Last night, I sat in my plush beige leather swivel rocker in my well appointed apartment-sized bedroom in front of my huge HDTV inside my wonderfully air conditioned large home on a very quite street in a very quiet little town called Gallup in a very quiet state in a comparatively very safe, very secure, very rich nation called the United States of America, crying inside after viewing one of the bloodiest close quarters war stories I'd ever seen.

The film is called The Kingdom and stars Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper and a host of exceptional "Middle Eastern" actors like Ashraf Barhom whose names should have made the marquee but didn't. It's a film I highly recommend to any of those who want a real idea of what our troops (and Iraqi citizens) go through every day as they die while being told that they are defending various freedoms, which they prove very capable of doing. It is an extremely accurate and frightening representation of what awaits our young sons and daughters on their way to or now in extreme harm's way.

Not since the equally recent Blood Diamonds, about the diamond wars in Sierra Leone, had I see so detailed a filming of close quarter firefights on the screen. Naturally, since I'm a former film critic, that technical side of my brain decried the idea that "our heroes" managed to escape the "firefights from hell" relatively unscathed. You'll be able to relate to that statement only if you see both films.

My memory ("recall" is a more accurate term, as we actually recall or pull up from our brains the data we've recorded exactly as we "saw" it, [saw, heard, tasted, felt, changed and filtered] though no two people "remember" anything in the same way) tells me that "Diamonds" made me feel similarly sad for the very young African boys and girls used by the monstrous killers to ply their wars in Africa. What depressed me so is how nationally placid "Americans" are about the extremely violent ways our children and young adults meet the deaths or survive their wounds, both physical and severe mental, because we're so caught up in our often unexciting, safe little lives.

I think that if we, as adults (except those who know exactly what those firefights are like from their own war experiences) could be made to experience through technology (perhaps through an interactive CGI (computer generated imagery) tied to sounds, smell and realistic and pain producing stimuli apparatus attached into our nerve endings) we might not be so eager to create wars or send our children away to fight them.

One of the more devastating scenes (one played out every day in Africa, Asia, Indonesia, and the British created "Middle East"—think Palestine and Iraq) is at the end of this film, when an Arab child of ten or so is asked by his mother what his dying grandfather said to him before he died, and the child says, "He said, don't be afraid, child; we're going to kill them all!" My mind channeled to the 60's film The Battle of Algiers, and the endless graphic war films I've seen over the nearly seven decades of my life, and I knew then that I'd never see an ending to men's insane need to create and fight wars that lead to the death, mutilations, rape and mental destruction of themselves and their families. Worse, neither will my children or yours. The devil is forever busy.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

I lived through the (false) gas crisis of the seventies, the downsizing fiasco of the late eighties and early nineties, and am living with all of us through the corporate created crisis of the present day. In all three instances, the corporate structure of this country not only survived wonderfully, but thrived and profited hugely. In all three crises, and the mini-me's in between, the middle class was savaged and its ranks decimated after a few years of our unprecedented growth.

All the while, Americans waited for our politicians to "save us" while the corporate pirates bled us out. Meanwhile, the corporate, news media, political and economic talking heads were feeding us tons of misinformation and disinformation bolstered up with false facts, figures and charts which so opposed each other as to cancel each other out. We got nothing but white noise then, and we're getting nothing but white noise now. (White noise is when opposing steams of noise [techno-, economic-, politico-, etc., noise] cancel each other out.)

Now, it wasn't (isn't) as if there weren't (aren't) scads of protesting interest groups and organization countrywide fighting to shed light on these fiascos, there were/are. But the media always made sure that their pretty, well-groomed, well-fed, non-suffering, talking heads joined other talking heads (pundits) and talked circles of confusion in much louder, much better paid venues. So, we get to hear only that which those who were/are benefiting from these contrived economic crises wanted us to hear, then and now. What was that? It wasn't a "what". It was a "who", and in these times and back then, it was always some mythical enemy.

In this century, it's Muslims. In past centuries, it's been the British (Revolutionary War), Indian Wars, Mexican Wars, Indians, slaves, Confederacy, Spanish War, workers, Germans, (WWI and WWII), Japanese, unions, whoever could be used to obfuscate the economic piracy that keeps us "middlers" in check and paying for the plush lives of those of the super-rich who are robbing us blind (not all of those who are moneyed are ripping us off. In fact, the real scammers and robber barons are proportionally few and well hidden behind walls of shell corporations, well paid PR persons and lawyers. Many of them are so well hidden that most of us, including me, have no idea who they are! (Who really owns the insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, farming, industrial, media, transportation, entertainment, techno-scientific-biological, etc. complexes? Do you know? Do I? Doubtful.)

