Allowing the micro­phone to long-wind­ed sis­ter Agatha dur­ing tes­ti­mo­ny on Sunday morn­ing church ser­vice, and hav­ing to gen­tly prod it from her hands is always a risky endeavor.
In the inter­est of time and com­mon sense, the pas­tor has to make the deci­sion to cut sis­ter Agatha’s micro­phone or phys­i­cal­ly take it from her trem­bling hands.

But who takes the micro­phone from the hands of the Pastor in the inter­est of time, or more impor­tant­ly in the inter­est of com­mon sense?
Who makes the deci­sion to say “take his micro­phone”, when the Pastor clear­ly drunk from hav­ing the lime­light decides to make a spec­ta­cle and a fool of himself?

We are told that the Late Queen of soul Aretha Franklin asked the Reverend Jasper Williams a Georgia Pastor to eulo­gize her. Reverend Williams took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to delve into some crit­i­cal areas of black life with­out lay­ing out con­text or adding both sides of the argu­ments which would have insu­lat­ed him from the back­lash he is receiv­ing. By doing so he left out excul­pa­to­ry facts which go to the defense of the African-American com­mu­ni­ty which is con­stant­ly being maligned.

This does not mean that Reverend Williams’ com­ments should be ignored, nev­er­the­less speak­ing with­out the impor­tant prin­ci­ple of bal­ance does give rise to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being tuned out or a neg­a­tive back­lash which drowns out the intend­ed message.
Pastor Williams spoke to a few issues to which I will attempt to add some perspective.

(1) Quote: There was a time when we as a race had a thriv­ing econ­o­my.

There nev­er was a time when African-Americans as a race had a thriv­ing econ­o­my, there have been pock­ets of eco­nom­ic progress in small places like Rosewood Florida, Tulsa Oklahoma and a few oth­er places where Black entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it had pro­duced some mea­sure of eco­nom­ic suc­cess and pride, but that was nev­er allowed to be built out or trans­lat­ed across the broad­er spec­trum of black America.

(2) Quote:” We got what we fought for, we got what we marched for, but with the birth of inte­gra­tion there also came the loss of not only the loss of the black com­mu­ni­ty’s econ­o­my we also lost our souls. Where is your soul black man?
As I look in your house there are no fathers.”

Pastor Williams’ broad sweep­ing gen­er­al­ized state­ments makes the assump­tions that there was a thriv­ing black econ­o­my across America which is not sup­port­ed by any his­tor­i­cal data. As I point­ed out ear­li­er there were pock­ets of black eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty much of which was destroyed by white mob vio­lence and through the imple­men­ta­tion of oth­er more sub­ver­sive mea­sures. However, this was in no way true of the wider African-American population.
The idea that there are no black fathers in black homes sound like a right-wing talk­ing point rather than the state­ments of a cau­tious learned man of God.

(3) Quote: Seventy per­cent of our house­holds are led by our pre­cious, proud, fine black women, but as proud, beau­ti­ful and fine as our black women are, one thing black women can­not do,.…… a black woman can­not raise a black boy to be a man.

Pastor, there are sev­er­al rea­sons why house­holds are becom­ing far dif­fer­ent from what obtained decades ago, not the least of which is the def­i­n­i­tion of what con­sti­tutes a fam­i­ly nowadays.
As the roles of women change in soci­ety and women are more and more rep­re­sent­ed in the work­force, so too has the per­cep­tion of what con­sti­tutes a fam­i­ly changed over time.
The con­cept of sin­gle-par­ent house­holds is not a phe­nom­e­non sole­ly in the black com­mu­ni­ty, it tran­scends all eth­nic groups, sin­gle-par­ent house­holds led by women are on the rise.
Is there a dis­pro­por­tion­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of sin­gle moth­er run house­holds in the black com­mu­ni­ty? The answer is a resound­ing yes.
We can­not speak to the 70% of black women who are hav­ing chil­dren out of wed­lock or the high inci­dents of women-run house­holds in the black com­mu­ni­ty with­out address­ing the rav­aging effects of the prison indus­tri­al com­plex, mass crim­i­nal­iza­tion and incar­cer­a­tion of young black males, or the oth­er soci­etal road­blocks affect­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty across America.

