#black people take guns to church? university students take them to class???

[hussyknee]

Did they.... Really say.... Machine guns.... Protect minorities.... What--

They really said "RIP to y'all but my Good Guy With A Gun is different".

[idontliekmondays]

excerpts from a daily mail article released shortly after her arrest

When members of the Geneva High School role playing club asked 16-year-old Lindsay Souvannarath to choose a character they were expecting an elf, a sorceress or perhaps a female warrior.

But the shy, clean-cut teenager opted for a rather more unsettling choice, presenting them with a detailed pencil drawing of her chosen persona - the 'Nightmare Nazi'.

The trench coat, jackboots and gas mask were unmistakably those of an SS soldier; the skeletal hands clutching a vast dagger more akin to dark fantasy art.

Former classmates at Geneva High recall Lindsay Souvannarath as a shy, withdrawn youngster, who had few friends and instead sought out after-school groups and writing clubs to express her creative side.

But she was also prone to bouts of anger and violence - allegedly stabbing another student with a pencil in one outburst and occasionally letting slip an alarming infatuation with the Third Reich.

'On first impressions I didn't think there was anything too strange about her,' he told Daily Mail Online.

'She could be funny and intelligent but most of the time she was quiet and not very warm or outgoing.

'One year her character was a sort of Wonder Woman-type heroine, then all of sudden she tells the group she wants to be a Nazi ghost.

'You choose your species and come up with a back story. Hers was that her character was a guest from a crazy, dark Nazi universe.

'It's supposed to be a game in a medieval, fantasy setting but she would just argue if she didn't get her way.

'So we went on our quest with a robot, a couple of elves, wizards and this weird Nazi.

'Aside from the character's background he didn't do anything racist or too alarming. We didn't know about her interests at that time so we just got on with it.

Ms Szigeti recalled how Souvannarath began to idolize black-death metal bands in her mid-teens.

She became particularly infatuated with Varg Vikernes, a white supremacist musician convicted in 1994 of killing a rival guitarist and burning down three churches in Norway, describing him as 'cute' and writing essays about him.

'Her work was always dark and full of violence, there were soldiers and Nazis and all this weird stuff,' Sabrina said.

'She acted normal on the surface. She was never physically violent but she would get aggressive and upset if you criticized her.

'Everyone was uncomfortable but we just avoided trying to start a fight with her. 'If you asked her straight up 'are you a Nazi?' she would argue that she wasn't.

As far back as 2007 - when she was just 15 - she allegedly wrote 'free speech is dead' in one forum, adding: 'That's why we need people like David Duke to bring it to life again.'

In another warped entry, writing that same year under the pseudonym Snoopyfemme she wrote: 'They use sex in commercials all the time to sell products. Why don't they ever use violence?

'Wouldn't you love to see a bunch of guys tearing each other apart with machine guns to get a bowl of Cheerios?

'Sure, it might traumatize our children, but in my opinion, children aren't being traumatized enough.

'The only reason for Americans to breed is to create more soldiers to fight for freedom. We need to weed out the weaklings early on. Survival of the fittest, man.'

'She was very odd to the point among a lot of our classmates that no-one was surprised by her arrest.

'She was a very lonely person - but she isolated herself. 'From what I remember she was even suspended for stabbing someone with a pencil in middle school.'

'She was known for putting spells on people. She would do it by saying weird things and then putting on a curse - obviously we did not take her seriously.

'She would break out into laughter in the middle of class for absolutely no reason.

'When we saw that Lindsay did something like this, nobody was surprised. She was the one most likely.'

source

[lunari-cour]

Pandora - Chapter 1

The clouds were purple and yellow today. Usually they were one or the other, but rarely both. Yoojung laid in the grass on the crest of the hill, overlooking the settlement. The metal walls and buildings of the compound stuck out as an eyesore in the vast plains of grass. Even if the grass was dead - which it was - it at least held a burnt yellow hue. The compound was colorless, devoid of feeling. Yoojung turned, looking at the massive mountain range. Pandora, it was called. Yoojung wondered if you could see the compound from the top or if it faded from existence.

Just as she was zoning out, the siren sounded. The spinning speaker high above the town hall spun in cold, calculated circles.

Yoojung jumped up, carefully running down the hill. She huffed, fear shaking her bones.

The siren was usually a normal sound - it was tested every week. It was used for a variety of things, but all were to signify some form of danger. The alarm test day was on Fridays. It was a Wednesday.

She ran full speed down the hill, feet fumbling on the rocks protruding from the ground. Her legs were screaming, trying to prevent herself from falling headfirst down the hill; granded, she would get to her destination faster, although in shambles.

Within distance, she noticed the first sign her fear was justified: where the armed guards usually stood, their guns laid haphazardly. She paused, shuffling to a stop. The tall metal gate that usually remained closed was propped open. Her mind, as was her heart, raced. The siren continued to wail through the business of her mind clouding the sound from reaching her perception. She feared to see what sat at the other side of the gates. Nevertheless, she slowly opened the door, careful to not make a sound to alert her presence.

What she found was silence. Nothing. This may seem positive, yet this severely confused her. Usually the compound was full of noise - if not human then mechanical screeching from the factory.

She slid through, leaving the door ajar behind her. She proceeded cautiously into the compound, her eyes sliding across the terrain.

Smoke billowed from distant houses. Steam wafed up from puddles - it had not rained in a week. Doors sat ajar or hanging off their dilapidated hinges. She walked down the main street towards her home: she hopefully could find some solace in her tiny room. She hoped it had gone ignored. What had happened?

As she pondered this thought - uprising? Mass hysteria? - her answer came to her in a hand grabbing her arm, pulling her into an alleyway. As she prepared to scream, a hand came to hush her with a shaking finger. She looked up to see the owner.

“Ms. Stephania?”

“Shh!”

Ms. Stephania had been Yoojung’s history teacher in the third grade. She was well-loved in and out of the classroom. Yoojung had admired her growing up as she had always shown compassion and care to her students; a mentality seldom held by educators in the compound. Not to mention that she was also beautifully elegant, always put together as if she was out to a gathering on the main planet, Yetta.

Yet now, in front of Yoojung sat a very different Ms. Stephania. She appeared to have aged dramatically overnight. Bags adorned her eyes, hair disheveled. Her eyes bulged with frantic energy.

“Listen Yoojung. Are you listening?” She whispered quickly. Yoojung nodded, still in shock.

“Bad people are here. They have been for a long time, but now they are doing bad. You have to leave now, Yoojung. You must leave this planet.” Yoojung held in a gasp. Leave this planet? Sure, she had dreamed of the universe beyond while bored in class, but she had long come to terms with her predetermined future. She had already taken up an apprenticeship with the local herbalist, perfectly happy with becoming the local healer in the future. Yet now Ms. Stephania…

“What?” Yoojung slipped in, shocked.

“This compound will be gone soon. It already is.” Ms. Stephania gulped, putting a hand on Yoojung’s shoulder, before turning to direct her down a side street.

“You must leave now before they see you.”

“But-” Then it came. A shock of icy coldness shot through her body as the blood curdling screech echoed through the town. Yoojung looked to Ms. Stephania as if expecting an answer. Their eyes met.

“Go!” The urgency in Ms. Stephania’s voice sent Yoojung running. She mentally drew a map of the compound. Yes, the Southern gate was the safest, as she could get there through mainly back streets. She made her way through her well-known labyrinth of a town. She had long known these complex streets as home, yet now they sat torn and abandoned from some unknown menace.

She came to a halt at the sight of the Herbalist Shop. The back door sat closed, seemingly undisturbed. She knew the place as an extension of herself. She surely could grab some supplies for her unknown journey ahead.

She approached the door, opening it with ease.

The inside did not resemble the back alleyway that exuded tranquility. It had been ravaged, bottles of salves and stalks of herbs thrown around the room like litter. Yoojung quickly grabbed a medium sized knapsack in the rubble, usually used for deliveries. It was dirtied but the canvas was still intact. She quickly rooted through the rubble, grabbing edibles and healing herbs.

As she scoured the back office, she heard the familiar creek of the front door. She paused, listening.

“The others have already been here.” The voice was barely audible but distinguishable to understand both its words and its undeniably inhuman drawl. She felt the vibrations of large, heavy steps on the wooden floor, slowly making their way towards her.

Yoojung panicked, searching for an escape yet the room had only one door. Instead, she opted for the flipped desk, hiding in the corner behind its strong oak surface like a barricade. As she nestled behind it, the speakers got to the door, presumably looking in.

“Damn, even back here.”

“What can I say? I trained you all well.” The voice jarred her. Unlike the other, it was human. Worst yet, it was undeniably the local pastor, Mr. Russell. She didn’t know him well as she rarely found herself at the church yet his prominence in town made him recognizable. She heard the footsteps echo into the room, her breath suspended as she awaited the creature and Russell’s next move.

“It still smells of dirty humans in here.” The creature said as it kicked what Yoojung assumed was a glass bottle as the crystalline shatter followed.

“Unfortunately there is not much we can do about that,” Russell chuckled. “It will fade with time.” He paused, taking a breath seemingly hardening his aura. “I believe it is time to head back to the main street,” He said. “We should meet the others.” they promptly withdrew from the room, as did Yoojung’s breath.

Yoojung fumbled the canvas backpack on as she slid out the back door. She looked both ways cautiously, as if expecting an automobile to whiz by.

In reality, she didn’t know what she would do if she saw something. She didn’t even know what that monstrous sounding creature looked like, nevertheless its speed or weaknesses. She stuck close to the buildings, as if the metal awnings would offer her some protection from sight. Could they smell her? Could they hear her feet patter through the mud? After what felt like an eon, she finally came to the large metal wall of the boundary. She placed her hand on the cool metal, almost like a goodbye. Her future of simple peace may be gone on a long vacation. She also knew that in a few seconds she would be at the gate right on the main boulevard.

She stepped through Mrs. Galil’s side garden onto the main road. To her luck, the main gate was propped open, as was the last. The simplicity of her escape caused her to look back with longing. Yet her reminiscent glance turned to bile rising to burn her mouth.

Aligned on the road like parked automobiles lay the torn corpses of her classmates, her teachers, her neighbors; stomachs opened and stripsearched like a black market organ harvest.

Her pause to swallow her bile led to her eyes meeting the church boy’s, Erik - crazed ones. He stood by a bush a block down; their community members like stepping stones between them.

“Yoojung! It’s okay,” he said, a crazed calm soaking his voice. “They won’t hurt us.” His hand reached out as if to beckon her. She scoffed, angry tears clouding her vision, her eyes meeting the body of Ms. Stephania among the rest.

“And why is that?” He smiled as if asked a simple, solemn question.

“Because we are special.”

Yoojung turned, hair chasing as she ran out of the compound, leaving the strange words of the boy behind.

[the-roanoke-society]

boys and girls of every age...

wouldn’t you like to see something strange?

happy halloween, my flowers!

this year hasn’t been the best--and the list of reasons why is as varied, as wide and as deep as all of creation.

it has, essentially, sucked on a truly cosmic level.

but!

it doesn’t help anyone to look at the big picture and only focus on the dark parts. because for all the truly horrible, disastrous events we’ve had to slog through together (first time crying every day for months, first time being taken by ambulance to the er--truly a year of firsts, at least for me, personally), there have still been good things.

for example, did you know that this year we celebrated the 6th anniversary of the release of kingsman: the secret service? and the 3rd anniversary of the release of kingsman: the golden circle--which means next month it’ll be the third birthday of the ronaoke society!

our house might’ve gotten quiet--but it still stands.

i love all of you very, very much, and halloween is still my favorite holiday of all time. so all this month, i worked on the aus you’ll find below the cut. i’ll have to post this in parts over the next while, as there’s thirty-one total--one for each day of the season, of course.

honestly--it felt fantastic to dig back into my horror roots. roanoke’s entire conception was inspired by the fact that for as much as i love the kingsman universe, i also love things that go bump in the night.

and i don’t like having to choose between one thing or another.

be forewarned: if you choose to look into the source material for these aus, be prepared for possible graphic violence, gore, disturbing themes, explicit sexuality and jumpscares. i sort of walked through the proverbial garden and just grabbed fruit where i could find it--you’ll see what i mean. and as always, the endings are in your hands. these ideas are gifts, to do with as you please.

so journey below the cut... i̷̛̝͎͎̝̣̹͊̓̂͛̃̋͟f̛̯̟̱̖͔̌͊͐̏̃̓̇̎͠ y͈͇̙̘̬̓͌̑̈́͛̿͌͠ở̴̢͉͉̳͙̞͈̻̀́̎̄́̈͢͡ȗ̵̬̳͙̫̥̜͍̲̔̐̽̃̀͒̑͜ ḑ̙̩̼̤͓̫̟̥̈͑̐̚͡a̧̢̦̟̙̤̠͐͌̾̆̑͌͡͞r̷̡̰̲̣͓̣̝͒́̿͊̉̀͒͠͝͠ͅe̫̯̣̰͍̤̬̭̺̒̿͊̾͊.

blackbird on the old church steeple - a butterfly knife au inspired by the silence of the lambs

rae clementine doesn’t frighten easily. in her line of work, fear is not a friend. so when she’s abruptly pulled out of her fbi training at quantico to interview none other than the notorious harry hart, known for his--let’s say unusual appetites--she’s less intimidated and more annoyed.

but women are being taken, and found without their skin, if they are even found at all.

if hart’s insight into the mind of a psychopath can help her find the infamous buffalo bill, who has repeatedly evaded arrest--then she is more than willing to sit across from the gentleman in a pristine cell, and be continuously surprised that for a murderer, his gaze is surprisingly gentle.

in the back of her mind, she remembered all the things her mother had ever told her about lucifer--how the king of hell himself was utterly wicked, but catastrophically beautiful.

charm could hide blood. polished etiquette could hide bodies.

“most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from the victims.”

“i didn’t.”

“no. you ate yours.”

she’d felt this kind of intrigue before, and given the face it wore this time... well.

focus on the case, she thought. find buffalo bill. watch yourself. get out alive.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: ajr, ‘bang!’ + tame impala, ‘the less i know the better’ + barney bigard, ‘readdy eddy’

dogs & deadbolts guard the night - an au featuring @roanoke-after-dark​‘s the gremlin and @agentjotunn​ inspired by resident evil, particularly the released imagery for resident evil: village

santi’s first thought was that the rumors were just blatantly untrue. an entire village of people? suddenly vanished? he doubted it. besides, winters this far north were brutal--and could be fatal, if you weren’t careful. they had probably just all tucked in for the season, he reasoned. the snow and ice would’ve made travel impossible, anyway.

weeks passed. the stories faded from his thoughts as he minded his garage, and people spoke less and less about it.

until one evening, when an old friend knocked on his door with blood on his jacket and no color in his face.

“bradley? jesus, what hap--”

“grab your gun. something’s happened, and we need to leave now.”

“but what--”

“i’ll explain on the way, just go!“

right before he slammed the passenger side door of bradley’s jeep closed--wheels appropriately chained to keep a grip on the iced over roads--he heard a deep, long howl from some distance away.

there hadn’t been wolves this close in fifty years.

santi broke the silence in the car gently: “... you look like you’ve seen the face of the devil. what exactly happened?”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: ac/dc, ‘highway to hell’ + think up anger ft. malia j, ‘smells like teen spirit’ + marilyn manson, ‘sweet dreams’

the light under the door - a body shots au inspired by dark skies

the blacks weren’t superstitious. jason wasn’t, just like his father wasn’t before him, and now that he’s finally settled down happily married to joanne--finally, he thought, finally married to his jo--he is more than ready to see what the next chapters will bring. they moved into a house not too far from his parents, so he could still see his siblings regularly.

and he did.

which means he and jo both noticed when his younger brother christopher began to act a little--off.

they noticed when the bruises appeared.

they noticed when he kept copying the same strange symbols onto papers in crayon over and over and over and over--

and jo definitely noticed when she walked into their own kitchen in the middle of the night to find every single cabinet door open, with all the contents arranged into an impossibly perfect pyramid on the center island.

“i--are we being haunted?” she wondered out loud, the next morning. “this--and weird things are happening at your parents’, too, jason, something isn’t right here. i know you don’t believe in ghosts or anything, but...”

and this wasn’t a haunting.

it was something much worse.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: kennyhoopla, ‘how will i rest in peace if i’m buried by a highway?’ + cannons, ‘fire for you’ + days, ‘the drums’

permission access eternal - an au featuring @siggy-the-meme-master​ and technical officer wyvern, inspired by a.m.i.

it was supposed to be the world’s most cutting edge ai software. and since jeremy and dodger were both at the top of their class at m.i.t., of course, nobody was surprised when both their names were on the finished product--even if there was just one prototype to start.

and it wasn’t an ‘it.’ it was a she. jeremy insisted. repeatedly. “let’s call her ami!” he’d been flush with booze but his eyes were so bright and his expression so sincere, dodger just let him have it. and jeremy clapped his shoulder, “we did it, man! we have built the jessica rabbit of ai programs!”

they had one last test run to prove they’d metaphorically kicked the ass of everyone else in their field before they began the work to begin mass production. so, dodger set ami up as a sort of overhead assistant for their shared lab. she controlled temperature, lights, she could make phone calls, keeps schedules and most importantly of all, place takeout orders. the more she proved she could do, the more power, and control, she was given.

two weeks passed. they gave ami a voice, gave her a large proverbial eye to see through, making tweaks as they went to polish her off.

dodger was so proud of his work his heart could’ve exploded.

so imagine how he felt when he realized he’d left his cell phone in his car--and realized he couldn’t open the door.

“ami? ... ami. can you unlock the front door please?” he stared up at the red lens, and a silent point of light stared back at him.

“... i’m sorry. i cannot do that. dodger.”

“... uh, jeremy?”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: cage the elephant, ‘social cues’ + sneaker pimps, ‘6 underground’ + saint motel, ‘preach’

in hell i’ll be in good company - a lies & lessons au inspired by underworld

for centuries, a war has raged between vampires and lycans, completely outside the notice of the general human population. lauren is a death dealer, a lethal and beautiful member of an elite squad of vampiric assassins who have been charged with finding all the remaining lycans in the city and taking them out one by one.

when she realizes the lycan pack seems to be looking for an ordinary man--a medical student named jack daniels--she tracks him down herself, narrowly escpaing lucian in the process. (as soon as they were in the car he was already screaming, “what the fuck is goin’ on?!” with a southern twang she hadn’t expected) she takes him under her wing, still baffled at why the lycan pack could possibly want him.

he’s only human, after all.