So, how do we fight these forces and structure? The same way we always have. With our vast numbers. With inertia, by withholding our money. If you're watching, you'll notice that the more we change our spending habits, the quicker better results occur.

Gas has gone down because we're not buying it. We're using less, and changing what we buy both because we can no longer afford what we once purchased in abundance (incredible overpricing) and because we refuse to be robbed. We're turning to alternative lifestyles in droves, we're figuring out that over-processed foods and chemical medicines are poisons, we get that cigarettes kill, we're figuring out that fast foods figure fully in our early demises, that air pollution is suffocating the world, that corporations are polluting our waters with our help, and so we're slowly starting to turn away from products and corporations that kill us by the hundreds of thousands yearly with their poisoned products.

Thanks to the internet, we're beginning to seize alternate news sources in our national search for truth. Now, more and more people are reading and creating news blogging sites that give us more real news than NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and other corporate news venues.

And though some blogs are controlled by these media forces, and others are just plain crack- and crap-pottish, still, the truth is more available to us today than ever. I'm no investigative journalist, but I hope to be putting forth my opinions on situations I feel are oppressing us all, 'cause we got only one ship, folks, and I don't want to drink, swim or drown in polluted waters. So stop being so afraid. Join those of us who are fighting to make or world better or safer. Maybe what you know will add to the info we need to save our planet. Come on in, while the water's still fine.

P.S. Keep up the great research into natural resources and alternative, folks. The more we return to nature (God's way) the better off we'll be.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

My brain never shuts off, not even when I sleep, for I dream about the things I've had conscious thoughts about during waking hours. That's why I wasn't surprised that my mind seized Jesse Jackson's callous, crude and stupid remarks as a way to segue into  a negative area of elder African American (and perhaps people of color in America) thought. I guess it could be called the "crabs in the basket" philosophy.

But, before I go there, an obvious admission is in order. I come from a generation where a "bluetooth" was a "tooth" that was "blue" In other words, these are simply not our times [those of mine and my contemporaries]. I've told my grandchildren that "this is your world, I just live in it!"

What profound truth there is in that! My grandchildren's lifestyle is so in advance of our own, that only a television commercial could convey the distance. You know, the one—two obviously precocious children are telling their equally befuddled parents how their hugely advanced handheld phones should be used? In my day (how odd it is to use that phrase, but how true) there were no cell anythings, no plasma or HD TV, Blue Ray DVDs, no personal computers or touch screen devices. If you touched a TV screen in public, onlookers would think you were "touched" yourself.

We did have jet planes; I flew on hundreds as I criss-crossed the USA speaking on civil rights issues and my art. In fact, that's how I met Jesse Jackson in 1971, a year after we shared a Time magazine issue (April 1970), he on the front cover, me on a full page color spread inside.

We were both between flights in some major airport, flying off in separate directions to "Somewhere" USA. (Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" has just come on the air over my television; how ironic!) Jackson had achieved great fame for his association with MLK, then three years gone, and for his own highly charismatic intellect, personality, and speaking fame; his skillful alliterations were, by then, quoted internationally. I was on my way toward lesser national reputation for my own works and words.

Jackson had a large entourage, I had just myself. As I introduced myself to him, I noted the disinterested and dismissive stares of his minions, repeated instantly by him. I could see how quickly he had assessed and categorized me as someone who had no use in his world. The chill was palpable and protracted, and very informative. To this day, I am still highly amused by our encounter. My mind immediately branded him as a somewhat calculating opportunist, a view I feel was confirmed by his sleazy remarks toward Obama over a live mic three plus decades later. I wondered then, as I do now, to how many others he has expressed his so-called "off the record" asides.

After hearing Jackson's comments, one of my brilliant daughters, who is particularly gifted in world issues, wrote to me at length of her disaffection with the many in my generation who are not so surreptitiously annoyed and angered by the amazing advances of their children. I couldn't agree with her more.

To those of my generation who have far from subtly expressed that rage in word and/or deed in recent months, I would say, give it up! Release your death grip on these times; they're not yours anymore. Pass them on, without jealousy or fear.

If you watch your children and listen to them more, you'll see they've GOT this, and are much better at every aspect of understanding their world than we were during our now long gone days. In fact, they're already telling "back in the day" stories to their own hugely precocious children. Just ask Ice Cube and other Gen-X superstars, like Will and Jada Smith, who now have teenagers, too.

