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Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

~ Communal Conversations for the Promotion of Active Critical Engagement

Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Tag Archives: oppression

Assail

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry, Uncategorized

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Advocacy, Community, Culture, Discrimination, Diversity, expression, Florida, Freewrite, Gender, homosexuality, humanity, Identity, injustice, oppression, Performance, poetry, police state, Politics, power, Race, racism, sexual orientation, social critique, social justice, Social norms, society, Streams of consciousness, violence, voice

A festive congregation of diverse forms
Gathered in joy and celebration
Unknowingly targeted for reasons
Subjectively debated and/or ignored
The setting places those who truly
Seek to be advocates and allies
In perilous conundrums
Scared hearts and bodies
Others cold and riddled
Propaganda is the last thing needed
Or wanted to be heard
By a family, lover, and/or friend of anyone
Who was assailed
Violated
Traumatized
Or even scapegoated
Identities fractured by incomplete
Or politicized objectives
The absolute truth may never truly be known
Yet we can concretely deduce
There are no true winners if all of us
Truly embrace our humanity
Advocacy means we share our voices with those
Who oppression continues to work to mute
Advocacy means not playing the victim-blaming game
That often becomes the means of historical erasure
With each last breath or aching wound
Whether physical or emotional
We have all lost and are under assail
Race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and culture among other aspects of our humanity
Have been further eroded
Orlando is just one of many examples of the
Detrimental effects of hate no matter the rationale
Love is not the solution when it is cloaked in complacency and inaction that shuns levels of sacrifice
Until each breath inhales this unalterable truth
There is no true we, yet the current national, societal, and political stances
Empower an assailant that has historically mutated
Each second, minute, hour, day, year, decade, and century
Known as the “American” F
Fear…

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From Beyond the Prism

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Identity Politics, Poetry, Racialization Impacts, Uncategorized

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Art, Community, Culture, expression, Freewrite, healing, humanity, law, oppression, Performance, poetry, policing, Purpose, social awareness, social justice, Streams of consciousness, voice

Captivating in ways that are detrimental
Far fetched and historically incomplete
Figments of others’ imaginations
Yet fundamentally an ascribed reality
Fear has reintroduced itself as fictive kin
Predating hands being raised
Votes being denied
Necks being roped
Bodies being burned
Left to be
To rot
To never become because many viewed us as never complete in the first place
Or maybe the 3/5 place
As compromise often happens to us but not for us
From beyond the prism
We are in a land that still finds ways to question our humanity
Personhood
Sense of self-actualization
Young boys and grown men recognize that Predator’s sights are historically locked on them
Young girls and grown women are both recipients and protectors of generations of young people who are precious gems even when a society seeks to denigrate them
As history tells us…
when not found in the history books of revisionist dehumanizers
whose fear of those who have been “othered” continues to permeate
The pores of a nation as many revisit its birth within theaters
The sweat off one’s brow from determination and a false belief of Meritocracy
Leaves much to be desired for those who were constitutional add-ons of the 13th, 14th, and/or 15th varieties
If we’re honest about Abe then would we really see the
Emancipation of physical bonds only to preserve psychological and economic ones can not be erased nor flipped as done by the party he’s so adamantly revered by
No donkey nor elephant seems to reach deep enough
Effectively address
Morally renounce
The effects resulting
From beyond the prism

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Standing Alone

30 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Art, Culture, Discrimination, expression, free write, Freewrite, Identity, Inequity, oppression, Performance, poetry, Race, social critique, social justice, spontaneous thoughts, Streams of consciousness

Often the challenge faced requires one to go against the grain
The question of being a leader or follower is one that faces us time and time again
Society suggests a contradictory message in which we are both isolated but viewed as a collective
We are grouped and segregated by a host of descriptors that are now the norm
Normal for whom?
Normal for what?
Normal for the maintenance of a status quo that shames, demeans, and oppresses
Any who does not meet the “eye test”
The “actions test”
The “American Patriot test”
These are very challenging times where fear has a strong grasp on the lives and realities of so many
News features and calls for fear, resonating with a collection of persons who have been taught not to question or ask
but instead to accept
How did this happen you ask?
It actually has always been,
for this country
It just depended on who you were and how you were classified.
If you were female, patriarchy ruled your world
If you were African, Asian, Irish, Indigenous, and many other identities you were relegated to inferior status or worse
This is the context in which our realities have been shaped
Our worldviews are fortified with institutionalized oppression in the forms of racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and the list continues to grow.
We are undoing our existence through the enabling and pacifying of our rights
Not the rights to oppress those who do not
Look like us
Love like us
Think like us
Speak like us
Pray like us
We are standing alone
because we are and have been taught
to be afraid to stand together…

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Sirens Blazing

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry, Racialization Impacts

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Art, blacklivesmatter, Blackness, blackwomenlivesmatter, citizens' rights, Culture, expression, Freewrite, humanity, Identity, in memoriam, injustice, law, oppression, Performance, poetry, police state, policing, power, Race, sayhername, social critique, social justice, Streams of consciousness, underrepresented groups

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

A vicious cycle plaguing a nation full of rage
Rage that was neither emancipated in the age of Lincoln
Nor transcended with the election of Obama
In the spirit of bell hooks,
Black Looks and Killing Rage
Are still points of contingency for The Souls of Black Folk

Where are our Ida B. Wells or Sojourner Truths as the noose is replaced by the shield?
As the white sheets that supposedly aided The Birth of a Nation appear to be replaced by the “women and men in blue”
Is this a visceral reaction to a troubling time in this nation’s history?
For some, the answer will ultimately be “yes” but for others it will be more of the status quo.

