A Reason Why My Father is So Great

My father has always been one of my many role models in life.  He's the reason that I have a generous nature and that I always try to think about other people.  Regardless if they deserve it or not.

He's always been a helpful guy.  People in the neighborhood still come to him to this day when they need something.  Maybe something is wrong with their car or they need a ride to work.  He's always willing to help and all he asks for in return is a sincere "thank you".

Those things are well and good, but it's the little things that makes him so great in my eyes.  I remember once when he was driving home from somewhere late at night.  Maybe it was a trip home from Chicago or somewhere far off, but there was a car in front of him that occasionally veered out of its lane.

My father recognized that the person driving the vehicle was sleepy and had difficulties paying attention to the road.  So, instead of passing him like most people would and leaving the man to fend for himself, my father did something unexpected:  he aggressively blew his car horn at the man.

The drive immediately corrected himself and returned back into the lane.

After 5 or 6 more minutes, the car veered to the right once again and my father blew his horn to get his attention.  Every time it appeared that the man was going to sleep, my father would blow his horn to wake him.  He did that for at least 10-15 miles!  Even though the man was going slower than the speed limit, probably due to fatigue, my father hung in there with him and made sure he stayed awake.

Finally, the man reached his exit and left the highway.  As he was exiting the road, he rolled down his window and waved his hand at my father as he drove by.  He recognized what my father did for him and showed his appreciation for it by acknowledging him.

My father won't get any type of medal or recognition for what he did.  He's a believer that you always do the right thing and try to help people even when no one is looking.  That's how you know you're a good person.  But, he did gain something that evening: my admiration and my desire to be just as thoughtful as he is.

I Don't Believe in Road Rage, But I Understand!

I'm a very calm guy.  In fact, some of my friends wonder if anything bothers me at all.  I can't help that I'm a very nonchalant guy.  I like to keep things in perspective, so that keeps me grounded.  I'm usually pretty patient, but sometimes, there are some things that can raise my blood pressure.  And it usually involves people not respecting the roadways.

Road rage happens to all of us.  However, some overreact when compared to others.  I don't angrily blow my horn (any more -- people get shot for less) or throw finger signs.  I usually just mentally curse people out in my head and keep it moving.  But there are two things that irk me when it comes to sharing the road:

They acted like we weren't even there.

Cyclists

If there is any group of people on this planet who seem to feel more entitled to the road, it's cyclists.  They act as if they have bumpers on their bikes.  Just recently, I was going to visit my grandmother.  She lives kind of off in the country, so the roads are just two lanes for most of the way.  I rolled up behind a group of cyclists.  It was close to 20 of them and they were just pedaling away around 15 mph.  In my mind, I'm thinking, "Well, I'm sure that they'll get over to the side and allow the cars to pass.  After all, it's a curvy road, so the only way to get by is for them to allow us to do so."

Yeah, I don't know why I thought that.

They rode and chatted for close to 3 miles while me and roughly 8-10 vehicles followed them like we were in a parade.  They never made an attempt to pull over on a side street to allow us by or even ride single file to give us room.  They just left us back there to cruise as if we didn't exist.  By the time I got to my grandmother's house, you could probably see a vein popping out of my neck.  If I'd only had a snowplow, I could have just shoved them off in the ditch and kept rolling.

Very frustrating to get stuck at an intersection.

Intersection Blockers

These are the people who pull into an intersection although there's no room on the other side to clear the lane.  So, when you get the green light to go through, you can't go anywhere because these numbskulls are blocking your way as in the photo above.

If they only allowed machine guns on the front of cars.

I took that photo at a very busy intersection in Jackson.  Every day at 5 PM, people clog the lanes knowing that they're blocking you, too.  But, like the cyclists, they don't care.  Because they obviously think that they're more important than you and that your time isn't valuable as theirs.  All you can do is wait on them to clear the intersection and hope that you still have a green light.  If not, you may have to do it all over again with the next set of idiots.

Old schoolers will get this reference.

Conclusion

If I were to ever snap and take a tire iron to someone's knees some day, then know that one of these two types of people would be the recipient of me going Tonya Harding on them.  People should respect the roadways and everyone on it.  It would make the commute to your destination go that much better if the person next to you is considering you when making decisions.

But that's not the world that we live in.  Everyone thinks that they're more important than you and that you should understand that.  That's why people pull out in front of you, refuse to let you merge, and things of that nature.  Society gets more disrespectful each and every day.  I guess that I may as well get used to it because there doesn't appear to be enough people willing to change it.

Why Is Sex No Longer Sacred?

I was watching the "Amber Rose Show" just recently.  In all honesty, I was watching the show for all of the wrong reasons.  I just think that Amber Rose is smoking hot, so I decided to tune in.  But the show was so awful that I know that I won't be watching it again.

The entire show was basically Amber Rose asking women questions about sex.  Women were disclosing everything from how many side dudes they've had to being on top during sex.  Some people call it "women empowerment" and other people call it "women being promiscuous".  Whatever you want to call it is totally dependent on your upbringing.

As for my upbringing, I was taught that sex was something sacred.  You didn't share what you did with everyone.  It was deemed disrespectful to your partner to discuss your sexual experiences with them to someone else.