Moreover, in less than a decade, our children will be us, and just as stunned and stymied by the world their children own as we are by theirs. Most of us will be gone by then, as the recent losses of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes attest. But, for now, let's move to the side. Not aside, which is what Jesse fears, but to the side, as mentors and advisers, who have lived long enough to see all of the pitfalls, pratfalls, and traps this world prepares for each new generation.

We are now African elders who live in a global village, whose many younger voices share interactive philosophies and technologies we truly do not understand. (How many of us saw the coming of the second generation iPod, twice as fast and powerful as the first and a million times more powerful than the building-sized IBM computers of our 1960s and 70s that were hundred of times its size? How many of use can use an iPod, or even turn one on?)

So, for those of us who need to hear this, stop pulling at our children's coattails as they scramble out of the crab baskets we're stuck in because of our own inertia. Instead, proudly ride out with them as they reach back, as they always do, to pull us along with them. That's what the cellphone commercial speaks to. After all, this is what we trained them to do.

If your mind is right, you'll laugh as joyously as I do while recognizing that our children and theirs are already out of their baskets, and, if you're as lucky as I am, will have long ago pulled you out with them.

I'll "speak" further on these issues in future blogs, but for now:

Go, Obama, my "son", go! I'm right "beside" you!

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

I often smile when I consider my four year history here in Gallup. When I was in Boston, I had no anonymity nor did I desire any. In Boston, in 2003, I was a full-time practicing visual artist with all that career means, as well as an equally visible, senior, tenured professor at nationally prestigious women's institution, Simmons College, where I was winding down a 33 year career, and preparing to be "Emeritus Professor of Art" as of Summer, 2004. As a prominent artist/educator/community activist, I had spent nearly fifty years bing a "somebody" in the arts and education, and had tons of documents to prove it. Once I moved to Gallup, all of that stopped cold.

In Gallup, I am very much less than well known. No one shows up on my doorstep for advice. I receive no letters requesting my services for anything other than as customer for things I have no use for. Yet, I smile and think, what a relief! Even more than that, I have time to reflect on the joy of not being the center of anything at all, except inside my home, where there's only me.

Now, I have endless hours to be introspective and self-examining, which has increased my amusement at my limited role in society dramatically. I'm learning how to see from an entirely new perspective...anonymity.

No one here knows or cares who I am...or was in Boston. No one here is impressed by my credentials or accomplishments past a polite but distant acknowledgment before moving the conversation to an ending or another subject. Since I rarely talk about my prior life unless asked, that's just fine with me. So here's something I often reflect on, which relates to that "blade of grass" observation. Let's jump right in.

Stop what you're doing for a minute and go look at a blade of grass, or tree, flower, ant, fly, bee, wasp, dog, cat, mouse, whatever you see that isn't of your species, but is alive. Did these entities notice you? If you flashed a million dollars at them, or offered this fortune to them, would they care? Would they even notice? Do all the germs, fungi, viruses or combination thereof know who you are, or even that you exist? How about a tree in the forest?

You can see where I'm going with this. Now, before someone says, "God knows me," I concede that. Of course He does. He invented you, didn't He? You're part of His genetic family, sure, but I'm talking about to the other, infinite numbers of creatures He also invented. If other creatures of the world, from elephants and whales to ants and germs are oblivious to your existence, how important an individual are you to the sustaining of the universe, anyway? Doesn't your personal world die when you do? Aren't these fun thoughts?

This is an synopsized and edited version of why I smile when I think, here in Gallup, "Time passes and so will we." Will the universe notice or care? Do I? Not much. I'm having too much fun just enjoying God letting me be alive at all to worry about my personal relevance. I'm also enjoying being "just a face in the crowd" which has afforded me a chance to rest, as I was very burnt out from all of my intense public involvement in teaching at Simmons, lecturing around the country, creating imagery (which I still do), exhibiting, writing and trying to be the best Dad I could through the intense drama all that can generate. I was so mentally and physically tired from not just that, but from packing and moving all the material from my studio (six double truck loads) from Boston to Gallup.

