edwhitfield

[edwhitfield]

A Flower Genesis

By Ed Whitfield

7/21/20

I want to tell the story of "The Serpent, Adam and Eve, and The Four Hyenas" also known as Water, Earth and Wind. They are the Garden of Eden in the giving flower tale. This will be the story of the Genesis of the flower -- the beginning. This is the time before the 4 Hyenas drug in the first 8 Fires with $500 each, offering them the opportunity to get a blessing of $4000 back in 3 weeks, when they will give another $500 to the Serpent.

Those first 7 are in a different position than any of the others who participate. They don't have to give any money away to acquire and hold their position. There would be no one for them to give their money to. Money always goes to a person three levels removed from the giver. This is particularly useful when things go wrong. You can't ask for your money back from the person who recruited you. They don't have it. You can't even ask them to get it back from the person who recruited them. That person doesn't have it either. The money that you gift goes to someone so far removed from you that it is possible you won't really know them. It is hard to make a moral, financial, humanistic or ethical plea to someone that distant.

So the first 7 only receive blessings and never have to bless anyone. They don't really rotate their positions but rather become briefly dormant for two weeks awaiting their turn to be water again. When the first 8 fires are brought in, the Water Serpent gets all that they give then waits while first Adam Earth and Eve Earth each become Water on the next round and collect all of the blessings from the newly recruited fires. Adam Earth-Water and Eve Earth-Water then step aside along with the Water Serpent to await their next turn as Water which will be again 3 turns away.

In the next turn the 4 Hyenas who are the only ones of the Garden of Eden group to actually bring in blessers with money finally get money themselves as they become Water and the new Fires are recruited along with their $500 each.

On the next turn the initial 8 Fires will themselves all become water and be blessed with $4000 each coming from the new fires of the 8 new flowers that exist. There are a total of 64 new fires who bring in $32,000 that is divided into 8 blessings of $4000 to each of the 8 original Fires who are now Water. But as these 8 are Water, they are also Fire again as they must Bless their original Water, the Serpent, with another $500, this time taken from their $4000 blessing.

Now the old Water Serpent comes out from being dormant and is Water again to receive the blessing and it all begins again. There is a cycle of the first 7, the Serpent, Adam and Eve and the 4 Hyenas each having a turn at Water and getting $4000 each week as the system of flowers grows. But notice that while everyone else who goes through the cycle has to give up $500 of their blessing to their initial Water none of these 7 do. They never had a Water to bless, so they have to keep the whole $4000 blessing for themselves each time when all the others who are blessed as Water are simultaneously Fire again only keep $3500 of their blessing and pass the other $500 on to their Water.

It is worth noting that for each turn of this whole system the number of people entering as fire doubles each time. First 8 then 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16,384; 32,768; 65,536; 131,072; 262,144; 524,288. That is to say, in 17 weeks, which is about 4 months, well over half a million people would need to be recruited to avoid collapse. It is also worth noting that at that point the last three groups who were recruited as fire would have all put in $500, but because they have never reached Water, they have not gotten anything for their participation. While people are told that they shouldn't join in unless they can afford to lose their $500, they certainly don't intend to just make a $500 donation. The expectation is that there will be a benefit if you join in, just as others have benefited by being blessed.

The harsh reality is that 131,072 + 262,144 + 524,288 will get nothing but a bitter taste and a memory. That is 917,504 people, just under a million folks will get nothing at all while 131,071 will get various levels of blessings with the Serpent getting the most.

Those 917,504 may be family, but many will not remain your friends as this unfolds and collapses. If you talked someone into this opportunity, be clear that the overwhelming majority of them will not be pleased. This grows so fast that you necessarily run out of people. Some will try to patch it up by stepping in with their own additional money to fill gaps. But it is unlikely that you can find additional people who are willing and able to keep it going. Attempts to save it are futile.

Oh, and by the way, this is also illegal, inspite of whatever else you may be told. If caught promoting this scheme you may face years in prison.

This is not a cooperative. This is not a sou sou. This is not a legitimate business. This is not good for our community. I just wanted to let you know.

[edwhitfield]

WHAT I REALLY HATED ABOUT SEGREGATION

You won't know it from the title, but this is largely about watermelon.

When I was a youngster growing up in Little Rock Arkansas during the 1950s and early 60s, there was one image that I still have in my mind that captured what I, as a child, hated about jim crow segregation.

