"Gentrify your own hood before these people do it... Claim eminent domain and have your people move it... That's a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing..."
~ Jay Z
"Eminent domain in the United States refers to the power of a state or the federal government to take private property for public use while requiring 'just' compensation to be given to the original owner."
~ Wikipedia
As the article writer took a contemplative walk to meditate as to what would be written about the enigmatic figure that is Ermias Joseph Asghedom, aka Nipsey Hussle. The rapper, songwriter, entrepreneur, and community activist is no more. However, at our core, we are 100% energy. Energy that was never created, can never be destroyed, moves into form, through form, and out of form, and the cycle is repeated.
On my walk earlier today, as I contemplated the title of this article, an individual crossed my path who totally resembled Nipsey; about the same height, full long beard and braided hair. He came practically out of nowhere, as he appeared from the side of a small building, made the right turn onto the walking trail, about 40 feet ahead of me. He was smoking a cigarette, made the first left from the trail and headed off in another direction.
I thought, how interesting, here's a figure that materializes right before my eyes, that favors Ermias Asghedom, in every way, shape, and form. The figure was a spirit visitation because the soul is ubiquitous. Considering the fact that I was, and have been since his timely demise, listening to his art, my energy attracted Nip's energy, to remind me how important this article would be, and not to procrastinate.
The "timely demise" comment is not a typo because there is no such thing as an "untimely demise." The soul exits the body at the appropriate and pre-ordained time. Please understand, unless you lived in Los Angeles, or you ardently followed Rap music, you probably were not familiar with Nipsey Hussle. Now the world knows who he was and what he represented consciously, and now sub-consciously.
The astute lyricist Jay Z put it this way, "Gentrify your own hood before these people do it... Claim eminent domain and have your people move it... That's a small glimpse into what Nipsey was doing..."
Allow the author to divagate a bit, to elucidate on "Eminent Domain", "Urban Renewal", and their deleterious effects.
Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds have suffered from government violations of constitutional property rights. But minority groups have often been disproportionately victimized, sometimes out of racial prejudice and other times because of their relative political weakness.
The Supreme Court has given condemning authorities a blank check to take property for whatever purposes they want. Private to private condemnations are often used for the benefit of the politically powerful at the expense of the politically weak. For most of American history, African Americans and other minority groups have fallen into the latter category. As a result, we have often been victimized by the use of eminent domain for “blight” and economic development takings.
Beginning in the 1930's, many states adopted laws and constitutional amendments allowing the condemnation of “blighted” property for transfer to private parties in order to alleviate “slum-like” conditions. Over the next fifty years, as many as several million Americans were expelled from their homes as a result of blight and urban renewal condemnations. Numerous businesses, churches, and other community institutions were also destroyed.
The vast majority of those uprooted from their homes have been poor minorities, primarily African Americans. The use of eminent domain to evict poor blacks during the post-World War II era became commonplace. "Slum clearance" was often referred to as, "Negro clearance."
Between 1949 and 1973, two-thirds of the over one million people displaced under takings sponsored by the Urban Renewal Act of 1949 were African American. This figure understates the total impact of blight takings on blacks, because many blight condemnations were also undertaken by state and local government without federal backing. Hispanic groups, such as Puerto Ricans, were also commonly targeted.
Factors to be considered in determining if an area is "blighted" and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation include such diverse matters as irregularity of the plots, inadequacy of the streets, diversity of land ownership making assemblage of property difficult, incompatibility of an existing mixture of residential and industrial property, overcrowding, incidence of crime, lack of sanitation, drain areas makes on municipal services, fire hazards, traffic congestion and pollution.
For an area to be termed "blighted" and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation, degree of deterioration or precise percentage of obsolescence or mathematical measurement of other factors do not have to be arrived at with precision, since combination and effects of such things are highly variable.
In many cases, the disproportionate impact on African Americans was not merely an accidental byproduct of efforts to "clean up" poor neighborhoods; it was deliberate gentrification.
