You never realize how expensive the trip is when you are getting a ride from someone else.

Let’s face it; many are carrying the weight of others silently. If this speaks to you then you are to be commended and applauded for faithfully and quietly helping someone along the way. At issue is making sure it is their way. You cannot forever carry two cases for one nights stay at the inn. At some point you must allow, or dare I say force, that other person to receive the enlightenment, joy, and exercise associated with carrying their own wares.

As children we want according to our expense. As children that expense is zero so we tend to want “it all”. We did not have the burden or luxury, depending on your adult perspective, of having to worry about the price of “it all”. My children often enter stores and, in cadence, commence their request to have me and their mother purchase the entire contents of the store to satisfy their minimal and sporadic spans of attention. They find it egregious that we may have the audacity to utter the term “NO”. This is expected from children that have no earthly or cosmic perception of the cost. Along with not understanding the cost, they are also indifferent to the sacrifices and/or the labor put into being able to happily enter the shop and exchange products for money. We do not expect them to. They are kids of course and the matters of the world such as these are due in right time to be given to them.

It will one day be their times to practice this same ritual with their offspring. No doubt they will have an adult appreciation for the times we had to tell them “NO”. There is that word again. You see they will be in their right element as adults to understand that the time has come for them to develop an appreciation for an understanding of what it feels like when it is their time to give the ride to their children. They will, no doubt, make sure their children enjoy and understand fully what it is to be a child with little to no worry. After all, we all aspire to give our children better lives than we had.

As an adult, the child-like thinking is not so fly. Many adults still find it hard to understand that the ride is expensive to someone. If you are not paying for your seat in the truck, someone else is burdened with paying twice the fair. The greatest things in life are truly free; it is just the rest of it that you have to pay for. It seems that many people were never given that “NO” by their parents or they were never made to eventually learn that the trip is only cheap or free because someone else is paying your way. It indeed cost. It maybe that you just don’t pay your part to ride in comfort while someone else is worrying about how to get you there at their expense. I say let these people stand in the sun until they get their own busfare and work their way up to their own ride. I had to and they are no better than me, I PROMISE! If you are paying the emotional, spiritual, psychological, or financial cost for an able bodied adult…STOP IT. They will be ill prepared if and when your car has no more room in it because of all of your own “Stuff” that requires the space that they have abused and occupied for so long.

Stop making me a slave with your welfare...I NEED tuition help!

From Suject to Citizen: Aint no stopping me now!

I am no politician, nor am I a political scientist. I am also not an economist or sociologist so I will agree that the devils in the details are currently beyond my understanding. What I am is a citizen, taxpayer, and child of the ghetto. I have watched what works and have noticed what enslaves.




Let me start by saying that everyone cannot be saved. I understand this is opposed to popular belief, but, the Promised Land is not for everyone! Prosperity is not for all. Some people do not want prosperity (that is another subject). Some people, who are more than capable of the opposite, are content with living and managing their lives with meager means and are more than happy to exist instead of living the full life that is afforded to those that put in the hours and sweat equity. These people will forever be the ones that consume from the workers and producers. God takes care of fools and babies and in his strange manner directs those that are the workers to maintain the lives of and to share our earned resources with the consumers and takers. They will never bring bread to the table but we are directed by God’s Providence to make sure they are fed and cared for to the best of our ability It took a while for me to realize this but these people are who they are.



You also have the people that are the salt of the earth; I have no problem with these people. These are the people that have already fulfilled their ambitions. If the world were built of only limitless ambitions people there would be no one to make sure the rubber met the road. There is a need for people that are content and are willing to do the work that makes the world move. Being a child of the ghetto, I have loved and cherished people like this. I count them as family, friends, and loved ones. I have been one, and am called to be just this person depending on the client in my line of work. I am proud of my work but I am also too ambitious to put my period here.



I have often thought that it seemed a good idea to pay for the first two years of college for anyone who is raised on welfare, a parent receiving welfare, or to any young man who is from a home under a certain income level who is felony free that can reach certain scores on college entrance exams. This would be your eligible ambitous students worthy of investment. It would bridge the gap from consumer- recipient to ambitious taxpaying job creating citizen. The cutoff age would be negotiable among politicians(I would suggest 25 because the hood has it's challenges). Because this is a blog I will omit the details and share with you the concept:


If we did this we would allow the neediest among us to obtain at the very least an Associate’s degree. This in most cases creates a want and need for the graduate to pursue a Bachelors degree, almost akin to waking the apathetic sleeping giant that is the ghetto children like me that just need a little push to self-sufficiency. Let’s deal in real numbers (although made up out of my ignorance). If you could get a 35-50 percent success rate in this you could turn 35-50 people out of 100 people that would probably be welfare recipients into willing, happy, educated, taxpayers. They would then become productive taxpayers in their entire working lives instead of taking from the system in an unproductive manner until their deaths (as it is now). This would create generations that would better understand the benefit of their education and in turn usher into existence a renaissance of learning and college attendance in urban America. We already “intend” to pay them welfare for at least the next 21 years whether we want to admit it or not.



