IT MUST START WITH YOU NOT YOUR NEIGHBOR NOT YOUR MAYOR NOT YOUR GOVERNOR
Paul Robeson: A Genius Oppressed A Man of Courage A Man Encouraged by His Clergy Father
Paul Robeson is not selected for attention here because he was Black. I am not a white man who has chosen this man from some kind of guilty conscience, or as if I had to begin with a race-lesson to teaching white people “something.” No not at all. My choice is based on the fact that this man, who in my view likely had a genius I.Q., lived a life where the color of his skin was a constant barrier to how others saw him rather than as how he saw himself. How does the story of Paul Robeson fit you, if you are a white person, or a Spanish speaker, or a Chinese, or a Russian, or a Muslim, or a Socialist or “something else condemned by the Lying Manipulating Power Brokers in this Nation”?
When you read or hear the story of Paul Robeson’s life, you are reading the story of a Man Who Would Not Give Up Despite the Constant Drain on Him. That is the way I will put it. The relevance to you is that you are living in the United States when some extremely wealthy people–with wealth we cannot even imagine–are using that wealth to convince you only to cooperate, to submit, to stop questioning, to stop believing you have any POWER, to give up now, to refuse to UNITE with other people like you. I am hoping you will learn something from the life of Paul Robeson. Although most of us are not as gifted as he was, his gifts are NOT the point. The point is, he was hated and rejected and judged but he refused ever to give up his LIGHT GOD GAVE HIM TO SPEAK THE TRUTH FOR ALL PEOPLE.
Let Us Go Back Before Paul Robeson to 1608
To HEAR a Great Noble Indian Chief Better than ANY President
Who Talked About the Golden Rule – Loving One Another
In 1608, there was an Indian Chief named Powhatan, who communicated to a white man, Captain John Smith. Powhatan and his people had compassion on Smith and his ignorant white explorers–who could not even feed themselves. Powhatan befriended him. He and his people fed Smith and his group Indian corn and other food. Yet in what you are about to read, Smith had sent war parties to track and kill Powhatan and his people, because they had defended themselves from violent Whites. Lying bastard White historians have called all the Indian Nations “savages” and “barbarians” who “resisted civilization.” Here we go now, back to 1608, and you can read what Powhatan the Hunted said to John Smith The Savage. Smith and other Whites called the Indians “savages.” Do you know the word used by the “savage” Powhatan in this communication? LOVE. What a barbaric, uncivilized, brutal Indian deserving to be hunted down, and slaughtered. See if you can learn something by reading what follows. I have emboldened important words.
Powhatan to John Smith 1608
“Captain Smith…I know the difference between Peace and War better then any in my Country. But now I am old and soon must die….I wish the experience of my people to be no less then mine, and your love to them no less than my love to you. But this bruit [i.e., rumor] … that you are come to destroy my Country, so much creates fear that all my people do not dare visit you. What will it achieve for you to take by force what you may quickly have by love, or to destroy the people who provide you food? What can you get by war, when we can hide our stores of food and run into the woods? So you must starve by wronging us, your friends. And why are you thus jealous of our loves, seeing us unarmed, and we both do and are willing to feed you, and you cannot survive except by our work? You think I am simple, not to know it is better to eat good meat, lie down calmly, and sleep quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with you being your friend, or instead, to lie cold in the woods, feed on acorns, roots and such trash and be hunted by you, so I can neither rest, eat nor sleep. But my tired men must watch, and if a twig breaks, every one cries, “Here comes Captain Smith!!” Then I must run…. Let this statement assure you of our loves, and every year our friendly trade shall furnish you with corn. And now, if you would come in a friendly manner to see us–and not with your guns and swords as if invading your enemies….”
Learn Now About a Man LIKE YOU
A Man Judged, a Man Despised as Nothing, a Man Put Down at Every Turn
Please take the time to watch these videos about Paul Robeson. Take notes on “issues you see” and “how he responded.” Then I am hoping that you will consider this man as a model for yourself, your family, and your closest friends to USE ALL God has given you, to BE and to STAND COURAGEOUS against all odds put in the path of Normal Loving People put there by Political Parties–both Republican and Democrat–and by the Billionaires who think they are “better than you” and who think, in their own deluded minds, that you ARE nothing more but prey for them to hunt and kill, if you will not bow to their Mastery Over YOU and YOURS, and your Neighbors, and even Immigrants who have come here for their own version of “The American Dream.”
I share the life of this great man, Paul Robeson, who died in 1976, because Paul was “just a person” like you or me. Yet what made him great was not just his talents, but his will not to quit. And we must place Paul in the honored company of men like Chief Powhatan, who had the nobility and courage to say to a man once his friend, “Why did you not come to us in love?,” when you face your enemies in the United States of America.
Our greatest enemies are not people in foreign lands, or those “immigrants” damned by Republicans, but those who destroy people for their own gain. You are needed today!!!
Paul Robeson: Here I Stand Documentary (1999) 1 hour, 58 minutes, 5 seconds
Paul Robeson: Scandalize My Name (2007) 32 minutes, 30 seconds
The Tallest Tree in the Forest (1977) 23 minutes, 37 seconds
Robeson Singing “The House I Live In”
Robeson Singing to Scottish Miners (1949)
NOW, what will You DO? What will you SAY to your family? What will you SAY to your Neighbors?
What will you do with What is LEFT of your Life that God Gave You?
God has given you Our Common Task, TO STAND UP AND LIVE OUT THE GOLDEN RULE: “Do to others what you want them to do to you” or “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Paul Robeson is not selected for attention here because he was Black. I am not a white man who has chosen this man from some kind of guilty conscience, or as if I had to begin with a race-lesson to teaching white people “something.” No not at all. My choice is based on the fact that this man, who in my view likely had a genius I.Q., lived a life where the color of his skin was a constant barrier to how others saw him rather than as how he saw himself. How does the story of Paul Robeson fit you, if you are a white person, or a Spanish speaker, or a Chinese, or a Russian, or a Muslim, or a Socialist or “something else condemned by the Lying Manipulating Power Brokers in this Nation”?