On West 14th Street, on the north side of the street, set back a little from the sidewalk, was a green structure, about the size of a picnic shelter in a park. All around the outside of the structure were screens that would probably offer some reduction of the summer sunshine to those inside, even as it allowed cool breezes to blow through the essentially outdoor space. From the outside, we could see people seated at what appeared to be picnic tables, eating watermelon. Perfect. A shaded shelter with a breeze and cold juicy watermelon. But there was a major problem. This was the segregated south. All of the watermelon eaters were white. And I couldn't have any.

I should make it clear, here. I loved watermelon. In Arkansas, some of the most magnificent watermelon in the world are grown, sold and eaten. Black Diamond melons are the big, nearly round, dark green ones with the thick rinds and the large black seeds that you could spit all the way out to the street from the front porch. And they are sweet. Crisp, juicy and as sweet as a store bought red soda pop. They were so good.

On Saturdays my daddy would take us to the open air curb market across the bridge in North Little Rock, down by the edge of the Arkansas River and we would pick out a few of the giant Black Diamonds. One I remember weighed nearly 100 pounds. Taking them home, we would put them down in the cool basement until it was time to take them upstairs to slice them open with the big wooden handled butcher knife he had just sharpened with the round sharpening steel. I still remember the sound of the knife as it sliced into the dark rind and the melon nearly burst open releasing a slight fragrance of ripe melon and few drops of the sweet juice. He would cut it first in half, then cut the half into pyramid shaped quarters for us to eat.

My mother would go for the heart first and cut the peak off the watermelon and eat it. She had a knife and fork technique where she would slice off a piece with the knife, then pick off a few of the external seeds before putting a big bite in her mouth to release the juice, spitting out the remaining seeds before swallowing the spent pulp. But the candy like heart of the melon had no seeds. Just succulent goodness.

I have digressed. This piece isn't just about watermelon, it is about segregation on 14th Street in Little Rock. Every time we drove by that place, I couldn't help thinking about what I was missing. I would ask daddy if we could go in and get some. He told me, no. It was segregated and we weren't allowed to eat there. I hated that.

I never missed any white churches or white restaurants where they cooked their bland food. I never missed white schools or libraries given that the Black libraries I went to every weekend had more books than I could read along with really friendly and helpful librarians who love to show me how to find anything I couldn't find. Going to Booker T Washington Elementary and Paul Lawrence Dunbar Junior High, I was surrounded by beautiful young people like me and supportive nurturing teachers who always pushed us toward excellence.

But I had to eat my watermelon at home. I couldn't go to that damned segregated white watermelon place on 14th St. That was the only thing I hated about segregation.

[edwhitfield]

March 2017, Selma Alabama. I am sharing the answers to some questions about the nature of a beloved community and how we might build liberated zones here in the bipartisan home of the greatest thieves and greatest purveyors of violence in the history of the world.

[edwhitfield]

Some thoughts on just transition in energy

Energy is made significant by social relations. Coal, oil, and uranium would stay in the ground. The wind would blow, the waves would break and sunlight would shine to the ground, unhampered by reflectors or panels if it were not for the economy which is now characterized by consumerism, individualism, the domination of capital and the quest for ever increasing accumulation, that drive the current utilization and sourcing of energy.

Energy transition is a social transition. It is not mechanical. It is not chemical. It is not the product of solid state physics. The key feature of the transition that is needed is deep, authentic democracy. Access to natural resources must be democratized. And in addition access to built resources which are the products of human labor acting on nature and its abstract representation as finance should be “OF, BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE.” The transition we need should be democratic, where democracy is understood to be people thinking together to reconcile their individual experiences, passions and desires to create a path forward to meet the needs of community both now and into the future. Our transition must serve the needs of today and still provide for the children yet to be born.

We can’t just change energy sources and leave everything else alone.

This transition is characterized by alternative energy utilization as well as alternative energy production that will not destroy the lives and livelihoods of our children. But that requires changing how we live and how we relate to one another.

Transition is difficult but necessary.

[edwhitfield]

I'm getting going again

I finally realized that I need to go back to sharing ideas more widely again. I'm revitalizing my blog site and I'll try my best to post regularly. I'm in Washington DC, as I write this, in a workshop on getting one's content to the world. As Jake, our facilitator says, "If it doesn't have a URL, it's invisible."

[edwhitfield]

What about the cow?

There is an argument regularly made that the victims of oppressive systems should forget about the past and move on. No one living on the USA today was a pre- civil war slave. No one living now was a slave owner then. The country engaged in a long bloody civil war to rid itself of that evil. Everyone is free now, let us not dwell in the past.

As William Faulkner once said “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” So what exactly are we to forget?

