Monday, January 31, 2011

Star Student A+

Good Morning Lord. Thank You for waking me this morning. Thank you Lord for loving me and for helping me to continue to find myself and to know myself.

God, as I look back over my life I see that love is patient. True love requires time--and hard work.

Lord I have continued to go to him most Tuesdays and Sundays.

Most. I have taught him well. Years ago I wrote in the journal my embarrassment about the things I said and I told him don't acknowledge me or the journal. Now seven years later, he does a very good job of ignoring me. I struggle just to be near him and he ignores me. Well, mind you, I said to do it long ago, but, can we stop. You are great at it. You get a gold star for ignoring me. I just cant be ignored anymore. I'm in need of love now.I need someone that will recognize me and love me. Someone who is happy to see me and will show me that that they are happy to see me. Someone who wants to walk with me, talk with me, hold my hand sometimes, hold the door open for me, pull my chair out. Someone who wants me to have anything I want and wants to give it to me. That kind of stuff. True Love is not something that comes around very often.

Why I don't get any of that from you and I know I probably encouraged you to behave in the manner in which you are. I am as guilty as ever because I encouraged you to ignore me because I got stuck and silent, but now I don't know how to change it. I know I am not stuck with him and I am with you. So I have to wonder, what is best for me? Is God protecting me? Is it for my own good that I remain silent with you? You have adjusted very well and it doesnt seem to bother you. I wonder how you can say you love me and not want to be with me? Not even want to say hello and hug me. Just walk right by me as if I am just another person on the street. Do you only enjoy and need the journal? You need the journal and get mad at me when I don't write. What do I get out of this? I don't think I am unreasonable. Seven years of writing in this journal gives me the right to get mad. SEVEN YEARS and I am no closer to a relationship than I was on the very first entry. I think I will be asking God to help me better show my love to those who care about me and who I care about. You can show me better than you can tell me.

So

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

So He Will Be A Write In

Let him be a write in.
This way his opponets will know that his constituents can read and write.
Make sure his name is plastered everywhere.

Friday, Dcember 10, 2004

I don't know what happened to me that day but I know that reading my own blog has blessed me.

I read a comment from someone, the first ever comment to this blog, and I was blessed by it so I decided to look at the post that I had published that had blessed someone and see if I could get some insight.

I did. God had been directing me to forgiveness today. I thought it was because I had fought with my daughter yesterday, but it was more.

When I read the post, I found out that I was also talking about forgiveness of my enemies. God forbid I forgive some of the enemies of me personally and my people in general.

Forgive the KKK who hung blacks for being disrespectful to their superior thinking, The Confederate who massacred, ambushed, murdered my direct ancestors. The ones who are causing harm around the world. Forgive the establishment that allows me to hate my own at times for their treatment of me. It has always been a black face to commit a crime against me and my family. It has bee a white established racial system that has kept us financially struggling. It was a black person that put a knife to my throat when I was 8 years old. It was a black person that threw a brick and hit my brother in the head when he was 6 years old, resulting in some kind of brain damage that just puts him in the outer limits of normal. He is a very smart man, just something isnt quite right anymore. It was a black person that stole from my classroom repeatedly and daily. Even now the fact that the people I love have done me wrong, my own people, I love them. It is unfortunate to love those that continue to hurt you. While I continue to develop relationships with white that have lasted for years and years. Decades, and decades. But for me it stopped being black and white and became geographical location, culture, emotions, individual. You can't group everyone together. There are criminals and white collar crimes galore unfortunately.

So I say that all to say I am blessed today. I want you to be blessed too.

Human Engagement

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Being in Love is Easy

Today's sermon was very warm, and enriching and it added to my mental growth and happiness. I was so happy to be in the house of the Lord and to hear you preach.

I was very happy to see you. I really missed you.

You know that he wants to play with your puppy. I told him maybe in the spring when its warmer.

I bought my tickets for the two events. I even bought the 50 dollar ticket for Trinity. After all it is John Legend, but I'd pay that to see you sing sing on stage too. You are worth it.

I actually had a glimpse of a new future for me today and I liked what I felt and saw. I have a new appreciation of just how valuable family, friends and everyone else are in my life.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Affirming One Another

We all need to be noticed and appreciated.
"That was a great meal"
"You look fabulous"
"Thanks for remembering"
Especially by the ones who most value our opinion

In what area of my life would I most like to be praised?

We must make praise specific and meaningful and concrete.

