GET UP!

Preface Is Your Coffee Really Black? Brewed coffee may range from brown to almost black, depending on the roast level and how the coffee was brewed according to various informational sources I found. The color of coffee shows what stage it’s at, with it only being ready for consumption when it’s brown. Beans never actually become black, although brewed coffee may look black. We have a lot of people who look like us but who are no good for us. Those who feel they are “Blessed” to do what God calls a ‘Mess'. Have we tasted success so much, those who have “made it”, that we have abandoned the strength and knowledge gained that came from struggle? As a “man of color”, In the times of slavery and Jim Crow black people fell to their knees for help that was above and beyond our capabilities. We needed supernatural help. So we united in prayer and each other. We solidified our moral center and set a standard for trust and a common goal. While our common goal may be the same, somewhere in the progress of success we've drifted away from that standard and moved away from our moral center and developed our own “evolutionary” standard. In order to get back to a moral center we will have to put ourselves in strategic positions of influence in order to influence that which influences our culture such as television, radio, music, sports and entertainment and things that immediately affect and influence people - our people - who are in a constant search for their place in this world and more importantly our youth by what they see, hear and are being told is “normal” due to an “evolving world”, and even more important is WHO we are listening to and emulating. Our Legacy is not in statues, rap music, sports, clothes…but in our ability to survive and thrive through unity and spirituality. Success is not always evidence of being successful if it goes against our moral principles. We must do a better job at explaining what success and wealth and affluence (not influence) really means. To have more constructive and, more importantly, morally centered and spiritually minded role models for our youth is critical, though it will be done against a strong current of DIYs (do-it-yourselfers) and TFYs (think-for-yourselfers), a culture of those who feel that freedom is the ability to do what is right in your own eyes. To those of you are on point, who guides us in the right direction and are not afraid to call us out, I Thank You. What I write I’ve learned from you. We must get and stay polished. We must ‘Understand’ before we ‘Take a Stand’ because ignorance is a personal choice. —-D.S.Walker Prologue While walking the streets of Rome, Italy one warm July day in 2019 I came upon a faceless, race-less, ethnic-less person positioned in an unavoidable place where no one could miss her, or him, no assumptions made, as shown on the cover of this book. It seemed obvious to me that who this person was was not the message being conveyed but a statement of need. It was like a test for humanity. ‘Am I more important to you than a park bench; or a cute little puppy being walked by a total stranger; or the store windows with expensive clothes, jewelry and purses; or do you avoid me like the poop dropped uncaringly by the puppy but immediately and lawfully scooped up by it’s master.’ The message? What was the message? It wasn’t about how much money that could be gathered in his/her tin can. To me it was simply a cry for help, not necessarily for the person laying there, but to draw attention to the blindness of society and its consumption of itself. It showed me the sacrifices one was willing to make to send that message. I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty nor ashamed of your own success nor even your freedom to chose who you will help or why, but hurting people don’t always ‘holla’. Growing up was more INTERESTING to me than FUN. I know that sounds strange to most than normal, but feeling alone simply gives you more time to think. It also makes you more vulnerable. You’re not yet smart enough to realize it but your future is being shaped by your present. What you see, hear and think is molding you into the person you will become and the hands that shapes this ‘clay vessel’ are the older people around you. The world is a big and strange place and you are watching to see how to be human. How to be what you are. How to be WHO you are. Especially little boys trying to earn their ‘man bones’. Or little girls trying to face their own self esteem. Being a parent is a privilege. Unfortunately or fortunately for some, it’s a privilege not given to all for one reason or another. This is not a book written to rail against the abuse and neglect of parents nor people in general. It’s more of a reflection on how the world changes from generation to generation. A world that we all have a hand in shaping. This is also not a book that I wanted to write, but a book that wrote me. Not words that I made up but words that made me. We are all a multifaceted puzzle made up of people that we know and knew and bumped into from the beginning of our existence to now but ultimately shaped by the choices we’ve made in life. A life that was meant to be fair but never came out that way yet with the ability for you to be fair. Life is all about Choices. I’ve always believed that while God is the ultimate ruler and creator of life with the sovereign ability to control all life, there is one thing that He has given us sole charge over and will not interfere with though He has the ability to alter after its been made, and that is allowing us our ‘sovereign’ will to choose. As a ‘responsible’ parent you are constantly concerned about the growth and choices your child or children make. The first example of who they are comes from their parents. There is so much you want to tell them, even warn them against, before their own generation shapes and molds them outside of their will. There is simply too much out there in this world keeping our youth from focusing on what is important to them in their lives such as their parents and their own personal responsibilities. Too many challenges to parents’ responsibilities and authority. The minds of our youth are on parties, going places, having fun, “living their lives” and there is too much competition against rules and common sense. Many of our children are like a car with no reverse. They seldom look back any further than their own life as opposed to the life that got them to where they are now. Yet too many parents support that out of anger from where they come from, their life experiences as parents and the need to not let their children go through what they went through therefore enabling that type of thinking from our youth. Some parents justify their actions by comparing themselves and their children to the impossible odds presented by those of another race or culture. Even as they grow into adults there seems to always be something that you need to tell them about life and its traps and snares and your constant efforts to point them in the right direction. But there always seems to be little time and always one more thing you’d like to say to them before you die - knowing that you will not be with them always. Those times when they call you brimming with good news; or their sadness over a sick friend or the untimely death of someone that they knew and befriended. Or when they come to you or call you to ask for help in making a decision that to you is small, but to them is the (50th…) biggest decision of their life! To know that you are the only one with certain memories that no one else knows and understands but you two. Tears from his or her eyes that rolled down their cheeks but have yet to hit the ground because you were always there to catch them. Always in your heart, there is much to say before you go. He who feeds the roots feeds the tree. But even with feeding a tree there is a limit to how high a tree will grow.