Now I've had four years (of lowered activity outside of the Boston art world) to be a self-reflecting observer out of range from the influence of my past life, and am (once again) moving my 8,000 square foot studio from downtown Gallup into storage. After that, I will begin a new life as a senior artist who will travel and discuss his role as an artist in the last century and his future as an artist in this new century.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

There have been some critics of my work, who, stuck in the Euro-centricity of high aesthetic technical styel, i.e.; the proper classical application of paint, high theories of color modalities, unassailable compositional integrity and other such blather have consigned my work to the trash-heap of, as the late William F. Buckley, Jr., once called it, "proletariat art". I thank them because that is exactly what I believe I've been lead to create. My father was interested in having me create imagery for the "masses". There was to be no search for aesthetic perfection, but, instead, a deep-reaching for message and meaning for an instant statement. Out of that search, real aesthetic relevance would come. It just wouldn't be Eurocentric.

Artist Jeff Donaldson, who's work most surely matches all that aesthetic Eurocentricism would require, called me "the Koolaid Kid", as his way of marveling at my ability to capture, through color, the essence of a moment or statement in our search for "revolutionary relevance" (in our move to add our Africanness to our imagery). He'd call my newest and most sharply focused imagery "one shot" and praised me on the more than one occasion for presenting the masses of Buckley's so-called "proletariat" (Jeff called them "folk") with just the right images to express the times we were in, praise repeated by Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Charles White, Nelson Stevens, Lois Maillou Jones and once, in the long ago early seventies, by the great Elizabeth Catlett Mora.

There were to be many others, including those many curators who invited me to exhibit in one major African American exhibition after another, a blessing that was to spread early on into many major American arts exhibitions up to and including two in 2004 at the Decordova Museum in Lincoln, MA.

What few (very few!) knew was that my "style" was not at all spontaneous, but a deliberate, studied, creation of a series of styles which would capture two essences: one, a real concentration on masterful composition, and two, a complex reduction of form to a kind of painterly simplicity that would enhance rather than ofuscate a message or story with unnecessary overt aestheticisms (Euro-blather).

At the same time, I had been researching the highly formalized and aesthetically classical forms of African art (Kemet, Benin, Ife, Makonde, Nabele, Kushite, Nubian, Ethiopian, etc.) to see how my ancestors approached their cultural aesthetics. I got a lot of what I needed from the research.

From those sources came many of my (in my mind) most successful "simple" masterworks. (Believe me, nothing was "simple"; injecting just the right level of emotion into an image was most difficult. Trying to express that emotion through a rendering of "line" into forms that can scream out to a public unused to the cries of an oppressed people presented so powerfully, so purposefully, and so permanently, is not easy. I certainly knew what Goya, Picasso, Shahn, etc., felt as they created work after work which their critics labeled "propaganda vilely presented," etc.

Along the way, many drawings were torn up, many paint sketches destroyed, and not a few finished paintings were rejected, never to see the light of day, then or ever. But, I've never been one to quit a struggle, and from the many hundreds of failures, a fairly substantial body of successful images have reposed themselves into a sizable body of work. I hope you enjoy them.

As for the few critics who say unkind things (mostly because they, themselves, cannot create art), since they ain't puttin' no nickels in my quarter, I can't be bothered to worry about 'em.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

I had up to 2" of snow on my windshield, and the ground, away from the concrete (which holds heat longer than just dirt) was covered with a light coat of white. Amazing. I thought to myself and later said to others, "If you wanted a perfect example of the power of God, this is certainly it." Four days before that, it was 89 degrees in Gallup, and the morning after the nighttime snowfall, it was still snowing and the temperature was below 35 degrees!

Weather conditions like these must be absolutely awful for the huge numbers of homeless and alcoholics who dot the streets of Gallup every day. They stop into my studio daily, trying to sell me worthless objects "for food money", reeking of alcohol and a cloud of body stink. I know they want the money for their next alcohol fix, and, as a former alcoholic, I despair for them.

But I despair more for the homeless people worldwide, and wonder if we'll ever really deal positively with this problem in the US, or continue to ignore the fact that this constant corporate piracy and economic rape by some of the super rich of the world's masses is flooding the ranks of the homeless like Katrina flooded the Gulf Coast. It'll be interesting to see if a new political administration will begin to deal with these kinds of issues, or will it be (big) business as usual.

In my case, the snowy, cold weather made me very thankful for God's love, as I sat here in my extremely comfortable breakfast nook watching the often biased rantings of CNN. No, I'm not picking on CNN; all TV news stations seem to be biased in one direction or another on a variety of issues. Case in point—look at the almost minimal, very sedate coverage of the Hagee-McCain fiasco and compare it to the Obama-Wright (and this week, the Obama-Pflegler) tsunami-like blast of coverage. What a difference. 