More impor­tant­ly, when we speak about black women in the neg­a­tive we must endeav­or to acknowl­edge that In America despite the chal­lenges, Black women in the 2009 – 2010 aca­d­e­m­ic year, received a high­er per­cent­age of degrees with­in their race/​ethnic group than did women in any oth­er major group. So, for exam­ple, of all the MA degrees award­ed to Black stu­dents, Black women got 71% of them. In com­par­i­son, White women only got 62% of all White MA degrees. (source. https://​fam​i​lyinequal​i​ty​.word​press​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​0​6​/​0​7​/​n​o​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​w​o​m​e​n​-​a​r​e​-​n​o​t​-​t​h​e​-​m​o​s​t​-​e​d​u​c​a​t​e​d​-​g​r​o​u​p​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​-​us/)

I am not too far away from Pastor Williams on this issue of “can­not raise black men”, but I do not agree when he says “can­not.”
I say should not. This is a sub­ject on which I opine reg­u­lar­ly, there are myr­i­ad issues in this ques­tion which requires some clarification.
On the one hand, we must first come to a con­sen­sus on whether the ques­tion of what con­sti­tutes “Man” remains the tra­di­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion. Is he still the drag­on-slay­er, pro­tec­tor, provider, strong dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an, a fence around the fam­i­ly? Or have that char­ac­ter­i­za­tion migrat­ed to the more docile fem­i­nist male who is more def­er­en­tial to his woman, and is in many cas­es reduced to the car­i­ca­ture of a use­less idiot with an ATM card?

There is no ques­tion that when two good and decent peo­ple come togeth­er and raise their chil­dren the right way those chil­dren have a bet­ter shot at life. Study after study has allud­ed to that, per­son­al­ly, I did not need a study to val­i­date what God had already cre­at­ed and sanctified.
As such, it fol­lows there­fore that when the father is miss­ing from the home the task of the moth­er becomes expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult because she can­not teach what she has nev­er known. She was not a father.

This is true in the reverse, a moth­er is the bet­ter par­ent to teach her daugh­ter how to be a woman, regard­less of how great a dad may be.
I need to reit­er­ate that in every case one good par­ent is far bet­ter than two bad ones, so to the skep­tics who are quick to grav­i­tate to “well what about two bad par­ents or one bad par­ent of a two-par­ent house­hold”? To you, I say in every sit­u­a­tion, I am talk­ing about sit­u­a­tions in which peo­ple act as God intend­ed us to.

There is also the ques­tion of a moth­er’s love and ten­der­ness, (which I can­not speak to, (I was not raised by my moth­er). It is true that far too many women are unable to fig­ure out that show­er­ing kids with good­ies and allow­ing them to do as they please is not love, but is bet­ter viewed as an abdi­ca­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty, a form of child neglect.
I raised my boys to under­stand that some­times no is the right answer(RIP) [Kodi Beckles], you under­stood that con­cept very well.
I raised my chil­dren to under­stand that when I told them “no,” it was out of love, not out of a desire to be mean or punitive.
I demon­strat­ed to them that I have nev­er seen a sign any­where which says please do as you please.
Saying “no,” where appro­pri­ate, is exact­ly the right thing to do, some­thing many black women are yet to learn or understand.

Society is lit­tered with rules, no park­ing, no speed­ing, no entry, no stand­ing, no back­ing up, no over­tak­ing, no loi­ter­ing, no vend­ing, no this, no that. Saying no to your chil­dren where it is need­ed is prepar­ing them for society.
Failing to pre­pare them for soci­ety is doing them a grave dis­ser­vice, the con­se­quences of which we see play out in far too many cir­cum­stances where had they fol­lowed sim­ple instruc­tions the result would have been different.
No, ma’am, he is not your baby, he is grown.
No, my man, your moth­er’s house is not yours and it cer­tain­ly isn’t a crib. Grow up!

Quote: “If you chose to ask me today, do black lives matter?
Let me answer like this no, black lives do not mat­ter, black lives will not mat­ter black lives ought not to mat­ter, black lives should not mat­ter, black lives must not mat­ter until black peo­ple start respect­ing black lives and stop killing our­selves”.

Lets first acknowl­edge that we do not know whether the great Queen of Soul, our dear­ly beloved sis­ter Aretha Franklyn had seen this ser­mon and okayed it before her passing.
Let us also acknowl­edge that she may have know exact­ly the kind of ser­mon that the Reverend Jasper Williams would preach and that may have informed her deci­sion to choose him to deliv­er her eulogy.

The late Great Senator John McCain had enough time and con­vic­tion to speak to us in death, his choic­es of for­mer Presidents, Obama and Bush spoke volumes.
Two men of oppos­ing par­ties, two men who defeat­ed him in his quest for the Presidency to eulo­gize him sent a pow­er­ful mes­sage of bi-partisanship.
John McCain decried what he called the lack of reg­u­lar order. Regular order means doing things the right way, observ­ing the rules of the game with due care and def­er­ence. Choosing Bush and Obama to speak at his funer­al ser­vice embod­ies that ideal.

In as much as the loss of every life is regret­table, and in as much as the inci­dents of black and black crime is evi­dent, par­tic­u­lar­ly in inner-city com­mu­ni­ties, it is short-sight­ed to ignore the socio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions which cre­ate these maladies.
Each eth­nic group in America expe­ri­ences same race vio­lence than vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed on them by oth­er races.
This is not an excuse for vio­lent behav­ior but again to sim­ply pull out black on black vio­lence and trum­pet it while ignor­ing the caus­es is self-serving.