Song of Songs 6:3
"I am my lover's and my lover is mine"

When you actively adore each other and affirm each you do not ignore the relationship

I affirm you and adore you. I ask God to make me a channel of love and affirmation to those I meet.

You are doing a good job. Be proud of yourself. I love you.

Revelation 3 - A Comprised Person ready for Change

Well I have finally gotten the message from my body. Slow Down! When I fell off the desk/bookcase in August, I didn't miss a beat. My schedule kept going. It was the beginning of the school year, I couldn't be sick now. But the body said I don't care. So now, after having pushed myself for four months with serious injury to my knees. Now I am suffering the consequences of not paying attention to my own body. Taking care of everyone else but myself. So now I am on medical leave for a year. Believe you me, I need it. I do not want to be bedridden, wheelchair bound for an extended period of time. I want to get well and that means physical therapy and exercise. Thank God nothing is broken. I know God is with me and God is telling me that all things are possible. So many different opportunities to do now. Now that I am not going into that school everyday I can breathe a sign of relief and really focus on healing myself. Thank You God for your insight and guidance.

Supernatural time is getting ready to interrupt the finite time. I am listening to the New Year's Eve Watch Service.

I have a VAIO, full HD 1080p, Windows Vista, intel Centrino 2, dolby sound room, lap top that I got in 2009.

Why isnt the video sharp and clear on my laptop?

John's food was locust. John ate his enemies. In the old testament the locust were the winners. Now we are able to devour the stuff that used to destroy us. It has now become my food. Whatever the locust are in your life, you are getting ready to destroy your enemy.

The door is open and God said, I am opening the door of the blessing cycle. I initially couldn't understand what God was saying.

I was looking at my monthly bills. Every month these bills keep coming. You don't have to call them or remind them. God said that is how it will be with God. As long as you stay connected you will be in the blessing cycle. Have you ever noticed that you just paid the bill, and here comes the bill again. That's how its going to be with the blessing. It seems like you just made a way for me, but here it comes again, and again, and again.

Don't be surprised if the blessings just keep coming, you are on a blessing cycle. If I can get bills regularly, why can't I get blessings regularly. The Blessing Cycle. I am on the blessing cycle, here it comes again, and again and again.

Finally, as we get ready to cross to the new year, If we are ready to receive what God has for us then we must be ready and in position to receive it.

The miracle of Peter walking on the water began while Peter was still on the boat.

While we are still in the boat of our health, employment, or what ever your boat is, the miracle begins now.

Enough of this I have to see it to believe it. The miracle begins now. One minute Peter was panicking and then he did something no man had done.

When Peter changed the situation changed. Peter found things different when Peter was different. Some people accept things like they are. Some come to church every single Sunday waiting for things to change. When God comes on the scene, Heaven begins working things out. Ask the leper, Stop waiting for things to happen, when you are different, it will be different. When you change it will change. Nothing around Peter had changed, Peter became the master of his circumstances. I kill the victim mentality in the name of Jesus. Stop waiting for things to change. Know that you have to change. The water didn't change, Peter changed. I call you to master your circumstances.

The sea still rose, but Peter began to eat his locust. Peter walked on the locust that was devouring him. He walked on the water that used to intimidate him. It became a doormat for him to walk over. The miracles begin within us. You don't have to look for God or circumstances. It begins in us. When I change I change my surroundings. When we change the whole church is gone. The sea threatened Peter. When Peter changed circumstance changed. I charge you tonight in the name of Jesus Christ to see the open door in front of you in 2011. See the growth before you. Stop waiting for circumstances to change, change what you believe and see the circumstances follow the belief. No longer fear the locust. You shall eat what has been stolen from you. I am the new testament. Locust don't eat me, I am a new testament, I devour locust. I am an establisher of the kingdom of God. I eat locust. You will have plenty to eat until you are full and you will praise the name of the Lord our God who will work wonders for you. Never again shall I be shamed/chained. God is about to show everybody that He Is My God.

Declare tonight that 2011 shall be the most effective year of my life. I declare tonight because of my connectedness with Christ, I am entering the blessing cycle. I declare before Heaven and Earth and all of Hell this will be my finest hour, I declare this is the year of the open door.

