Parable of the Sower

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

“…the plant of freedom has grown only a bud and not yet a flower.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

“God is your first and your last teacher. God is your harshest teacher: subtle, demanding. Learn or die.” — Octavia Butler, (from “The Parable of the Sower, 1993)

I woke up before dawn annoyed that January 20, 2025 is inauguration day for Felon 47 and it is also the federal holiday celebrating the birth and life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I also could not help thinking about how our abuse of the earth has contributed to the fires in California.

A week ago, I re-read Octavia Spencer’s prescient novel “Parable of the Sower.” Butler’s protagonist Lauren, the daughter of a preacher, lives in a safe and comfortable, walled-up cul-de-sac. Outside those walls are desperately poor people, racial and economic inequality, and drug addicts that use a drug called “pyro” that makes its users want to set fires.

Lauren tries to convince others to accept that the world has changed and will continue to change. The others prefer to pretend nothing has happened to the earth and its inhabitants.

Butler predicted ecological disaster by fire coming over 30 years ago, and named her novel after a biblical parable. Right after I finished reading the book again, I thought about how M. L. got his name.

Many people do not know that M. L. (what we called him here in Atlanta) was born Michael King, Jr. I knew many elderly Black Atlanta citizens who called him “Mike” their entire lives.

His father, best known as “Daddy King,” attended a World Baptist Conference in Germany in 1934. Reborn and rejuvenated after he learned more about the philosophies of Protestant reformer Martin Luther, Daddy King soon renamed himself and his son “Martin Luther King, Sr. and Jr.”

In 1957, “Michael King, Jr.” was officially changed to “Martin Luther King, Jr.” on his birth certificate. There are other stories about why and when Daddy King changed their names, but I like this story the best.

I bring this up because another story goes that when the German Protestant leader Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he knew the world was going to end tomorrow, he allegedly answered, “I would plant an apple tree today.”

While I am a believer in Goddess/God, I am not particularly religious. I know too well how organized religion has failed us in so many ways. I am, however, a historian who finds truth and sustenance in some parts of the Christian Bible that the incoming administration and so many preachers and billionaires have totally corrupted.

In the Bible’s Parable of the Sower, Yeshu’a ben Yosef (bka Jesus) tells a story about a farmer who sows seeds in four different types of soil. It is not until the farmer’s seeds are sowed in good soil that he yields a good crop. In this parable, which has many lessons, Yeshu’a emphasized that we must pay attention to where we plant our seeds if we expect anything to grow. We yield a good harvest when we take responsibility for how and where we do our planting.

To place seeds in the ground is an act of faith. When you plant, you do so with the faith that you will yield something. You do it with the belief that you, or your loved ones, will live long enough to reap the reward, be it vegetables or fruits or flowers or justice or equality.

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, may we go forward intentionally, reminded that we are obligated to be good stewards of the earth that we do not own. California’s fires are the result of our excess and failure to clean up the earth which is the only home we have.

May we plant in the best soil, in the best social and educational policies, in the best radicalism, in the truth. May we sow our seeds in our gardens and farms and tend them with a faith that tells us we will reap a good harvest and that we will have enough to sustain us in order to stave off the worst excesses of the incoming administration. May we humble ourselves, unlike Felon 47 and his underlings, and remember that we live on this earth that we did not create and will die whether we are paupers or billionaires. May we learn the life lessons of one of the best sowers, namely Martin Luther King, Jr.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

King’s Papers are located at the King Institute at Stanford University. I urge you to visit and explore: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/message-director

(Martin Luther King, Jr. photographed in 1964 by Dick DeMarsico for World Telegraph and Sun. Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers. All Rights Reserved.

Happy Holidays, Keep Your Cool: Strategic Minerals and the US Economy and Military in 2025

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

First things first: Happy Holidays. I thought I would have nothing else to say. Yet, as we approach 2025 with all the apprehension that comes with having elected “Felon 47” as president, let us not simply consider how so many journalists have become sycophants for the incoming administration, but also consider this…

The United States imports most of its strategic minerals. China is our largest supplier. Polysilicon, Geranium, Palladium are vital to semiconductors. Magnesium metals, and etcetera all come from China.

We also import critical minerals from Australia, South Africa, Chile, Brazil and Peru.

Out of the 35 critical minerals that are absolutely essential to our economy and to the efficacy of our military, we only produce 4 of those necessary minerals. The other 31 are imported.

