Dedication

 

[From the book: Becoming a Black AI Jedi: Afrofuturism Homeschooling]

By Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews

This work is dedicated to children like me who didn’t have a fair chance. 

I grew up in abject poverty in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. Both my parents were illiterate and traumatized from a life of living and fleeing the Jim Crow South. 

My father was a plumber and alcoholic. My mom, a chain-smoker and nervous wreck was sweet, mean, and broken. They divorced when I was six, and it was quite some time before I saw my father again. It forced my mom into single motherhood with me and my older sister.

By age 10, the stress and trauma of my mother’s life and smoking gave her 3-4 months to live. Forced into Special Ed, I dropped out of the 6th grade to care for her while my sister worked to keep food on the table. It was then my mother learned about a healing minister by the name of Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon of Christ Universal Temple. She borrowed money for a cab to take me and my sister for Wednesday night service to learn from this Goddess Healer. That night in the foyer, we were fortunate to meet Dr. Colemon and Rev. Ike, the guest speaker. I remember seeing a Rolls Royce parked in front of the church, something I had only seen on television. 

My mom enrolled me in Sunday school, and there I learned a secret code that Dr. Colemon instilled in us: You are the THINKER who THINKS the THOUGHT that makes the THING. I did not know what this meant at the time, but it prepared me for the life of hell and damnation that I would soon be force-fed to swallow. 

I was 14, it was a cold February night close to Valentine’s Day when I heard my sister screaming, “No, no, no!” I was in the bathroom giving myself a poor man’s bath (washing up in the facebowl). I ran out with Zest suds on my body and watched my mother gasping and grasping for air known as Cheyne-Stokes. I picked her up and carried her to my bedroom. I laid her on my bed and watched her take her last breath. Devastated and in shock, my sister and I thought she would wake up. Three days later, we began inhaling the decay of her body as her skin turned black. It was then I knew my mother had made her transition.

I made three promises to my mother: 1) I would never do drugs, 2) I would never join a gang, and 3) I would make something of my life that she would be proud of. Our phone was disconnected, so I had to go next door to our neighbor's house to call 911 to get my mother's body. When they put the blanket over my mother's face, I knew my life had changed forever. I used my neighbor's phone to call my father to let him know mommy was gone. He came by and took my sister and me to his rat and roach-infested basement apartment. Because my father was physically and emotionally violent and abusive to me, my mother, and my sister, my sister had to stay with our grandfather. When she was 19, my father took a hammer and gave her nine stitches in the middle of her head. She was never right again with men after that event.

I worked with my father, plumbing each day until a windy day in April, two months after my mother transitioned, coming back from a job on the West Side of town, my father exited his car, walked around to retrieve tools from his trunk, and I heard a thud. My father had literally dropped dead on a pile of garbage. I witnessed my last and only parent take their last breath.

My sister stepped up and became my legal guardian as my father’s family members were trying to steal me for money. We lost the house I was raised in and went on welfare. I worked as a cook for KFC through the Dawson King Center program for impoverished, marginalized young Black boys and girls. I earned $3.35 an hour, but after two years, my trauma kicked in, and I yelled at one of the female managers and was fired. 

Because I had dropped out of school, I was told by a doctor that I was functionally illiterate. At 14, that designation stuck with me because someone with a doctorate said so. I won't bore you with the details of my life as a young boy and man, but I remember becoming a voracious reader after that event. When my sister was able to get an apartment on 91st and Buffalo, we struggled to make $300 a month in rent. I was instilled with a poverty and illiteracy consciousness, but I kept hearing the words of Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon: You are the THINKER who THINKS the THOUGHT that makes the THING. My sister was a model at Patricia Stevens modeling school and would come home and meticulously do her makeup in the bathroom mirror. I watched intently, and more so, I watched all of the half-naked models in her magazines such as Harpers Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Vogue, and my favorite, Fredricks of Hollywood! I knew I wanted to work with beautiful models and chase the girls! LOL

I was led to enroll in Debbie's School of Beauty Culture on Lake Street because I saw a barber driving a red Corvette and had three fine AF women trailing behind him. I altered the scripture and said, “The Lord is my shepherd…that’s what I want!” LOL! I made it to senior level and was about to graduate when they told me I had to have a high school diploma to take the State Board or a GED (General Education Diploma). Because I dropped out of grade school, my hopes quickly died. Somehow, I reached out to photogs and models I met in beauty school and attempted to become a makeup artist, which was natural since I learned so much from my sister through osmosis.