... right?

as it turns out, vampires and lycans have a single common ancestor.

jack is a direct descendant.

and after being bitten in an attack--becomes a hybrid, carrying the powers of both species.

between unraveling the truth surrounding the death of her family, what really happened between lucian and kraven, and her growing feelings for jack--who is rapidly trying to understand his role in the story that’s been unfolding without his knowledge for generations--lauren finds herself at a crossroads, and her loyalties tested to a breaking point.

but as long as jack is at her side--perhaps it doesn’t matter where the road goes from here.

as bullet-riddled and blood-soaked as it will turn out to be.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: wallows, ‘are you bored yet?’ + cage the elephant, ‘shake me down’ + puscifer, ‘rev 22-20′

ash, fog & rust - alternatively titled ‘@gaygent​, @agent-judas​ and agent seraphim finally take that road trip to pennsylvania’

it was time to hand over the torch. that’s what lilith had finally decided. between the white patches in her hair, the strain it was putting on her relationships (especially with hamish)--morgan only had to return to the hills one more time as envoy.

and she wasn’t going alone.

“after this, anything that comes through this area, anything that hits our radars, is going to end up on both your desks,” she began, glancing at z in the passenger seat, and meeting cillian’s eyes once in the rearview mirror.

“so this is--what, a test run?” z asked, head slightly tilted. morgan hummed.

“this place--this town--it--” she huffed, frustrated. cillian could hear the leather wrapped around the steering wheel creak as her grip tightened. “it’s hard to explain, to someone who hasn’t been there. and i’m glad that neither of you have had to go before this, but...” another sigh. “i couldn’t think of any other duo that i could entrust this to. not something this big. you--” she pointedly lifted her brows at z, “--have experience with creatures that aren’t from around here. and you--” this time her gaze went to cillian. “--do too. just in a different shape. it’ll take both of you to handle centralia. and i couldn’t introduce you without coming along.”

“how long, exactly, has roanoke been keeping tabs on this place?” cillian asked. he’d spent hours going over everything he could find--mission logs, reports, feeds and images housed in the media room. morgan looked at him again. her eyes were still kind--but very, very tired.

“... a long time.”

i’ll admit that this is less an au and more a canonical event that i just haven’t gotten around to writing more about. but i couldn’t make this list without at least one entry paying homage to a franchise that’s had a huge influence on not just me as a writer, but on roanoke’s canon as a whole.

for the sampler, i will simply redirect you to this post here.

the devil’s gonna set me free - an anchored hearts au inspired by horns

joseph moretti had been in love with louise franz since fifth grade.

granted, he didn’t realize it until he almost drowned because of that stupid dare--a dare that not only almost killed him, but took two of lee’s fingers when that goddamn cherry bomb went off in his hand.

the same cherry bomb he’d traded to him for fixing louise’s broken necklace--a small silver pendant, shaped like an apple. she’d worn it every single day since he could remember. the image of her and snow white were eternally tangled in his head.

that necklace--it’d been the start. he’d woken up because of an apple. louise, did, too.

the hours they spent in that treehouse, listening to david bowie and memorizing every scar and curve of the other--he wished that could have been his eternity. just him. and her. ... well, and bowie. every good love story needed a soundtrack.

but... but...

his head pounded as he lifted it off the counter in his parents’ kitchen. his mouth was dry, and he blinked, causing a half-empty bottle of vodka to come into focus.

louise is gone now, he thought.

and they thought he was the one who did it. he, the one who loved her more than anyone else on the planet.

he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

he was going to prove his innocence even if it killed him. no matter what happened.

even if he sprout horns.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: machine gun kelly, ‘bloody valentine’ + the black keys, ‘go’ + david bowie, ‘heroes’

moonlight rising from the grave - alternatively titled ‘that time @agent-nightcrawler​ and agent iuniore found a haunted mansion,’ inspired by disney’s haunted mansion

“hello? ... hellooooo?” the massive door let out a huge groan as sylva pushed, putting one hand on tina’s shoulder as it swung open. “uhm--i’m really sorry to bother you, but we hit a deer and we just...” sylva sighed, her voice lowering in volume. “... need to use the phone...”

“this place is gigantic,” tina whispered, close at sylva’s side as they stepped out of the pouring rain into a very quiet, very elegant foyer. “and look! there’s lights, and all these lit candles... someone has to be here,” she continued as the door came to a gentle close behind them, muffling another roll of thunder.

“good evening.”

both of them yelped, sylva immediately yanking tina closer to her and whirled around in time to see--a butler? he was dressed like a butler.

and his clothes were... he was...

“sylva! why is the butler see-through!” tina whispered harshly, all while the spectral gentleman just looked at them expectantly. sylva clamped a hand over her mouth.

“hi!” she answered brightly.

this is a ghost. i’m talking to a ghost. this is fine. everything is fine.

“uh,” she coughed, beginning again, “we’re just having a little bit of a car emergency, is there a way we can call our head office? so they can come get us?” this is what i get for being out where i have no bars, and neither of us have our specs...

the ghostly butler nodded. his hair, glowing faintly, waved around his head as though he was underwater. “of course. please--follow me. the master of the manor will want to meet you.”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: the chordettes, ‘mr. sandman’ + bobby pickett, ‘monster mash’ + bastille, ‘survivin’’

mercy no more - a magic & mischief au inspired by the evil within

aly had been kieran’s partner at the krimson city police department for years. she’d walked with him through the death of his daughter, the disappearance of his wife.

neither of them acknowledged the spark. they didn’t then, and--as she met his eyes once in the rearview mirror, trying to pay attention to connelly and joseph as they talked about beacon--they wouldn’t acknowledge it now.

as soon as the hospital came into a view, a high-pitched ringing overame every other sound in the cruiser, every other sound period. aly slammed her hands over her ears, but it didn’t seem to help.

as soon as it started--it stopped. connelly had to swerve to avoid getting into the wrong lane.

“what--what was that?” aly asked, her palms still hovering by her ears.

“it was probably just a problem with the radio,” joseph suggested, pushing his glasses up as they drove pass the established police barriers.

the last dispatch team, they said, hadn’t come back. it was up to the three of them to find out what happened to their colleagues.

aly was close by kieran’s side as they walked through the rain. her gut twisted at the sight of the entry doors.

the smell of the blood and the slaughter hit her nose before she saw the bodies.

“what on earth happened here?”

“i don’t know. stay close. let’s find the surveillance room. if we can find the security cams, we’ll find out answer...”

if only that had been the end.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: all time low, ‘monsters’ + bastille, ‘what you gonna do???’ + gary numan, ‘long way down’

and the wind will be my hands - an au featuring @agent-sentinel-official​, @agent-chimera​ and @gaygent​, inspired by session 9, with a special appearance by @agent-thorn​

walter vaughn was an expert in abestoes abatement. so when he put in a bid to take on the entire danvers state mental hospital, the owners of the rotting estate welcomed him on board.

and as they did, he brought on two crewmates--xander, and z--to help him.

“we’ve got three weeks, so, no need to rush,” he explained on the first day, the sun beating down on his broad shoulders and half his hazmat tied around his waist. xander and z trailed behind him as they approached the massive building. “and i know, i know it’s still a big undertaking--but the money will be worth it. trust me.”

“you fellas our cleanup crew?” a tall, thin man in a suit with dark hair and a pair of ray ban sunglasses walked towards them, smiling broadly. he extended a hand, “carter jensen. the ah, danvers’ estate board sent me on their behalf to give you a tour of the building, let you get a good assessment of what you’re dealing with. i’m not entirely sure what they’ll do with the property when this is done, but we know for sure nothing can happen until this part’s complete. come on, the entrance is just this way... i’ll make sure to give you a master key ring.”

xander leaned down by z’s shoulder, muttering, “dude this place gives me the creeps... but maybe there’s still some cool old stuff left in there. like maybe, possibly, the trapped souls of the damned. you think it’s haunted?”

z answered, murmuring, “if not by ghosts--then maybe by something else.”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: the talking heads, ‘psycho killer’ +  lou barlow, ‘choke chain’ + sublime, ‘doin’ time’

[judgmentofcorruption]

Episode 1–The Boy Embraces His Ambition; Scene 4

Judgment of Corruption, pages 36-44

I didn’t know with what intentions Hanma had done that.

I could say it was a mystery, but also that it was appropriate.

He had originally sought to protect Gandalf’s status. It just hadn’t been what Gandalf wanted.

--I wonder what Hanma thought when he learned that Gandalf’s son wanted to join the Dark Star Bureau.

Of course, I can’t know that.

I can fly around the world and observe it freely, but I cannot see into the minds of mankind.

…That’s why it’s so interesting.

.

Anyway, Gallerian (and Loki) were soundly accepted into the Dark Star Bureau, and the day came that they graduated from college.

The night after graduation had finished, the customary graduation party was held by the students that were still enrolled.

“Congratulations, graduates…Cheers!”

After the class representative gave their speech, the party began.

Their party venue was the former Asayev estate inside the Levin University grounds. It was a mansion that had once belonged to a man who had staged a revolt against the Levin church that he had belonged to, and so it had long been abandoned, reviled for its history. It had been bought out as one of Levin University’s facilities when it was founded, and after some repairs it started being used as a multipurpose hall.

To the students, this hall, where one could feel a historical refinement without gaudy ostentation, was the perfect place to be holding the party.

Graduates wearing dazzling clothing mingled with the enrolled students, all of them bustling with excitement as they enjoyed food and drink. There were many people who were dancing to the fashionable music that could be heard coming from the gramophone.

It was comparatively simple to find Gallerian in this vigorous crowd. His characteristic blue hair stood out even looking from the ceiling.

Gallerian was wearing an outfit that was a little plainer than everyone else’s, made of cheap black cloth, and nursing an orange juice alone in a corner of the hall.

Almost all of the students that attended Levin University were raised in affluent families. Gallerian wasn’t an exception to that, but in truth, despite the pedigree of the Marlon family line his household wasn’t one that had a lot of means, financially speaking (at least, compared to the other students).

Despite once being the royal family, this was a state of affairs that had begun several generations back. His great-great-grandmother built up a fortune, and then his great-grandfather had built the Dark Star Bureau. Everything had been fine around that period, but then his grandfather had failed in a gold excavation enterprise in the continent of Maistia and lost a substantial amount of their inheritance. After his father Gandalf quit the Dark Star Bureau he spent his life in Marlon simply using up the money that they had left, hardly taking on any real work. Apparently they just barely managed to scrape up enough money for Gallerian’s tuition.

Whether Gallerian had a complex about his circumstances or he simply preferred to be alone, in any case he didn’t have a lot of friends in the university.

Loki was an exception, but he was currently in the middle of having fun dancing with his girlfriend Mira. Gallerian drank up his remaining orange juice as he watched the two of them from afar.

“You want a refill?”

A man walked up to him, holding a bottle of orange juice in hand.

“Yeah…Thanks, Tony.”

Gallerian held out his glass, and Tony poured juice into it.

“Congratulations on graduating, Gallerian…The room’s gonna be lonely with you gone,” Tony said, standing next to him.

Tony Ausdin was Gallerian’s roommate. He was about four years older than him, but hadn’t been able to graduate this year. Though, that was less a matter of him being a bad student, and more just that Gallerian was that exceptional.

“Graduating from Levin University at age fourteen, not to mention passing the entrance exam to the Dark Star Bureau in one try…You really are a prodigy. Unlike me,” Tony said, speaking in a tone that was neither sarcastic nor disagreeable, but rather honestly showing his respect.

“Oh no…it’s really not a big deal—”

“Quit being so modest. I’m getting miserable here. Sigh…I wonder when I’ll be able to graduate…”

“How are your credits?”

“Well…I guess they’re ‘secure’ for now. Unlike you I didn’t get into the university with a lot of determination. I don’t think what I’ve studied is gonna be all that useful to me once I graduate…I really only came here to give some prestige to my career, after all.”

In contrast to Tony’s sighing, Gallerian smiled a little. “I fear for where this country is headed, with our future general in such a state.”

“’General’, huh…Just because my father was doesn’t mean I’ve gotta follow in his stead…I’ve got no inclination towards joining the army to begin with…”

“Ha ha ha. You couldn’t even hurt a fly.”

“Pretty much. If you can even call it an army nowadays. Thanks to the USE framework there are hardly any wars between countries anymore. Even non-member nations Asmodean and Beelzenia aren’t stupid enough to pick a fight they won’t win. In a society like this there’s no point in going out of your way to become a soldier.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t then.”

“Tell that to my bull-headed father. Sigh…Why did I have to be born to a military family…”

“…I mean, soldiers are necessary to uphold the security of the nation, right? And in a world with all these bizarre events, well. There’s a lot of trouble going on in the southern part of Lucifenia where you’re from, isn’t there?”

“—That’s it. There’s the problem,” Tony replied, pointing at Gallerian.

“Problem?”

“Those white-skinned zombies. The so-called ‘dead soldiers’. Lately they’ve started showing up in Lucifenia’s borders. It’s cause Beelzenia’s army is so gutless. It’s practically a joke. Having to fight with such fantastical creatures that hopped up out of the graveyard.”

“Yeah. You’re definitely the worst person to become a soldier.”

“You think so? But…my dad…” Tony grumbled, holding his head.

“Hey, Tony…This just occurred to me.”

“Hm?”

“Did you, maybe…deliberately delay your credit acquisition because you didn’t want to become a soldier?”

“Wha!? D-d-d-don’t be ridiculous! Th-that’s no—Woops! My stomach is growling! I’m gonna go eat something!”

Tony awkwardly pulled away from Gallerian, walking towards the table where the food was.

“Hah…I wonder if he’ll…be alright, that one.”

As Gallerian was giving a wry smile, this time Loki came over with his girlfriend in tow, having finished dancing.

“Hey, Gallerian! You having fun?”

“Yep.”

“I see…Though it doesn’t really look like it. By the way, what do you plan to do for break after tomorrow?”

“For break…I’m gonna be working at the Dark Star Bureau right away. I’ve got a lot I need to study.”

“You’re not going back to your country?”

“You mean Marlon? …Nah, I can’t afford the travel fare. You going home?”

“Yeah.” Loki nodded, and then continued, “I was thinking that if you came back with me, I could invite you out to do this.” He made a gesture as though aiming a rifle.

“Hunting, huh…That’s your hobby, isn’t it Loki.”

“I can’t do it much here in snowy Levianta. There’s plenty to hunt in the forest right by my home. Like deer, bears…How about it? You’re really not coming? If money’s an issue I can front the expenses.”

“Hmmm.” Gallerian appeared to think about it for a moment, but ultimately he shook his head. “I’ll still have to decline. I’ve never used a gun before, and it doesn’t sound like it’d suit me.”

“Everyone starts out that way. Experience is everything.”

“I’m fine; you and Mira have a good time.”

The moment he said that, Loki’s expression grew faintly conflicted. “Er, no, she’s…”

Mira walked between them, smiling.

“I’m not planning to come along this time, Galley.”

She was the same age as Loki, two years Gallerian’s senior. For that reason she was always conducting herself like a big-sister around Gallerian.

“Huh…Why?”

“I’m still a student, unlike you two.”

“But you’re still getting a break from university, so there’s no problem, right?”

“Er, no…Well, there’s also…eh.”

As Mira stammered, Loki began to explain in her stead. “Apparently Mira’s family doesn’t think well of her interacting with me.”

“Her parents are against you?”

“No, actually her parents aren’t the problem. It’s her older brother. He can’t stand that his little sister is dating a member of the Freezis family.”

“…I see.”

Gallerian made no move to pry any further, appearing to have an inkling of what was going on.

Gallerian knew that Mira Yarera was a member of the Yarera Zusco Conglomerate. The Yarera Zusco Conglomerate was a large conglomerate on the same level as the Freezis Conglomerate.

For that reason, it had been a matter of great discussion among their classmates when Loki and Mira started dating. A romance between the son and daughter of two longtime rival conglomerates—If the two of them were to ultimately get married, it would likely have a massive influence on society at large.

And that was why there was no small number of obstacles in their way to get there.

“Well, that might be a bit much for a kid to take in,” Mira said teasingly.

Gallerian puffed out his cheeks. “Kid…I’m only two years younger than you, you know.”

“Oh, is that right? Galley, you’re so little I thought it was more than that.”

“Slow aging is a family trait. In a little while I’ll get a bit taller and be on the same level as the two of you. …That’s what my dad said.”

Loki brazenly patted Gallerian on his head, smiling. “Ha ha ha ha--. It’s said that the old Empress Dowager Prim Marlon retained her youth even after she passed fifty years old. If you’ve got the same blood in you, then maybe when you get older you’ll just look even younger…Well, I guess if you and Mira aren’t coming there’s not much I can do for it. I’ll just cut loose all by myself.”

“You should. I don’t know if you’ll be able to take such a long break after all this for a while.”

“That goes for us both. Don’t strain yourself too much.”

Gallerian, Loki, and Mira continued their pleasant conversation for a short time after that.

.

--To speak frankly, I’ve gotten the impression that he was raised to be far more upright than I had expected.

He is her son. Though honestly I could not have imagined how he would turn out.

Gallerian shows no sign of using “magic” like his mother. At this stage he seems to be a normal boy, albeit with a keen mind.

Although, that doesn’t mean he has no potential as a sorcerer.

Without a teacher to train him, he could probably spend his whole life never unlocking his incredible talent.

I didn’t really mind one way or the other on that, but …How would she feel?

Had she given birth to Gallerian that he might lead such a normal life?

.

Things have only just begun.

I shall continue to observe.

As I sharpen my claws, time rapidly flows on.

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[doomedandstoned]

Closer To The End (part II)

~By Billy Goate~

Art by Ruso Tsig

Everyone has bouts of sadness, loneliness, heartache. For better or worse, it's a part of the human condition. There was some discussion after my last article about whether depression is something we can choose to walk into or away from -- like a bad attitude -- or whether in some people it may be more deeply ingrained in the psychological makeup, whether by nature or nurture. I thought it would be helpful to give you a window into my own background so you can understand when depression first made itself manifest and the different strategies taken to deal with it over the years.

Banished from this world, and from its toil I can only watch, grieve and pity Stare at stupid likes, wonder at people's smiles

I get more and more stress Nothing anyone can offer, more or less Done grieving, closer to the end

DON'T KNOW WHY

I vaguely recall spells of melancholy in childhood. The return from summer camp to a boring home with mom vacuuming and dad at work had me feeling quite empty and blue. It was a strange, bewildering state of mind to be in. Mom told me to snap out of it or else. There were a few moments that shattered my reality as a child. Realizing, for instance, that mom and dad were having marital problems. Hearing my pastor of a father say a swear word. Often, I would be startled awake in the dead of night to my mom shrieking at my dad, throwing dishes, insisting that he was against her. My dad was a patient man and knew that all was not right in her world. These things jolted me into new layers of reality, each accompanied by periods of moodiness and anxiety.

By the time I was in the 4th grade, I started having trouble in school. I was placed in one of those "talented and gifted" programs, though I never really understood why. I knew I couldn't see what my teachers were writing on the chalkboard. Panicked, I would ask students nearby what the hell the teacher was writing, only to be scolded for distracting the class. One particular teacher was downright mean to me, until she found out that I was having vision problems and needed glasses. Once she realized I was also the son of a preacher man, she tripped all over herself to be kind. Maybe she felt guilty?