While folks in Canada and Greenland and Panama are naturally and rightfully insulted and concerned about Felon 47’s bluster about invading their countries to bring them under the US umbrella; it’s not likely to happen. It is the USA that better be concerned.

The only thing that would need to happen is for the United States to be isolated by both its enemies and its friends where no nation sells us any critical minerals anymore. With a weakened economy and weakened military we are ripe for the pickings.

China has already banned the sale of critical minerals to the United States. That’s what all that “let’s ban Tiktok” mess from the U. S. Congress was about. Congress already knows that China can thumb its nose at the USA. Elon and his demented minion Trumpolini can fool around and they will find out.

When you get the chance dear reader, take some time and read the following 3 articles/reports. Until then, Happy Holidays and Keep up the Resistance.

Critical and Strategic Minerals Importance to the US Economy

Seven Recommendations for the New Administration and Congress: Building U.S. Critical Minerals Security

Tech wars: Why has China banned exports of rare minerals to US?

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

A Word About Nancy Pelosi, and What I Learned From a Person Who Taught Me

Posted on December 23, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

When I was an undergraduate History major at Agnes Scott College I took a course in Chinese History from Dr. Penelope Campbell. Dr. Campbell had literally created a program of study in Chinese History a while back to accommodate a student who was then named Mary Brown who later became ASC’s first alumna president as Mary Brown Bullock.

When I took Dr. Campbell’s class it became apparent that she and I were not exactly on the same page politically. We debated often but it was not contentious. It was rather intellectually stimulating.

One day at a reception that I attended with my mother on the Agnes Scott campus, I introduced Dr. Campbell. “Mama, I gave this lady a hard time when I took her class.”

Dr. Campbell stopped me. “No, Leslye you argued your points well. You stood your ground. You know, we professors and teachers live to see the success of our students.”

I thought about Dr. Campbell’s comments and compliment to me when former representative Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to block Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from assuming the position of ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

All I could think was there are very few people in the House of Representatives and the Senate like the majority of the people who taught me; or like myself.

I taught college History for seven years and it is always an absolute joy to hear about a former student’s success.

Unlike these bought and paid for politicians, the best educators not only want, but expect, their students to do well; and they are delighted when those students outdo them.

I could go on about my disappointment with Pelosi, but I won’t. I will only ask that you talk to educators.

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

#MakeAmericaLiterateAgain

The Other DMX Lesson

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

Let me first extend my deepest sympathies to the family, friends, and fans of DMX (né Earl Simmons). Full disclosure: I am a Traditional Jazz, Bebop, CuBop, Afro-Latin Jazz, Tin Pan Alley, Soul/R&B, Johnny Mathis music fan. Aside from a couple of Rap tunes, I am not much of a Rap/Hip Hop fan. My former students keep me up-to-date on the genre. So, this blog is not going to be filled with memories about when I first heard this very talented man who died too soon. I do hope, however, that DMX’s passing does more than have us publicly bemoan the perils of substance abuse, but rather, we Black folks start thinking seriously about mental health. I have no way of knowing if DMX had any form of mental disease, but a lot of drug users do…

Way back in the day, a friend as close as a brother, had a pattern of woofing down about FOUR 16-ounce Schlitz Malt Liquor Beers, coupled with about a fifth of Vodka, in one sitting over a couple of hours. Yet, I never saw him drunk. He would sleep 8 hours, then get up fresh as a daisy and go to work the next day. This was his daily ritual. He never had a hangover, if you can believe that. I couldn’t understand how he did it. Later, he was diagnosed with “Mania,” often an early symptom of Bipolar Disorder. The excessive booze was his way of self-medicating, of literally slowing down his brain that was constantly racing on all cylinders. The excessive alcohol made it possible for him to function, even if it was an unhealthy way to get some relief.

Now, drug abuse can cause mania, but drug use can also be a response to the mania itself. When I learned that DMX—a long term, off-and-on-again substance abuser—had a massive heart attack that put him in a coma with little brain function, I wondered if the source of his inability to permanently kick his drug habit was rooted in an undiagnosed mental illness. I don’t know. We may never know, but it is certainly a possibility.

We, in the Black community, have a serious mental health crisis precisely because, en masse, we don’t take mental illness seriously enough. Mental illness is not prayed away; it has to be treated. We casually and often humorously say that people have “lost their minds,” but sometimes they have actually done just that—lost their minds. A failure to seek treatment or to encourage someone to seek treatment means the disease gets worse. Sometimes, as in the case with my old friend, using both legal and illegal substances are signs of a larger problem that, if identified, can be successfully treated.