I never made any money and sporadically did high-end jobs on Kraft television commercials and a couple of movies. I would take buses and trains for miles and had holes in my shoes and worn clothes, but I was determined to make something of myself as I had made this promise to my mother. I met an editor of the Hyde Park Citizen, Lisa Ely, and asked her if I could write some beauty and skincare articles for the newspaper. She said yes, and I submitted a handwritten article on a yellow notepad, and she accepted it and published it. I remember telling my classmates in beauty school that one day, they would see my name in magazines. They all hysterically laughed at me, but remember: I am the THINKER who THINKS the THOUGHT that makes the THING!

When I saw my name in the Hyde Park Citizen Newspaper from my article, I balled up in the fetal position and cried like a newborn baby. From there, I developed a boldness and submitted my work to a new entertainment magazine out of Atlanta called Upscale Magazine. In 1990, I became the first Beauty Editor for the publication and saw my name on the Masthead with each issue. In 1991, I watched a PBS Special featuring motivational speaker Les Brown, who did a monologue called Live Your Dreams. It was the first time I heard of a motivational speaker, and I set my sights on this new way out of poverty and illiteracy. Les was labeled EDR (Educable Mentally Retarded), so I felt I had a kinship as a functionally illiterate and that he would understand my plight. 

By this time, I had secured writing a beauty/motivational column in a large local paper. My column was entitled Faces In High Places, where I interviewed high-profile people and celebrities about their beauty, fitness regime, and philosophy on success. I learned how to publish and interview high-profile people, from Susan Taylor of Essence Magazine to Eartha Kitt to the late great Phillys Hyman. But I was only receiving $74 a month from N’digo, and I don't think I ever got paid from Upscale, or at least it was so minimal, I don’t remember. 

I recall landing an exclusive interview with supermodel Iman, who was debuting her cosmetics line at JC Penny. My phone was shut off then, and I asked the publisher of N’digo if they could front me one month's pay ($74) so I could get my phone turned on, and they said no. Determined, I had a friend named Hugh Scott who let me bring my phone recorder to his house and taught him how to record my phone interview. He lived on the west side of town, and the interview was scheduled too early to get there in time from where I lived, which was 3 ½ hours one way on buses and trains. So, I walked to the neighborhood post office and conducted the interview using a pay phone. I called Hugh, and he three-wayed me into Iman when she called. I conducted a 1 hour interview with the fashion/beauty icon and transcribed the interview by hand after spending 6 hours going to his house and back to mine after retrieving the cassette tape of the recording. I published the interview in N’digo and Upscale magazine because I was the thinker who thinks the thought that makes the thing!

By this time, I wanted so badly to be a motivational speaker that I figured out a way to convince the station manager of WGCI radio in Chicago to sponsor my first motivational speaking event at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The event was titled Beauty Dynamics, and the house was packed as I stood there mimicking and modeling my then-mentor, Les Brown.

I had another goal, and that was to become a published author. I began interviewing self-made millionaires such as Dr. Cuttie Bacon III, Les Brown, Bob Proctor, Suze Orman, Robert Kiyosaki, Robert G. Allen and more. I struggled to get that first book published: How to Make Millions When Thousand Have Been Laid Off. Once I became an author, I started speaking at metaphysical churches nationwide and even landed a gig at Unity Bermuda! I met Marianne Williamson and interviewed her when she was the spiritual leader at Renesaince Unit, which she changed to Church of Today. Who knew decades later she would run for President of the United States? She gave me two exclusive interviews and was one of my references when I decided to pursue my doctorate at the University of Metaphysics, Sedona.

I received my doctorate on May 22, 2022, at 9:30 a.m., and became Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews. SHOCK was an acronym Amma (God) and the Ancestors gave me, which stands for Seeking Higher Omnipotent Cosmic/Conscious Knowledge, a process that I use to attract and interview over two thousand of the greatest minds of our time over the thirty years. There are a lot that I’ve left out of sharing this journey with the reader of this Dedication, but I wanted to share with you that nothing is impossible if you know how to think and are determined to see it through no matter what. You can change your personal history and the personal history of your children if you just learn what Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon taught me when I was ten years old: “You are the THINKER who THINKS the THOUGHT that makes the THING!”

I dedicate this work and my life to teaching this process to any 1st Frequency, B1 person willing to listen and do the work. Ase, and so it is!

https://www.BlackAIJedi.com - Becoming a Black AI Jedi: Afrofuturism Homeschooling: Giving Black Children an Unfair Advantage in an Unfair World by Rev. Dr. Philippe SHOCK Matthews (Author) | Dr. Clyde Winters (Foreword) |