“
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me last week. Unfortunately, we decided to go in a different direction for this position. I was very impressed with your skill set and attitude, but I believe that the position is far below your experience level. Best of luck in your search.
Regards,
XXXX”
This was the end result of an interview for a Contract to set up a New Business. Without going into the "private" details and Name Dropping of the company, the gentleman who contacted me looking for someone to assist him in this opportunity to Start-Up this financial group, the type of company that I have extensive experience and contacts in doing. The gentleman sat quietly on the phone while I detailed my experience and commitment for not only doing the Right thing but my unique ability to be
Forward Thinking and
Pro-Active for making sure that any costly issues are addressed before it happens and still keep
COSTS under budget. Assuring that when it comes to my experience and background I have references that lists a whos who in the the Industry; Financial, Government, Community and past clients of HIGH REGARDS of my work. I then ended the Interview with the gentleman saying, “
I will call you next week and we will talk some more”. One week later, I had to call him and left a Voice Mail. The next day, I get an e-mailed, the aforementioned.
Now this might not be a big deal for most people, for some, it would be part of the reality of a broken economy in America but for me, it is different. As a person who can handle rejection, (
as a Black Man in the United States, its pretty much coded in our DNA) I get responses like this
ALL THE TIME. I have lost
count on the number of times when a person's perception of me changes from phone Interview or Paper to meeting in Person. Once seen by people for interviews and they see the nature of my Being and the nature of my background and professionalism, due it tone and tenor, the interest changes. I have been told, “
You might come off TOO stiff or TOO serious and that might bother some people”. I use to take that into consideration when I’d get comments back from interviewers such as, “
What we are looking for are people who will FIT into what we have.” I would passively let that wash over me when I began to ask, “
Well what do you mean by FIT? or “
Explain to me what your group is looking for so I can get an understanding about what your Group is like and the piece you are looking for me to FIT into?” Doing that, I was seen as being "Aggressive" and "Confrontational" when simply I was asking to "Define" what my lack of FIT was to them. If I entered into the Interview smiling and bubbly, I appeared "Phony" and "Untrustworthy". So I quickly went back to what I know best, Being Me, Being Honest, Being True, Being Black since I can't be anything else but.
I put emphasis on the last statement not because of some false sense of
RACIAL pride or blind faith in evidence not seen, I do it because I have the knowledge and understanding of who I am and of my place in America. I also realize that America is at its temper tantrum stage in development and is fighting to understand the
CHANGES within its
BODY. This is a simple concept to follow but I know many people, specifically American
WHITE folk, won’t get it. In conversation and in speaking engagements I describe where I am and how people like myself fit into what I call ,
"THE BODY AMERICA".
Imagine if you came from another planet and you wanted to know what the make up of the United States consisted of. After you give a “
brief"" History of the United States, its economics, its social and religious growth, history and its politics, you then would be asked about its
PEOPLE. I would then step forward and break it down like this;
"
If you want to know what is the Body America, break Her down in three parts, her Soul, her Spirit and her Mind. America’s Spirit is her Native American People. Where they are, how they subsist and ultimately their social conditions because as People, they are tied to their LAND thus they become the essence of America’s Soul. To kill or diminish Her Soul; you open the door to a Darkness that is capable of doing any and EVERYTHING. Even to Herself.
Her Spirit comes from her Black People. Its creativity, its intuitivism, Her mood and 
optimism, its facility to come back from atrocity and depravity and still have LOVE for its ideals, they are the heart and RESPECT and interest in the WHOLE Body, Her Black People call for salvation by reminding Her of the void developed by Her PAST deeds and maintains the promise to NOT turn away from it. Her Black People live to Love Her even when she does not always LOVE back.
America’s Mind is Her White People, the Majority, the Power, the Shakers, the Movers, the Managers, the Actors but unfortunately not too bright as Her Thinker; more so She is a Runner and prides Herself as the one which only "REACTS". As the reactor, She often does not look back upon all Her actions and deeds or skips over the DETAILS. Seen only as sitting at the head of the Boardroom, The Mind’s only responsibility is to be “The Decider”, deciding on matters that may feed its Body but rarely, if ever, it’s Soul. "
Now this may seem like
HATE LANGUAGE or
RACIST, but then again if you enter into this breakdown with a closed mind or have
MADE UP YOUR MIND in advanced and are not looking to see beyond a particular perspective prior to reading this, then it is.
BUT if you take a moment to hear me out, you will see that I am very
PATRIOTIC and a person of
Spirit.