If you paid a recipient $1000 a month in food benefits and rental assistance for 21 years, the cost to the tax payer over that time would be $252,000 and you likely get nothing back from that person in the form of taxes…EVER. In essence it is a $252,000 hit to the taxpayer per household of a welfare recipient over 21 years. If you follow that logic, that is multiple taxpaying households taking care of one publicly assisted family over 21 years. If you invested free tuition at a community college for three years to that same recipient while giving them the same subsistence it would cost the taxpayer about $50,000 or less over the three years. With a success rate of 35-50 percent this would make the $8 to $12 million that you would spend on this group turn this group from costing the taxpayer $8 to $12 million over 21 years to adding $7 to $10 million to the American coffers over the same time. This is based on each paying $10,000 in taxes averaged over 21 years. We haven’t yet added the taxes that they now pay over the 21 year period for food and other goods that they would now be paying as taxpayers instead of the taxpayers paying their food subsidies. As a taxpayer, I would vote for such a plan. It would also mean a more educated urban community and fewer votes for those politicians that depend on the dependency of their constituents. Now imagine if we could get that percentage to inch up over time. Too much math for ya boy, but it could not be a bad thing.



If you want welfare reform, there is at least one step in its simplest form. We already spend this money on people for their first 12 years of schooling just to continue to spend on them if we continue to help and push them into the welfare system. What is an additional two to three more years to make them taxpayers instead of consumers as opposed to the next 20-30 years on welfare and allowing their next generation into the same bad deal? If you want the answer, here it is. A more educated constituency needs less governing and less government interference. How many politicians do you really believe want that? If you offered this plan to a politician, and I have, they will tell you it needs to be studied or try to tell you every reason that it cannot be implemented. Politicians, especially those that depend on the votes of the least educated (Democrats), will never agree that you should be on any level that puts you closer to them! In many cases, our elected leaders are in the business of helping us to remain subjects instead of citizens. Subjects work for the leader in a kingdom and the leader works for the citizen in a democracy. The last I checked, America was still a democratic republic…this is until we can get EVERYONE dependent on the government. When EVERYONE is dependent on Uncle Sam, who then will oppose him?

The problem is this: Everyone is always saying, “The problem is…”

The problem is this: Everyone is always saying, “The problem is…”


In the world of Trent I would make speaking this phrase punishable by death or dismemberment.

Ok, maybe a little too strong. I would at least make it punishable by solution. If the phrase had a speaker, that speaker would be made to offer a concise suggestion for solution. I have been hearing this phrase, “The problem is…” since I was able to decipher what words those around me were speaking. I still hear it often without the beneficial follow up that starts with, “This is what needs to be done to fix it….”

Many, many problems and very little solutions. In many instances, solving the problem creates more problems and to some that is either profitable or a hindrance to their current meal ticket. Make sure you know where that that you trust are as it pertains to either of these situations. Do we really want to solve issue plaguing our community or are we too afraid to call the people out that assist the problem in its fight to live in perpetuity? The mere mention that a problem exists causes those that create the issue to draw arms or at least show their sharp tongue. I know, it used to be me!

• Currently 1 out of 4 black children are born to a single parent.(Out-of-Wedlock Births in Black America) THIS IS A PROBLEM! Mention it as such and the people that are having multiple babies without the benefit of a two parent household will attack you instead of having effective dialogue and action aimed to solve the issue. My observations point to Black Men being the assholes that are really pretending as if a woman good enough to have your child is not good enough to marry. How’s that working out for you brauh? How can she be entrusted to nurture and bring to adulthood your most precious asset and not be good enough to marry? Shame on you brother!! Currently our welfare system encourages, by pay, our young women to have children without the benefit of planning and/or self-supplied financial wherewithal to bring this child into the world. THIS IS A PROBLEM!

• Currently some young man is leaving his parents home with his pants down to his knees and his underwear exposed to the world. That parent said nothing but, “That’s the style.” THIS IS A PROBLEM. He now knows that his parent(s) will cosign for his misdeeds and awful decisions.

• Our politicians would rather give a mother 21 years of welfare and make her a consumer of the workers wealth than to offer free tuition for 2 years of college and make her a tax-payer that eventually pays into the system. She would then have a greater chance of becoming self-sufficient and the tax-payers would not only be off the hook for supporting her for the next 21 years, she would then be adding value to her community and nation as a paying member of the taxed. It would no longer be support and would become an investment. THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM THAT OUR “PLOTITICIANS” don’t really want solved. People that are prosperous and diligent in taking care of themselves need little governing.