Monday, January 17, 2011

The Dred Scott Decision Dred Scott was the name of an African-American slave. He was taken by his master, an officer in the U.S. Army, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin. He lived on free soil for a long period of time.
When the Army ordered his master to go back to Missouri, he took Scott with him back to that slave state, where his master died. In 1846, Scott was helped by Abolitionist (anti-slavery) lawyers to sue for his freedom in court, claiming he should be free since he had lived on free soil for a long time. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, was a former slave owner from Maryland.
In March of 1857, Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Scott had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave.
At that time there were nearly 4 million slaves in America. The court's ruling affected the status of every enslaved and free African-American in the United States. The ruling served to turn back the clock concerning the rights of African-Americans, ignoring the fact that black men in five of the original States had been full voting citizens dating back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The Supreme Court also ruled that Congress could not stop slavery in the newly emerging territories and declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be unconstitutional. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery north of the parallel 36°30´ in the Louisiana Purchase. The Court declared it violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits Congress from depriving persons of their property without due process of law.
Anti-slavery leaders in the North cited the controversial Supreme Court decision as evidence that Southerners wanted to extend slavery throughout the nation and ultimately rule the nation itself. Southerners approved the Dred Scott decision believing Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories. Abraham Lincoln reacted with disgust to the ruling and was spurred into political action, publicly speaking out against it.
Overall, the Dred Scott decision had the effect of widening the political and social gap between North and South and took the nation closer to the brink of Civil War.
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Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision

There are two leading questions presented by the record:

1) Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And

2) If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?

...

The plaintiff [Dred Scott]... was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant [Sanford], in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for [Missouri], to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.
The declaration is . . . that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that... he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.

...

The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....

The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

...

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded....

...

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted....

... [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted....

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery. . . . He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the
time.

The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact....

The province of Maryland, in 1717, passed a law declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes bom of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants
for seven years. . . ."

The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705. It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue," &c.; and it provides, that "if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped......

... [T]hese laws ... show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.

We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted ... in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.

The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally Conclusive: ...

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appeared, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements -- high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separate from white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language....

...

[There] are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808.... And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the fight of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories.... And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other part of the Union.

...

It would be impossible to enumerate ... the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in ... his Commentaries ... that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.

The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, . . . and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; ... and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them....

To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given....

The first of these acts is the naturalization law ... [of] March 26, 1790, [which] confines the right of becoming citizens "to aliens being free white persons." . . .

Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant.... It directs that every "free able-bodied white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word citizen to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.

The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809) and it provides: "That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States."

Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States....

The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he was the Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens of the United States....

No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty....

...

And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous....

... [I]t appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.

It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.

We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.

...

But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the Sate of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.

Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham [1850]. In that case, the slave had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and aftewards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were bourght back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgement of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had no jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.

So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no juisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequestly, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Copyright © 3/97 by Bedford/ St. Martin's Press, Inc.
From: Dred Scott v. Sanford
By: Finkelman
Reproduced by permission of St. Martin's Press

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Oprah's Show is Soooooo Good Today!

I have been waiting for her to do something else on race. You have to have the white person be able to say they are sorry for believing the way that they did and committing horrible crimes against black people was wrong and that they are truly asking for forgiveness.
It allows both of them to begin again on a level emotional playing field, but not an economic. He is still earning, inherited, privileged, to so much more than she is.

Until we also begin to do something about the mismanagement of billions and trillions then we are still not winning the race on racism/classism/sexism. Until the mismanagement and just plain theft of the Barnes Foundation Collection of art to that black university. The Philadelphia Art Museum stole/toke/outsmarted/ a small black college by buying them a 67 million dollar student union building and they sold the art collection not knowing the war that Barnes had with the art museum. The post impressionist paintings were worth much more. They did not know it or had no power to change it without a white voice to educate them. They made a movie about it thats how I know about it. Until we are able to be treated equally and have it done civilly and with love, then it will continue to never change.

Love is STRONG

Glory to God

HOPING IN THE LORD

PSALM 43
¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,
   so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
   When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
   “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
   as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
   under the protection of the Mighty One^[d]
with shouts of joy and praise
   among the festive throng.
⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
   Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
   for I will yet praise him,
   my Savior and my God.
⁶ My soul is downcast within me;
   therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
   the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep
   in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
   have swept over me.
⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
   at night his song is with me—
   a prayer to the God of my life.

When is it hard to worship God? I talk honestly about my struggles with God. I speak to God from my heart and pray for guidance and love. Be Blessed Today and be a Blessing to Someone. I love you.

The Deleted Passage of the Declaration of Independence (1776) Thomas Jefferson THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEBATE OVER SLAVERY When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson's passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George's incitement of "domestic insurrections among us." Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson's original passage on slavery appears below. He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. Sources: Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other Writings, Official and Private (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853-1854).

