Defense of Dr. Jill Biden’s Breakfast Taco Simile, by J.D. Meyer
Earlier this July, Dr. Jill Biden attended the Unidos US Annual Conference, but the First Lady got criticized for stating that the Hispanic community is "as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio." The previous week, President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Raul Izaguirre, a past director of the program. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) asserted that we are not tacos. Actually, by using the words "as" or "like," makes the statement a comparison between two things--a simile. Who remembers that old rock love song, "You are like a hurricane. There's calm in your eyes"? A metaphor is a direct comparison between things that doesn't use "as" or "like." "Her smile is sunshine" was the metaphor example used by www.dictionary.com my source for these two definitions. Being like something isn't the same as asserting something is something else, so the critique is glaringly wrong.
My initial reaction to the controversy were my memories of soft tacos at taquerias--the traditional Mexican taco. As a kid growing up in Dallas, we just had corn tacos with the hard shell. Ground beef was the filling, not the variety of stew meats. Cabbage and cilantro were unheard of as vegetable toppings. Furthermore, breakfast tacos that included eggs hadn't made it to North Texas yet. La Michoacana is the major taqueria in Texas, and I've gone to this restaurant/grocery store in Dallas, Garland, and my current home for 21 years: Tyler.
So I asked myself, did Dr. Jill grow up in a city with many Hispanics? I bet she's from "way up north." So I went to the Britannica website for her biography. Dr. Jill grew up in Willow Grove, PA from age 8 through high school in 1969. Willow Grove is a suburb of Philadelphia with a population of only about 16,000 in 1990, and it's been shrinking since then. Its White population has stayed over 80% while its Hispanic population is under 5%. She got her Bachelors degree in 1975 at the University of Delaware, which is in Wilmington--a city of just over 30,000 that is nearly 90% White and 2.5% Hispanic. After earning two Masters degrees in Pennsylvania, she returned to the University of Delaware in 2007. She has taught high school--public and private--as well as community college. Dr. Biden's dissertation was on retention in the community college.
To conclude, Dr. Jill Biden is a life-long teacher who merely used a simile to express her joy over discovering the diversity of soft breakfast tacos in San Antonio. Assuming she's a racist is ridiculous. She's the first First Lady to keep her job while serving as the First Lady. My suggestion for her is to hook up with "AOC" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat congresswoman from New York who used to work at a taqueria. Keep searching the taquerias menus!
This is a summary of the seven nights of Kwanzaa, based on my three publications and four presentations. Local economic development projects receive praise, and various philosophies/religions are given attention. This article has links to flickr photos too.
Kwanzaa Summary and Reflections, by J.D. Meyer
Kwanzaa is a seven-night pan-African holiday (December 26th–January 1st) celebrating the virtues: (1) unity, (2) self-determination, (3) collective work & responsibility, (4) cooperative economics, (5) purpose, (6) creativity, and (7) faith. Founded in 1965 after the Watts Riots by Dr. Maulana Karenga of California State at Long Beach, the holiday has faced criticism for supposedly being anti-Christian, the sordid past of the founder’s early life, and inclinations toward Black separatism. However, the festival is supposed to be cultural, not religious–a celebration of the first harvest. The seven virtues are universally accepted. Moreover, Kwanzaa purism doesn’t hold up in application from what I’ve seen as a participant–particularly the ease in having a prominent Christian minister speak at Faith night at the end for an overwhelmingly Christian audience.Whether or not Dr. Karenga was ever Marxist seems irrelevant with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of capitalism despite frequent totalitarianism in Communist, or once Communist countries. It seems highly unlikely to hear any calls for Marxism/Communism anymore. My penchant for celebrating long-range city planning may disturb Kwanzaa purists for not being “Black enough;” neither am I.
Frankly it’s easy to focus on Kwanzaa and miss hearing about the a lot of the controversy surrounding Dr. Karenga, as I found in the writing of this summary article. I delivered Kwanzaa addresses in 2002, 2003, 2008, and 2009. I wrote for the other three nights. Creativity is the only principle that has been a presentation and article for me. Faith is the only principle that was neither publication nor article, simply an extra chapter section in the old format. Finally, there has already been one overall Kwanzaa talk in early 2012. I wanted to have a summary/reflections article that condensed this data. Some details were appropriate for the year but fleeting in importance as one looks back several years later. Plus, I didn’t want Kwanzaa to overwhelm the African-American Studies chapter of my Developmental English/Writing textbook.
Furthermore, we had the angry denouncement of the Wisconsin state senator–Glenn Grothmann (R)–curiously at Kwanzaa’s end on New Year’s Day 2013. Kwanzaa was labeled anti-Christian, and Dr. Karenga’s criminal past was brought up in detail. Strangely, Grothmann declared Kwanzaa to be a tool of left-wing White liberals while African-Americans allegedly don’t care about it anymore.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/glenn-grothman_n_2392816.html Ironically, an article from The Root in late 2011 entitled, “Who Celebrates Kwanzaa” http://www.theroot.com/views/who-celebrates-kwanzaa-holiday-statistics found that African-American baby boomers born between 1946-1964 are the most likely to celebrate Kwanzaa. Older and younger people of any race are less likely. Although Kwanzaa was more popular a while back, it’s in no danger of extinction. Perhaps the night-time programming for Kwanzaa discourages older people because of the cold weather and/or desire not to drive at night. As for Dr. Karenga, recall the ad hominem logical fallacy: dismissing the product because of who made it: moreover, he hasn’t been in trouble since the Seventies.
