Finding the Good

Hotep,

How easy is it to look at someone’s occupation and begin to process favorable thoughts about their character without a second guess?

e.g.: Fireman, police officers, neurosurgeons or community organizers.  There’s nothing wrong with seeing the good in the deeds of others.  We run into a problem when we assume a person’s occupational duties alone accredits them as good peoples.  We have to remember, it’s the motivation behind the deeds that defines the good within a person.  Feel me?

I recently completed an exercise in my creative writing course in which I was instructed to develop a villainous character with redeemable qualities. I eventually came up with, Jamie Antrell Dixon, a city mayor whose duplicity reeked of scandal.  He stole from the police pension fund to support his expensive gambling habits, but he also made history by giving public school teachers a 30% pay increase within his first four years as mayor.  Mayor Dixon also upgraded the “Meals on Wheels” program for shut-in senior citizens from one meal per week to three.  Does this make Mayor Dixon a good person?

Politics aside; it’s only natural that a voter would want their candidate to be a good person.  We’d like to think that our selection – whether it is a presidential candidate or defense counsel – somehow is a resemblance of ourselves, right?

Let’s keep it 100, people.  When you go to the voting polls with the intent of selecting the lesser of the two evils, you’re searching for the good in a candidate.  Taxes, pension plans, and health insurance aren’t always the deciding factors.

Try this one on for size:

A defense attorney may do everything within his litigable abilities to save someone from reaching the death chamber.  But, when his/her success rate is low, he/she may switch sides to have a lengthy career prosecuting capital murder cases – sending defendants to death row at any cost.  Good or bad?

The good in a person shouldn’t be predicated on job titles, living conditions or financial status.  The good in a person supersedes job protocols and peer pressure.  A good person just does good without seeking accolades for the deeds he/she has done.

As long as I have known myself, my Creator knows me even better.  My actions are that of a Mann seeking justice without using hate or contempt as my driving force.  My body of work is the manifestation of who the Creator made me to be.  I have much to offer to a free society.  I won’t permit my present circumstance to eclipse that.  Word is bond!

Many people believe there can be no good in the heart of a Mann on death row.  I often ask myself; do these same people wonder what’s in the heart of an attorney who indulges in illegal drug usage, while representing a defendant in a capital murder trial?  Do they search for good in the heart of a racist prosecutor given free range to basically do whatever is necessary to win a conviction?  Do these same people bother to wonder what’s in the heart of my codefendant?  To these people, the correct answers to these questions can be revealed in the nearest mirror.  Take a look; good or bad?

Always 100,

MannofStat

Copyright © 2013 by Leroy Elwood Mann