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.



What ever happened to good old fashioned MEN?

It used to be that there were very noticeable differences between the sexes. Your sons did things that boys did and your daughters did things that girls did. Remember your aunts and uncles saying, “Boys stay with boys, Girls stay with girls.” Okay, maybe that was just in my family, but anyway. The times have moved us toward the dissipation of the lines that once helped us to place individuals in proper sexual perspective. To me, this is not a good thing.

A boy in skinny jeans wearing earrings in both holes and carrying European carry-alls is rather contemporary, yet new to me. Young ladies sagging, wearing fitted caps and playing middle linebacker at the local high school is something, I guess, I will need to get used to. Households are starting to show the signs of the man being away. In the natural order of things a man serves as the protector, guide, and leader of the home or pack. The lack thereof is catapulting our society into something more akin to an unnatural state of being. This may be something that is desired by non-traditionalist or those that would oppose nature in Her wisest of ways.

Imagine an animal kingdom where the male lion decided that he would no longer lead his pack, or the queen bee deciding she would relinquish her duties to move on to something that made her happier. The natural order of the collective would surely be thrown into generations of confusion, if they survived. This is what has happened to our human world, particularly in the USA and especially in the African-American community. The natural state of things is not as it should be.

Young men are told that they can no longer be too active or rambunctious. Rambunctious used to be a natural state of the untrained boy. Now it dictates he needs drugs. Men are told that we can no longer become angry, when controlled anger is what has kept our families safe and secure for generations. The Father’s discipline is disallowed and replaced with government controlled diagnoses that lead pharmaceutical investors to enjoy lofty retirement benefits. We are now told that we are no longer allowed to teach our sons how to deal with bullies and we must now “report” our issues to the bureaucrats that do no more than catalog and document for further pontification. Your home can no longer be protected lest you become the prisoner of the new laws.

Men are reduced to being parts of the whole instead of leading the whole out of danger and darkness. Was not this great national identity of ours to stand up to bullies, even for others that are less powerful than us? Were we once, as men, made of tougher things than we currently consist of? Were we once that ones that were looked up to by our sons and daughters as examples of what they should be and seek in their years toward self sufficiency?

What happened to the man that did it by the sweat of his brow and took no handout that was not paid back with interest? Where did the men that protected their OWN neighborhood go to? Why is it that the gangsters and pedophiles no longer fear the man of the house? Is he really gone never to return? Not many men even tend to their own yards anymore, or change their own oil and spark plugs.

I am thankful that my father produced a son that never looked past him to give me guidance to stop others from bullying me. I am glad that he taught me that I was responsible for protecting the Gamble kids that live in Katy, Texas. I am glad that he made me push the lawn mower and hold the light on cold nights when the starter needed to be changed. I am thankful that he told me that I have no right to complain if I refuse to be part of the process. Thank you God that my father was the first to teach me to shoot a gun, to stand and be counted, to open my mouth and get fed, to lead from the front, to be the man of my household, to analyze with great scrutiny the solutions of others and to stand straight up with ten toes pointed forward and proclaim I am a MAN. It is exactly what I will teach my son.



I love you sister but you need to stop using me as an excuse for your failures!

Behind almost every good man is a good woman driving his success or behind most bad men are women supporting their failures. Often that woman may be a mother, aunt, wife, or girlfriend. This is easily recognizable by his words and actions. No man can forgo his good blessings and deny that this is so. We understand that the rock that we anchor ourselves to has our faith or lack there of and a strong angel or powerful demon attached. Usually that angel/demon is a female. We love you ladies with all of our heart and all of our souls as well as with our resources, but you have to stop blaming us for all of your shortcomings!

I hear and read about women that are stuck in neutral because of some bad experience or relationship with a person of the opposite gender. I am often left asking why this is. It is as if some women are hard-wired to seek out the worst among us so that they may have wonderful excuses for their ineptitude. He broke my heart so I have to remain bitter for the rest of my existence, He will not take care of his child so I cannot move forward. He is in jail so I have to retard my progress in life to support his incarceration; all of the good men are married or gay. So many excuses and so little guidance from the older generation are frankly hurting the next batch of men that are brought up by single mothers.

First of all, you chose him usually knowing his shortcomings and with open eyes looking at his horrible future. Did you not think that he would try to make you a part of his plan? Again, behind almost every good man is a good woman driving his success or behind most bad men are women supporting their failures. Did you really do your part to drive his successes? This was the man you chose right? I would wager your choice was not to help him fail in life, right?

You cannot expect that every man that you meet will be a Prince. There are many frogs that need to be kissed. The issue is that many of the frogs are getting more than kisses. I think it is high time that the focus be put on the learned lesson achieved from negative experiences and relationships. ALL LESSONS COST YOU SOMETHING! It is important that you do not let the lesson cost you your dignity; it is often the last thing you have left to sell and ironically the most costly. Funnier still is that the dignity that is so costly usually is given at a cheap price and the stock on it never again rises.