When delivering a Kwanzaa principle talk or writing an article about it, it’s good to begin with an amplification of the principle’s meaning, as found on a website such as http://www.officialkwanzaasite.com written by Dr. Karenga. The elaboration should endeavor to fit the speaker’s audience and his/her background. I hope this summary of Kwanzaa does no less than contribute to a comeback for the 7-day holiday and make it more accessible to those outside the usual crowd. Probably the seasonal nature of Kwanzaa imposes a narrow time window of opportunity for its discussion; in other words, many folks may tell you to hush if you try to talk about Kwanzaa if it isn’t December–even if it’s February, Black History month.
Unity is described by the founder as inviting an “alternative sense of solidarity…the world’s health and wholeness require education to know about others.” My reaction was to ask if technology could make education cool, even history. Internet use today is common extends to all ages, but the article’s purpose was to encourage more a positive approach toward education through Internet use rather than using the Internet chiefly for shallow socializing and gossip. The U.S. decline in education is well-documented, particularly among African-Americans. Moreover, history seems to be getting kicked out of the top four academic subjects in favor of the STEM emphasis: science, technology, engineering, and math. A self-directed student could find tales from history that could easily be censored until the junior year of college by a conservative school administration.
My article rattled off a lengthy list of my education research interests and why they are cool. Yet at the same time, I expressed concern that such discussion could be seen as too much self-promoting. Nevertheless, enjoying a wide range of Spanish music genres is a fun way to learn the language, and I wrote an article on Spanish-language music that traveled from its start at LessonPlansPage.com to the University of British Columbia through Creative Commons copyright sharing. Studying Psychological Type Theory is a great vehicle to self-knowledge and improved mental health. I’m an ENFP–a common profile for an English teacher or journalist. I published an article in which I called for the mass popularization of Psychological Type Theory in the aftermath of the Tucson mass shooting that critically injured Congresswoman Gabby Giffords http://tinyurl.com/3r9phfe. Flickr is the photo-sharing branch of yahoo that allows one to illustrate their writings. How we teach knowledge of others can face opposition. Finding the sustainability principles of composition by Derek Owens was great for me. It empowers me to defend my Developmental English textbook’s model essays from critiques that they are too regional or idiosyncratic. Writing a textbook has been a long-term project since the mid-90’s, growing from 47 to 400 pages over the years.
I noted education-related interests since entering middle age. The Rise of the Creative Class by Dr. Richard Florida, now of the University of Toronto, started my interest in urban studies. Dr. Florida’s 3 T’s–talent, technology, and tolerance–can be shown as reasons for urban growth; the fourth T, territorial assets was added recently. Teaching ESOL is another frequent area for me. Lately, I developed a method for teaching cognates based on the Spanish glossaries in Texas textbooks. Formal and technical English have their roots in French and Latin–members of the Romance language family along with Spanish. Ironically, informal English is descended from German, so cognate study helps make the tougher language easier. Yet any method that looks like bilingual education after fifth grade can face vehement political opposition.
Citizen journalism describes the modern potential for somebody to publish an article without being a newspaper or magazine employee. I started at Associated Content, now Voices.yahoo, as the e-journal was bought by the massive Internet corporation. It’s possible to write for the hyper-local audience in your neighborhood or the international scene. You can write about education in textbook or lesson plan style too.
To give a pep talk to the other writers at Voices.yahoo, I cited “The Crisis in Criticism,” edited by Marcus Berger, an anthology of wonderful essays about literary criticism. Six key qualities of critics are the following: (1) curiosity, (2) attentiveness, (3)concern, (4) vision, (5) art and language, and (6) the debate a critic makes available. Our response to the unknown evolves knowledge and makes transformation happen. On a cautionary note, I shared an addition to my Quotation Marks chapter section: How to quote a controversial figure. Put the statement within quotation marks then say something like, “a great thinker once said…” To close, I reminded the readers to pay attention to the flood of after-Christmas sales as the perfect time to buy books for your favorite children.
Principle #2: Self-Determination 2008
Self-determination began with ideas of “dignity-affirming” and “life-enhancing” as opposed to “imitation, (a) coercive conformity” Partly since I spoke at a church that night, I brought up the Parable of the Talents, noting that the servant who buried his few talents so he wouldn’t lose them was severely chastised by his master when he returned from his trip. Jesus rarely if ever showed more anger in his teachings. That church was Pentecostal, so to thank them for letting us have our Kwanzaa celebration at their church, I urged the audience members to visit a Pentecostal church if they weren’t already members and feel the energy. Moreover, I saluted the Pentecostal movement for reaching one billion members worldwide in roughly a century, as large as the Catholics–the original Christian denomination. Such Christian friendliness hardly fits the negative stereotype of Kwanzaa programmers.
Then I noted some excerpts from three Kwanzaa authors at Voices.Yahoo–including a children’s Kwanzaa book author. Karama Neal asked her readers, “What do you want to accomplish today, this year, and in your lifetime? And make it happen!” Themes of self-control and planning radiated from the other two authors as well. Kwanzaa easily lends itself to easy to understand ethics for children.
Most of my adult life, I was a Unitarian-Universalist who presented over a dozen sermons in several years. Once I gave a talk called, “Applying the Kwanzaa Principle of Self-Determination to Unitarian-Universalism.” Since UU’ism is a creedless religion, critics claim that its adherents don’t have to believe in anything. So I urged the members to prepare themselves by working on their “elevator speeches”–such as service to society is our prayer. Self-determination in Kwanzaa asserts that the individual and the institution should define themselves and not be resigned to labels given by detractors.