The Deleted Passage of the Declaration of Independence (1776)

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEBATE OVER SLAVERY
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson's passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George's incitement of "domestic insurrections among us." Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson's original passage on slavery appears below.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Sources:
Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other Writings, Official and Private (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1853-1854).

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Four Corners

Utah,

Colorado

Arizona and

New Mexico.

The only four states that connect, in order to allow a person to stand in four states at one time. WOW, I love it and hate it. I know that the division was done while moving this “manifest destiny” idea westward, but we must move on from where we are not where we were.

Don’t deny or ignore the past but for God’s Sake don’t live in it and never move on.

Begin your victory of the Red States by conquering those four states. Throw in Oklahoma as a bonus.

Transform the country.

Allow usually Republicans to see the man, the leader, the protector, the negotiator, and you will win their vote. I spent six years in Idaho and while I was there, I even voted for Reagan. Everyone around me loved him. He was a figure head. I thought everyone else was doing as well as we were in the 80’s, but I found out in 1989 that everyone was not doing well.

The country is bombarded with anti depressant ads either in print, TV or computer.

We have not been able to heal because of home grown and foreign terrorist.

Oklahoma bombing, 9/11, and Tuscon has shattered the belief that the USA is united. Unite the country. Let us believe again in the unity of this country.

Build a memorial mental institute for the people. Mental health is the issue now. Bring us home to the healing that is necessary for us to be united.

Become patriotic in those states. Connect with the senators and representatives from those states. Find out about the survivors. Oklahoma anniversary is coming up. April 19^th.

Visit that little girl’s school.

Care, but in a strong, protective way.

Don’t get preachy.

Don’t quote scriptures, and what ever you do don’t get in a tank and put on a helmet to show your support for the military.

That hurt Dukakis so bad.

Reagan brought down the wall in Germany.

Obama solved the problem of racism in America.

Sounds good doesn’t it. Its something to strive for.

You have the power to show you care, you can protect and will protect what they care about.

Create a sense of concern and urgency and you will see two terms and have a wonderful legacy of success, even when you can’t control everything.

How Will We Create Our New Identity for the New Year

Mandela was able to unite a racist South Africa using a common game. He found something that his foes were passionate about and allowed everyone to fall in love with it too. We in America can truly heal the wounds of racism. Confront, through mental health care, healing acts of unity and a combined unity will result from shared experiences and taking ownership of our own behavior. Standing tall, proud and united. Stand Tall, be the best that we can be. Is this your very best?

Sample Cultural Studies Paper

Excerpt from "The Production of Identity in the Harlem Renaissance"
Written by: Tamara Hollins, Former Consultant, CGU Writing Center

