Rich_the_Equalizer Writings/Recordings

Here is a compilation of some of our co-founder/co-chief Rich_the_Equalizer’s writings and recordings on various topics relating to becoming woke:

New in 2023: From our co-founder, Rich Pellegrino:

Here it is…my story which hopefully resonates with your story and “his-story” as well as “her-story”, or more appropriately, “our story”. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C91X6K4L?asin=B0C91X6K4L&revisionId=&format=4&depth=2

Author’s Disclaimer: I know that I am identified as “white” in this nation and world. I know that this identification and “branding” affords me considerable unearned privileges and opportunities which those who are not “branded” as “white” do not possess. That is the current reality, however it is a perverted, distorted, deluded, and false, man-made, American-and-European-manufactured, reality — not an authentic one. The sub-title of this memoir could have been “One man’s journey from delusion and false identity to his authentic self.”

So, I share my story of awakening (or “awokening”) with the hope that it may help you discover your authentic self and identity, and then act on that discovery in ways that bring us closer to our collective authentic reality of oneness. (Note: I am available to do book signings and presentations at any event or location and an abridged version is copied below and is also available free via email.)

Check out our Global Woke Institute video-casts and podcasts

“50 Reasons We are (Still) Slaves”

Pathways to Freedom: Escaping the American Plantation System &

”Thug-o-Cracy: A State of Emergency”

“I freed a thousand slaves; I could have freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves.”—Harriet Tubman

American 2021 Declaration of Dependence: Renewing the Vows

To all “black” citizen slaves, in order to maintain your life and citizenship on the “U.S. Plantation”, you are forced to submit to “whites” in every way, especially those whites in positions of authority and the white money establishment, and you are forced to adopt “white” culture, lifestyles and attitudes. Some ways this indoctrination is accomplished include:

Being taught white history in schools and that everything good was created by whites, reinforced by the media and every formal information system.
Being taught to express yourselves as white kids do or you will be labeled disruptive or illiterate.
Being forced to live on reservations in lower income inner city and rural slums, where the schools are relatively unfunded.
Being forced to accept work with less than living wages, working hard, and still being characterized as lazy, shiftless and on the dole. And when borrowing to survive, or to go to college, becoming high interest debt slaves to the whites, who can foreclose on and repo your homes, cars, and other possessions easily and without recourse.
Being taught that white religions and distortions of Christianity are somehow superior, building mega churches and soaking the members for millions, all of which goes back into the white economy, and dividing blacks by religion and denomination to spread disunity and maintain control by asserting false superiority dichotomies, as if Christianity is better than Islam and other religions (i.e. White Superiority Fallacy=Christian Superiority Fallacy).
By allowing a few into higher paid professions and occupations, especially in the corporate capitalist world, where you will have to oppress the lower level wage slaves to maintain your positions and new middle class or better lifestyles—and you will have to play by their rules of lying and cheating to increase your employers’ profits over the competition. (Once you reach this level you will be forced to forget where you came from and will have to sell out your mothers and brothers in order to maintain your status.) If you choose the noble profession of education you will have to teach white history and will be subjected to impossible performance expectations with little resources, compelling cheating to elevate grades and meet hollow goals.
By allowing a few into law enforcement where you will have to profile, harass, falsely arrest and murder other blacks in order to maintain your positions and “survive”, and you will become pawns condemning your own children and youth to the school to prison pipeline. To determine why some black folk run away from the police, ask yourself, why did some run away from the fugitive slave catchers?
By allowing or forcing many into the military where you will be sent to murder innocent non-whites around the world in order to preserve white money and dominance here, and, if you reach home alive, you will be mentally and/or physically damaged for life.
By allowing some into elected offices, even as Mayors and Presidents, but even there you will have to protect the white money & power brokers on Wall Street and beyond, will be able to do little to improve the lot of ordinary blacks, and will even label other poor blacks, including children, who are enslaved and entrapped on inner city slum reservations and concentration camps, “thugs”, while you are sending drone missiles and soldiers around the world to kill non-whites and their “collateral” (meaning women and children) for America’s—meaning white money’s—security.

(e. g. In Baltimore, even with a black mayor, police chief and state attorney, of the six officers charged in the murder of an innocent black man, the three black ones have the most serious combined charges, while the three white officers/fugitive slave chasers, were the ones who wrongfully profiled, tackled, arrested and shackled the victim.)

By allowing you to vote and to think that your vote counts when you are really only allowed to vote for the white money system’s chosen candidates from the two parties they know they can control; a two party plutocratic oligarchy system which gives you only the illusion of a choice while spending billions to convince you otherwise.
By allowing a few into the sports and entertainment celebrity arena, where most are used and spit out at the mercy of white money managers who make sure that the white establishment gets the majority of profits with little regard for the health and welfare of the athletes and celebrities, many of whom end up dead young, in prison, or mentally and physically spent.
A few will be allowed into the world of white collar—white money organized crime, which is run by most of the “legitimate” white establishment, including drug and human trafficking, where you have to oppress and murder other black people…but of course will take the fall for the white bosses when there is any threat of exposure.
And when the white establishment needs to divert attention from its own corruption and wrongdoings, it will periodically single out a few blacks from each of the above elitist categories and charge them with crimes to make an example to other blacks that just because they let you into those ranks don’t think you are uppity and can’t be removed on a whim— high level “purges” (while the purges at the lower levels are ongoing and never stop, and are often carried out by the blacks in higher places on their own people). And, in our separate and unequal justice system, you will be forced to accept plea deals that will make you guilty and brand you, and your fellow blacks, as criminals, forcing you to pay dues to the white establishment in perpetuity through inordinate fines, slave incarceration labor, probation fees. (E.G. The Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial with a black district attorney forced by the Atlanta white establishment to prosecute black teachers for the crime of cheating—which the power brokers do every day.)
If any one of you alone tries to buck this system, and succeeds in exposing any part of it, you will be eliminated through assassination or incarceration.

However, you will be allowed a few civil rights leaders who will be allowed to redress a few individual cases of injustice, but if they attempt systemic change, especially affecting the economic system, they will be assassinated or incarcerated.

If you are a West Indian or African black immigrant, and you abide by this system and don’t import your concepts of self-rule, and if you join in the oppression of the American blacks, you will be afforded a position slightly above them but under whites.
If you are a mixed race, black and white, at least for one generation you will be considered and treated as black, until your offspring can pass as white, and, then, if you abide by this system, and join in the oppression of those who can’t pass, you will be allowed to enter the ranks of white privilege.

To all white citizen slaves, you will not only be able to maintain your life and citizenship, but your elevation and privilege above blacks and other non-whites, if you cooperate with all of the above and do not buck the system. This indoctrination is accomplished by:

A thorough and ongoing mis-education in your schools and churches to remove your cultural identities and heritages (Italian, Irish, German, Greek, etc) and homogenize you into “white, Christian Americans” who are brainwashed to believe that you are inherently or divinely-ordained superior to blacks, other non-whites, other religions, and other nations. Therefore, with no real identity except a false one, you will be powerless to effect any real change or threat to the establishment.
Some perks and crumbs of white superiority privilege which include: not being targeted by law enforcement, easier access to both slave wage and higher level jobs (both of which have to be maintained by oppressing those under you, especially blacks and other non-whites), access to better housing and schools, and non-harassment to enjoy your lifestyles appropriate to your income levels, including relatively light sentences when caught committing crimes.
If any one of you alone tries to buck this system, and succeeds in exposing any part of it, your privileged status will be revoked and you will be eliminated through assassination or incarceration.

To all Latino/brown citizen slaves, you will not only be able to maintain your life and citizenship, but also your elevation and privilege above blacks but below whites (unless you are Cuban or very light skinned and can pass), if you cooperate with all of the above and do not buck the system. This indoctrination is accomplished by:

Being mis-educated regarding the inferiority of blacks and inferiority of your own countries and cultures south of the border when compared to “American, white, Christian” culture.
Becoming “assimilated” into U.S. plantation culture and religion.
Joining the “drug war” against your countries, and the war against “illegal immigrants” and refugees caused by this endless and profitable war.

To all other non-white immigrant slaves, excluding Muslims, you are welcome here as long as you have money or special skills to invest, and either assimilate or keep to yourselves and spend a lot of money in our white economy, but, either way, you must join in with and support all of the white repression and control of blacks, outlined above. Otherwise you will be deported, assassinated or incarcerated.

To Muslim slaves, especially those of Middle Eastern & African origin, your money is welcome here, but you are not, and we would prefer to place you all in concentration camps, since we are at war with Islam (not just radical Islam, as we lie and say), while we figure out what to do with you. We would force you to join in the repression of blacks but don’t trust that you will, and may become their allies, because of your damn teachings in the Koran regarding equality and equity, that also make you believe that you are not slaves here (which is very dangerous)…so we are hoping that you are deported, assassinated or incarcerated, as you are the antithesis of every true American (white and Christian), but we first have to find a way to freeze and steal your assets. (If we don’t figure something out soon we will likely stage another 9/11 terrorist attack to blame on you.)

To Native American slaves, you are marginalized on reservations, with plenty of poverty, alcohol and now gambling casinos to distract you from your traditions and the reparations which are still owed to you. And those of you off the reservations and in the cities who think you are white will be allowed to live that illusion as long as you don’t buck the system and do join in repressing the blacks, which you often do. You are a sleeping giant that we need to keep sedated at all costs so if you attempt to wake up you will be eliminated by incarceration or assassination.

To Young, Millennial Activist slaves, you are singled out because your awareness, use of modern technology, and energy is troubling and a threat to this system, so you will be cautiously allowed to experience marginal success in your protests, while every attempt will be made, utilizing the “elders” of all the other groups, to co-opt you into this system with offers of careers, jobs, elected positions and other temporary material perks and crumbs. And if you refuse to comply and become too successful in your change movement you will be eliminated through incarceration and assassination.

American African 2015 Declaration of Independence: Divorcing the Vows

Some of the proposed pathways to freedom for black people, and ultimately all slaves (because all people’s freedom is dependent on black freedom), from this American plantation system and “thug-ocracy”, are outlined below:

First, admit that we are all slaves and this is a plantation system with little difference than that which Harriet Tubman referred to except for its sophistication and entrenchment.
Acknowledge that you (blacks) are a powerful and noble people, descended from great civilizations, and are destined to lead modern uncivilized society back to its spiritual, moral, intellectual and material pinnacles and principles.
In order to do this you will have to separate yourselves from immersion in the white-money-controlled plantation system and gradually from its influence altogether, and focus your energies on building alternative systems of governance, economics and society, based on your more advanced, humane and equitable principles of civilization. Black people will never be free under white rule in this system as whites have been conditioned for hundreds of years to retain control and ascendance, will never willingly give up their privilege and superiority complex (as it is their identity, albeit a false one), and the white money establishment will not let them do so even if they wanted to.
This modern “separation” and separatist movement can and will take many forms—geographical, economic, political, social—and all reasonable and principled alternatives and pathways to freedom have to be offered and made available to the people at the levels they are currently at, without one cookie-cutter approach, as the proverbial baby bottle cannot be yanked out without providing alternative sustenance that people can digest at whatever stage of development they are. However, at all levels, black leadership and unity must be maintained, as well as common principles. (This unity is unity in diversity and not conformity, meaning that not everyone or every group has to do the same things to achieve the same goals; there are many paths leading to the same mountain tops.)
Current resources and energy wasted on fixing and/or destroying the current systems can be diverted to developing and building alternative or shadow systems of equitable governance and economics. The old inequitable systems are being destroyed by their own inner corruption and through either natural selection or divine intervention, or both, and your withdrawal of support will only help its weakening and decaying process. You will build an ark for the people, the few willing and conscious at first, and then gradually more and more will come as conditions worsen.
Among your greatest allies will be “aware Muslims” , “aware youth”, especially young, millennial activists (aka “Black Lives Matter” or “Movement for Black Lives” movements), traditional, indigenous peoples, and conscious black West Indian and African immigrants, as those groups are the least assimilated, co-opted, and immersed in this corrupt system.
Conscious whites and others will be welcomed to join this “separatist” movement however it should be made clear to them from the onset that its’ alternative governance structures will insure that blacks maintain leadership, as it is the nature or practice of whites and other groups, due to their conditioning, to try and take control away from blacks. Black youth and women must also be assured equal and strong voice leadership roles.
Reparations must be demanded and, if necessary, taken, in the form of land grants from the Federal government which holds millions of unutilized acres in trust.
Many will decry separatism since integration was so bravely and sacrificially fought for. In fact, desegregation never led to full integration. However those who are willing to listen and learn will be re-educated to the fact that integration and other similar “victories” won in the past have been compromised to such an extent by this new or renewed plantation system that it is time for a major retreat and journey to the proverbial wilderness. All the past prophets and sages have led their people to do this throughout the ages, and now it is needed again in order to regroup and truly integrate society on your terms and not those of the white-money-power brokers. (Both King’s and Mandela’s work in this regard was cut short—that is, the reformation of the economic and governance systems by the blacks and their allies.) Those who don’t or aren’t willing to listen, may be forced by circumstances later to do so, if it isn’t too late for them. You cannot save everyone if they don’t know that they are slaves, so you have to focus initially on the willing. Another note about “separatism” –we are already a society separated by race, class, sexual orientation, political ideologies, etc.—with separate justice and economic systems, separate rules and laws—the most cleverly disguised anarchy in history, posing as a “united states”—so let’s just get honest about it and build our separate society—a nation within many disparate ones—our “beloved community” and promised land—through this new American African revolution. Eventually, it will be won, and ONE! (Note: In this virtual age this does not mean we have to physically or geographically live separately, though some may wish to do so. It does mean that we have to consciously detach from and become relatively independent of the present totally corrupted system, as a condition of true freedom from slavery.)

And what can white and other slaves do to help this revolution: support your conscious black brothers and sisters by learning their noble history and struggle (from them), by listening to them, by supporting them in the ways they tell you to support them—in other words to become their servants in every way—a long awaited, prophesied and needed role reversal which will set our society and world back on its course toward greatness!

(Notes: 1) Specific references, resources, and examples for building new, collective, “separatist” communities based on the principles listed in the “Declaration of Independence” above can be requested at laboroflovecampaign@gmail.com; 2) This document was partly inspired by the work of author and professor, Ezrah Aharone, on developing a “sovereign psyche”, in his book “The Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom vs. Self-Authentic Freedom”.

“Rich’s Notes” Abridged Version of “I Am Not White: One Man’s Journey from Whiteness to Oneness” by Rich Pellegrino

Author’s Note: This entire book in which I describe my own personal journey from a delusional, distorted, forced identity of “whiteness” to my authentic identity of “oneness” may be a worthwhile read as it contains experiences, stories and adventures spanning over five decades, set against the backdrop of the American and world history of those decades. However, for those who don’t have the time or inclination at this moment to read the entire book I am including in this abridged version a distillation of the lessons I’ve learned from this journey, with some advice from my story which hopefully resonates with “your story”, and “his-story” or “her-story”, or more appropriately, “our story”.

DEFINITIONS

Whiteness, along with the entire notion of distinct “races,” is a fabricated description and false identity devised by European slavers and subsequently adopted by Americans. Its purpose was to rationalize the abhorrent practice of the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans with darker skin, thereby fostering the illusion and fallacy of white supremacy. In her book “Caste: The Origin of our Discontents,” author Isabel Wilkerson provides a concise history of the origins of American “whiteness.” During the 1800s and early 1900s, each new immigrant arriving in the United States—most of whom are the ancestors of present-day Americans—encountered an existing social hierarchy established through slavery. This hierarchy placed individuals with extreme differences in pigmentation at opposing ends. Each immigrant had to navigate this hierarchy and determine their position within their new society. At some point in this process, Europeans underwent a transformation, assuming an identity as “white” that had not existed before nor had been necessary. They assimilated into a novel creation—an overarching category encompassing all individuals arriving in the New World from Europe. It was through becoming American that they became white. In their countries of origin such as Ireland or Italy, these individuals may have possessed various social or racial identities but being white was not one of them. As James Baldwin astutely remarked, “No one was white before he/she came to America.” So, throughout this paper, they will be described as “white-identified” persons.

–Beloved Community: A community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate and infused with oneness, equity, and peace. (Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. popularized the term during his lifetime of activism and imbued it with new meaning, fueled by his faith that such a community was, in fact, possible.)

-Triple Evils of Society: “The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. When we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils.” -MLK^[1]

-Woke: Awakened, Enlightened, and Aware of the authentic realities of our existence here on Earth, the main one being the essential ONENESS of all living things, our interconnectedness and interdependence, and the fact that every individual, nation, and culture is both unique and exceptional in their own way, with not one superior to another. (Note: Yes, we are using the popularized “Woke” concept, regardless of any connotations it may conjure, as it means, in our context, “awakening, wakefulness, and enlightenment” to the false, American & European manufactured socio-economic and political indoctrination and propaganda, as well as to our own personal self-awareness and development as wholistic beings, in relation to all living things. And besides, we find it hilarious that anyone would not want to be woke versus being asleep.)

-Woke EQualizers: A movement of superheroes who have committed to non-violently EQualizing bullies and bullying in all its forms, including the Triple Evils (institutionalized bullying), and who are building Beloved Community to protect and defend those bullied and rid the world of bullying and the Triple Evils of racism, poverty, and militarism forever, through the solutions of “Beloved Community” oneness, equity, and peace.

– EQualized/EQualizing: Whenever someone, some group, or some nation expresses in thought, word, or deed unfounded superiority claims over another—based on their race, gender, nationality, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, etc.—that is the foundation of bullying and they will be shown through non-violent but firm, direct words and deeds that they are not superior and actually suffer an inferiority complex, self-hate, and delusions of grandeur due to the fact that they have to invent fake superiority claims to feel good about themselves or their country. In a word, they are EQualized. In a personal sense, EQualizers will also EQualize themselves daily to stay humble and make sure that they are not exalting themselves above others, by listening to and learning from anyone and everyone, especially those they disagree with, and trying to bring empathy, healing, and unity in the spirit of oneness and reconciliation. However, sometimes they may have to exercise “tough love” in order to defend individuals and groups from immediate bullying, but the ultimate goal is still always healing and reconciliation.

-EQ: EQualizing Quotient, or the degree to which you stand up to and call out bullying in all its forms.^[2]

Chapter 1: The Fabulous Fifties: Separate but Unequal

Author Note: For the purposes of this study, my history and that of America and the world begins in the 1950’s. So, for those of those “white-identified” folks who might deny the brutality of racism by saying you weren’t alive back then during slavery and therefore didn’t participate in it and you’re not responsible, either you or your parents were likely alive in the 50’s so they and you did participate in and benefit from the brutalities of Jim Crow, KKK terrorism, and post-slavery and post-reconstruction racism (and likely still do). Also, for those MAGA folks, ask them exactly what period would they like to go back to in order to “make America great again”? (They are EQualized!)

If one was lucky to be born and branded “white” into the “fabulous fifties”, a decade called that by some who enjoyed the relative prosperity, technological advances (e.g., TV vs. radio), and post-war peace of that time, it was also a period of a rampant terror and racism for people of color in the entire country, especially the “Jim Crow”^[3] South and the “Sundown Towns”^[4] of the North and Mid-West.

Also, many southern European immigrant groups, including Italians, though passing as “white” along with many of the unearned privileges associated with that identity, they experience many but not all of those privileges because Italians and other southern Europeans were still viewed as second-class “white” citizens because of their Mediterranean olive-shaded skin and “illegal” immigrant status—they were derogatorily called “WOPS,” which means “without papers.” (So, one wonders how Italian and other immigrant descendants today, many of whom came here “without papers” and illegally, look down upon so-called illegal immigrants from south of the border and elsewhere. They apparently forgot where they came from and somehow feel better about themselves when bullying others. They are EQualized.)

Segregation was enforced all throughout the country, not only in the South, and a white-identified person growing up in New York or any northern state likely never mixed with Blacks and other people of color and therefore had (and many still have) no clue as to their experiences dealing with rampant racism. Also, American history taught in the schools and portrayed in the media was (and still is to a large degree) completely distorted in this regard. So white-identified Americans (including this author, who didn’t have a Black friend or even acquaintance until he was in his twenties) grew up in a bubble of ignorance and isolation, at best, and deception and delusion at worst.