Whenever Black and Brown folk bring up the fact that
WHITES are the majority in the United States, the hairs on White folk’s necks rise up in anticipation for personal or a racial attack but it is
FACT. As the Majority, it is rare if ever Minority issues are considered. Being such as it is, the opportunities of the Majority are shared by all; being Shakers, Movers, Managers and the one’s that do the
THINKING –
One Thought, One Mind, only One Perception for One Reality. As rule, this has been the very
FOUNDATION of the Body America.
Now look at Her today, Native Americans are non-existent in the fabric of America. If a person were to walk the streets without a
SOUL, what would you experience? Black Americans are beaten down and beaten back and even
ATTACKED for its Spirit, now imagine someone walking down the street without any Spirit? Now imagine a person walking down the street without pause or hesitation randomly doing without purpose or constantly reacting without thinking? Now take all of the above and combined them into one
BODY and what would you have? That
BODY would be Deaf, Dumb, Depressed, Angry and Dangerous to its
SELF and others. This is the Body America, which too often is the acceptable vision and aspiration for its people.
When the Mind does not listen to the Body, there is a disconnect that places the totality of its existence in a state of
Slow Burn. This means that the
BODY, although shining brightly, its shine shrink and dwindle into nothing. That in
dividual spark that brought about the birth of Democracy with all its freedoms in individuality, religion, law and expression, with the Mind’s ignoring of the Soul and Spirit, this Nation has unfortunately evolved into a
Majoritarian Authority, turning what was simple into a
Peoples’ Government sacrificed on the
Alter of Democracy. More so, the Imperial Bubble this Nation exists in is simply that of a room full of like minded Bodies that collectively reacts to the gun without understanding that if the “
heart” cannot handle the drive and the “
spirit” isn’t willing, the grand strategy and goal to get to the finish line will ultimately fall short and the
RACE to be number
ONE will be nothing more than tales of nostalgia told to grandchildren who are more interested in
Today than
Yesterday.
It is accepted that the “
soul’ is the foundation for
LIFE and the “
spirit” the
FIRE that drives the body. Both are so fixed in their connection to each other that when one tries to break the two,
separate the two, divide it from the fine line that bonds them together, you plan to create a void, a hole that must be filled. Too often what the Mind uses as filler for the gap created often are artificial elements that infect and grow into a cancer. Like cancers, they are very insidious as it breaks down the natural order of the
BODY. Cancer slows down and ages the body, the Body is broken down and it quickly burns itself out, like a slow burning candle. A Mind that is on the run, a Body that only “
reacts” and limits its ability to see and or seek the aid needed to heal will eventual stop and die. And yet we also know that in turning to one’s
SPIRIT, we can heal Bodily illnesses by drawing on its
SOUL. Unfortunately the Body America never looks back or even considers the details even when the solution is natural.
“
Unfortunately, we decided to go in a different direction for this position.”
What direction is that? Backwards? Side ways? Down? It can’t be forwards because you had found someone that has all of the core elements you were looking for and
THEN SOME. That is ‘
if” you are truly looking for someone to assist you in
STARING up your company for forward momentum.
“
I was very impressed with your skill set and attitude, but I believe that the position is far below your experience level.”
Impressed so much that you are willing to
NOT bring in a talented and or solid professional into the fold to create success and presences in the field you desperately need help in. And then there is the “
far below your experience level”, which by it’s sentence structure is an insult. One does not understand that when you use this
PHRASE you in essence say, “
I look at YOU, I ignore YOU, I laugh at YOU, I fight YOU, and then I WIN over you.”
It is in this Mind, this practice, the
REACTION of the Body America, a Nation misses out on the Spirit and the Soul of America and adds further to diminish it. When you look at other
societies, they see the examples in America’s Soul and they see America’s Spirit and they make
NOTE not to make the same mistakes in ignoring it. If anything, they embrace and invite it into their social make up. This is the primary reason why the International Position of America to
LEAD the World is slipping on all levels. We ask why Nations such as
China, India, Brazil, London, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Germany even
Canada have crept up behind and tapped the Body America on the shoulder and said “
Either Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way.”
Like all things included in
Liberation Theology, we cannot expect an individual, a group, a Peoples or a Nation to grow unless you can accept that like nature, it has to evolve, it has to
CHANGE. America is now moving into the adolescence of it existence on the Planet. It can no longer afford to live like a
Child Nation in a World of Adults and Elders. We all have a purpose in life, some are here to
Do great things, some to
Be great things, and still others are here to act as
"Guides and
Guardians". When a Nation in its
REACTION cannot turn just enough to realize that it has forgotten its Guides and Guardians, you will soon find that every Person or as I’d like to say, “
Every Cell” in the Body America will be told:
“
Unfortunately, we decided to go in a different direction for this position.”
Signed,
THE WORLD 
