Ethnic Equality

  Thanks for coming by. I'm Dan. First and foremost I consider myself a Global Citizen and try to be in that consciousness as a default state. 

  I spent my childhood as the son of a southern traveling revivalist preacher. When Dad wasn't occupied with driving home his perceived, clearly fear-based notion, of Hell Fire and Brimstone somewhere we were grunting and sweating out our claim to existence along the Eastern Seaboard's farm labor circuit. Between picking peaches or cherries on the shores of Lake Ontario to picking oranges and lemons under the oppressive Florida sun, were interludes up in the Appalachians with the coal miners and snake handlers and Moonshiners or down in the Everglades in shacks on stilts. Places where God didn't wanna go, superstition was agreed reality and Law was local, "are you fur me or agin me?". At five I witnessed a young man killed by his Uncle and buried in a shallow grave without the authorities ever contacted just for being a "wise ass". My Daddy said some words over him of course, it was only proper. 

  I witnessed first hand the civil rights upheavals of the "60"s". I watched three big burly white cops beat an old black lady into the gutter with their night sticks as she tried to leave the street and sit down on the grass while succumbing to the heat of a "Peace March". Even as a child I could see, they were very afraid of "something". I remember hearing two farmers praying on each side of me in church, one that God would bring the rains so his corn could fill out the kernels and the other that God wouldn't allow a rain to come now and cause his tomatoes to split just before harvest. I thought, something is dreadfully wrong here, "it's the same God". I tried to buy an ice cream from the colored only window and was denied, as I was denied when I tried to take my black friend in the front for service. As a teenager I worked hanging tobacco in August under tin roofed barns with kerosene heaters already burning below for 75 cents per hour and ten hour days, saving money to leave Georgia. All in all, a great education, I was beginning to get the oppression thing, and with it grew a deep smoldering desire to be part of something to change it. My school of hard knock University was two tours of Viet Nam and the death of my five year old son. After pushing up through the emotion and mind-mud of that I was ready to go to work.

  I've been involved with or creating groups to make a positive difference in some area of noted need ever since. From Zero Population, Sierra Club, Ions, Apple, New Frontiers etc. I've been learning about humanity through learning about myself. Now I live in the Sierra foothills along the Hiway 50 corridor and am involved with F.U.S.E. "Foothills United for a Sustainable Economy/Environment".

  I've studied all the major religions and spiritual paths of the world to some level to round out my understanding of the meaning of things and have learned it's the "Ways of Knowing" not the "Kinds of Beliefs" that steer us to greater consciousness and any possible chance of reaching "species maturity". I recognize there are many others "out there", who have their own reasons to actively engage in the "Ascent of Humanity" and be a part in creating our future rather than waiting to see what happens.  I am thrilled on one hand and deeply motivated on the other to know and work with other wonderful people in this time of "The Great Turning". I hope to meet you sometime soon, Namaste, Dan.