52 Weeks of Gratefulness #20 – A Tomato And Salt

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks of Gratefulness #20 – A Tomato And Salt

“Here,” my grandmother said as she cupped my left hand and took a tomato from the sill and put it in my right hand.

Then she sprinkled salt from a shaker in my cupped hand. She asked, “Want some pepper?” I shook my head, “No.”

“Bite your tomato and dip it in the salt”, she coached.

Amazing.

It tasted like their home on the farm smelled, of the earth, pure and sweet.

I went outside, sat on the stoop and ate my newfound treat in awe.

In week 20 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for a tomato and salt.

Something so simple is so profound.

It was like I could taste the entire farm: the sunshine and the rain, the dirt and the breeze, the sweat and the love that cultivated it.

My grandfather Percy Brown and my grandmother Sarah Brown built a home blanketed in love.

When you were there, it was at every turn and around every corner. Even the animals seemed to recognize it.

I have so many wonderful memories on that farm in Canton, Mississippi. There was great peace and so much love.

I have such a rich heritage.

I remember it every time I bite into a tomato.

I’m grateful.

#52WoG

Image copyright 2008 Daniel E. Johnson – crossroadone.com

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #8 – A Proposal

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #8 - A Proposal
Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #8 - A Proposal
Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #8 - A Proposal
Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness #8 - A Proposal

In Week 8 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness I give thanks for a proposal.

On May 6, 2022 my soon to be nephew-in-love, Leroy Williams, pulled off the coldest proposal I have ever seen to my niece Shannen Harris, who Melissa and I dearly love.

In this photograph of the proposal, you will see pictured our family’s beloved Willie and Mary Harris who have gone on to be with the Lord.

They are the trunk of the Harris family tree and this picture speaks volumes.

Jesus said in John 10:1, “Any who does not enter by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”

I believe Leroy would say himself that he probably wouldn’t be considered a big church guy, but what he demonstrates here is a Christ-like heart for my niece, wanting to go through the proper channels and do what’s necessary to secure his bride.

This picture is representative of Leroy going to the ones keeping Shannen (her family aka the door), to present himself, to demonstrate his willingness to pay the cost and to request the privilege and responsibility of now being the one to keep her.

I thank God and celebrate this proposal, their relationship and the things they’re doing to establish a firm foundation for their home. It is already having a powerful impact throughout our family and their community.

My soul has known few greater pleasures than their asking me to officiate their wedding. Not just that, they’re also allowing Melissa and I to walk with them in counseling leading up to that wonderful day when they are wed. Counseling is always a requirement of my officiating but before I could get it out they asked for it! My heart is so full.

Oh, how I cherish the opportunity to walk with people I love, into the Holy covenant of marriage, where a man and his wife are fitted and held together by the God of love that I love! May God use them to establish and deepen our roots in Christ so that our family will not be moved.

I love what this does for our family.

I love what this does for the future.

I’m thankful.

#52WoG

Surprise Luncheon Honoring Dr. Placid and Dr. Athelia Eze

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Surprise Luncheon Honoring Dr. Placid and Dr. Athelia Eze

Members of a local black professionals network hosted a surprise luncheon to celebrate Dr. Placid and Dr. Athelia Eze, two living legends of black history in Starkville and Oktibbeha County.

The Eze’s opened a medical clinic and pharmacy in Starkville, MS and grew it to one of Starkville’s largest practices -with additional satellite offices in Columbus, Mississippi and East Point, Georgia.

The Eze’s medical practice culminated with the building of a million dollar facility in Starkville that became a pillar of a new growing medical corridor on Stark Rd. that has recently added facilities such as Columbus Orthopaedic.

In addition to providing a safe and welcoming space for blacks to receive healthcare, Dr. Athelia and Dr. Placid Eze identified, recruited, educated and produced more black medical professionals than anyone in the area. They gave minorities a chance and an onramp into medical professions when no one else would.

After 22 years of service, the Eze’s closed their practice.

On their last day, members of the local black professionals network hosted a surprise luncheon in their honor.

It was truly a community effort.

Bonnie and Robbie Coblentz provided a wonderfully intimate and elegant meeting space in their newly opened L’uva Wine Bar.

We presented an awards plaque that was custom created by Josh Herrington at Dunkington.

All of the Eze’s staff and some of their previous staff attended and offered tributes.

Alderman Henry Vaughn honored them on behalf of the City of Starkville.

Supervisor Orlando Trainer honored them on behalf of Oktibbeha County.

Rosa Dalomba honored them on behalf of all the up and coming black entrepreneurs that the Eze’s cleared the way for and for being shoulders on which we stand.