And, believe me, I'm not taking a political side. It's just the latest example, for me, of the tremendously negative imbalance in equity in American reportage when one candidate is "white" and the other is "black". Oh, how I hope I live to see an end to this ridiculousness. A little balance on CNN, Fox, ABC, MSNBC, et als., would be nice. 

Moreover, it would be wonderful if the news media would return to reporting the news—like the issues faced by the homeless I discussed above—rather than creating and structuring it to the degree they do today. A little less entertainment and levity would be nice, too. 

By the way, CNN polled its viewers on the question of Obama-Wright/McCain-Hagee coverage and its viewers stated 89% to 11% that the coverage of that issue was unfair and racially motivated in that McCain's fiasco was receiving far less coverage and bias than Obama's did.

I guess I'm not alone in noticing this reporting disparity that is not dissimilar to the economic disparity that causes homelessness worldwide. I wonder if the press misses the point that we viewers don't miss the point and would prefer to see more balanced reporting on issues important to us, like homelessness and other disparities based on income, race or age?

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

Ted Kennedy, the patriarch of America's putative "royal" family, may be dying from the malignant tumor now known to be growing aggressively in his brain. This fantastic family, which has barged, bored, bulked and blasted through the better part of the 20th century straight into this one, savagely, combating racism, sexism, hunger, poverty, discrimination, criminality, divisionism, classism, and all of the other negativisms that wuman beings perpetrate on and perpetuate against each other, seem destined to lose their lead white maned warrior for change, perhaps within months. Why do I care?

Because even though Joe Kennedy, Sr., was allegedly a bootlegger, criminal, and ruthless businessman in the twenties through forties of the last century, and all that implies, he and Rose Kennedy spawned, in this huge brood of very attractive children, a lifelong obsession with public service in every available form, and backed it up with every dollar wrung from the willing but illegal boozers who formed the core source of his vast investment fortune of the forties and fifties, and I got to watch and be affected by it all.

Like many Americans who lived through over sixty years of the Kennedy mystique, filled with wonder and disappointment, tragedy and accomplishment, huge flaws and pain in great profusion, I marveled at their lifestyle and close-knittedness, sure; but I envied them none of it. In fact, I always wished them well, and thought of them as a very rich section of my extended family. They were not "white" to me, but just a family who's efforts greatly impacted on the direction of my own life of service. They were quite the international role model, as world history bears out.

In my case, they codified why I couldn't fathom "race" as a concept. Their vast loyalty to each other and their own leading style of service to the disenfranchised and deprived, worldwide, without regard to the "race" of those in need, was highly laudable. Did they make mistakes? Sure, lots of them, some of monumental proportions. But that only showed how wuman they were, and most people got over their anger at them and the Kennedys moved on.

In my own life, my lifelong association with the many people and organizations which paralleled, while not necessarily intentionally emulating, Kennedyesque motivations, easily led me away from race as a determinant conceptual lifestyle. Skin color was always noticeable but not always associated in my mind with race, except where others, themselves, made it an issue. Since I took a highly protective stance towards anything that negatively impacted the safety of my branch of the wuman family, I seized every opportunity to make positive our contributions to wumanity as did legions of other wumanists, and the Kennedys were among that huge core of wumanists who struggled with us to make the precepts of the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of our country real and practiced in America.

What bearing has all of this on the cancer of "whiteness" and the smugly asinine practices of "white supremacy" which still grow like puss-filled, lesions on the burgeoning American lifestyle? Go to Roget's Thesaurus and read and re-read their definitions of the word "black". Go to various versions are large English dictionaries. Count the numbers of negative connotations Eurocentria (my word) has attached to that word, and then placed on part of my wuman family, and you'll understand my anger.

Go, then, to these volume's interpretations of the word "white" as attached to that description of another part of my wuman family. See the huge numbers of positives focused on the "purity" and "superiority" and "goodliness" of Europia, and it's hell-bent, pathological and cancerous and genocidal pursuit of the oppressions, rape and exclusionary exploitations of all other "non-white" branches of wumanity.

The Kennedys and families of many other sections of Europa, in America and elsewhere banded together with the many thousands of our families of color (as in the colors of the wuman families of the rainbow, not "races") to combat every aspect of these everyday psychological and actual holocausts. But none have been more visibly engaged in this deadly warfare than the Kennedys, and none of them more so than Ted Kennedy.

I have never met him, personally, but I have interacted towards positive change with many members of his family and mutual friends along my own road to working towards equality and equity for everyone.