A status quo response to the historic oppression and denigration of a collection of people who seem to have never received the promise of humanity
A collection of people whose bodies are riddled with emotional, physical, psychological, and visual assaults

Perceptions that continue for Africana women in the manner in which their bodies are assailed in a land of Patriarchy
Perceptions that continue as men of African descent no matter how well groomed or dressed still receive the “clench your purse” and/or “lock your door” treatment

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Bloody streets along dilapidated buildings
Underfunded communities make for easy targets
Not solely for the spectacle of media coverage but for the many corporate and venture capitalists who will undoubtedly swoop in for bargain prices to fulfill their duties of gentrification

Bye-bye Fourth Ward AKA Freedmen’s Town in Houston, TX
Bye-bye to as many indicators of the past that cannot be revised by our Educational Agencies and elected/appointed officials who wish to promote a particular narrative

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Are chickens coming home to roost?
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz once raised such a point
And we are still waiting for an explicit answer

Sirens
Shots
Lives
Tears…

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Amid A Changing Landscape

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Tags

Advocacy, Art, children, communities, Culture, Diversity, elderly, expression, Identity, Inequity, marginalized groups, oppression, Performance, poetry, Politics, Poverty, social critique, social justice, Streams of consciousness, underrepresented groups, World

Language, both constructive and damaging, is often used without thought of consequence
Impacting the thoughts and minds of all those within reach
Challenging is the nature of life’s path
Causing us to reflect on what has been as we seek to make things anew
Laws are passed with the expectations that they will
in some form or fashion
Provide a livable framework that we, the people, will experience the benefits
Our worlds are based on this idea
Whether it’s accurate or inaccurate is not often what we wish to ask ourselves
Anarchy is not an option, as it requires things from us that we are more inclined not to:
Demand
Sacrifice
Persevere
Fail
Resist
Become ostracized
These sets of circumstances are foreign to those who seek the comforts and the spoils of a system that historically and habitually negates those who are most vulnerable
And then blames them for all that these influences result
Echoing words or images of “Che” or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
on commercialized t-shirts does little to represent the struggles and ideals
resulting in their martyrdoms
Instead they further alienate us from key principles that should acknowledge the complexities that exist within our figured worlds
We are a collection of beings that range an array of beliefs, sizes, and histories
All of which only capture a glimpse of who we really are
As each are vulnerable to the limited interpretations of all who come in contact with us
As if we were a painting from one of the great artists over time
Yet, we don’t get the luxury of intense and time demanding reflection and understanding that is often afforded these inanimate objects
We are passed over as if we never existed in the first place
And then society wonders why those who are marginalized dare to:
Resist
Rise
Yell
Revolt
As if the world has gone deaf to their calls and cries
To remind all of us that they are
Still here
Still human
Still belong

Amid a changing landscape
one thing remains constant
The world can be a cold and uninviting space
for those who do not fit within the acceptable box
A box that is too rigid and constraining for many of us
Yet, we operate as if we are willing participants
of a pathological social experience that
Destroys more than it helps
Devalues more than it promotes
Hates more than it loves
Constrains more than it frees

Freedom is what we were sold
Yet, how many of us actually reviewed the bill of sale as we do when buying our favorite pair of jeans in our favorite store?
How many of us ask for a refund or exchange when our purchase doesn’t suit our needs?
Why does freedom not receive the same level of critique, if not more?
A self-proclaimed “land of the free, home of the brave”
could at least not default on its promises to all of those who it has depended on since before its inception like it’s currently attempting to do
during this present-day
Debt Limit Ideological coup d’état
that’s ultimately affecting those same persons who often go nameless
until we want to blame them for their perceived deficiencies
The members of our society who are poor, uneducated, ill, unemployed, disabled, elderly, and/or children are on our economic and social frontlines
These lines are invisible to most of us until life’s challenges place us there
To toil, linger, or bounce back
Welcome to the new age
Which is actually an evolved representation of a segregated past that maintains our separation from each other and more importantly to any meaningful and life sustaining form of an inclusive humanity

Amid a changing landscape what will your role be?
What will your actions amount to?
Amid a changing landscape…
Will you represent the change that it truly needs?
Or will you represent what’s already represented?

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Contact Email

dewalt@patricksdewaltmbaphd.com

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Copyright Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D. (c) 2013

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