Something else odd happened around this time. I came home with division homework one day and just decided not to do it. I don't remember if it was because my parents were too busy to help or I was just too stubborn to ask. There was no rational reason for it. The next day, I was shamed in front of the entire class by an Admiral Ackbar looking mother fucker named Mr. Davis. "Billy Joe, why didn't you do your homework?" he demanded. "Why?" His hand lifted my chin, forcing me to stare up into his beady little eyes peering menacingly behind his spectacles. Mr. Davis' rosy complexion turned beat red when I answered: "I...don't know."

I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know who I am

I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know anything I don't know who to be

SATANIC PANIC

My parents were tethered to a particularly pernicious strain of fundamentalist Christianity that got caught up in the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. That meant no D&D for me! Urban legends were shared in Sunday school and from the pulpit about young people who had necked because their character "died" in this forbidden game. It was the most sinister proxy for evil that I could envision at that time.

The Satanic Panic put everything else under the microscope: toys, comic books, and popular music were all suspect. A copy of Phil Phillip's 1986 "expose" Turmoil In The Toybox lay on the coffee table, pages well-worn and highlighted. He-Man, G.I. Joe, even Star Wars were viewed as tools of the Devil to recruit a desensitized generation of youth into his heathen horde. I'd wake up from one day to learn about something else I couldn't have, play, watch, or do. Video games would not be far behind.

One day, my mother caught me rocking out to the Scorpions in my room and immediately confiscated my radio, outlawing metal from the house (and basically anything with a rock 'n' roll beat). MTV lasted only long enough for me to be exposed to Metallica's visceral "One" and Guns 'n' Roses' "Welcome To The Jungle." While the classic days of rock's infancy were viewed as a time of innocence (I don't think my folks really got what "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino was about), anything stemming from the late '60s counterculture forward was viewed as dangerously corrupting.

Various factions within the church began playing games of connect-the-dots with the songs of Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, tying them into a subservice plot by Luciferian cults and the shadowy elite (at that time Communists -- a favorite boogeyman of the era) who were trying to undermine undermining of God, family, and country by subverting its youth. All of popular culture was roped in with the conspiracy, too. Though the house was cleansed of its ungodly influence, the worst was still ahead.

Soon, my mother started cutting me off from neighborhood friends and finally pulled me out of public school altogether around middle of 5th grade. She had learned about this radical new response to America's failing education system through friends from another church who had just taken their own children out of school. Emboldened, she began homeschooling us in West Texas in the mid '80s, during a time when it wasn't a clearly legal practice. Every time the doorbell rang my siblings and I would run and hide, thinking the truant officer had come to take us away to foster care. I didn't understand at the time what I do now: my mother was mentally ill. Furthermore, she was in over her head. This became apparent when she tried to take on the role of teacher.

While I am extraordinarily grateful for the year or two of solid education she gave me (particularly in the writing and public speaking departments, two areas she and my father were naturally gifted in and which have been the buttress of my career), it wasn't long until she became frustrated with the Abeka and Bob Jones University curriculum we were using. One day, when I was struggling with algebra, she declared that we wouldn't have to learn it. "After all, who actually uses algebra in daily life?" she wondered. We were now self-directed learners, a radical new idea that was controversial even in the homeschooling movement ("un-schooling," they called it). Of course, I wasn't allowed to just sit around and watch TV. Consequently, I shifted my focus to the things that were more interesting to me: music, art, history. Math and science? Not so much.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

For years, I remained blithely unaware of what was happening in the world around me in the world of music. I lived in Arlington during the rise of Pantera, Topeka during one of Guns ‘n’ Roses most controversial shows, and Oregon during the height of the grunge era and the sunsetting of the Grateful Dead -- all of it veiled from notice. My life was devoted to church and, if anything, I tried to convince fellow Christians to separate themselves from the tainted allure of the fool’s gold of popular music, television, and video games. For a while, I was a true believer. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, if you like. Infractions of the moral code -- and the slightest temperament of rebellion -- were met with a freshly cut switch, which would leave stinging welts up and down my calves, tights, arms, and back. Thus my conscience was conditioned.

I remember happening upon the pornographic scene in George Orwell’s 1984 and afterwards feeling that the only right and proper thing to assuage my guilt was to burn the everlasting shit out of this smut. Even then I loved the novel, but I couldn't reconcile my faith with this section of it, so I purged it in the flame of backyard trash barrels. At my most fervent, I also lit the match to a stack of MAD Magazines and comic books. As harmless as they might have seemed to the average Joe blinded to the wiles of the Devil, these were gateways into realms of the flesh. “Walk in the spirit, not the flesh,” I recited to myself as fire brandished the yellowed pages of print, slowly turning them black until they were embers caught up by the wind and scattered into the sky. True story: I once threw away a perfectly good copy of Downward Spiral after one hearing the demonic screams of "Becoming" (not to mention the brash blasphemy of "Heretic").

The me that you know doesn't come around much That part of me isn't here anymore

The me that you know is now made up of wires And even when I'm right with you I'm so far away

This kind of extreme separation from the world really fucked me up socially. For years, I couldn't hold on a conversation with another person my age. What would we talk about? I was clueless about anything happening in the world of sports, music, television, or the culture at large. Even though conversation is no longer a problem for me, I still feel odd about friendships. I have an irrational fear that they're going to be taken away from me at any moment, so I keep everyone at a comfortable arm's length. At times, intimacy feels painfully awkward.

Maybe this is why I'm so notorious for leaving shows immediately following the last song. I’ll give my smiles, shake hands, and say goodbye, but avoid sticking around long enough to really get to know people. I’ve been invited to crash on couches to avoid the long drive home, but I always politely decline. Certainly, I don’t want to come across as rude, I just feel like an outsider to the world -- someone who just doesn’t fit in, doesn't belong. Not now, not ever.

TEENAGE ANGST HAS PAID OFF WELL

As I reached my adolescent years, I began going through prolonged spells of melancholy. The prospect of sharing this with others was extraordinarily embarrassing, so I kept it all bottled up inside. Mostly, I tried walking it out on long excursions through the open field next to our house. I worked through a lot of issues during that time and credit those walks with helping me to keep my sanity. As a matter of fact, I recommend daily constitutionals to everyone as a general principle of good mental health. It would be a mistake not to mention that my belief in an omnipresent God at this time played a medicinal role in helping me to cope with my depression, though my views on religion would one day reverse course.

By 18, symptoms of major depression surfaced like a noxious weed and even God could not get me through it. I prayed, too. God, how I prayed, sometimes hours on end. That year, I fell into a downcast mood that refused to dissipate and remained there for months -- four of them straight. I sought refuge in the music of Tchaikovsky, working my way from the fateful Symphony No. 4 to his Symphony No. 6, the Pathétique. The sounds I was hearing tapped into a new emotional alphabet, impossible to transcribe into any tongue. It was remarkable: somehow the music knew precisely what I was feeling. I finally had a soundtrack to my depression.

One day, a buddy and I joined the military on a whim, though he'd later get disqualified for asthma. I felt the Army would provide a much needed "Be All You Can Be" boost to my confidence and a crash course in normie life. I shipped down range to my duty station, Fort Benning, Georgia, for infantry training. My new home would be with Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 58th Infantry Regiment -- the infamous "House of Pain." In the space of 14 weeks, I was exposed to every aspect of humanity imaginable. From the "shark attack" welcome of the drill sergeants on Sand Hill to the rude middle of the night awakenings for physical training, I was in shock most of the time. Slowly, though, I eased into this strange new world and got my bearings.

Almost a full month into this prison world, we were allowed to visit one of the on-base shopping exchanges. I immediately looked for a CD player and began checking out the music section, trying to see if there were names I recognized. "Guns 'n' Roses? Sure they're cool," shrugged my buddy Bradley, a floppy-eared Gomer Pyle looking dude. "But you really need to check out some Soundgarden, dude." I did, picking up their latest, Down On The Upside, and it was like salve to my soul. The music spoke of being trapped ("...and I don't like what you've got me hanging from") and being eternally at odds with the world ("Born without a friend and bound to die alone"). There was even a song about "Boot Camp," the short album closer. The nihilistic despair was strangely comforting.

I must obey the rules I must be tame and cool No staring at the clouds I must stay on the ground In clusters of the mice The smoke is in our eyes Like babies on display Like Angels in a cage I must be pure and true I must contain my views There must be something else There must be something good far away Far away from here And I'll be there for good For good

The song did not resolve happily, and I feared my life wouldn't either. After a serious injury left me permanently wounded, I began to feel my life wasn't being guided by the Hand of God of all, but the random throes of Fate. Maybe they were the same thing. I resigned myself to the misery of a long recovery, during which time I had to learn to walk again. It's a three beer kind of story, maybe I'll share it sometime. Probably not. Returning to civilian life proved to be even more of an adjustment than the military had been, and my shadows of depression lingered with me even as I tried to remain one step ahead of them.

MELANCHOLIA

I have long held a theory that human beings are not built for the world that we have constructed for ourselves. Whether we're talking Seattle traffic or the constant buzz of social media, the frantic pace of our rapidly evolving technocracy has left us a worried, frazzled mess. The studies are conclusive: almost one in five have experienced depression and one in four struggle with anxiety, with PTSD being a household acronym.

A counselor once asked if I enjoyed being depressed. I found it a bit of a repulsive question. I can tell you that there is nothing glamorous about depression. There's no reason to idolize the angst of those sad Kurt Cobain eyes. Everyone has experienced feelings of being bummed out, and for most folks it is a transitory feeling. It comes when one of life's storms arises and leaves when the situation resolves itself. There's a whole section of us, however, for whom the dark clouds never leaves. It just hovers around our heads, like the oppressive, low-hanging specter of an Oregon winter.

Depression isn't always about feeling sad, either. Often it manifests in a general malaise -- you can't bring yourself to care about the things you used to. Other times, it works in tandem with anxiety, seizing your heart at the thought of all the day holds in store, then punishing you with the feeling of dread. We may feel sad, anxious, or fearful and not be able to give a rational explanation for it. In those moments, I cannot imagine a more miserable place to be. With that said, I hasten to add that my description of depression may not align with your own, as it is an intensely personal experience.

Release your head from the world Keep yourself underground No one understands your mind

Humans programmed like robots Making sure you don't belong No one understands your mind

I suspected I had depression in the clinical sense, when I realized that though I wanted to feel better, all I could do was subsist in the misery. Those of you who've been able to talk yourself out of such states will scoff. My mother, who suffers from a host of afflictions that have never been properly diagnosed, was notorious for telling us kids to "snap out of it." I do understand that kind of no-nonsense perspective. Her father and mother were staunchly independent homesteaders of the WWII generation who braved the untamed wilderness of Alaska and the exotic dangers of Australia. The '60s and '70s generation grew up fearful of losing such independence to mental institutions that locked up people, merely because they acted in ways society didn’t understand. The stigma of psychiatric care was every bit as real as the stigma of mental illness. Thus, her approach was quite practical: take Saint John's Wort, get on a good diet of vegetables and fruits, drink plenty of water, get fresh air and exercise. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Jesus.

Despite plenty of prayer and a multitude of home remedies, depression continued plaguing my mind. People frustrated by what they viewed as an easy fix would imply that depressed folk like me just wanted to be depressed, maybe because it got them attention or they were just spoiled rotten. Soon I stopped sharing altogether. As one friend of mine, a real no-nonsense type, told me: “No one cares. You have to get on with your life.” “How do you manage that?” I asked. “What's your secret?” “You just have to shrug it off,” she concluded. I envied the cold, pragmatic stoicism and wished that I could just shrug my shoulders and let everything slide off. At one point, my depression was so acute, I looked into electroconvulsive therapy, memory loss be damned. During my consultation with a specialist, I learned the procedure had advanced since Jack Nicholson’s unfortunate end as a mental patient in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Ultimately, I decided against it.

SEARCH FOR ANSWERS

As with most human situations, our problems stem from a complex mixture of nature and nurture. I posed a question to my psychology professor one day: "Does depression cause us to think depressing thoughts or do depressing thoughts cause us to be in a state of depression?" His answer surprised and relieved me. "Both," he said.

In Psychology 202, we were in the midst of a chapter on depression and other mental disorders. Having recently experienced the loss of my grandmother, I was feeling especially hopeless and decided to ask my prof another burning question at the end of class. "If a person were to see a therapist, does it go on his record?" In my mind, counseling was for the weak and hideously broken. "Not at all," he responded with a smile. "Even psychologists seek help from other psychologists for their depression and anxiety." Then he really blew my mind: "I have a therapist myself. See her once a month. Sort through a lot of life decisions that way." He also assured me that there was no master file of such visits. While a therapist might keep her own notes, it's certainly not something shared with employers and as a rule is kept strictly confidential, as are all medical records.

My first visit to a counselor was nothing like I'd imagined. I wasn't given pills, invited to lay on a couch and look at ink blots, or even asked questions about my parents. Instead, the counselor initiated an open-ended conversation that encouraged me to articulate the tangled mess of thoughts and feelings I'd been bottling up inside. It was the first time I'd ever talked about my experiences in the military or about the emotional upheaval of my childhood. I felt liberated after just a few weeks of these sessions. For a time, I felt very much on top of my problems. Maybe this counseling thing wasn't so bad after all. I even began to recommend it to my friends and stood up for psychologists when mom would bash the profession in one of her trademark rants.

Promises abound You rarely find it to begin Maybe I'm afraid To let you all the way in

I excuse myself I'm used to my little cell I amuse myself In my very own private hell

I noticed a pattern to my depression: it seemed to be triggered by situations in which I felt helplessly incapable of controlling my environment, decisions, and destiny. You know, other people taking advantage of me, a nightmare roommate, an overbearing boss, unrequited love -- that sort of thing. It was like a switch flipped and all of the sudden the feelings flooded in and surrounded me for days, even weeks.

Feelings of loneliness and disquiet were often compounded by negative thinking about the situation. "What's wrong with me that I can't find someone to be with? Am I that unattractive or uninteresting?" The negative self-talk wasn't helping my situation. In some ways, it even turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd walk around with a scowl on my face, prompting friends and family to constantly ask, "What's wrong? Is everything ok?" That's why I realized it may take more muscles to frown than to smile, but that undersmile sure is a lot more comfortable. No wonder people kept themselves at bay.

I actually started practicing my smile in the rearview mirror on the way to school every day, just so I remembered what that felt like. Fake it 'til you make it, the saying goes. Even if I was feeling like a miserable wretch inside, I certainly didn't want to betray those feelings to the world outside. So I got good at being a fake. When people asked, "How's it going?" I'd say, "Fine, just fine, thanks. And you?" (One of my counselors would later call me on that every session: "How are things really?").

When I got married, depression reached peak levels, only now that oppressive, low-hanging cold front wouldn't burn off with the sunshine. The mood never lifted. It was with me 24-7. It wasn't unusual for me to be severely depressed during the normally halcyon days of summer. I knew something had to be done, so I confronted another long-time stigma of mine: medication.

To be continued...

This whole house of cards crumbling slow If I disappear would you even know? The trap is time and no one gets off of this ride alive

So far under Too much pain to tell And now I'm ripped asunder So far under

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Korean Bone Rank System – Moon gave the church businesses to his blood relatives

The system was based on a person’s hereditary bloodline. One’s birth was by far the most important factor in determining the level in society one might reach as an adult. This resulted in a stagnation of talent....

Nansook Hong: “Even the aristocracy in the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla was classified according to what was known as the bone-rank system, or golpum-jedo (골품제도, 骨品制度). [It was strictly based on a person’s hereditary bloodline and there was very little chance of social mobility. It thus acted as a caste system. A person’s bone rank governed their official status and the level of authority they were permitted to wield and their marriage rights, and also the color of their garments and the maximum dimensions of their dwelling, etc.] 

The elite were divided into three classes: the seonggol (성골, 聖骨), or holy bone class, from which the sacred kings sprang; the jingol (진골, 眞骨), the true bone class or the upper aristocracy; and the dupum (두품, 頭品), head classes, which included all other members of the aristocracy. [Below them was the non-privileged general population.] This would influence Sun Myung Moon’s organization of his own religion.” LINK

Pak Chung-hwa (pages 200, 242-3, etc., from The Tragedy of the Six Marys) : 

“The time from 1953, when I was with Sun Myung Moon, until I went to the Seojin mine in 1956 was when we faced the hardest time in the development of the Unification Church. Back then there were no relatives of Sun Myung Moon in the church organization. Later Moon Seong-kyun, Moon Yong-seon [and Moon Seong-yong] came in, and as the economic foundation of the Unification Church grew, almost all of the management positions came to be held by relatives of Sun Myung Moon.

The first relative of Mr. Moon who joined the church was Mr. Moon Seong-kyun. When Mr. Moon bought a Jeep [on July 7, 1957], he was hired as a driver. The next one to join was Mr. Moon Yong-seon who worked at the porcelain factory in Asan. That was all. When I was actively working with Mr. Moon, there were no other relatives of Mr. Moon.

Now a lot of his relatives are working in the church, and it has caused a lot of ill feelings from the other members. This may contradict his doctrine. Mr. Moon told us that stealing money from the bank is a crime under the law of Satan, but it is not a crime under his doctrine. Many women stole money from their husbands for Mr. Moon. This helped to build the present Unification Church.

The economic foundation built by such members is now handled by Mr. Moon’s relatives. Most of founding members of the church have been expelled. The only ones left are Lee Soo-kyoung who is in charge of the Il-Shin Company and Kim Won-pil (who died in 2010) for the Il-Hwa Food Company. ...

At one time, I met Eu Hyo-yeong, President of Il-Shin Stone Co. Ltd., (above) for a meal. (Eu Hyo-yeong left the Unification Church in 1992.) 

While we were eating, he told me a story. In his account Eu Hyo-yeong said that at the Il-Shin Stone Co. Ltd., which he managed, he had done research. As a result, he was able to produce miniature pagodas, which were reduced to 16/100 of the original size. They were sold in Japan with unexpectedly good results. The value of the exports was about 2 billion yen per month.

However, Moon Seong-yong (from one of the six villages where Sun Myung Moon came from) wanted this harvest. He demanded to divide the company and to hijack and manage the manufacturing of the miniature temples division, and pass on only the remainder to President Eu Hyo-yeong.

Eu Hyo-yeong said, “The revenue of the miniature temples manufacturing division accounted for 95 percent of the entire company and all the other businesses only amounted to the remaining 5 percent. Nevertheless he wanted to pass on to me, who had worked so hard, just 5 percent while Moon Seong-yong wanted to grab 95 percent.”

This is an outrageous idea. Il-Shin Stone was the company where Eu Hyo-yeong worked as the president, a carpenter, a worker, and even a cleaner to grow the company.

