Chapter 20 - Epilogue

Chapter 20 – Epilogue

I chose this chapter to summarize my journey.

What I’ve left are “spiritual bread crumbs.”

In my post on http://griotpoet.blogspot.com 19 November 2004, I left this sad news:

In memoriam: This is from a friend and fellow poet, Ron Horne about the passage of a light in poetry, Ana Rose, also known as Phoenix. This touched me because we don't talk about depression. I'm old enough to remember Donnie Hathaway (R&B singer, Roberta Flack duets) and his similar demise.

We don't as a culture like to talk about depression or suicide. It's unfortunate that many creative types like Donnie Hathaway, Curt Cobain (Nirvana) and Phoenix feel that they have no hope when their words have given people so many memories; so much to live for.

A reminder: give your flowers to your friends in THIS life!

My Brothers and Sisters in Poetry-

The news filtered up to me here in Austin that a Sun Poet, Ana Rose, aka Phoenix, took her life on Friday, leaping from the roof of an office building in San Antonio. Phoenix was a young woman, 30 years old or so, bright, bubbling, full of life and always out supporting both poets and musicians. She could be found at poetry venues and band gigs throughout San Antonio as well as on the road. She was a kind and caring spirit.

In her wake are the common questions: why did she do it, who knew she was that desperate, if I had only known, if I only had . . . . There are probably many things many of us could have done, but without really knowing her strife, there is little any one could have done . . . However, as members of a very unique family, the family of poetry and verse, we could have spoken to her, and others like her, both directly and through our art, to let her know that we have ALL been in desperate situations and that there is ALWAYS someone to turn to, even if only for a moment. The closeness and support we have in the poetry community is tighter than some people have in their biological families. We have the unique ability to reach out through our art to touch those around us, to let them know that as bad as it may seem, the beauty of what we do can bring something positive to their lives.

It pains me to know this young life was lost in despair. None of us are mind readers so there is only so much we can do. But let’s try to remind each other as often as we can that every time a day ends, on the next day new life begins. With that, I present two poems in honor of the Phoenix; may her spirit arise in all of us. I send this to you in the hope that between all of us, wherever we are, we don’t let another bird of paradise get away:


FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX

They say that every Phoenix rises
But when life provides no compromises
It should come as no surprise
That a Phoenix is nothing more . . . than a sparrow
Seeking crumbs on narrow streets
Flying from the tip of tall buildings
To the hard concrete
Succumb to defeat
Rather than suffer the constant struggle

The battle of tug of war
Is just a metaphor
Where there can only be one winner
The kind and compassionate
Are the perpetually condemned sinners
Heartache the blood thinner
That turns cool breezes into artic winds
Causes a young life to rescind
Her covenant with her glory
To hear she took her life
Tore me and all that knew her apart
Didn’t she know that the community of art
And love covet her departure?
Because now only the angels will know
Why the Phoenix flew away

Ron Horne

I KNEW HER AS ROSE

She came to be known as Phoenix
But I first knew her as Rose
And little did I know
That she was in the throes
Of a struggle with life and death

So on that humid August night
As we all skinny dipped
How could I know that in her mind
The scales would tip
And she would slip
Down a slope
That at its depth lacked the hope
She needed to keep going

How could I know that
As she placed her tiny hand in mine
The cosmic design
Had a disturbing fate in place
Where she paced back and forth
Between the door to existence
And the door to extinction
To learn that she found not distinction
Between the two

Leaves me to ponder
My own bouts with suicidal ideation
Those times where I lamented whether
My own creation was a mistake
Ready to preclude another candle
Impaling my birthday cake
Break the cycle of constant misery
That seemed to plague me daily
Yes, if it weren’t for poetry
I would have missed the gallantry
Of my son’s well and hard fought triumphs
I would have forgotten the fact that it is enough
To be loved without necessarily being the beloved
That the joy of life is toughing it out
Long enough to see the BIG picture

So, as the regret flows
The fire in me grows
To spend life on my tip toes
Reaching for the light that glows
She came to be know as Phoenix
But to me, she was a perennial Rose

Ron Horne

*****

Thanks, Ron.

