The Ten Point Program

The Ten Point Program was as follows:

1. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities’ education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
2. We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people.
3. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, and all oppressed people inside the United States.
4. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.
5. We want full employment for our people.
6. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community.
7. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
8. We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society.
9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.

Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.  And they launched forth.  But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.  And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.  And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”  {Luke 8:22-25}
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.  For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”  {James 1:6}
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So I am no Cedric D. Shine but there have been many a day when your pardon me’s have inspired me, reminded me of that which matters most, made me laugh when I wanted to cry and made me smile.  I hope this verse and my thoughts may provide you with some part of what your pardon me’s have given me.

The storm came, the boat was filled with water and the disciples were in jeopardy.  So what did they do? They did what any person would do.  They freaked out. They panicked. They thought they were going to die because that is what there logic and their vision told them was going to happen.  While they were panicking Jesus was “chillin”.  You would think that he wasn’t even there when the storm came upon them.  Like he wasn’t there when they were paniced and worried.  You would think that when things got really bad he just popped up.  But he didn’t just pop up. He was there the whole time, watching patiently, and waiting.  I don’t know what he was waiting for. Maybe he was waiting for the disciples to call on him.  Maybe he was waiting to see how much faith the disciples had.  Maybe he wanted to calm the storm when it was at its worst so the disciples would see how awesome he was…so they could testify to his greatness.  Whatever his reason he waited.

Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased, and there was a calm.  Just like that.  The storm, the fear, the confusion, the doubt…gone. This is the God that you serve. The God that you love and who loves you.  The God that lives inside of you and all around of you.  Please don’t forget that.  But the disciples needed to believe.  Jesus asks them where was their faith? If I was on a boat, in a storm where I could see death would I have held on to my faith?  Can you? That is the kind of faith God requires us to have. The kind of faith that doesn’t waiver or shake because we know that He is the master of all.  Unfortunately the only way I know you can build that kind of faith is by going through the storm and watching God take you out of it.  Watching God work through us, in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones builds our relationship with Him and our faith.  Let him build you and augment your faith.

Can I just say writing this was so freaking hard…I have no idea how you write the Pardon me on a daily basis. I have a whole new respect for what you do. Peace

Some beautiful words contributed to us by Maat

My Childhood

I’m an 80’s babies
The 80’s
Decade of the Crack head and Reganomics
Drugs flooded the ghettos faster than tax dollars flowed out
2: 45 am
One drug dealer dead
3:00 am
6 black men dead
4:52
8 Niggers dead
6:00 am
Wake up to 7 gun shoots

Time for school
Open the door and watch a neighborhood crack head search for her next hit
Her name was Marie
My mother told me she was beautiful once
They knew each other in Haiti and like so many others…
She fell victim to her environment
My dad asks her to come to church…
Li pas tros tard….Its never too late he calls out to her….
She looks into his eyes with sadness and disgrace
Her eyes drop to mine
Her spirit screams out to me with the utmost tenderness
“Don’t be this…”
“You’re better than this”…. “I was better than this…..”
Then she walks away

3:00 pm the bell rings
Leave for school
Walk to the candy shop
3:15 pm walk past the corner store that sells nothing but highs and lows
I watch as grown men and young boys go in and out
Each searching for something different
A way in
A way out
A way for

“Pas pale avec moun sa yo”… DON’T ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE PEOPLE” my
father would say
They are different
I wondered how different they could be…they looked just like me, my
brother, my friends
Did they choose the life they were living? (or)
Did the government suffocate their potential because they were born
into a lower caste
Darker skin..

At the tender age of 6 I decided they must have choose
They choose to kill their spirits.. chasing ghost

I believed they choose… I wanted to believe they choose until
Reality, Truth
They way I look at them is the way America looks at me
They question my vernacular
WHY DO I CHOOSE TO BE SO FUCKING ANGRY I COULD BURST?
Why I choose to view Obama as a sell out
And Hillary as a penis with a pussy
This life choose me as much as I choose it

I was born into a world
The world as it was
A forced marriage
I couldn’t get out
We consummated the relationship
And birthed me.. over and over
Each version  different from the next.. yet the same
For better or worst
This is it
This is my reality
As for Q, the neighborhood pusher
As for Marie.. the once desired woman, turned crack fiend
Drugs are their reality…..
We are not that different after all

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