This was true also regarding all subjects of importance. Whenever we tried to question anything, we were told by parents and other authority figures—including priests and some teachers—that we are too smart for our own good, as their definition of smarts and success was to not rock the boat, not question anything, but blindly accept tradition and just succeed materially and familywise within those established boundaries, no matter how corrupt and racist they were. And that is why, even today, when “conservative” racists decry higher, university education, critical race theories, and anything which produces too much independent thinking and challenge to the status quo, I Equalize them! (And I learned that they are really not “conservative” at all, because they don’t conserve at all , spending and wasting massive amounts of resources, but have adopted and coopted that label.)

Also, bullying in school was routine, which gave me a lifelong awareness of and aversion to bullies, later to include those in uniform and business suits at all levels. I also later learned that the whole American founding and system was founded and is still sustained on bullying—now bullying mainly other countries whose resources we want, but also communities of color right here at home. And corporations bullying their workers—capital vs. labor—which is the foundation of our economic system: untaxed corporate and elitist capital and slave labor (then) and wage-slave labor, now.

CHAPTER 2 THE SWINGING SIXTIES :“Counterculture Revolution Begins”

And then it all changed. Well, not my white privilege (which has never ended), and neither my white bubble and “separate but unequal” status (that would take some years and major upheavals to unravel) but this was the decade and age of questioning –questioning everything which was taught to us by previous generations, because, frankly, the traditional American “land of the free and home of the brave” narrative—that Americans could do no wrong, were superior and exceptional above all other peoples, told and taught in what were really Americana fables, all started to unravel. Every attempt that 60s and 70s woke American society made to fill the void, to replace the lies of the past, to advance and begin actually fulfilling its destiny penned in the Declaration of Independence—that ALL are created equal (not just white folks and Americans), and ALL are entitled to pursue life, liberty and happiness—with equity AND THEN equality, was met, once again, with violent repression and murder ( just as any such attempts at progress and the actual founding and settling of America had been birthed in violence in the decades and centuries before.) They assassinated leader after leader who promised to end Jim Crow segregation and bring about racial equity and equality—MLK, President John Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy. And the FBI and its dangerous and delusional head, J. Edgar Hoover, were instrumental in all of this state-sponsored violence. (This is the good old days and what the MAGA—“make America great again”—folks wanted to bring back: Jim Crow segregation and lynching, and the assassination of anyone who tries to end it.) (Later in life, after studying the life and works of MLK, I would come to revere him as a prophet and a “founding father” of the new or renewed America which finally, under his leadership and that of his deputies, attempted to start living up to its ideals as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.)

Other Black leaders, who did not espouse non-violence as Dr. King had, formed armed militias, the most famous being the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which not only protected the Black neighborhoods from the terroristic police and other thugs who were on the police payroll (and were also caught distributing drugs and guns to the populace at the urging of the state to try and stir up havoc in the community). The Panthers also helped feed, clothe, and house the people—a prime example of mutual aid. Many of them were assassinated by racist and corrupt law enforcement on behalf of the state, including one of the Panther leaders in Chicago, Fred Hampton. One after another, those who stood up for justice, equality, and freedom were either mowed down or jailed on bogus charges for decades. (It was later proven that the FBI and its delusional and terroristic leader, J. Edgar Hoover, orchestrated these assassinations, executions, and infiltrations^[5], in conjunction with local law enforcement agencies around the country, to try and suppress the cultural awakening and revolution which was taking place. But their racist, corrupt, and terroristic actions actually poured gas on the flames of change, as the new generation would no longer tolerate their corruption.)

The police violence and repression, and the escalation of the Vietnam war by elite elected representatives and their corporate sponsors who drafted young people to be the fodder for their empire building, were the last straws. They helped spark a counter-culture revolution comprised of those who refused to abide by the old racist, corrupt, and terroristic order, including the strange bedfellows of hippies, flower children, anti-war and civil rights activists, Black Power organizations (like the Panthers and Nation of Islam), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Women’s Lib, United Farm Workers, American Indian Movement (AIM), and more. All had differing tactics, from non-violent to violent revolution, and everything in between, but all were opposed to the war, racism, and state-sponsored terrorism, and many took to the streets and disrupted business as usual. (I was among them and became fully immersed as a soldier in this “awokening” and revolution.)

Chapter 3 SEVERANCE SEVENTIES :“Breaking the Chains”

The counter-culture revolution which began in the sixties was in full swing in the 1970s (and so was I). This decade was characterized by continued national protests, mainly against the Viet- Nam war still (until its end in 1975), as the main civil rights battles of the sixties had already been won and legislation was passed to protect the equal rights of African Americans (though it would take years for those laws to be respected and enforced in the South—a battle which is still being waged over 50 years later).

The Women’s Liberation, LGBTQ Rights, and Environmental/Green movements were also still in full swing, bringing about new legislation such as Title IX laws which prohibited sexual discrimination in schools and sports for the first time, ever. On a global scale, this period was characterized by frequent coups, domestic conflicts, and civil wars which arose from or were related to decolonization and the global struggle between the West and mainly Southeast Asia, the Mideast, and Africa.^[6]

At home, the battle lines were being drawn between the white, conservative, (so-called) Christian right (including “white supremacists” and “white nationalists”), and the people of color, the Jews, and Commies (Communists). Anyone who spoke up for equal rights —Blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans, Women, LGTBQ, Jews, white progressives, etc.– were labeled by the white right as Commies, enemies of America and anti-American. (That hasn’t changed 50 years later, and the white right still targets all of them as their boogeymen and uses any chance to bully them using violent rhetoric often producing violent acts of extremism and murder; the white right, white supremacists, white nationalists, and their supporters, are all domestic terrorists who have infiltrated every level of government, law enforcement, and society, and must be called out and EQualized!)

On May 4, 1970, the Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4th Massacre or the Kent State Massacre, resulted in the murders of four and wounding of nine unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard in Kent, Ohio. The killings took place during a peace rally opposing the expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the National Guard’s presence on campus. The incident marked the first time that students had been killed in an anti-war gathering in United States history. (This was a turning point for me and many others as we became ever more dedicated to stopping the war and reforming America.)

In May 1971, I traveled to Washington D.C. with tens of thousands of others from around the country to join one of the many mass protests of the Vietnam war and the Nixon administration’s prolonging of it. This was a civil disobedience protest, organized by the more militant members of the anti-war movement, designed to completely disrupt everything in D.C., both at the Capitol and in the business and residential districts. It was decided that small groups of protesters would block major intersections and bridges in the capitol, under the slogan, “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.”

I was part of a team that was to sit-in at the Department of Justice and the FBI headquarters to demand all the illegal surveillance records they were keeping on protestors and activists around the country. President Nixon, who later had to resign in disgrace due to his many criminal activities, ordered thousands of military and national guard troops to supplement the thousands of Capitol and D.C. police. They swept the city arresting anyone who looked like a protestor, violating everyone’s civil rights and making the largest mass arrest in U.S. history, converting the Washington Redskins football stadium into a jail to hold the arrestees. (I was among those arrested.)

During this period and most of my adolescence I was both a drug dealer and addicted to drugs—all drugs, including heroin. I was also arrested multiple times for minor possession however due to the fact I had both white and blue privilege (as my father was a New York City police officer) I was quickly released. Then I was busted for selling narcotics to undercover federal agents and was charged with multiple felonies which most often carried a significant amount of jail time. However , again, due to both white and blue privilege I received only probation. (If I was a person of color I would likely still be in prison.) An interesting sidenote: I was first inducted into the drug dealing trade by the teen children of police officers who also shared an immunity to prosecution, so many were among the biggest dealers.

I tried quitting narcotics “cold turkey”, and through counseling and methadone treatment, but nothing worked until I set out, quite accidentally, on a spiritual path by taking Tae Kwon Do martial arts and TM (Transcendental Meditation) classes, one rooted in Buddhist and the other in Hindu philosophies. They taught me about my true self—body, mind, and spirit—and how to honor and develop the powers of each while attaining a “natural high” without the use of mind-altering drugs, which I was then able to stop using rather quickly and almost miraculously. (This holistic and spiritual education had never been taught before in school, in church, or at home. In fact, the only times I had experienced it before was during use of hallucinogenic drug “trips” which produced visions of a new and different reality–somewhat akin to the use of the same during some Native American vision quest ceremonies.)

This transformation thrust me into the study of all spiritual paths, beliefs, and practices. I focused initially on East Asian ones and then back to the major Middle Eastern and western religions and philosophies of Christianity and Islam, as well as Native American and other Indigenous peoples’ beliefs. And I found common threads uniting all of those paths and religions—way more similarities than differences—and really an interconnectedness and harmony between them. After studying the scriptures and writings of all these faiths, which included visiting their places of worship and engaging in some of their metaphysical and spiritual practices, I decided, along with some other friends who were on a similar path of search, to find our “teacher”, “guide”, “guru”, “shaman”. So, we set off on an international search. During our travels we met other young people also on spiritual and identity searches. At one of our stops and venues, in Spain , during an intense group meditation and prayer session, I asked the God of my understanding (i.e. the Great Spirit of the Universe) for guidance and received a “vision” and message, which was: “Since, through your extensive studies and practices you have come to believe in the essential oneness of all major religious and spiritual paths, and also believe that people should be free to choose the paths which resonate with them, I should return back home to New York and open a center of spiritual study where the spiritual teachers of all religions and paths could come to speak and teach so that people could come and learn from them and decide which path they would like to choose (since I believed, and still do, they all lead to the same ultimate goal of enlightenment).” I immediately got up from that prayer and meditation session and flew back to New York to make that vision a reality. Once in New York I started working to save money to open my spiritual center and started making connections with all the spiritual and religious teachers I could find in order to include them in the center once opened.

It was during this period that I first encountered the Bahai Faith community and attended one of their “fireside meetings”. When I told those gathered there about my vision in Spain and my goal to open up a spiritual center teaching all the paths to encourage seekers to independently investigate which path is for them, they told me that is exactly what they are already doing in thousands of localities around the country and world. Upon further investigation, including reading some of the Baha’i Writings (which are extensive, with over one hundred volumes), and attending another fireside meeting, I decided not to try and reinvent the wheel and open my own spiritual oneness center when it’s already being done. So, in 1975, I joined the Bahai Faith community in that mission to teach and spread Oneness—the Oneness of Religion, the Oneness of God, and the Oneness of Humanity. (In other words, all are connected and not one is superior to another. Those who teach that their religion, or their nation, or their selves based on skin color or gender or religion, are somehow superior to others are gravely mistaken and have missed the entire point of their religious and spiritual teaching and teachers. And worse, the religious leaders and clergy who claim the superiority of their path, and cause division and a “religious superiority” complex, are harming their followers and the world, often due to their own evil desire for power. Two egregious examples of this are what has been called fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity, or political Islam and political Christianity, as in the “Christian right”—which bear little resemblance to the true teachings of both religions and their founders, and which have been the cause of major wars and devastation worldwide.)

Some of the basic principles I learned from the Bahai Faith (and later taught to thousands around this country and overseas), many I had already learned from my previous religious and spiritual studies but were now confirmed in this newest and most modern world religion, include:

I also learned about the progressive advancement of civilization, just as the human goes through various stages of progressive development, from the fetus to infancy, to toddler, to childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, so has humanity developed from the single cell of the individual to the family, to the tribe, to the nation state, to the nation, and now to the one world neighborhood. And we are now entering the stage of the adulthood of humanity (with all the accompanying turmoil of transitioning from adolescence), which is characterized by oneness and one world unity. (Anyone, or any group, or any nation, who is against these progressive characteristics of universal oneness, or “wokefulness,” is still stuck in relative adolescence, or worse, childhood. And all the previous religions, philosophies, prophecies, and scientific discoveries have prepared us for this transition and this glorious age.) Another way of describing this progression is from dependence to independence to interdependence ( the latter stage we are learning to practice now).

Next stop or step in my journey from “whiteness to oneness” and learning about the authentic identity of people and my authentic identity was among Native Americans on their Reservations. I had become a student and friend of the Faddens, historians and “faith keepers” of the Iroquois nation and curators of their Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center, where I was a frequent visitor and student. There I learned many things including the true history of the initial founding of America, especially in relation to the Indigenous original inhabitants and many facts regarding their culture, none of which are taught in schools.

For example, I learned that the Iroquois had one of the world’s first democracies (long before the Greeks), and one of the first confederations, of six nations, which was also matriarchal in nature. They also had their own religion and culture, both of which were more advanced than those of the European settlers in many ways. One of the artifacts in the museum attesting to this is a document which British spies sent to the King in England indicating that these “Indians” elect their own leaders and, if they are not serving the people adequately, they can be removed from office. It then warned that this is dangerous as the colonial settlers are getting ideas from the “Indians” about freedom from British and monarchial rule. They were EQualized!

I also witnessed how the Native people communicated directly with wild animals, including bears, and were harmonized with nature in general.

And I witnessed the scars of the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on Native Americans by so-called Christians and other new Americans; literally, as elderly Native women lifted the back of their shirts to show me the scars from being whipped as punishment in the Christian schools for children who tried to speak their Native language or discuss or express any Native cultural ideas—forced and brutal assimilation conducted by the real savages. (The whole concept of “assimilation” is based on the falsity that there is a superior race or culture which other inferior races and cultures must become like and assimilate into.)

The fact is that this country was founded and settled, and then sustained, through torture and genocide, a fact not taught in schools.

(Author’s Note: There are many adventures which I participated in, and which are described in the full book, including travels around Europe and the Caribbean twice, hitchhiking cross country in America, as well as visiting Native American reservations around the country and performing a musical skit about the coming revival of Native American culture. For this version I have extracted and shared only the lessons learned from these experiences and adventures.)

During this journey, I learned and experienced more about the true history of the founding of this country, and how many of the early presidents and “Founding Fathers” were not only slave owners but purveyors of mass genocide of the Native Americans. One example of this was Andrew Jackson, who was not only an elite plantation slave owner against abolition but who brutally removed Native Americans from their ancestral homelands and forcefully marched them to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), known as “The Trail of Tears”^[7], during which thousands died.

I learned that the early history of this country was replete with an ongoing series of murderous treachery, broken treaties and lies toward the Native Americans. Even in this day, centuries later, they are treated similarly, without ever receiving due compensation and reparations for these travesties. America will never reach its true destiny of oneness until that is fully acknowledged and remedied. (It is a Bahai teaching and belief that the indigenous people of every land have a special role as spiritual leaders of the coming new world order, based on oneness, justice, and equity.)

These times on the Native Reservations were among the highlights and most profound educational experiences of my life. I learned from the Native Americans a profound respect and reverence for all life forms, which their prophets and spiritual leaders taught them, and which formed the basis of their religion. This was deliberately misunderstood and twisted by the Christian missionaries, who labeled the natives as heathens who worshiped nature, the moon, the stars, when theirs was a religion of thankfulness—giving thanks to their Creator, Great Spirit for all those gifts. The missionaries, who suffered from delusional white and Christian supremacy and who obviously knew nothing about their own religion or Christ—just like the “Christian right” today, said they the natives must be converted or killed. Whowere the real savages? They are EQualized.

I closed out this decade by moving from the Adirondack region of New York to the American South to learn about the Black culture in the aftermath of Jim Crow, recently, and slavery and reconstruction in the past. Also, the Bahai teachings of oneness, justice and racial solidarity were spreading like wildfire in the Black townships there where, just as in South Africa, a system of American apartheid with the remnants of Jim Crow and the plantation mentality still were widespread.

The people of color in the South were ready for oneness, equality, and equity. American hero, prophet and “founding father”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) had prepared them but was cut down before he could fulfill his total mission which was to bring economic empowerment to lift the masses out of poverty, and end war and violence, not just for Black people but for all peoples. (Most know about his civil rights victories however his overall mission was building “the beloved community” that the “Triple Evils of Racism, Poverty, and Militarism” were and still are holding us back from realizing.^[8] Note: I count MLK as my main “founding father” of America since it was not until he arrived and began reforming American society did it begin to live up to its founding principles “ that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In order to prepare them for this new America, every school child should be studying and learning about all of MLK’s writings and speeches, about every topic—economics, war, politics, racism, etc. Further, I count MLK as a Prophet, because he had a spiritual vision and acted upon that vision selflessly, based on his deep understanding of the Bible and other religious scriptures, even sacrificing his life to make that vision a reality. So, everyone who claims to be a Christian and every church in America should undertake the same study of MLK’s spiritual vision and actions based on that vision.)

So, I dove into the Southern plantation society using the Bahai oneness teachings to help bring the so-called races together. (“So-called” because the whole concept of the different races was an economic and social construct, with no basis in science, invented by Europeans to justify the colonization of Africa and enslavement of Africans. Thus, the whole idea of “Black and White” was a European elitist invention which was adopted by the elitist American founding fathers for their economic benefit. This also had the residual effect of robbing Europeans of their distinctive cultures—Irish, Italian, Spanish, French, etc.—by lumping them all together as “White” Americans.)^[9] They have been EQualized.

Chapter Four: Excellence & Exit 80’s.

From Wikipedia: “The decade, known as the Excellence Eighties and the Moderation Decade, saw a dominance of conservatism and free market economics, and a socioeconomic change due to advances in technology and a worldwide move away from planned economies and towards laissez-faire capitalism compared to the 1970s. As economics and politics shifted to the right, multi-national companies moved into countries around the world, exploiting the masses on a global scale never seen before, giving rise to economic globalization.” “The AIDS epidemic became recognized in the 1980s and has since killed an estimated 39 million people (as of 2013).Global warming became well known to the scientific and political community in the 1980s.” “Developing countries across the world faced economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises in the 1980s, requiring many of these countries to apply for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank” (which was a continuation of economic colonialism and even slavery, as the U.S. and Europe control those institutions and therefore control the economies of those countries borrowing from them.^[10])

At home, Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1981, and started “The Reagan Revolution” which rolled back most of the progressive strides of the previous two decades. (As Ibram X. Kendi wrote in “How to Become an Antiracist”: “The Reagan Revolution was just that: a radical revolution for the benefit of the already powerful. It further enriched high-income Americans by cutting their taxes and government regulations, installing a Christmas-tree military budget, and arresting the power of unions. Seventy percent of middle-income Blacks said they saw “a great deal of racial discrimination” in 1979, before Reagan revolutionaries rolled back enforcement of civil-rights laws and affirmative-action regulations, before they rolled back funding to state and local governments whose contracts and jobs had become safe avenues into the single-family urban home of the Black middle class. In the same month that Reagan announced his war on drugs… in 1982, he cut the safety net of federal welfare programs and Medicaid, sending more low-income Blacks into poverty. His “stronger law enforcement” sent more Black people into the clutches of violent cops, who killed twenty-two Black people for every White person in the early 1980s. Black youth were four times more likely to be unemployed in 1985 than in 1954. But few connected the increase in unemployment to the increase in violent crime. Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy. It’s an easy mistake to make: People are in our faces. Policies are distant. We are particularly poor at seeing the policies lurking behind the struggles of people.”^{^[11]}

And so began the explosion of the war on drugs (which has always really been a war on people of color and the poor), the “New Jim Crow”^[12]of mass incarceration, and the re-institution of slavery (since the 13^th amendment didn’t abolish slavery as punishment for a crime).^[13]

During the nation’s conservative “Reagan Revolution” (which we have never really recovered from), and traversing my own personal recovery and spiritual path, I packed up and moved south to Tuskegee, Alabama. Located there is one of the most famous Black universities, founded by Dr. Booker T. Washington and attended, at the time, by Lionel Ritchie—who was born and reared there—and his band, The Commodores. This was the immersion in the American Black culture which I had sought, and I was often one of the only so-called white men walking the campus and attending events there. One of those memorable events was a speech by Nikki Giovanni Jr., a Black American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator, who was invited to speak there in the aftermath of the Reagan election as the Black community was extremely worried and complaining about what that would mean for them, their families, and the poor of all backgrounds. She opened her speech by saying: “Well, Reagan has been elected President,” and then paused while the crowd booed, and then she stunned everyone by saying, “And I am glad!” Everyone’s jaws dropped in surprise, they looked at each other in disbelief, and then she continued, “I’m glad because it will teach you, us, my people, not to depend on the white man and his government and his institutions because they have always failed us. It is time for us to unite and do for ourselves.” And then everyone understood and shook their heads in affirmation.^[14]

While at Tuskegee I became engaged to a southern Black woman and we, as an interracial couple, traveled throughout the deep South—Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi– teaching the Bahai principles of oneness, racial unity, justice, and equality, and enduring many instances of racism, including sometimes refusing to be served by stores and restaurants, repeated stops and harassment by racist and corrupt sheriffs and other law enforcement, and threats of violence. The Bahais were the first faith community to have interracial meetings in the South, and sometimes they were disrupted by the KKK and/or law enforcement. My fiancée and I were sometimes present when this happened and were taught by the Bahais to respond non-violently, which helped diffuse the situations. When white-identified Bahais visited the Black townships in the rural South, the local police would stop and detain them for some trumped up charges, like a broken taillight, so that they would miss their meetings. So, to not be detected as white, they began blackening their faces with make-up so that while driving and from a distance they looked Black, which I did at times as well. They were EQualized. When we visited people in their homes and left Bahai literature, the police would go to the same houses telling the people not to listen to us, that we were troublemakers and would get them in trouble, and then confiscated the literature we had given them. (This is in the eighties, post-Jim Crow, and not in some far distant past.)

