When Ignorance Rules, Incompetence Reigns
　
As we look back in history and recall the peaks and troughs of Mankind’s continued ascension up the ladder of Evolution - our advances and accomplishments - an honest inquiry into ourselves reveals that our lowest and most disgraceful rungs were reached when the vices of Ignorance ruled the hearts and minds of our nation and so-called leaders, thinly veiled as ethical virtues as these ruling Placebos of intelligence basked in their own vainglory while the masses followed along in sheepish lockstep.

Common sense gave way to common ignorance as the consistency of high principles succumbed to the inconsistencies of low people, trading freedom for security, equality for intolerance, and justice for politics, who, lacking the competence to intelligently appropriate a means of surpassing the bar way beyond the level of mediocrity, instead, found it to be more ideal and essential to simply lower the bar to meet it.

As a result, the children of this country now find themselves reciting a pledge of allegiance that is even less believable than the nursery rhymes they recite soon after, reflective of a self-righteous culture of low standards and low expectations that prepares it’s children for the same while audaciously proclaiming itself a “World Leader”, indicating that when Ignorance rules, Incompetence reigns.

Ancient and recent history provides more than enough documented examples of the innocent many suffering at the hands of the ignorant few. However, for a recent example of its continued practice and propagation, one need not to look any further than the remote town of Gastonia, North Carolina, where a 9-year old child, Emanyea Lockett, was suspended from Brookside Elementary school for sexual harassment for calling a teacher “cute” and/or “fine.”

When adolescent crushes and compliments are shared between children in reference to a teacher, and then are interpreted as sexual harassment by someone presumed wiser - particularly a compliment that is as benign and lacking in any degree of threatening fortitude as the word “cute” is - then, not only is the intelligence and competence of the persons in power questionable, but so are the standards and principles that provided the platform and allowance for such intolerant stupidity to exist and thrive in the first place; both of which are in desperate need of reformation and/or removal.

Considering this degree of asininity, one has to wonder that if the tables were turned and it was the adult that referred to the child as “cute”, would such a comment/compliment constitute a form of sexually harassment or pedophilia? If so, then there are tons of gushing parents peering through nursery windows who potentially may have “pedophile” soon etched next to their name.....as my facetiousness finds little humor.

But in the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s mother, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

This culture of Intolerance - which is a form of ignorance - has sadly grown rapidly over the last several years, finding comfort and expression in the false guise of vigilant patriotism and proud heritage, exposing the likelier underlying truth and reality that this distorted mind-set has always been there - lurking - just simply awaiting the first opportunity to come forth and discriminately spread its human stain.

And considering that Emanyea Lockett is an African American child in the South, the South’s ominous, inescapable, and not-so-far removed history overshadows and offers stark parallels to the Emmett Till story; a story of a young African American boy in Mississippi that was condemned, brutally murdered, and tethered to the bottom of a lake by white men for whistling at a white woman.

Apparently, a whistle was a form of sexual harassment then, and the word “cute” is now. Again, not-so-far removed.

Of course defenders of the school’s actions will say that this comparison is unfair and excessive, but so too were the treatments of Emmett Till and Emanyea Lockett; both establishing that the vice of Ignorance is the fundamental and consistent common denominator in the exercise of such intolerance, and the recent action at Brookside Elementary school serves only as a karmic reminder that such ignorance will rule and reign repeatedly until a revolution of intelligent compassion prevails.

A teachable moment is only useful to the degree that at least one of the people involved is smarter than the moment itself. Unfortunately, such a person did not seem to exist on this day at Brookside Elementary school.

So, be inspired. Be led by principles and not people. If we each thought better, then we all would do better.

Tungz

Deep C.U.T.
(Complex Unaddressed Trauma)


Once upon a time, the United States of America sent young men and women into a war-zone to protect its interests. In these war zones, these soldiers witnessed and experienced the worst of human atrocities imaginable - rapes, killings, mass murders, kidnappings, decapitations, amputations, burning, torture - a place and condition where merely living to see the next day was a personal goal fueled by memories and the desirous hope of one day returning home.