As of this writing, it has not yet been confirmed whether DMX’s heart attack, subsequent coma and death were the results of an overdose on opioids or some other drug. Even though the majority of opioid addicts are white, we have too often dismissed opioid addiction as strictly a “white” phenomenon, forgetting that there were/are glaring racial disparities in opioid addiction diagnosis and in addiction treatment. We can’t even afford to recall, with nostalgia, those days back in the mid-20th century, when there were virtually no statistics on “Black Suicide” because back then, for the most part, Black folks rarely, if ever, committed suicide. That day is dead and gone too.

Today, the second leading cause of death for Black youngsters from the ages of 10 to 14 is suicide. Let me repeat that: Today, the second leading cause of death for Black youngsters from the ages of 10 to 14 is suicide. And now it is estimated that Black children are more likely to commit suicide than white kids. When you have time, just read the data: Addressing the Crisis of Black Youth Suicide.

No matter what mental or physical problems led to DMX’s erratic drug habits and premature death, it was fairly obvious that he was an immensely talented man. We will read one tribute after another in his honor. Inevitably, people will mention how he “battled his demons.” They will easily recall when they heard DMX say something profound, something that changed their lives. What too many of them will not say is when they noticed a change in his behavior or habits or health or moods, and then tried to do something about it. And that’s not just a problem, it’s a shame.

Let’s do something more palpable than wring our hands and hang our heads in prayer. Say something to friends and family members when you witness erratic behavior and/or substance abuse. Pay attention to your own mental and physical health. Pay attention to your children’s mental and physical health. Call a psychiatrist, a physician whenever you believe it necessary. Ignore people who tell you that you are over-reacting. Help stop the trend of us losing too many of our people much too soon. Àṣẹ.

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-4.0 International License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

A Word For Democrats About 2020

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

I cannot really comment right now about the recent mass shootings because I am soul weary from it. I will write about it another day. I will only say we need to look very carefully at all candidates on this issue of gun control and the banishment of assault rifles. Democrats also better learn to really listen to young people, those Millennials who out-voted Baby Boomers in the 2018 national elections, if they want to win the Whitehouse and put a reasonable dent in the Republican-dominated Senate.

I watched political pundit Thomas Friedman talk about the possibility of Trump winning re-election on MSNBC, right after the publication of his New York Times op-ed “Trump’s Going to Get Re-elected, Isn’t He?”. It’s a chilling thought. Friedman noted that Democratic candidates for president produced some pretty radical ideas in the first debate: everything from advocating for open borders, to free healthcare for anyone who crossed our borders. He was right when he said most Americans, including many on the Left, are not going for any of this. So, after I listened to Friedman, and watched as much of the two Democratic presidential debates I could stomach, I saw several problems Democrats must overcome in order to win the White House in 2020 and possibly pick up more seats in the Senate.

Democrats must recognize that they are no match for our current president when it comes to spin. The current president is a damned reality TV star. He knows how to spin a story, create a repetitive slogan and throw his base enough raw meat to keep them snapping and cheering. If Trump (who already said as much) murdered a man in broad daylight for no reason, most of his supporters will still support him because they are, after all, frightened white people who are now forced to come to terms with what author James Baldwin tried to tell them a long time ago, mainly, that “the world is not white.” Europeans and White Americans are older than everyone else on the planet save the Japanese. Europe’s average age is 42 years old and that fact is coupled with a low birthrate. Of course we must also consider that 11 percent of Black American men who voted for the current president too. These are the Black ass, sexist and self-defeating Neanderthals who are scared to death of women being in any kind of control to the point where they would willingly throw their own people (and themselves) under the bus in the antiquated belief that only men, and only white men at that, can get anything done…But I have not the time to digress about the current Massa’s favorite Darkies…let me get back to the demographics that matter.

When you toss in the relative youth of the rest of the world, it gets even scarier for some folks. Across the entire African continent, the average age is around 20 years old. With the continent of Africa, South America, the Caribbean, India and much of Southeast Asia containing young fertile populations, the death knell of worldwide white supremacy is ringing in many white folks’ ears. We already know the kinds of fears our current president stokes among his supporters, but we cannot spend all of our energy responding to his spin and his lies; we have to use them as fuel for some other strategy to beat him because the Democrats are never going to be able to beat him at propaganda, which leads me to something one of my young friends said. His name is John Jordan, Jr. and he’s a Black, 29-year-old entrepreneur and Morehouse College graduate. We trade ideas often. As Joe Biden seems to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, John said this:

“I’m a millenial and the one thing I know is the world has changed and will continue to change. Baby Boomers, especially politicians try to act like they know…Biden’s entire candidacy will rest on his ability to show that as an old, white man he can listen and adapt based on what he is learning.”