The small city of Albany in southwest Georgia was an epicenter of the Southern “story” and civil rights history, and another turning point for me. There are many stories shared in the full book but in one my fiancée and I were invited to attend a church service in a church with one of the few mixed congregations we had encountered. After the service, as the white pastor was greeting the guest attendees as we left the church, he took my fiancée and I aside and in the nicest manner possible, said, “Thank you for coming however if it were not against the law of the land I would have taken out my shotgun and shot both of you dead because interracial relationships are an abomination and blasphemy against the law of God.” We were shocked but not surprised, as we had found many so-called Christians to be among the most racist folks—and Dr. King had said that Sunday mornings were the most segregated times in America. (This church had decided Blacks and Whites could mix in the same building for the service, sitting separately of course, and everything would be rosy if the Blacks just stayed in their place. Poor Jesus, to have these people bear his name, just like the so-called “Christian-right” today—major hypocrites! They are EQualized!)

However, in that same small city of Albany I was to meet some true Christians and some profound truths about true Christianity. I met a gentleman at a suicide crisis center where I was volunteering who invited me to attend special classes some evenings at the courthouse preparing “Emotional Maturity Instructors” for those arrested and awaiting pre-trial who could opt to enroll in an EMI (Emotional Maturity Instruction)^[15] class as an alternative sentence. This intrigued me as I had come to believe in “restorative justice” as opposed to the norm of “punitive justice,” and EMI sounded like a great alternative to more punitive sentencing. I learned that the source of the EMI curriculum was the most recent Aramaic translation of the Bible New Testament (gleaned from recently translated scrolls discovered by archeologists in the Holy Land)^[16] In other words, it contained what Christ really said and taught, in his own language and context, and was alleged to be more accurate than Greek translations. This knowledge was combined with ground-breaking scientific, neurological research on how we form and maintain our emotions and spiritual values to produce emotional maturity and intelligence.

It was amazing to me that in this small, Bible-belt, Southern city, such an amazing and progressive strategy was launched and being used to both punish and prevent crime, but I was becoming used to such strange and small miracles guiding my path and learning. I signed up for the class and training and it, EMI, served as a significant milestone in my evolution and preparation for my future role as the “Woke EQualizer” . It further and exponentially opened my eyes to the brainwashing of the American people, by both corrupt government and corrupted religion—how they did in the past and continue to do so today. While in Albany, I taught the course to pre-trial detainees and witnessed how it helped transform their thinking and lives. I learned that everywhere it was being taught—in Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida– crime, alcoholism and drug abuse were decreasing—it was working! And then, suddenly, funding and support for it by the local, state, and federal politicians ended (as it was cutting into their profits and plans.) I later learned that whenever and wherever programs like EMI worked, they were somehow sabotaged by those in office—Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles. Why? Crime pays—it pays the police departments, the prison-industrial complex, the white collar, organized crime drug and gun dealers (which includes many politicians) and provides free, slave labor for the corporations. So, it is a disincentive for them to reduce crime; especially when the victims of it are people of color.

What were some of my takeaways from EMI? It confirmed that how Christ taught and lived was not how so-called Christianity, which I call “Churchianity,” in the West is taught and lived. Jesus’ teachings were non-judgmental, forgiving, loving, welcoming. There was no “fire and brimstone” or hell-fire damnation, and even sin was just an archery term which meant missing the mark—no burden to carry, when you err you simply try and try again until you get it right. In fact, most or all his teachings were parables, analogies, symbolic—not to be taken literally, which is the opposite of the Christian fundamentalism taught and practiced in many churches today. (Fundamentalism, in every religion, is a violent distortion of the spiritual truths contained in that faith, and often fundamentalist fanatics justify violence toward those whom they consider non-believers, which is why these false religions have been the cause of more wars than anything else, and have been used to fuel colonialism, slavery and other forms of oppression.) I also learned from EMI’s research into how we learn, and how the human mind can be conditioned and brainwashed, that Americans are among the most brainwashed people in the world, and, as prisoners of war in the world wars, were the weakest and easiest to crack and reveal military secrets, among all other captors, according to independent research.

Before moving on from Albany though, it was nearly thirty years later that I would learn the true significance and history of that small southern city, where I had learned so much. It had many firsts and has been called the “birthplace of the civil rights movement” as the Albany Movement was among the first organized protests in the 1960s against racist Jim Crow laws and for the right of African Americans to vote. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy and many other civil rights leaders were among the organizers and were jailed more than once there. One of the country’s first “Community Land Trusts” or land cooperatives was established by the Black community there, giving Black Americans over five thousand acres of land—the largest Black owned land tract in the country. This progress was fought by every government institution, as well as the KKK and other white supremacist terrorist groups, just as “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, OK, and every other significant economic and social advancement which Black Americans achieved were sabotaged by the white establishment.^[17] (It must be asked, if so-called whites thought they were so superior, how come anytime and every time Blacks start to get ahead, building family, community and business according to the very principles of the so-called “American dream”—opportunity, personal responsibility, liberty, and family values—that white folks organize to try and sabotage that progress, sometimes violently, not only in the past but today as well. They also try every tactic to try and suppress the Black vote–which people died to achieve and protect. There are thousands of examples of this in both past and modern history. Do so-called white people really suffer from such an inferiority complex—which we know is the basis of all superiority complexes– that they cannot compete, or cooperate, on a level playing field? White-identified folks suffer from mass mental health and identity issues, which have never been adequately addressed due to denial and delusional white supremacy issues. Which is why I am glad that I am not white! They are EQualized!)

Next stop (after my fiancée and I broke up) was Florida where I attended a Bahai gathering in which the presenters, from British Guyana in South America and St. Lucia in the West Indies, were recruiting “pioneers” (the Bahai term for missionaries) to come to their countries to help spread the Bahai teachings of oneness. (The Bahai Faith has no professional or paid clergy, or missionaries, as everyone can investigate and discern truth for themselves in this age of the maturation of humanity, and everyone can be a minister or teacher who can teach and learn from each other. They believe that no longer, in this era of the maturing of humanity, is there a need for one person to lead or pastor a flock, and for others to blindly follow. So, in that spirit, Bahai “pioneers” must be self-supporting and bring value to wherever they go, rather than extracting it from the people they serve, and must live among the people they are teaching and serving and endure the struggles which they are suffering. They are EQualized.) This appeal caught my interest as most of my previous travels overseas, including in the Caribbean, were as a tourist. But to live in another country among the grassroots people was another enticing prospect.

So, in early 1982, I set out on an exploratory trip to St. Lucia, part of the Windward chain of islands in the Eastern Caribbean, formerly a colony of both England and France but independent since 1979. It was a longshot for me to be able to stay there long-term because typically one would need either a professional skill and advanced degree which the country was in short supply of, or money to invest in a business with a local partner—neither of which I had. But I put my faith in my higher power and the Universe with the knowledge that if it was meant to be the path and the means would be provided. (This is one of the secrets of the “power of attraction” I was unknowingly practicing at the time, and which had guided me throughout life’s changes. I would later learn more about this power from the book and movie “The Secret.” In that movie, author Jack Canfield states” Life is like driving in the dark. Your headlights show you the two hundred feet in front of you and as you move forward, the next two hundred feet are shown to you. You don’t need to see the entire path to reach your destination. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to see how to get to your end goal, you just need to decide what you want and take the step that is directly in front of you. The next steps will be revealed to you as you go.” ^[18])

Soon after arriving there, I almost immediately fell in love with the people, culture, and terrain of St. Lucia. It was like a whole new world opening up to me, a different reality. I had traveled throughout Europe before, but this was a totally different culture, composed almost entirely of Black African and indigenous peoples, with some mixture of European and East Indian/Asian– very exotic, and diverse. (And no, I wasn’t another lost Italian claiming to discover anything 😊 except myself and the fact that another whole world exists outside of America and Europe, and its propaganda of exceptionalism and superiority.) The people opened their arms and hearts to me, partly due to my white and American unearned privilege, but it became quickly apparent to me that the St. Lucian people genuinely appreciated people, and each other, over material things.

One thing I also immediately noticed was that the Eastern Caribbean (EC) currency dollar was worth about one third of the U.S. dollar, rendering my money triple in value there. Since I had dealt with currency differences and exchanges in Europe, I wondered who had devalued the EC dollar to make life more of a struggle for St. Lucians than Americans—certainly, their value as humans was not one third of Americans. (I then quickly understood the Bahai teaching of the need for one universal currency; if we really believe in the oneness of humanity, then that’s a no-brainer. Later I would learn about the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund–institutions controlled by the U.S. and Europe– in controlling this and keeping poor countries poor. Just as American institutions are designed to keep poor people poor and a permanent underclass in America, these international institutions do so worldwide—MLK’s “Triple Evils” of racism, poverty, and militarism in full display.)

While there I traveled to neighboring island nations of Grenada and St. Vincent, and in the latter I met my wife (now of forty years), and we started what would become a large multi-racial family of ten. We remained in St. Vincent for six years initially, having three of our eight children, and then moved back to the States for a while. (Read the full book for my many adventures, stories, and learning experiences while there in my “new world”, which changed me forever and helped convert me to a “Global Woke Equalizer”.)

One thing I learned there about the power of attraction and faith is that when you focus on what you want to achieve, rather than on what you don’t want, you will likely attract what you want and fulfill your goals. However, before (or, at least, while) doing that you have to also learn about and love your authentic, holistic self—your body, mind, emotions, and spirit. And you cannot be afraid of making mistakes; in fact, you must make mistakes to learn. (One of my mentors, a motivational speaker and award-winning salesperson, J. Richard Hoff, used to say, “If you aren’t making mistakes then you aren’t doing anything; you’re already dead.”) Also, I learned there is a difference between striving for “excellence” rather than “perfection.” In the former you make mistakes, learn from them, and keep trying until you get it right; in the latter, because you are human and no one is perfect, you make mistakes and try to hide them so people think you are progressing but you waste so much energy on being fake that you likely will not advance, or, if you do, it will be at a high cost and sacrifice of moral and human values. (That is the problem with America—it tries to be perfect, or “exceptional,” projecting an image of perfection while hiding and denying its mistakes so it cannot learn from them and move on to fulfill its true destiny. This translates to a lack of true and authentic self-love and self-esteem, manifesting itself in violence towards itself and others and becoming the ultimate bully. Americans wonder why there is so much violence within its borders and towards each other. Frederick Douglass, the great American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, warned: “The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe.”^{^[19]} )

Goals Fulfilled

I had already made many mistakes in my young life, some dangerous and near fatal, however somehow, through the grace of God or the Universe, I had learned from them, learning to know and love my true and authentic reality. Based upon that true reality I made goals which I felt were in alignment with the Universe and the universal Bahai principles helping to guide my quest for oneness and for personal and societal progress, through service to others. The fulfillment of these goals reached hyper-speed once I ventured out of my American bubble and comfort zone and was able to see the world in a whole new light. In just a couple of years and in my late twenties, while in St. Vincent, I was able to fulfill most of my long-term life goals:

–Married and had a family, especially an interracial one. (Not only did I marry a Black woman but she, like many West Indians, has East Indian, African, Amerindian, and European ancestry, rendering our children true world citizens with all the “races” represented.)

–Started and operated businesses, which provided value to both customers and staff rather than only extracting profits.

–Started and operated my own counseling practice, and related non-profit institutions, helping those with addictions and other maladies. (I became the only “psychologist” on the island, getting referrals from the only psychiatrist.)

–Became a world citizen, partly accomplished with my dual citizenship, obtaining a British commonwealth passport enabling easier travel worldwide

— Learned the optimum civics lesson, as in these small countries I was to have easy access to all levels of government allowing me to influence positive changes, with less bureaucracy and “red-tape” than in America.

–Began teaching others what I had learned, and was still learning, both formally as a high school teacher and informally as a spiritual teacher, motivator, and author, through the written word, public forums, and tv and radio (as I had my own media programs in St. Vincent, and this was before the internet and social media).

–Became a servant leader and advocate for the oppressed, as I was able to begin addressing injustices in my newly adopted country.

–Began learning many new skills, including how to be a minimalist and survive without running water, electricity, and other amenities, at times.

Most importantly, I was learning, once again, to see through the eyes of people from a completely different culture, just as I had learned before from the Native Americans and African Americans. Now the West Indians were teaching me, in a so-called “third world,” lesser developed country, and I was also seeing America, with the West Indians’ help and insights, from a whole new perspective. (You know the saying “too close to the forest to see the trees;” well, that is exactly what we Americans are, especially with all the false conditioning, propaganda, and mind control.)

Here are some of the lessons learned and my take-aways from these lessons:

–I noticed how eager everyone I met in St. Vincent was to learn and think for themselves, and when engaged in such learning how focused and thoughtful they were. For example, I met Gregory, a self-taught refrigeration technician who, based on his reading and writing skills, would be considered functionally illiterate here. However, Gregory was a great thinker and philosopher (really a prophet because a philosopher visualizes and writes lofty thoughts and ideals but doesn’t necessarily act upon them, while a prophet has both the vision and the action). Gregory, like many Vincentians, would sit and listen to the BBC world news and other programs aired over their radios, and then would have the deepest analytical conversations about what he heard. I remember sitting under the mango tree with Gregory, and sometimes others, debating world news topics in more depth than I had ever done with Americans back home. (Gregory, like many less formally educated West Indians, appeared smarter about the world, even in his relative functional illiteracy, than most highly educated PhD’s I was acquainted with back home. They are EQualized!) Even school-aged children had such a thirst for knowledge and books. (Because of this thirst for learning, West Indian children who emigrate to the U.S. generally do better than American children in schools here, as do those from many other areas of the world. We are EQualized.)

–The Vincentians’ (people of SVG) eagerness to learn, study, and debate secular subjects was only matched or surpassed by their desire to do the same with religious, especially Biblical and Christian, subjects. St. Vincent was a so-called “Christian” country, though split by many major denominations and small churches. Before the proliferation of so many churches, many of which were imported from America or England, the people used to work together to help each other build homes and other cooperative endeavors, however religion or what is called “Churchianity” split them apart into different factions which then only assisted each other within their respective congregations. This was a pattern observed worldwide, including America. Wherever “Churchianity” spread it divided the people, and that is how they were kept in control. (So false religion was, and is, used to divide and control, while “true religion” unites and frees. I often used to say that “true religion has selfless prophets and false religion has selfish profits.”)

Gregory and I traveled the island holding tent-style public meetings to share our glad tidings of oneness, and the meetings were packed. Of course, this angered the corrupt clergy as the last thing they wanted was their congregations thinking for themselves and learning any new or different spiritual truths, so we faced a lot of opposition. Also, around this time, the Bahais began to get organized, and started asking members to serve in various ways, including serving on administrative bodies called Local Spiritual Assemblies in positions of ‘servant leadership”. (The Bahai Faith is a “do it yourself” religion, without any clergy—it is about self-determination and empowerment—and the Bahais are organized by a system of self-governance which includes electing nine members in every town to serve as their administrative body, called a “Local Spiritual Assembly” It is a consultative body which conducts the business of the Bahais in their respective localities, as a pastor and board of deacons would in a church. And, in every country, the Bahais elect a similar nine-member body called a National Spiritual Assembly. The elections of both are done without anyone campaigning and in a secret ballot, which removes all the corruption of other electoral systems. This Bahai system, which has been called the most democratic system in the world, has been studied by think tanks, including the prestigious Club of Rome, and the U.S. government election reform task forces.^[20])

I realized that if we were asking people to take roles of “servant leadership”, and to sacrifice their time and energy in the promotion of this cause of oneness and unity, then first they must be given the opportunity to learn about and develop their own intrinsic and unique capacities. How can you ask people to sacrifice when they don’t even know what they have to contribute, or may already be struggling to survive? So, the first step was to teach people about their true selves. Everywhere in the world there is a true hunger for that type of teaching and learning because it is not taught in schools or other institutions, especially religious ones. (I had experienced that void when setting out to find my own true self and capacities as a youth and young adult, so my self-knowledge education and training took place in non-traditional settings such as meditation temples, yoga ashrams, marital arts studios, Emotional Maturity Instruction classes, and Native American sweat lodges and ceremonies. Since there were none of those alternative types of learning centers in St. Vincent, I decided to start one.) I developed a holistic, self-empowerment workshop and course, called “Total Human Development,” based on all I had learned in those settings and incorporating some elements of the Emotional Maturity Instruction.

So, Gregory and I, with the assistance of a few other Bahai and like-minded friends, traveled the island holding these “Total Human Development” classes and workshops. They attracted many people from all walks of life, including police chiefs, elected representatives, health professionals, community leaders, and the common people (who were mostly farmers). The class was rapidly gaining in popularity nationwide. This further angered the corrupt pastors and those whom they had influence over, so they employed fear tactics and threats of violence to attempt to shut this movement down from empowering the people for spiritual, emotional, and intellectual self-determination. That was a threat (and always is) for those, at all levels, who want control over the people. This was my first major lesson in organized opposition to grass-roots progress relating to spiritual and personal development. I had experienced brutal and organized resistance by government and law enforcement to the anti-war and anti-racist movements in the U.S., but this was the first similarly organized religious-based resistance I had ever encountered. I was aware, though, from my studies of religion historically, that every major religion has a period of a few centuries where it helps produce societal advancements based on the founders’ principles, but then corrupt clergy take over and pervert the religion for their own selfish purposes, mainly power and control. Christianity has been in this corrupted stage for centuries now and more people have been murdered, oppressed, and manipulated in the name of corrupted Christianity than all the other religions combined. It is important to note that there are still remnants of uncorrupted or less corrupted Christianity, just like in any other world religion, and there are certainly Christ-like people, or true Christians, who have helped many in their personal development and in the development of the “Beloved Community.”

A few other important lessons I learned in St. Vincent:

–Though the colonies, like St. Vincent, gained political independence, it did not include economic independence as they were still dependent on England and Europe for trade. That is why the West Indian nations were sometimes described as “Banana Republics” —because their main crop was bananas, and they were dependent on England and other European countries to buy their bananas. If these countries stopped buying their bananas, the island countries’ economies would collapse. (This is another aspect of colonial control, which happens in Africa and all over the world, and is what author Aharone, in his book “Sovereign Psyche” calls “chattel freedom vs. self-authentic freedom” and shows how Europe and America have transitioned from land conquest to intellectual, technological, and financial conquest—trying to keep other countries colonized and dependent. ^[21]) One of my many jobs while in SVG was to help farmers diversify the crops they grew so they would no longer be dependent on bananas as their main export, which they have done successfully, to some extent. But they are still dependent on Europe and America economically, and don’t have to be. If they formed an effective union of Caribbean countries, like the European Union, then they could trade with each other and reduce their dependence on their colonial masters. Again, unity is the answer. (They do have a similar union called “Caricom,” however it was rendered weak and ineffective by American and European interference and control.)

–Bribery is openly part of the economic system there. For example, you must bribe customs workers to avoid paying exorbitant duties and tariffs on imported goods, and, at election time, candidates may come to your door asking what you need to vote for them (e.g.,” Do you need your roof repaired, or some lumber for your addition or repairs?”) However, though bribery in America is supposedly “illegal” it is a huge part of the way business and politics is conducted here (“pay to play” lobbying as a prime example) with so many government workers in every agency on the take, trying to hide it with terms like “lobbying,” “gifts,” “incentives.” America has many layers of bureaucracy and red tape, and many games one must play to get anything done, especially if one is poor. Little is based on merit, equity, or equality but on who you know, while in St. Vincent and many other countries life is much simpler and more honest, with less games to play. In other words, not only life but corruption is much simpler outside America, which is among the most corrupt countries and systems in history but spends inordinate time and energy trying to hide and deny it. They have been EQualized.