Local governments sometimes sought to rid themselves of what they called “niggertowns.” In most cases, those displaced by blight condemnations ended up worse off than they were before, and were not fully compensated for their losses.
In 1954, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of blight condemnations in Berman v. Parker. Berman upheld a blight condemnation that was part of a project that forcibly displaced over 5,000 people in a poor Washington, DC neighborhood. Some 97.5 percent of them were African American. Only about 300 of the 5,900 housing units constructed on the site after blighting and gentrification, were affordable to the former residents of the area, most of whom ended up in worse conditions elsewhere. By the 1960's, the neighborhood in question was majority white.
Source: The Civil Rights Implications of Eminent Domain Abuse
Wholesale clearance of slum areas and pillar-to-post relocation of families who live in lower-income, impoverished neighborhoods, have long created discontent. Members of racial and ethnic minorities who have seen the impecunious buildings they occupied replaced by luxury apartment homes have grown resentful of city planning that rarely seems to make adequate provision for their needs. The late, great author James Baldwin, stated, "Urban renewal means Negro removal."
Nipsey Hussle's blueprint is all about lifting ourselves up from whatever challenges we face as Africans in America. Asghedom's archetype is also about self-education and entrepreneurship; it's about contributing to your own community. Thereby alleviating the need for handouts, and avoiding government-sponsored gentrification.
The definition of gentrification is, "the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper or middle-income families or individuals, raising property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses."
Therefore, the solution to this historical quagmire is to clean, maintain, rebuild our own neighborhoods; to buy black as often as possible (and if you can't buy black, support black). In order to succeed, we must first - as part of Nipsey's model and sacrifice - we MUST stop KILLING one another. When you take the life of another black man or woman, you're essentially killing yourself and crippling the entire African-American race.
Whether you believe this to be true or just hyperbole, "We are our brother's keeper." Anything we do, going forward, contrary to the aforementioned statement, is a tragic indication that Ermias Joseph Asghedom lived his life in vain; that his efforts and ultimate sacrifice was meaningless and futile.
The Marathon Continues...
For centuries, our global society has suffered through horrific wars and nonsensical 'cold wars' between Christianity and Islam, based on which deity is the real God (which is beyond absurd).
"My God is better!" "No, Allah is better!" "Well, my God is the true Father!"
Religious adherents are like a bunch of 6-year-olds arguing over whose dad has the better job, or which toy is best.
The "realness" of God is a circular argument that will never be answered; not in our lifetimes, not in our children's lifetime, children's children, and down through infinite generations.
When we transition, the first realization is that we are all connected to Source. We are like that cup of water dipped into the sea, returning to a beautiful, loving, compassionate, nonjudgmental, all-encompassing ocean.
"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."
"No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves."
"Human beings are individualized expressions of the same Source. Some are tall, some are short, some are dark, some are light, some male, some female."
It's sad that there are so many divisive forces that guide our lives. We argue and fight over race, politics, and religion and have long forgotten, or ignored, the time tested aphorism, "United we stand, divided we fall." And that's not specific to the citizens of America, the veracity of this maxim crosses geographical borders.
My solace comes from the fact that this existence, when it's over, will be like waking up from a bad dream.
People look at me sideways when I say this:
"There are other realities out there, other planets, and other dimensions that are much more loving, much more peaceful, and far less manipulative than this rather limited, 3-dimensional reality we refer to as planet Earth."
You'll often hear people say, "life is short," or, "you only get one life, make the most of it." While it is wise to aspire to be the best you can be, as author P.M.H. Atwater stated:
"Somewhere there is always life."
This life is simply a learning experience, a way to broaden our spiritual, energetic, and intellectual horizons. If there's more for us to learn in this terraqueous purlieu, we'll return to the same corporeality in another existence.
If we've made the best of our sojourn here and have learned the basic lesson of unconditional love, our soul/spirit/energy (whatever you care to label it), after this existence, will incarnate in a higher dimension.