• Black children are increasingly being taught that they don’t have to learn to master the English language and that Ebonics is a socially acceptable form of communicating. Not so in the world of commerce and business. Somehow we let someone legitimize bs! THIS ONE IS A REAL SOURCE OF AGONY FOR ME! It is not cute when your child cannot speak! The check writers usually understand English and the check cashers sometimes need not.

• We have let our children believe that the “hood” belongs to them! What! Children and grown folks alike are claiming property that WILL NEVER BELONG TO THEM! In most cases it is subsidized property belonging to those that ALLOW this behavior in order to continue eating from that meal ticket. BUY YOUR HOME and then you can call it YOUR hood! THIS ONE WILL PISS OFF A LOT OF PEOPLE. It is not your hood if you do not own the property.

• For generations, the same people have enjoyed the benefit of our vote. Problem is we are still the same poor or poorer than when Grandma and Big Mama cast that vote for the same people. Insanity is continuing to cast that vote for these people and expecting something different to happen. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Other people tie their votes to their finances and make their representatives accountable if their financial standing changes. As a race of people we do not. I was poor four years ago when I voted for you, I should personally be doing better or you will not get my vote again.



I could go on for days, weeks, months…you get the picture. To fix and issue or problem it must first be identified as a problem. We have to quit telling our children that these issues and others are not problems in order to save face. I tell my daughter ALL of the crap that I did and thought in my younger years. I let her know that these were mistakes that are not to be continued by her or her brother. I let her know that I did it and the egg is on my face. Now what good would it do to save that kind of face?

Our solution is to call a problem a problem, then and only then can we get it fixed. Your house will flood if you think the hole in the roof is not an issue. The next generations really need no help from us telling them what the problem is without our wisdom in helping them to solve it.

Watch the ones that scream "Racist!", they usually get the least done!

I would like to share this thing with you that you should already be aware of. It is not something that is etched in the psyche of all people, yet something you realize is quite clear when given focused and concentrated thought. Here it is: Racism is alive and kicking but those that that complain the loudest among us are the least productive. There, I said it.


People that are complainers are seldom people that are producers of action. The fact that an ism is out there and it exists gives them grand illusions of acceptable ineptitude. To be racist is significantly different than being prejudice. Every one of God’s human children is prejudice. We all pre-judge others until we are brought to a realization of their true character and/or personality. We are all hard wired from experiences, either ours or someone else’s, to protect ourselves from the historical pains of others. We do this by trying to figure things out before they happen to avoid them. This is done by pre-judging a person, place, or thing based on our personal knowledge of what this person, place, or thing is capable of. Without this, kids would run up to play with snakes and tigers. The prejudice doesn’t stymie me because it can be changed immediately in most cases with some education.

The racist are the ones that you have to constantly battle against. You see racist have the institutional power to stop! It is a practice, an act that can be perpetrated on others in the name of uneducated prejudice. In most cases minorities have not enough power over institutions to be racist. We own banks but do not own banking, we own houses but we do not own housing, we vote but we are too minor in number to completely politic for ourselves in America. We have little to no power to stop the majority from doing as they will in most cases. We have little to no power to be racist. If you think that we do then explain to me Eminem!

My issue in this piece is with those among us that use racism as a point of discontinuing to move and an excuse to become the town crier. People are racist, so what! If the wall is too big to climb go around, if it is too wide to round find a way to go through, if it is too thick to go through – invent! If this fails create your community where the wall will not move. When that community prospers, EVERYONE will want to be a part and you must guard against the history of your founding being rewritten. Everything is not a cry to call others racist! Republicans are no more racist that Democrats and vice versa. We have to stop calling the one pushing scraps off of the table the least racist. They aint “good white folk” because they gave you a damn turkey during the holidays! Did they tell you how to get your own turkey? Did they impart on you the knowledge to have your kids compete with theirs? Did they really answer the real questions that you had or did they train you to not ask the right questions? I am really getting tired of people always relying on the racist card without looking under the engine. Don’t just kick the tires folks. Hell some of these black folk are racist too. Do you really believe that your local Democratic politician wants you and the family moving in next to them and theirs?

Racism hides in the form of herded black folk too. Notice the next time someone pulls the card of racism their accomplishments and actions. Are you really worthy to tell me that someone else is racist when your kids commit all of their crimes against one group of people and usually that group is their own. That is what I call racist! Be very careful the person you follow and listen too, everyone doesn’t want you in a better situation that they are in. Who then will they stand on? Racism is alive and well and no one party has a monopoly on it. Since you know it is opposing you, you are in a better situation to fight it instead of just complaining about it. Wasted energy is talking about a solution, Well expended energy is shutting up and solving it.