–Most of the Americans and Brits I met in St. Vincent, including those residing or visiting there to “help” the people and country, wanted to dictate how the local people should be helped, rather than sufficiently asking, surveying, and listening to them—a symptom of a deeply ingrained and delusional superiority complex. (This attitude, I found, is rampant in non-profit and NGOs in the U.S. as well as abroad, attempting to “help” disadvantaged communities through a top-down approach rather than a bottom-up or “grass roots” one, and therefore not really helping at all, at least not on a sustainable basis. I like and have adopted the motto of leftist groups who were more experienced in effective mutual aid:” Not Charity, but Solidarity.”)

–All U.S. foreign aid had strings attached, and sometimes chains, primarily helping local elites and wealthy families in these countries, rather than the poor.^[22] (That is the result of the top-down, superiority complex approach.) On the other hand, Canadian aid had none of that nonsense and actually reached those who needed it.

–Toxic and carcinogenic substances, including foods and pesticides, while banned in the U.S. and UK, were still manufactured and shipped to poor countries, often sent as aid paid for by U.S. tax dollars, spreading poisons around the world–the result of corporate greed!

–The same for toxic practices, like corporeal punishment of children in schools, while banned in the U.S. and UK but still used in the former colonies. (I would come to learn later that this was due to “internalized racism” and “internalized oppression.”^[23]) Also, there were literally no consumer or worker protections, so both are routinely mistreated.

–The image of the U.S. portrayed to the world through its media and other propaganda is as a “land of milk and honey” where no one is poor, homeless, or oppressed. This is why everyone wants to come to the U.S., in addition to the fact that the U.S. foreign economic policies impoverish their countries. (If America really wanted to stem the tide of undocumented immigration it would need to stop raping their countries and producing economic refugees. It is EQualized ! ) But when many immigrants get here–especially from the island nations where people may be cash poor but are food and housing rich (as all have adequate home-grown and raised food, and own a small piece of land and a home, however modest, in a beautiful environment and tropical paradise), they are in for a rude awakening—often in a polluted, dirty, concrete jungle American city, and a struggle to eat and live. Also, many foreigners, especially in developing countries, view the U.S. and Americans with great suspicion since they hear American politicians beating their chests boasting of all the foreign aid they give, however the people who really need it in these countries never see or receive any of it.

–In the early 1980s, neighboring island-nation Grenada was in the midst of a revolution, which started much the same as Cuba’s revolution in the fifties. A local group led by Grenadian Maurice Bishop decided to rid the nation of an American-backed dictator, Eric Gairy, who used violence to silence his opponents. Since Cuba supported the new revolutionary leaders (whom I visited and met with), the U.S., under President Reagan, viewed them as enemies. In violation of international law and nations’ rights to sovereignty (which the U.S. never honors), the U.S. invaded militarily to reinstall its puppet regime. ^[24] (The U.S. rarely honors international law, so the notion that this is a law-abiding country which reveres the rule of law is pure rubbish. It is EQualized.) ^[25]

–Relating to America’s hyper-gun violence, I experienced an important “before and after” learning experience in St. Vincent. When I arrived there, St. Vincent was a country with virtually no guns; even law enforcement didn’t routinely carry them. And there was little violent crime. However, a few short years later, with the addition of guns to that country, violence dramatically increased. (So, for those who say that guns are not the problem, I experienced it firsthand—a whole country before and after guns. And many other countries have experienced the exact same result—more guns equating to more violence! In America, the bought-and-paid-for corrupt and greedy politicians and gun-lobbyists peddle their lies but the truth is, and research proves, that more guns produce more violence, less guns produces less violence—period. It is not rocket-science. And the U.S. Constitution’s 2^nd amendment did not authorize the proliferation of guns we have today, so judges at all levels who interpret it otherwise are similarly corrupt, period. They are Equalized!)

After a few years in St. Vincent, we decided to move back to America for a bit. However, coming to America with two young children and one on the way, and an immigrant spouse, was easier said than done. ‘Just because my wife was married to an American citizen didn’t mean that she could easily emigrate here, even with citizen children. For her to apply for entry at the U.S. embassy in Barbados and comply with the standard procedure the process could take years. (So much for the myth that there is an orderly and timely “legal” way to emigrate.) This would be my first major interaction and experience dealing with U.S. Immigration and was definitely an eye opener. And this was before 9/11, after which it was a thousand times worse. So, I laugh heartily at the ignorance of people when they say, “why can’t they just come here legally, through the system set up to facilitate that,” especially when most of their ancestors circumvented it, a fact many either don’t know or choose to forget. They are EQualized.

We first lived in Florida, and I got my first job in corporate America there, though it was a relatively small, family owned, corporation. (Later I would work for some of the largest corporations in America and the world). It was also my first experience of many dealing with racism and corruption in the corporate workplace. I could not tolerate that racism and became an informant and whistleblower (the first of many times in my career and life, earning me the nickname “undercover brother”). This company was EQualized.

While in South Florida we had heard of the plight of some imported West Indian sugar cane workers slaving on the sugar plantations in the swamps of the nearby Everglades, so we visited the Bahais in that area of the Florida interior, near Lake Okeechobee, to learn more. There we learned that sugar corporations imported the immigrants to work as slave labor for low pay and in dangerous and substandard conditions. So, we helped shine light on these abuses through the media, aid agencies, and labor unions. (When I was living in the islands, I had learned from the Cubans and their supporters that before the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro in the 1950’s, these same American sugar companies had their plantations in that country, enslaving the local people with the cooperation of the local dictator and American puppet, President Batista. That is why there was no choice but to overthrow him, to end that slavery and abuse. Because America and its corrupt corporations tried to reinstall him, there was no choice but for Cuba to seek military aid from Russia, hence the long-standing “cold war” between the U.S. and Cuba. You will not learn this in American schools.^[26] They are EQualized. America still supports and utilizes slave labor, not only in this country as punishment for a crime and for migrants, but around the world, including on and around our military bases where we contract with corrupt human trafficking companies.^[27])

Next we moved to South Carolina and lived both along the coastline there and in a suburb of Charlotte, NC, right over the border (Rock Hill, SC). Two significant historical facts about South Carolina which heavily influenced my journey to wokefulness and EQualizing: 1) South Carolina and the West Indies have close “blood” and historical ties since many of the slave ships delivered some of their “human cargo” to the island of Barbados, and then sailed on to the port of Charleston, SC, to deliver the rest. So, many of the Black people along the SC coast are distant cousins to those in Barbados and other island nations, and some even retained their Afro-Caribbean accent and culture and are known as the Gullah/Geechee people.^[28] (You can visit the preserved Charleston slave market, and the Gullah/Geechee cultural centers in the Charleston area, both of which we and the local Bahais helped preserve and promote. We also helped preserve, in Charleston, the birthplace home of Louis Gregory, who became one of the earliest Black attorneys working for the government in Washington, DC, and was a pioneer and champion of interracial unity in the early 1900s.^[29] We named our first son, Louis Gregory, after him.) 2) Rock Hill, SC, was at the center of the civil rights struggle to overthrow Jim Crow laws as it was the first town where an organized group of Black civil disobedience protestors sat and refused to move at an all-white lunch counter. Once arrested, they refused to be released on bail pending their hearing, also a first. Both of these actions drew national and international attention and visits from MLK,Jr., John Lewis, and other freedom fighters, including the Freedom Riders.^[30] (Once again, an “invisible hand” seemed to be guiding me to places of historic significance in the battle for oneness, equality, equity, and justice. on my journey to becoming a “Woke EQualizer” warrior and peacemaker. Rock Hill became our family’s early home base in America as we moved back there four times in the next two decades and birthed two children while there.)

In Charlotte I entered the mega-corporate world, working for some of the biggest companies in America and the world, including IBM and A,T&T. This entrance into corporate America was eye-opening and another needed experience on my path to becoming a Woke EQualizer. Beyond all the glitter and imagery, I found these huge private companies to be as or even more corrupt than government, and their workplaces were throwbacks to the plantation. For example, in the sales and marketing departments where I worked, they put the staff through some world-class training while still emphasizing that the main goal was to win at all costs over competitors, even if they had to lie and cheat.

One thing I was constantly learning and experiencing is that lying and cheating to get ahead or beat the competition seemed to be an American practice at all levels of society and in all American institutions, since the founding of America had been built on those practices, and still is. Whenever property and profit come before people and principle, the system will be totally corrupt. They are Equalized. And there was rampant racism; just like on the plantation, Black workers were sometimes given supervisory roles but only if they would control and manipulate the people below them, sometimes brutally. And everyone was incentivized to snitch on other workers, while surveillance was widespread. It wasn’t long before I was refusing to play by their rules and whistleblowing to both unions and government agencies. For that reason, I didn’t last long with any company.

My side jobs during this period were in private psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals, where I learned about and experienced firsthand the corrupt “insurance cure”—that is, if you had 30 days insurance coverage you were “cured” in 30 days, and 90 days coverage was a 90-day “cure”. I also found that some patients were involuntarily committed by corrupt psychiatrists just to get their money. I exposed all of this to the media, and received threats of violence from the corrupt, organized crime syndicate that owned one of the hospital chains.

Chapter 5: THE CLOSING DECADE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: 1990’s

The 1990’s was characterized by an explosion in technology and communications–the rise of the internet, world-wide-web, personal computers, mobile phones—bringing the entire world closer together as one global neighborhood (as poets, philosophers and prophets had predicted for thousands of years). While the world increasingly began embracing their multiculturalism, America also struggled with reactionary forces mounted against that progress, as evidenced by the white supremacist, Oklahoma City bombing of the federal government building there in 1995 ( which killed at least 168 people, injured more than 680 others, destroyed more than one-third of the building, destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage.^[31]) Also, the acquittal of white police officers in the 1992 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, caught on camera and watched by millions worldwide, sparked the “Los Angeles Uprising” and race riots by thousands resulting in 63 people killed, 2,383 injured, more than 12,000 arrested, and estimates of property damage of over $1 billion.^[32] Gun violence and mass shootings, even at schools, were on the rise, due, in part, to the American “gun culture”, and the decade ended with the deadliest school mass shooting (at that time) in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado, with 12 students and one teacher murdered, and 21 injured.

Bill Clinton served as President from 1993 to 2001, and though he championed some progressive policies and reforms, his tough stance on crime and drugs increased mass incarceration exponentially, propelling America to be the most incarcerated nation in the history of the world, with people of color disproportionately represented.^[33]

On the international front, the first Iraqi war, Desert Storm, took place in 1991, setting the stage for the later illegal and unjust U.S. war and invasion of Iraq after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And there were mass genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia which America watched and did nothing about. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and was elected President in 1994, the country’s first Black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election, ending the system of apartheid. (Apartheid ended politically and legally, however economically it remained, and remains to this day, with white money and power dominating still, to a significant extent, just as in America. This is another example of the necessity to tackle the triple evils of racism, poverty, and militarism together, as they are all interrelated and one cannot be eliminated without eliminating the others.) Also, scientists worldwide began raising the alarm regarding the potential deadly effects of global warming and climate change largely due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

In preparation for our return to St. Vincent I began to study international economics to see how I could help my newly adopted country and other similar countries in the region become more self-sustaining and independent of America, Europe, and other empire-building nations’ influence, or, at least, to begin reducing their dependence. A major part of that study were the books and teachings of professor and economist Dr. Ravi Batra, author of “The Great Depression of 1990: Regular Cycles of Money, Inflation, Regulation and Depressions “and “Surviving the Great Depression of 1990”.^{^[34]} I was so impressed with his works that I reached out to Dr. Batra and we connected on both intellectual and spiritual planes as we were both members of the same international Hindu meditation and social service organization. (Though Dr. Batra’s exact prediction did not materialize, America and the world have teetered on the edge of economic depression several times since, and most of what he wrote was in harmony with the Bahai teachings and my belief that economic crisis and disaster must come to bring balance and equity to the global economic system—a great “economic correction.” Dr. Batra’s advice, though, on how to prepare for and survive economic crisis was and is still invaluable.) I bought many copies of Dr. Batra’s books to give to heads of State in the islands, encouraging them to divest of attachments to the American economy and become more connected to and interdependent with other nations in the region. These leaders politely accepted the books and advice however didn’t heed it much. Though they continued to be connected to and dependent on the American dollar, their attitudes gradually changed decrying American manipulation and oppression, as have most countries worldwide (though they still are forced, sometimes violently, by America and its allies to conform and bow down to American corporate capitalism, all of which is economic terrorism well documented in the books by General Smedley Butler, “War is a Racket”, John Perkins, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and William Blum, “Rogue State” and “Killing Hope”.) Because of this American interference in their countries, America’s reputation continually plummeted in the ensuing years, especially among the younger generations worldwide who, thanks to advances in communications and technology, have much more accurate information about America’s corrupt motives and practices. (A constant theme of my work and beliefs is that America must experience some radical changes to fulfill its’ true destiny and world servant leadership role as opposed to its traditionally pursued world ruler role.) Regarding these so-called underdeveloped, poor countries, noted American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic Michael Parenti says it best: “There are very few poor countries in this world. Most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich, Brazil is rich, Mexico is rich, Chile is rich…only the people are poor. But there’s billions to be made there to be carved out and be taken. There’s been billions for 400 years, capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, the flax, the hemp, the cocoa, the rum, the copper, the iron, the rubber, the bauxite, the slaves, and the cheap labor, they have taken out of these countries. These countries aren’t poor. These countries are rich! Only the people are poor! They’re not underdeveloped, they’re overexploited!”

We briefly moved back to St. Vincent however we found it sunk in materialism imported from America, so we didn’t last long there. Regarding our family’s view of materialism as an insidious cancer, I coined the term “voluntary poverty” to describe our lifestyle, since we could certainly have made much more money and lived a more comfortable lifestyle but would have had to sacrifice valuable time spent both building the family and the community. One of my mottos has always been to “live simply so that others may simply live.” It is not hard to see how insidious American materialism is, like a disease or addiction whose excesses cause most of this society’s and the world’s problems—war, bullying, crime, mental illness, addictions, sickness, inequities, injustices, oppression, climate change. Therefore Dr. King labeled materialism–under the heading of poverty–as one of the triple evils, along with racism and militarism since they are all closely related. And he said “ I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” ^{^[35]} Sadly, we have still hardly begun undergoing that radical revolution, fifty years later.

What had attracted me initially to the Bahai Faith was its emphasis on self-determination and advancement for all peoples, especially those who had been marginalized in the past, which, in the U.S., was mainly communities of color but also poor white rural communities. So, my growing family and I spent most of this decade traveling to such marginalized communities to help teach spiritual and equitable, social and economic development in many states, including but not limited to FL, GA, NC, SC, AL, MS, TX, OK, TN, NY, NJ, PA, KY, IL, IN, KS, MO,VA,WVA, DC.

Since both our extended family support systems were far away ( NY and SVG), we were always seeking the proverbial village of mutual support to help raise our children. We also had a dream of opening our own school based on the universal spiritual and practical principles we had learned and were also interested in starting or joining an “intentional community” (the new term for a “commune”) composed of members of our faith community and/or like-minded and spirited friends. So, almost every two years, like clockwork, we moved to new communities we had discovered in our many travels, in SC, NC, GA and FL. All these travels and moves brought many adventures, especially with a large multi-racial family of ten (ultimately) in the deep South and elsewhere (a few of which adventures, including efforts to start or join two intentional communities, are shared in the complete book).

The significance of Oklahoma as the former “Indian Territory” —basically the colony where all southern Native tribes were forcibly removed to, hence called “Indian Territory” and eventually becoming the state of Oklahoma, drew us there many times, especially considering the Bahai and Native prophecies that the indigenous peoples would eventually spiritually lead the world. Plus, Tulsa, OK, was the site of the historic and horrific 1921 Black Wall Street massacre, where state-sponsored white mobs mass murdered and burned an affluent Black community.^[36] Sadly, in 1995, Oklahoma City suffered a new mass murder in the bombing of the Federal building there, again by white supremacists. Our family, in dealing with the repercussions of that tragedy, traveled to these communities to bring the healing message of unity and oneness, often walking the streets in the neighborhoods of both the Native and Black communities to meet and greet them as one human family and to find out what their needs and wishes were. We found that these peoples, who had relied on their Higher Powers, spiritual powers, and ancestors for generations, did not need more spiritual teachings or guidance but wanted more equitable social and economic development opportunities. In one rural town near Oklahoma City, some of the Bahais had purchased a farm with over a hundred acres containing some sacred Native sites (which they were determined to turn over to local Native Americans for their use) and were seeking a family to live on and caretake that property. We considered taking on that challenge however the location was too isolated and rustic for our needs at the time. (Plus, Oklahoma was not an easy place to live due to much racial strife and racism, and bad weather and tornadoes. It was no accident that the government forced the eastern Native tribes to relocate there, far from their lush lands, and when oil was discovered in some parts of the state, they forced the Natives off that land and into other more barren areas. More broken promises and treaties. That is the story of America—everything, including the cherished Constitution, was designed and reserved for the elite few wealthy landowners, including the right to vote which was not extended to the general white male population until nearly a century after the country’s founding, and to Black men a century after that, and to women of all colors after another hundred years. The Founding Fathers wanted only large property owners to vote but left it up to the states to decide.^[37] They are Equalized.)

During this period, we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and I opened a few businesses and contracted with major corporations there. For the first time we had more than our basic needs—relative wealth– so we bought a mini-farm in the outskirts. Speaking of riches and wealth, they cannot be measured in dollars and cents. As this book outlines, not only my name but my life has been “rich” in experiences and blessings: travel, adventure, love, learning, family, service to others, recovery, redemption, transformation, friendship, mentorship. Even measured in material wealth and dollars, I, and most Americans, including those beneath the poverty line, are richer than more than half of the world. At times I earned enough—at not even six figures– to be in the world’s top 10% richest.^[38] So, it is all relative. Once one’s basic physical needs are met, I believe, the rest is unnecessary luxury though we have been brainwashed to judge our “success” by the material luxuries we have amassed. That is the disease of materialism—one of the “triple evils” (relating to poverty). Everything of real value I accomplished, my true “richness,” was with only basic and minimal material needs fulfilled—nothing more or less. Without planning it, I became a minimalist. Having worked with and for multi-millionaires, and, having become intimately acquainted with their lives, I found they were among the most miserable and insecure people I’ve known, for many reasons. But the main reason was that they worried about their money and material things all the time–who was trying to get it, including and especially family and friends, and who really liked them or really only liked their money—a sad way to live!

A basic Bahai principle that I wholeheartedly support and promote is the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty. This does not mean absolute equality as there can be levels based on many factors such as capacity and achievement, but absolute equity, meaning a level playing field with everyone’s basic needs met, especially those marginalized communities that have been oppressed for centuries. Not only is that possible but it is already happening in some countries, which America needs to learn from. No one needs inordinate material wealth, and just like any excess, it is detrimental to their well-being and to the well-being of the world, as greed and material excesses have caused most of the world’s problems. They are EQualized.

Remember Dr. King’s definition of “beloved community” and “revolution of values”: “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” This cannot be emphasized enough as it is the main obstacle holding us back—the attachment to material things. And poverty and materialism—which are directly related—are considered together as one of MLK’s “Triple Evils”.

Chapter 6: The 2000’s: First Decade of the new millenium (2000 – 2010)

Technically, the new millennium started on January 1, 2001, however for our purposes, and that of much of the world at the time, we begin in the year 2000. The main event leading up to the year 2000 was the Y2K millennium bug scare—referring to “potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. Computer systems’ inability to distinguish dates correctly had the potential to bring down worldwide infrastructures for industries ranging from banking to air travel.”^{^[39]} Some people thought this could signal the end of the world, as we knew it. In fact, due to the remedial efforts to correct this, plus the belief that the problem was overstated, nothing significant or damaging occurred.