Part One: Introduction
The construction of a "minority" identity in the complex history of the United States is extremely challenging. Early America often hid its double standards under the cover of false political, social, and literary ideology. Miscegenation laws were passed in the 1800s even as white men continued to rape black women. The black group was declared separate but equal to whites while being denied political, economic, and social rights. This situation was exacerbated during ante-bellum black migration from the South to the North, or from the agrarian past to the modern, industrial present. Unable to fully fit in the restrictive American world and possessing a remnant cultural history from times past, the modern American black was alienated--a native of a land of which she or he was not a part (Huggins 139). The result of these events was a sense of "double consciousness" in the black group as it wavered between being "American, [and]...Negro" (DuBois 2). In the face of these tremendous obstacles, how has identity been established by black American writers?
One of the ways identity was constructed during the Harlem Renaissance is through literature. The Renaissance brought a change in the poetic and fictional form and theme of novels concerning the construction of a black identity. Previously defined by stereotypes and stock characters, black American Harlem Renaissance writers embraced the concept of the New Negro: an African and an American who recognizes ties with the past but moves, lives, and breathes in an industrialized, modern world. Black people were placed at the center of literary themes, their "cultural ideals, social and historical realities, and traditions" composing the literary content (Jones 153). Further, spirituality, repetition, call and response, and rhythm informed the texts along with the regenerative "power of African orature, the Spirituals,...the blues, jazz, ..and [the black dialect]" (Abarry 134). The task of the New Negro was to identify and articulate a community consciousness in addition to participating "in American civilization" (Locke 15). Thus, black ideology was combined with traditional tools from the white culture. This produced reconstructed literary forms and deconstructed traditional themes, resulting in a "minority" identity. The work produced by three major literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance evidences this tactical way of operating. Nella Larsen (1881-1964), Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer (1894-1967) mix traditional forms with black-centered themes and tools. But their methods are different and so are aspects of the resulting identities. Regardless of these differences, all three authors focus on producing an assertive and intellectual blackness.
To produce blackness, Nella Larsen deconstructs an old theme. In this section, definitions and a brief history of literary passing are given after which the intricacies of passing and identity are explored in Larsen's Passing. Passing is an action which allows blacks to don white middle class values and participate in the white world. During the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow (1890-1940) was in full swing and the black world was one of difficulty, deplete of political and civic rights. American culture allowed for "no synthesis of black and white experiences, even when their actions are evident in the very body of the mulatta" (Kubitscheck 93). However, there was a crack in the wall. Situated between blacks and whites, mulattos straddled the invisible racial divider. Driven to drastic measures because of American racism and the need for economic survival, these people sometimes "fell" of the wall and passed into the white side. It is in this environment that passing became a major focus of early twentieth-century novels.
Expressing the complications and nuances of passing is the tragic mulatto theme. This theme was first introduced and developed by white American authors. Jacquelyn Y. McLendon notes that Sterling Brown has traced the first mulatto in American literature to Cora Munro in The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (1826) (Berzon 53). Usually, the tragic mulatto is a woman, an intelligent beauty whose purity is always in conflict with savage primitivism (99). This marginal black woman is unwilling to conform to a circumscribed existence in the black world and tries to escape its miseries by passing for white and obtaining a white lover. The mulatto is unable to move freely in the white world due to fear of her identity being discovered. She can never really be white, and the only path to freedom lies in death. According to Starke, the mulatto archetype "appears to have been set by the middle of the nineteenth century" and was used by both black and white writers (90). Victor Sejour's The Mulatto (1837), which is about a male slave who murders his white father, employs the white tragic mulatto theme and is the earliest known work of black American fiction regardless of the fact that it was published in France (Gates, Jr. and McKay, 287).
The tragic mulatto theme was eventually revised by black American authors during the early twentieth century. Just before the Harlem Renaissance, Charles Chesnutt (The House Behind the Cedars, 1900) and James Weldon Johnson (The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, 1912) approached the theme with intellectual unrest and assertiveness. During the Harlem Renaissance, Jessie Fauset, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer explored the minds of intelligent mulattos as they identified themselves as black Americans and, as stated by Juanita Starke, conquered "their hatred of their black blood" (102). The basic features of the revised theme turned out to be the same as the white mulatto theme--the new mulatto conforms with the white ideal of beauty and upholds white middle class values. However, the black passing theme differs from the traditional theme in one respect: the new assertive protagonist becomes disillusioned with the white life and returns to the black world. While the traditional mulatto dies still believing that passing is the only way to achieve happiness, the new mulatto discovers happiness as she embraces the black culture.