Saying Black live mat­ter and deal­ing with black on black crime are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive issues. Generally when blacks kill they are arrest­ed and made to pay the price. That is what the Police is there for.
When the police kill black peo­ple with­out just cause and peo­ple protest those killings, they are jus­ti­fied in argu­ing that black lives do mat­ter. Anyone who finds that offen­sive is part of the prob­lem and not part of the solution.

Again, Pastor Jasper Williams seems to have either bor­rowed his talk­ing points from FOX, or he has sim­ply co-opt­ed them with­out doing the nec­es­sary research before incor­po­rat­ing them into his sermon.
There are right and wrong ways to go about speak­ing to our com­mu­ni­ty. Do not talk down to our peo­ple because you get a mega­phone. Let us remem­ber the way Bill Cosby talked down to the com­mu­ni­ty, he was not the first, he cer­tain­ly will not be the last.

In the case of the good­ly Pastor Jasper Williams, whose job was it to take his micro­phone? Make your words soft and sweet Pastor Williams, you may have to eat them. You knew you were on the biggest stage of your life and you chose to say what you did. You made a con­scious deci­sion to be divi­sive and dis­parag­ing at a time when heal­ing and com­ing togeth­er was required and for that, you were a total fail­ure, sir. It was not about you but you made it so!
Fame and pow­er do not change a man, they sim­ply illu­mi­nate who he real­ly is, said a real­ly wise man.

Buford City Schools Superintendent Geye Hamby sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion Friday — just days after audio sur­faced of what is believed to be him going on a racist rant.

Hamby, who has held the posi­tion of super­in­ten­dent since 2006, was recent­ly sued by for­mer para­pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tor Mary Ingram for alleged race dis­crim­i­na­tion and retal­i­a­tion after she was fired “with­out any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” the law­suit says.

“Please accept this let­ter as my res­ig­na­tion as Superintendent of Buford City Schools,” Hamby wrote in a let­ter addressed to the Board of Education and obtained by the Daily Post. “My sin­cere apolo­gies for any actions that may have cre­at­ed adver­si­ty for this com­mu­ni­ty and the Buford School District.”

Included in the law­suit is a web link to two audio record­ings, in which a man said to be Hamby makes deroga­to­ry com­ments about black con­struc­tion work­ers, refer­ring to them by the n‑word and say­ing that he would “kill these (exple­tive).”

Hamby was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave by the school board on Wednesday and lat­er resigned, attor­ney Gregory Jay con­firmed to the Daily Post. Story first appeared here(https://​www​.gwin​nettdai​ly​post​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​/​b​u​f​o​r​d​-​c​i​t​y​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​s​-​s​u​p​e​r​i​n​t​e​n​d​e​n​t​-​g​e​y​e​-​h​a​m​b​y​-​r​e​s​i​g​n​s​-​a​m​i​d​-​l​a​w​s​u​i​t​-​c​l​a​i​m​i​n​g​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​_​f​8​9​e​a​2​8​a​-​1​615 – 5bdc-88c1-c8b787c26227.html)

Old Jamaican proverb “Duppy know who fi friten” .
Dear Lord, I need a paper bag to breathe into.

https://​twit​ter​.com/​i​/​s​t​a​t​u​s​/​1​0​3​2​7​1​8​0​0​1​6​0​9​4​0​4​417

A young woman gave everything she had so that all people may live in peace, with dignity and respect.
She gave her life.
She was white!

Who did­n’t see this coming?
What did you think the demo­niz­ing of col­ored immi­grants was about? What did you think pack­ing the courts with white male right-wing judges from the Heritage Foundation was about? The purg­ing of vot­er rolls which sum­mar­i­ly removed black vot­ers who may have exer­cised their right not to vote in every elec­tion? Redistricting. Lies about ille­gal vot­ing, restric­tive vot­ing rules, to include the mas­sive less­en­ing of ear­ly vot­ing days, mass incer­a­tion, and the resul­tant laws which take away the right of felons to vote?
Ask your­selves, what use­ful pur­pose is served by tak­ing the vot­ing right of peo­ple who have already paid their debt to society?

Yet these and the many oth­er glar­ing red flags have either been missed or large­ly ignored by the black community.
For its part, the brown com­mu­ni­ty has done it’s lev­el best to ignore the signs which ought to have informed it to align itself with the black struggle.
Instead, the brown com­mu­ni­ty hid in the back­ground con­vinc­ing itself it is safe, they are only after the blacks, look at me I am almost white.
All of that, how­ev­er, was before that June 16^th, 2015 esca­la­tor ride in which Donald Trump announced his can­di­da­cy for the American Presidency.