So, my motivation was more self-preservation than literary acclaim. I left “spiritual bread crumbs” to others that otherwise would not have e-mailed, called, stopped me in hallways or contacted me in anyway.

It is sad that in a world of over six billion people, we can feel we’re all alone. We can feel isolated and aloof. That is when the mind plays tricks on you; the “fiery darts of the enemy” plants the seeds of your own destruction with justifiable reasons to accomplish the sordid deed.

I hope this frankness; this open honesty has helped others in similar situations. Blogging has helped me get through this phase of my life. Perhaps your method is painting. Perhaps you method is sculpture or poetry. It does not matter. Leave "spiritual bread crumbs"; let people that know you know how you’re feeling. Get in touch with your feelings through a therapist or clergy. Get angry, express it and get over it. Get out and live life again! Isolation is the road to destruction. You do matter!

*****

Now, my apologies… I feel a need to apologize for forgiveness, and to forgive.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book called “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality,” by Donald Miller (www.bluelikejazz.com). The back cover reads: “I never liked jazz because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But sometimes you have to watch someone love something before you can love it yourself… I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened…” He also has a statement in the front cover that grabbed me: “In America, the first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a free-form expression. It comes from the soul, and it is true.”

Jazz. Euphemism for sex, it is an original art form from the Mississippi delta and New Orleans (sadly, now underwater). It is jambalaya, crawdads and etouffée. Like spoken word poetry, it does not traditionally follow a pattern. To the chagrin of classical musical artists, it does not resolve. Neither does the mystery of life on the edge of ruin. It puts the formula “now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen” into perspective.

My first apology: to the subjects of my article “My Encounter With Black Republicans,” published in The Creative Pulse of Austin Magazine.

Dear Sirs:

Though I did not receive any monetary gain for the article, I did receive a level of satisfaction at the typing of it. I made you look like buffoons and idiots. I apologize for being as woefully guilty of the ignorance you demonstrated.

Though one of you is from America and the other from Nigeria, you are entitled to your political opinions, as am I. The argument between us only started with my identifying myself as a poet. That labeled me (from the African American gentleman) as a “Bush Hater,” which was to suggest that every poet is.

You’ll be happy to know that my republican poet friends were not too happy at your broad brush. Many of them thought you hadn’t been republican long enough to have such strong opinions. Others expressed themselves in language that I’d prefer not to repeat in this blog. (Just look at anything Mark Twain said or wrote when he was mad. His and their comments are laced with most colorful metaphors!)

For the record: I am a pragmatist, neither republican, democrat, green, libertarian or reform party. Radically and metaphorically, I am the whip in the hand of Christ as he chased the moneychangers out of the temple, hence my engagement with you since I detest dogma over spirit and truth. I choose the candidates I vote for from the information I can research and I’m given. I also choose them based on my conscience and how I live with the decisions I make, as do you.

And my sincerest apologies for calling you black republicans. The Nigerian gentleman does not have citizenship, so this last election is one of many he did not voice his opinion in, nor can he. The African American gentleman’s father seems to be a staunch democrat from comments I’ve heard about him. I doubt he challenges his father’s beliefs because he has a vested interest in their continued relationship as father and son. He is blessed to still have his in this life.

I was extremely angry with you both drawing my wife into the argument culminated. I did something irrational and dangerous at the dinner party: I deployed my “Night Stalker,” but you didn’t seem to notice. I’ll explain.

The Night Stalker is a model of knives sold by Cold Steel ®. I carried it in my pocket as I usually do. It’s within the Texas legal limit of 4”, non-serrated for personal protection. It can stand up to two hundred pounds of pressure on its hinge joint, and I am an expert with it. However, you did not threaten me physically. As a martial artist, I must feel myself under threat of assault with intent to harm before I can use any amount of force. And with twenty-seven years of martial arts experience, no amount of clever arguments could have halted a massacre. It makes me shudder to think about it!

