreatment that led up to the passage of this piece of legislation.  Africans brought to this country against their will to serve as slaves, or uncompensated laborers.  African Americans being treated like second-class citizens because of Jim Crow legislation.  Black children being taught in inferior classrooms.  And black men and boys being shot dead or hung from trees after being deemed threats by unenlightened white men.

Yes, I choose to go there.  And I’m not ashamed or deterred.  But please know that the intent of this series is not to infuriate you.  My intent is to awaken a racially diverse coalition of readers to the racial politics that the Conservative Movement is using to divide us, get us to regress rather than progress.  Through my words, I want to unite us in thought and purpose by showing you how the agents of the Adinkrahene Reparations Management Syndicate (ARMS) work with their like-minded brothers and sisters to push back alien Satanic forces.

The electronic version (Retail Price: $3.99) of Adinkrahene: Fear of a Black Planet is available now through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.  The print version (Retail Price: $7.99) is also available, albeit through Amazon’s Createspace.  The Adinkrahene story arc will be completed in Adinkrahene: Fear of a Beloved Community and Adinkrahene: Fear of an Alien Presence.

Thank you in advance for your purchase of Adinkrahene: Fear of a Black Planet, as well as your ongoing prayers and support.

ADINKRAHENE!  Or I wish you well in your quest to consistently display great, charismatic leadership.

Coming Soon from Novelist J.A. Faulkerson

/ J. A. Faulkerson / Leave a comment

Image

ADINKRAHENE: Fear of a Black Planet

IN A WORLD WHERE AMERICA HAS ELECTED ITS FIRST, BLACK PRESIDENT, A NEW GENERATION OF HEROES MUST ARISE TO UNITE A DIVIDED KINGDOM.

When Mississippi Senator Kyle Shuler announces his bid to unseat presidential incumbent Herbert Newsom, America’s first, black president, Washington Post political reporter Jonathan Fraiser is miffed.  He knows Senator Shuler’s dirty, little secret – that he and two of his friends murdered an elderly, black woman as teenagers.  But Jonathan isn’t the only person disturbed by Shuler’s announcement. His longtime friend Selina Giles, an FBI agent, was eleven years old when Shuler slit her grandmother’s throat.  Now, Jonathan and Selina must join forces as Adinkrahene agents to prevent a Jim Crow criminal from becoming the leader of the free world.