Jonathan Capehart opin­ion writer for the Washington Post wrote.
The night­mare began on June 16, 2015. Donald Trump descend­ed on an esca­la­tor to the gild­ed lob­by of his epony­mous tow­er on Fifth Avenue to announce his can­di­da­cy for the Republican Party’s nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent. Little did we know that that open­ing scene would be the per­fect metaphor for what was to come: A low and ugly cam­paign that defined devian­cy down in pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics by play­ing on fear, racism, xeno­pho­bia, misog­y­ny and a gen­er­al dis­dain for any­one not white, straight, Christian, able-bod­ied and male. 

Ah, Jonathan.….Little did we know that that open­ing scene would be the per­fect metaphor for what was to come?
How could you not have known?
No, Jonathan, the night­mare did not begin on June 16^th, 2015, the night­mare has been in exis­tence since the begin­ning of this repub­lic, you sim­ply chose to close your eyes to it.
As I laid out in the first para­graph, and so much more that I left out, the signs have always been there. The pre­tense is not a work­able strat­e­gy. Black peo­ple are not that sil­ly, they may be resigned to the blud­geon­ing, after all, its dif­fi­cult to with­stand four hun­dred years of what we have with­stood with­out dis­play­ing some degree of wear and tear.
But what is the sto­ry of the brown peo­ple, what is their excuse?
We could ask Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, we could ask Nikki Haley or Bobby Jindal.
Nah they are too busy pre­tend­ing to be white.

And so now the Browns are forced to deal with their own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in a coun­try which has a minor­i­ty of the major­i­ty so inse­cure it can­not exist out­side of ven­omous hatred.
It is from that group that Donald Trump emerged. It is on that dis­con­tent, resent­ment, and per­pet­u­al vic­tim­hood on which Donald Trump rode into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Browns nev­er both­ered to find com­mon cause with the strug­gles of African Americans. Their lighter shades con­vinced them that hey would even­tu­al­ly be assim­i­lat­ed into white soci­ety like the Irish, and Italians and the Catholics even some lighter skinned Arabs have.

Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Arabs, Muslims, and every­one not in that group Jonathan Capeheart so elo­quent­ly spoke about now find them­selves in the crosshairs of a new era of American fascism.
In oth­er words, there is a whole slew of new n*****s now.
Decades and decades of march­es and mil­i­tan­cy is the trade­mark of the Black American exis­tence, yet for the most part that exis­ten­tial strug­gle has seen far more white Americans strug­gling and dying with their black broth­ers and sis­ters for the sim­ple right to live lives of dig­ni­ty and respect than it has attract­ed brown people.

As white nazis get ready to march on Washington tomor­row to com­mem­o­rate the one year anniver­sary of their infa­mous Chorletsville tiki-torch march, we must nev­er for­get the life of Heather Heyer.
A young woman who could eas­i­ly have stayed home con­fi­dent in the built-in pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed by her white skin. She chose to stand up to big­otry and racism, ful­ly con­ver­sant that we rise togeth­er or we die together.
Her life was snuffed out by a worth­less piece of trash who lacked the basic under­stand­ing of the val­ues she so brave­ly stood for.

There is much going on in America which may pro­vide glee to some. To those, I sug­gest a lit­tle research and read­ing up on Adolph Hitler’s rise and the inevitable fall of Nazi Germany.
It is incon­ceiv­able that sol­diers of all col­ors, includ­ing American sol­diers, gave their lives on the beach­es of Normandy in 1944 to defeat Naziism and to pre­vent the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews just so that Nazis can con­tin­ue to kill as they did last year right here in America.

The storm clouds are ris­ing. The dem­a­goguery about foot­ball play­ers, Mexicans, Muslims, Immigrants and every­one not white male are in no way dis­sim­i­lar to the dem­a­goguery and depor­ta­tions which pre­ced­ed the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews in Hitler’s Germany.
We ignore them at our peril.

Chris works on a farm by day and works for a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny at nights, two jobs to make ends meet. Today he came in to see me, he also pro­vides some basic ser­vices through my busi­ness to the Jamaica men and women who do sea­son­al work on farms in Dutchess and Ulster Counties New York.

Chris was unable to do much of any­thing to earn a liv­ing today, though he came in wear­ing farm clothes, he was on his way to traf­fic court in the Town of Poughkeepsie right here in Dutchess County.
He asked me jok­ing­ly, what would hap­pen to him if he is late for court, I told him they would like­ly issue a war­rant for his arrest, he laughed and hur­ried left.

I thought about his chances as walked briskly away, I con­clud­ed to myself that he is in for a rough time in that court, which for all intents and pur­pose is a cash fac­to­ry for the coun­ty. The Town of Poughkeepsie court churns out mil­lions from large­ly the poor­est res­i­dents of the coun­ty who can least afford to pay the humungous fines met­ed out for the slight­est traf­fic infractions.