However, you intentionally involved my wife in your diatribe. I’ve raised two wonderful sons with her that, despite my current financial state still respect me and love me as father and husband. My anger seethed from this emotional attachment. Also, I never have nor will I ever say anything negative about your wives to either of you.

I was also angry because I’d just started this journey (you might be reading about here) as an outsourced American. I was disoriented. I was hurt. I was angry with a company and industry I’d given so much time to, so much talent to, so much energy to jettisoning me like so much garbage! People who looked like me and attacked with such impunity, such a freedom I know you would not exercise at your respective workplaces. Also, I’m not the kind to strike a man when he’s down… as you did me.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My second apology: to the company and industry that laid me off, rejected my resumes and got my hopes up with dangled carrots.

To Whom It May Concern:

First of all, the semiconductor industry started with the invention of the transistor, or “trans resistor” from the genius of William Shockley (see: junction transistor, Shockley Diode Equation, 1952). Of course, this could not have begun without the amplified vacuum tube (Lee de Forest, 1912); ENIAC: the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (1943, one BIG mother). Jack Kilby pioneered a method of stacking different types of semiconductors together in 1958 giving us the precursor to our modern processing recipe steps. Jean Hoerni invented the planar transistor in 1959. Also that year, Robert Noyce innovated from connecting wires to “conduction channels” patterned on wafers with photolithography and etched into the underlying Aluminum (some copper and gold for conduction) metal layer. Robert Noyce was a cofounder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.

I said William Shockley for a reason: he was known for a mercurial management style and his unscientific beliefs in Eugenics, i.e. his racial superiority and my culture’s racial inferiority.

There was a spirit of that evident when I worked in the industry, largely because of the effort made to define diversity, a subset of Affirmative Action that soon included every group that ever felt discriminated against, soon to include Llama and Malamute Lovers. It was also evident in my promotion cycles (or, lack thereof); the papers I published that received no recognition of technical excellence; the differential treatment of one coworker who was frankly, a constant "screw up" that was tolerated; another who on the first night shift at my former employer announced to everyone on the production floor his wife was a "b----": they promoted him to management.

It is thanks to the science of Genetics, the Human Genome Diversity project found genetic commonalities with some Anglo Americans and Australian aborigines. As they searched countless strands of DNA, they could find nothing that called one person or group “superior” or the other “inferior.” They did find we all have a common genetic ancestor on the continent of Africa. We’re all “soul brothers” at the root, I’m afraid.

I said all that to say this: think about what you want to produce in the outcome of the global marketplace. Is it that easy to shift professional jobs overseas? What about using your resources to build up the infrastructure of the inner cities and pull from a talent pool that 1) doesn’t look like you; 2) are from a different culture? Shipping our jobs overseas only allows you to pull from a talent pool that 1) doesn’t look like you; 2) are from a different culture and 3) do not pay income taxes here. All you’ll have is a revolving door of talent going to our universities and leaving for home. What about the students here that want to make a professional living, BUY the products that they’re responsible for producing and support the nation with their income taxes paid? What about the middle class? For that matter, who’s going to replace the professors at the colleges when they get too old to teach and retire? Remember, what you do to one American will eventually be done to you.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My third apology: to the headhunters and HR managers that dangled carrots.

I use the metaphor “dangled carrots” again for a reason.

You are the first line of contact with any corporation I’ve ever worked for or ever applied to.