In Jessie Fauset's Plum Bun, Angela feels confined by the rules of color prejudice. She lives on a segregated street and longs for "broad thoroughfares [and] large, bright houses" (11). Disillusioned with black life in Philadelphia, Angela decides to pass. However, the life she lives is not the one of her dream. Seeking status and security through marriage to Roger, a rich white man, she mistakes lust for love and the relationship fails. With the departure of Roger comes loneliness and a wish for the "peace, the security, the companionableness" of her roots (241). Eventually, Angela returns to the black culture. At that time, she is reunited with her true love, a poor mulatto she previously rejected for rich Roger. In Hughes' poem "Cross," the aggressive narrator condemns the hypocritical South which opposed interracial relationships but overlooked the rape of black women by white men. In his poem "Mulatto," the narrator, reeling from this southern history, proudly asserts himself as a black man. While Toomer's Louisa in "Blood-Burning Moon" does not pass, she is torn between her white and her black heritages. This is manifested in her romantic relationships with a white man and with a black man, both of whom fight over her. Louisa does not choose between them, and the story climaxes with the death of each lover. Failing to completely embrace the white culture and refusing to forsake her dark heritage, Louisa defies the traditional mulattos who yearned to be only white.
Part Two: Nella Larsen's Passing
This revision of the white mulatto theme continues in Nella Larsen's Passing when a passing character returns to the black community. In the book, two black friends from childhood, each light enough to pass, choose different ways to live. Clare Kendry passes physically and marries Jack Bellew, a racist white bigot. Irene Westover measures herself by white standards and marries a frustrated black man who desires to escape the racist American environment by emigrating to Brazil. One day Clare and Irene meet, renewing their acquaintance. Irene is conventional and jealous of Clare's freedom, finding Clare a threat to her marriage and the life she has constructed for herself. Clare is adventurous and jealous of Irene's connection to the black community. As a result, she manages to weave herself into Irene's life and back into the black culture. Her loneliness is abated as she happily "laugh[s]" at the thought of attending a Harlem dance with Irene (199). Eventually, Clare's husband discovers her identity and, in a hazy narrative description, she falls out of a window. It is implied that Clare was pushed, but who pushed her remains a mystery. Although the re-connection to the black life leads to violence for Clare, she does achieve momentary happiness after embracing blackness. The second way Larsen deconstructs the traditional mulatto theme is through an exploration of psychological passing. This type of passing is achieved through Irene's acceptance of white bourgeois values such as professional stature and conservative personal conduct. The acceptance of these values stem from a need for economic security and comfort as opposed to traditional mulattos who simply fall victim to inevitable biological events and a single desire to be white. Although the black identity is not asserted through psychological passing, the portrayal is important because it delves into the mind of the mulatto as opposed to the singular physical portrayal of the mulatto in the traditional mulatto theme.
The third way Larsen opposes the assertion of whiteness through the traditional mulatto theme is by showing how two characters pass into each other. Irene finds herself trapped in a situation where the lines of identity become dangerously invisible as her white ideology comes in conflict with Clare's passion and primitivism. The psychologically passing Irene is unable to control herself as she gives into her emotions, committing violent acts. On the other hand, Clare happily becomes an essential part of Irene's home life, almost replacing Irene as mother and wife. By passing into Clare, Irene unwillingly reconnects with elements of blackness formerly hidden under bourgeois values. By passing into Irene, Clare is able to affirm her blackness. Thus, both characters challenge the white mulatto theme by asserting the black identity through psychological passing. In passing physically, Irene and Clare acknowledge the possibilities and limitations inherent in racial and cultural boundaries. When Irene meets Clare for the first time in twelve years, she is sitting in the whites only Drayton rooftop restaurant. Her passing is partial because she is only temporarily taking advantage of the opportunity to rest from the cruel Chicago August heat in a white neighborhood. Still, it reveals the limitations of access to public places for black Americans while stressing the lack of limitations for white people. If it became known that Irene is black, she would have been "ejected" from the building (150). However, white characters have unlimited access to a dance located in Harlem and hosted by blacks later in the book. The white people attend the Negro Welfare League dance for various reasons, including to satisfy their curiosity, an act which would have had severe repercussions if committed by a black person at the Drayton restaurant. It seems that the strict color lines drawn in the world are momentarily suspended at the dance. White women rave "'about the good looks of some Negro, preferably an unusually dark one'" while Hugh Wentworth, a friend of Irene's, calls Clare a "blond beauty out of the fairy-tale" (Larsen 205). Interracial couples flirt with the possibilities of illicit relationships but when the fun ends everyone returns to their limited, segregated lives. It also seems that the possibilities continue in Clare. Hugh Wentworth believes that Clare is a member of his "superior race" and is interested in her, wondering if all the "'gentlemen of colour' have driven a mere Nordic from her mind" (205). Still, Wentworth questions whether Clare is at the dance because she is curious like other white people or because she is black. Whatever the possibilities, they are always curtailed by the limitations.