The Town’s offi­cers are large­ly dis­cour­te­ous, arro­gant and are almost 100% white-male. They use the route 9 cor­ri­dor as a feed­ing tree for writ­ing tick­ets, but they are to be found hid­ing in bush­es on lit­er­al­ly every lit­tle road­way which snake their ways through­out the town.
Main street runs through the city to the Town where it forks into Routes 44 and 55, both arter­ies run through the town.
Many of their traf­fic stops end up in the city. Other stops begin in the city because they fol­low motorists into the city from the town before ini­ti­at­ing traf­fic stops. As you may well imag­ine their vic­tims are usu­al­ly black and brown motorists, who make up the bulk of the city’s res­i­dents, In oth­er words, peo­ple who look like Chris.

For years peo­ple have com­plained about this police depart­ment. This includ­ing a 2014 Essay pub­lished by Gawker and writ­ten by Kiese Laymon, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of English and a con­tribut­ing edi­tor at Gawker. It began with the author at a traf­fic stop, being chas­tised by a white offi­cer from the department.

“After tak­ing my license and ID back to his car, he came to me with a tick­et and two lessons,” Laymon wrote. “ ‘Looks like you got a good thing going on over there at Vassar College,’ he said. ‘You don’t wan­na ruin it by rolling through stop signs, do you?’ ”
Laymon says that was the fourth time a local police offi­cer had told him his job made every­thing “O.K.,” a phrase that inspired the essay’s title, “My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK.”

About an hour and a half lat­er Chris walked in, he con­ced­ed he was­n’t wear­ing his seat­belt. Then he told me that the pros­e­cu­tor told him he had reduced the seat-belt vio­la­tion to a non-mov­ing vio­la­tion. He was encour­aged to plead to a park­ing vio­la­tion for which he was forced to pay $175.
That’s in addi­tion to los­ing a whole day of work.

There is no legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for break­ing the laws. However, when a poor per­son who makes such a small mis­take is forced to pay such a high price and the sys­tem uses the guise of a reduced charge, one has to rea­son­ably con­clude that he was spared the mov­ing vio­la­tion just so that he could go make more mon­ey for them to steal.

All across America, the poor­est peo­ple who can least afford it are being used as cash cows to feed city and town cof­fers and fund­ing budgets.
At a time when mis­guid­ed black apos­tates mas­querad­ing as pas­tors are meet­ing with Trump about prison reform, these are the real issues affect­ing the poor­est Americans.

Unfortunately, these pas­tors make a mock­ery of them­selves, they do not speak for the black com­mu­ni­ty and gen­er­al­ly have no influ­ence in the black community.
In essence, these pho­to-ops with Trump have zero to do with the com­mu­ni­ty and every­thing to do with the egos of these dis­gust­ing opportunists.

If Donald Trump want­ed to have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions about prison reform he would have picked up the phone and speak to Reverend William Barber. He could call Congressman John Lewis over to the White House. He is free to call Michelle Alexander and many oth­ers who can engage him in sub­stan­tive con­sul­ta­tions on this press­ing issue. Instead, he choos­es to con­sult with lack­eys and stool pigeons who have no influ­ence and are only engaged in it for themselves.

I have always been of the opin­ion that finan­cial inde­pen­dence was one of the best tools that black Americans could use to effec­tive­ly counter white racism.
You know you don’t have to like me but you bet­ter damn well respect my finan­cial prowess? Okay, I am nev­er­the­less clear-eyed that pover­ty in black com­mu­ni­ties is tied to myr­i­ad issues some of which are out of the con­trol of the people.

In the absence of eco­nom­ic pow­er, the next best thing it seems to me is edu­ca­tion and skills train­ing, not that edu­ca­tion or spe­cif­ic skills train­ing are mutu­al­ly exclu­sive to wealth. I am not sug­gest­ing that every black per­son should go to col­lege, I am painful­ly aware that-that is utopi­an, even though it would be nice.
What I am say­ing is that where pos­si­ble our peo­ple need to get trained in crit­i­cal skills which are read­i­ly marketable.

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant at this time, not only because of how our pol­i­tics have devolved but because of the changes in the mar­ket­place. Innovation has tak­en a hatch­et to cer­tain dis­ci­plines on the one hand and glob­al­iza­tion on the oth­er have been remov­ing oth­er jobs from the economy.
Librarians, toll-col­lec­tors, fac­to­ry work­ers, bank-tellers, super­mar­ket cashiers, typ­ists, sec­re­taries, stenog­ra­phers, cal­lig­ra­phers, Photographers and the list goes on and on. Jobs are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly removed from the econ­o­my even as we fawn over the lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal innovations.