The soldiers lived, fought, and survived in this heinous environment for varying time periods: Some for 6 months, some for 1 year, and the longest for 2 years. Some were even sent back after serving an initial tour.

All of these soldiers served in different capacities; some served in the field as Infantry and/or Special-Ops, other as Cooks, Supply, etc., and for different time periods, thus garnering them different experiences. However, as a result of these experiences, which were all traumatic in their own right, the soldiers all developed varying degrees of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) – Normal, Acute, Uncomplicated, Comorbid, and Complex; the latter being the most severe.

Coincidentally, the soldier’s deployment tours all end at the same time to which they are released to go back to their families. However, the United States of America has just gone through an economic turmoil to which funds and resources have been severely depleted with none being reserved for the treatment of the soldiers’ debilitating conditions of PTSD. No debriefings; no therapy; no medicine; no assistance; nothing.

However, what the United States of America did have was land, and instead, offers the land to the soldiers as an alternative with the suggestion that the soldiers could either sale the land for profit and pay for their own treatment, or, they can use the land to build businesses to which they could use the business profits for same.

So, the soldiers accept the land and decide that it would be more feasible to build businesses on the land with the hope that this would provide them an immense return on their investments. So the soldiers along with their unaddressed PTSD move onto this land to build homes and business which proves to be a long, slow process, as rebuilding generally is.

In the meantime, many other soldiers returning from the war-zone with PTSD are met with the same fate and impenitence from the government of the United States of America, and resort to moving to this now-community of soldiers with unaddressed PTSD that varies just as much as the soldiers themselves: Young, old, male, female, light, dark, homosexual, heterosexual, etc. In fact, the main fundamental thing that they all have in common is that they all were sent by the same country to suffer the same traumatic experience.

So before reading further, ask yourself the following questions:

How do you think that this community of individuals with varying degrees of unaddressed PTSD would function? How would they interact with or treat one another? What would their community be like? Would their businesses and community be successful? Why or why not?

How would they interact with the larger community outside of their own? How would the larger community treat them? Would they be accepted and embraced with open arms? Would they be seen as equals?

Now, suppose that instead of enduring these traumatic conditions for 6 months, 1 year, or for 2 years, suppose that they had to endure it for 400 years.

Would their condition be more tenuous and complex?

Isn’t it safe and in fact reasonable to deduce that if someone can be exposed to a traumatic environment for 6 months to 2 years and acquire PTSD, that exposure to such conditions for 400 years – which, by the way, implies an egregious amount of repetitiveness, intention and institutionalization of the trauma (i.e. Jim Crow laws) - would result in the most tiered, fragmented, and complex form of PTSD?

Complex Post-Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (C-PTSD) is a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged and repeated social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the victim. – http://www.en.wikipedia.org/

So, by definition, C-PTSD would be the minimum of what such victims (i.e. exposure to 400 years of trauma) would/could acquire.

Many of the available definitions on C-PTSD site the circumstance of Prisoners Of War (POW’s) as an experience/trauma that could create it, and one could most certainly argue the minimal differences – if there are any - between a POW and a Slave.

For example, according to the United States Department of Veteran Affairs (www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/complex-ptsd.asp), symptoms of C-PTSD include but are not limited to the following:

***Alterations in how the perpetrator is perceived. Examples include attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, or preoccupied with revenge


***Changes in self-perception. May include helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings.

- This possibly explains the coveted use of the “N-word” that is exercised by part of the black community; a stigma turned term of endearment, not unlike a rape victim embracing promiscuity.


***Alterations in relations with others. Examples include isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer

- “A repeated search for a rescuer” – this could possibly explain the Black community’s endeavored search for Black leadership and/or representation; the same being the impetus resulting in the outcome of 97% of the African-American community voting for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Additionally, this could also explain the mainstay of religion in the Black community (i.e. awaiting rescue by the Savior Jesus Christ), and/or why the areas that comprise the “Bible Belt” are also the areas where Slavery was the most affluent and vociferous.