This phenomenon is further evidenced by the veneer of passing. Clare wears her skin as a cloak hiding her black self and as a costume to cover her real identity. Clare Kendry was once poor, motherless, and the daughter of a drunk. Now, married to a man who has returned from South America with untold amounts of gold, she conforms to the white ideal of beauty. Hugh Wentworth has already described her as a fairy tale figure with her "pale gold hair," a "sweet... mouth," and "ivory skin" (161). At the dance, Irene describes Clare as "exquisite, golden, fragrant, flaunting, in a stately gown of shining black taffeta" (203). Clare is a white princess, indeed. Betraying this image are Clare's eyes. Irene says the unrecognized Clare in the beginning of the novel has black and mesmeric eyes with something secret about them: they are "Negro eyes! mysterious and concealing... exotic" (161). Clare's eyes belie her cloak as her need to be among the black people at the Negro Welfare League dance belies her costume, evoking the suspicion of Wentworth. Again, another boundary raises its ugly head. Even with the possibilities inherent in racial and cultural boundaries that allow her to pass, Clare is l limited by the fact that she cannot ever truly be white; she can never be accepted by the white race without the employment of her white mask and even then she runs the risk of being found out and turned out of public places, house and home (Bone 126). Irene runs the same risk. While at the Drayton, she becomes increasingly uncomfortable under the stare of the unrecognized Clare. "Did that woman... somehow know that before her very eyes on the roof of the Drayton sat a Negro?" Irene asks herself (Larsen 150).
Fear increases in Irene as the unrecognized woman approaches her. Irene's image as a woman with Spanish heritage dissolves, exposing her under the curious "white" gaze. Fear also pervades the atmosphere at Clare's tea party. Her husband refers to black people as "scrawny black devils" (171). There will be, Bellew cries, "No niggers in my family. Never have been and never will be" (171). The revelation of Clare's and Irene's true identities surely would have resulted in, at the very least, both of them being tossed out of the apartment. Humiliated, Irene would have lost face, or dignity. Irene is not "ashamed of being a Negro, or even having it declared. It was the idea of being ejected from any place" that caused her to keep her identity a secret. But by denying her own origins so not to be humiliated, Irene loses the face of her black heritage. While the white mask barely manages to render Clare opaque in the white world, it renders her completely invisible to the black world simply because she denies the black face by passing. Irene was not happy to make her reacquaintance at the Drayton. Reminiscing over tea in the restaurant, Clare speak of friends from the past. She states that Margaret Hammer looked "right through" her when they met at Marshal Field's, preventing Clare from speaking. Clare became so invisible that even she wondered if she "was actually there in the flesh or not" (154). Unable to fully penetrate the white and the black boundaries, Clare become a limited and native stranger in the midst of each population. To fulfill the black mulatto theme, Clare must completely return to her black culture and not just delve into it when chance permits. Like James Weldon Johnson, Angela, and Louisa, she will have to choose one heritage.
Irene done a psychological as well as a physical disguise to hide her black self. In accordance with black passing novels designed to prove racial civility, Irene is depicted as intelligent, refined, and morally upright. Business success, professional stature, an outward display of wealth, and strict codes of personal conduct are tools employed by Irene and the black middle class to make it in white racist America. This is seen in the costumed Irene wears to the Negro Welfare League dance. Dressed in a "rose-coloured chiffon frock" ending at the knees and wearing cropped curls, her appearance reflects her status as a doctor's wife (203). Irene is the photographic negative of a conservative white society matron and her passing depends on her "ability to keep up appearances" (124). Irene keeps up appearances even to the point where she is psychologically affected. IN a conversation with her husband as she prepares to host a tea party, Irene thinks that Brian is having an affair with Clare. Minutes later, her attention is focused on pounding the tea "properly and nicely" (218). Following bourgeois codes of conduct, Irene tries to present a dignified image, refusing to "think yet" lest she appear uncivilized (219). Attending and giving tea parties, being a wife and a mother have become occupations in which work is done in accordance with certain protocol.
Because she takes her role to an extreme, Irene goes beyond imitating to being. She penetrates the white ideological boundary on a psychological level, and her life is based purely on image. She views her husband Brian not as a sexually desirable man but as a status symbol. Her description of him is cold, lacking warmth and passion. Irene states that Brian is "extremely good-looking" but his physical appearance evokes no emotion in her (183). Irene has become so moral and prudish that her husband now considers sex a "grand joke" (189). When Brian touches her, it is merely to "[pilot] her round" the staircase (184). They speak of inconsequential things at the breakfast table, Irene "[i]gnoring Brian's references to Brazil (186). Brian blames her for failing to encourage his dream to live in Brazil while Irene congratulates herself on this fact, stating that his success in the United States has proven her right. Her demand for "security of place and substance" has produced a family life in which no one is content (190). These problems do not matter to Irene if not one knows about them and everything can "go on as before" (222). Clare may play her masquerade with great flair, but Irene's methodological performance is just as successful. Clare is white in color, but Irene becomes white in mind.