Based on over 30 years of research, study, and life experience, this is the article writer's hypothesis as to why we are here.
The "Creation Story," "Heaven and Hell," "Eternal Reward or Damnation," nothing but a Roman story, written by primitive men, gone horrendously viral.
Maybe you've heard the adage, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." It is not incumbent on the "non-believer" to prove their extraordinary claims for the "believer."
The religious adherent believes there was a super-natural being performing miraculous, impractical, illogical and unscientific activities (along with a 600-year-old man gathering two of every species in the world and other outlandish evangelical apocrypha). The burden of proof falls on the individual making those claims to prove their contentions, not the other way around.
Logical objections to nonsensical medieval miracles are based on scientific evaluations, common sense, and the clear evidence of what we have, not what we don't have (aka, blind faith). Compare factual scientific and archaeological data to what's written in archaic text; to what was written 2000-4000 years ago, by men who thought we lived on a flat planet; by writers who had no knowledge of the Jurassic (about 200 million years ago) or Cretaceous (66 million years ago) epochs, and it would be tantamount to comparing Einstein to a first-grader.
The skeptic (or in religions parlance, the heretic) is not claiming, for example, the Greek son of God, Hercules, whose life resembles that of Jesus Christ in many ways, is actually a real historical figure. Therefore, the skeptics burden of proof should not be greater than that of the people making the extraordinary claims. Fallacious assertions such as Jesus walking on water, being raised from the dead, a 600-year old man - Noah - building an Ark, God parting the Red Sea, etc.
Christian theologians, scholars, and historians however, tend to rely on less evidence for proof of their faith, than for comparative religious mythology and for those who challenge their preposterous pious pronouncements. In other words, they want evidence for every minute detail when one speaks against their archaic beliefs, and all the believer needs is "faith." The heretic is required to provide mountains of evidence, in different languages, various cultures, as far back into antiquity as you can go, to show conflicting motifs, contrasting themes, and origins.
In order to convince themselves that 2000 years ago, the god of the cosmos came to Earth (of all the other sextillions of planets that harbor thinking beings) in the womb of a virgin, performed miracles, raised the dead, transfigured on a mount, calmed a storm, resurrected himself from the dead, for all these miraculous events, Christians require nothing more than blind faith and ten percent of your monthly income.
There is no proof other than the New Testament, so their standards are extremely low. There are no physical artifacts from the first century that support such ludicrous claims. There are no autographs or originals of the Gospels or Epistles. There is no evidence in the literary record of the existence of the Canonical Gospels as they would have been before the end of the second century.
The Bible we have today is not quoted verbatim, and none of the fabricated, plagiarized literature, appears anywhere in the annals of human history.
Furthermore, there is not a shred of evidence to show that the gospels were written by the people whose names are presented in the Bible. We don't have proof that the authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, actually lived, as depicted in the New Testament.
The stories pertaining to Saint Paul, were not recorded anywhere (except the Bible). Fantastic stories like Paul being brought before Caesar (Acts 25:10), rampaging with hundreds of troops, he's in a ship wreck, escapes from a Roman prison, none of these significant events make it into the historical records of that particular time.
There is no information in any contemporary writings of that particular epoch. Jesus is quoted and paraphrased to the tenth power. However, the plethora of forgeries and fabrications don't emerge until a century has passed. There really is no evidence for the entire Christian story other than the New Testament which is about 90 percent plagiarized from Egyptian mythology (the later).
In addition, at the death of Jesus; 1st Corinthians, 500 people supposedly witnessed the resurrection; there were earthquakes, the sun darkened, the saints rose up out of the ground and wandered through the streets of Jerusalem; Matthew 27: "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." None of this finds its way into the contemporary record. You have to wonder why. The believer can't just say, "provide me with all types of documentation related to pre-Christian cultures and apocryphal stories but I'm satisfied with what I read in the New Testament, with absolute nothing to back it up except outlandish fairy tales.