The choic­es we face are not option­al they are exis­ten­tial, adapt and sur­vive, fail and suf­fer the con­se­quences. The mar­ket­place of the future is high tech, this econ­o­my will require high­ly skilled work­ers to make the econ­o­my func­tion. Silicone Valley has no short­age of jobs, in fact, the tech indus­try is des­per­ate for the US State Department to grant enough work­ers visas to fill exist­ing posi­tions in that sec­tor. These are high-tech jobs which are avail­able but there is a short­age of soft­ware engi­neers and oth­er spe­cial­ists to fill these jobs.

The attack on Basketball phe­nom Lebron James by the occu­pant of the white house is telling on sev­er­al lev­els. As Lebron talks about build­ing a school for at-risk young peo­ple in one Ohio Town and is being cas­ti­gat­ed by Trump it is impor­tant to note the stead­fast­ness and laser-like focus with which James has set out on his life’s journey.
On the one had Lebron is build­ing schools to edu­cate young peo­ple Donald Trump is lock­ing chil­dren in cages to ful­fill his sick agen­da. James seeks to use sports to build bridges, to peace and under­stand­ing, Trump dem­a­gogues, malign, demean and dis­re­spect sports stars who use their plat­forms to draw atten­tion to social and soci­etal ills.

On Sunday, August 5^th I could not help notic­ing that through­out the day lit­er­al­ly, all the net­works out­side of the pro­pa­gan­da arm of the GOP were talk­ing about the sharp con­trast between James and Trump.
I remarked to my wife, “They don’t have to love you but they damn sure bet­ter respect your body of work”, she agreed.

I am not sug­gest­ing that every­one will have access to the finan­cial resources and fame of Lebron James, far from it. In fact, the oppo­site is guar­an­teed. As such we must do the next best thing and get the edu­ca­tion required, the best vehi­cle out of pover­ty and the best bet for wealth retention.

Neither am I say­ing that all of us can have the plat­form of James, Curry or even Kaepernick. Nevertheless, if we make bet­ter life deci­sions and go to col­lege, trade schools find jobs and cre­ate star­tups and spend our mon­ey in our com­mu­ni­ties we become the mas­ters of our own destiny.

If our young men can see val­ue in them­selves enough to stay out of jail they have a chance of mak­ing some­thing of themselves.
Those who invest in jails are cer­tain­ly free to do so, our young peo­ple can choose to become lawyers, doc­tors, nurs­es and sci­en­tists, elec­tri­cians and refrig­er­a­tion tech­ni­cians and yes coders. If we stick to that game plan pret­ty soon those who invest in prison stocks will have to find oth­er stocks to purchase.

Donald Trump seeks to demo­nize James, as he does NFL play­ers because he is a pathet­ic bul­ly. Bullies will not stop until some­one stand up to them. James has the resources and the chops to do so. In every cat­e­go­ry, Lebron James has out­paced Donald Trump though he nev­er inher­it­ed any mon­ey from his daddy.
Donald Trump is ter­ri­fied of suc­cess­ful black men, his lying defam­a­to­ry cam­paign against the first African-American pres­i­dent was only one exam­ple of that fear. There is a long his­to­ry of that fear and inse­cu­ri­ty dat­ing back to the Central Park five and even fur­ther back than that embar­rass­ing débâ­cle for which he has still not apologized.
He only con­ced­ed that President Barack Obama was a legit­i­mate American when he thought it was in his best inter­est to do so in his quest to attain the presidency.
Predictably, as a soon as he was installed in the pres­i­den­cy he went right back to his Obama derange­ment syndrome.

Trump is not alone, he is the mega­phone for the deep-seat­ed ani­mus which exists against peo­ple of col­or and black men in par­tic­u­lar. Trump is con­ver­sant with this, hence his “I could shoot any­one on 5^th avenue and I would­n’t lose a sin­gle sup­port­er” comment.
In fact, his base of sup­port may have expand­ed as a result of his out­right racism. Many peo­ple who har­bor racist, xeno­pho­bic views are now embold­ened to act out those tendencies.
When NFL play­ers kneel to bring atten­tion to police abuse and exe­cu­tion of black peo­ple, white peo­ple know damn well it has noth­ing to do with a flag or mil­i­tary (as if the flag and mil­i­tary are to be wor­shiped as a God).
Creating a false nar­ra­tive serves to dis­tract from the issue, argu­ing that it is unpa­tri­ot­ic is dem­a­gog­ic, it brings hatred to the ath­letes and that’s exact­ly what they want to accomplish.

