The town of St. Martinville, Louisiana was handed a rude awakening recently by a part of a class reunion letter that specifically asked for “White graduates only” for a specific event for the 1973 St. Martinville Senior High School class reunion.
Despite the fact that after almost 40 years of holding segregated class reunions for the graduates of St. Martinville High School, it is the class of 1973 that has made the progressive, momentous decision to begin holding integrated class reunions.
This historic change was put forth through a letter announcing the change, and on the surface that sounds like a good thing. But within that very letter, there was a flagrant request for a “White graduates only” after party, and it is that request that has caught the attention of ABC News and other media outlets.
Supposedly, on Sept. 21st there will be a reception held at the high school after the homecoming, football game, and the letter invites all graduates to attend that function. But after the game, one of the classmates is hosting a continuation of the class reunion at their home, and that is where the request for “White graduates only” was made.
First of all, how hypocritical and classless is it to release a letter calling for an end to the segregated, class reunions on one hand, while slyly attaching an appeal for a “White graduates only” after party with the other hand? This was nothing but a dog and pony show to begin with.
Evidently, it’s all about going through the politically correct motions of taking off the bigoted hood and telling the so-called, modernized world exactly what it wants to hear in the public—only to put the bigoted hood back on after the racial exhibition has ended, so people can get back to being who they really are and that speaks volumes about the willing inability of the United States to accept or like African-Americans or other minorities in any real capacity that goes beyond sports, entertainment, or any medium that keeps a healthy distance between minorities like African-Americans and the traditional, “White is right” society.
The principal of the school Michael Kreamer described the sentiments surrounding the call for a “White graduates only” after party as “disappointing,” but there is more to it than that. Don’t tell me that it’s a post-racial society at the ceremony, and then show me that it’s really the same old, bigoted society that we all know very well at the after party!
Don’t insult my intelligence by trying to convince me that the post-racial rain that just happens to be golden and only seems to fall down on me is not exactly what my senses tell me that it is, because it takes some nerve to believe that just being White allows for such an implication to be made, while being Black allows for the ignorant gullibility to not know any better and embrace it.
Even in my hometown of Wynne, Arkansas, there were similar concerns voiced regarding the most recent class of 1990 reunion—which is my class. A fellow student asked me why only one Black person attended the events. That student’s concern was whether or not “the Blacks” had been properly informed about the festivities.
And although that could have played a role, consider this. All throughout the high school years of my class of 1990, self-segregation was the norm. African-American students and White students only came together when they had to for seating arrangements and school projects. As soon as they were free to separate from each other, that is exactly what happened—whether it was during lunch, before class, or during breaks.
In all likelihood, the same segregated, ideological arrangements that had been passed on to the students by their parents were allowed to continue, despite the influx of so-called integration. People might have been in the same school together, but they were not actually together, and no one in authority tried to do anything to change this dynamic—not the predominately White school board of that time and certainly not the overwhelming numbers of satisfied White parents and accepting African-American parents.
And for the idiot who just can’t wait to yell how about African-Americans promote just as much self-separation, the number of incidents like the “White graduates only” request
probably happens at a ratio of about 20 to 1 compared to any Black graduates only requests.
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Author: Bryian Revoner
Welcome to the ideology of the Realacrats, where the anticipation of the future defeats the reminiscence of the past, where the dreams of one can change the lives of all, where understanding is a gift that can only be understood when it is applied, where we realistically search for what we will realistically find, and where the narrative you write will be penned in the ink of your own individuality. We will not ask that you believe in God, but we will ask that you believe in yourself, because many of the treasures we seek lie hidden in plain sight, but blinded eyes led by filtered ears will prevent many from finding them. Realacrats will ensure that it does not prevent all, for the fear of being challenged will not go unchallenged by what will come to be known as the Realacrat ideology! I am Independently Democratic, and I am Democratically Independent. I am the Realacrat, and this is the Realacratic mission statement!