I would love to see more women passing on the knowledge learned to the next generation of ladies. I would hate for my daughters prospects in life to be limited by her mother’s excuses and complaints about a man. I would hope that she would be taught that she succeeded and survived despite the fall. Her story would say that there are good men out there; they just want a good woman. Despite your experiences, are you a woman that a man with choices would choose to date? Have you overcome instead of being overcome? Have you exposed your sores to the world or did you clean, bandage, and work diligently to heal them.

I don’t want to date a woman with stab wounds still open from her last fight, oops I mean relationship, sorry. I really don’t want to hear her excuses and stories about her “baby-daddy’s sorry ass”. I want to know that she was resilient enough to not let any of that stop her and that she can get past the pitfalls of life. That is a woman that I would want to find, date, and spend the rest of my life with. Often in the animal kingdom only the strongest and most resilient get to pass on their seed. If only human beings were the same way!

Move on past the bad and talk no more about it unless you are educating another about getting past it and prospering in life. Too many times have I watched the life being sucked out of young women because no older woman would let her know that the stop sign in her life meant to look both ways before crossing and not to cut the car off and park. We need more sisters to get this across to them, REAL TALK.



Did desegregation really work out for Africa-America? Not so much for my hood!

Imagine if you will the neighborhood that I come from. It is sometime between 1930-1960 in 5th Ward Texas. The area is bustling with growth, home ownership, trailblazing good schools, doctor’s offices, dentist offices, printing plants, photography studios, many entertainment venues, professional people, and little crime relative to today’s onslaught. There are current prominent people as well as those that would make their mark on the world that are proud to call it home: Julia C. Hester (Hester House namesake), Barbara Jordan, Ruth Simmons(The very first black president of an Ivy league school), Mickey Leland, Joe Sample, George Foreman, Lester Hayes, A.K. Kelly(Kelly Courts namesake), and Lightnin' Hopkins to name a few. If you grew up with me I am sure you could easily add a member of your family to this list.

Jensen drive was the place to be on the weekend. Many Negro artists would come to Fifth Ward to entertain, not Houston but Fifth Ward. People expected their children to do well and the community did well as a result. You got fruit on Jensen and Collingsworth, your shoes were fixed on Collingsworth and 59, you swam at Finnegan or Tuffly, and kids would ride bikes from Jensen to the railroad and Clinton to Collingsworth, then came the integration of the 1960’s.

Many residents moved away to pursue other opportunities. With this came the deterioration of the fabric of life that was pre-1960’s 5th Ward. Crime started to rise, families fell into states of unrest and the “hood” became notorious for being one of the most crime-ridden and financially retarded areas in the nation. This can be said about many predominately African-American areas that were prosperous before integration. Travel this country into old Africa-America and there are still people behind that have the oral history, the American Griots if you will. They watched their culture strive and build when insulated and watched it water-down and leave behind the have-nots when emancipated from integration. Did we really want to start to look out for number one in the 60’s? Did we discontinue being our brother’s keeper and becoming integrated soloist as a result of the good fortune of integration? Were we integrated when we really wanted an end to desegregation?

The world may be better as a result of integration but areas like the area that I grew up in are far worse. These areas were left behind. The Fifth Ward was a place where everyone took care of me as a child. I knew the entire neighborhood and they knew my family. They made sure that my family knew what I was doing and where I was doing it at. This works if your family responds appropriately to the intelligence. Now the yards of many of the people that took care of me are overgrown with weeds, the homes are boarded up or gutted, the city rarely maintains their part since the taxes collected from this area are far less than other less forgotten, more prosperous areas of the city. Buildings that were once vibrant with commerce or entertainment life are abandoned, the area bounded by Collingsworth, Russell, Liberty Road and Jensen Drive that was proudly once known as  French Town has been absorbed into the rest of the neighborhood as it lost its rich Louisiana-Creole/Catholic identity. People now walk down Collingsworth as if there is no urgency in their steps, almost as if they are seeking something that has been lost.

Desegregation helped many of us to get to where we are today; it also played a part in us forgetting where we come from. Many are reluctant to remember the history and the vibrancy of what was ours alone. It was when we didn’t commercial our culture or have a lack of color on our album covers and in our videos. We were once proud to be from the Fifth Wards of the world because it meant you came from good stock. Now many look down to those remaining as if they just haven't made it out yet. We were once happy to go down to Jensen Drive for the concert. We were once asking only that you desegregate, not integrate…we could handle that part. We are losing our own and clutching what belongs to someone else in our unfocused and unconscious effort to let our history die. There was once a time when other people copied us, now our young men wear skinny jeans and speak proudly of getting white-boy wasted. If the jewels of Fifth Ward could see us now!