There were laughs.

There were tears.

But above all there was thankfulness and honor for these two paragons of black excellence.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. It was truly wonderful.

#blackhistory #blackhistoryisstillbeingmade

Originally posted by Paul Luckett to Facebook here.

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The Fundamental Flaw Of America

The fundamental problem in America is the system is setup to protect property owners rather than people.

It inevitably results in outcomes such as in the tragic case of Tyre Nichols. (May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon him and his family, and may we be its agents and a comfort to those he left behind.)

Policing is different for different profiles. For the affluent, it’s protect and serve. For the poor, it’s search and destroy, as seen in the application of Broken Window policing theory that is designed to proactively protect the affluent and prevent the encroachment of crime from poorer areas where it is prevalent due largely to their marginalization (think gentrification) and neglect.

Whether you resist or don’t resist, the truth remains that property owners don’t get treated the way Tyre Nichols and countless others who fit his profile have been treated.

The brutality is not against blacks per se but against the poor who historical discrimination and unreconciled, unjust government policies (see FHA and racially restrictive covenants) has all but ensured blacks will be categorized as.

There has been a perpetual, pernicious and well documented history of discrimination against blacks that result in the deep disparities in property ownership and property values that we see today.

The system in America is shaped by and deeply rooted in that racist (might I also add sexist) history which results in what is indisputable and rightfully called systemic racism.

The police are not the problem.

Police are regular heroes in our communities when the system allows them to be. I see their hearts, I see their service, I see their sacrifice everyday. I would not want a community without healthy, effective and equitable policing.

The police are not the problem.

The problem is the unjust and unequitable system they are made to submit to and operate within.

The problem is the proxy war against the poor.

I would argue, that’s why no matter how different the police are (black police officers in this case), the outcomes are often the same.

Police are arguably a victim of this system as well –the underpaid poor weaponized against the poor. Part of the solution is empowering them to stand against harmful policies without retribution, to educate them to lead and manage people, to give them a voice in how to police their own communities and to pay them what is commensurate with having such a vital job and important skill set.

What repeatedly happens to people who fit the profile of Tyre Nichols is simply the fruit of the poison tree –the inevitable outcome of unrequited injustice and a system with a bad setup that lends to bad incentives.

The fundamental problem in America is the system is setup to protect property owners rather than people.

Another vital part of the solution is for blacks, who I understand are not a monolith yet we need to think collectively on key issues such as wages and property ownership.

To be clear, there is a vast difference between being a property owner and being a black who happens to own property. When are we going to learn that individual success is not sufficient?

For blacks to become property owners in the eyes of the system, we must do so en masse. Enough of us have to do it to change the profile, so it matches that which the system is designed to protect.

I am not one to jump on the bandwagon of what’s trendy to be outraged about today. But, since people are somewhat paying attention, I thought I’d attempt to leverage the opportunity to try to inject something into the conversation that might move us in a more helpful direction:

America needs to right its wrongs such as instituting an unsecured, without qualification, near zero interest FHA loan program for black Americans just as the whites were allowed during FDRs New Deal but that blacks were unjustly excluded from.

But regardless of what others do or don’t, Blacks need to concentrate on Capacity (property ownership, voting power), Consolidation (capacity at scale), and above all Community (togetherness on key issues) so rather than make a lot of noise only to end right back here again, we can speak softly and carry a big stick.

My two cents.

#tyre #TyreNichols #police #race #black #systemicracismexists

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #18 – The Stopping Game

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Thankful For My Mom And The Stopping Game

In Week 18 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for a fond memory of my mother and her Stopping Game.

My Mom made everything fun.

When I was learning to drive she made up this game to see who could stop the car most smoothly.

A successful stop was one that was gentle on the passengers and did not cause them to jerk forward in their seats. An excellent stop was one that your passengers barely felt.

On our way to choir rehearsal or Bible class (as church was our most common destination), we’d take turns driving to see who could stop the car better.

My younger brother, though too young to drive at the time, would get in on the game too. We’d all have so much fun exaggerating like we were going to get thrown out of the car when the driver was making a stop.

At the time, I was completely unaware that my mother was teaching me to be calm behind the wheel, gentleness with the pedals, speed management and to better gauge distances in traffic. But even more than that, my mother turned what would have been a loathsome task (going to church) into absolute joy.

My Mom constantly did stuff like this. This is what motherhood looks like to me, she was simultaneously my best teacher and my first friend.

Oh, what a blessing Rosemary Luckett is to me.

I’m grateful. #52WoG

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #13 – Mrs. Cunningham

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Thankful For Mrs. Cunningham (Twitter)

In Week 13 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Cunningham.