~The Fear of Being Challenged
This is the website, www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore, where The Fear of Being Challenged is on sale now as an E-book for $9.99, and I implore everyone who is interested to go the E-book route, because the actual book is much higher in price. All you have to do is go to that website and enter the title or my name in the iUniverse search engine, and you will be able to see or buy the book. Again, I suggest the E-book.
The Fear of Being Challenged, Democratically Independent; I Am the Realacrat! That is the title of the book in my profile picture. The actual book is not yet completed, but the E-Book is available through iUniverse, just in case there is anyone out there who wants to know about this. As many of you know, I wrote a few articles and essays on Facebook. I was splitting time between writing my articles, and writing my book. Sometimes I would work on both projects simultaneously. I was forced to do all of this independently, because none of the publishers liked what I had to offer. Many of them said that I was too radical, too controversial, too naïve, too hopeful, too political, not political enough, too liberal, not liberal enough, too conservative, not conservative enough, too pro-Black, not pro-Black enough, too anti-White, too welcoming to Whites, too inclusive, not inclusive enough, to pro-Democratic, not Democratic enough, too anti-Republican, not critical enough of Republicans, too partisan, not partisan enough, too ideologically simplistic, too ideologically complex, too rudimentary in sentence structure and thought progression, and too multidimensional in sentence structure and thought progression.
So if I had to summarize the entire body of work; based on all of these different elements of assessment, I’d theorize that the prodigious sentiment connecting them all would have to be the intrinsic polarization of the differentiations of a highly-induced opinionatedness that cannot be collectively avoided by the reader, which means that in all likelihood; this venture will not be a boring one under any stretch of the imagination! I can’t sit here and convince you that I am able to solve all of the world’s problems within the confines of this book, but I will attempt to convince you that the cognitive absorption of this material will stir the emotional stew that boils within you. I’ll admit that this is not a "Kum Ba Yah" moment, and I’ll admit that this is not a Bryian R., feel-good, fan club convention either. I didn’t write it to keep you as a friend, and I didn’t write it transform you into an enemy, but I did write it to inspire you to think about your dreams and to coax you into re-evaluating your fears of being challenged, because no matter how much of a bad ass we all would like to be; everyone has feared the challenged on some level!
Outside of the Facebook world, I was continuously confronted with this mass confusion regarding the ideology of my subject matter, from the numerous publishers that I submitted it to, to the many editors who stated how they just didn’t like the way that I write or the way that I idealize. I had publishers and editors who loved me and published many of my articles, but I also had the same number of publishers and editors who despised me and eventually overrode other publishers and editors and even yanked many of my already published articles.
For example, I was writing for this organization as an Op-Ed, and I had a couple of articles published through that organization. After about the third article, one of the higher ranking editors sends me an email explaining why he yanked my articles. He said to me: “I’ve got news for you buddy! Just because you’ve been given the nod of approval by our editing staff, it does not mean that you’ve been given the nod of approval by me! They accepted your material, but I am now rejecting it, and I have the power to overrule the entire editing staff. So your little run here is done! I suggest that you create a diary for the kind of work that you do, because it’s too personal! No one cares about your personal ideologies, your personal views, or your personal experiences. You simply are not that important to anyone outside of yourself.”
And for the record, the subject matter that was in question was entitled “Conversation with a Tea Bagger,” which was published on Facebook and is in The Fear of Being Challenged. Ironically, there were other book publishers, who eventually turned me down about the Fear of Being Challenged, who voiced similar complaints about what I do in a writing capacity. Like many of my Op-Ed critiques, book publishers that I attempted to woo were also highly-uncomfortable about what they referred to as my ‘over-the-top, narcissism’ of my own self-worth. One of the publishers said to me: “Who in the hell are you to be espousing such rhetoric? Who do you think you are? You’re not Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin. You not Obama! Your rhetoric speaks as if it’s coming from somebody who’s significantly boisterous, but the lack of recognition surrounding your bland name speaks to the exact opposite! You have achieved nothing that would afford you the luxury of trying to conjure up such leadership qualities, and you certainly have no legitimate reasons to believe that you deserve any form of an audience. You’re, sir, are a nobody! You’re not Malcolm X, and you’re no Dr. King. Those guys were famous. You are not. You think you have an ideology, but trust me, my friend, when I say this to you. You will never end up sitting on Oprah’s couch with these unrealistic, yet honorable, ideas you’ve concocted. It’s obvious that you’ve put a lot of thought into this project, but surely you weren’t gullible enough to actually believe that you could be heard,” and then they laughed at me, and hung up on me.