Then I mentioned some key concepts from Neo-Confucianism–a topic in my interdisciplinary master’s thesis; something about self-determination got me talking about three different religions! Neo-Confucianism teaches us that shame is the beginning of the virtue of righteousness (i), or appropriate-assertiveness. It takes courage for us to move beyond occasional bumbles or far worse–a doormat life-style. Moreover, a sincere will (ch’eng-yi) enables us to create new rules of propriety (li) to stay in the authentic spirit of the ancients who built the early society. That sounds like the birth of Kwanzaa. In 1988, modern New Confucian, Tu Wei-ming contributed to a Life magazine article called, “The Meaning of Life.” pg. 93 in Life, Dec. 1988, Vol. 11, No. 14, 76-101. https://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/life/905W-000-037.html Among other things, Dr. Tu noted that God is everywhere and probably all-knowing, but since humanity must perform action, God isn’t all-powerful. God needs us to participate in the co-creation of the world–very similar to the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Quite a call for a work ethic, isn’t it?
The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa with traditional candelabra: three red candles, a black candle in the center, and three red candles.
This article has the distinction of being published by the National Writing Project (NWP) in the section for The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Collective work and responsibility calls to “maintain and build our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our own and solve them together,” according to Dr. Karenga. We should build the good world we want and deserve. Leave a legacy worthy of our history and be concerned with our future and the world.” These descriptions of Principle #3 reminded me of tikkun olam–repairing the world– a Reform Jewish concept. I chose to examine Tyler 21, a city plan developed when the East Texas city reached 100,000 in population. https://www.cityoftyler.org/Departments/PlanningDepartment/ComprehensivePlan/Tyler21.aspx Tyler 21 invited outside consultants and community volunteers. Goody Clancy, a Boston urban planning group led by Mary Means, headed Tyler 21. Former mayor, Joey Seeber wanted maximum community participation while being on-guard for the repeat of inbred ideas.There were seven committees: Downtown Revitalization, Northside Restoration, Parks, Transportation, Historic Preservation, Public Facilities and Services, Housing and Neighborhoods, and Tyler 21 Consolidation. A year later, Tyler won four awards at the Texas Downtown Conference, including best public partner by the city of Tyler.
As a volunteer, I submitted an annotated link page on Northside Restoration since that is my neighborhood, and I taught Developmental English at the local HBCU for five years. North Tyler is 90% minority: 57% African-American and 32% Hispanic-American. Moreover, writing annotated link pages is one of my favorite hobbies, so I discussed the process itself. Realize when you’re studying a new field that some of your findings are probably going to be beginner information. Yet that makes link pages so worthwhile because they can take you to more advanced levels.
Two of my focus areas were the vacant land problem and key statistics revealed through Claritas-PRIZM. When an area has over 15% of its land vacant, that’s bad and North Tyler is 40% vacant. Some vacant land is necessary since the creeks, streams, and flood plains are required to deal with rain. Plus, it’s a thin line between park and vacant land. Tyler prides itself on its natural beauty–the largest city in East Texas, an area rich in all kinds of trees. Claritas-PRIZM is zip code cluster marketing, and it reveals that you can learn a lot about a neighborhood by the products its residents buy, shows they watch, and cars they drive. It reveals wealth or poverty and looks at the average age of the residents too.The prestigious Nielsen Corporation has bought Claritas. Sadly, it reveals that Tyler has a significantly disproportionate number of young poor adults. I acknowledged a Tyler newspaper article about the need for factories, business tax breaks, and sewers along with the more futuristic mass appeal reading stuff, “Economic Development Tools: Efforts to Attract, Retain Becoming More Aggressive,” by Greg Junek and Jacque Hilburn (Oct. 22, 2006).
Then my attention turned to the National Day on Writing, started by the National Conference of Teachers of English (NCTE) and endorsed by the U.S. Senate in Fall 2009. The NCTE began this celebration to accent the greater role in life that writing plays nowadays–often social media. This site serves a similar role to citizen journalism e-journals in that someone who doesn’t work for a newspaper or journal can submit an article to a variety of galleries. The NCTE had their own gallery as did some school districts, high schools, and special interest groups. The NCTE published my article on Collective Work and Responsibility at their national gallery! Garland ISD and Austin ISD were two Texas public school districts that had galleries for their employees and students.
Principle #4: Cooperative Economics 2009
I began this talk with my reflection on the underlying principle of Kwanzaa: the effort to serve as a public intellectual. Actually this address was the night’s second talk and based somewhat on the published article for Principle #3. Frankly, I’d become ill on night #3 yet returned the next night when the second speaker was a no-show! Summarizing Nights #3 and #4 have become the most challenging aspect of this article to prevent re-runs and redundancies. We looked at Tyler 21, one year later. I discussed the awards Tyler received from the Tyler Downtown Revitalization conference, as previously written for Night #3. During Tyler 21, I suggested that tree trimmers get a wood chipper, so they don’t have to keep making runs out in the country to dump wood. Besides the wood chips could be sold by the bag to reduce storm drainage. Claritas PRIZM zip code cluster marketing tells us that a product like Build a Bear would sell well in South Tyler because of upper-middle class neighborhoods and both parents working. However, North Tyler has a large percentage of poor young people as shown by the Striving Singles cluster group–something I documented on my Northside Revitalization link page for Tyler 21.
The focus of Night #4 was the Intellectual Entrepreneurship program at University of Texas at Austin. Its goal is to bring intellectual power of the university to social problems–the opposite of the ivory tower. IE is a consortium of eight colleges and four schools at UT; it’s not a major. IE programs include mentoring undergraduates, how to reduce emergency room visits, oral history, and art entrepreneurship. IE exists at other universities, including Arizona State. The program goes as far back as 1995 to the University of Warsaw.