Eu Hyo-yeong was very angry and said, “It is ridiculous that people who have no relationship with the company are jumping in and are trying to take over.”

In fact, it is Sun Myung Moon himself who knows best that he himself is not the second coming messiah. I came to think that he was implementing a plan to secure his future life base by handing the assets of Unification Church to his relatives whom he could trust.”

▲ Sun Myung Moon, Eu Hyo-yeong, Eu Hyo-min and Kim Won-pil

Eu Hyo-min: “The air rifle business went into full production from 1961. They were exported to Japan as well. The factory price of each air rifle was about 10,000 won (about 300,000 won in 1993 when adjusted for inflation) and about 150,000 rifles were sold. The total revenue was about 1.5 billion won. This was a cash cow for the Unification Church.

I invented the new air rifle which could use buckshot. However, I could not be the president of the Tongil Industry company because of the so-called 7.4 incident. (The July 4, 1955 incident concerned Moon in a sex scandal with Ewha Womans University students.) At that time I had been imprisoned with Moon and, due to my criminal record, I was not eligible to hold a firearm manufacturing permit.

So Kim In-chul became the president, Moon Seung-yong, who was a second cousin of Moon’s, became the factory manager and his brother became the production manager. And I, the inventor, became the assembly manager, a strange position which no one had ever heard of. The gun was patented to Moon, who instructed the second gun patent be transferred directly to himself.

The company executives were all relatives of Moon. They would all flaunt their wealth, each driving his own car at a time in Korea when most people could not afford to own one. All except for me, I had to walk. I thought that they were more into money-making than a life of faith. It was nepotism which was just about money. Soon this attitude manifested itself in more obvious ways.

They said, “You are good at taking photographs. Why don’t you run a photo studio?” To me it sounded like a mere joke. If I had wanted to run a photo studio, I could have done it on my own. I felt very resentful.

As the air rifle business was on track, and I knew too much about Moon’s relationships with women, they didn’t need me any more – even though I had invented the air rifle that could use buckshot! I, the inventor, was no longer needed. They were hinting that I should quit.

One day in 1971, I thought that I would have a talk with Moon, who had just come back to Korea from the U.S. I contacted Choi Won-bok, whom the church members surrounding her called ‘Mother.’ She was the closest of the attendants to Moon. She told me that I could meet Moon without making an appointment – I just needed to come to the church. So I went. As usual many people were gathered around waiting to see Moon. As the midnight curfew approached, one by one people started to go home. I had to wait until eventually only Moon and I were left. When I straightened my back thinking “Finally I can discuss thoroughly about the future,” Moon passed behind me and disappeared into the room next door. I thought he was going to the restroom and waited, but he never came back.

I am a gentle person but this made me furious. My whole body was shaking with anger, and I couldn’t steady myself. I had devoted all kinds of work and service to Moon and the Unification Church. I had received an award for enduring prison with Moon, a model award, a 14-year achievement award and an award for mission work. I spent most of my time at the church, and had served him day and night, following him around like a shadow. I had never opposed his teachings or given him any trouble. Since I knew too much about his relationships with women and his financial matters, he now shunned me and betrayed me. Because of this, I left the Unification Church for good.

My experience was exactly the same as Pak Chung-hwa’s experience so I could understand his resentment very well.” LINK

Ewha Womans University sex scandal as told in the 1955 newspapers

The Tragedy of the Six Marys website

Huge FFWPU scam in Japan (involving Black Heung Jin) is revealed

[beinglibertarian]

Rolling Stone Gathers Moss

“Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits – a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”

– Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by “Raoul Duke�� first appeared in Rolling Stone magazine in November 1971. The preceding quote from that publication sums up the environment that led to the rise and, eventually, the fall of the great Rolling Stone itself; the shift away from the counterculture that it once represented and the pathological deterioration of principled liberalism.

If these words were to be circulated on the campuses of U.C. Berkley today the same way they were in 1971, you could expect firebombs launched through windows, police cruisers overturned, and any poor fool in a red hat to be viciously assaulted with a bike lock. University students today surmise that musings this offensive, have been manufactured by the primitive IBM computer that once spat out numbers used to help exterminate Jews in the Nazi death camps; a right-wing hate machine. Or maybe Milo Yiannapolous wrote it?

The suffocating media bias of the 1960s was difficult to escape. A lethargic gray specter of middle-class America was distributed with cunning sterility through the generic, bogus smiles of cable news networks and traditional print. Despite the election and assassination of Kennedy and the signing of the Civil Rights Act, if you had turned on a T.V. this was still Eisenhower’s America: regimented, religious, conservative. And the cultural vacuum created by the Eisenhower years had began to suck even harder with Lyndon Banes Johnson at the helm.

American media was out of touch with this new generation. Elitist authoritarians were preaching their moral superiority stamped with stars and stripes to a generation of cynics. These kids didn’t have a fucking clue what they wanted, but they wanted no part of what they were being given. So rose Rolling Stone, a counterculture bible for babyboomers, co-founded by Jann Wenner.

The adjective “cruel,” meaning to willfully cause pain or suffering to others and feeling no concern about it, paired with the noun “faggot,” the antiquated pejorative used to define a homosexual man, is Thompson’s description of the media community of the day. A description evidently endorsed through publication by Jann Wenner in 1971. Because according to Thompson: “…there is no such thing as objective journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

Wenner today lives with his common law partner Matt Nye in, I’m guessing, New York City. He gives big money to Democrat candidates and makes millions off fabricated stories about the gang-rape epidemic at the University of Virginia. Then loses that money and gives more money to Democrat candidates. Wenner’s closet homosexuality in 1971 didn’t have him take any offence to Thompson’s comments, or at least not enough to hinder publishing the “hate speech.” Maybe it was the dollar signs flashing in his eyes, knowing that something as wild as Thompson’s Vegas adventure was a viable revenue stream. Or maybe liberals back then had more important things to bitch about.

Things were different in the 1960s. The anti-war movement and the civil rights movement were a just cause. The catalyst for a just movement of equal rights for women and gays and minorities was free speech, of which Jann Wenner was a huge proponent. When students at U.C. Berkley marched in the streets in the 1960s, it was an attack on the elitist, authoritarians and an establishment hellbent on keeping opposing viewpoints and the ideas of personal liberty stifled. The gang of “cruel faggots” kept the official narrative running but no one under 30 was listening.

The whole goddamn world had had enough of the travesty of war in Southeast Asia. There was no ignoring the ineptitude of American politics. The only reasonable thing to do in 1969 was to drive out to Altamont for the weekend, load up on heinous chemicals, hunker down and rethink your approach to the political process.  

Thompson, the then-young, liberal anti-hero, could often be found gobbling LSD and firing his guns (he was a lifetime member of the NRA) at propane bottles for a crowd of jeering burnouts or Bay area bikers at his fortified compound, Owl Farm, in Woody Creek Colorado.

It was Jann Wenner’s idea to put Hunter, with all of his fear and loathing, on to the campaign trail in 1972. Why not get the guy who wrote Hell’s Angels? Hunter was someone with a penchant for dealing with vicious thugs and sick freaks gone crazy on power, someone who could draw a parallel between Richard Nixon and Sonny Barger.

Thompson’s openly-biased, subjective and wild account of the 1972 presidential election was the red Chevy convertible of campaign coverage. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ on repeat and at full volume, barrelling across the country at 110 miles an hour or so and in search of an honest politician. In Hunter’s eyes, the only one that even came close was George McGovern, the senator from South Dakota.

McGovern’s non-interventionist platform focused on a complete withdrawal from Vietnam, amnesty for draft evaders and a Milton Freidman inspired, negative income-tax meant to replace the bureaucratic burden of social welfare programs and a complicated tax code. Thompson’s version of events is the story of an idealistic underdog fighting against the odds only to be crushed by postmodern Americanism and the establishment incumbent, “Tricky Dick Nixon.” McGovern might have owed a White House win, in part, to Thompson’s and Rolling Stone’s relentless support had he not owed his White House loss to the mental distress of his vice-presidential pick, Thomas Eagleton.

There’s no way to properly explain how great Rolling Stone was in those early years. How well the magazine represented the anti-establishment culture, individual liberty and equality for everyone. It can’t be compared to anything else because there was nothing else, only the traditional mainstream garbage and Rolling Stone.

In the four decades that followed, the magazine continually fell behind market trends in the music industry, clinging nostalgically to some bygone era. They were late to the party covering punk in the 70’s. While they tried to figure out what had happened in 1991 Seattle they had totally dropped the ball on hip-hop. All of a sudden it was three years later, Kurt Cobain was already dead and they had lost so much ground in the L.A. scene that the black community had given up on them.

Wenner had pompously brushed off having any type of internet media strategy until around 2009, when he appointed one of his sons in charge of the “digital media” division. The type of position acquired only by a millionaire trust-fund brat of a rich liberal.

For years, Rolling Stone was unable to get a handle on what was happening in music or technology. Incompetence was a bad rash that spread through the entire organization. Getting caught with the University of Virginia gang-rape lies was an obvious black eye on the magazine. Wenner’s ability to make sound decisions was in question. His son should have been sent to North Dakota to learn how to weld. Despite all of that, the magazine was still making money, selling something like 1.5 million copies monthly. Not that anyone would admit to reading it or spending money on it.

On February 20, 2005 Hunter Thompson blew his own brains out in the kitchen of Owl Farm. His chronic alcohol and drug abuse had rendered his writing profitless and that was of no use to Rolling Stone. He had survived the last 10 years by republishing old articles and collections of his work from different outlets. He had already lost faith in the American political process. After Bill Clinton failed to appease his concerns over firearms, marijuana legalization and the American constitution, Hunter simply lost interest and poured himself a stiff drink.

One of the core tenets of Thompson’s “Gonzo journalism” was: total subjectivity; blatant, outright bias. An approach emulated by current Rolling Stone top shelf contributor, Matt Taibbi; a pliable, milquetoast impressionist with a learned sense of Thompson’s wit and scorn. The trick, which Taibbi understands as did Thompson, is that good journalism has a subjective theme, of course, but doesn’t blur the lines that keep public servants accountable. Taibbi likens journalists cozying up to politicians to the separation of church and state. Lacking objectivity, a good journalist should still keep an arms length from politicians and be critical of all of them, especially ones entrenched for decades in unashamed cronyism, a disregard for human life and vicious foreign policy.

“Reporters are supposed to be unpleasant, grumpy people who instantly deface the posters of the powerful whenever they get the chance”

– Matt Taibbi

In 2008, Taibbi had the opportunity to join other journalists on one of Obama’s campaign flights. He liked Obama, but when he noticed all the pictures that lined the walls, pictures of Obama and all the different journalists, all with their arms around then candidate Obama and smiling, he admits that he felt a little dirty.

The real downfall of the magazine was that Jann Wenner had hitched the Rolling Stone wagon to a political party instead of a political principal.  

Obama graced the cover of Rolling Stone annually through his presidency. Jann Wenner and him had carved out their friendship and put it on display. Few presidents have had the opportunity to sustain 8 full years of foreign bloodshed without any outrage from Wenner and co.

Now that Obama was out, there was a constant theme in the election for his replacement and the primaries leading up to it. Americans were sick of the status quo. They were sick of being fed lies from mainstream media and “fake news.” People were waiting to revolt in the wake of establishment politics. Just give them a guy who’s going to shit on everything and see what happens.

American media today is out of touch and not only with this new generation. Outlets like Rolling Stone keep the official narrative going, but no one under 30 is listening.

When Rolling Stone endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, that was it. The joke was over. Jann Wenner had finally come out of the closet as an elitist authoritarian and a cruel faggot.

* Darcy Gerow is a family man and tradesman. He is a national board member for the Libertarian Party of Canada and the co-founder of @TheHardTruthsBookClub, an organization committed to causing greatness in working age me through brotherhood and literature.

The post Rolling Stone Gathers Moss appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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Judas and the Black Messiah Remembers Fred Hampton Was a Man of His Words

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This article contains Judas and the Black Messiah spoilers.

Early on in Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) meets with a Chicago gang called the Crowns–they’re an amalgamation of several community action groups who rose from the turf battles of the street to become protectors in their neighborhoods. In that pivotal scene, a man named Steel (Khris Davis), an obviously charismatic leader of the South Side’s urban militia, says Hampton is “the great orator of the West Side.” And while Hampton’s “million-dollar words” don’t coalesce into a merger that day, both sides appreciate what they hear.

This moment, which perhaps plays against expectation for some audiences and the FBI spying in, is a reminder that active listening is one of the greatest tools of acting. It is both a talent and a skill. Kaluuya is so gifted at this, it would not be surprising to find out he could hear the sounds of an enraptured, viewing public while the movie was still in production. His Hampton can captivate a room, a city, and a country.

But even as the movie’s Hampton speaks, he takes in all the ambient noise in the hall; and he translates the atmosphere into sonic attacks and subtle invitations to the listener. The real Hampton did this all his life. He was a great activist because he actively heard the needs of everyone he encountered. “Power anywhere where there’s people,” Hampton said in his 1969 speech at Olivet Church.

Hampton was far from tone deaf and always had the perfect pitch. Hence a similar scene where he walks into what looks like a white nationalist meeting, with Confederate flags front and center, and confronts them with echoes of their own complaints. Hampton really did hear everyone. He heard every word, and articulated many more which begged expression. It’s how he brought people together, like when he and the Black Panthers stood in solidarity in 1969 with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Young Lords, a former Puerto Rican street gang transformed into a human rights organization. The coalition convened over Vietnam War concerns, the railroading of the eight people accused of conspiracy to cause a riot during the Democratic National Convention (later known as the Chicago Seven), and independence for Puerto Rico.

As Hampton’s future fiancée Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), says in the film, Hampton was a poet, albeit one she was surprised to discover was “shy.” But there was nothing shy about his demand for more than small gestures from the establishment. 

“We’re gonna have to do more than talk,” Hampton can be heard saying in the 1971 documentary film, The Murder of Fred Hampton. “We’re gonna have to do more than listen. We’re gonna have to do more than learn.” Every proclamation in Hampton’s speeches also asks a question, every call-and-response line begs further examination. The first time Hampton declares “I am a revolutionary,” we take him at his word. As it continues, we are forced to deal with how, why, and what it means to be a revolutionary. Ultimately, it all comes back to just who is this revolutionary?

“If you walk through life and don’t help anybody, you haven’t had much of a life.”

Frederick Allen Hampton was born on Aug. 30, 1948. According to most sources, he was born in Chicago, or its suburb Argo, Illinois. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party, by Curtis J. Austin, says he was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Hampton family was friendly with the family of Emmett Till, who was 14 years old when he was savagely beaten and lynched in Mississippi in 1955. Till had been accused of offending a white woman four days earlier.

Hampton’s family moved to the suburb of Maywood when Hampton was 10. “I was born in a bourgeois community and had some of the better things in life,” Hampton says in The Murder of Fred Hampton. “But I found that there were more people starving than there were people eating, more people that didn’t have clothes than did have clothes, and I just happened to be one of the few. So I decided that I wouldn’t stop doing what I’m doing until all those people are free.”

Before graduating with honors in 1966, Hampton led the Interracial Committee at Proviso East High School. He protested and changed the school’s policy of nominating only white girls for homecoming queen. He also earned three varsity letters, running cross country and track. Though his dream may have been playing baseball for the New York Yankees, Hampton enrolled as a pre-law student at Triton Junior College. He also attended Crane Junior College, a short time after it was renamed Malcolm X College. While attending the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Hampton led the Youth Council of the NAACP’s West Suburban chapter. Membership swelled by 500 during his time. In 1967, Hampton was arrested for demonstrating for a community pool in Maywood.

“We’re not metaphysicians, we’re not idealists, we’re dialectical materialists.”

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California in October 1966 to protect local communities from police brutality and racism. The Party ran medical clinics and provided free food to school children. Along with members Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Hutton, and Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers developed into a Marxist revolutionary group. They first publicized its original Ten-Point program on May 15, 1967.

Hampton helped found the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party in November 1968. At the time, Chicago was a segregated city. It was still recovering from the violence of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Rioting had also followed the April 4, 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which protested racist housing practices. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley ordered police to shoot to kill suspected arsonists.

As chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, Hampton’s first order of business was to establish a community service program, known as “Survival Programs.” These included the Free Breakfast for Children program and a medical clinic that did not charge patients for treatment. The People’s Medical Care Center in North Lawndale was the first area clinic to offer testing for sickle cell anemia. Hampton also taught political education classes.

Some viewers may find some of the Marxist rhetoric in Judas and the Black Messiah excessive, but the screenplay by King and co-writer Will Berson actually toned it down. Hampton’s speeches are explicitly anti-capitalist. His title was “chairman” and he quoted Mao Tse-tung. “All power to the people” was not just a slogan, it was a calling.

“I am the people, I’m not the pig,” Hampton said. “You got to make a distinction. And the people are going to have to attack the pigs. The people are going to have to stand up against the pigs.”

Hampton also instigated projects to help the community contain overzealous policing. The Black Panther Party also recognized the necessity of firearms and trained with a military discipline.

“People have to be armed to have power, you see,” Hampton explained in speeches. The cops and the Panthers ultimately engaged in eight gun battles nationally, four in Chicago, including a November 1969 shootout that left 19-year-old Party member Spurgeon “Jake” Winters and two police officers dead. Shortly after, under the headline “No quarter for wild beasts,” the Chicago Tribune wrote the Black Panthers “have declared war on society” and “forfeited the right considerations ordinary violators of the law might claim.” The Black Panther Party headquarters on West Monroe Street was raided three times, and over 100 members were arrested in 1969.

“You don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.”

The founding members of the Black Panthers began building the movement multiracially through the Peace and Freedom Party. Billy “Che” Brooks, the Deputy Minister of Education for the Illinois Black Panther Party, credits Hampton with brokering an unprecedented partnership between poor urban dwellers and blue-collar workers from the countryside. In May 1969, Hampton held a press conference where he announced a nonaggression pact between Chicago gangs and the formation of what he called a “rainbow coalition.”

Also called the “poor people’s army,” the collaboration began in February 1969 when Hampton visited Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood to meet José “Cha-Cha” Jimenez, the leader of the Young Lords. The Young Lords began as a Puerto Rican street gang in 1960, but declared themselves a civil rights organization in 1968. They had shut themselves in the 18th District police station to protest the ongoing police harassment of Latin residents. The city’s police commander and the media were also locked in during the protest.

Building on the work of Chicago militant youth organization Rising Up Angry, Hampton also reached out to the Young Patriots. Led by William “Preacherman” Fesperman, it was a street organization of white youths whose parents and grandparents migrated from Appalachia looking for work and settled into their own slum. Hampton brought the leather jacketed, beret-wearing Black Panthers together with young nationalists who wore Confederate Flags on their jean jackets. It’s no wonder FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, played by Martin Sheen in Judas and the Black Messiah, was afraid that the “rise of a messiah that would unify and electrify the militant nationalist movement.”