John, who was mentored by a Black woman, is right. Democrats are going to have to overcome the generational gap and the intra-party gender and racial biases that threaten the best work of our most activist and youngest Congress persons, namely Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley. Our current president has continued to verbally beat up on these four women, not simply because they are people of color, but also because they are women, and young women at that. Tragically, many men of color and white men will not defend women of color whenever those men fear that such a defense will cost them their own personal connections and favor with powerful white men. Additionally, men of a certain age (along with women who’ve learned to adapt to their habits), even when they respect the abilities of women, still tend to expect to direct women. Many of the men I know well over the age of 50 (and I will exit my 50s at the end of 2020), don’t always know how to not place themselves at the center of attention or how to not always have to direct the proceedings.

In my experiences mentoring and/or doing business with well-educated Black men in their 20s to early 40s, I learned that most of them are not terrified of the word “feminist” and can accept direction from a woman, particularly if they think she has a great idea or a better idea. They do not flinch from matters that concern or affect LGBTQIA communities either, but, more often than not, recognize those concerns as inextricably tied to the fabric of our entire community. They tend to worry a whole, whole, whole lot less than their older counterparts about who is going to get the most credit and the most limelight and the most money. Importantly, they don’t see women as competition, and are rarely as defensive as some of their older counterparts when a woman offers an honest critique. In fact, they welcome these critiques as a way to brainstorm and look for new and better ideas. While I cannot speak for other people’s experiences, I can say the young, college-educated Black men I’ve been privileged to meet and mentor are a breath of fresh air.

So, when Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden got blind-sided by Kamala Harris in the first Democratic debate about the subject of bussing, it was largely due to his underestimating Harris’s abilities at debate, and it was also due to his walking into that debate with a set of assumptions, which are, thank Goddess, becoming obsolete. The second Democratic debate became, unfortunately, one where the candidates spent far too much time critiquing Obama’s policies than expressing in clear language what they would do as president and how they would reverse much of the damage done by the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I really do not care much for Democrats savaging each other, but Harris’ one-two punch in the first debate exposed some of Biden’s weaknesses.

Young adults of all genders, women, and Black women in particular, are underestimated by a lot of Baby Boomers and older folks ALL THE TIME. It dawned on me that Biden could easily have his ass handed to him in a debate with the incoming first-year classes of all-women Agnes Scott College or all-women and historically Black Spelman College with ease. Biden wouldn’t fare too well with the students of all-men and historically Black Morehouse College either. If you don’t believe me, go visit those campuses. Go listen to them. Go sit and answer their tough questions. Better yet, go unprepared with the same old weak assumptions about what you think you don’t have to know in order to persuade these brilliant young women and men to vote for you. See what happens to you.

If Biden remains the frontrunner, and eventually the Democratic nominee for president, and the best choice for beating our current president, then there are two things he needs to correct ASAP. First, he cannot dig in his heels and shrug off complaints about something he said simply because he feels like he didn’t do or say anything wrong or potentially offensive. I understood what Biden meant when he said he worked with segregationists because I was born in 1960 during a period when civil rights legislation was being passed, and there was no choice but to work with those segregationists. A young man or woman born in the 80s, 90s or early 2000s would not/will not interpret his comments the same way I do. So, he needs to get over himself enough to listen to and respond effectively to younger voters who he needs to win.

Second, Black women of all ages vote more consistently and solidly Democrat, more often, and in higher numbers than any other voting bloc. In the last election, this group voted 8 percentage points higher than the national average. Black women’s interests cannot be ignored and will be central to most Democratic victories. Black women, along with Millennials helped usher in a massive wave of Democrats in the House of Representatives with over 100 Congresswomen whose ideas and talents have been muted for far too long. Most of these newly-elected women are Millennials, with enough stamina to weather this current hate-filled political climate and most of them, if they wish to do so, will still be here 40 years from now.

I’ve lived long enough to become an elder. I relish my conversations with young Black men and women all the time. And as one told me, “We respect you because you respect us.” Whoever is the Democratic nominee for president better understand that the overwhelmingly young, Black and women voters that turned the House of Representatives BLUE in 2018 need to be listened to, not talked at. Democrats will not, cannot win without them.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Category Archives: Millennials