I feel that IE would work well at UT-Tyler and answers the new Industry Growth Initiative (IGI) https://www.cityoftyler.org/Departments/Communications/IndustryGrowthInitiative.aspx Strategy 1 for Higher Education. Tyler’s three colleges only generate $7500/student. Cities with major research universities can generate as much as $100,000/student. The following summer, I published an article on this proposal at a local e-journal, now called PineyWoodsLive (Formerly The Daily You) Then it was reprinted by the IE at UT website itself and the University of Toronto Creative Class/Education website https://www.creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/Intellectual%20Entrepreneurship%20at%20The%20University%20of%20Texas.pdf IE has a wonderful mentorship program of undergraduates; inadvertently, it has helped desegregate graduate school and help first-generation college students of all races. Not a major, the IE consortium at the University of Texas has the participation of eight colleges and four schools: Communications, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Natural Science, Law, and Education, together with Engineering, Information Technology, Public Affairs, and Social Work. IE gets involved in practical adventures such as reducing emergency room visits, oral history, and arts entrepreneurship. Intellectual Entrepreneurship is present at other universities, such as Stanford, Michigan, and Arizona State. Actually, the concept began in Warsaw, Poland back in 1995.
Purpose seeks to “develop our communal foundation to help children build greatness in communities, schools, and families.” I found myself defending Kwanzaa that night. First I stressed that it’s a cultural/historical festivity, not religious. Moreover, we have a minister on Faith night at Kwanzaa’s end. As for Kwanzaa being separatist, it’s assumed our holidays are going to have a predominantly White orientation. I asked, “Must the direction of integration always be like Sammy Davis Jr in the Rat Pack or a relative handful of Black athletes at a major university?” I noted the irrelevance of Dr. Karenga possibly once having Marxist ties because the blunders of Communism are so well-documented nowadays that no fringe liberal would give them credence.
The last half of my talk was spent discussing a Kwanzaa-influenced website called the Nia (Swahili for “Purpose.”) Community Board and my first website through McGraw-Hill Pageout. Unfortunately, Nia is now gone and Pageout was threatened in August 2012, so I downloaded onto two flashdrives. Building my Pageout site started with Spanish, so the Texas College students could have a tutor when their part-time prof at night wasn’t around. Of course, a Developmental English instructor is going to have an English section. I already told you about my mid-life interest in Economic Development. Then I developed Ethnic Studies and African-American Studies. There were accounts of three high school outreach programs through NASA-PACE and/or Upward Bound. I have General Education, ESOL, and Higher Education. Greater differentiation is the rule. Annotated link pages is a great way to share research with others. I had some guest authors on my pageout website too.
Now my main website https://independent.academia.edu/JDMeyer is through the Academia.edu program, and it includes links to my Pageout sites, Twitter account, Flickr photo site, and HubPage site. Furthermore, one can post one of their scholarly articles at the main section and get publicity around the world. For example, my Subject-Verb Agreement module is the most popular of my featured articles, and it’s become particularly popular in The Philippines. You receive notices from members of the Academia.edu family when they write another article in a field of your interest.
Toward the talk’s end, I mentioned a prominent thinker who said he recovered from racist attitudes when he realized that if you’re really a friend of God, who can bully you? Keep your career goals and prepare to defend yourself from objections.
Wishes for a good Kwanzaa from Toronto–complete with puppy
Creativity was my first presentation or article on Kwanzaa. The definition of creativity by Dr. Karenga is to leave the community more beautiful and helpful than when we found it. This description of creativity reminded of its applicability feature, according to gifted and talented research. The other three features of creativity are originality, fluency, and flexibility. Applicability may be the most important criteria for creativity. Can you put it into action?
The Creativity of Kwanzaa may be African-American in form, but it’s universal in essence. Dr. Karenga used creativity to develop Kwanzaa in response to the tragic Black-on-Black property crime of the Watts Riots in 1965. My later revision mentioned the London Riots of 2011. Gentrification can lead to great tension when poor housing is remodeled into something only richer people can afford.
During Kwanzaa, there is something for all the senses: art to see, lectures to hear, and a potluck to eat on either the sixth or seventh day. The candelabra of Kwanzaa reminded me of Chanukah. One thinker stated that moving toward a more perfect union requires not bashing others. He encouraged his listeners to perform volunteer service. Consider joining a church or organization to rebuild the wasted cities. Be a pen pal for someone in jail. Possibly even adopt a child. Maybe you could contribute efforts to an economic development foundation. Hey, we did that later!
Kwanzaa can be a call for scholarship. An organization like ours can bring knowledge of Pan-African culture whether colleges do it or not. The Developmental Studies manual called for using an Afrocentric approach in presenting material whenever possible. At first I was a little shy about teaching a predominantly Black audience about their history. Then I realized I could be saving my students from embarrassment later in life. Some of my early findings were about Blacks in early Mexico, such as the West African roots of the Pre-Columbian Olmec in Vera Cruz together with the Afromestizos of Guerrero on the west coast. Then there were Jewish exiles who taught at Southern Black colleges during the Nazi era in Europe.
The Creativity of Kwanzaa can be a call for courage. Half a lifetime ago, I had a large and good but rather unique thesis, “Approaching Cognitive-Behavioral and Existential Therapy through Neo-Confucianism.” So I shrank whenever anyone had criticism of it. I could look back and claim I was the victim of Eurocentrism, White supremacy, or fools who didn’t realize they were insulting a traditional foe of Communism. Nowadays, my presentations of the Confucian tradition are assertive enough.
Creativity can be repairing the worn out. Later I would mention that the Moore Grocery Lofts of Tyler won an award for Best Adaptive Re-Use at the Texas Downtown Conference in 2009. In a general Kwanzaa talk during early 2012, I mentioned that Medicaid serves to repair worn out people too. My original Kwanzaa Creativity talk concluded with a quote from the process theologian/mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead, who emphasized that desire needs to have a form; otherwise, it’s just formless yearning. http://www3.sympatico.ca/rlubbock/ANW.html
Principle 7: Faith, originally a chapter section only.
As written previously, Faith is the place for a minister to give the address, so I simply wrote an additional chapter section to round out a complete Kwanzaa package in the original format. Now I want a condensed Kwanzaa message to improve its accessibility.