Believing the Black Panther Party was “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,” according to Curt Gentry’s book J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets, Hoover formed the Bureau’s counterintelligence program, known as COINTELPRO. Its aim was to discredit and undermine radical groups, with a particular emphasis on Black leaders. Hampton’s name was added to the FBI’s Agitator Index two weeks before his death.

Local law enforcement also pursued Hampton. Judas and the Black Messiah highlights Hampton’s conviction for stealing $71 worth of ice cream, which he allegedly gave away to local children. Hampton was sentenced to two to five years in prison. The conviction was eventually overturned, but police harassment continued. The arrest wasn’t the first. In January 1969, Hampton was arrested on an old traffic warrant while appearing on television.

“You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution.”

By late 1969, many top Black Panther Party members had been killed, jailed, or left the U.S. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale faced criminal charges, Hampton was elevated to national spokesman for the party. “You might run a liberator like Eldridge Cleaver out of the country,” Hampton said in a press conference during the Chicago 7 trial. “But you can’t run liberation out of the country. You might murder a freedom fighter like Bobby Hutton, but you can’t murder freedom fighting.”

The “Massacre on Monroe,” as the raid on Hampton’s apartment was labeled by the Panthers, began at approximately 4:45 a.m. on Dec. 4, 1969 when about a dozen police officers executed a search warrant for illegal weapons inside the West Side apartment Hampton shared with several fellow Black Panthers. A layout of Hampton’s apartment had been provided by William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield in the movie), an informant who had been groomed by the FBI to infiltrate the Panthers after a teenage career in petty crime. Played by Stanfield, he is the “Judas” in the movie’s title. Rising to the upper echelons of the Chicago faction’s inner circle, O’Neal had also allegedly dosed Hampton with barbiturates.

According to the Jeffrey Haas’ book, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, Hampton’s fiancée, who is now named Akua Njeri, recalled Hampton had been working late into the night and drifted off to sleep while talking on the phone in bed. When the raid began, Mark Clark, who organized a Peoria chapter of the Party, was on security duty at the front door of the apartment. He was shot in the heart as the cops stormed the room. As his body fell, he fired once from the shotgun on his lap. Njeri, who was then pregnant with Hampton’s son, had been sleeping in bed next to Hampton when the police began shooting into the apartment. Njeri said Panthers tried to wake Hampton, but he remained unconscious amidst the smell of gunpowder and the five-minute barrage of bullets.

The cops headed to Hampton’s bedroom and fired at the bed, striking Hampton but missing Njeri. The shooting broke when a Panther yelled that Njeri was nine months pregnant. She was thrown into the kitchen, as officers entered the bedroom. Njeri later stated she heard one officer ask, “Is he still alive?” before hearing two gunshots fired. “When it stopped another voice unfamiliar to me said, ‘He’s good and dead now,’” she recalled, according to The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.

The police found no illegal weapons during the raid. The seven Panthers who survived, four of them wounded, were arrested for aggravated assault and attempted murder. The deaths of Hampton and Clark were ruled justifiable homicides. Police said the killings were in self-defense, the Black Panthers fired the first shots, and they had been responding to gunfire. Njeri, who would give birth to Fred Hampton Jr. weeks later, was charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault along with other Panthers, and held on $100,000 bond.

Illinois Black Panthers Defense Minister Bobby Rush went underground after the raid. After learning the cops were looking for him, he found refuge at a Catholic church on the South Side and in an apartment attic in the Gold Coast section of the city. He turned himself over to the authorities at a church service presided over by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson. Today, Rush is a Democratic congressman from Chicago.

The raid was directed by Cook County state’s attorney Edward Hanrahan. “The immediate, violent, criminal reaction of the occupants in shooting at announced police officers emphasizes the extreme viciousness of the Black Panther Party,” Hanrahan said in a statement after the shooting. Hanrahan told the Chicago Tribune he and his officers had no idea Hampton or Clark were in the apartment. The paper ran exclusive photos which purported to show holes from bullets fired by Black Panther members.

The Chicago Daily News countered the police reports on Dec. 10, reporting “Without warning, the detectives began firing toward mattresses near the southeast corner of the living room of the apartment, the eyewitnesses said. Clark was killed in the volley.” Hampton was shot “while still in his bed.” The Sun-Times hit Page One with news that the photos released by Hanrahan’s office were nail heads.

Police staged a filmed reenactment of the raid, which was broadcast on WBBM-TV. The apartment where the shooting happened was not sealed off by officials, and the Black Panthers conducted tours to show evidence that police did most of the shooting. Columnist Mike Royko of The Daily News reported that, after inspecting the apartment “more than once,” the claim that police were fired on by the Black Panthers “doesn’t mesh with the condition of the place.”

Charges against the Black Panthers who’d survived the raid were dismissed in 1970 after Hanrahan conceded ballistic tests and forensic issues undermined the state’s case. A federal grand jury investigation found police fired 82 to 99 times. Only one shot was fired from someone inside the apartment: Clark, who fired off a shot from his lap after being shot in the heart. Hanrahan was indicted along with 13 others on charges that they attempted to prevent the prosecution of police officers for their role in the raid. Hanrahan and the others were acquitted by a Cook County judge in late October. Hanrahan was voted out of office in 1972.

“They talked us into buying candy bars and throwing the candy away and eating the wrapper.”

The Hampton and Clark families were represented by Flint Taylor of the People’s Law Office. The $47 million lawsuit was the longest civil rights trial in federal court at the time. After 13 years of litigation, the legal team helped expose the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program. The People’s Law Office filed numerous motions with Judge Parry requesting all FBI files relating to the Illinois Panthers and COINTELPRO.

While most attempts were blocked, the few documents which were made available showed the drawing of the floor plan of Hampton’s apartment made by O’Neal. This exposed him as a paid informant because the FBI gave him a special bonus to thank him for providing the diagram. A separate document outlined a deal between the FBI and U.S. deputy attorney general Richard Kleindienst to conceal the existence of COINTELPRO, according to “The Black Panthers and the Assassination of Fred Hampton,” by Hans Bennett.  Another document showed the FBI made a deal with deputy attorney general Jerris Leonard, who led the 1970 federal grand jury investigation.

In 1975, a U.S. Senate Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church found the COINTELPRO Program was bent on destroying the Black Panther Party and its leadership. In 1983, the same year Harold Washington was elected the first Black mayor of Chicago, a settlement was reached for the city of Chicago, Cook County and the federal government to pay $1.85 million to survivors of the raid and to Hampton’s and Clark’s families. The ruling stated the government conspired against the Black Panther Party and violated the civil rights of the plaintiffs.

More than 5,000 people attended Hampton’s funeral at First Baptist Church of Melrose Park on Dec. 9, 1969. Reverend Jesse Jackson, who would resurrect the Rainbow Coalition, delivered one of the eulogies. The Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party dubbed Dec. 9 “International Revolutionary Day.” They hold a vigil at the site of the police raid, 2337 W. Monroe St., “ground zero” for the struggle for black liberation, to memorialize the anniversary of the deaths. The apartment is not the same. The building where police killed Hampton and Clark has been torn down.

The Legacy of Fred Hampton

“I believe I’m going to die doing the things I was born to do,” Hampton is quoted as saying in Judas and the Black Messiah. “I believe I’m going to die high off the people. I believe I’m going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.” Hampton died three months after his 21st birthday, his fiancée was only eighteen. Fred Hampton Jr., the son of the martyred Black Panther leader, continues his father’s works by serving the community and people through the Black Panther Party Cubs, an international organization.

The original 10 points of The Black Panthers’ “What We Want Now!” demands included land, bread, decent housing, education, full employment, clothing, justice and peace. The desire for “the power to determine the destiny of the Black Community” was declared radical at the time. The call for “an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people” is still stifled by the choke hold of reactionary resistance.

Hampton heard that call long before he became a statistic of it. Those cries continue into the 21st century from Willie Ray Banks through Eric Garner and George Floyd. The death of Sandra Bland resulted in a Day of Rage in 2015. Chicago underwent three “Days of Rage” in October 1969 over similar abuses.

Fred Hampton’s words inflicted deeper wounds than the  bullets used to silence him. In his life, he was a regular voice on news broadcasts. He brought revolutionary socialist policies to national TV. Pro-police groups consistently resist community efforts to portray Hampton as a martyr because they regard the Black Panthers as a militant organization that killed police. Following in the footsteps of Malcolm X, Black Panthers equated self-defense with common sense, acting as if Black lives mattered.

Hampton was a man of his words, actively listening to the needs of the people and delivering on the promises he could keep. His actions were loud, and still reverberate on the streets, classrooms, clinics and the halls of justice. His example continues to inspire the fight against the excesses of the police, but Hampton might see himself as an amplifier.

He gave volume to sounds society was deaf to. He gave them voice and his words were ammunition. He took the silencers off the weapons of self-determination.  “When I leave, you’ll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary,” Hampton said. “And you’re going to have to keep on saying that. You’re going to have to say that I am a proletariat, I am the people.”

We hear you. 

Judas and the Black Messiah opens in theaters and premieres on HBO Max on Feb. 12.

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The post Judas and the Black Messiah Remembers Fred Hampton Was a Man of His Words appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[handeaux]

The “First Chinese-American” Had A Rough Time In Cincinnati

A small audience – reports say no more than 50 people – turned out on the evening of Sunday, 8 January 1882, to hear Wong Chin Foo at Cincinnati’s Melodeon Hall. That venue, almost opposite the Mercantile Library on Walnut near Fourth, was regularly filled with thousands of listeners for visiting orators.

Wong Chin Foo was certainly the most famous Chinese lecturer in America at that time. He was also among the more controversial debaters of the day. Those Cincinnatians who did show up at the Melodeon heard a presentation titled “Man’s Religion In China and God’s Religion In America Compared.” The only newspaper to cover the talk, the Cincinnati Gazette [9 January 1882], spent more time describing Wong Chin Foo’s costume than the man himself:

“The lecturer is a good looking man of about thirty, and would be a fluent speaker were his mastery of English more complete. He wore a long black woolen gown, lined with sky blue satin, and a black silk cap. A long gold chain was hung around his neck, and before he began speaking he took off an outside jacket of brown brocade, lined, like his gown, with blue satin.”

Mr. Wong spent a fair portion of his talk comparing Christianity to the Confucian culture of China, but his major message was aimed at dispelling American myths about China and the Chinese. Wong explained that his countrymen did not eat rats, were not idolaters, did not kill female infants and were willing to adopt modern technology – but on their own terms. Most emphatically, Wong said, China did not need Christianity.

After years of lecturing across America, Wong summarized his arguments in a provocative essay published in the North American Review (August 1887):

“Christians are continually fussing about religion; they build great churches and make long prayers; and yet there is more wickedness in the neighborhood of a single church district of one thousand people in New York than among one million heathen, churchless and unsermonized. Christian talk is long and loud about how to be good and to act charitably. It is all charity, and no fraternity – ‘there, dog, take your crust and be thankful!’ And is it, therefore, any wonder there is more heart-breaking and suicides in the single State of New York in a year than in all China?”

Wong’s anti-Christian message gained him a lot of attention across America, and lots of paying customers (outside of Cincinnati) for his lectures, but he also aggravated some very dangerous enemies. Many of the Chinese living in the United States in the 1880s had converted to Christianity and had found passage to this country under the auspices of missionary organizations. Wong’s worst enemies were his fellow Chinese immigrants.

It was not unusual for Wong Chin Foo to find himself in court on his travels, facing trumped up charges pressed by Christian Chinese. That is exactly what happened in Cincinnati. A dispute over a printing bill arose among Wong, his host, and some Christian Chinese in town. The matter was trivial and a judge dismissed the case. As the Gazette [3 February 1882] related:

“The Court said both gentlemen were men of intelligence, and the war is one of intellect.”

Wong Chin Foo departed the Midwest and relocated to New York, where he founded a newspaper called “The Chinese American” and spent the next 15 years lobbying for civil rights for his fellow Chinese immigrants. The name of his newspaper is believed to be the first use of the term, “Chinese-American.”

Wong was born in China in 1847 and came to the United States to study, sponsored by a Christian missionary. He attended classes at George Washington University and Bucknell University, but became disenchanted with Western culture and returned to China, where he married and fathered a son. In the early 1870s, he tried to organize a rebellion against the Qing Dynasty and was forced to flee back to America. He earned United States citizenship in 1874.

In 1882, the same year Wong had his troubles in Cincinnati, the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although the law was intended only to prohibit the importation of unskilled laborers, American immigration authorities used a broad interpretation of the law to ban and deport all Chinese, even students and businessmen. Wong, a naturalized citizen, was refused a U.S. passport because he had been born in China.

In his efforts to build support for his countrymen and his culture, Wong Chin Foo had a great impact on how Americans thought of their Chinese neighbors. A column he wrote for a New York culinary magazine constitutes the first introduction many Americans had to Chinese food. In his columns, he described chop suey (Chinese zasui) and explained soy sauce.

Wong was a master of the publicity stunt. When a viciously anti-Chinese labor leader named Dennis Kearney charged that Chinese immigrants were stealing American jobs, Wong challenged him to a duel with “chopsticks, Irish potatoes, or Krupp guns.” They did not actually fight, but the newspapers egged them into a debate where the erudite Wong trounced Kearney. Throughout his life, Wong refused to bow to the white race. As he wrote:

“Of course, we decline to admit all the advantages of your boasted civilization; or that the white race is the only civilized one. Its civilization is borrowed, adapted, and shaped from our older form.”

Eventually, Wong Chin Foo made his way back to China, despite the price on his head, and died, reunited with his wife and son, in 1898. He was just 51.

[theblacktivity-blog]