- And to take it a step further, what impact could the Bible have – which sanctioned the use of slavery in Leviticus 25:44 and Exodus 21:20-21 – on an enslaved people who sought its scriptures for rescue from the very conditions that it arguably justified? Could it possibly alter how they perceive their perpetrator by depicting Him as also the rescuer?

***Change in one’s system of meanings. May include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair

- In addition to the previous symptom, this may explain the success of Obama’s campaign slogan, “Hope That We Can Believe In.”

All scathing similarities and/or parallels aside, the horrific and traumatic conditions of Slavery are undeniable, as are the conditions/results of war and concentration camps, the latter two being examples of long-term traumas offered by Dr. Judith Herman. Probably the most blatant difference between the 3 is that only one of them was made legal (slavery) and in fact was valued as an economic necessity.

When you consider that the victims and the descendants of the victims of the long-term trauma of Slavery still wrestle with an unaddressed and untreated trauma in a current environment where remnants of the pro-slavery line of thinking have disappeared in rhetoric only, then, the reason behind the social/racial challenges and upheavals still evident and persistent in society today become more clear and understandable, and consequently, more ominous and in need of sincere recovery.

However, as stated by Dr. Judith Lewis Herman in her second book Trauma and Recovery, recovery from C-PTSD is divided into 3 stages (and these are subsequently divided into more stages): Establishing Safety, Remembrance and Mourning for What was Lost, and Reconnecting to Society.

Accordingly, Dr. Herman also believe that before these stages can work, a healing relationship must be established, and that recovery can only come within a relationship where the survivor is empowered.

Regardless of the name that we attach to the disorder, whether it is PTSD, C-PTSD, Shell Shock or what-have-you, it is undeniable that society is in fact stumbling its way through a deep C.U.T. - a Complex Unaddressed/Untreated Trauma; and like any deep cut that goes untreated and/or unaddressed, the wound will bleed out and become infected, effectively weakening the immediate area of trauma before systemically affecting the entire body until death.

To simply conceal, deny, and/or ignore the C.U.T. merely invites greater injury and trauma. And to the extent that society continues to ignore and/or instigate the unaddressed and untreated trauma of its own brethren and sistren - be it for capitalistic gain or out of pure hatred and intolerance which are all symptoms of the trauma - is to this extent that it proves the perpetrators and ignorers to be just as psychologically sick, if not sicker, than the victims themselves.

The responsibility of healing belongs to us all.


Tungz

BP

I am the black essence that courses though the veins of BP

Stolen from the womb of the earth I bleed to lubricate the cogs of America’s machinations

Dark; my richness has succumbed to the pimps of economic auction blocks as my womb remains raped and plundered by throbbing shafts offered by below-average sized cocks

Left to wade in the water my capturer laments his loss and denies his responsibility as blackness flees its metal confines

Left crude I stay afloat within an environment designed for my submersion

I wonder what is more unnatural, their treatment of me, or the environment that they’ve left me in?

Suffocated and suffocating, genuine hands reach out to BP and pull back excuses

A vain moratorium intentionally instigates my fate as it foretells of heavier chains to come through the flow of ink

The truth of me still unknown; presumed a disaster

Forgotten

Ignored; left to coagulate in the shallow recesses of obscurity unless refined to unnatural specs

Deemed useless until my blackness is removed, my strength is birthed from the death of my ancestors

Ignorance hides the fate of my removal as the world trembles in my absence

This place now rudely awakened to the realization that none of this would work without me

It never has

Therefore, they whisper their dependency while shouting their declarations of independence as they endeavor to steal me from another country

They even use me to use me; desiring and detesting my presence all in the same breath

Revolution lies dormant in my rebirth only to offer the fire that lies beneath the surface

For such is the case for the oil of British Petroleum

The slick of a Black President

And the souls of Black People

BP


Tungz