Faith according to Afrocentric News means to place faith in our parents, teachers, leaders, and others as we strive for righteousness and its ultimate victory. The U.S. has been mired in battles between the President and Congress because of a desire by the latter for constant sabotage. It’s reached the point where Fareed Zakaria of CNN surmised in 2011 that the British system is better because the prime minister is the head of the legislature also. Babbling fillibusters can’t happen there either.
Kwanzaa can battle anti-intellectualism, even semi-illiteracy, through exciting programming designed to improve cultural awareness. It’s no secret that American educational achievement has been going downhill for years, especially African-American. There has been a weakening of the middle-class, leading to calls to unleash entrepreneurship, increase wages for the service occupations, and most recently–raise the minimum wage in general.
My Kwanzaa programs in Tyler often celebrated city planning efforts, whether Tyler 21, the Industry Growth Initiative (IGI), or winning awards at the Texas Downtown Conference. Perhaps that would be viewed as the biggest departure from traditional Kwanzaa planning or stereotypes for it hailed multi-ethnic collaboration and couldn’t be viewed as leftist extremism. It even may be seen as a descendant of the late Jack Kemp’s advocacy of urban renewal.
Proverbs 15:22 states, “Without counsel, plans go wrong; with many advisers, plans succeed.” That sounds like the perfect prayer for a committee meeting. Consider the Confucian definition of faith as the completion of the other four virtues: humaneness, appropriate-assertiveness, decorum, and wisdom. T’ang Chun-i urged us to have self-confidence in our sincerity, continuing the tradition of tzu-jan chi li or “spontaneity is conforming to principle.” Yet, Michael Brensen in The Crisis of Criticism asserts that the intellectual should not consider anything off-limits “to the most rigorous analysis–even faith.” Perhaps I would have declared faith to be the ultimate field of analysis and dialogue Keep your faith despite setbacks. Acknowledge your long-term projects and friendships; for me, that includes Kwanzaa.
Kinara (Kwanzaa candelabra) in an Oakland YMCA Lobby–a wooden wine goblet in the foreground.
Once upon a time, I strolled across the street to the nearest bus stop and saw a religious poster on a glass wall. It was from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Psalm 19.7 states, “The law of Jehovah is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.” In response, I wrote the following messages: “A Confucian (Ru) 儒 says, ‘Hi.’ A person standing next to his/her word 信 is the etymology for Trustworthiness (hsin)–the completion of the other four virtues” Humaneness 仁 (ren), Manners 禮 (li), Wisdom 智(chih), and Appropriate Assertiveness 義 (i). Actually, the Chinese character for trustworthiness was the only Chinese character I wrote on the Jehovah’s Witness poster, unlike this more detailed article.
My outreach happened near Easter 2022. Later, I found an article in my living room entitled, “The Asian Renaissance: What Americans Can Learn from Confucianism,” by Jay McDaniel. https://www.openhorizons.org/what-americans-can-learn-from-confucianism.html The second section is “Cultural Diplomacy and Green Friendships. ” McDaniel asserts that green friendships happen when people from different cultures get together and create third spaces, where people can learn from each other’s cultures.
I’m a fan of Mexican and East Asian cuisine; in fact, I try to merge the two regions at times. I have resolved in 2022 to develop Mex-Pac Cuisine! “Pac” is short for the Pacific Ocean. I grew up enamored with Tex-Mex cooking. Then I became a fan of taquerias, a more traditional style of Mexican cuisine that is more likely to have soft tacos and more diverse meats than Tex-Mex.
My first Mex-Pac dish was pork chorizo and firm tofu. Pork chorizo has substantially less fat than beef chorizo. Furthermore, the firm tofu stretches out the strong-spiced meat. Of course, I add minced garlic and chopped onions to everything. Mexican Kim Chee was inspired by Kim Chee of Korea; it starts with Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chiles with Sauerkraut. Then I add chopped onion, minced garlic, cactus slices (nopalitos), and Sriracha hot sauce. Finally, ramen noodles, a Japanese invention, provide a great base for many meat and vegetables. More details later!
Our current environment has been really dangerous for the study of African American history. To make a long story short, you have one group that wants to deny that slavery had bad aftermaths, and the other group claims Blacks had no success before the Civil Rights Movement. Upon my study of African American History, I included that era between slavery and the civil rights movement. Booker T. Washington was an important leader in the 19th century. He was the founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a college that focused on practical education, such as agriculture. Washington’s model influenced Matthew Gaines of Brenham, Texas who was instrumental in the founding of Texas A&M. The TAMU System always included an HBCU, Prairie View A&M. Charles and Ana Spaulding of Durham, North Carolina founded the Mutual Life insurance Company. Durham also has North Carolina Central–a leading HBCU; this city was hailed as having the nicest White people in the USA by both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Booker T. Washington asserted it’s more important to make a dollar than to spend it in the theater of your choice. Martin Delaney (1812-1885) was hailed as the Malcolm X of his generation, for he was the first Black field officer, a medical doctor, and a book/magazine author. The list goes on.
This 7-minute Kwanzaa talk is going to be different from my 6 previous keynote addresses between 2002-2016 since I’m going to bounce around the 7 Principles. Today is Night Five Purpose. We planned on having a more discussion-style format this year, partly because COVID led to our program’s cancellation last year. Kwanzaa 2013 was another discussion-style format too. Creativity in Kwanzaa focuses on applicability, the “get-it-done” aspect of creativity. Leave the community better than when you found it. Gifted & Talented Education notes there are three other aspects of creativity: originality, fluency (lots of ideas), and flexibility (ability to adjust). Urban Studies scholar, Dr. Richard Florida of the University of Toronto, observes that thriving downtown areas need the 4 T’s: talent, tolerance, technology, and territorial assets. Hopefully, my talk will show flexibility successfully.
