What I Noticed in Passing….
It was a year or so ago when, placing thought to permanent record by way of keyboard, a particularly rich thought came to me and I quickly and thankfully recorded it.
“…it seems that much effort is quickly cast aside when advantage seems worth its sacrifice!”
At the time I was sitting in Memphis, Tennessee and had just concluded a review of abandoned properties that had been placed in the hands of an east cost Bank. I was looking at them with both the eye of a “real estate expert” and an “opportunity lost lamentation.” I offered the Bank a solution and a plan of action however, what they need to know, the bankers didn’t want to hear! Observing further the economic devastation of the area gave cause to cogitate on the matter further. Here was the result:
“I render my imaginings with rhythmic actions attempting the seamless and dynamic music of a heart intended for this purpose. In unison we must see and know these rhythms. Not as dissonance of difference in our outward form, but with harmony and reverence toward our common virtue, our common genius, and reports from One whose language speaks silently to the universe of one mind.”
We are capable of so much more than what the economic and social scars would indicate. So much more! So then,…
Tell me this! Why does the Race that Divides a people appear as it does? To what purpose when so much is lost, instantly, to what might be considered gain?
The “Black Panther” crusade has appeared again and the toxicity of speech along with it. Why has the issue of Race Division appeared so abrasively in the speech of one Rev. Jeremiah Right? In the derisive speech of La Raza president Janet Murguia? In the petulant tones of the “Dearborn Four”? What possible reason could there be for those who have suffered and lost so much more than these having none who speak loudly on their behalf?
More interesting to me is that President Obama, who is not of so called “salve class” origins having a so-called “white” mother and his father of Kenyan origins who himself both African and Arab blood-ties and no historical link to American practices of slavery, continues to identify himself as a “black man”. Again, to what possible advantage? Particularly in a Nation whose only lingering tendency toward the notion of “race” is measured only by the persistency with which it conveniently surfaces!
Again! To what advantage?
An interesting note to enhance my point: As you observe, my last name is “Greco”. It’s a “slave name” and though my immediate ancestry is Italian (the Italian Provence of Calabria) the “line” can be traced back to the time of the Romans who were known to capture/enslave peasants from conquered lands delivering these individuals to the Italian peninsula where they were assigned to various tasks. Mine, happened to be put to work in quarries, olive groves and vineyards. Actually, my ancestral “lines” can be traced to the Greek Island of Crete and thus, in my case, when a Roman referred to a slave of Greek origins, the referred to them as “The Greek” or, “Il Greco”. Similarly, in the case of Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541 – April 7, 1614), a well known painter of late 15th Century – also in my ancestral line – was referred to, by the Queen of Spain, as “El Greco.” At some point, even the “Greco’s” moved beyond the near three century-long period of Roman enslavement yet, to this very day, I bear the markings of a “slaves” name. Slavery is not an American Tragedy, it is Mankind’s self-expressed plague! So enough already!
Let me close by answering the questions, “To what advantage?” Simply put, it is “Political Advantage!” The Democratic party’s utter and complete failure is going to cost them significant if not total loss of Political Advantage and where the best interests of the Nation would be to give no “quarter” to the Advantage of “Racial Divides”, they are taking the lead in triangulating the divisiveness of invective bias in an attempt to stave off the consequences of the devastation they have so efficiently advanced.
How quickly we have moved, in so many ways, behind our Nations forward progress!
As I mentioned above:
“…it seems that much effort is quickly cast aside when advantage seems worth its sacrifice!”
Curtis C. Greco, Founder