This is precisely why I sub-titled this book “Democratically Independent; I Am the Realacrat,” because in my view; the power of realism allows anyone to be a Democratically Independent Realacrat; meaning, the realities of our existences affords all of us the right to engage the freedoms of our democracy through the paths that we choose and the right to individually and independently question and theorize the universe that surrounds us on those paths. And in my opinion, you don’t have to be anyone, outside of the person that you are, to be a part of a genuine, authentic participation, because I don’t believe that worldly possessions, abstract or physical, are tangible enhancers of the human perception. I think the potential character of the human DNA is priceless; regardless of the number of followers who get behind it. If there is one thing that I have learned from all of this, it’s that everyone has a voice that deserves to be heard, but the availability of the megaphones tend to be more elitist, but the absence of a megaphone should not mean the absence of your voice. It might not be as loud, but that in no way means that it is any less important, whether you’re a truck driver, a ditch digger, the Governor of Alaska, or the President of United States. If the Constitution or the Founding Fathers intended to imply anything at all, that notion has to be it, because there is nothing American or Democratic about the selectiveness/elitism of opportunistic distribution through genetic or ideological entitlements.
I haven’t done anything in this book that all of you are not capable of doing on your own, which is seeing the world through my eyes, and describing the possibilities of that world in my words. It’s a process that I would like to see more people get involved with on a major level. Some of the best things in our lives have often arisen from those unlikely contenders and contestants who weren’t lucky enough or popular enough to be awarded a pageant crown or a megaphone. When we allow ourselves to become mesmerized by the proverbial Red Herring, we can easily become blinded to the undecorated usefulness of common sense. As a Realacrat, I try hard not to fall into that trap.
Now politically, I touch on everything that’s underneath the political sun, from Israel and Palestine to Rush Limbaugh and President Obama. I talk about Women’s Rights, American jobs, Democrats and Republicans, green technology, religion, racism, sexism, homosexuality, poverty, street gangs, abortion, the failing education system, immigration reform, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the size and relevance of government as a whole, September 11th, China, the middle-class, the media, all-around hypocrisy, and the Fear of Being Challenged on many levels.
This was only intended for my friends on Facebook. I never had any intentions of going national or worldly with this Realacrat ideology. I only had in mind to share my views with all of you, not necessarily the entire world. So no, I haven’t had any hopes of ever sitting on Oprah’s couch. I’m not Sarah Palin, and I’m not Glenn Beck. I’m just an obscure individual from Facebook, and I’m realistic enough to accept that. Unfortunately, it’s not the relevance of the ideology held by the individual. It’s the relevance of the individual that holds the ideology, and that’s just the world that we live in. I’m not naive enough to believe that I can change it, but I’m also not naïve enough to allow it to change me, by convincing me that I have to accompany it, and that is the crux of being a Realacrat and the antithesis of the Fear of Being Challenged! In the end, you will leave with more than you arrived with if you decide to challenge the Fear of Being Challenged if you decide to read this book. It’s not perfectly done, but it’s ideologically as good as I could make it as an independent author.
The fear of being challenged was really the fear of someone else’s success, the fear of my own possible defeat, and the fear of losing my influential grip. As long as I had the entire world playing from my rigged deck of cards, I was always in complete control of who won and who lost, which is actually a fear of the freedoms of democracy and the fear of being challenged! Scripted-Capitalism is a very lucrative venture for the person who writes the script, but it crumbles like the Berlin Wall when a new script is introduced, because someone dared to seek change!
~The Fear of Being Challenged
Bryian R.
I’d rather learn about all of the things that I fear, instead of fearing all of the things that I could learn! ~The Revoner
I’d rather walk alone with the truth, as opposed to leading the crowd with a lie! ~The Revoner
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