The next world-changing event in this new century, which would catapult America’s empire-building efforts abroad, and police-state, military-industrial complex, and bigotry at home to new and unprecedented levels was the “terrorist” attack on America, on September 11, 2001. (The word “terrorist”, though aptly applied to those who carried out the 9/11 attack, could also aptly be applied to thousands of American actions against peoples and countries worldwide for at least the last sixty years, as well as the state-sponsored terrorist attacks against Black Americans and Native Americans for centuries. All this makes the 9/11 attacks, which some say were retaliation against American terrorism abroad, pale in significance.) In fact, because that attack was used to justify wars which America had been wanting to undertake against Iraq and Afghanistan for years, for economic reasons, some claim it was a false flag attack either staged by the U.S. or allowed to take place despite warnings which could have prevented it. (So, before you make a big deal about 9/11, or any acts of foreign terrorism against America, look in the mirror and work to stop American global gangsterism worldwide, which is more terroristic and deadly than anything Al-Qaeda or ISIS could ever do. They are Equalized!) Thus began America’s and its allies’ endless “war on terror”, targeting mainly Iraq, Afghanistan, and radical, fundamentalist Muslim organizations like Al-Qaeda, all of which was based mainly on lies (e.g., non-existent weapons of mass destruction), killing thousands of combatants on both sides and tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, totaling approximately 900,000 lives lost, at a cost of trillions of dollars. ^[40]

At home in America, the police state surveillance and arrest powers were extremely broadened with the Patriot Act and other draconian legislation enacted on a bi-partisan basis. And extreme bigotry and violence toward Muslims in America and worldwide grew exponentially. (That bigotry was already latent and simmering among so-called Christians–an ignorant, religious bigotry based on their false assumptions and beliefs that Christianity was the “only true religion. The same fundamentalism which fuels Muslim fanaticism and violence has fueled Christian fanaticism and violence for centuries. Most Americans and Christians still don’t realize the profound positive impact Islam had on both America and Europe, in the fulfillment of their own Biblical prophesies. They are Equalized.)

Later in this decade, that vitriol would be extended to immigrants of all backgrounds, especially undocumented immigrants from south of the border (even though most levels of government and many corporations and industries imported them for cheap and highly productive labor, and no “terrorists” have ever entered the U.S. from its southern border, contrary to what lying politicians say).

Globally, in the early part of the decade, China and India saw economic booms, however the economic developments in the latter third of the decade were dominated by a worldwide economic downturn that started with the crisis in housing and credit in the United States in late 2007 and led to the bankruptcy of major banks and other financial institutions. (This is when we learned the concept of “too big to fail”^[41] which means when wealthy individuals or companies owe or control large amounts of money they will always be bailed out by government—the ultimate welfare system for corporations and the wealthy and example of crony capitalism and not a free market economy at all. Only the small guy is forced to be fiscally responsible. That is why one of my former bosses, an entrepreneur, told me that whether you have a million dollars in the bank, or owe a million dollars, you are still considered a millionaire and will be protected. So, it is ludicrous for anyone in America to complain about any funds spent on a social safety net for the poor when the rich routinely have billions of dollars of government welfare. They are EQualized.) The outbreak of this global financial crisis sparked a global recession, beginning in the United States and affecting most of the industrialized world.

The growth of the Internet contributed to globalization during the decade, which allowed faster communication among people around the world; social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook arose as a new way for people to stay in touch from distant locations. And in 2008, Barak Hussein Obama was elected 44^th President, a symbol of hope and change, the first African American to hold that office. He inherited an extremely divided country and the worst economy and recession, bordering on collapse, in nearly a hundred years. (Ironically, decades earlier when comedian Richard Pryor was asked if he would like to become the first Black president, he replied “Hell no, they will only put us at the helm of a ship when it’s sinking and already half sunk”—how prophetic he was!)

To put the 9/11 attack in perspective, the last time the U.S. was attacked on its own soil causing mass casualties was at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941, sixty years earlier, causing the U.S. to enter World War II against Japan, Germany, and Italy. That attack killed 2403 Americans, mostly soldiers, while the 9/11 attack killed nearly 3000, mostly civilians. So, the question in many people’s minds was what will be America’s response, and would this lead to another World War? In the days that followed, many spoke of revenge and retaliation, including most elected representatives from both parties. However, I, while in Atlanta had begun learning more deeply about the non-violent tactics and teachings of Dr. King and Gandhi and wondered if America would instead exercise moral leadership and try to discover why those who orchestrated and supported this deadly attack hated America that much, and then try to reduce or transform that hate by means other than war. This was to be a major test of America’s moral character and leadership.

America failed that test and opportunity miserably using the tragedy to not only retaliate against the attack’s alleged organizers but to dishonestly justify a war against countries it had wanted to invade and control for years—just a repeat of the same corrupt and terroristic, colonial-minded, empire building of the past. So, I found myself at massive anti-war demonstrations once again, as I had in the 70’s, except this time there were global demonstrations against U.S. aggression. The anti-war coalitions were broader, including leftists, pacificists, Muslims, and their supporters.^[42] (My thoughts and actions in this regard are summed up in the following two statements. One is from Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-California, who cast the only dissenting vote in all of Congress against the immediate use of force against “terrorists”, when asked why she voted against it Lee pointed to her professional training as a social worker and remarked, “Right now, we’re dealing with recovery, and we’re dealing with mourning, and there’s no way… [we should]… deal with decisions that could escalate violence and spiral out of control.”^{^[43]} Her words were prophetic as that is exactly what happened—retaliatory violence and war “spiraled out of control” for over twenty years. And the other statement came from British journalist Martin Woollacott, writing in The Guardian, who called the attacks, “above all a stupendous crime”, but also wrote, “America’s best defense against terrorism originating from abroad remains the existence of governments and societies more or less satisfied with American even-handedness on issues which are important to them. Plainly, this is furthest from the case in the Muslim world.”^[44] ) Still, America is not “even-handed” in the Muslim world, causing continued hatred and only increasing the threat of terrorism. Imagine you are a young Muslim man or women, and the U.S. considers you and your family as collateral in their war on terror, so they kill one of your innocent parents or siblings. Will you not grow up with a hatred for America and a thirst for revenge against its terrorism? Now multiply that by thousands or millions. Everywhere we go in the world we create enemies through our violence and terrorism, just as we create crime and gangs in America through our inequitable and racist policing and police-state system of mass incarceration, which increased exponentially after 9/11, and our system of punitive rather than restorative justice. They are EQualized.

Despite all of the public opposition to and outcry against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the predictable endless “war against terror, “when the U.S. government would not listen and had their own agenda, the power and influence of the military-industrial complex became much clearer and apparent to me and to millions of others. Now that I was more mature and experienced than when I had protested the Vietnam War as a youth, this “war on terror” opened his eyes wider, and, after studying the issue more thoroughly, I became much more anti-military and anti-militarism—one of MLK’s triple evils.

One major influence were the writings of the retired and late Marine Major General Smedley Butler, who, at the time of his death, was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, and especially his book “War is a Racket” in which he says, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico…safe for American oil interests…. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers…. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests … I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies… In China…I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

And, “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.” And here are his recommended three steps to disrupt the war racket:

Make war unprofitable. Butler suggests that the means for war should be “conscripted” before those who would fight the war: It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nation’s manhood can be conscripted… “Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get. In other words, draft the elitists to fight the wars and you will see how quickly they end wars.”
Acts of war to be decided by those who fight it. He also suggests a limited referendum to determine if the war is to be fought. Eligible to vote would be those who risk death on the front lines.
Limitation of militaries to self-defense. For the United States, Butler recommends that the Navy be limited, by law, to operating within 200 miles of the coastline, and the Army restricted to the territorial limits of the country, ensuring that war, if fought, can never be one of aggression.^[45]

I also learned of the many hundreds of other racketeering interventions conducted by our military and CIA, in the works of William Blum: “Rogue State” and “Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II.” In “Rogue State,” Blum writes: “If I were president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize – very publicly and sincerely – to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce to every corner of the world that America’s global military interventions have come to an end.”^[46]

The United States spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea combined. Were it not for this, the U.S. could adequately take care of its poor, its veterans, its homeless, and solve most of its domestic social inequity issues.

The U.S. military-industrial complex and its enforcement arms of the U.S. armed forces and CIA is and has been the most destructive force in the world and at home since at least the early 1900’s, causing many if not most of the world’s and this country’s problems. This is why Dr. King included militarism as one of the Triple Evils, along with racism and poverty; they are all closely interrelated.

As to those who volunteer to serve in the military, most may have good motives though they are unwitting pawns being used to further American terrorism, gangsterism, and empire building, and are sacrificial lambs to the gods of materialism and capitalism (which is why my wife and I blocked any and all military recruiters, who often lie about the benefits of service to entice youth, especially targeting minority communities, from even speaking with our children and youth in their schools.) We pay lip service in thanking military veterans for their service when we do not provide them with adequate healthcare, and especially mental health care, so they become homeless and suicidal in record numbers. Thank you for your service—really? Hollow words of hypocrisy. (So, I vehemently dissuade any young folks, especially young people of color who are disproportionately targeted, recruited, and lied to by military recruiters, from joining, and I fight against military recruitment in our high schools.) However, it is a sad fact that many poor Americans, again disproportionately people of color, see entering the military as their only possible way out of poverty—which is another set up by the elites who have always used the poor as fodder for their wars, greed, and follies.

As Major General Butler said, make the elites send their kids to war and these wars will cease. The importance of this subject cannot be over-emphasized because, in this century, militarism channeled through the military-industrial complex pervades our society and is the root cause of poverty, racism, police brutality, the police state, mass incarceration, homelessness, and inequities in healthcare, education, and employment. If we don’t cut off the head of that beast, which is the ultimate bully, by drastically cutting back its funding and operations, it will continue to devour us and the world. Dr. King and others spoke emphatically about this decades ago, and the same is even more true today. They are EQualized!

Defending Muslims in America

After 9/11 I focused my efforts on defending the Muslims in America and Islam in general since I found most Americans were and still are completely ignorant about the true nature of the faith of “true Islam” (as opposed to “political Islam” or “jihadist Islam”, its gross distortions, just as “political Christianity”, or the “Christian conservatives”, or the “Christian right”, in America, are gross distortions of true Christianity; they are EQualized).

I found that most Americans didn’t have a clue that Islam contributed the first concepts and practices of nationhood, of universities, and of mathematics (which form the basis of computer algorithms today), and that while Christian Europe was in the Dark Ages only after the Europeans came in contact with and learned from the more advanced Muslim empire did Europe’s rebirth and Renaissance take place. (You can even learn that fact from school world history textbooks.) In typical European fashion, the so-called Christians started a war, the Crusades, to forcefully invade and acquire Muslim controlled lands, including the Holy Land (which now is divided between the countries of Israel and Palestine).Today this continues in the endless war between the corrupt American and European backed Israeli government and the Palestinians, whose lands were stolen by the Europeans based on the two main causes of war: religious bigotry and material greed. Can you believe that a European coalition, led by England, gave Palestinian lands to Israel? How can you right the wrongs against the Jews by doing the same to another people? How can England give anyone land which is not theirs to give? That unbelievable arrogance of the Europeans is what has infected America and what America adopted and continues in that tradition. (Ironically, the Europeans seem to learn from their mistakes more quickly than do Americans. Why are we behind and backwards? Read on. We are EQualized.)

It appeared that Americans, especially white Americans, always need a boogeyman to be afraid of in order to be controlled by fear, so this time American corrupt politicians, aided and abetted by business and religious leaders, chose Muslims as that target and scapegoat, and, as always, fear turned into hate and violence towards them. I, proudly and publicly, proclaimed to my community that I am a Muslim (because as a Bahai one is a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc.), and that any threats of violence toward or bullying of Muslims would be considered as violence toward me, my family, and my faith community, and would be dealt with. (As I’ve proclaimed and taught many times before, and cannot repeat enough, bigotry toward any one religion is bigotry and betrayal of all religions, since they are so interconnected, like progressive grades in a school, building on and fulfilling past learning and preparing us for the next level.^[47] And whether one is a believer or not, all are impacted by the world religions, both positively and negatively, as most major progressive and spiritual ideas are first pronounced and proclaimed by the religious prophets long before they become accepted beliefs and practices in secular society.)^[48] On the down-side, religious fundamentalism and bigotry is the cause of more wars than any other factors, except for materialism– the quest for land, property, and economic domination—and they often go hand in hand. They are EQualized. That is why one must distinguish between false religion and true religion. The former is used to oppress, dominate, control, and limit, while the latter uplifts, empowers, enables self-determination, and is the source of limitless spiritual power, happiness, fulfillment, and goodness. However, the bottom line is that no one should be forced to believe, and the lack of belief in any part of it is no cause for any judgement because ultimately when it comes to one’s spirit and spiritual beliefs that is a personal and private decision. (In my travels I met many humanists and self-declared atheists who were more spiritual or “Christian” in their acts toward others than the so-called Christian believers. I found that when many people say they are atheistic in their beliefs, when I drilled down and questioned them further, they really have objected to and rejected the concept of religion and “God” that has been forced down their and others’ throats—the false religion as described above—and they often do have their own spiritual concepts and beliefs, though perhaps different than those of mainstream religions. It doesn’t matter because all true spiritual paths reach the same ultimate positive goals and values.) Also, just as it’s important to distinguish between true and false religion, we need to distinguish between a true prophet and a false prophet. The former sacrifices for and serves the cause of oneness while the latter is self-serving, accumulating wealth and power in the name of spirituality or religion. Also, the difference between prophets and philosophers is the philosopher has great ideas and visions but cannot live by or demonstrate them in the field of action, while the prophet shares great ideas, wisdom and visions and demonstrates them in practical action, even in the face of violent opposition. MLK Jr. is a great example of a modern-day American prophet, and there are many others throughout history: Ella Baker, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and many whose names are not well known. Some of the American founding fathers were great philosophers however they did not practice the ideals they wrote about, for example, the Declaration of Independence statement that “all men are created equal,” while they owned slaves. Ask yourself: would you want to be known as a prophet or a philosopher? (More about that in the Epilogue and how we can help each other fulfill our life purposes.)

In my extensive community development work in many communities throughout the American South, the Caribbean and elsewhere, some of the key lessons I learned include:

It is difficult to sustain a community or neighborhood development initiative without residing directly in that community or finding grassroots resident-champions who live there. And religious pastors are not necessarily good resident champions. (This is a mistake made too often by “outside” helpers who don’t take the time to listen to the people being helped, and therefore apply remedies that may or may not help or are extremely short term and not self-sustaining.)
Never assume that people from diverse backgrounds or even of similar backgrounds but from different families, churches, and organizations know how to work together cooperatively and to resolve their disagreements amicably and fairly. Americans have not been trained to do this, and have actually been conditioned and trained to do the opposite and compete rather than cooperate, to engage in one upmanship, and to use whatever tactics necessary to “win,” whether in business, politics, school, sports, religion, etc. So, there is a lot of training, guidance, and structure necessary to unlearn some of these behaviors and replace them with “cooperation” and “unity in diversity” when working together in coalitions and as one community. (I had learned such cooperative, consensus building, and conflict resolution methods in Bahai assemblies, from Dr. King’s deputies and his organizations, and from leftist organizations.) Americans are so divided by religion, church, politics, race, gender, class, education, etc. that we have to learn, or relearn, our “oneness,” the concept we are born with but has been stripped from us gradually by our institutions. “Divide and conquer” the masses has been the elites’ motto and successful tactic since America’s founding, which is why they invented and promoted the false concept of different races in the first place, and also the false concept of competing religions.
Many people who are poor want to work and better themselves. In most cases they are poor due to circumstances beyond their control and should never be blamed for being poor, as is the case in most of America. They are not lazy—in fact, those who accuse them of that would likely not be able to endure the struggles and suffering they experience, especially the working poor. Aid agency workers, whether government or non-profit, often have condescending attitudes toward the poor when they are applying for assistance—another example of when help is not really help. (Many times, when I had assisted others to apply for assistance, I had to EQualize the aid workers who, through their own bigotry and class supremacy, thought they could treat those whom they considered to be beneath them rudely. I would often tell the rude ones, “If you don’t like working with and for people then get a different non-public facing job, like stocking shoe store shelves.” They were EQualized!) Regarding the laziness issue, one example was when I found jobs for some young adults in a poor section of Austell, GA, in a chicken processing plant twenty miles away—very difficult and backbreaking work—and, due to lack of public transportation and before I could arrange rides, they rode their bicycles for hours there and back, in addition to working grueling shifts at the plant. Not one of the poor’s detractors could or would endure that, so, really, who are the lazy ones? This has never been the land of opportunity for the masses in America, and the system is and was always rigged that for everyone who “makes it,” ten don’t, especially BIPOC folks (Blacks, Indigenous, People of Color). Dr. King outlined how white Americans, even many of the lower or middle class, were given every benefit—land grants, affordable housing, free or subsidized higher education—all denied to people of color. He said what America has is “Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.” And: “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” He Equalized them. And: “The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization…” –MLK

In the new millennium I was blessed to learn about the power of attraction and manifestation, from the movie and book, “The Secret”, and realized that I had been practicing and utilizing these powers for most of my life. I was so impressed by the presentation of these powers in that movie that I showed it weekly in my home for months often to a packed house of friends and family members. Some of the lessons I learned from these sessions include:

1. Generally speaking, whatever you focus on you get (except there are some safeguards if what you want is not good for you, but that is only if you believe there is a Higher Power, above or greater than the power of attraction). This also means if you focus on and put energy towards what you don’t want then you will likely get more of what you don’t want because the force doesn’t know if you want or don’t want something—it just assumes that whatever you are focusing on is what you want. So, if you focus on negativity, you will get more negativity, and if you focus on positivity, then you will get more of that. (This does not mean to deny the negative things which you witness or experience but enables the use of positive energy to help overcome the negatives which must be identified.)

2. There is enough! That is, the Universe made sure that there is enough of everything that we need in the world to go around, so the only reason for some to have and some to have not is greed and hording by those who have. If people just believed and worked with this concept there would be no more basis for most wars. However, due to the excesses of mainly Euro-American materialism and greed, exported worldwide, this natural abundance is rapidly becoming depleted, and the natural balance of the world is completely out of sync causing coming calamities as evidenced by climate change and related increasing disturbances. So, it is imperative to get back to a sustainable balance. (Back to one of my favorite mottos to live by, the Ghandi quote: “Live simply so that others may simply live.”)

3. Life in all its forms is energy, so if you learn how to harness and channel energy in positive ways, you have mastered life. This is taught in all the true religious and spiritual paths that I’ve studied and practiced, in many ways using the tools of prayer, meditation, chanting, yoga and similar practices. Also, all of the arts are another potent tool for channeling energy. And energy healing is real!

(Note: Read the full book to see how I harnessed the power of attraction to reach the masses with a viral message of oneness and a movement to welcome and protect immigrants.)

When the American haters and bullies got tired of attacking Muslims they needed new boogeymen and chose immigrants, especially those coming from south of the border. I got tired of all the immigrant bashing when all of the haters’ ancestors were immigrants, and the country was built by immigrants, some forced and some voluntary. (Close-minded, ignorant, and racist Americans, really “haters”, always seem to need such boogeymen to blame their problems on so they don’t have to look in the mirror and accept responsibility, and the corrupt politicians eagerly feed them their demons. And of the two major political parties, though it used to be the Democrats centuries ago, it is now the Republicans who have adopted hate of these manufactured demons as their central platform. Sadly, they keep sinking deeper into the depths of that hate and further and further away from their true conservative and libertarian roots.) So, my family and I started, quite by accident, a local immigrant welcoming initiative, which grew into a regional and national movement that included all major civil rights leaders and organizations in the country. (Read the full book for the whole story.)

I learned that most of the undocumented immigrants were imported here by government and businesses, who disregarded the complicated immigration laws to get cheaper and more productive labor, just as all immigrant groups were before—the Irish, Germans, Italians, etc. Also, most of those European immigrant groups were considered or were “illegal,” so apparently the haters targeting these new immigrants forgot where they came from and how their ancestors got here. Twelve million people didn’t sneak into America from Mexico and further south—they were brought and welcomed here by Americans and American businesses, at all levels, and there is extensive proof of that, right here in Atlanta and nationwide. (As of the writing of this book, the thousands who are fleeing here now are refugees of our foreign economic policies which have devastated their countries, so it is simply karma and fair for us to accept and welcome them.)

The label “illegal immigrants” is not used for several reasons, the main one being it is a bullying term only used to dehumanize these good people, many of whom are refugees fleeing violence and economic devastation caused by U.S. foreign policies and interventions in their countries. So, since NO ONE knows the accurate status of any immigrant until they have their day in court and the only distinction between any immigrants are those who have their documents to remain in the U.S., and those who don’t yet, the proper and less dehumanizing term is “undocumented”. AND NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL OR IS AN ILLEGAL, unless we all are! We are Equalized!