T

There is stub­born deni­a­bil­i­ty on the part of white women in America, a fail­ure to rec­og­nize that col­or is only skin-deep, that they are first and fore­most mem­bers of the human race, and that who we are as mem­bers of the human race [trumps] skin col­or. The 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grant­ed American women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suf­frage, and was rat­i­fied on August 18, 1920, end­ing almost a cen­tu­ry of protest. In 1848 the move­ment for women’s rights launched nation­al­ly with the Seneca Falls Convention orga­nized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Following the con­ven­tion, the demand for the vote became a cen­ter­piece of the women’s rights move­ment. Stanton and Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and oth­er activists raised pub­lic aware­ness and lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to grant vot­ing rights to women. After a lengthy bat­tle, these groups final­ly emerged vic­to­ri­ous with the pas­sage of the 19^th Amendment.[History.com]

As they have done to black Americans, white men were quite com­fort­able with pre­vent­ing white women from vot­ing. White men believed that they and they alone were smart and respon­si­ble enough to elect lead­ers through the bal­lot box. In fact, they were basi­cal­ly the only can­di­dates for elect­ed office, with the excep­tion of a few cases.

During America’s ear­ly his­to­ry, women were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male cit­i­zens. For exam­ple, mar­ried women couldn’t own prop­er­ty and had no legal claim to any mon­ey they might earn, and no female had the right to vote. Women were expect­ed to focus on house­work and moth­er­hood, not politics.
Hillary Clinton’s ear­ly deci­sion not to fol­low tra­di­tion­al first lady roles in Arkansas may have for­ev­er ruined how she is perceived.

The unde­ni­able truth is that white men were quite com­fort­able deny­ing their white women the right to vote, own prop­er­ty, and even have auton­o­my over their finan­cial resources.
They were, and in many regards, still com­fort­able with hav­ing babies with their women while deny­ing them the right to make deci­sions over their own repro­duc­tive rights.
Thanks to the strug­gles of pro­gres­sive women like those afore­men­tioned and oth­er unsung hero­ines and heroes, women have had some auton­o­my to make deci­sions on their own.

Nevertheless, today some of the same chal­lenges women faced pre-August 18, 1920, are still in play. It is incon­ceiv­able that in 2018 women would still be at risk of los­ing the right to make deci­sions as it relates to their own bodies.
Yet the loom­ing con­fir­ma­tion bat­tle of poten­tial Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh pos­es exact­ly those same risks and far worse, not just for all women, includ­ing white women, but also for all peo­ple of color.

The shock­ing truth is that white women have ben­e­fit­ted from the strug­gles of pro­gres­sives out­side of the nar­row con­fines of repro­duc­tive rights. The civ­il rights fights won bat­tles allow­ing them to vote, own prop­er­ty, and han­dle their own mon­ey, and did not come with­out major fights.
The sad real­i­ty is that though white women have large­ly ben­e­fit­ted from the sac­ri­fices of oth­ers and may arguably be said to be a pro­tect­ed class in America, they are reluc­tant to speak out in defense of the rights of oth­ers who still strug­gle to be afford­ed their rights.

On the con­trary, white women of vary­ing class­es have demon­stra­bly tak­en a stance against pro­tect­ing the rights of those less pro­tect­ed and have engaged in sys­temic oppres­sion and sup­port of oppres­sive and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices against others.
That kind of behav­ior is rep­re­hen­si­ble and must be seen for what it is, a clear and unequiv­o­cal attempt to kick away the lad­der and side with the very same forces which once had them in subjugation.
It is rep­re­hen­si­ble and shame­ful, but it is most­ly ignorant.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

You sim­ply can­not make this up.
In order to find this rea­son­able, one would have to be total­ly turned off to over four hun­dred years of Slavery, Jim Crowe, the Prison Industrial Complex and the con­tin­ued fight of black peo­ple against racial oppres­sion and police abuse in America.
One would, how­ev­er, be able to under­stand why these mal­adies have been so intran­si­gent and dif­fi­cult to stop

.….….….….….….….….…

A group of black Christian con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers are call­ing on House Speaker Paul Ryan, R‑Wis., to cen­sure Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters of California for com­ments she made last month urg­ing sup­port­ers to direct­ly harass admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials at “any­time” and “any­where” they see them.

African-American con­ser­v­a­tive activists and reli­gious lead­ers gath­ered on Capitol Hill Thursday to pres­sure Ryan to for­mal­ly con­demn Waters on the House floor and pro­claimed that Waters does­n’t speak to the “faith of all black America.”

In ques­tion are Waters’ com­ments at a California ral­ly in late June in which she called for crit­ics of the admin­is­tra­tion to con­front Donald Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials when they see them at a restau­rant, a gas sta­tion, a depart­ment store or wher­ev­er else they might be found in public.

Waters’ remarks came as there was much media cov­er­age over Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — being kicked out of restau­rants because they work for the Trump administration.