Most of us don't see "white" or "black" or "yellow" or "brown" or it's "mixtures" as anything other than visual attributes on the beauty of the wuman form. We are all equal in the sight of God, and God is a "respecter of no man" or woman (my addition). I have always believed that, even when my rage over some of the actions of injustice by "white supremacists" types cause me to forget myself and rage against my Euro-oppressors; yet, I manage somehow to get back to my true self and remember all of those hundreds of Europeans who, by word or action, have positively affected my life.

Because of this, the older I get, the sillier the stupid practices of any kind of insane "racial" or "ethnic" superiorities (by any member of any of our numerous branches of wumanity) gets. When anyone, and I do mean anyone, can prove to me that they don't have to eat, sleep, breath, bleed, feel, expiate waste, ingest water or involve themselves in any other normal and necessary function of their wuman physicality, then, and only then will I see them as a superior being.

Otherwise, they just folk.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

Have you noticed that more and more commercials are featuring "interracial" couples and family relationships? It's as though corporations are beginning to notice that Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers have no interest in the old, so-called "racial" paradigms, and, have in fact, moved beyond them. "But wait!" as they say in the product sale commercials, please note that the males in these loving relationships are much more than 90% European, at least in the still highly racist minds of America's male corporate leadership, which is also 90% "white".

Perhaps they still believe that the "white" male is still the paramount and superior alpha male in America's "pride". Well, haha, "white" folks, there's something y'all's missin'! So-called "white" females are not blind, in fact, in every are of industry, sports, entertainment, fashion, and education, they vastly outnumber women of color, and, if not for marriage purposes, have avidly and very publicly, pursued men of color as sexual mates and, to a lesser degree, as marriage mates for their own nests.

Ask any African American/Hispanic-Latino rap artist, athlete, businessman, artist, musician, poet, public personality, etc., and he will tell you how much Euro-women are in their faces. Euro-women are increasingly becoming the "groupies" to these personalities of color, and the "browning" of America will explode this country straight out of racism. Why, ah, oh my, by mid-century, we'll become...Canada!

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

To book or interview Prof. Chandler or for permission republish his blog articles in whole or part, please call BAPsody in Blue, Inc. at 877-497-7770.

Why "wumanity", "womanity", "wuman", and "wumans" rather than those words beginning in "H"? Why not? The word "humanity" is exclusionary!

I can't think of a person who is smarter than my mother was. I gave up trying long ago. And my sisters, Lorraine, Gayle, and, I'm sure, Robyn, whom I don't know as well, easily compare. I've also borne witness to my own daughters, who, in their maturity, far outstrip me in intelligence, and the successful application of same.

What I had, and what most men have, is access, and the equity systems which we have created as "men" to exploit that access. I wish with everything that is in me that were not true, but it is, and is worldwide. Who wrote all of the religious books of religions worldwide? Men. Who writes the histories? Men. Who determines diplomatic and political protocol worldwide? Men. Who runs or controls all monetary or corporate systems worldwide? Men. Who is responsible for all the ills suffered in "human" society: wars, genocide, biological warfare, pollution, global warming, holocausts, deforestations, racism, famine, rape, etc., etc., ad nauseum? you guessed it. Men. (And women are the victims of all of this.)

Yet, we insult the very woman who sustained (housed) and bore us by actively excluding women worldwide in every possible way that we can from being deciders in changing these activities for the betterment of woman or wumankind! What are we so afraid of? Loss of freedom? I believe they'd be much better at continuing to secure our freedom than we've ever been at returning theirs.

So, out of the deepest depths of all of the respect I can bring to my admiration of female historical tolerance of the consistent stupidity of "man" kind, I apologize with all my heart for whatever role I've ever played in perpetuating by action, deed or word the ridiculous and harmful concepts and activities men use and practice to continue to declare women less than equal partner in the growth of, yes, WUMANITY.

Face it men, they're smarter than we are. They survive us, don't they? Both during pregnancy and birth straight through our other idiocies to their graves. So, I believe it is an honor for us to share our existence with them, not the other way around. In that regard, I've changed "humanity" to "womanity" or "wumanity" as my small way of giving proper inclusion and respect to our women.

For those of you males still on the fence about that, check this out. If you are truly being honest, who among you that is fully sane have never met a woman who was smarter than you? Thought so! 'Nuff said.

(c) 2008. Dana C. Chandler, Jr. Do not copy, redistribute or create derivatives of, in whole or in part, without permission. Edited by Dahna M. Chandler. (The opinions of the author are his own and may not necessarily be endorsed or shared by the editor.)

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