I also learned, by studying American immigration history which is central to American history since this is a country composed of and settled by mostly immigrants, that most of our European immigrant ancestors from Italian, Irish, German and other ethnicities, were considered “illegal immigrants” or worse by the dominant WASPS–White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants– of the time, so it is a case, for many haters, of forgetting or hiding where they came from and how they got here. (And no one ever considered themselves “white” but whatever ethnicity they were. “White and Black,” and the whole concepts of race and racial superiority, were terms and concepts invented by the elite in Europe to justify the transatlantic slave trade and then those skin-color-based labels were adopted by the American elite for the same purpose.)

Some of the lessons I learned from this period of research and action, include:

In doing this pro-immigrant work, a labor of love, I met and learned from and about people from all cultural backgrounds—the true strength of America—unity in diversity, as there are rather large communities of undocumented immigrants and refugees not only from south of the border but from Eastern European (former Soviet), Asian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, Caribbean Islander, and African nations. Each had their own story of how they got here and their struggles to get papers and legal status. It was clear that this is the next stage in the progress and development of America’s destiny as the multicultural “salad bowl” of the world, in which diverse cultures mix but remain distinct in some respects, as opposed to the “melting pot” in which those cultures assimilate and mix to become one new culture. That was the goal of assimilation in the past but in modern, woke viewpoints, it is inherently a white supremacist concept because those espousing it assume that white, Euro-American culture is the standard and model that everyone else should follow, which is far from the truth. It is EQualized. (Whenever I spoke to groups of immigrants, wherever they were from, I emphasized the fact that though they may have come to America for some of its economic or educational benefits, their other purpose here is to teach Americans about the world and their cultures because Americans are largely ignorant about anything outside of their borders–as well as of many things within. And there is no excuse for this because even if one cannot afford to travel outside of the country there are so many wonderful ethnic communities right here who express their cultures through festivals, foods, and other events accessible to anyone who wants to learn and experience.)
Black-American friends of mine in California applauded the immigrant welcoming work we were doing but warned us to develop strong “Black-Brown” relationships (“Brown” representing all other ethnic groups not identified as White/European or Black; another way of saying “people of color”) because some, particularly Latinos and Asians in California, when they got their rights and assimilated into white American culture, turned around and joined the racist chorus and discriminatory actions toward American Blacks. Many come to this country already infected with a racist bias against Black Americans due to American media and government propaganda exported around the world depicting Black Americans as inferior, so they will likely have some unlearning to do. And the pressure for them to assimilate into the dominant white culture further aggravates the situation. I often say, “Let me be very clear—while all non-white peoples are discriminated against in America, Black Americans are still the victims of the most racial bias and discrimination, as it is institutionalized in every system and entity here, and has been for centuries” Therefore immigrants, who have had less indoctrination and conditioning in this regard, have an important anti-racist role in eliminating this structural racism.

So, our Cobb Immigrant Alliance(the name of the coalition I founded locally), started a Black-Brown Coalition to bring Black Americans and immigrants of all colors together to begin a conscious antiracist effort to reverse the racist trends outlined above. Our work, in this regard, was studied by universities and think tanks, and won regional acclaim, outlined in a publication titled: “Building Black-Brown Coalitions in the Southeast”.^{^[49]} Under the auspices of their broader “Cobb United for Change Coalition”, which I also co-founded, we hosted town halls to discuss Black-Brown unity, and worked successfully with Cobb Police to eliminate Black- on-Latino crimes of opportunity in most neighborhoods.

Haters in the Georgia State Legislature and Governor’s office passed a draconian law (patterned after other “red” states’ similar laws) stripping undocumented immigrants of driver’s licenses (against the wishes of most law enforcement agencies and the common sense of public safety, which proves hate ultimately makes people go against their own self-interests). It also gave those agencies the right to inquire about every Georgia resident’s citizenship status—again, a right and practice which most state and local law enforcement agencies did not want because in order to both prevent and solve crimes, they knew they must build trust with the community, especially communities of color and immigrant groups. They knew that enforcing these foolish laws would extremely damage that fragile trust.

So, my coalition and I met with local law enforcement agencies and agreed to help continue building bridges of trust between the immigrant community and police as long as police did not enforce those draconian laws, which they agreed to stop doing. That is, all except the Cobb Sheriff at the time, Neil Warren, a far right, racist, white supremacist and throw back to the days of Bull Conner and other corrupt, racist Southern sheriffs who enforced Jim Crow laws and continued doing so even after their abolishment. His idol was Arizona’s infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, convicted criminal and racist for his crimes against immigrants and people of color. Like Arpaio and only a handful of other law enforcement agents around the country, Warren contracted with the notorious federal agency, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), which itself had a history of brutality and abuse, to deputize his deputies as immigration agents who could deport undocumented immigrants who passed through his jail—even for minor crimes of not having a driver’s license. So, the Cobb police, in a major victory for our coalitions, agreed not to arrest undocumented immigrants and to instead just give them citations for minor crimes so that the Sheriff and his deputies could not get their hands on them to deport them. (In many American counties there is a police force which enforces the laws and a Sheriff’s department which runs the jails and performs other supportive tasks.) Police in other jurisdictions around metro Atlanta and the state followed suit, rendering those hater laws unenforced.

That racist Sheriff was eventually voted out of office, after too many years there, and replaced by a much more progressive one, again, thanks to efforts by our coalitions and fellow activists.

Due to this collaborative work, Cobb County went from being one of the top three worse unwelcoming localities in the country for undocumented immigrants, surpassed in the number of deportations annually by only two other areas nationwide, to one of the most welcoming with one of the fewest number of deportations. (This really upset the haters in Cobb and Georgia as they were EQualized! But what their hatred blinded them to is the fact that almost every deportation breaks up a family, as a large percentage of immigrant families are mixed status, some documented and some not, and leaves children without one or more parents, which has a devastating effect not only on them but on the entire community.)

In the Bahai and MLK spirit of always reaching across the political and ideological spectrum to try and achieve oneness and unity, another significant accomplishment that we achieved was the support and collaboration of more conservative groups, including but not limited to Libertarians and Chambers of Commerce and other business association (who knew that their businesses could not survive without undocumented immigrants), and even some evangelical Church denominations which knew that the Bible says to welcome all immigrants (since, in fact, Jesus Christ was one).

Let’s talk about the myths the haters spread about immigrants and immigration in order to hide and disguise their hate and racism as concern about Americans and America. I researched the anti-immigrant organizations who helped lawmakers craft the draconian anti-immigrant state laws, and who successfully blocked decades of bi-partisan efforts to craft comprehensive immigration reform laws which would have granted limited amnesty to millions of immigrants living in the shadows but earning their right to stay by working hard to build this country (just as all similar immigrant groups did before). I discovered the shocking but not surprising fact that the anti-immigrant leaders unabashedly embraced Eugenics– a discredited ideology that perverted the methods and legitimacy of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans and the inferiority of non-white people. This was the basis of Nazism and is the basis of white supremacism in America.^[50]

Here are some of the facts about undocumented immigrants I also discovered and promoted, countering the haters’ lies: a) They produce less crime than citizens do and the communities where they reside in largest numbers have the lowest crime rates. (So much for the lying, corrupt, hater, 45th President, who characterized them as criminals.) b) They are an economic boon to every state’s economy where they reside, paying more in taxes and getting little in return, working for lower wages and producing more, doing jobs that no one else wants and not taking jobs away from Americans but actually, through their spending power, creating more jobs for Americans. (All of that has been confirmed, not only by independent national research organizations, both liberal and conservative, but also by state audits, including red states like Texas and Kansas.)^[51] It has been proven that they are an asset in every way, and no liability, except, of course, they are contributing to the “browning” of America (which scares the shit out of the white supremacist and white nationalist haters who have infiltrated every level of government and society. It is time for them to come out of their closets, and take off their hoods, which many did after the election of the 44^th President, Obama –the first Black one– with the permission of the 45^th President, the king of haters and white nationalist supremacists.)

The hateful rhetoric and actions of white supremacist, white nationalist, racist, anti-immigrant haters (who no longer wear white hoods but business suits in the halls of Congress, the White House, and corporate board rooms, and uniforms in law enforcement agencies) incite their followers to violence, not only against immigrants but against those who defend them. So, it is completely disingenuous for them to cite the reason they are against so called “illegal immigration” is because they support “the rule of law.” That lie is the furthest from the truth since many of these haters at all levels are the biggest lawbreakers and follow the law only when it suits them and their hateful beliefs. The elitists follow only one law– “the Golden Rule—he who has the gold makes the rules.” And they incite their followers to violently break the law, the greatest example of which was the January 6^th insurrection after the last Presidential election.

(Every time I was interviewed by the media defending immigrants and dispelling the myths about them, I received death threats from white supremacist, anti-immigrant bully-cowards, via phone, email, and in person, with some even carrying out attacks on my home, children, and pets. )

The next target for the haters during this new millennium was a familiar old one this time robed in the unfamiliar garment of the Presidency. This opening and tumultuous decade of the new century and millennium culminated in the historic 2008 election of the first Black President, Barack Hussein Obama. Not only was he Black, but his father was a Black African immigrant and Muslim, and his mother was white, so he had all the diverse, cultural elements that make America great and which the hater white supremacists, who tried everything in their power to cast him as un-American, despise. They were EQualized.

It was a time of great hope for change for many, which Obama’s campaign slogan reflected, “Sí se puede/Yes We Can” (borrowed from Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta, and their United Farm Workers organization of the 70s, who had one of the most successful boycotts in American history). This threat to the concept of white superiority and Black inferiority, which the country had been born and bred on, unleashed a firestorm of hate, which I found myself and my family in the crosshairs of again, with threats of violence leveled against any overt supporters of Obama.

Before these incidents of threats and violence some of the civil rights and advocacy organizations in Cobb and metro Atlanta did not work well together cooperatively, and some competed. However, they all came together in unity for this, so I and fellow activists helped form a new, more inclusive, and unified coalition, which brought everyone, called Cobb United for Change (CUCC). Besides helping to organize and lead the new and expanded coalition, I also became an active SCLC member (Southern Christian Leadership Conference, national civil rights organization founded by MLK) and started to learn, in more depth, about the real MLK and Kingian non-violence and beloved community principles and strategies. Over the next few years, the CUCC would become a model for other county coalitions addressing many issues and hosting related events, including but not limited to police racial profiling and brutality; gun violence and buy-backs; immigrant bullying; healing racism workshops; candidate forums; town hall meetings; Black-Brown dialogues; GOTV(Get Out the Vote); legislative advocacy; cop and court watch; youth workshops; eviction and foreclosure prevention; criminal justice and prison reform.

President Obama, who inherited an economy in recession teetering on the brink of depression, bailed out banks and corporations with massive infusions of cash—the largest corporate welfare in history—because they were “too big to fail”, while average Americans received small amounts of stimulus funds. In doing so he saved the country from depression but increased the inequity and disparity between the rich and poor. This sparked the “Occupy Wall Street Movement” which occupied public spaces nationwide to bring light to and protest that ever-widening gap between the rich and poor– the 1%, who have over 30% of the nation’s wealth, while the top 10% have over 70%, vs. the 99%. Also, with the increased speed and bandwidth of the internet, the cloud, smart-phones, and social media platforms, information (and misinformation) spread like lightening and what was going on in society could no longer be hidden, especially from the younger generation. With their smart-phone cameras, they were able to record in real time such things as police brutality, racial profiling by law enforcement, and all forms of discrimination which many knew existed before but there was little concrete proof of. This information and these realities were not new but now they were “news,” and the traditional media, in order to compete with the new social media and smart-phone cameras, had to begin revealing these same previously hidden unjust truths and realities. They were EQualized!

Everyone became a photo/video journalist of sorts overnight, and we were bombarded with pictures of police and vigilante murders of unarmed Black men and women such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and hundreds more—“Say Their Names.” This forced some police and other agencies to examine their own implicit biases, however most hunkered down, and continue to do so now, in denial and more of the same.

Black Lives Matter & the Movement for Black Lives

I knew, along with every other woke American (and many woke folks worldwide), that Black-identified people in America had been brutalized for centuries by government, law enforcement, mobs, and every other institution, including in both the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. I was also aware there were certain past “tipping points”^[52] in the Civil Rights struggles to end Jim Crow in the 60s and 70s. However, I saw a new potential tipping point in the struggle for equitable and equal treatment, this time for the millennial generation of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) youth and their older supporters, which occurred on February 26, 2012, with the murder of 17- year-old Black youth Trayvon Martin. While walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Florida, he was shot and killed by a twenty-eight-year-old neighborhood-watch vigilante, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was acquitted by using Florida’s racist “Stand Your Ground” law, which immediately threw that law in Florida and in other states into question and eventual removal. The nation and especially communities of color had had enough, and that shocking acquittal along with the realization that any Black person could be murdered without recrimination just for “walking or driving while Black,” launched what became known as the Black Lives Matter movement and the Movement for Black Lives, with young “millennials” leading massive protests nationwide. Almost immediately after that shockingly unjust verdict, the murders by police of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland, among others—all unarmed Black men and women– were broadcast virally through social media and the news. (Since 9/11 the government had suspended many privacy protections under The Patriot Act and similar draconian new laws, and was watching and tracking Americans like never before. However this period witnessed the beginning of what I and others called the “peoples’ surveillance revolution”, as now the people, and especially the youth, turned the powerful tool of video cameras in their hands and pockets, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice and in any and every interaction with police, into a massive “cop watch revolution” and surveillance movement, depicting police racist and brutality interactions with people of color on a daily basis, and then spreading them like wildfire through social media platforms. Again, this was not “new,” but now became “news” through technology in the peoples’ hands. This caused the police to get dash and body cameras so they could present their side of the story, which often incriminated them—that is, when they didn’t doctor or mysteriously lose their videos or turn off their cameras. And this caused the mainstream media to cover and broadcast these racist and brutal incidents to a greater extent than ever before, in order to compete with the social media platforms.) I, like countless millions of others, had had enough and helped organize and participated in these protests held in the Atlanta metro and Cobb areas. Together with some of my family members and many fellow citizens, we took over the streets, chanting slogans “Say their names,” “Hands Up—Don’t Shoot;” No Justice-No Peace–No Racist Police”, “Black Lives Matter”, among other chants of the time.

I had worked hard for years in Cobb County (suburb of Atlanta) to build bridges between the police and the immigrant community and other people of color. Great progress had been made, mainly for the immigrants who were not profiled and targeted as before, but not as much for the Black residents, though it was better than when we had moved there years earlier. It was decision time, though, as I became more directly involved in defending Black victims of profiling and police brutality, both locally and nationwide, and that often put me in direct confrontation with the police. To avoid disturbing the alliances and good relations between the immigrant community and the police, I decided to hand over the reins of the Cobb Immigrant Alliance and other pro-immigrant organizations to trusted others, so that I could focus on building bridges between the Black community and the police.

Then my world changed again, opening my eyes wider and bursting my bubble of white insulation through a string of incidents, two of which would completely change my perspective on law enforcement. While videos showed unarmed Blacks being routinely murdered by police around the country, police in nearby Atlanta and metro area counties were routinely gunning down unarmed Black men and women there too–Anthony Hill, Kathryn Johnston, Oscar Cain, Jamarion Robinson (executed, shot 76 times, by a combined task force of federal marshals and local police), Gregory Towns, Deaundre Phillips—to name a few. (“Say their names”.)One example of the disparate treatment of Blacks and whites by Cobb Police was a young unarmed Black robbery suspect who was shot when he ran away from police and hid in his apartment’s bedroom closet. The police fired into the closet killing him though he was no threat. The same month several white teens were out drinking and joy riding, driving erratically, when a Cobb police officer on a motorcycle attempted to pull them over. They refused to stop and fired gunshots at the cop but were eventually surrounded and stopped by other patrol cars. They were unharmed and seen laughing as they were arrested.

Fast forward a few years and the same disparate treatment again—a young Black man running away from police was shot in the back and killed, and another one shot and killed in his car after a chase by police. A month earlier, a white man who barricaded himself in his house and was shooting at police and neighbors was arrested hours later unharmed. (When it comes to American law enforcement, and all-American institutions, “Black Lives Don’t Matter,” and never did, hence the need for a whole movement stating emphatically and without equivocation, “Black Lives (do) Matter.” They are EQualized. And for the haters, or well-meaning non-haters, who try to counter with “All Lives Matter” — which is hilarious since most using that phrase don’t think the lives of immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ, etc. matter—the answer is, “All lives will not matter until Black Lives Matter.” )

Anyone who has a problem saying the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” has a much larger problem, just as anyone who cannot say “I am antiracist” has a problem, and is inflicted with that insidious disease, and is in denial. Fact is, all Americans are infected with it, including this writer, the only difference being those who acknowledge that fact and are working to dismantle it within their own selves and in our institutions, and those who deny it. They are EQualized! Back on the “Cobb plantation” (as my mentor and friend, Dr. Ben Williams, Cobb SCLC President, always half-jokingly calls it, since Cobb and most of America is still organized with a plantation mentality and structure), though things were getting better for all people of color, thanks to the hard and sacrificial work of our coalitions, two incidents, both in 2015, would serve to erase some or much of that progress, one in my mind and attitude and the other in the community.

After collaborating closely with the Cobb Police for nearly a decade, building bridges between them and the community, especially communities of color, I knew a lot of officers and most of the command staff by first name and had even been to some of their weddings and other celebrations, as well as their lunch and dinner tables. This served to re-humanize them in my mind, as I rediscovered the people behind the badges and uniforms. I had grown up to respect and revere them to a significant degree, with my police officer father and father’s police friends and families as my extended family, spending most holidays and summers as a child with them. Then the seventies happened, with rampant police brutality and injustice against anti-war and antiracism protestors, which I not only witnessed but was on the receiving end of. So, the police became, in my eyes and eyes of millions, “the pigs. That negative perception of police had cooled off a bit for many until the advent of the cell-phone camera in the new millennium and the constant stream of videos depicting police brutality again, mainly against people of color (which had never stopped but was not as exposed). Though these perpetrators in uniform became “pigs” again, I, like most of the nation, subscribed to “the bad apple” theory— that those officers who carried on racial profiling and disproportionately stopped, harassed, cited, arrested, beat, and murdered people of color, many whom were innocent, were just “bad apples” and the rest of the tens of thousands of police were good men and women, protecting and serving without bias.

That perception and belief was severely rattled and changed in early 2015 when one of my daughters was stopped, harassed, brutalized and falsely arrested, all for an alleged broken taillight, right in my driveway in front of my family and I—by the same police department and some of the same officers I had been working with and assisting to build bridges with the community. I later realized that I had to have this traumatic experience to finally finish bursting my white and blue insulated bubble and to know first-hand how innocent people, especially people of color, are treated and criminalized every day in this country, not by a few bad apples but by a rotten law enforcement system and mindset which infects almost everyone in uniform, enabling and rewarding them to criminalize innocent people. And the color of the officers’ skin doesn’t matter because while in uniform it is not white or Black–it is blue. In the ensuing days when I met with every level of command in the Cobb Police Department, and they all defended the actions of their officers in this encounter with my daughter and family, I realized how far gone the system was and how it was the cause of crime rather than the solution to it.

Here are the key learnings I took away from this unfortunate but necessary encounter:

My initial reaction was “If this is how they treat friends, how do they treat strangers.” I had spent nearly ten years helping to build bridges of trust between the police and communities of color there, and that trust was shattered in a one-hour encounter, still not regained again. But I felt it was good that the initial officer did not know us and that the others didn’t show us special treatment because I needed to know how they treat others, especially people of color. Though I abhor both violence and guns, my initial visceral reaction was one of feeling helpless to defend my own family of color against such state sponsored terrorism and the need to arm myself and my family, not against criminals but against the police, a reaction shared by several family members and many community members who have suffered similar or worse trauma at the hands of the police. We no longer felt safe in that community and with those police and understood others’ visceral reactions to being bullied and brutalized by those who are supposed to protect and defend them— the reaction is fight or flight. I initially chose flight and decided to explore opportunities to move to other places, in and out of the country, where law enforcement was less belligerent and racist and to protect my family of color. After a good deal of research, however, I found that this corrupt system of racial profiling and aggressive police strategies, such as pretextual stops, “broken window,” “stop and frisk,” etc., had infected nearly every community and law enforcement agency. And it was not practical to uproot our large family to move overseas. So, we decided to stay put and protect ourselves while continuing to fight for changes. We felt then, and still feel now, to be under a state of attack by law enforcement due to their tactics and attitudes, and until the police consent to mutually agreed upon conditions of a cease-fire, then we are at war. (The war on drugs and the war on terrorism have always been wars on people of color and the poor, and that has not changed significantly for decades.)