I remember when you were “Personnel” before you became “Human Resource Management.” As I define each word through Webster:

Human: a: having human form or attributes b: susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature

Resource: 1 a: a source of supply or support: an available means -- usually used in plural b: a natural source of wealth or revenue -- often used in plural, an ability to meet and handle a situation

Management: 1 : the act or art of managing : the conducting or supervising of something (as a business), 2 : judicious use of means to accomplish an end
3 : the collective body of those who manage or direct an enterprise

You therefore, fall under rules of engagement that put you in particularly delicate situations. When all is well with the economy, rejection only means, “move on to the next opportunity.” When it is not, the subjects you contact are “susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature.” Hence, my rants, which I sincerely doubt are new to you at all.

There must be a win-win engagement strategy for future attempts at sourcing a talent pool. There must be some method of suggesting if not now, how can we present ourselves better in the future? It would eliminate a waste of precious time for both parties involved.

I’ve heard that my resume presents too much “life experience” (we can’t say I’m old) that you’re not apt to look at or pay for. So, are we at the HR equivalent of “Logan’s Run”? (See: “Finished At Forty,” http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,375941,00.html) Are we putting the American worker out to pasture because companies don’t want to pay for their experience? What then is the motivation to get the experience, to matriculate to your companies, to work at all? These are things you have to think long and hard about.

Don’t allow bureaucracy to tie your hands. As with hurricane Katrina, the time to think about what to do should not be in the hindsight of the storm that blew through.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My fourth apology: to Bobby R. Taylor, attorney

Dear Sir:

I apologize for monopolizing your time with trivial matters. However, you will hopefully understand, my livelihood and my ability to care for and provide for my family I don’t see as trivial.

I only wish I’d met you as a younger, idealistic lawyer when the fire to “fight the good fight” was still hot in you.

I was looking for a crusader. You’ve obviously built a comfortable living around winnable cases and not on the underdog.

Your name is the one that came up as you advertise on a community radio station in Austin, KAZI-FM. You’ve obviously had many dealing with then in the recent past: in you lobby I saw a poem written to you by Reverend Frank Garrett, Jr. of “The Wake Up Call,” a program on which I heard your advertisement, jazz background music and all. Hence, you were the first lawyer that came to mind for me to call. I cannot dictate your criterion for taking on caseloads.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My last apology: living a lie of faith.

When things are fine and food is plentiful; when you have every need met at the end of a credit statement paid on time; when you can go on any plane to anywhere you imagine without fear of a terrorist attack; when gas is $0.98 per gallon it’s easy to have faith. Life resolves like a stanza of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. It is beautiful.

When things are crazy and food is scarce; when you’ve blown out every credit extended you; when your eighty-year-old mother falls and you are finagling a means to go see her; when gas is $3.00 a gallon, faith is a challenge. You curse a lot more than you’d like to. Life sounds like acid rock reverberating off a dry chalkboard being scratched. It is ugly!

“Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” And the physical church is just a building, a classroom where you get your nourishment. For some, it’s poetry readings; for other’s it’s a temple or meditation in a forest. The real body – ecclesia – is me. This is what it is for me. Thus, the substance of things hoped for are my expectations.

So, in the midst of this “faith fight,” I choose to change my expectations. It does not resolve. But it is from my soul. And, it is true.

For that, I forgive ME!

Chapter 19 - Open Letter

An Open Letter To:

The President of the United States
The Senate and the Congress

Dear Sir, Sirs and Madams:

I am an outsourced American.

The previous blog chapters you’ve read have been rants, rages, prayers and praises, celebrations and lamentations. I’ve meant no harm to myself, my family or to any representative of any corporation.

However, I feel I have a right to my freedom of speech. Lay offs, downsizing and outsourcing has attached to it human emotions, human families, dwindling bank accounts and diminishing American dreams.

“What happens to a dream deferred?
“Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
“Or, fester like a sore and then run?”

Langston Hughes, Dream Deferred, Selected and Complete Poems

I am an American of African decent; my last name given to my paternal great-grandmother and grandfather Epsy and Julius Goodwin on their freedom from slavery in 1865.