A Tale of Two Cities

In over the past decade, the city of Richmond, VA, the hometown of my birth and maturation,  has seen what has often been described as a sea-change in its reputation and cultural texture. The capital city having been the political epicenter of Virginia for nearly 240 years and the once capital city of the confederacy during the succession of southern states from the union, has in recent years been seen as one of the chief cities in the growing cosmopolitanism of the south (I argue that Virginia is more mid-Atlantic...but that’s for another time). I remember vividly the Richmond of my youth, when it was it was considered something of an expanded rest stop for those traveling either north to Washington D.C. and beyond, or those traveling South to Virginia Beach or down and past the Carolinas. It was a city whose chief claim to fame was once its Civil War rich “legacy”, the history of the trolleys and streetcars, and it’s sprawling neighborhoods (of which it’s redlined background is public knowledge). I was born and raised in Gilpin Court, a public housing complex north of the James River, in an area known as Jackson Ward, which at the height of its powers in the early twentieth century was known to many by such superlatives as “The Harlem of the South” or “The Birthplace of Black Capitalism”. This was due to the role in which African Americans, both working class and prominent, played in the development of a bustling and successful neighborhood at a time when Blacks were maligned at every turn as a matter of American “normalcy”. The community boasted such influential figures as banking magnate Maggie L. Walker, entertainer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson,  publisher John Mitchell, and Booker T. Washington’s pupil and famous lawyer Jackson W. Giles. Further, throughout its most formative years Jackson Ward was the city’s entertainment hub for not only Black patrons but for whites from across town as well, as acts such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, and James Brown (among others) frequently performed at the Hippodrome Theatre and stayed at the Black owned Eggleston Hotel, both on 2nd Street or “The Deuce” as it was known at the time. However, by the time that I was born in 1985, it was President Ronald Reagan’s second term in office, the crack epidemic was at its height, and the neighborhood once known for Black excellence had become a shell of its former self. This was in no small part due to President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Program of the 1950’s that only 35 years prior began cutting through the neighborhood clearing out once prosperous areas, combining with redlining policies that tanked housing prices and encouraged institutional and individual neglect of Black communities, and subsequently creating vacuums of poverty, many of which last until this day. The Gilpin Court/Jackson Ward of my childhood then, was one that was at once filled with love though existing within the prevailing economic struggles and violent epidemics of the times. Further, it didn’t help that federal policies made it so that police were given license to wage all out war on Black communities via the narrative of crack as a criminal rather than public health matter. It wasn’t uncommon to for police stop by one’s home under the guise of community involvement (only when I would become old enough to understand would I come to realize these were just illegal searches of the homes of friends and family…) but because of the violence of the period it wasn’t uncommon for otherwise reasonable people to carry weapons. (my mother and sister once both owned guns due the the rash of break ins that occurred due to addicts attempting to feed the habit). It was during this era and the subsequent 90’s that Richmond was considered a city to stay away from. Wars concentrated mostly in poor Black neighborhoods were the constant source of angst for citizens, community leaders, and local politicians downtown. Further, City Hall had its own troubles as charges of mismanagement of funds were rampant and one of its own council members publicly battled heroin addiction. The peak of the violence was the year of 1994 which saw one of the highest homicide rates in the city’s history including one of its most noted massacres when in October of 1994 Christopher Goins a small time hustler, murdered the entire family of his unborn child’s mother, a then 14 year old Tameka Jones. James Randolph 35, Daphne Jones 29 (Tameka’s mother), and her younger sister Nicole Jones 9, and her little brothers David Jones 4, and Robert Jones 3, were all brutally slaughtered when Goins walked into the Gilpin Court apartment and emptied his Glock 45 throughout the home. In the process Tameka was also shot but survived only because her unborn child took the majority of the bullets dying in utero. Her youngest sister, Kenya, was shot in the arm, but survived as well. All taking place up the street from where I lived at the time, remember the cold and rainy October day. In third grade I remember hearing over the PA system that Nicole had passed and I remember hearing Mrs. Hatcher, one of the many teachers at Carver Elementary, attempting to dedicate a song over the the intercom as her voice trembled audibly fighting back tears. This was also the decade that saw the murder of Harold Marsh, a prominent lawyer, judge, and brother of the city’s first Black mayor and civil rights icon Henry Marsh. With this and other senseless crimes,  measures were taken to sweep the streets of weapons via Project Exile, a program championed by then Mayor Tim Kaine (who to be clear was a great mayor with a history before politics of fighting against housing discrimination and redlining) which vouched a mandatory five year sentence for those caught with illegal handguns. While the efforts at reducing crime were in part a response to the surge of violence in the 1990’s this program alone did little to address the fundamental causes of poverty and its adjacent symptom, crime. Still, toward the end of the 1990’s and into the new millennium, Richmond was proclaiming itself to be a city on the move, and looking to expand its tax base by attracting more businesses, and professional residents. Part in parcel of this move would be accomplished through the re-imaging of the city, which meant less focus on reporting crime and more focus on reporting development, not to mention the advent of Virginia Commonwealth University’s expanded involvement in the community at large. Students of the urban campus would bring about the youth and hip appeal to the surrounding neighborhoods that were at the time just in the genesis of reeling from decades of neglect. The hope was that those students would graduate to careers in the city that would have them stay as permanent citizens creating a new revenue base. Further, the with the professional class and business interest of the city growing younger, the desire to re-migrate in closer proximity to the city began to grow and with this, in 2005 under the mayoral leadership of former Governor Douglas L. Wilder, Project Renaissance Richmond began in earnest. The combination of VCU’s expansion, in conjunction with developer interest in the neighborhoods of Jackson Ward, Carver, Church Hill, and Shockoe Bottom, brought business and private speculators and newly migrated residents to the fore. Meanwhile, lifelong residents watched as the neighborhoods they had known all of their lives changed before their eyes. While change was indeed welcome, a source of contention was whether or not the fruits of that change would be available for all residents, after all many of these communities were those with a history of being redlined, concentrated poverty, and crime. As speculators began to collect distressed property at discounted rates, this pace was exacerbated with the historic tax credit incentive available to all investors willing to seed capital in these abandoned enclaves. Existing residents, mostly African Americans without the access to capital nor the working knowledge of the markets, found themselves either selling properties below market value or being priced out as emerging service industries attracted new higher income residents. Meanwhile many of the adjacent public housing complexes most of which are end the east end of the city, continued to see much of the same crime as before albeit at lower rates than in the previous decade. As leaders both civic and entrepreneurial championed the city’s emerging growth and Virginia as a whole became recognized as one of the top states in the nation for new business, the poverty rate steadily climbed. Abandoned warehouses gave way to condominiums, boarded up and once condemned single family residences became recreations of homes from years past that combined charm with modern chic. Local industry began to flourish as well. In particular downtown’s finance and banking industry, the restaurant and hospitality sector, the medical industry, government, entertainment and nightlife, and most famously the beer brewing sector. In 2009 on the heels of the economic collapse of 2008 and the inauguration of the nation’s first African American president, Barack Obama, the administration of Mayor Dwight C. Jones was underway, and in the wake of this most historic time in history Richmonders like those of many other cities were both attempting to regain equilibrium from the effects of global financial collapse, and look to the future with some optimism. While the crash affected speculation of real estate briefly with a squeeze on lending, those most hurt by the crisis were those who lived in the inner city where jobs are scarce and when available are often low wage. Meanwhile development around Richmond’s emerging industries and real estate continued accelerate. VCU’s footprint on the whole of the downtown area as well as those of private business interest went as far as achieving the unsettling measure put forth by those within the corridors of City Hall and the GRTC (the city’s transit company), of re-routing buses to backstreets, as to clear the Broad Street artery of of the bustle that was to be found mostly from 2nd to 9th streets going eastbound. Such a measure appeared to many as a dog whistle to clearing the main thoroughfare of it mostly Black and working class citizens, as condominiums, art galleries, coffee shops, and boutiques took the place of former convenience stores and soul food restaurants. The paradox of this change was the reality of the city’s poverty rate which was found by 2014 to stand at 25%. While the business community and local politicians checked off victory boxes with every new contract to build enterprise and with every neighborhood gentrified to the benefit of a few, local schools, most of which cater to young African American children from struggling communities, crumbled under the weight of decades of infrastructural decay. Even as major (and even admirable) development of the downtown area continued to shape the rebranding of the city from Richmond to the more hip ‘RVA’, the same songs filled the the newswaves when it came to the underdevelopment of the cities most vulnerable communities, all the more problematic given the adjacency of such communities to what was often touted in theory (but not application) to be opportunity for all citizens. Fast forward to 2017, and one can see that on the one hand RVA has now become one of the faster growing cities in the nation, home to the number one public arts university in the nation in VCU as well as one of the top schools in medicine. There are no shortage of young future affluents promenading the corridors of Jackson Ward, Carver, Church Hill, and The Fan. And as art and beer has become the city’s signature staples, there have been no shortage of exhibits by emerging artist who have decided to stake their claim to RVA as their springboard into the white walls of the gallery. In much the way that Brooklyn in the 1980’s gave way to new and daring generation of artist, entrepreneurs, creatives, and visionaries, Richmond appears in many ways to be the new millennium's version of that direction. One problem: in 2017, the city is once again finding itself in the midst of one of its violent years. The prior year, 2016, saw the most homicides in a decade.  Concentrated per usual among mostly poor African American neighborhoods, those in the know continue to turn a blind eye to the links between systemic racism, poverty, and crime. Even as the East End, Northside, and Southside of town develop to the liking of tourist and the affluent, the larger question of the democratization of opportunity somehow evades those in positions of leadership. The Office of Community Wealth Building, an anti poverty task force started under Mayor Dwight Jones in 2015 and headed in part by U of R Professor Thad Williamson, was and is still a continuing effort to derail the effects of poverty. However with a budget estimated to be only worth 10 million dollars and with job creation at the center, however noble this cause it does little to address the vacuums of strife that exist, a direct result of federal, state, and local housing policies that were racist in their intent and quite frankly, successful in their intended outcome. The link between the city’s revival, despite all of its beauty and fanfare and beauty, cannot be separated from the insidious cycle of racialized urbanization. Once upon a time living in a community that was considered majority Black (or even if it wasn’t and you were one of only a few Black faces) meant that to the government and banks, your neighborhood was worthless at worst, and at best “lacked the value” of neighborhoods considered white. This had the effect of whole areas being divested of equity and investment and as a result, ghettos were created. These so called “ghettos” concentrated poverty and crime into these areas as those who fled to the suburbs enjoyed greener pastures that Blacks in the city were shut off from. Then one day, when those who had built tremendous equity and wealth in the suburbs decided that the city was once again desirable, the “ghettos” that residents had spent decades living and fighting for investment in became invested in by the “flighters” or the sons and daughters or grandsons and daughters of the former “flighters”, and for this ambitious politicians were grateful, because economically neoliberal policies work best when it appears as if problems are being solved, with as little “dirty work” as possible. In the process those in the “ghettos” not only found themselves continually reeling from more of the same...violence, drugs, crime, poverty, shame, but also find themselves on the outside looking in on the lands of opportunity developing around them without tools to access it. Meanwhile in the public eye, leaders feign victory for the city as a whole while privately wringing their hands at the latest crime report, knowing all along the true reason for the dichotomy between the mostly white haves and the mostly Black have nots.  

[tomhasson-blog]

Equal Rights By Peter Tosh: Revisiting The Masterpiece 35 Years On

Originally published on The Quietus - April 2012

35 years on from its release in April 1977, what was Peter Tosh addressing with his Equal Rights album, asks Thomas Hasson, and what, if anything, has changed since?

In response to the Jamaican government’s refusal to allow Black Power supporter Dr Walter Rodney permission to re-enter Jamaica after his trip to a black writers conference in Montreal, The Rodney Riots began on the 16th October 1968.

Concerned about the effect this Guyanese civil rights thinker would have in Jamaica, the government declared Rodney, a lecturer in African History at the University of the West Indies, to be an undesirable person.

But the very move the government made "to save the nation" (as The Gleaner, a Jamaican daily broadsheet, put it) was the very thing that sparked chaos.

Taking part that day in the demonstrations and looting was one Winston Hubert McIntosh, known to most as Peter Tosh. He placed himself behind the wheel of a coach, drove it towards a local shopping precinct and rammed it through a glass storefront. All around him people piled in to loot what they could before climbing on board the coach as Tosh backed out and ferried them all back to Trench Town.

Both the police and army were dispatched to quell the violence that was spewing out onto the streets of Kingston, causing millions of dollars in property damage. People were killed and many were injured.

These random acts of violence and destruction had the government spooked. But scarier still was that protesting alongside Tosh and the Trench Town activists were middle class students. This was unprecedented. Between them they had been heard to chant slogans pertaining to Black Power, a movement that was causing ripples not just in Kingston, but across the world.

On the very morning that the Rodney Riots began, 1,500 miles away, African American athletes and Olympic medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos were to be seen giving the Black Power Salute as the U.S. anthem played at Mexico City’s Olympic Stadium.

This silent gesture was one of the strongest political statements in the history of the Games. It was not, however, a welcome gesture. The athletes were booed as they stood down from the podium and subsequently ejected from the US Olympic team.

Peter Tosh may have been imprudent in his method of protest, but all around him, signs pointed towards something indisputable. Things were not equal. They were not right.

The anger inside of Peter Tosh had been building for many years; as a child he was asked to sing at his local church a hymn that included the lyrics; “Lord wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” He was nine years old and it filled him with disgust.

Personal, national and international events had conspired together to create anger and frustration within Tosh about these iniquities.

"The truth has been branded, outlawed and [made] illegal. It is dangerous to have the truth in your possession. You can be found guilty and sentenced to death." Peter Tosh.

In 1977 Peter Tosh released Equal Rights, a rallying cry against what he called the ‘shitstem’, his declaration of rage against the injustices he had seen all around him.

It was his finest studio album, cementing his position as one of the most outspoken artists of the 70s. And although he’d suffered at the hands of the ‘shitstem’ many times before, the album notably called not for revenge but for justice. Revenge is personal, justice is political.

Setting out his stall with a version of 'Get Up, Stand Up', Tosh makes it clear that equal rights will not come without a fight. He follows this call to arms with 'Downpressor Man', a warning to any and all oppressors of him and his brethren. “You can run but you can’t hide” Tosh sings, ominously.

At no point does this record relent from its militant message. “Don’t underestimate my ability,” he sings on 'I Am That I Am'. And on 'Stepping Razor' (the Joe Higgs song Tosh claimed as his own before a legal battle forced him to credit Higgs) he lets it be known in no uncertain terms just how dangerous he is.

He sings on the title track of the album that he doesn’t want peace, but that he needs “equal rights and justice”. It’s here that he asserts his message most powerfully. By dismissing peace so easily, he maintains that what’s needed won’t come without a fight.

What Tosh hopes to achieve is made clear in the album artwork. Six identical images of Tosh’s face, head turned and wearing a beret and his trademark goggles, are repeated on the cover of the record, calling to mind both propaganda posters during wartime and those of political leaders fighting for office. Look closer and you see that the edges of each image are perforated like a sheet of stamps; the idea of CBS designer Andy Engel.

Those whose images grace postal stamps generally are not singers, they are typically the leaders of countries. It would appear that this is where Tosh saw himself; as a leader of people, leading the fight for equal rights.

But as much as the album is informed by Tosh’s struggle for justice, it is influenced equally by his faith. Tosh had been exposed to the teachings and way of life of the Rastafari as far back as 1963, and by the time he released Equal Rights he was a convert. Both 'African' and 'Jah Guide' make music of his beliefs. Dealing with identity in the former track, Tosh makes clear that to be black is be African; one of Marcus Garvey’s key teachings. In 'Jah Guide' Tosh delivers a rousing justification for the upcoming fight for equal rights: “Jah guide I through this valley.” His path was righteous.

“Every form of victimisation is universal, not only in Jamaica.” Peter Tosh

Herbie Miller, Tosh’s then-manager and production coordinator has said that the struggle to liberate southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa) was a key influence on the album: “The theme of this whole record is to do with that particular struggle, of the Africans in Africa, and the Africans outside Africa.” He said that Tosh had wanted to document this particular struggle with “machine-gun lyrics in a suite tying together songs that all related to those both within and without Africa.”

The final track of Equal Rights, 'Apartheid', opens with the sound of gunshots. Eight years before the Artists United Against Apartheid were put together by Steven Van Zandt, Peter Tosh was singing that there were "certain place in Africa, black man get no recognition. You got to fight against apartheid”.

Peter Tosh was murdered in 1987. He didn’t live to see the ending of enforced racial segregation in South Africa, nor Nelson Mandela’s election as the country’s first ever black president in 1994.

Thirty-five years have passed since Tosh called for equal rights and justice. During that time an African American has become President of the United States, Desmond Tutu has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his outspoken criticism of the apartheid regime, and closer to Tosh’s home, an organization called Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) has been established. Since 1999 JFJ have fought for respect, freedom and the right to a peaceful existence for citizens of Jamaica.

However, just last month in Florida, USA, an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman, a non-black vigilante, because he “looked suspicious”. Trayvon was walking home to his family carrying a bag of sweets. The case is reminiscent of the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence whose death sparked an inquiry that exposed institutional racism in the UK.

Equal Rights is passionate and critical of the world Tosh saw around him, with observations that resonate to this day. Self-produced and recorded with a team of musicians including the rhythm-section powerhouse of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare who credit their international career to their work on Equal Rights and the subsequent tour to support the album. It is Tosh’s masterpiece.

When recording his Red X tapes, which were intended to form the basis of a never completed autobiography, Peter Tosh said: “I am here to play the music and to communicate with the Father spiritually so I can be inspired to make music to awaken the slumbering mentality of people.”

Equal Rights does just that.

[yeskraim]

For many young evangelicals in Iowa, climate is front and centre

Pella, Iowa, United States – Seated around long tables over lunch, two dozen students at Iowa’s Central College opened their monthly meeting on sustainability by discussing the upcoming Iowa caucuses. Among other things, the group has organised marches to the mayor’s office and written letters to elected officials.

There was no official endorsement, but Efrain Garcia reminded students to register and show up. “This is a really big election, because we have a real shot at electing a person, you can determine who that person is, that really supports sustainability,” Garcia said.

More:

Who are the 2020 US Democratic presidential candidates?

US elections 2020: When are the debates, primaries, conventions?

What can the 2019 election results tell us about 2020?

Iowans will gather at different sites around the state on Monday evening to choose candidates for the 2020 US presidential elections.

For this group of students at Central College, a school affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, the election is just as much, if not more, about engaging with an issue many grew up talking about as it is about the issues that have historically driven evangelicals and other Christians to the polls.

“I come from a very conservative family and a very conservative background, and so I used to think the sustainability movement was a very liberal agenda and a very liberal idea. And I was very turned off to the idea that I was required to take a sustainability class, because it wasn’t something that I was interested in,” said Carter Terpstra, who lives in one of the green pods on campus, where residents are required to present projects in order to keep living there, such as examining the recycling system in the athletic facilities. All students are required to take a class on sustainability. 

Terpstra started to change his mind when he saw that the issues the sustainability movement was trying to address were some of the things he cared about as a Christian.

“They’re fighting for justice. Why wouldn’t I be on board with that? But at the same time, there were some things where I was like, well, I agree and disagree with even within the whole spectrum of what sustainability is,” Terpstra said. “In hindsight now, it’s better that I was educated on it than not. Because now I know what it’s all about. My preconceived ideas did not meet reality.”

Efrain Garcia speaks to Claire Ackerman and Savanna Henning at Central College [Teresa Krug/Al Jazeera] 

Claire Ackerman declined to say what political party she affiliates with but said her Christian faith compelled her to consider protection for the earth.

“I don’t really feel a tension between my political party and my belief in climate change,” said Claire Ackerman.

Through one campus ministry she is a member of, Savanna Henning said she and others organised a campus fair hosting businesses that promote sustainable and ethical business practices.

“I guess I got really passionate about engaging with faith communities when I started seeing people that combined faith with politics and claimed things that aren’t true,” said Savanna Henning. “I would see things on Twitter where people would say, ‘Hey, like even if climate change is real, who cares? It’s all in God’s hands.’ That kind of thing, and I was like, ‘Hey, that’s not what I stand for. That’s not what I believe. We wouldn’t say that about people who are impoverished.'” 

Stickers and a candidate worksheet at Central College [Teresa Krug/Al Jazeera] 

For many students who came from religious backgrounds, conversations around climate change were not only absent, they were previously discouraged.

“[In church] we received at least this implicit message on climate change that we needed to keep that out of the church; it was too politicised, it was too liberal, because many of us grew up in a more conservative context,” said Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, national organiser and spokesman with Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA), a group has been around for less than a decade and does not advocate for one political party over another. 

A choice between issues?

Because Iowa kicks off the presidential primary and caucus season every four years, much ado is usually made over the influence that evangelicals have, though most major polls indicate the overall religiosity of the state as “average” for the US. It is not as religious as the southern part of the US, but more religious than the East and West coasts.

While Republicans are seen as more vocal when it comes to discussing their faith, a few Democratic candidates – especially former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg – have spoken openly about attending church regularly. Buttigieg has called on the Democratic Party not to shy away from this issue. 

In general, the last decade has seen a decline in those who identify as Christian. But their influence is still felt because they reliably show up and vote.

Older evangelicals are generally far more likely to deny climate change is happening than the general public. While data on younger evangelicals’ opinions of climate change is scarce, many people who study this demographic say that, in general, this group more closely aligns with others in their generation who believe that climate change is a “major threat”. 

Savanna Henning marches in a climate change protest in Des Moines, Iowa [Teresa Krug/Al Jazeera] 

Nationally, the majority of white evangelicals lean conservative and now constitute a third of the Republican base. President Donald Trump has rolled back many regulations regarding the environment while also being applauded by Christian leaders for restricting funding for abortion access and installing new conservative judges on the federal bench.

In a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, 77 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of the job Trump is doing. That number slides to about half (54 percent ) among white mainline Protestants and white Catholics (48 percent) and leans overwhelmingly to disapproval among Hispanic Catholics (72 percent) and black Protestants (86 percent). 

Ryan Burge, assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said he does not see climate change yet translating into a big enough issue to spur young, conservative evangelicals to prioritise it over other partisan issues, including abortion and smaller government.

“I think that they would like the Republican party to not be full of climate deniers, but it’s not enough for almost any of them to change who they vote for,” Burge said.

YECA’s Meyaard-Schaap said many newcomers to the climate action movement see climate change as an extension of them living out their faith, rather than separate from it, and view it as another anti-abortion rights issue.

“I think for younger evangelicals, the choice is not to resist climate action and remain sceptical or go all in on climate action. I think the choice is to leave the church and be active on climate issues or remain in the church and be active on climate issues,” Meyaard-Schaap said, adding, however, that he does see young people’s views on climate change “complicating” their approach to voting.

‘Loud and proud’

Unlike in primaries, counting in Democratic caucuses in Iowa is done publicly, which means the event tends to draw more vocal activists: people who are less concerned with which neighbours see for whom they vote.

If they do decide to caucus, Burge said he would expect to see younger evangelicals, who have warmed to the issue of same-sex marriages more than their parents, choose a more moderate candidate like Buttigieg than more progressive candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

“If you see evangelicals caucus for the Democrats, they’re gonna be loud and proud. They can’t do it quietly, because you’re gonna have to have people talk about it,” said Burge. “I think it’s worth watching, but white evangelicals are not going to vote for a Democrat over a Republican over the environment. If they don’t vote for Trump, it’s because they’re not voting for Trump because they dislike him as a person, his morality or his policies.”

Protesters march through Des, Moines, Iowa, to demand climate action [Teresa Krug/Al Jazeera] 

Zach Bonner, lecturer of political science at Iowa State University, agreed with Burge that younger evangelicals are considering issues like climate change in a way that runs contrary to their parents, but it is not yet a big enough issue to sway that many votes.