Faith is traditionally addressed in Tyler by Reverend Reginald Garrett. I’m going to say just one thing about Faith, and it’s from a Chinese viewpoint. The etymology of faith (hsin) is a person standing next to his/her word; thus, it’s synonymous with faithfulness. It’s the 5th and final virtue, meaning you perform the rest quite well. Meanwhile, in Christianity faith means you have the right opinion of God and the universe, so you may be able to get away with some stuff, some of the time.
The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa should have appeal to all people, regardless of race: 1. Unity, 2. Self-Determination, 3. Collective Work & Responsibility, 4. Cooperative Economics, 5. Purpose, 6. Creativity, and 7. Faith. You could cheer for your hometown’s success in an economic plan. Remember when the Moore Grocery Lofts at the northern edge of downtown won a state award for Best Adaptive Reuse? Several years ago, I had the insight that Kwanzaa is the effort to serve as a public intellectual. A public intellectual can be defined as one who brings their scholarship to societal issues outside their formal expertise.
Night 4, Cooperative Economics featured Derrick Choice, I was really glad to hear Derrick Choice talk about North Tyler in the pre-integration era when businesses were strong. Mr. Choice is a former North Tyler congressman among other positions. You can find a YouTube video by the late councilman, Ed Moore, when he described “The Cuts,” a major business area in North Tyler. Desegregation led to many businesses moving south. Many years ago, I even interviewed an old neighbor about sadness concerning desegregation.
Recently, I have done some research at the City of Tyler website https://www.cityoftyler.org and was pointed to Planning and Development websites, particularly Commercial Use Categories. As someone who rides the bus, I have the luxury of staring at the side of the road, but I see the same abandoned buildings in business areas/shopping centers for years. What if shopping centers could come together as a group and tell the weary local real estate agents who they’d like to recruit? For example, if we already got a Whataburger, don’t look for another burger restaurant. If we already got a Cefco, don’t get a dollar store that sells beer, go for a Dollar Tree. So, my comments during Mr. Choice’s talk for Cooperative Economics are relevant to tonight’s talk about Purpose.
I found about Kwanzaa when I was an elementary substitute teacher in the Garland ISD. It helped relieve a lack of books about and for little Black kids. Later, as a Developmental English/Writing instructor at Texas College, the HBCU in North Tyler form 2001-06, I usually assigned a Black History essay, and it became a chapter section in my ongoing textbook. Regardless of type of essay, I encouraged students to choose a happy story, so they’d be more likely to finish their essay. Essay prompts often take a format like, “Describe your favorite or worst job.” Furthermore, maybe you could just pick an upper quartile fun job, so you don’t have to spend a bunch of time figuring out what was “Number 1.”
We’re having Kwanzaa again in Tyler, TX, as it was canceled last year because of the COVID-19. The director invited me to help set up at the library auditorium and talk to a local conservativeTV station. I was warned that much of the questioning would likely revolve around, “Why would a White person attend Kwanzaa? (OK, 7/8 White).” The seven principles of Kwanzaa are (1) Unity, (2) Self-Determination, (3) Collective Work & Responsibility, (4) Cooperative Economics, (5) Purpose, (6) Creativity, and (7) Faith. These are universal concepts that anyone could study, enjoy, and live by. Furthermore, it’s easy to compliment your home city’s achievements with this analytical tool. I believe Kwanzaa enables us to serve as a public intellectual–someone who is trying to use his/her education to benefit society in areas outside one’s areas of expertise.
I’ve always had multicultural interests, starting with Japan and Pre-Columbian history in grade school. My interdisciplinary M.S. thesis was, “Approaching Cognitive-Behavioral and Existential Therapy through Neo-Confucianism.” My favorite music interests have moved from soul to melodic heavy metal to Tejano, and I still like them all. Today was my sixth anniversary of joining a Facebook closed group: Friends from A-Far: A Confucianism group! (We prefer the term, Ru. Missionaries named us after Confucius). I’ve been a taqueria fan for decades.
I first learned about Kwanzaa when I was a substitute teacher (among other jobs) in the Garland ISD during the late ’90s. Since I usually subbed in elementary grades, I found some Kwanzaa books for young kids. Later, I became a full-time Developmental English instructor at Texas College, the HBCU in Tyler, from 2001-06. I wrote and copyrighted a textbook for my course, which included a chapter on African-American Studies. Sometimes, I gave a Black History essay assignment. I encouraged the students to choose a happy topic, so they wouldn’t get depressed and not finish their assignment. I’ve been the main speaker for six Kwanzaa nights between 2002-2016, as well as some general lectures on Kwanzaa elsewhere. Reverend Reginald Garrett always does Faith night, the seventh and final night of Kwanzaa.
This year, I already had a topic for a Kwanzaa talk, centered around discussing African-American success after slavery but before the civil rights movement. African-American history has rarely been so endangered in recent memory. The radical political right claims that we must not teach Critical Race Theory in elementary or secondary school. Actually, it’s a law school topic; that is graduate college. The warning seems to be code for not admitting that slavery happened.
On the other hand, my approach is influenced by an article by Elizabeth Wright, “Keeping the Spotlight on Failure: How to Make Sure the Patient Doesn’t Get Well.” Ms. Wright explains that Black history is normally taught as (1) uprooting from Africa into slavery, (2) freedom followed by segregation, and Jim Crow laws, and (3) civil rights leaders bring integration and success. However, there were many successful entrepreneurs and educators in the segregated era. Alas, the issues-views.com website is gone! Booker T. Washington asserted that the ability to make a dollar was important than being able to spend it in the theater of your choice. Economic success would precede change in the law. Booker T. Washington became the first president of Tuskegee University in Alabama. The practical education focus was agriculture and engineering. This led to the Morrill Act that provided state funding for colleges in each state specializing in fields such as agriculture, engineering, and more. Matthew Gaines of Brenham, Texas–a Black man–was instrumental in the founding of Texas A&M. Charles and Ana Spaulding founded the Mutual Life Insurance Company of Durham, North Carolina–a city hailed by BTW and W.E.B. DuBois as the city with the nicest White folks in the USA, together with North Carolina Central–a leading HBCU. Martin Delaney (1812-1885) was hailed as the Malcolm X of the 19th Century, for he was the first Black field officer, a medical doctor, and a book and magazine author! The list goes on. My approach this time could probably be classified as Black Conservative.