When you are at war and under attack, the only way there can be peace is if there is a cease fire, so I drew up conditions for such a cease fire, in the flier included below, entitled “THE MAGIC PILL THAT WILL IMMEDIATELY BEGIN BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND POLICE” which I began circulating, and still do, in the community. To this date, these reforms are still not implemented, so we are still in a state of war.

THE MAGIC PILL THAT WILL IMMEDIATELY BEGIN BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND POLICE

IN ORDER TO REPURPOSE OUR POLICE DEPARTMENTS INTO PEACE DEPARTMENTS, AND INITIATE AN IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN THE WAR ON OUR COMMUNITIES & RESULTING RETALIATION AGAINST POLICE, THE POLICE MUST IMMEDIATELY:

STOP all “pretextual” STOPS for minor traffic and pedestrian violations, including but not limited to loitering, license plate light, brake light, turn signal, lane change, seatbelt, etc.—and most importantly—DWB (driving while Black or Brown).

STOP all ARRESTS for minor traffic and pedestrian violations, including but not limited to loitering, driver’s license expiration or suspension, insurance lapse, and possession of marijuana and other controlled substances in small amounts, obstruction, and all other offenses that can be treated with “non-custodial arrest”, meaning issuance of a citation. And STOP shooting unless shot at–or defending someone shot at–period!!!

STOP all CRIMINAL PROFILING and street-level crime detection tactics—those are not “protecting and serving” but are harassment and privacy invasion. Leave the crime solving to the Detectives—and STOP saying, “I stopped you because you fit the description” or “look suspicious”, ESPECIALLY if you are a white officer saying that to a Black person. (This all adds up to “implicit bias” and “racial profiling” however you dress it up.)

NOTE: ALL OF THE ABOVE CAN BE INITIATED RIGHT NOW UNDER EXISTING LAW!!! And though it may be a difficult pill to swallow for some, everything listed has already been tried with success in other cities!!!

Additionally, since WE KNOW that EVERY police department has been infiltrated with KKK members/sympathizers and similar domestic terrorists, so every existing and new officer must pass polygraph tests regarding their beliefs about racism and people of color.
It is time to stop calling resisting arrest and “obstruction” a crime. OUR COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF RESISTING. If the police are willing to take away someone’s freedom, there must be cause. It is no longer enough to say “…impeded my investigation” or “…he pulled away from me.”
In summary, the street level “war on drugs” ends now (as we know, in practice, it has been the war on people of color and the poor).

IF YOU ARE A CITIZEN OR A POLICE OFFICER AND WANT TO TAKE PART IN IMPLEMENTING THIS SOLUTION IN YOUR COMMUNITY, CONTACT US AT: LABOROFLOVECAMPAIGN@GMAIL.COM or 404-573-1199

After that traumatic incident with the police, once the dust and anxiety settled a bit, I began analyzing what had happened and why. I knew that my daughter would be okay because she had me and our family to bail her out, help her deal with the trauma, and eventually get her charges dropped or ameliorated so that she could go on with her life—likely with zero trust in police ever again but not much other baggage. However, I asked himself, “ What about my neighbor’s kid—Black, the same age or younger—from a struggling single parent, one income family, who finally gets his first job and car and then the police randomly harass and arrest him, like they did my daughter, for an alleged broken taillight or small amount of pot”( which I later learned is often a bogus pretext used in “pretext policing” in order to stop someone for a drug search or other suspected criminal activity.)^[53] If that kid is arrested and the family cannot afford bail quickly, he is thrust into the system with grossly disparate and harsher treatment of minorities, and which produces hardened criminals. He loses his job and car, and then is recruited by the gangs and drug dealers to provide for himself and help his family. In fact, he was criminalized by the police, who are the initial gatekeepers into the racist and corrupt criminal justice system, and THEY recruited him for the gangs and drug dealers.

Finally, after five decades of living and learning on the front lines of social justice, the light dawned, and I understood. In all my dealings with the police as a community activist, they had always said that the burden was on us, the community–its parents, spokespeople, and advocates. They said we had to work to prevent criminal activity by providing better parenting skills training, youth activities and alternatives, and other social and economic reforms which are known to prevent crime. This is all still true but is only one part of the story. The police always put the burden on us, taking little responsibility for how their approaches and actions might contribute to criminality. But then I knew for sure that they and their policies, training, and attitudes are among the major causes of crime and criminality. When I tried to explain any of this to the Cobb Police command staff, they all, Black and white, defended their officers’ actions regarding both my daughter’s case and their method of policing. They admitted that that is their most effective method of catching real, big-time criminals—to stop and harass 10 or 20 low-level alleged violators like my daughter to catch the one big fish—the big drug dealer or serial killer. I then asked them this question, which they had no answer for: “So your method is to profile, harass, brutalize, and criminalize ten or twenty innocent people in order to catch the real criminals?” This is what they admitted to, and they were either willfully or just plain ignorant about how that could be wrong and even crazy.

So, regardless of the existing law enforcement establishment’s resistance to progress and change, I and other advocates insist there must be major three-part reforms in order to experience any positive change: A) Family and community training B) Law Enforcement policy, training, and practice reform C) Legislative policy change aimed at reducing poverty and mass incarceration.! They are EQualized!

I had always worked to help diversify the police force and had felt that a more diverse force of women and officers of color would make a big difference. However, now I knew that if you put good people into a corrupt system, led mostly by those who have been corrupted by that system, you will corrupt the good people no matter their color or gender, and they will be “blue.” As the Bible states, only a fool pours new wine into old wineskins expecting the new wine to remain unspoiled. (Read the book by James Forman, “Locking Up Our Own” for ample proof of this.^[54])
Rich remembered that the Cobb police command, most of whom were there for decades, had bragged to him about their law enforcement training from ex-military trainers. One such trainer was very popular around the country and promoted a warrior mentality versus a guardian mentality, an attitude which has now been found to be toxic and violent. The warrior mentality puts emphasis on fighting crime and officer safety, viewing alleged lawbreakers as the enemy with the assumption that they are already guilty. Law enforcement officers with this mentality often see police forces in military terms: they are soldiers fighting an enemy force, namely crime, and view the public, especially people of color in this racist country, as enemy combatants… On the other hand, a guardian mentality puts emphasis on protecting and serving all community members. For any meaningful reform to take place the command staff leadership must be well grounded in the guardian mentality, otherwise the brutality continues. Also, due to the above, drawing officers from the military, especially those who have seen combat duty, is the worst practice as many suffer from PTSD and related disorders and it will be especially difficult for them to convert from a warrior to a guardian mentality.
I researched and studied other reforms which have proven to work. One is pre-arrest diversion (P.A.D.), meaning that for certain low-level crimes the suspect is not arrested but transported to a substance abuse or mental health facility, or similar provider. This is restorative justice versus punitive justice. Here is the description from the Atlanta P.A.D. site:” The Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative works to reduce arrest and incarceration of people experiencing extreme poverty, problematic substance use, or mental health concerns, and increase the accessibility of supportive services in Atlanta and Fulton County. PAD fosters a new approach to community safety and wellness by providing an alternative to punishing people for what they do to survive. Instead, we connect with people as people, address their basic needs, and work with them to reduce harm to themselves and their neighbors. We believe communities are safer and healthier when people have what they need to not only survive, but to thrive.” ^{^[55]}
Since I knew from past experience that the real culprit driving much of the police militarism and brutality was the war on drugs, I researched alternatives and found a decade long experiment that worked. A decade ago, the country of Portugal had the worst European crime rate related to drug abuse and trafficking and one of the world’s highest drug addiction rates. To combat that, they employed the usual aggressive tactics of the war on drugs, which hardly put a dent in the problem-just as it has failed here. They then legalized not only marijuana but all drugs and put the resources previously spent on the war on drugs into treatment and prevention programs. They now have one of the lowest crime and drug addiction rates in the world. It is time we admit we don’t have all the answers in this country and learn from others. “Get tough on crime” and the “war on drugs” don’t work and only increase crime and drug addiction.
Finally, I came to the realization that the current law enforcement system is a set-up for failure for many reasons including its history and founding purpose–which, initially, was to apprehend runaway slaves, and then, to defend companies from union strikes and protests over their slave labor practices. Beyond history, the two other failure factors are its current outdated leadership and our unrealistic expectations as citizens. We expect the police to solve every problem and call 911 for many we can solve as neighbors, families, and communities ourselves. We complain about them profiling the Black community when local Cobb statistics, especially in diverse South Cobb, show that 90% of the 911 calls are Black people complaining about other Black people and then they expect mostly white officers to go into Black neighborhoods and know how to deescalate situations which could have been handled by neighbors and families in the first place. We want the police to be tough on crime but not tough on us or our children. We have created a perfect storm of contradictions, which they are caught in the middle of. There are plenty of steps we can take to reduce and address crime in our neighborhoods without involving police.

I believe most officers go into the profession with good intentions to help people, but they are not provided with the training, guidance, and resources to do so. They are also underpaid and should receive a free university degree in criminal justice so they can learn modern and progressive strategies rather than relying on the old guard’s outdated methods, which never worked and only made things worse.

That is why, and I may differ with some fellow social justice advocate colleagues on this, I don’t think officers who make a mistake in the line of duty, even some fatal mistakes, should be charged with and convicted of a crime that involves jail time unless they deliberately violated someone’s rights due to race, class, or other bias, and it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Otherwise, they should be suspended and retrained for minor mistakes or fired and lose their post certification for major ones, as they are not fit for the job and should not be able to simply transfer to another agency. Victims of these mistakes should be able to pursue civil lawsuits to get justice and municipalities should properly compensate them without drawn-out trials. (Until the conditions and reforms I have proposed are instituted, I discourage anyone, especially people of color, from joining the law enforcement profession, just as I similarly discourage them from joining the military, as both are corrupted and set-ups for failure and abuse.) Also, ex-combat veterans should not be employed as police officers unless they go through extra screenings, as many suffer from PTSD from the traumas of war and come into policing with a destructive warrior mentality.

Up to this point my social advocacy work had taken two paths: 1) Defending marginalized social groups and individual members of those groups who were targeted, bullied, and terrorized by haters, based mainly on race and religion, at all levels and in all kinds of outfits (e.g., uniforms, suits, and denims). 2) Trying to build intentional “beloved communities” for my family and for my surrounding community members, especially those of marginalized groups referenced above. Finding the balance between those two areas of focus was and is always a challenge. Though the neutralizing of the haters and bullies at all levels is ongoing (and the full book has more stories about the same), the focus of rest of this summary will be on building intentional “beloved communities”.

I realized that I, like similar activists, have been reacting to injustices caused by this system for decades, expending a lot of blood, sweat, and tears trying to fix the system and the people hurt by it when it is rotten and ready to crumble, rather than spending adequate time building the new system to replace it. I had learned that lesson when studying the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The whole infrastructure had collapsed, and it was complete anarchy and violence for days, so a group of community activists, including some ex-Black Panthers, formed an armed militia to protect the people from the white nationalist militias who were killing people of color for their food and other goods, and then they formed a relief organization, Common Ground Collective, to feed, house, and heal the people. This mission was so successful that the Red Cross channeled its aid through them. (This whole story is documented in renown activist scott crow’s book, “Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective”^{^[56]}).

The main takeaway from this story for me was the question of why we are waiting for catastrophes to do what we know we need to do now, form similar “Common Ground Collective” self-sustaining, grid-independent, cooperatives everywhere, NOW! We know that the government is not going to protect the people, especially communities of color and the poor, and we know that there are militias, mostly white nationalist ones, armed and ready to defend their areas and raid and ravage other areas for food and other resources. This is not science fiction or just in the movies and our only real defense is to build strong “Beloved Communities” that will wield not only practical but spiritual power.

So, I rededicated myself to spending at least the same amount of time building a new system as I was fixing the old system and rescuing people from the ravages of it. To that end, besides researching alternative, intentional systems and communities, I started writing about and forming new movements—first, the Free States Collective Movement, inspired by the Free State of Jones (in Mississippi), the libertarian Free State Project in Vermont, and the Kansas Free-Staters (anti-slavery abolitionists).^[57] I watched and was inspired by the historical movie, “The Free State of Jones”, in which white and Black residents united to drive the Confederate Army out of Jones County, Mississippi, and then declared it a sovereign state. I also read and studied the book by Professor Ezra Aharone, head of “Sovereign Studies” in the political science department at Delaware State University, “The Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom vs. Self-Authentic Freedom”, which taught me the history of sovereign, self-rule and self-determination mentality and behaviors, and how to revive that, especially among Blacks and other marginalized peoples today.)

Here is a description of my “Free States Movement” from its Manifesto:

WHAT IS A “FREE STATE” AND SANCTUARY?

A geographical area the inhabitants of which declare as an area free of hate, bigotry, corporatism, slavery, and dependence on existing local and/or national governments, and their oppressive, unjust, and corrupt policies; where a community will be built based upon “Beloved Community” principles serving to eradicate the Triple Evils of Racism, Poverty, and Militarism. (This is not new as both historically and currently there have been and are “free state” initiatives.)
Also, a “sovereign” state of mind which embodies the principles above and extends beyond geographical borders connecting “Free Stater freedom fighters” virtually without boundaries.

This “Free State” movement and concept gained some supporters and even inspired the forming of a cooperative, eco-village and organic farm called “The Free State of Palestine,” near the town of Palestine in rural Georgia. To fulfill my goal of connecting with similar free-state type initiatives, I joined the national Symbiosis-Revolution community, a “confederation of community organizations across North America, building a democratic and ecological society from the ground up… by creating institutions of participatory democracy and the solidarity economy through community organizing, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.”^{^[58]} There I learned about the concepts of “dual power” (meaning working within the corrupt capitalistic and racist system to survive and channeling our collective action to fight it, while also building the new system to eventually become the governing structure of a new, liberated society), and “municipalism” (which concentrates power at the local, grass roots level through a true participatory democracy, and is explained in detail in the books of anarchist, author, historian, philosopher Murray Bookchin).

Through these groups and resources, I learned that America is not a democracy, or even a republic, but a plutocracy and oligarchy (a country or society governed by the wealthy elite or ruling class), and for that to change we must learn how to engage in self-rule and self-determination democratically and cooperatively. Examples of this in practice include Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Cleveland Model/Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio—signs of hope that the “Beloved Community” could be and is a reality in action and not just words or hopes.^[59]

Incorporating the lessons learned from those initiatives, I formed “Cooperation Cobb” and linked up with similar cooperative, community-wealth building initiatives around the country through Symbiosis and in the Atlanta metro area, including Community Movement Builders, Regenerate Atlanta, and the Tear Down Community.^{^[60]} I understood that in order for there to be system change leading to self-determination, from the grassroots up rather than from the top down, it had to include a new economic system with a radical change in values that placed cooperation above competition and people above profit and property. As Dr. King said, “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” (It doesn’t matter if you call it democratic or libertarian socialism, as they do in Europe, or regenerative or progressive capitalism, as some American reformers do, the principles are the same—an end to gross inequities, poverty, materialism, and other economic and social injustices, all caused by and inherent to the current American economic system.)

Part of my re-education included Ibram X. Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” which re-framed the whole racism and antiracism discussion expertly by not allowing anyone, any longer, to claim he is “not a racist”. In America, Kendi says we are all either racist or antiracist, and likely both, as racism is such an insidious and pervasive factor of American society and life, infecting everyone and every institution. The only differences between anyone in America are those who are in denial of this fact and those who admit it and are antiracists working to eradicate it.

I felt that this book was such an important work that I produced an abridged version, extracting many of the most profound insights (which is available on the Global Woke Institute website <www.HowWokeAmI.org> under the Antiracism tab). One of Kendi’s most profound insights was contained in his Chapter 12 on “Class”, in which he writes: “To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism. The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body…. Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes.”^{^[61]}They are EQualized!

I also realized that none of these profound truths about our history and society are taught in schools or any other institutions. That led me to begin writing and sharing them, mainly in articles online and in social media. And most recently, I started “The Global Woke Institute” to teach these truths.

Then 2020 happened. In 2020, two pandemics (and potential tipping points) began or came to light. One was Covid-19 and the other the ongoing pandemic of racism with the cases of police brutality and murder of mainly unarmed Black people– particularly George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

The Covid-19 virus spread rapidly, growing into an epidemic. In March 2020, it was declared a global pandemic, afflicting and ultimately killing millions worldwide and in the U.S., disproportionately people of color and the poor. Due to lockdown attempts to quell the spread of the virus, many people were out of work and out of food and other necessities, so people and groups arose to offer what became known as “mutual aid” providing necessities for the most vulnerable and also for those dispensing the aid. (“Mutual aid” is a reciprocal and cooperative term and concept, originating in anarchist and socialist circles, which means the voluntary exchange of resources and services between community members to provide support for those who need it.)

The police murders of Breanna Taylor on March 13^th, 2020 (two days before I was admitted to the hospital with Covid), and George Floyd, on May 25^th, 2020 (a few weeks after I was discharged), were a breaking point, not only for Black Americans but for people of all backgrounds and all nations worldwide. Organized and spontaneous protests, some with thousands and some with only two people with signs on their neighborhood street corners, sprung up everywhere. Since it had finally become apparent that Black lives didn’t matter in America, “Black Lives Matter” became a rallying cry worldwide in rallies, marches, demonstrations, protests, posters, murals and even on neighborhood yard signs, including in predominantly white neighborhoods.

The protests ended just as abruptly as they had started, apparently not a movement but a moment, though a powerful one. So, I went back to helping the community survive the ravages of Covid, still hopeful but skeptical that the moment could still become a movement. (This is not to take away from the positive impacts and changes that the protests and protestors made in the lives of some and helped to address and bring more awareness of the systemic nature of the racism and oppression.)

The pandemic had exposed the gross weaknesses in the system, especially regarding healthcare and the necessities for survival of food, water, and shelter, and the role that both societal mutual aid and government aid could play in addressing those weaknesses. These weaknesses were evident before the pandemic however the pandemic brought them into full light. People and non-government organizations of goodwill everywhere arose to provide mutual aid, and the government printed and disbursed aid money (just like it prints trillions for military weapons, bank bailouts and other corporate welfare and subsidies) for the social safety net that provided extra food stamps, rental and mortgage assistance, and free and subsidized healthcare for pandemic related sickness prevention and treatment. And the federal government even placed a moratorium to halt evictions and prevent further homelessness. In other words, the government did all the things which it could have been doing before the pandemic and, in doing so, provided a model for an ongoing social safety net (which Europe and Canada has provided for years, evidence of which is presented nicely in the Michael Moore movie, “Where to Invade Next”—a must watch). But, just as in police brutality and racism reform, the moment didn’t become a movement for economic equity and stability, and the country went back quickly to pre-pandemic business, inequities, and corruption as usual, with housing and other costs skyrocketing out of the reach of millions.

So, I , through the SCLC and other organizations, helped form an “affordable housing coalition” to try and keep people housed. Even before the pandemic, according to a Brookings Institution study, Atlanta rated worse in the nation for income inequality, and an Urban Institute study rated Cobb County the worse in the nation for lack of affordable housing.^[62] Things were no better and actually worse now. The new civil rights struggle was for the right to shelter in the so-called richest country in the world, and as usual, corporate profits and private property rights ruled over human rights as companies started buying up the housing stock, especially anything remotely affordable, and then charged a fortune for rents. Meanwhile, people who own their homes (really, bank-owned) and are worried about property value become “nimby’s” (‘not in my backyard’) fighting down efforts to build affordable housing and homeless shelters near their neighborhoods. Much of my time was spent helping individuals navigate the difficult housing market and options to avoid evictions and foreclosures and just stay housed.

People wonder why there is rising crime and violence. When there is massive inequity, when people don’t have hope and when youth see their elders place profit and property before people and principle—it is a recipe for disaster. This is happening especially in the cities where people are piled on top of each other, and gentrification is pushing the poor out. Mass murders are on the rise, occurring at least weekly, including horrific murders of school children, with no end in sight and only a milk-toast response from elected leaders who are bought and paid for by the gun lobby. So, it is time to face the facts: America is a country which has been born, bred, and sustained on violence; guns are worshipped more than gods though it has been proven that the proliferation of guns increases violence. Add to that the rampant mental illness epidemic with suicides at all-time highs, especially among white youth and veterans. And the gap between rich and poor is ever widening. This is a recipe for disaster which we experience daily in this country and have become desensitized to believe that this is somehow normal and civilized, when, in fact, it is barbaric. We need to humble ourselves and learn from other societies which have reduced violence by limiting and controlling gun possession and by increasing the social welfare safety net. We are EQualized!