I grew up in a ghetto, east of the demarcation of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, US 52. I saw drug deals, prostitutes and lived next to addicts of various stripes.

I achieved a degree in Engineering Physics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Dr. Ronald E. McNair (deceased: the Challenger accident) are a few of its noteworthy graduates.

I was a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force. My specialty was communications. After serving four years, I went to graduate school briefly at Texas State in San Marcos and was employed in the Semiconductor Industry at a major company in Austin, Texas.

I was laid off 26 August 2003 on the fourth anniversary of my father’s death. I have observed the passing of my second anniversary as an outsourced American.

By the sheer grace of God, I am in graduate school at the University of Texas, Austin in Astronomy. I am retraining. I will still be an advocate for the American science and engineering professional when my matriculation is completed.

I refer to myself as an outsourced American. My story is beyond party affiliations and beyond racial ethnicities.

You are all currently grappling with matters of life-and-death in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the hundreds, soon thousands lost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

My cousin lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Luckily, he was north of New Orleans, visiting his daughter and son-in-law. His home is gone.

My first apartment used to be in Biloxi, Mississippi. I called it my "two-step" apartment: I could take approximately two steps from the bedroom to the bathroom, two from the bedroom to the kitchen and two from the bedroom to the living room! It is also a pleasant, washed away memory.

I see the myriad faces of people on the news, looting or surviving, depending on your point of view. Two-thirds of which are African American that look like my relatives; that look like me.

I call your attention, in the days and weeks ahead, to the American worker, a melting pot of classes and ethnicities. The unemployment rate is today 4.9%, but that is a misnomer: it does not count me. Nor does not count those others like me dropped from the unemployment roll after exhausting their benefits and no longer receiving a bi-monthly check. It does not count the victims of the current ecological disaster. October’s unemployment figure should be interesting indeed.

Every pundit and lobbyist, every accountant and economist, defends outsourcing: my observation is, pundits and economists positions are not threatened by the maneuver.

I am not an accountant nor am I an economist. I do make these observations:

- The University of Texas, Austin reports a decrease in the number of engineering undergraduate students. This trend is probably observable from other flagship and minor colleges and universities around the nation. Young people are not going to invest the time, (nor their parents the money) and considerable labor in the attainment of a science and engineering degree if there are no viable jobs to matriculate to after graduation.
- As a former child of the ghetto, I can attest that if you provide the excitement of science and engineering training and the youth have the talent and time to grasp it, they will make positive, life-affirming choices that only betters American society.
- Our universities will become revolving doors: foreign exchange students, welcome at all times, will matriculate and attain degrees, then go back to their host countries. If there are no jobs here, there is no need to stay. Diversity in the workplace will eventually devolve to pre 1965 levels.
- If you continue outsourcing American professional and technical jobs, the next innovations will come from overseas. That cannot be good for our national security, since we will not be in proximity to protect any trade secrets.
- If you continue outsourcing science, engineering, manufacturing and technician level jobs, the middle class will eventually shrink. There will be no "bootstrap self-lift" from poverty, into middle class and upper middle class: that can only be bridged by continuing education.
- The American economy is based on the collection of an income tax, mostly from the middle class. Many government and military programs are financed by this method. If jobs are outsourced to India and China because the professionals there can do the same jobs for approximately $5,000.00 per year, we cannot gather a tax from them, as they are not citizens of this nation. (You wouldn't get much even if you could.)
- My income for the last two years has been a declining negative. Therefore, I cannot be taxed at the bracket I once occupied. Furthermore, my charitable giving to churches and causes like the relief efforts for hurricane Katrina are hampered. I’d give if I only had. Right now, I can give my prayers, some canned goods and my time.

I hope in future legislations, sessions of Congress and the Senate, passage of bills that the persons you think about are not just corporations and their profits, but of "We the People, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America."

I thank you, Sir, Sirs, and Madams for your time.


Sincerely,

Reginald L. Goodwin, outsourced American