In C S Lewis's book The Great Divorce: A Dream, he depicts heaven and hell in two contrasting dimensions. In Hell, people have everything that they need so they grow further and further apart from each other and have no use for each other. In Heaven, there is much need so the people have to bond together, depend on each other and share to exist. Wow!!! Does that explain perhaps the disintegration in relationships that we're currently experiencing in our country. Maybe our success is making us more independent and we really believe that we don't need each other. As I contemplate the fundraising that I must do to support the ERASE Races cause, there have been many days where I wished that I h

Wow!!! I just returned from watching the movie Green Book and perhaps I'm wowed because of my call to ERASE Race, but I think that this movie will impact everyone who watches it in ways particular to each of our individual experiences in life. Spoiler alert: The movie makes the point that to judge people by what they look like on the outside tells you very little and often nothing about who they really are on the inside. It is a typical 60's civil rights/freedom venture, but it explores the territory from a refreshingly different angle and the acting is superb. It was refreshing to leave the theater and feel like you had been educated, informed and entertained. It was reminiscent of how I fe

A great Marine Corps commercial begins with a recruit perched atop a towering platform with the water many feet below. He hears his drill instructor's voice telling him that if he quits now, he will always quit in life. The recruit responds and says, "so I jumped." The recruit left the known safety of the platform he was on, to immerse himself in the unknown realm of the water below. What he realizes after conquering his fear is that once he was immersed, he came back up out of the water, better, braver, and a Marine. This commercial is the story of where we are on the issue of "race" in this country. With the pool of integration below, each of us stands poised on the platform of cultural an

The role-model myth, as I have termed it, says, that you must have positive role models that look like you to influence your thought of being (outlook on what you could become). Take some time to let that sink in and then continue on reading. Now think, if that is true, how does anyone ever become something different than what they have seen from those who are similar to them? How would Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr., become the first "black" astronaut in the U.S. space program without seeing someone who "looked like him" doing it? If that were true, how could Dr Daniel Hale Williams III become a doctor in 1883 and perform the first open heart surgery in 1893? If that were true, how could Barac

Today you will hear many quotes from the late great Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I have many of my own personal favorites such as "God is not interested in the freedom of black men or white men or yellow men, God is interested in the freedom of mankind..." and "returning hate for hate only multiplies hate adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars..." and this one, "love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." Of course his life's impact was far greater than any recitation or remembrance of his most eloquent quotes, but I think we do him a disservice when we use his quotes to convey anything besides the essence of his life which was service, unity and l

All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – Letter from Birmingham Jail In 1896, a Supreme Court decision in Plessy v Ferguson legalized separate but equal accommodations in public facilities. This action ushered in an era of separation/segregation in our country from which we have never fully recovered. At the time our federal government actually believed that segregation was okay as long as both parties had equal quality and access to accommodations. Needless to say, our judicial discourse corrected this mistaken notion and the Supreme Court overturned their decision in 1954 with Brown v the Board of E

I have a dream that is much like the dream of Dr. King and as we celebrate/commemorate his achievements, I would like to build upon his foundations of oneness and the unity of mankind. My dream, like Dr. King’s is rooted in the American dream that “all men are created equal.” Though historical forces have often prevented the reality of the American dream for many of its citizens, today, we can all work towards making that dream a reality, but in order to do it, we must rid ourselves of the segregationist mentality that was born early in the idea of America. While the ink on the Constitution proclaiming the equality of man was still wet, some in America were denied status as men and ultimatel

I was frantically looking for something else when I stumbled upon a relic from my much younger life. I must've been 25 or 26 years old and as you can tell from the badge, I was "too black, too strong." What a joke. Of course I really believed it at the time. As a matter of fact I got that necklace at a Public Enemy concert in Los Angeles so I had to be "black." When I think about it, there were quite a few "white" people there too so I guess that should've let me know that it takes more than going to a Public Enemy concert to adorn the label "black." Beyond that concert attendance as an attribution of "blackness," I figuratively and literally checked all of the boxes for "blackness." In coll

I was listening to a radio show on youtube today and they asked the question, "Can you be pro-black and date outside of your race?" It was interesting to hear people calling in to respond to the question. The answers were so twisted and confusing that the show hosts continually tried to clarify what the callers were saying. As the show progressed, the hosts made some clarifying remarks that were worthy of ERASE Race mention (they were really good). If you want to watch this 13 minute clip, check it out here. What I want to do today is properly define a couple of terms so that we are able to have a conversation with understanding about what it means to be "pro-black" or "white nationalist." T

My one and half year-old grandson had a ball with unwrapping Christmas presents last month. He had more fun tearing away the paper containing the gift than with the gifts themselves. He eventually played with the gits that were contained inside of the wrapping paper, but his antics reminded me of how we, as adults, are often more consumed with "the packaging" than we are with what's inside. Skin color is the packaging in which God has placed each of us. Some people are quite enamored with the style and color of their packaging and some people have a distaste or disdain for other types of packaging materials, colors and styles. That's okay if you're one and a half years old and it's the packa