Manns Medium

We already know that racism is like beauty and in the eye of the beholder so when you hear the word, stop looking for a white versus black thing and look for a one race versus another thing.  You see, racism is not limited by color and can infest anyone of any race at any time.  There are even times when racism exists but is so very well disguised that we may call it something else.  Not all who expound racist comments or perform acts of racism is racist however and these trips we up more than it truly should.  We are often judged by one action, one inaction or one comment instead of looking at the entirety of our existence to make that determination.  The truth of the matter is, one can only recognize something if they have experience with it and if you feel as though you can tell when someone is racist, look no further than the mirror my friend because you may be racist as well. Some people are going to great lengths to try and understand racism which tru...

Many people believe that the reason for living is to better their personal situations and give their children the things in life that they did not have growing up.  This is one of the biggest lies anyone can tell themselves and others who will listen.  The reason for life is not a selfish quest but a deep desire to better yourself and be that person you had always dreamed yourself to be.  It is to demonstrate to others who are watching how you have achieved this feat by setting the example by every single action you take or inaction that you don’t take.  Your children do not need material things to be the best that they can be, they only need a little of your time, your understanding, your love and your directions to have the tools necessary to live a full and rewarding life.  That should be the primary reason we work so very hard to accomplish that one feat that would grant them all these things in one single act.  That should be the primary reason we wor...

America quickly forgets about those celebrities that actually does more for a community than they do on their chosen field of battle.  Hit several  home runs  and get the cover of a Wheaties box but donate your hard-earned cash for a worthy cause like actually helping those less fortunate and it is only useful to raise your image.  I still remain bothered by athletes and professionals who release a story only when their like numbers begin to fall and only seem to be photographed doing something good when their publicist determine that it will be good for their image.  Want to impress me, follow the example set by one of my most liked and respected favorite.  Read closely this article titled “ LeBron James Will Pay For 1,100 Kids To Go To College ” written by Lucy McCalmont, Sports Editor for The Huffington Post In the article she reports that “ for each child that completes his “I Promise” program, they’ll be awarded a scholarship to the University of ...

For some this may be an exciting time for voters in the Republican party and a snapshot of how dysfunctional America’s government is but for others it is more about getting famous or found than it is about the one most important thing left to us.  The vision of a nation, the direction of a country, the development of a society and the legacy of its entire people.  Many marginal members of the GOP have expressed their choice and their voice about who they wish to lead this nation and even though the choices are slim there is still one who may be able to restore some sense of balance. That person is Ohio Governor John Kasich, consider the options. Now it is not often that I find myself agreeing with the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal but I have to admit some of the information that they printed in the article titled “ John Kasich the GOP's best hope, can win and govern” does make sense. The article points out that “ after terrorists murdered 35 people in Brussels last week, D...

I don’t often place much stock in old wise sayings or  other kinds of superstitions but every once in a while a thought occurs to me which not only revives those old sayings but possibly creates another in my mind which I believe is placed there to share.  For some reason or another, I awoke this morning with a thought of cleanliness being next to Godliness just like arrogance is next to ignorance, I’ll explain. If you were privy to this saying as I was growing up, we used to hear it all the time especially when parents wanted us to learn to properly bathe ourselves and not put on the very same clothes we had been wearing the past week.  Since it was told to us that being clean brings you closer to God, we then applied that to our understanding of how to tell if the people we meet on the street was Godly people or sinners.  Society began to take this saying to new heights and even used it as a form of discrimination which also allowed us to distance ourselves fr...

To understand life, one has to first define his/her definition of what life is to them, then measure their individuals lives by that definition.  The problems occur when your definition of life is not met by others and in many cases then never met by you.  Life is basically fifty (50) percent mental and fifty (50) percent emotional meaning that half the time we may be forced to mentally propel ourselves through a situation or circumstance with the other half spent on dealing with situations or circumstances based on nothing but pure feelings. We know that the true meaning of life is nothing more than perception.  If you believe that a particular group of people are lazy, shiftless, arrogant or privileged then you will more than likely proceed through your life dealing with any situation of circumstance based on that belief.  Those whom you meet will first be required by you to overcome your pre-conceived perception before ever getting an opportunity to prove you...

Maybe it’s just me but to hear people talk about ISIS or ISIL makes me wish to ask why they invest so much into a group of cowardly people who hide in the shadows and pick on people who they have a pretty good idea won’t fight back. I mean, the media makes ISIS or ISIL seem like an army of real soldiers and highly intelligent generals who can give any minimal trained army a real run for it’s money, while I personally see them simple as nothing more than cowards and bullies. I say this not to disrespect anyone but to make a few points very clear to those seeking to categorizes ISIS or ISIL as a force to be feared.  “ Surveillance footage, cab driver offer clues in investigation in Brussels attack ” for CNN News by Catherine E. Shoichet, Frederik Pleitgen and Greg Botelho.  The article reports “ a break in the investigation may have come from a taxi driver who took the suspects to the airport.  The driver contacted authorities after seeing surveillance footage and gave...