Fast forward to today and everyone is doing it.  People are getting on TV, radio, and social media and discussing their sex lives like they're talking about their day at work or something.  I watched Amber Rose talk about sex for her entire show except for the last segment (which was only a couple of minutes long).  She "interviewed" rapper, T.I., and asked him his favorite sex position, the craziest place he's had sex, and if he masturbated.

I was thinking to myself, "how in the world are kids going to not be teen parents if all they see on TV is how much fun sex is?"

I guarantee you that there are a ton of kids under 18 years old watching Amber's show and shows like hers.  It's not like parents pay attention to what their children watch.  A ton of the girls watching probably want to be Amber Rose and a ton of boys want a girl like her.  She has a glamorous lifestyle and makes a lot of money for basically doing nothing truly talented.  Who wouldn't want that life?

But, back to the topic... Sex isn't sacred any more.  People will tell you all of their business without any thoughts to how you feel about it or how their partner would feel if they found out.  And if you feel awkward discussing it with them, then you're looked at as someone abnormal.  A conversation that may have been reserved to close friends and siblings is now something you can get from a coworker you barely know.

In roughly 30 years, the United States has done a 180 degree turn around in morals.  Sex is "empowering" and not something kept private.  Cursing is simply just talking and not something done out of the public's earshot.  Being reckless with your life is no longer scolded, but it is praised by everyone for you "expressing yourself" (and sometimes rewarded with money and fame).

Nothing is sacred any more.  TV has dumbed down in 30 years what took hundreds of years to create.  The end result is me watching Amber Rose ask a woman if she has a side dude (actually, "dude" wasn't the d-word that she used) and this young lady must have named 10+ guys.  She was applauded for it.

To each their own, I guess.  It makes me wonder what conversations are parents having in households across the U.S. with their children?  Is this type of thing even being discussed?  Based on what I'm seeing on TV, it is being discussed.  Just by celebrities instead of parents.

Black Lives Don't Matter, But Cops Lives Do

So, a couple of more unarmed black men are approached for something petty and ultimately gunned down at the hands of cops.  One of many reasons why I wrote about black people being extinct by the Year 2100.

Let me start off, like every other black writer, by saying that I have nothing against the police.  For some reason, people think that if you're pro-black that you're anti-white or anti-cop.

That's just stupid.

Just because you want to stop breast cancer doesn't mean that you're all for cervical cancer.  This blog encourages common sense, so those who actually use it before commenting or inboxing me are appreciated.

The Media

First of all, I'm tired of the media regurgitating the same ol' rhetoric that means nothing.  I'm tired of hearing "It's time to have the conversation about..."  About what?  We've been talking for 60 years and nothing has changed.  The only difference between 1956 and 2016 is that we have the ability to film the killings today.  The only downside to that is how the media exploits it.  They're the main reason cops are afraid of black men today.  We're portrayed as predators and the police hunts us down as such.

The officers being shot last night in Dallas was a tragedy.  The media should be bringing their family together via satellite with the family of the unarmed black men who were recently shot to show their similarities.  Instead, they act as if those grieving black families no longer exist.  Because the shooting of cops is more important to them than of unarmed black men.  Black lives don't matter, but cops lives do.  The value of their lives are unequal in the eyes of the media.  That nonsense is passed on to the American viewers who ultimately start to subconsciously believe the same thing.

The Police

The same police who scream about how snitching is protecting criminals in the black communities are ALWAYS tight-lipped about one of their own who commits an atrocity against an unarmed black man.

Has anyone in the police department ever stood up and said, "my partner was wrong for shooting that man"?

If so, then I'd love to see a video of it because I've never seen it.  Police protect their own yet chastise the black community for doing the same.  The irony in that is astounding!  They want black people to help them find cop killers, but won't help black people find unarmed black men killers.

Black Cops

If you're a black cop and you don't speak out against your own people getting killed, then punch yourself in the throat.  It's a shame that some black cops will protect the law enforcement brotherhood while ignoring their own.  Is this lady the only cop with guts to speak out against the treatment of her own people?  Does it have to be someone in your family before you start to care?

Oh, I almost forgot.  The Commander in Chief needs to take a stand for the killing of black men like he has for the LGBT community's rights and health care.  Stop ignoring black people, Mr. President.  This has nothing to do with gun control unless you're going to start taking guns from the police.

Conclusion

This will never end.  It will never end because we will always have an Us. vs. Them mentality.  There is a ton of evidence of blacks snitching on blacks for the greater good.  When police start doing the same with each other, then maybe some trust can be developed.  When police actually start going to jail, then maybe black folks can be alright with the PD.  When the media actually bad mouths police like they did Christopher Dorner (a former black cop), then maybe black people will come around.

Oh, and Christopher Dorner was a terrorist for sure.  But if you think that he's much different than the cop who shot Philando Castile, then you're not capable of understanding the point that I'm trying to make.

Good and bad doesn't have a color, but we don't treat it that way.  If it were, then armed white men wouldn't get taken into custody and bought sandwiches while unarmed black men get taken to the coroner with multiple bullet holes in them.