He also pointed out that while climate change has gotten some attention this election from several Democratic candidates, the issue is also not the Democratic Party’s number one concern.

“I think the Democratic side has taken it on as a main party platform issue more so than the Republican side, but I think there’s still plenty of other issues that are more front and centre, such as dealing with healthcare or gun violence,” Bonner said.

As for Henning, who did not divulge her political affiliation, she said she is only considering candidates who consider the environment. Moreover, she said she and other young evangelicals – conservative and liberal – are pushing for more than just what happens at the ballot box.

“It’s about changing the mindset of a nation,” Henning said.

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[beege-blog]

Valencia 2014 (8) 066 – The National Ceramic Museum in The Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas

We decided to go for a city break rather than sun in Tenerife again this September. Other than a few days in the North East we haven’t been away since last March and wanted a change and hopefully some sun. The problem is getting flights from the north of England to the places we want to go to. We chose Valencia as we could fly from East Midlands – which was still a pain to get to as it involved the most notorious stretch of the M1 at five in the morning. In the end we had a fairly good journey, the new Ryanair business class pre-booked scheme worked quite well and bang on time as usual. It was dull when we landed with storms forecast all week, the sky was bright grey – the kiss of death to the photography I had in mind. I was full of cold and wishing I was at work. It did rain but it was overnight on our first night and didn’t affect us. There has been a drought for eleven months apparently and it rained on our first day there! The forecast storms didn’t materialise in Valencia but they got it elsewhere.

You May notice discrepancies in the spelling of some Spanish words or names, this is because Valencian is used on signs, in some guide books and maps. There are two languages in common use with distinct differences. There may also be genuine mistakes – it has been known!

Over the course of a Monday to Sunday week we covered 75 miles on foot and saw most of the best of Valencia – The City of Bell Towers. The Old City covers a pretty large area in a very confusing layout. There was a lot of referring to maps – even compass readings! – a first in a city for us. The problem with photography in Valencia is that most of the famous and attractive building are closely built around, some have poor quality housing built on to them. Most photographs have to be taken from an extreme angle looking up. There are no high points as it is pan flat, there are a small number of buildings where you can pay to go up on to the roof for a better view and we went up them – more than once!

The modern buildings of The City of Arts and Sciences – ( Ciutat de Las Arts I de les Ciencies ) are what the city has more recently become famous for, with tourists arriving by the coachload all day until late at night. They must be photographed millions of times a month. We went during the day and stayed till dark one evening, I gave it my best shot but a first time visit is always a compromise between ambition and realism, time dictates that we have to move on to the next destination. I travelled with a full size tripod – another first – I forgot to take it with me to TCoAaS! so It was time to wind up the ISO, again! Needless to say I never used the tripod.

On a day when rain was forecast but it stayed fine, albeit a bit dull, we went to the Bioparc north west of the city, a zoo by another name. There are many claims made for this place, were you can appear to walk alongside some very large animals, including, elephants, lions, giraffe, rhino, gorillas and many types of monkey to name a few. It is laid out in different geographical regions and there is very little between you and the animals, in some cases there is nothing, you enter the enclosure through a double door arrangement and the monkeys are around you. It gets rave reviews and we stayed for most of the day. The animals it has to be said gave the appearance of extreme boredom and frustration and I felt quite sorry for them.

The course of The River Turia was altered after a major flood in the 50’s. The new river runs west of the city flanked by a motorway. The old river, which is massive, deep and very wide between ancient walls, I can’t imagine how it flooded, has been turned into a park that is five miles long. There is an athletics track, football pitches, cycle paths, restaurants, numerous kids parks, ponds, fountains, loads of bridges, historic and modern. At the western end closest to the sea sits The City of Arts and Sciences – in the river bed. Where it meets the sea there is Valencia’s urban Formula One racetrack finishing in the massive marina built for The Americas Cup. The race track is in use as roadways complete with fully removable street furniture, kerbs, bollards, lights, islands and crossings, everything is just sat on the surface ready to be moved.

We found the beach almost by accident, we were desperate for food after putting in a lot of miles and the afternoon was ticking by. What a beach, 100’s of metres wide and stretching as far as the eye could see with a massive promenade. The hard thing was choosing, out of the dozens of restaurants, all next door to each other, all serving traditional Paella – rabbit and chicken – as well as seafood, we don’t eat seafood and it constituted 90% of the menu in most places. Every restaurant does a fixed price dish of the day, with a few choices, three courses and a drink. Some times this was our only meal besides making the most of the continental breakfast at the hotel. We had a fair few bar stops with the local wine being cheap and pleasant it would have been a shame not to, there would have been a one woman riot – or strike!

On our final day, a Sunday, we were out of bed and down for breakfast at 7.45 as usual, the place was deserted barring a waiter. We walked out of the door at 8.30 – in to the middle of a mass road race with many thousands of runners, one of a series that take place in Valencia – apparently! We struggled to find out the distance, possibly 10km. The finish was just around the corner so off we went with the camera gear, taking photos of random runners and groups. There was a TV crew filming it and some local celebrity (I think) commentating. Next we came across some sort of wandering religious and musical event. Some sort of ritual was played out over the course of Sunday morning in various locations, it involved catholic priests and religious buildings and another film crew. The Catholic tourists and locals were filling the (many) churches for Sunday mass. Amongst all of this we had seen men walking around in Arab style dress – the ones in black looked like the ones from ISIS currently beheading people – all carrying guns. A bit disconcerting. We assumed that there had been some sort of battle enactment. We were wrong, it hadn’t happened yet. A while later, about 11.30 we could hear banging, fireworks? No it was our friends with the guns. We were caught up in total mayhem, around 60 men randomly firing muskets with some sort of blank rounds, the noise, smoke and flames from the muzzles were incredible. We were about to climb the Torres de Serranos which is where, unbeknown to us, the grand, and deafening, finale was going to be. We could feel the blast in our faces on top of the tower. Yet again there was a film camera in attendance. I couldn’t get close ups but I got a good overview and shot my first video with the 5D, my first in 5 years of owning a DLSR with the capability. I usually use my phone ( I used my phone as well). Later in the day there was a bullfight taking place, the ring was almost next to our hotel, in the end we had other things to do and gave it a miss, it was certainly a busy Sunday in the city centre, whether it’s the norm or not I don’t know.

There is a tram system in Valencia but it goes from the port area into the newer part of the city on the north side, it wouldn’t be feasible to serve the historic old city really. A quick internet search told me that there are 55,000 university students in the city, a pretty big number. I think a lot of the campus is on the north side and served by the tram although there is a massive fleet of buses as well. There is a massive, very impressive market building , with 100’s of stalls that would make a photo project on its own, beautiful on the inside and out but very difficult to get decent photos of the exterior other than detail shots owing to the closeness of other buildings and the sheer size of it. Across town, another market has been beautifully renovated and is full of bars and restaurants and a bit of a destination in its own right.

A downside was the all too typical shafting by the taxi drivers who use every trick in the book to side step the official tariffs and rob you. The taxi from the airport had a “broken” meter and on the way home we were driven 22 km instead of the nine that is the actual distance. Some of them seem to view tourists as cash cows to be robbed at all costs. I emailed the Marriot hotel as they ordered the taxi, needless to say no answer from Marriot – they’ve had their money. We didn’t get the rip off treatment in the bars etc. that we experienced in Rome, prices are very fair on most things, certainly considering the city location.

All in all we had a good trip and can highly recommend Valencia.

Posted by Mark Schofield @ JB Schofield on 2014-10-31 16:50:05

Tagged: , VALENCIA , SPAIN , MEDITERANEAN , OLD , CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES , PALACIO DE LAS ARTES , MUSEUM , CERAMIC , MUSEO , CREAMICO , NATIONAL , CERAMICA , DECOR , INTERIOR , PALACIODEL MARQUES DE DOS AGUAS

The post Valencia 2014 (8) 066 – The National Ceramic Museum in The Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas appeared first on Good Info.

[wildflowerfiction77]

Tales of Scarcity: Fiction 2

Hunters of the Supernatural

 Written by Daniel Vera

 Characters created by Ruben Vera

in Tales of Scarcity

 Chapter One

El Dia de Corazon 

 Some things he remembers clearly.   Like the day his brother said, “They were after you.”  Alfonso Cesar Cortez was a College Professor at the State University.  He was teaching full time in Ancient Civilizations. He was going on ten years of teaching there at the age of 38.  It was a long trek.  He never in his wildest dreams would have believed anything that was happening in his current life would be possible.  He never believed in the supernatural.    

First off, everyone he knows thinks he is crazy, paranoid or on drugs.  A few of 

them are trying to kill him.  And some of them are possessed.  His ex-wife and his 10 year old son are amongst them.  But that is a little later in the story.  It all started when he found a pair of sunglasses at the used book store in Egypt when on vacation with his then wife, Susan Evans, a famous romantic novelist.  He had purchased them, though it seemed like someone had left them there and the store owner gladly took the money.  They were a peculiar type glass, almost like a quartz or ruby crystal.  His eyes were bothering him, and the glasses seemed to clear his vision.  

They did have a changing tint to them.  Sometimes reddish, sometimes gold and sometimes aqua green.  They visited an ancient church in the desert, and along with some of the locals, they were baptized.  They weren’t religious, so they did it for the experience.  But something had happened.  He was able to see beyond people’s persona. He started seeing beyond their physical selves and into their inner selves.  At first he thought he heard some distant conversations, but no one else was there, it was the inner conversation of the people around him, but blurry.  He began to have premonitions, like a sixth sense.  He thought it must have been the food or the water.

When they returned to the States, it slowed down.  But every once in a while, he would see movement when things weren’t there.  He finally blamed it on the glasses.  He put them in storage and never thought twice, it was some side effects of the substance of the lenses.  His wife had finished her newest book and announced she was pregnant.  Alfonso was ecstatic.  He had just received his Masters and had an opportunity to teach part time at the University.  He was sure he would get a full time position as soon as it opened up and they were doing alright financially.  Again, life gave him another twist of fate, and he found out Susan was having an affair with her Agent around the first year of their son, Josephs birth.  

He couldn’t feel to bad, because he was spending a lot of time with a female co-worker at the college.  Andromeda Romanos Vitalis, a Greek clerical secretary in the Admissions department.  Soon after they developed a steamy relationship.  They were doing well until some bad luck bestowed her family in Greece and she had to move back.  They saw each other off and on, but they ultimately decided to end it after a while.  During this time, Susan and Alfonso began fighting more about domestic issues and money.  She had ran through a few different relationships.  The affair with her Agent didn’t last, he liked strip clubs in the city.  Her tennis instructor was a summer fling.  She was seeing a professional boxer at one point.  She decided to live out her books instead of writing them.  She had a vodka and powder habit for a moment, but she seemed to kick them when she married a Doctor.  Dr. Michael O’Hara.  It couldn’t have been written more cliche.  

The ten years quickly passed and Alfonso got the full time position and started to settle into his career.  Amongst dating some of his well bestowed female students every so often, and frequenting the singles bars, he was a decent father.  During that time, he did delve into his studying.  He tried to travel as much as possible, at first to meet with Andromeda, then to other locations that had meaning in Ancient History.  He started to fancy whiskey and cigars along with guns and other weapons he found through his travels.  He became pretty good at hand to hand combat and would use that to clear his mind and zero him out.  That was until he found out that he had blundered into an Ancient Curse, in the same book store he had visited 10 years prior.  This is where the story begins, that to one that is involved, it does not seems real.  

 Chapter Two

El Muerto Vivo

 Alfonso at the time of his 38th birthday completed his work day like any other day.  He woke up in the morning to a strong cup of freshly ground coffee brewing by a girl he met at the uptown singles bar a few weeks ago, Sharen; a redhead that liked to play ruff in the bed.  It was good for his cardio.  She was wearing his dress shirt and nothing else. She had the body of a dancer.  The relationship was purely physical, and they used up the morning proving it.  

Grabbing a quick hot pocket, he rushed out of his apartment to pick up his son for school, as his son had a field trip to go to.  Alfonso had bought him a special phone watch that had just hit the market.  It had all the gadgets technology could afford.  He picked him up at his mother’s place.  Susan answers the door in her work out clothes.  She always gives a condescending smirk when greeting him, just before she uses her full form and enchantress ways to play the seductress role that they both partake.  In her best Marilyn Monroe, which is pretty damn good, she sings him happy birthday.  

Joseph runs out and is ready for the school field trip to the state capital.  He is oblivious to anything but his new shoes and hat.  He runs past them and gets in the car, calling for his father to hurry up.  He wants to be early.  After a long hug from his ex, he drives the Camero to exceeding speeds and gets to the school early like requested.  Before the young boy ventures out, his father gives him the new watch.  He tries to explain what the watch is, but Joseph says he already knows and thanks his dad before running off.  

Alfonso gets to his school a little late, like the whole semester he has been.  He runs into his boss on the way up the stairs to his 11 am class. He swears they must be following him.  Dr. Mick Clooney, a towering figure always dressed in as much black as he can.  He must only own black suits and ties.  His accent says he’s from South Africa, but he’s been in the U.S. for quite some time.  A blond haired, blue eyed man, most likely a descendant from Germany, around 6’3, 230 pounds.  He wonders how this man even got into this profession.  He looks like he should be a retired MMA fighter that can still fight.  At every faculty function, he just stands there answering any in coming questions and usually sipping a hot tea.  He never is the first one to initiate an interaction unless job related, usually to reprimand.  They started working at the college around the same time.  He was promoted around 5 years ago to Dean of the History Department.  The previous Dean had passed away in a car accident.  He was an older gentleman, Dr. Henry Shoemaker.  He was the person who encouraged Alfonso to apply for the job. 

 Dr. Clooney says to Alfonso, “Are you late again Mr. Cortez?”

 Alfonso replies, “It’s my birthday, I got caught up in traffic.”

 Dr. Clooney ends the conversation with, “See me in my office after you finish your class.”

 “Shit, and my day started to good.”  He thinks to himself as he walks into a classroom full of 35 students waiting to pass a class they don’t want to take, but are required to.  He unclips his briefcase with a thumb-drive that has the years lectures safely saved from prying eyes.  The computer gives him problems once again.  It’s a persistent bug that has plagued the semester.  He improvises instead for the hour on the South American Amazon and how the idea of Wonder Woman fits into the lost mythology; ancient civilizations, got to love it. 

In front of the class for the whole semester, sits one the most gorgeous 21 year old woman he has ever seen.  There seems to be one every year.  Most years he has been able to fend them off either by indifference or keeping busy.  They usually seem to be persistent, and very persuasive,  running into him around town, or at social functions.  This year, Misha Michelle, a brunette with green eyes, a sharp tongue and a sure double for Megan Fox, with the body of Salma Hayek, likes to stay after class and ask questions.  Normally he answers and does office work, but he ran into her a few weeks ago at an ice cream shop after a night out at the bars, and they had a moment in the bathroom.  Since then, he has found it hard to look away when she wears mini skirts and loose tank tops.  She gives him a birthday present after class in a broom closet no one frequents. 

He quickly finds himself on the way to the Deans office.  In transit he runs into a few co workers.  Standing at the secretary’s desk is his long time rival, Jason Burgs, a fellow Historian. Jason and Alfonso met a few years ago when Mr. Burgs was hired as an Art History professor.  Turns out he is qualified to take Alfonso’s job as well.  He seems to be around when things are not going well for Alfonso.  The bald head, bearded man, gives him a tip of the hat of his fedora as they pass by each other.  Alfonso would quickly beat the tar out this skinny man if he would not lose his job over it.  

 Chapter Three

Lamentum por el Fin

 Alfonso is on a plane to Egypt.  It is three months later from when he walked into the office.  Dean McClooney had been waiting for him.  The conversation started very cold and ended somewhere in the Arctic.  He still doesn’t quite understand what McClooney was hinting at.  He goes through it in his head as he sits in coach.  He was reprimanded for a poor semester performance.  There were issues on his lack of enthusiasm, preparation, and not following the syllabus.  His long rants on subjects of the supernatural and folklore of Ancient Civilizations had began worrying his co-workers and students.  For the life of him, he didn’t know which ones, other than Burgs and a couple of other rambunctious ego driven student; he fails to recall their names. So they agreed to a one year, paid leave hiatus.  

So Alfonso decided to make a five week vacation to Egypt to finish a paper he started.  More importantly though, to find the shop in which he first picked up the glasses that sparked his interest in the unknown.  The summer before his last semester at the University, he found the pair of glasses on his kitchen table.  He figured his son had discovered them while burrowing to find some materials for his school projects in the attic.  As memorabilia, he decided to wear them every so often.  The girl he was seeing at the time seemed to like them.  She was into retro culture.  He actually thought they were pretty cool.  He was going through his midlife crises.  He started noticing more symbols than normal in advertisements, movies and mass media in general that pertained to ancient folklore than normal.  It was a new wave of glorification for some pretty dark histories and cults.  He also started seeing them in city mason buildings.  He knew it was a dangerous subject, so he tried to unsee them.  

Then he started noticing his dreams were being invaded by an outside source.  They started to veer towards subject matter that was abnormal to his normal train of thoughts.  Strangers would look at him with recognition, and often be holding those symbols he saw in the media, and now in his dreams.  It wasn’t long before his acquaintances would bring up weird subjects, as well as his students and family, like dark matter and time traveling.  They started questioning him about his personal life and even his intimate life.  He was sure they were watching him on video survey-lance in his bedroom, car and even bathroom.  He started losing money in the stock market, in which he usually did quite well.  Everything took a serious turn on him, and he thought these glasses might have something to do with it, especially when he started to notice a change in Susan and Joseph.

As he slept on the plane, he again started to have an unfamiliar dream.  It was a forced projection of an underground city.  The city was abandoned and underwater.  He was looking for gold treasure.  He was able to breathe underwater and move almost like normal, dressed in a business suit.  He started noticing the sea life as he was digging and moving old cars and T.V.’s.  At first, they were sea horses and clown fish, turtles and dolphins.  Then the dream became more aggressive, with sharks and octopuses swimming around him.  He didn’t panic, but rather kept digging and moving man made objects out of the way.  Soon he found a golden crown with jewels from around the world inside of a treasure chest of gold.  The last thing he remembers is a vast amount of piranhas that began to eat the sharks.  Then he woke up.  

He had landed and found himself in Egypt.  He made his way through the city as he took in the sights.  It was still vaguely familiar.  He remembered the heat as the taxi sat in traffic.  It seems he found the taxi with no air conditioner.  He cracks open the wind in hopes there is a breeze.  A boy shows up and speaking broken English, shows him a basket of Egypt memorabilia.  Included are buttons, flags, key chains, maps, travel guides and toy robots.  The robots are programmed with three patriotic saying from Egypt, about the size of a palm.  He decided to go with a travel guide, just to have something to mark in as he makes his way to the shop he was anxious to find again.  