Is there a place for guns in our society? Yes, in the hands of trained law enforcement, the national guard and military, and “well-regulated militias” whose mission is to protect their communities from violence, like the Black Panthers, Deacons for Defense, Common Ground Collective, and similar groups. Also, each family or household can have an armed protector who is well trained and licensed—a license which cannot be obtained without stringent background checks, training, and testing, just as is required for a driver’s license, with a provision for revocation of such license for abuse or misuse of the weapon or the commission of other crimes. No one else should have or need a weapon. (After recent mass shootings of children in Uvalde, Texas, and of Black seniors in Buffalo, NY, which outraged millions nationwide, including gun owners and enthusiasts, I joined the mainly youth-led organizations fighting for stricter gun control and removal of military-type assault weapons and ammunition, including March for Our Lives, Sandy Hook Promise, and Everytown, and formed a local coalition against gun violence.)

My family and I have seen all of this American societal breakdown coming for some time and have started laying plans, once again, for an intentional community— a cooperative eco-village and model for sustainable and equitable living in a rural area and not dependent on “the grid.” We’ve started to explore land purchase options, either on our own or with like-minded people and groups. One of those groups and projects is the Freedom Georgia Initiative, started by 19 Black families who purchased one hundred acres in central Georgia to build their vision of “the Beloved Community”, fearing for their Black children’s lives in the wake of the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Now they have diversified and purchased an additional 400 acres for residential and commercial development, open to participation by like-minded souls.^[63] (Other examples of intentional “beloved communities” formed or forming are at both of these websites: www.ic.org/ and www.symbiosis-revolution.org/.)

Our family realized that we already had a large intentional community including immediate family numbering twenty-one, including grandkids and their parents, and many more including extended family of close cousins, aunts, and uncles. And more again, including close friends of all the above. All of the Pellegrino “intentional beloved community” immediate family members reside within either minutes, or less than four hours, of each other. However, a community doesn’t require living on the same plot of land or in proximity, especially in this virtual age. That broadens the prospects of forming your own intentional beloved community. Maybe you are already part of one, for example, a Greek sorority or fraternity, or other close-knit regional or national organization, or your own extended family and network of friends. (Remember, “the strength of the wolf is in the pack,” so either start one, or find one you can be part of.)

The Global Woke Institute

Since the beginning of my own awakening (or, more appropriately, “awokening”) in the seventies, I’ve been teaching others what I’ve learned about the realities of our oneness and the need for us to build the Beloved Community upon that oneness. I’ve done this in many venues, nationally and globally, whether in formalized classroom settings or informally on the streets and in the neighborhoods (sometimes literally on the street with a bullhorn in hand or knocking on doors).

Two realizations in 2021 inspired me to form a more organized motivational and educational initiative, “The Global Woke Institute” (www.HowWokeAmI.org ), and the action-oriented offshoot of that, The Woke EQualizers” practical action group:

Most Americans, including many of those whom I consider “woke” (meaning, in my definition of the term, aware, awakened, enlightened, and anti-racist, anti-poverty, anti-militarism, while trying to build “beloved community) are not necessarily “globally woke.” In other words, when many “woke” Americans say “Black Lives Matter” they are really saying “Black AMERICAN Lives Matter” unaware of the realities and plights of Black Africans, or Black Mexicans, or Black Brazilians beyond our borders. And when they are advocating for BIPOC folks’ rights, they are really saying “American Black, Indigenous, and People of Color” because they are unaware of BIPOC folks’ plights around the world. Why is this an important distinction? Because in this global society, which due to ease of travel and the internet is now a global neighborhood, many of our smallest daily habits, practices, and actions here in America have significant and profoundly negative impacts upon people, mainly BIPOC folks and the poor, worldwide. Especially our materialism, consumerism, and consumption—what we eat, clothes we buy, waste and pollution we generate, directly or indirectly, causes the continued triple evils of racism, poverty, and militarism around the world. For example, some of the products we buy, including but not limited to some brand name clothing and shoes, and knockoffs, chocolates, coffee, diamonds, gold, beef, etc., are produced by slave and child labor, and rape the environments and economies of other countries. Our wasteful habits—leaving lights on, cars running, water running—and the tremendous dumping of waste in landfills and the oceans, not to mention nuclear waste, contributes disproportionately to climate change, causing drought, famine, violent storms, and other climate catastrophes worldwide, killing millions of innocent people, especially children. Many of the company stocks we own and other investments we hold also contribute to these travesties and tragedies. And, as uncovered by the recent war in Israel and ongoing so-called “war on terror”, our excessive, terroristic, and violent militarism (on behalf of corrupt and greedy corporations and profiteers), is genocidal causing the murder hundreds of thousands of innocents, including tens of thousands of children, around the world. In other words, all of us have this blood on our hands as we are complicit in this terror. We are EQualized!

This is easy to forget because we have been trained and conditioned as “American supremacists” to view this militarism and terror as somehow normal, and to be wasteful polluters and consumers purchasing items way beyond what we need. Because this conditioning—really brainwashing—is so ingrained in us, we need to remind ourselves of these facts daily, so three of my daily affirmations are: “Live simply so that others may simply live;” “Let your vision be world-embracing”;” Think globally, act locally.” And therefore, we need a re-education such as that provided by “The Global Woke Institute” and similar global organizations such as Global Citizen (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/) and Avaaz (https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/).

Very few Americans, including many of those who are considered “woke”, realize that the American economic system is unsustainable, has been on the brink of collapse for years, and was virtually beyond repair before recent pandemics and climate disasters which have only weakened it further. In my opinion and belief system, these are warnings from whatever Higher Power you believe in—nature, the universe, God—of its imminent collapse. And most Americans, even those who are affluent, are dependent on this failing and faulty system for their basic needs, including food, water, and shelter. In this divisive political and racial environment there is no government leadership that will provide adequately or equitably in times of disaster, especially for BIPOC folks, just as government failed to do so in New Orleans after Katrina causing catastrophic loss of life there, mainly Black lives, and failed to do so during the pandemic, causing nearly a million lost lives needlessly here (which is more per capita than most other countries in the world). And all relief efforts, under the weight of increasing climate disasters, are starting to show signs of imminent collapse. The wealthy elite and right-wing survivalist groups, both of whom only care about themselves, are building self-sustaining off-grid bunkers, shelters, and communities to prepare for this impending and inevitable collapse. Woke people of goodwill, who will care for and protect each other rather than kill each other in such disasters, need to learn how to do the same. (That is part of building intentional “beloved communities” now, which will be taught through our Global Woke Institute—survival and sustainability, in the face of calamities.)

How to Become a Woke Equalizer Warrior and Peacemaker

So, here we are at the end of this story and, hopefully, the beginning or revitalizing of a new chapter in yours. The main question to ask yourself now is, what are you going to do about it and where do we go from here? Yes, we are all connected in a “network of mutuality” however everyone must make their own choices on how “woke” and, more importantly, how “actively woke” and connected they want to be.

Using the analogy of sleep and wakefulness, some people go through life sleeping, whether naturally or drug induced, with an attitude that “ignorance is bliss “or, for whatever reason, they just don’t care,while others just want to get enough sleep to have an awake, active, and fulfilling day. And some like to lie in bed awake afraid to get up to confront the day and act on their wakefulness. All three of those states indicate different levels of laziness and selfishness. Likewise, we are all at different stages in our journeys to self-awareness, self-determination and fulfillment, which equates to discovering our authentic personal identities and ultimately happiness. However, one of the major lessons I learned throughout my journey is that we cannot be truly happy or fulfilled if we are not “actively woke”, in some way, shape or form. That means getting enough “rest” (both spiritual and physical) to actively face the challenges of the day, but in a “woke” manner. That doesn’t mean you have to be on the protest lines, or shouting in the face of elected representatives, or in radical underground or above ground groups, but maybe you can confront and dismantle bullying or racism (a form of bullying) at work or school or teach your or other children to do the same. (“Woke parenthood” is one of the highest levels of servant leadership, and woke parents, especially mothers, are true warriors leading the way. And not only biological parenting but parenting the “children of the village.) Treating others fairly and calling out systemic bullying, inequities, and oppression when you see it. All and any of that is Woke EQualizing. Anything we do to teach children woke, oneness principles, including how to stand up to bullies is the Woke EQualizing and servant leadership work of the highest order, as the “village” is the “beloved community.”

The first stage of “woke warriorhood” is knowledge and awareness. You have no excuse for not knowing, as knowledge is all around and readily accessible. If you are reading this, you have been exposed to the most important knowledge about yourself and life—our essential oneness with each other and with all living things—our “network of mutuality.” Everything else—equity, peace, justice, love, anti-racism, beloved community—can be built on this foundation of oneness. Any other foundation is faulty and destined to fail.

So, the question is, will you become a “woke warrior” for oneness in your personal, family and community life? As mentioned above, there are many ways to do this. One is to enroll in our Global Woke Institute to gain a deeper knowledge of these concepts, and to join our Woke EQualizer warriors/peacemakers’ movement to put these concepts into action. In the former, we will learn together spiritual and practical strategies for survival and sustainability in this chaotic world transitioning from the realm of the Triple Evils to the Beloved Community we are engaged in building. In the latter we will help protect others around us from the ravages of the Triple Evils and the bullies and haters who promote them. And the Woke EQualizers warriors/peacemakers will also have children and youth activities and groups to start them young in these noble endeavors since they are attracted to superheroes, and that is who those fighting bullying and the Triple Evils are.

To join either or both, or for more information, use the contact form at http://www.HowWokeAmI.org or email us at globalwokeinstitute@gmail.com.

In closing, we offer one last challenge. Do you know the difference between a prophet and a philosopher? A prophet has and shares lofty ideas, principles and visions and puts them into the realm of action providing an example for us to follow, while a philosopher shares similarly lofty and poetic ideas however doesn’t or can’t act upon them, so they begin in words and often end in words. Yes, some philosophers’ words and ideas inspire others to action, however they often live and die an unfulfilled life because of their own inaction and inability to apply their own lofty ideas to their own lives and that of those around them. Which would you like to be? Our goal at the Global Woke Institute is to help you to be a prophet, by first uncovering your authentic personal identity and then the authentic identity of the community and nation you are in. And, as we’ve stated, that can take many forms—the main thing is we don’t want anyone to feel or be alone in this struggle to survive and thrive holistically, both within ourselves and with each other, as, once again, the strength of the wolf is in the pack, we are one human family in a network of mutuality and oneness, and this is the day of interdependence—a graduation from the stages of dependence and independence.

We also want to help you experience and utilize your true power: “Power, when understood as a scarce resource and a means of domination and division, is used to perpetuate racism and other forms of oppression. Such power is hoarded, jealously defended, and susceptible to the corrupting influence of vested interests (like political power). (Spiritual education) raises our awareness of other forms of power—moral or spiritual powers—which give us the capacity to transform our social worlds. These powers of the human spirit are limitless and accessible to all. They include the power of unified action, the power of love, the power of justice, the power of truth, the power of pure deeds and sacrificial service, and the power of divine assistance and confirmation. Awareness of these powers opens transformative possibilities. We have the capacity to build new social realities that can supplant the current social order with its competitive and conflictual uses of power.” (From the Dialogue on Race & Faith’s statement “Overcoming Racism”)

Last but not least, one of our favorite quotes to live by, from historian, activist, author, professor, prophet Howard Zinn^[64]: “TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice,courage,kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

[1] From “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1967. For more on the Triple Evils, Beloved Community and King Philosophy of Non-Violent Social Change read https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/

[2] “EQ” is also Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ): the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict, all important aspects of and tools for effective “EQualizing.”

[3] For more on Jim Crow laws and this period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws ,and to learn how slavery was never really abolished see the movies “13^th” by Ava DuVernay and “Slavery by Another Name” (book and movie), by Douglas A. Blackmon.

[4] For more on Sundown Towns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town , which basically meant that “colored people” had to leave town by sundown”; also see the movie “Green Book.”

[5] COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political and social justice organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#:~:text=COINTELPRO%20(syllabic%20abbreviation%20derived%20from,disrupting%20domestic%20American%20political%20organizations.

[6] To understand past and present American foreign policy of oppression, colonization, and empire-building, you must read William Blum’s works, “Rogue State” https://williamblum.org/books/rogue-state/ , “Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II” https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope , and retired Marine Major General Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

[7] “The Trail of Tears was a series of forced displacements of approximately 60,000 American Indians of the “Five Civilized Tribes” between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government.^.Part of the Indian removal, the ethnic cleansing was gradual, occurring over a period of nearly two decades…The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en- route to their newly designated Indian reserve. Thousands died from disease before reaching their destinations or shortly after. According to Native American activist Suzan Shown Harjo of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the event constituted a genocide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

[8] “The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. When we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils.” –The King Center on the MLK Philosophy of Non-Violence https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/

[9] Read the book “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi, especially in Chapter 3, where he writes: “THE FIRST GLOBAL power to construct race happened to be the first racist power and the first exclusive slave trader of the constructed race of African people. The individual who orchestrated this trading of an invented people was nicknamed the “Navigator,” though he did not leave Portugal in the fifteenth century. The only thing he navigated was Europe’s political-economic seas, to create the first transatlantic slave-trading policies.”

[10] For a full discussion of this continued economic slavery a must read is the book “The Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom Vs. Self-Authentic Freedom” by Ezrah Aharone , who writes:” The Sovereign Psyche is not just the title of the book. More importantly The Sovereign Psyche is the motivating consciousness, intellect, and willpower that is necessary to materialize what the book defines as “Self-Authentic Freedom” as opposed to “Chattel Freedom.” Chattel freedom is when the value of a people is predicated upon the extent to which they serve the interests and institutions of others.” http://ezrahspeaks.com/current-books/

[11] Read the full text in Chapter Two: Dueling Consciousness, in “How To Be An Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi

[12] Title of the book by Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow

[13] See the movie by Ava DuVernay “13^th “ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)

[14] Read the book “Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom vs. Self-Authentic Freedom” by Ezrah Aharone, to understand how to achieve this sovereign and independent state of mind, and then strive for interdependence, skipping dependence.

[15] For more about EMI (Emotional Maturity Instruction). from the US Dept of Justice website: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/emi-emotional-maturity-instruction-new-approach-social-education

[16] For more on the Aramaic scrolls and Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaboris_Codex

[17] For more on the Albany Movement, and its revival today in the “New Communities” initiative, read https://cltroots.org/the-guide/early-hybrids-breeding-and-seeding-the-clt-model/georgia-seedbed and https://www.newcommunitiesinc.com/

[18] From the book and movie by Rhonda Byrne “The Secret” : https://www.thesecret.tv/

[19] For more on Frederick Douglass, the great American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

[20] More about the Bahai electoral process and administrative order can be found at https://bahai-library.com/pdf/p/poirier_bahai_electoral_process.pdf and https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/compilations/sanctity-nature-bahai-elections/sanctity-nature-bahai-elections.pdf?cd07923f

[21] Read “Sovereign Psyche: Systems of Chattel Freedom vs. Self-Authentic Freedom,” by Ezrah Aharone.

[22] Read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

[23] “Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the “internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated.”^[1] In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both “conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are consistently ranked above people of color.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalized_racism

[24] Read more about the Grenadian revolution and America’s invasion of Grenada at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada

[25] To read about America’s lawlessness in the world read William Blum’s “Rogue State” and “Killing Hope” books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_State:_A_Guide_to_the_World%27s_Only_Superpower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Hope

[26] Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator from 1952 to 1959, when he was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

[27] EXCLUSIVE: Conditions for foreign workers at U.S. military bases overseas likened to ‘modern day slavery’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/defense-contractors-persian-gulf-trafficking/

[28] “The Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor extends along the coast of the southeastern United States through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in recognition of the Gullah-Geechee people and culture. Gullah-Geechee are direct descendants of West African slaves brought into the United States around the 1700s. They were forced to work in rice paddies, cotton fields and indigo plantations along the South Carolina-Georgia seaboard where the warm and moist climate conditions helped them to preserve many African traditions. After the abolition of slavery, Gullah-Geechee people settled in remote villages around the coastal swath, where, thanks to their relative isolation, they formed strong communal ties and a unique culture that has endured for centuries”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah/Geechee_Cultural_Heritage_Corridor

[29] Louis George Gregory was among the elite group of highly educated African Americans whom W.E.B. Du Bois called the “talented tenth.” As an attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department, Mr. Gregory became active in political and cultural life in the nation’s capital…In 1905 the Washington Bee, a local black newspaper with a national reach, lauded him as “one of the most gifted writers and speakers in this country.” https://www.louisgregorymuseum.org/louis-g-gregory

[30] Read more about the “Jail-No Bail” Rock Hill sit-ins at https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jail-no-bail/ and https://snccdigital.org/events/rock-hill-sit-ins-and-jail-no-bail/

[31] Read more about the Oklahoma City bombing at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

[32] Read more about the Los Angeles Uprising at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots

[33] For more on mass incarceration watch the movie “13^th https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)

[34] “The book was frequently criticized by economists after it became a best-seller, as it focused on a darker side of capitalistic development, notably Batra’s main claim that excessive inequality in capitalist societies can lead to financial crises and economic depressions” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Depression_of_1990

[35] “A Radical Revolution of Values” Remembering Dr. King’s speech that the power elite want us to forget.

https://www.levernews.com/a-radical-revolution-of-values/

[36] Read about the Tulsa Race Massacre at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

[37] “ In the 18th-century Thirteen Colonies, suffrage was restricted to European men with certain property qualifications.”: Read about U.S. voting rights at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States

[38] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-be-part-of-the-1-percent-worldwide.html

[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem

[40] A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people. https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar

[41] Too big to fail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail

[42] For more on the Post–September 11 anti-war movement read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93September_11_anti-war_movement

[43] http://www.daveyd.com/barbaraleevotepolitics.html

[44] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/sep/12/september11.britainand9111

[45] Read more about Smedley Butler and War is a Racket at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

[47] Read more about this Bahai concept of “Progressive Revelation” at https://bahaiteachings.org/bahai-concept-progressive-revelation/

[48] This was the view expressed and outlined by eminent historian, Arnold Toynbee, in his 12-volume seminal work “A Study of History”, that the advent of each true world religion, and the spiritual, social, and scientific principles each brought, caused civilization to progress , progressively. Read more at: http://nobsword.blogspot.com/1993_10_17_nobsword_archive.html#universal%20churches

[49] “Building Black-Brown Coalitions in the Southeast—Four African American-Latino Collaborations” can be read at https://www.intergroupresources.com/rc/Alvarado%20and%20Jaret%202009.pdf

[51] For more myths and facts about immigrants read: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/app/uploads/2013/11/mythsandfacts.pdf and https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/15-myths-about-immigration-debunked/

[52] Use of the term “tipping point” here comes from the book by Malcolm Gladwell “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference “ Gladwell defines a tipping point as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point

[53] “One of the longstanding problems in policing has been the pretextual use of low-level traffic and pedestrian stops as a strategy to address more serious crime. While there may be some limited role for pretextual enforcement to investigate specific serious crimes, its over-use has exacerbated racial disparities in policing; unnecessarily pulled individuals into the criminal justice system for very minor misconduct; generated a great deal of distrust between police and communities; and done very little to address serious violent crime.” https://www.policingproject.org/pretext-legislation

[54] Forman, J., & Jr. (2018). Locking up our own. Abacus.

[55] Read more about “pre-arrest diversion” programs at https://www.atlantapad.org/ .

[56] Read more about scott crow and his books at https://www.scottcrow.org/

[58] Read about and join the Symbiosis-Revolution at https://www.symbiosis-revolution.org/

[59] Read about Cooperation Jackson and the Cleveland Model at these sites: https://cooperationjackson.org/ and https://community-wealth.org/content/cleveland-model-how-evergreen-cooperatives-are-building-community-wealth

[60] Learn more about Community Movement Builders, Regenerate Atlanta , and Tear Down Community at these sites: https://communitymovementbuilders.org/ https://www.ohrdemocracy.org/programs/alternative-institutions https://www.theteardown.org/

[61] Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. New York, NY: One World, 2019

[62] https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/report-cobb-county-tops-the-list-of-places-where-the-rent-is-too-damn-high-for-poor-people/

[63] https://thefreedomgeorgiainitiative.com/

[64] To learn more about Howard Zinn: https://www.howardzinn.org/about/biography/