The land grab that took place early and continuously in the genesis of this republic, along with the preferential buying, selling, taxing, mortgaging, and collateralizing of it led to the existing land tenure that we see today. Along with the enslavement of millions of kidnapped Africans whose labor produced an enormous surplus, these policies led to the modern world’s inequities.

It would be much easier to forget this if the living consequences of it were not so apparent all around us. Those of is who want to remember this past don’t just enjoy thinking about unpleasant things from long ago, but instead are concerned with correcting unpleasant things now. The existing disparities in wealth, income, life expectancy, education, etc., are not the result of an effective meritocracy,but rather are all traceable to the social division of wealth that grew from this past.

Those who argue the loudest for letting the past go are those who continue to benefit from the disparity. Their call to forget the past is a call to allow them to retain their unearned privilege, pretending that they deserve it.

I’m reminded of a story that came out of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation work. A black south African confronted a white man who had disrespected him and taken his prize cow with no compensation. With the prospect of amnesty for telling the truth, the white man admitted to having done what he was accused of, recognized how horribly wrong it was and asked for forgiveness. The black man was visibly relieved for having an opportunity to confront his oppressor and get an apology. As the white man stood to leave, free with his amnesty, the black man called out to stop him. The white man turned back with a questioning look on his face, not sure why he was being stopped, the black South African asked him: “But what about the cow?”

That is the question we must ask to all those who say that the past is long gone but still retain ownership of the herd produced by that old cow. We won’t forgive and forget until we get the cow back.

[edwhitfield]

It's a year and a half old and still makes sense.

By Ed Whitfield July 20, 2013 ed@F4DC.ORG

Fear for your life. Yes. I offer that as advice to you growing up in the shadow of Trayvon Martin as I grew up in the shadow of Emit Till. Be afraid that there are those who have no respect for your humanity, who fear you, who have no use for you and...

[edwhitfield]

Pitfalls of Buy Black/Black Capitalism

During recent Kwanzaa celebrations there was a call for collective economics. "Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together." This was explained by many as a call to "Buy Black" with others accepting that it was a call for supporting "Black Capitalism." I want to offer a critique of this understanding from the standpoint of what would be progressive and beneficial in a transformative way to the black community. Marginal businesses tend to be small, hence more democratic, since the individual owners of the business are closer to and likely to have relationships with both the employees and the customers. As business's size and profits increase (often by increases on the number of employees and customers) the likelihood for greater wage disparity (loss of wage solidarity) and a more contemptuous relationship with the customer base (where customers are only seen as instruments to be utilized for increasing profits) increases. Most black businesses are marginal and small. Therefore they are organically connected "of, by and for" the community -- democratic. It is even likely that the small profits from marginal black businesses remain in the community. As they become larger and more successful this changes. More successful business people can afford to move to more affluent neighborhoods. They can purchase expensive items that are unlikely to profit other black businesses. They can take their surplus money and invest, looking for the highest returns for their money. They can easily seek new investors for their business in the capital markets and the identity of the business as black may change with a more diffuse set of owners. Even in the case of those where the founders of the business are able to stay true to their initial community orientation after becoming more successful, there would be a strong attraction for the next generation, their children who would inherit the business to "cash out" and live a life much more comfortable than those who preceded them and had to struggle to build up the business. So, Black Capitalism is progressive when it is small and struggling, but not so progressive when it succeeds. Given the racism connected with access to capital, Black businesses that are not structured for community ownership tends to remain marginal and hence progressive, but clearly a dead end road for those looking for transformative change. What would be different would be black community businesses that are democratically owned by the community itself and serving community needs -- a cooperative. These would have no incentive to buy or invest luxuriously outside of the community. Nor would there be an incentive to cash out. They can be structured so that any outside investment has a subordinated voice and is not allowed to subvert the mission of the business to serve community needs. And importantly, the profit from the business stays in the community, either increasing the purchasing power of community members or better yet, forming the basis of additional new business development. This is transformative. Let's do it.

[edwhitfield]

Open letter to police

You worry about being painted with a broad brush, but you continue to stand with killers, arguing how dangerous and hard your job is — never criticising any of your own, even helping to cover up illegal, bad behavior.

The blue line is silent. But you claim to respect and serve us all. Do you think you only owe allegiance to yourselves?

You say the public doesn’t understand what you do. Don’t you think that might be a problem? As a member of the public who pays you, I don’t want you doing things I can’t understand.

Do you realize that we should have civilian control of the armed police in this country? Not police control over the public. That is the definition of a police state.

What we are left to believe is that you want broad authority to protect wealthy people’s property, privileged people’s status and the social order that maintains them both. That is not sufficient. And for that we will not give you a lisence to kill with impunity.

