Another story of The Twins?
The twin that was blessed being attacked by the twin that wasn’t? “Cain, where is your brother?” But, there’s more to this isn’t it…

I began writing this (sadly) a month ago. It’s been sitting in my drafts section because I’ve had little energy to speak about adults needing to be told that attacking elderly people is not something we do.

In 2001 was working in Silicon Valley quietly taking my lunch break when a middle aged white woman walked over to my isolated spot and stood near me. The bench outside the upscale grocery store parking lot overlooked rows of manicured houses, shops, and office buildings. Instinctively I braced myself for the ambush she uninvitedly was about to drop on me. She raised her arm and swept it across the landscape asking, “Do you know who’s responsible for saving much of this?”

The question had never entered my mind–and prior to this, I was unaware that the valley had needed, “saving.”
“Asians,” she said, then left.

Some of the best times in my life had been occurred in Asian countries and I saw no reason to have been singled out for her presumption. But this horribly disgusting series of attacks on Asians–and the responses– have shown me that “Asian Racism” is a double-sided sword that cuts far deeper than I could have ever imagined.

It was worth logging, that not only have I never held animosity against “Asians” as a group, I’d intentionally put my life on the line to spend as much time in, “Asia” as my Black, Working Class behind could. I think brothers coming back to the States in the 60s and 70s LOUDLY singing the praises of Southeast Asia perked up the ears of whites and others that perhaps they too should go check it out. “Asians” are like any other group of human beings–some good, some not so good, some brilliant… some…. not brilliant, some harbor dislike based on skin color… but many, MANY are wise, humane, and don’t. “Remove the splinter from your own eye, before you seek to judge.

“Thinking is hard, that’s why most people judge.” ~ Carl Jung

My mind flashes back to the day when I we were called in from the hot Texas sun, and sat looking at a set of blackboards that spanned the front of the room. On them were written the names of Air Force Bases worldwide. To reward us for completing Security Police School, Combat School and volunteering for Dog School, we now had the rare, unique gift of picking which base we would be sent off to.

I was one of the youngest in the room because most had already served a year at other stations before coming to Dog Handler’s School. I on the other hand was still at Lackland, AFB for the past nine months where Airmen go through Basic Training and sometimes Tech School, and out to their bases. I’d never been to another duty station. This would be my first. All my schools were in the same location so I was still “raw” and unaware about the outside world.

The names I looked at were ones I’d heard daily on afternoon televised news each day since junior high school… and now they finally stood in front of me: Bien Hoa, Cam Ranh Bay, Pleiku, Da Nang (A.K.A. “Rocket City”) and the  juiciest fish on the board, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Saigon, South Vietnam. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the sergeants who seemed so old to me at 18, paced up and down the side of the room with a worried look on their faces as they noticed my eyes glued to the section of the board where the Vietnam Air Bases someone had painstakingly and neatly chalked them in.

By 1972 the Vietnam war was showing signs of winding down, and even though I had joined the Air Force BECAUSE I did NOT want to have a gun to kill “Asians” … I was now indoctrinated into the path of the warrior that “supposedly” makes men out of boys–but, I’d only had sex … maybe three times and Thailand to a teenager was all about sex. So I weighed the opportunity to have war stories to tell for the rest of my life and “become a man,” against the fascination of beautiful long haired smiling women. Needless to say, I spent two tours (years) in Thailand and never killed one Asian. To this day, I’m proud of that.

As a preteen I’d seen both “The Bridge Over The River Kwai” and, “Black Orpheus” (both filmed in the late 50’s) and decided that before I died, I would make it to both Thailand and Brazil because never had I seen more beautiful women than in both. So I read the names of Thai bases… “Nakhon Phanom, Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Takhli, Ubon, Udorn,” and rumored to be the best choice… “U-Tapao.” They stood in front of my eyes like neon flashing chalk. We were told to pick three. I honestly don’t remember second and third choice, but my first was, U-Tapao. Having been raised during the Civil Rights Era, I knew the Vietnamese were not my enemy… and what I REALLY wanted was to travel to Asia, eat their food, and… fuck them. Both U-Tapao and Korat are listed on my DD214 as “Vietnam” … but in reality, they were, the rear and I was (safely) with the gear.

The military doesn’t make a man out of you. It’s an incomplete Rites of Passage that for most is better than none at all. Of all the attacks against Asians… I’ve heard of none coming from Veterans. Instead, it seems to be very angry, mentally unbalanced, untutored young men… and women, have been going through INTENSE economic and social racism since the policies of, “Too Much Democracy” began in 1980.

I have no doubt that blacks are capable of as much academic achievement and innovation as Asians, Whites, and Hispanics. African American scholars stand shoulder to shoulder and toe to toe with scholars worldwide. Public schools were under attack long before Betsy Devos was put in to muck up things as much as her racist, grandiose little brain could think of. It’s sad that White Supremacy is still so insecure that it still needs position and deprive Blacks and Native Americans from full participation. The sheer fact that so MUCH energy is put in making the playing filed unfair shows clearly that psychologist Alfred Adler was right when he observed that, “every claim for superiority is actually a reaction to feelings of inferiority.” It’s also clear that:

  • Black Lives only matter as long as they’re producing something useful to culture and the larger society
  • Any culture without Elders is a dying culture
  • “Celebrity Culture” is a fake pattern of Social Engineering designed to erode functional black culture
  • That you like any music you hear the most–and young, impressionable blacks hear far too much immature and self-destructive forms of Gangsta Rap and Hip Hop and far too little messages that instruct them to love each other and stick together for the purpose of sacrificing for the betterment of the whole…. like Asians do.

While the world is trying to pull itself up– blacks are taught young to as, Kendrick Lamar put it, “… trying to get ahead by going against…” Teenagers rebel …. but there’s only so much rebellion one can do before rebelling against yourself becomes neurosis. It’s absolutely foolish to let White, Racist, Mainstream Culture define you as an demonic enemy– and you take that definition on as your identity.

To be a Criminal isn’t a badge of achievement…. it’s a ticket to slavery where you’re locked in cages with other sociopaths. Psychopaths are born but sociopaths are created. Curiosity got me to Thailand. Curiosity got me to France, Germany, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Istanbul, and Alaska. Curiosity got me out of the small, narrow-minded neighborhood I grew up in. You have to learn how to be polite when you’re curios so that people will answer your questions. Curiosity introduced me to the awesome worlds of comparative theology, psychology, mythology, and culture.

Yes– Karma is ripening (… all the way around…) and if African Americans are to survive, we’re going to take some deep, LONG looks at who’ve we’ve allowed ourselves to become by watching television and listening to the radio stations designated after they closed 95% of the black radio stations that previously played songs that spread OUR values… not the dirty insane ones given to us to dance our way into asylums, jails… and graves.