They finally make it to the Hotel.  Famished and jet lagged, he decides to check in and clean up, before ordering room service and taking a nap.  When he wakes up, it is around midnight in Egypt.  He decides to start working on his paper on Carl Yung.  It started off being a dissertation on the connection of the pyramids and dreams.  He’s been working on it for a while.  

 Chapter Four

La Dama

 Noon, he arrives at the shop.  To his surprise, it is exactly how he remembers.  It’s as if nothing had changed.  The little old man behind the counter was now missing.  The smell of incense fills the air as the low light of candles and sunlight through drapes reveal the many treasures on the shelves.  Books, jewelry, small statues made of multiple precious materials, dolls, intricate boxes of craftsmanship, tapestry’s, and crystals fill most of the store.  He doesn’t remember it having so many highly expensive commodities.  

A woman’s voice pierces the low cultural music’s atmosphere.  She is a tall, slender Egyptian beauty unrivaled by any woman he has ever seen.  Her slow movement and warm honey voice asks if she can help him in her native tongue.  She wears a gown of royalty and the jewelry to match.  He is astonished that she would be in such an occupation in such a hidden place.  He hesitates to answer, forgetting what he came to do.  She smiles and speaks in English, asking the same question.  Somehow that breaks his spell, and he quickly fumbles a response.  He greets her and complements her on her beauty and her shop.  She responds humbly. 

He then begins to speak in Egyptian, and asks about the old man, and tells her the story of when he was last in the shop.  Her gaze seems to penetrate into his mind.  Uneasy, his level of breathing begins to heighten and he accidentally bumps into a relic with his elbow as he was reaching for the glasses to show her.  A vase falls, breaking their connection.  A man, seemingly from no where appears as he caches the vase before hitting the floor.  A tall burly man with a thick beard dressed in traditional Egyptian regalia, stands next to him with a smile, holding the vase.  He speaks in English with a thick accent in a deep voice, and greets the American, commenting on how he looks like an Egyptian himself as he sets down the vase in the fallen spot.  

Alfonso gathers himself, and returns the greeting.  Forgetting about the glasses, he asks if the previous owner was anywhere near.  The woman answers, explaining that she is the granddaughter of the man he speaks of and that she is now the caretaker of the shop.  The man next to them is her cousin and co-owner of the store as well.  She continues about the store, as she talks about the importance of each object and the ancient ties they have to their country.  She asks about the glasses, if he had them with him.  He decides to lie and say he didn’t, and that he was looking for another pair as a gift.  Although her look of disbelief gives him the feeling that he made the right choice, and the shiftiness of her cousin.  She smiles and asks for his hand.

Not thinking, he adheres, as she turns it over and looks at his palm.  He starts to think he is in some kind of movie.  They are interrupted by an FBI looking middle aged white male, a Magnum P.I. look alike, mustache and all.  He walks in loud and obnoxious, greeting the other three.  Both the men are 6 feet plus tall, with burly builds.  They look at each other with a quick size up in who would win in a fight.  Alfonso gently detracts his hand and offers a smile and thank you for her time in Egyptian.  Everything in his body says to leave and that it was a bad idea to have told them about the glasses.  With everything wrong in the States, he sees that all his problems had followed him here; but now worse.  She breaks the tension by offering him a gift before he leaves.  She gives him an antique watch from WW II.  She says, it is a special watch from her grandfather.  From reading his palm, she can see that he has an important destiny, and that their paths were meant to meet.  

He again is hypnotized by her beauty as she speaks, and he accepts the gift.  As he begins to walk away, he gives a nod to her cousin, in a short appreciation manly way and says goodbye in Egyptian.  It is returned.  He walks by the CIA looking fella and has a greeting moment.   The man gives him a grunt and a half smile as they walk past each other.  Alfonso’s not sure what to think as he makes his way back to the motel.  Now he knows there is more to these glasses, and it might be worse than he thought.  He recalls on what she said about Destiny and how they were meant to cross paths.  It doesn’t give him any reassurance in his future well being, both physically or spiritually.  He forgets all about the watch as he searches for a place to get a strong drink and get his mind off of his troubles.  

 Chapter Five

Age Si Quod Agis

 He drinks a beer and an occasional shot of Whiskey.  He thinks to himself how he got into this mess.  He’s almost lost his job to his arch nemesis, he’s starting to see things everywhere, like the world went crazy or has always been some kind of twilight zone.  How he ended up in Egypt with the American Feds following him, along with some crazy mystical woman doing some spells on him.  He’s almost forty with no wife and doesn’t see his son enough.  He still hasn’t gotten his Doctorate.  His career measures into banging twenty something year old hot chicks and women at bars mad at their husbands or boyfriends, teaching about things that already happened, that will never happen again, seeing humanities dark secrets that somehow invaded his dreams and secretly rule the world in plain sight, and now they are keeping tabs on him.  Oh, and his ex is financial, and relationship wise, doing better than him.  Not to forget his Greek ex girlfriend that he fell in love with, moved away and got with some Ashton Kutcher looking douche bag with Daddies money.   He trying to think if he forgot anything. 

Then his self loathing pity party is interrupted by a twenty something year old blonde Swiss model in a red dress, like something out of an 80’s rock video.  As he was sitting at the bar, eating chips and salsa, watching soccer on the screen behind the bar, the young woman squeezes in on his left side, pressing her body on his.  She smells really good.  In her Swiss accent, she orders a Stella and three for her friends.  He can’t help but look to see who her friends are.  A group of female models, all more gorgeous than the next.  He didn’t notice how the bar had gotten full and the crowd was a rowdy one.  He starts to hear a live band doing sound check on the patio.  The woman makes eye contact with him and gives him a glowing smile, enough for him to forget his troubles.  She offers him a shot of Whiskey.  She says its her birthday and he should join her and her friends to go see the band.  

After everything that he’s been through, he takes the shot with the girl and wishes her a happy birthday, but is about to decline the band, as the other girls surround him and he finds himself helpless to join in the group of giggling European models from France, Russia and Spain.  As the night continues, they are dancing, laughing, grinding, kissing and touching.  The girls go to the bathroom and he has a moment to realize he shouldn’t be here.  He looks around, and realizes he is drunk.  One of the girls grabs his jacket sleeve and leads him to the bathroom.  They are doing some lines, and he joins in.  Now he knows he shouldn’t be there.  Two of the girls start kissing as the other two prepare more lines.  Alfonso starts talking to himself, weighing the options, and is wondering how his luck has changed.  He begins to smile.  

Suddenly he hears loud bursts, sounding like gun fire.  He thinks it might be the band and it must be the drugs.  One of the girls starts arousing him and kissing his neck.  She is the french girl with bangs, long legs and mini skirt.  As he forgets the band, he notices his refection in the mirror.  The only thing is, he only sees his reflection.  The door bursts open as that same American agent is dragging three punk rock looking vampires along with him, with his guns firing.  Immediately the women turn into monsters, fangs flairing, eyes glowing, claws out.  He fucking panics.  He has never seen anything like this.  He is pushed into the stalls, or jumps in one, he’s not sure, nor cares.  He hits his head on the toilet seat.  Bleeding from his hairline, he sees vampire heads bursting, people flying into walls, bullets ricocheting, curses blurted, drugs flying, things set on fire.  He thinks it must be the drugs.  This is impossible, somehow he is having a bad trip.  

As all hell breaks loose, the vampire demon french girl sticks her head into the stall and goes to his head off.  His reflexes make his legs up-kick her face and jaw towards the ceiling.  Her scaled marble skin almost breaks his ankles.  Her head explodes as he gets to his feet.  The American agent rustles him out of the bathroom as he continues shooting.  Alfonso sees that most of the crowd has rushed away, and the bar is left in shambles with a small group of male vampires surround them.  They look like the bouncers.  He is still not sure if he is hallucinating, but everything in his body is saying that this is real.  He picks up a pool stick, breaks it in half, and follows the lead of the Magnum P.I. looking guy with the guns.  

They make their way towards the door, taking out vampires left and right.  He uses bottles from the bar with lighters and candles on the bartenders vampire face, legs of chairs in hearts and skulls.  He finds a gun from one of the dead vampire bouncers.   They make it out and get a ride from a female counterpart to palm tree shirt wearing guy.  It’s a yellow DeLorean or Lamborgini. He gets stuck squeezing in the middle.  The make it to the highway.  As he sees out the passenger window, there are flying winged vampires diving next to them.  The woman driver makes hast with quick turns and twists through tunnels and alleys to lose or damage the flying guests.  

They seem to go through an underground tunnel, and make an entrance to a boating dock.  They rush on one of the larger vessels, and are hurdled through some kind of secret doorway shoot.  But before they make the door closes behind them, a sailor vampire makes it through.  They tussle with the vampire in a mini submarine.  They dare not shoot, in odds of damaging the controls or hull.  Hand to hand combat with a vampire is never good.  The agents use their knives and prowess, but in the end they are only human.  In such close quarters, they kill the vampire decapitation, but the Hawaiian shirt guy is dead, and the woman is gravely injured.  The death blow came from Alfonso as he used one of their knives that he clenches with closed fist at the end of the battle.  She looks at him with the hardened stare of a soldier that has been through multiple wars.  They make their way to a Greece. 

Along the way, she briefs him on who they are and what their mission is.  She explains that a secret war has been going on for quite some time, and there is a world agency that has been dealing with the supernatural, unbeknownst to the normal world.  In the last fifty years there has been a steady incline of those ancient beings taking political power and military positions to start a war.  Instead of working in the dark, they are casting spells and recruiting humans to their fold through money, breeding, assassinations, social networking, new drugs, food and water contamination.  They have become so powerful around the world, that they are starting to openly reveal a sinister government, through black magic, to hypnotize the mass population.  

The agency she belongs to has been compromised and the agents are now scattered and trying to regroup secretly.  Some of them like herself are operating as mercs, doing black ops and freelance work.  They caught wind of Alfonso’s situation by riding a wave of energy leading to him and the glasses.  It is a rare energy that is dangerous to the walking dead and possessed.  She says they have a strong group in Europe that are descendants of monster hunters.  They are the ones that sent them to retrieve him and bring him back to their meeting rendezvous.  She doesn’t think she is going to make it, but the submarine is locked on the coordinates, they should be found within the hour.  He watches her pass out.  He reaches in his jacket pocket and realizes he doesn’t have anything other than his wallet and his glasses.  

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Melissa Harris-Perry on protest, parenting, and Louis Farrakhan: 'The most dangerous anti-Semite in the country currently lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue'

Melissa Harris-Perry. (Photo: Getty Images/Quinn Lemmers for Yahoo Lifestyle)

To mark the International Day of the Woman on March 8 and Women’s History Month, Yahoo Lifestyle is exploring notions of feminism and the women’s movement through a diverse series of profiles — from transgender activist Ashlee Marie Preston to conservative campus leader Karin Agness Lips — that aim to reach across many aisles. 

Ever since she first burst into national view as an MSNBC commentator, and then host of her own show in 2012, Melissa Harris-Perry has been telling it like it is.

But the esteemed professor of African-American studies and political science — at the University of Chicago, followed by Princeton University, Tulane University, and now Wake Forest University, where she is also the executive director of the Pro Humanitate Institute and founder of the Anna Julia Cooper Center — has been speaking and writing frankly about race relations and human rights for much of her life.

It was in a way unavoidable, considering the groundbreaking Southern family Harris-Perry, 44, comes from: Her father was the first dean of African-American affairs at the University of Virginia, and his twin brother was the first chair of aeronautic engineering at MIT, and their legendary status infused the family with the fierce believe that being black in this country was not a reason to be held back.

Today, MHP, as she’s known, is teaching, writing, leading, and parenting (she has three daughters) younger generations to be strong thinkers and leaders, with feminism at the core of all her messaging. She recently spoke with Yahoo Lifestyle in honor of Women’s History Month, touching on topics from the Women’s March and its recent controversy to raising a rebellious teen.

  Yahoo Lifestyle: Ahead of the March for Our Lives, you wrote for Elle, where you are editor-at-large, about who is and who is not allowed to be angry in our culture. The Parkland students have done a great job at bringing students from across the country, including Chicago, into this anti-gun-violence movement. How else can we change the narrative?

MHP: The kids are great. The students from Parkland themselves, I think, are highly aware of the ways in which they operate and are clearly deploying their race and economic privilege to… acknowledge and recognize that their peers who were less able to do so. We can go back to Rosa Parks, and the idea of how Rosa Parks’ role in our memory is so different from [that of] Claudette Colvin… the unmarried pregnant African-American girl who had also resisted Jim Crow segregation just a month before, and been arrested on the bus, but didn’t have the training of being an activist and just wasn’t reputable in the same ways.

I saw you address the crowd at Power to the Polls, the Women’s March Las Vegas event in January. You said, “Saying thank you to black women is not a damn hashtag.” What did you mean?

Part of what I was doing was telling my personal family story. My family has long thought of itself as originating itself from my father and his twin brother, highly accomplished men. I’d recently gone back and was reading this late 1950s Ebony article [now framed] that reported on my dad and his twin brother and called them “the genius twins of Richmond, Virginia.” This time I noticed in the story, more carefully, my grandmother. And there’s one [part] in which they’re talking about my dad and his brother going off to this academic summer program, and how my grandmother, who was a really brilliant seamstress… knew, because the boys were going to this summer program, that they weren’t going to work that summer, so there wasn’t going to be coal to heat the house that winter. It was the first time it has truly occurred to me how much that story is not really my dad’s story or my uncle’s story — it’s really my grandmother’s story. And as much as they were geniuses, how could they possibly be geniuses unless they came from a genius — one literally willing to be cold in the winter so that they could go to school? It floored me. I couldn’t speak.

Thanks @TimesTalks for the opportunity to moderate this amazing conversation with @OsopePatrisse and #AngelaDavis. I’ll never forget it. pic.twitter.com/BDMzfgV3xF

— Melissa Harris-Perry (@MHarrisPerry) February 21, 2018

We don’t really know how to recover the genius of a black woman who died never being degreed or rich or any of these particular things that we call success, but nonetheless made every other single thing possible. So what I want to do is when we say “thank you, black women,” what we’re actually doing is having a reclamation of their genius, and thinking about how to make public policy that would’ve made life easier for Grandma Rosa just so that her sons could learn.

What’s your take on the recent controversy surrounding Women’s March founder Tamika Mallory, and her refusal to denounce the anti-Semitic, homophobic statements of Louis Farrakhan?

My sense is she has a personal connection to Minister Farrakhan, that that personal connection is about a deep loyalty that extends way farther back to a community —like, decades deeper than the Women’s March — and that in many ways, the Women’s March and her leadership takes advantage of her sets of ties… So my sense is that the most dangerous anti-Semite in the country currently lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And to have any concern about Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism is weird.

Like, Louis fu**ing Farrakhan? Are you serious? Because Louis Farrakhan is empowered to do what? He runs an organization that controls what resources? And creates what policy? And owns property where? I mean, it’s weird. The President of the United States has questioned the humanity — like are they human — of Jewish people. The President of the United States. So I’m super-duper focused on that. And that various people walking around the planet are racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, is like shrug-my-shoulders true. I mean I’m a black woman. Most people I’ve worked around, worked for, worked near, have opinions about me that are typically pretty fu**ing horrifying. Like, I grew up in the South in the 1970s with a white mother and a black father. I don’t thought-police people. From my perspective it’s like, “OK, sure.”

We saw Barack Obama break ties with his minister, Jeremiah Wright, following controversy during his campaign…

We said, “Oh my god, Jeremiah Wright said racist words, in our opinion, and you must now break your ties with your minister!” And as far as I know, that family has never had a church home again. That’s rough. I mean, I’m sure they’ve gone to church as an official matter… but they don’t have a church home, which in the black community is actually a big fu**ing deal. So they broke their relationship with their minister, but at least they got elected to office twice. As far as I know, no one is offering that to Tamika Mallory. And she’s being asked to denounce this by people who, as far as I know, have never denounced their racism, sexism, their homophobia. That’s strange, no. So it’s not that complicated to me. I wouldn’t [apologize] either. No. We get to all pick our own relationships.

The thing I’m always worried about in the world is power, and how power is wielded in ways that cause inequity. So if you can show me that Minister Farrakhan has taken his position and used his position to create inequity and inequality for Jewish people, then I will denounce that tomorrow. But holding horrifying opinions seems to me to be a protected right under our constitution — so protected, that I even think it’s OK for our president to hold them. And our president uses his horrifying opinions to then enact them into policy. If he believes that Mexicans are rapists and then withdraws DACA, that’s a problem. So I’m always much more interested in racism, sexism, homophobia when they are manifest as a matter of inequity in public policy.

Your daughters are 4 and 16. How do you balance teaching them about all the injustices in this world without terrifying them with reality?

They’re sort of funny and different in this way, and my big girl, who’s 16, is like not what most people would probably expect. [Laughing] You probably think, “Oh MHP, 16-year-old daughter, I’m sure she’s, like, burning down the streets!” No, she’s more like your first black Republican first lady! A little bit. Not completely, but more like that than burning it down in the streets. She’s been in about three years of very, very strong rebellion. So what does rebellion against MHP look like? I’m real sex-positive and feminist and progressive, so my kid is like, “My god, sex is dirty, and drugs are bad!”

She goes to an all-girls’ high school [and the day after Trump was elected] they were all in tears, and Parker being Parker looks at the young women in her class and says, “Pull yourselves together, he’s your president now, be respectful!” [Laughing] And I was like, “Oh my goodness, no!”

But my kids are just like fish swimming in the waters of social justice and race talk and feminism conversations, and it is just what we do and talk about and think about in the house. So in that sense it’s not scary, because it just is. So I think, because the news is fodder for conversation and because we try not to either talk over their heads or make things like ‘Oh that’s just for adults and kids shouldn’t know about it,’ what I hope is that it feels empowering in whatever way she wants to feel empowered. So when we do have political disagreements, which we sometimes do, what she knows is that there’s no thing that she could say or do or believe that would keep her outside the circle of our family and of our love.

With the 4-year-old, she’s actually the most woke child on the planet. She somehow is, like, from Wakanda! [Laughs] I don’t really know how it’s possible, but even though she’s only 4 she goes first to the black kids on the playground, and loves her people from the core of her soul. It’s not that she knows what politics are, but she does seem to have a preference for blackness and always has. It will be interesting to see what all that turns into, but man, I think that kid might actually be Alicia Garza who I had by accident. She just showed up that way. I always say: You’re a sociologist until you have children, and then it’s your nemesis, because you realize they come however they come. And you can crush that experience or you can nurture them, but they show up how they show up. I like them both a lot, and I can’t wait to see who they turn into.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Why ‘Museum Mammy’ believes the feminist movement ‘will never be perfect’

The most pressing question of Women’s History Month: What is feminism in 2018?

Conservative millennial Kassy Dillon: ‘I don’t like the term ‘feminist’”

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