#BlackLivesMatter #Ferguson @ed_whitfieldl

[edwhitfield]

Message to Black Youth

By Ed Whitfield July 20, 2013 ed@F4DC.ORG

Fear for your life. Yes. I offer that as advice to you growing up in the shadow of Trayvon Martin as I grew up in the shadow of Emit Till. Be afraid that there are those who have no respect for your humanity, who fear you,  who have no use for you and who feel little loss with your death.

But don’t think that they are the only danger you face. You must also fear the powers who would reduce you to just being an instrument of their profit, or an instrument of their entertainment or any other reduction in who you really are that does not recognize you as a valuable, intelligent, creative being who is capable of inheriting and leading the world of today and tomorrow.

Fear the MTV and BET worlds that see you only as a thug or a whore. Fear the public schools who would reduce you to a test score or worse, to an achievement gap to be closed, or a dropout statistic or a school balance ratio of race or class numbers. In you they see free or reduced humanity. Little else.

Fear those who would have you believe that you should only look out for yourself and gather all the bling and juice you can for yourself. Fear those who would have you hate yourself, your family and your community — trying only to escape from them all either with education, or money or bleaching cream.

The world does not love you. So you must love yourself, but you are bigger than the individualistic image of you that others see and you will be asked to accept. You are a part of a resilient, proud and noble people who have survived unimaginable horrors and still have the capacity to create a better world.

Stay alive but be brave. Do not cower. Demand what you deserve. Accept nothing less. But know that you can and must imagine and build the world you want to live in.

[edwhitfield]

The Dangers of Hyperbole

Hyperbole destroys the language of nuance, subtlety, gradations, ranges, discrimination and preference for statement of the extreme. This damages our ability to talk about things where we can make judgements of relative merits and consequently make some of the choices that we need to make. Once we have marched against unbearable racism how do we deal with changes not occurring when we wish? How do we understand those who have born the unbearable? Our arguments are seldom strengthened by hyperbole. More often, they are made to seem naive in the face of the complexity of real problems in the real world.

Hyperbole also damages our ability to recognize the need for compromise when it is appropriate.

[edwhitfield]

Leadership Development

How do we remove the elitism and help to fully develop everyone’s leadership potential? Leadership Development sometime takes the shape of hand picking successors and grooming them for key hierarchical positions. We should recognize that we are all leaders with varying roles. The ‘leader/follower’ dichotomy is dis-empowering and often demeaning. We are all in need of development. We are all needed if our organizations, institutions and movements are to approach their potentials in meeting the needs of the time.

#leadership

[edwhitfield]

Productive vs distributive justice

The need for productive justice—the struggle for open and equitable access to opportunities to be productive—is largely the result of inequitable systems of distribution and structures of ownership that allow for the accumulation of socially produced and socially needed production resources in the hands of a shrinking group of the elite. Productive justice is having equitable access to opportunities to be productive.

It means not having to beg someone for a job.

It means not having to beg for land to grow food on.

It means being able to provide for yourself and your loved ones—the very young, the old, the infirmed, and the caretakers—with your labor which produces for all.

It means having the dignity that comes from being a productive and needed part of society.

It means being a role model and teacher to the young who follow.

It means being an independent political thinker and actor, unfettered by fear of displeasing elites on whom you might otherwise be dependent. Productive justice is needed because the current system has allowed the control of who is allowed to be productive and who is not to be in the hands of a small group of people.

This small group has enormous power that ultimately derives from this control.

The power is literally power over the life and death of others.

This power robs other people not only of their produce but also of their dignity.

By determining who has access to opportunities spaces and resources needed to be productive, these owning elite control the direction and rules of the whole community. They use this power to increase their power and wealth. This system of the few controlling the many has gotten worse, despite all the talk about democracy.

With the elites controlling the choices before us, it matters little how we chose. We need to work in the cracks and fissures of the existing structure to expand and broadly/openly distribute productive opportunities while still looking for ways to undo the historical patterns that have resulted in current inequities.

#justice #economics

[edwhitfield]

Elders in the way

Young movement activists often lament the inability of older activists to pass leadership and responsibility on to the next generation. This is, I believe, a by-product of movement funding patterns that create competition for scarce foundation resources. There is enough work to be done that new activists should assume as much leadership and responsibility for which they have the desire, energy, skills and time. This dispute arises when it is perceived that older activists have cornered foundation support. Younger activists want the older ones to “release” these resources to them.

The possibility that serious grass roots efforts can draw in adequate resources is infrequently explored because of the acceptance of this ultimately limiting funding paradigm.

#fundraising