I find it quite ironic sometimes when people or a group of people tends to blame their circumstances on a few.  Regardless of how true it may be or how perception makes it appear true one thing is for certain.  We jail people for selling drugs on the street but reside in a country that is the biggest supplier of drugs and we claim that government and politicians control the blood flow of a nation when we know that this is not the case and clearly see examples of these very people and entities being controlled by that one group of men/women who cater to or control that one huge slave master we all serve whether we wish to or not.  That slave master is those who created and control the algorithms’ which create and measure all human being s by what we refer to as a credit score.  So let’s take a few minutes to greet our slave masters and take this time to appreciate what we have allowed them to do to us. Now we know that no credit score or any piece of paper can tr...

You can call it selfishness, you can call it jealousy, you can call it ignorance or you can call it greed but whatever you wish to call it the number one driver of violence is simply the hatred and complete disdain we have for ourselves. There are no truer statements than the one that credit is given to Eleanor Roosevelt which says “no one can make you feel inferior” and the one I coined that says “our only true limitations are those we place upon ourselves”, both meaning that no one else’s causes you more pain than the pain realized when you know within the depths of your very soul that you are the main reason your life is stuck where it is today and every day.  Anyone may have the strength to knock you down but only you can give them the power to hold you there. You can set up all the barriers you want, you can set up all the obstacles you wish and you can put up as large or high walls and hurdles as you please but you will never stop me from achieving that which I find the ...

Regardless of industry many leadership positions carry with them the exact same ethics and while much of each is identical none probably more so than the correlation between religious leaders and military leaders.  It appears this way to me because in any employment, a worker feels free to choose whether he or she wishes to follow the directions of an employer and there is only one stipulation which is to search for a new job or not.  In the military you are obligated to follow the orders and standards set by your particular leaders and in most cases feel compelled to do so because of the risk you take when you don’t.  Many in the military believe that if they dismiss orders received from their leaders it could go quite far in disrupting and destroying their chosen careers and cause them to receive a dishonorable discharge in most cases.  For religion, the fear is violating what your leaders are saying is the true word of God and thereby condemning your very sou...

John F. Kennedy is quoted as once saying “these are man-made problems and can be solved by man” which on its face is true but in reality are about as false those long eye lashes for some women and that toupee for some men.  It’s not false because John F. Kennedy was wrong; it is false because we sincerely miss that one ingredient that is necessary to solve the problems.  That ingredient, my people is called wholesale desire. I say that because it is true number one and we all know it number two.  We see it played out all the time right before our eyes and still we don’t get a clue.  We see some cities fixing their budget problems and making their cities safer for the residents and citizens yet so many more cities are rampant with crime and budget problems beget other problems regardless of those we elect and send to government offices to fix them.  You see that in one group battling a cause and making great progress but the problem still exist because we mi...

I received this article from my wife titled “ Wrongly Convicted NC Man Found Dead in Car ” written by Breanna Edwards posted yesterday March 14, 2016 and in it she details “ Darryl Hunt, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, was found dead in a car in Winston-Salem, N.C., early Sunday, the Charlotte Observer reports. Officers got a call about a person believed to be dead in a car near the Wake Forest University campus, where they found Hunt unresponsive.  In 1984 at age 19, Hunt was charged with the rape and murder of a newspaper copy editor. Hunt was exonerated in February 2004 after DNA evidence led police to Willard Brown, who later confessed to the murder. Hunt was exonerated and pardoned by then-North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley and was also awarded a settlement of more than $1.6 million in 2007. Hunt then went on to found the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, which is an advocacy group for those wrongfully convicted.   As the Observe...

When it comes to being rich, many of us pray for that more than anything else because we have been made to believe that being rich is truly where it’s at.  We think that if we are rich, we can buy anything and everything our little hearts desires and that will erase all of our pain, suffering and bad memories from existence forever.  We believe that being rich will make others like us more and accept us better.  We believe that everyone would be our friend and no one would want to be our enemy because with money, you are elevated high above all others and the sun shine upon you brightly each and every day.  No clouds will ever appear in your world if you are rich and no more rainy days for you and those who now are willing to subject themselves to your every whim.  This may sound good on paper and even look good in a movie but be aware people, this is nowhere near the truth and if you really did wish to educate yourself, you would find that being rich is like a...