I only remember three things about Mrs. Cunningham:

The first is that she ate these weird looking apples with red jelly covered seeds that she use to suck on at her desk. I’d later come to learn this fruit was called a pomegranate.

The second is this story that she told us in class about someone in her family who was going so fast on a motorcycle that when he crashed the force of the collision hurled him into a telephone phone, sticking him to it by his ribs. It was at that point I decided never to ride a motorcycle.

The third and most important is something she said to me that changed my life forever.

Throughout my life, black women, especially, have had this superpower of perceiving and projecting the best version of who they believed we were destined to become. In the depths of my soul I know that no other voice besides God’s has greater impact in a young black man’s life than that of an affirming black woman.

This wasn’t some Jedi mind trick or some form of psychological manipulation. I believe they earnestly believed in your potential. They seemed to always approach you in the context of the promising view they held of you. Even when they caught you in the midst of wrongdoing, they would say something like, “Now, Mr. Luckett, I know you’re a gentleman and gentleman don’t act like that.” They conveyed an expectation that you wanted to live up to.

One day, Mrs. Cunningham looked intensely at me, to the point I was embarrassed and thought I was in trouble, and she said to me, “Mr. Luckett, you’re a leader. See me after class.” It was that day that she made me a school crossing guard for G.N. Smith Elementary. I remember her walking me to the Principal’s office and giving me my uniform. It was the old fashioned kind, it wasn’t a vest but sort of a reflective belt with a strap that ran diagonally across your chest. I revered that uniform and felt the weight of its responsibility every time I put it on. It was too big for me but I grew into it. My job was helping people to safely get from one point to another. The profundity of that never left me.

I was a crossing guard 5th grade and 6th grade. I went on to my beloved middle school, Bailey Magnet, looking to serve. I was a class representative to the student government “Knights Of The Roundtable” for 7th grade and 8th grade, class president 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade and student body president 12th grade. I became president of the Metro-Jackson Student Council and the student representative to the Jackson Public School Board. Today, I try to serve wherever I can, largely because my 5th grade teacher said, “You’re a leader.”

She believed it, then so did I. I’m grateful. #52WoG #teachers #education #blackwomen #leadership

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #10 – Legacy Of Willie Lee Harris

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Thankful For The Legacy Of Willie Lee Harris

In Week 10 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for the legacy of Willie Lee Harris.

His cancer is terminal.

We can see his body weakening. On this particular day, Mr. Harris seems to be doing remarkably well. Where he had been confined mostly to a chair or his bed, he’s walking around, talking, doing stuff. The reason for all this activity is that he wants to make the house more secure. His sons and grandsons are there to help him check locks and install security bars on the windows.

This is the last thing Mr. Harris did before leaving this life: making his wife secure. Mr. Harris knew he was dying, but in the face of death he thought about protecting his wife.

What an awesome legacy. This is the stuff my extended family, my wife and consequently my children are made of. I’m grateful. #52WoG

P.S. This is the day the family traditionally celebrates the birthday of Mr. Willie Lee Harris, even though we learned some years ago, that according to his birth certificate, he was born on March 11. That’s a window into a whole other discussion about the black experience, government and historicity, but suffice it to say we’re glad this man was born and we honor his legacy, especially today.

The Myth Of Black Exceptionalism

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com The Myth Of Black Exceptionalism

A major downfall of my community is our participation in the myth of black exceptionalism.

The notion fed by a pitiful desire for proximity to whiteness that suggests those blacks who have somehow made it to the table (irrespective of how dubious the means) are somehow “different” than other blacks, a “credit to my race” -exceptional, but as evidenced by the limits imposed on our influence while at the table, still inferior.

I, however, am not exceptional in any way. I am what happens with a semi-stable, home-owning, two parent family and very modest resources.

I went to an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia, that exposed me to a second language, German, in the second and third grade.

My parents could afford to supplement my education with activities such as piano lessons.

I was afforded opportunities in a well funded Jackson Public School District who could recruit exceptional teachers and offer programs such as Bailey Magnet School and the Jackson Academic and Performing Arts Complex.

I had opportunity through APAC to participate and compete in the visual arts and classical voice (what some think of as Opera, but its a little different).

I had opportunity at my high school, Bailey Magnet, to participate in string orchestra (violin), debate, forensics, student government, etc. etc.

See, I am not exceptional, I am an average person that is a confluence of those investments. People, by in large, are products of our investments. So, if we want different outcomes, we must make different investments.

What’s most needed in the black community, in my opinion, is not welfare but wealth.