There were numerous historians writing during one of the best documented periods in human history. None of the historians mention any of the miracles the Bible says were performed by Jesus.
Historians such as:
- Apollonius of Tyana, (Born: 3 BCE, Died: 100 CE) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor.
"Being a 1st-century orator and philosopher around the time of Christ, he was compared with Jesus of Nazareth by Christians in the 4th century."
Apollonius was born 3 years before the purported birth of Jesus so to come back 300 years later and "compare him to Jesus," defies logic and common sense. It was more like Christians comparing Jesus to Apollonius, 3 centuries later. This is not a chicken and egg scenario because historical records show Apollonius of Tyana was an actual person; there is absolutely no documented proof (again, other than the Christian holy book) that Jesus walked around performing miracles in Jerusalem.
Furthermore, the character of Jesus has no last name, Christ or Christos is not really a name but an appellation, or title. It describes an appointment; a function in the theocratic structure of Israel.
- Phaedrus (Athenian): name translates to "bright" or "radiant", was born to a wealthy family sometime in the mid-5th century, and was the first cousin of Plato's stepbrother Demos.
- Philo Judaeus: called Philo of Alexandria (born 15–10 BCE, Alexandria - died 45–50 CE), he was a Greek-speaking Jewish philosopher, the most important representative of Hellenistic Judaism (Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in the ancient world that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture). Philo would have lived during the time Jesus walked the Earth; there is no mention of Jesus in his contemporary annotations.
- Valerius Maximus: Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He worked during the reign of Tiberius (14 CE to 37 CE).
There are many more historians who lived slightly before, during, and after the apocryphal life of the protagonist of the Christian story, and none broach the subject of a guy who walked on water and rose from the dead.
Ok, that horse is dead, so lets look at the non-biblical records of the existence of Jesus, and this would be books of antiquity that do not quote the Bible. I'll wait...
Where are the legitimate historical records such as those that exist for Julius Caesar:
- Born: July 100 BCE- Rome; Died: 15 March 44 BCE (age 55) - Rome. Without a doubt, historians would not have omitted - as Christians would have it - the most significant man/deity in human history. If you're about to pull Flavius Josephus out of your pious hat, you may want to do some research.
or Plato
- Born: 428 BCE; Died: 348 BCE - philosopher and mathematician in Classical Greece, and the founder of "The Academy" in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
or Xenophon
- Born: 430 BCE; Died: 354 BCE - son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, and student of Socrates.
Deny all you want, there is no way around the fact that if such a powerful entity perambulated the 90-mile stretch of territory (and with no means of travel except mules, he would not have been able to go very far), his life would have been recorded in history.
There was lots of construction going on in the area where Jesus was to have performed his ministry. The area was more of a crossroads, lots of traffic coming through, from the European continent into Egypt. Myriad people passed through this area and certainly would have heard and written about these miraculous feats.
Scholar of comparative religion and mythology, writer, historian, and researcher, D.M. Murdock (aka Acharya S) states [paraphrasing]:
"It seems to be pretty obvious when you consider all the factors needed to understand, the context and milieu of the day, the only way you can sustain the gospel story is to have it in a vacuum; to remove all practicality around it."
"All the other cultures, you would have to be ignorant of all history, mythology, culture, and language of the time in order to maintain such a story."
Unfortunately, that's exactly what we have today; a collective sacrosanct, willful ignorance among Christian followers.
Murdock: I've actually had debates with people who have said, "oh, I don't want to know anything about those pre-Christian cultures because they were all evil."
At this point, there is no amount of evidence to convince the [brainwashed individual to study and do the research on his or her own]. Then you have the special pleading of "we can believe this, without a stitch of evidence, because it's 'faith'. But, we can't believe anything that you've said, without a mountain of evidence, that we will still reject."
This is where the canonical debate ends for me because, as I've told my children since they were old enough to understand, "it takes a fool to argue with a fool."
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