Don Warren–Mayor of Tyler, Texas—delivered a speech at the Reformation House of Prayer (RHOP) entitled, “From a Black Hole: Transformed to a New Life,” on August 16, 2021. https://allevents.in/tyler/mayor-don-warren-from-a-blackhole-transformed-to-a-new-life/200021473028259 Mayor Warren described how becoming Christian enabled him to switch careers and regain success, including moving all the way in City of Tyler government. He used to have bad dreams that he’d go to a black hole during the 1986 oil industry crisis. Mr. Warren got into debt and got separated from his wife. So, he started a seafood restaurant that he ran for ten months. Then he asked for Christ’s help, got a divorce, and a new house. He was single for five months. He started playing the piano professionally as LOMOC (Little Ol’ Me Oil Company). Don married his second wife in 1994 after dating only six weeks. He worked 12 hours per day. Then he quit his job and golfed and watched movies for a year. He took a test at Green Acres Baptist Church, the largest church in all of East Texas, and it revealed he showed mercy.
Now Don turned his interest to the City of Tyler. He worked with a homeless organization, as well as a planning and zoning program with the city government. Mayor Warren was Councilman Warren first. Don helped raise $1.2 M for the renovation of Bergfeld Park, which included a new playground, amphitheater, and tennis court. He led “For All Tyler,” the development of Affordable Housing in Downtown and North Tyler. Tyler had a very cold winter snap in mid-February 2021. Some churches were made into warming centers. A generator on a Brookshire’s Grocery Store got a nursing home turned back on after the electric grid failure.
Mayor Warren turned his talk to more religious issues. All city council meetings begin with prayer for “In God We Trust.” It keeps things in check. Don Warren gave lists of bad and good words. Bad words include ego, power, disconnected, disingenuous, boastful, angry, and resentment. Sadly, Don’s father was a politician turned drunk, who broke his neck and got divorced. Here are the good words: compassionate, content, accessible, connected, relationships, caring, authentic, prayerful, humility, patience, listen, positive. Here are prayer points for city leaders. God, Family, City. To deal with conflict and realize we can’t make everyone happy. Patience means one is a good listener before speaking. Authenticity means to be ourselves, not chameleons. Finally, for positivity, don’t let others bring us down. I’ve known Mayor Don Warren since he was a councilman, and I gave him the nickname, Ubiquitous since you see him all the time in Tyler.
To protest the Anti-Asian movement, I wore the following to Stanley’s Famous Bar-B-Q on Saturday afternoon: (1) my new red Sriracha hot sauce T-shirt, (2) a black bandanna with yin-yang symbols, and (3) my old maroon half-length kimono with the dragon on the back. …..I became a fan of Japanese culture in 3rd grade. I began studying Neo-Confucianism for my M.S. nearly 40 years ago. I taught South Vietnamese refugees ESOL in the late 90s–still have a full-sized flag. It looks like the Cefco logo!
Here’s my response to the CNN special: “Afraid: Fear in America’s Communities of Color.” Y’all hang in there. Multicultural White folks can relate to your grief. I’m happy to be a member of two private Confucian (Ru) groups (related thesis in 1984). My teaching audience was usually Black or Mexican-American. Tejano, soul, and melodic heavy metal rock! #StopAsianHate.
This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day was held in the front yard of the new location for the Texas African-American Museum–coincidentally on MLK Blvd. in a former fire house. Martin Luther King BLVD is the major East-West Street in North Tyler, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Tyler, which includes Texas College–an HBCU and the first institute of higher education in this city. The keynote speaker was Rev. Dr. Orenthia Mason.
The opening prayer was delivered by Bishop Laramie Jackson. It included a bridge to the past and a bridge to bring people together—struggles and achievements. Demerick Tezino sang “Amazing Grace.” LaToyia Jordan offered welcome before Gloria Washington announced the occasion. She reminisced about an early MLK Day observation in Jasper, Texas–25 years ago after an ice storm. “So we may be outdoors, socially distant during this coronavirus pandemic, but it was a rougher to hold a big event back then.” Plenty of chuckles responded.
Today included a celebration for having a new-and-improved location for the African-American Museum; it used to be further north in an abandoned elementary school, but now it’s on a major street. The late councilman, Ed Moore, was instrumental in getting the deal between the city and the museum, and a cornerstone has been planned in his honor. Shirley McKellar has become his successor as councilwoman. Some reconstruction is planned, and they will need donations.
Pastor Nicholas McGrew noted that he memorized the famous, “I Have a Dream” speech –so did his daughter! “We stand in the shadow of the Emancipation Proclamation, but 100 years later we still stand in an island of poverty in an ocean of the rich. To be satisfied, we need to have mobility, vote, and have justice. We still have the dream despite frustrations. Let us be judged by the content of our character; that’s one of MLK’s most famous sayings. Let freedom ring! We need to have integration of races and creeds. Then we’ll be free at last.”
Ms. Verlinda Stanton sang, “”Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the African-American National Anthem. She has worked with such stars as George Clinton and James Earl Jones. She has sung at an event for President Barack Obama too.