The outcomes we find undesirable; crime, teenage pregnancy, and other ills of poverty are not because my people are deficient or broken, it is because of a broken system that artificially constricts the flow of resources to protect the advantage of some by starving the investments in others that are necessary to produce the outcomes we claim we want.

One of the most poignant examples of this “artificial constriction” was made during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, where the FEDERAL Housing Administration (not some backwater town in the deep South, mind you, but the federal government) adopted a documented policy to extend credit to whites, irrespective of their credit worthiness (they were essentially begged to take the loans) while creating racially restrictive conditions, where blacks were not only excluded from the loan program but were barred from even renting homes subsidized by FHA loans. It is to this day, one of the most significant contributors to the wealth gap. Many whites who were languishing in poverty as a result of the Great Depression, were lifted out by one of the largest government interventions (welfare program, if you like) in U.S. history -being given an appreciable asset, homes, while blacks were pushed further to the margins.

Beginning to address the problems we face today will require interventions on the scale of those that contributed to them. As much as it was true for whites during the depression, it is true for blacks today: the path out of poverty begins with possessing an asset that reliably appreciates in value. And, education ain’t it. It’s what we’ve been peddled -straddling us with enormous debt and very often useless parchment. But, in my opinion, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Education is important, but generally education should be profitable. It’s not alchemy. Education cannot create something out of nothing. At a societal level, education is a means of growing production and profit. What good is knowing without the wherewithal to do? What good is know how when we have no where to apply it? Therefore, education follows wealth.

Everything I do is driven by a God given love of my community as a whole and a desire for all of it to thrive. Blacks are a part of that community and we’ve got a tourniquet constricting the flow of vital resources throughout the body. So my efforts to eliminate these restrictions are not merely to benefit blacks but for the well being of us all. So, you want to stop kids from breaking in your truck? You want to deal with the issue of crime sustainably? It’s not more prisons. We’ve tried that. Making the long-term, positive investments for the outcomes we want is where we start.

So blacks, especially, who have achieved some affluency must stop perpetuating this lie that we’re special and that other blacks are in their predicament because they lack some innate quality that we, who have “made it”, have. We’re harming ourselves by deflecting from the real conversation to be had – how we’re going to accomplish wealth at scale. When the conversation drifts to a symptom, we must bring it back to the system.

I love you.

Originally posted on Facebook on February 14, 2021.

Black History: We Are Not Victims

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Black History: We Are Not Victims

I reject constant depictions of black history that mischaracterizes us as perpetual victims.

Despite the popular, whitewashed depiction of our people, we are not victims but combatants.

We are and always have been active participants in the fight to live free, with dignity as a people, to control our own destiny, to both contribute to and benefit from the progress of every place our diaspora dwells.

Victims wait for justice from another.

Combatants seize it.

We employ strategy, take ownership of our losses and regroup to win the next battle.

Don’t be deceived, we’ve been fighting from the beginning. Our remarkable progress was not given but blood bought.

And, we will continue to fight until every chain is broken.

This is #blackhistory.

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #6 – Lessons From My Father About Work

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Thankful For Lessons From My Father About Work

In 6 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for lessons from my father about work.

No one in the world works harder than my father, Rev. Paul Luckett. No one.

I remember when my Dad was a student in seminary, he was a full time student, paying his way through school as a custodian for our apartment building in Atlanta, Georgia, pastoring two churches and driving between school in Atlanta and the churches in Jackson, Mississippi every weekend.

I remember spending countless summer days with him and my little brother Nehemiah Luckett, cutting yards, painting houses, buffing floors, hanging shingles, etc.

My youngest brother James recently told my Dad, “Whew, you’re a hard worker, Daddy. That’s a good thing to be. But, don’t you think it’s time to go home now?”

With my Dad having such a strong work ethic, naturally he had lessons to pass along to us. Here are a few I hope to pay forward:

A want is something you work for. A gift is something you’re given.

No one is obliged to give you what you want –or anything for that matter.

If there’s something you want that you feel you’re owed, it’s no longer a gift but wages.

Wages require that you be hired. To be hired requires at least an informal contract that’s been expressed for work in exchange for wages.

Are you feeling like someone owes you something? Well, were you hired for the task that you think you’re owed for?

No one owes you for work you weren’t hired to do.

And, no one owes you for being a ‘good’ person. If your goodness is contingent on being compensated for it, you’re not a good person but a faker-for-hire.

Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. If anyone gives you anything, be grateful -you don’t get to place demands on a gift. If you have demands, if you want something, work as hard as it takes to get it. Wants aren’t owed but earned.

This is treasured wisdom from my father that is still ministering to me today. Thanks, Dad. I’m grateful. #52WoG