Coming Out Dressed To Kill

With all the sexual abuse allegations and reports bombarding the media, one has to suspect a demonic tell-all has unleashed its Pandora's box set to destroy lives, and unsilence the screaming shadows of guilt. Deep within the emotional confines of the abused, lays courage and resolve; closure and finality, one would hope. However, the unchained demons released from the emotional wells of victims have an agenda to fulfill. All public opinion, well that's if you are worthy of the news, is somewhat sympathetic with a dash of doubt. The embarrassment is unfathomable and the will to shrink only enlarges one's unwanted poster. Let's face it-few are the men willing to commit to a barrage of emotional meltdowns, nightmares and therapy sessions.

A couple decades back, the public outcry of "coming out," was received with controversial backlash and support. The open acknowledgment of living openly as a gay male or lesbian was finally rewritten in the archives of law, and no court in America would dare defy the later civil liberties fight for the entire gay communities civil rights. Gone were the laws governing homosexuality as a jailable offense. Currently, there are laws imposed as hate crimes and politically correct discrimination to make inferences or sarcastic and rude remarks concerning the right to live as a same-sex couple or transgender individual.
Today's climate of "coming out," has drastically taken on an unfamiliar and unacceptable agenda. Never has society accepted the secret allegations of sexual harassment, yet until corporate America demanded men and women be held accountable for committing unwanted sexual advances in the workplace. Yet women have always been victims of sexual advances and assault throughout history. There are innumerable unreported rapes resulting in pregnancy, as well as Black male slaves being emasculated by plantation owners, be it male or female. This truth has maintained its fable genre in the archives of American history.

This latest rash of celebrity improprieties has left a bad taste in the mouths and minds of fans, agents, and fellow actors. Well, I guess one might say in this case; feces rolls up the hill! However, because the entertainment field of foolery and paid dream-makers are literally held in high esteem; America suddenly feels victimized and dirty. Actors, politicians and the homeless are human. Humans are susceptible to mistakes, sin, evil and wickedness...no one is exempt. May prayers for brighter days to come maintain unmovable straits on future horizons. "Coming out," dressed to kill dreams and the self-esteem of victims in Hollywood's spotlight is an old familiar and tired demon. 

Mother (Ashanti) Mama Dedication

Daze...Come and Gone

Never a day escapes that I don’t think of my dearly departed Mama. What a beautiful soul! My Mama was a caring, but strict parent. How she and our Daddy decided to raise two sets of strangers ailing boy and abandoned little girl, is beyond me. However, they did so with all the love and parenting skills of first-time natural parents. Though we would overhear or suffer the verbal rebuke which comes with being “unruly,” we were raised comfortably. My brother and I were by poor to middle class standards, spoiled rotten. Not only did we reside in a three-bedroom and family room, one and half bathroom home, we were exposed to and participated in church activities, extracurricular activities and social groups throughout our elementary to high school years. My brother and me served honorably as United States Marines, and went about life as productive citizens and adults.

Well, that’s the normalcy of Black America in the sixties and seventies. However, the ugly truths which lurked in molded dungeons is as creepy as any other American family. There comes a time when humanity must recognize in today’s climate that we all have a testimony, and we all have childhood secrets and growing pains which were not defined by community status quo or ethnicity. There were and still are just as many below poverty level white Americans as there are Mexican business moguls. There aren’t any fine lines between pain and death. Just as there won’t be back door service to heaven, or a V.I.P., entrance to hell.

The condition of the human race is beyond wicked and lawless. Though we are desperate to “fake it-to we make it,” in our daily associations and workplaces, the bare truth smells as rotten as rotting corpses in East St. Louis, IL to Sierra Leone. Our news networks are as corrupt as Capitol Hill’s underlings tip-toeing through waxed halls of Congress. There aren’t any “Hail Mary’s,”, nor New Age anti-religious mantras of offer the gods. Hollywood has expedited their greatest of actors to rehabilitation centers in hopes of salvaging investments, while Black actors are one shade away from dominating the headlines at the Oscars. The music industry, though thriving, is as fluctuating as Florida’s weather in, well, now. Hot today; warm by lunch, freezing by sundown!

I would highly recommend to anyone within the visual context of this article to pray. Pray to whomever you feel comfortable, and pray your source has supreme power to comfort and strengthen your hearts and hands through these weary hours and days to come. I choose to pray to God the Father, through Jesus Christ. God is my guiding light and hope for tomorrow. Yet, if I only have hope, I would be miserably lost. I’ve experienced much in my half-a-century plus and I’ve conquered many an adversary, and yet I still battle disabilities every God-blessed day. But...I’m good! And that’s the best I can ask for in a dying world.

November Knows

Today marks another landmark of newness. A day we've never experienced or will revisit again. As for Monday's, the most mundane and least popular work-day of the week, gaining an hour to snooze is most appreciated. The month of November will position her easel abreast mountains highs and forest lows, and paint the most serene aesthetically sound hues ever imagined. Yet, every year she provides preparatory inventory for the hibernating qualms of winter. As summer’s sardonic egression favors Floridians with scorching heat, the eastern coastal regions suffer tornadoes and intermittent floodings and the aftermath of hurricanes, as Mother Nature displaces whole civilizations without compunction. Each year earth proves her reign is imminent and man is but a pawn. The earth has a seasonal mandate and supplanting crops and resources assigned to fortify human life with providence are punctual.

As communities prepare to decorate the halls, and bake-off family recipes while exhausting their nonexistent savings. One can literally hear the clicking of keyboards; ordering online, checking bank statements and surfacing for deals. The excitement of this season holidays should embody peace and more peace. It’s extremely hard to celebrate while border mandates continue to separate families, expirations of documented workers separate and destroy the nucleus of a growing culturally diverse society, while terrorism invades the peace of human existence. Nature is saturated with poisoned explosive remnants, as well as the environment suffers the controllable results of litter and harmful toxic dumping.

November 2017 should conjure up a demand for community accountability. America’s code of silence is destroying the once; land of the free, for some that is; and causing more disunity than the global populace. Hate groups and neo-nazis are renewing their vows, groups across the racial divide are arming themselves with deep-rooted hatred, likened to evil. Our thanksgiving for a day remiss of hate crimes and police brutality against innocent lives should be ongoing, not just limited to a day commemorating more controversy. The jury is still out on how Native Americans were victims of genocide and violent conquest. Nevertheless, we attempt to process and forgive. We attempt to, as humanity scarred by cultural indifference, move in a positive direction. Somehow, some way, maybe, just maybe we can incorporate prayer into yearly festivities. Corporate prayer for collective peace across this entire globe.