Stanley Cofer introduced the keynote speaker, Dr. Orenthia Mason. He observed “the integrated crowd as a dream of Martin Luther King. Esteem others higher than yourself; it’s like giving flowers to those who are still alive. All men are created equal.” Rev. Mason taught in Tyler ISD for 27 years. She was also a principal and on several boards. She retired as minister of St. James Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) church. By the way, Texas College is a CME institution of higher education.
Reverend Orenthia Mason gave a scholarly and “hard-hitting” speech. She noted our continued struggle for freedom and congratulated the museum and city. She asked, “What condition is our condition since MLK’s, ‘I Have a Dream’ speech? We live through recurring cycle of racism, extremists, and hatred. Malcolm X told us to face reality, not a blurred version of the truth. Justice, whoever says it, benefits humanity.” To me, that sounds like a great critique of the ad hominem argument; ignore the idea because of disliking the speaker. Robert Kennedy asserted, “We should make an effort to understand others,” according to Rev. Mason.
She continued, “What condition is our condition in? When minorities vote more than average, it’s labeled as fraud. We are in perilous times.” Black kids are being threatened again. Reverend Mason recalled walking to school in groups with other Black kids, back in the 60s. That was because they could get attacked anyway—sometimes with baseball bats! She recalled, “You had to be better than best. How about the average? The struggles and heart aches of the past are still being felt. We have a long way to go to reach the Promised Land. “
Reflecting on the present, Rev. Mason lamented, “Artifacts of the past include menacing white drivers ‘varooming’ their cars behind her on South Broadway! Many Tylerites don’t even know where Texas College is located.” {It’s located at 2404 N. Grand Avenue, north of MLK Blvd]. She felt more respected during segregation. “The ‘haves’ have more. We’re in the ‘midnight of life,’ ‘strangers in a strange land.’ Let’s sit down at the Welcome Table. Listen; look at character, intellect, and ability. All of us should be who we ought to be.”
Rev. Mason is proud to be a resident of north Tyler. She has been a member of Leadership Tyler, an integrated local think-tank. “We’ve never been more divided in the USA, but we’ll overcome some day. United we stand; divided we fall.” She concluded with a quote by Henry David Thoreau, “It’s never too late to give up prejudice. Speak and listen.”
After another excellent song by Demetrick Tezino, Clarence Shackelford showed a model of the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue in Washington, DC. Leroy Francis donated the statue. Then Mr. Shackelford announced the Award Presentations. Mr. Shackelford, a noted photographer and Army veteran, is the founder of the Texas African-American Museum. Dr. Donna Pitts, a dentist won an award. She’s a graduate of Prairie View A&M and Howard; both are HBCUs. Our new Vice-President, Kamala Harris, is a Howard grad too; it’s located in Washington, DC. Dr. Pitts works for Franklin Dentists in Tyler, and she’s a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority (pink and green colors). Vicki Betts, a librarian, won an award for historical research. (By the way, she’s a little White lady). Rodney L. Atkins also won an award for historical research by writing two books: Remembering When We Were Colored in Tyler, Texas and The History of African-American Teachers in Tyler ISD. He’s connected with the Victory Temple Church.Andre Crawford won the Golden Eagle Award for being the current director of the Tyler Barber College—the first Black institution of its kind in the USA! Tyler Barber College spread to other states. Barber shops have a long history of being community gathering places in Black neighborhoods.
Mayor Don Warren was invited to give some comments. Mayor Warren noted that when he saw an episode of Good Morning, America, kids quoted Martin Luther King, and then asked, “What’s wrong with America?” Mayor Warren, previously a long-time councilman, “wants to work with all of Tyler, so it will be unified and peaceful. “
The program concluded with miscellaneous remarks. A new Councilman for Section 1 said he used to be a fire chief in Tyler. Ed Thompson will do the construction work, and LLC will be the architect on the new museum. It is 5000 square feet—far bigger than the previous museum. The goal is $300K in renovations, but some of the money would go to outdoors construction–such as a playground and outdoor dining area. I suggested building an urban garden to Stanley Cofer, and I later sent my article on the topic. Lunch trucks would be invited as two were here for the festivities. Somebody was selling an African-American News Journal, based on newspaper articles for over a century. If the Texas African-American Museum gets 10K likes on Facebook, then they can have some advertisements there. TAAM is up to 5K likes at the time of the MLK Festival. Sadly, a minister noted that his kids were threatened in Whitehouse lately, a town just southeast of Tyler.
The 2021 Martin Luther King Day celebration was really different this year because of acquiring a better museum and having a North Tyler program. Due to the pandemic, there wasn’t the usual march down Broadway Avenue, followed by the program at Immaculate Conception Catholic Cathedral. Nevertheless, this year’s program was very uplifting and indicated real opportunities for Northside Revitalization that is now being pursued by the City of Tyler.
Footnote: You can check out the edited version that was published in The Tyler Loop also. Thanks to Jane Neal. It’s posted at the top under the title.
We aren’t meeting in the Tyler, Texas Library in 2020 for Kwanzaa because of the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve been delivering official Kwanzaa speeches off-and-on since 2002—all but Faith Night out of seven nights. Of course, I check out Rev. Reginald Garrett for that last night. I’ve published articles as well over the last couple of decades, and I’ve given some general Kwanzaa talks
But we need to do som’n in cyberspace for Kwanzaa. I want to go in the direction of health, specifically the OTC vitamins/minerals that I take on a daily basis. We need to boost our immune system, in case we catch the pandemic COVID19 virus! OK, I’ve been on SSDI for a while for COPD, and I was invited to join the local Community Health Workers (CHW) coalition because of my Word Press articles and whatnot.
Not all multiple vitamins are alike. Spring Valley Super Vitamin B-Complex has 9 vitamins–including C & B12. Nature Made B-Complex has 6 vitamins–including C. Ocuvite for macular degeneration has zinc, among 6 vitamins and minerals plus lutein.
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