I have been racking my brain trying to figure out why someone would truly support Donald J. Trump and besides the fact that they are his family or worked for him before he declared himself a candidate, I kept drawing a blank.  I thought that many who say they stand with Trump wasn’t doing so because they actually believed in the things that were coming out of his mouth but the frankness and courage it took to say them out loud.  If this is the only reason to support a candidate for president and place him in front of others world leaders as the best that we could do then maybe we need to re-define this entire thing of choosing a president. It wasn’t too difficult for me to surmise that the reason for some coming to his aide is because while having his show Celebrity Apprentice, he brought back some names of people many may have forgotten and if we look at closely at those speaking for him at one point of another, we may find that many was those he hired to play on the sho...

Growing up in the south, I heard many stories and was lied to many times.  The stories I heard of was about the accepted fact that black men were either destined for jail, the graveyard or limited to working as a farm hand or in the local cotton gin.  I heard these stories from both blacks and whites and after a while began to believe them and settle in for what I was destined to do.  What changed was among those stories was the fact that as a black man, it would be a miracle to even graduate high school.  Like all children growing up, I dreamed of that big house with that white picket fence surrounding it and being able to walk out on my porch and be addressed as mister instead of boy.  To be able to purchase what I wanted when I wanted and do for my mother more than she had ever done for me.  I wanted her to be proud of the boy that she had raised and the man I had become.  It was my desire to not have her want for anything and not have to work so h...

My wife sent me this article titled “ US grants Illinois $89 million to fight homelessness ” written by The Associated Press and posted today, Mar 09, 2016 on WREX.com.  The article reports that “ nearly $89 million in federal money has been awarded to Illinois to battle homelessness.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Tuesday the money will support more than 360 programs to provide housing and service programs to homeless people.  Officials say the grants under the "Continuum of Care" program are the most competitive to date. To compete, communities had to decide, for example, to shift money from existing programs to create new ones to have a longer-lasting effect.  The government estimates there were 565,000 people who were homeless on a given night in 2015. They say that's down 72,000 -- or 11 percent -- from 2010.  They add that homelessness among veterans has declined 36 percent”. For some this may sound like great news and if C...

We all have heard of the definition of insanity, where you continue to do the very same thing, the very same way and have the audacity to expect a different result but we ignore a key reason that the jobs promised by politicians and their reasons for why they continue to disappear does not match up with the rhetoric.  Well maybe this article that appeared  at WREX dot come can help you better understand why I have discovered that not only is it the true definition of insanity but it is also with the addition of an attack of apathy. The article is titled “Rockford Old Country Buffet closes” posted by Kristin Crowley yesterday Mar 07, 2016 on wrex.com.  The article reports that “The Old Country Buffet in Rockford is officially closed.  It happened suddenly over the weekend, leaving employees without jobs. Partners Buffet LLC tells 13 WREX the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The company says the Rockford location on Perryville Rd is one of six to close in ...

I have often sat up many nights wondering why so many good men and women are taking their own lives after enduring so many traumas, drama, pain and suffering.  After they may have seen their best friend die right in front of them or held them in their arms as they took their last breath.  Whether it had to pick up pieces of brethren, hoping that by some miracle a Navy Corpsman/woman or some doctor can put them back together and make them whole like they were just minutes before.  Whether their dreams and nightmares are any similar to mine and make me not wish to sleep for the fear of dreaming.  I often wonder if I am personally doing enough to help my fellow brothers and sisters and why a country who says they so love their troops are not doing more.  I wonder these things and other things but the answer seems to come back to one solid clue.  We are losing the good souls not only because of the things I just mentioned but other things that no one wishes to...

It all started January 19, 2008 after Barack Obama won his first term as President of the United States.  The stars had already aligned for many who just could not believe that a man, unlike any of those that have gone before him was actually voted into an office many felt very name denies them entry.  Those who just could not believe were told to believe and as sheep to the slaughter, they followed their masters without questions.  Today they still follow their masters without questions except now it has culminated into one form, one being, one chance and that chance is Donald J. Trump. People say that Donald J. Trump is a brilliant businessman but I don’t agree with it.  I do say that Donald J. Trump is an outstanding opportunist however because he saw a very clear and wide berth opening up toward the Republican nomination for President and when he finally decided to take the plunge, he dove in head first and now refuses to admit that there he now stands among...

People often wonder why someone would run for president and often times they say it takes a pretty large helping of arrogance to think that you could be the leader of the free world but I think that it is more than that.  I think it is simply a way for history to either repeat itself or get rewritten.  Repeat itself, when we refuse to learn from the past and get rewritten when we choose to not only learn from the past but change it.  Yes, I think the spirit of a person compels them to run or put themselves out there for public consumption so that we have a chance to demonstrate whether we want a different outcome or not.  I believe that it’s the spirit of a person which pushes them to seek public office and not simply an emotion of arrogance, desire or even duty.  I believe that this man-made body is more controlled by the spirit that dwells within it than many of us know.  The actions we take, the decisions we make and the satisfaction we seek are all...