Not only do Irene and Clare experiment with their own places in society, they experiment with each other's. Their psychologies change to the point where Clare becomes an escort for Irene's husband and Irene becomes like Clare, malice rising in her to the point of explosion. Clare wants to kill Jack for denying her things. Disillusioned with her white life, Clare yearns for " 'my own people' " and thinks that Irene's psychological passing "may be the wiser and infinitely happier one" (182, 178). She wants to "see Negroes, to be with them again, to talk with them, to hear them laugh" (200). She desires spontaneity, intangibles of the black spiritual heritage and the primitivism Irene tries to avoid (Little 176-77). Clare found security in the white culture but is no longer free or happy; her identity and ability to express herself are stifled. Clare seeks happiness by reclaiming the black culture, but reclaims it by delving into Irene's life. She invites herself to the Welfare League Dance. Ted and Junior, Irene's children, admire her to the point of "adoration" (Larsen 208). Clare interacts well with Zulene and Sadie, Irene's hired help, and even accompanies Brian in lieu of Irene to bridge parties and benefit dances. Irene is Clare's alter libido, a connection to her cultural past.
In Clare, Irene's middle class consciousness deteriorates. Irene's description of Clare as "[c]atlike... sometimes... affectionate and rashly impulsive [with]... an amazing soft malice, hidden well away until provoked" turns out to be a description of herself. Irene's feelings toward Clare are ambivalent (144-45). At one moment she feels "disdain and contempt" for Clare, tossing her letter in the wastebasket (191). Hours later, gazing at Clare, she has a "sudden inexplicable onrush of affectionate feeling" (194). These "catlike" symptoms of transformation climax as Irene begins to agree with Clare "that no one is completely happy, or free, or safe," rejecting the foundation of the society matron role she has striven so hard to achieve (196). Irene no longer has a clear role. References to Clare become references to Irene. For instance, when questioning Clare's reasons for passing, Irene comes to the conclusion that she could not betray Clare, "couldn't even run the risk of appearing to defend a people that were being maligned, for fear that that defense might in some infinitesimal degree lead the way to final discovery of her secret" (182). Although the "her" is meant to be Clare it could just as easily refer to Irene. Irene hovers between her black self in Clare and her white self as a society matron. She is caught between "two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. . . . Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be cursed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it might be, all three (225). Irene's world is barely more secure than that of Clare's. When it is threatened, she becomes as dangerous as Clare. Clare is dangerous because she rejects the middle class values of safety, bringing the undesirable element of primitivism into Irene's over- emphasized, racially-uplifted life. She is also a threat because her alleged seduction of Brian threatens Irene's carefully structured world. Upon realizing the possible link between Clare and Brian, Irene wants to "laugh, to scream, to hurl things about . . . to shock people, to hurt them, to make them notice her" (219). These actions would undermine her "natural and deeply rooted aversion to the kind of front page notoriety that Clare" attracts (157). Regardless, rage boils up in her and there is a crash as she drops a teacup, fulfilling her wish for violence and attention. Irene begins to act as devious as she thinks Clare is. Irene does not mention that she saw Bellew while she was socializing with a black woman in public: no one would "know from her that he was on his way to suspecting the truth about his wife" (236). Irene realizes that the only way to keep Clare from risking her marriage and assuming her identity is to make Bellew aware of the amount of time Clare spends in "black Harlem" while he is away (225). Bellew not only becomes aware of this, but makes a surprise entrance at a house party and calls Clare a "damned dirty nigger" (238). He rushes toward Clare, Irene reaches out, and Clare suddenly falls out of the window.
Briefly happy during her field trips into the black culture, Clare dies because she fails to completely chose one identity over the other. Irene, Clare's double, experiences psychological suicide because she also fails to chose one identity, physically living in the black world while operating from white ideology. Passing is both figuratively and literally a transitory state. Always in the process of going from one side to the other, Irene and Clare exist as ghosts, seeking to escape the black world with roots too entrenched in blackness to allow them to fully exist in the white world. They seek to escape the black world not because they are victims of miscegenation but of inequality (Washington 95). If the security and social status of the white middle class had been readily available to Clare and Irene, they would have been able to fully express all sides of their selves; they would not have needed to take the tragic journey from their roots by passing. The book would then have been only about rivalry and sexuality. Nella Larsen deconstructs the "master" mulatto narrative to inscribe realistic mulattos and interrogate traditional assumptions about color and class while embracing blackness (Washington 27). Thus, the novel passes from one tradition to another. The assertive Irene and Clare, who are aware of the dangers of transgressing racial boundaries, internally manipulate a system to defeat the established order on its "home ground" (de Certeau 126). The "black blood" in Clare and in Irene is supposed to prohibit any access to their white heritage. By using her appearance, which conforms to the white ideal of beauty, Clare manages to gain the material comforts and social status denied to her as a black person. By revising her value system and passing occasionally, Irene gains the same. Through the subversive use of multiple layers of passing, the established order of Jim Crow is defeated as black people gain the very things being withheld from them while maintaining a black consciousness and returning to the black community. In this way, Larsen deviates from the unhappy traditional mulatto narrative to cleverly embrace the black identity. In rethinking form, Nella Larsen produces a work which offers a solution to DuBois' double consciousness.

My Trinity