“Her call to extrem­ism based on where anoth­er American cit­i­zen works and who they asso­ciate with must be stern­ly addressed by Speaker Paul Ryan,” Star Parker, pres­i­dent of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, said at a press con­fer­ence. “An apol­o­gy is not enough, nor did she offer one when asked by House Speaker. As we move into two months of intense debate over SCOTUS nom­i­na­tion, the cen­sur­ing of Maxine Waters becomes of extreme urgency.”

Bishop Aubrey Shines of the non­de­nom­i­na­tion­al Glory to Glory Ministries in Tampa, Florida, assert­ed that law­mak­ers like Waters who say these types of things are also putting law-abid­ing sup­port­ers of the pres­i­dent — such as them­selves — in har­m’s way. Read more here:https://​www​.chris​tian​post​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​h​r​i​s​t​i​a​n​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​-​c​a​l​l​-​o​n​-​p​a​u​l​-​r​y​a​n​-​t​o​-​c​e​n​s​u​r​e​-​m​a​x​i​n​e​-​w​a​t​e​r​s​-​c​a​l​l​-​t​o​-​e​x​t​r​e​m​i​s​m​-​2​2​5​9​9​5​/​#​.​W​0​l​-​7​J​K​v​C​J​k​.​f​a​c​e​b​ook

Written by Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D.

The birth and devel­op­ment of the American police can be traced to a mul­ti­tude of his­tor­i­cal, legal and polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. The insti­tu­tion of slav­ery and the con­trol of minori­ties, how­ev­er, were two of the more for­mi­da­ble his­toric fea­tures of American soci­ety shap­ing ear­ly polic­ing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which lat­er became mod­ern police depart­ments, were both designed to con­trol the behav­iors of minori­ties. For exam­ple, New England set­tlers appoint­ed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were found­ed to pro­tect res­i­dents from Native Americans in that fron­tier city, and many south­ern police depart­ments began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina devel­oped the nation’s first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to main­tain the eco­nom­ic order and to assist the wealthy landown­ers in recov­er­ing and pun­ish­ing slaves who essen­tial­ly were con­sid­ered property.

Policing was not the only social insti­tu­tion enmeshed in slav­ery. Slavery was ful­ly insti­tu­tion­al­ized in the American eco­nom­ic and legal order with laws being enact­ed at both the state and nation­al divi­sions of gov­ern­ment. Virginia, for exam­ple, enact­ed more than 130 slave statutes between 1689 and 1865. Slavery and the abuse of peo­ple of col­or, how­ev­er, was not mere­ly a south­ern affair as many have been taught to believe. Connecticut, New York and oth­er colonies enact­ed laws to crim­i­nal­ize and con­trol slaves. Congress also passed fugi­tive Slave Laws, laws allow­ing the deten­tion and return of escaped slaves, in 1793 and 1850. As Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver (2006:186) remark, “the lit­er­a­ture clear­ly estab­lish­es that a legal­ly sanc­tioned law enforce­ment sys­tem exist­ed in America before the Civil War for the express pur­pose of con­trol­ling the slave pop­u­la­tion and pro­tect­ing the inter­ests of slave own­ers. The sim­i­lar­i­ties between the slave patrols and mod­ern American polic­ing are too salient to dis­miss or ignore. Hence, the slave patrol should be con­sid­ered a fore­run­ner of mod­ern American law enforcement.”

The lega­cy of slav­ery and racism did not end after the Civil War. In fact, it can be argued that extreme vio­lence against peo­ple of col­or became even worse with the rise of vig­i­lante groups who resist­ed Reconstruction. Because vig­i­lantes, by def­i­n­i­tion, have no exter­nal restraints, lynch mobs had a jus­ti­fied rep­u­ta­tion for hang­ing minori­ties first and ask­ing ques­tions lat­er. Because of its tra­di­tion of slav­ery, which rest­ed on the racist ratio­nal­iza­tion that Blacks were sub-human, America had a long and shame­ful his­to­ry of mis­treat­ing peo­ple of col­or, long after the end of the Civil War. Perhaps the most infa­mous American vig­i­lante group, the Ku Klux Klan start­ed in the 1860s, was noto­ri­ous for assault­ing and lynch­ing Black men for trans­gres­sions that would not be con­sid­ered crimes at all, had a White man com­mit­ted them. Lynching occurred across the entire coun­ty not just in the South. Finally, in 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which pro­hib­it­ed state actors from vio­lat­ing the Civil Rights of all cit­i­zens in part because of law enforcement’s involve­ment with the infa­mous group. This leg­is­la­tion, how­ev­er, did not stem the tide of racial or eth­nic abuse that per­sist­ed well into the 1960s.

Though hav­ing white skin did not pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion in America, being White undoubt­ed­ly made it eas­i­er for eth­nic minori­ties to assim­i­late into the main­stream of America. The addi­tion­al bur­den of racism has made that tran­si­tion much more dif­fi­cult for those whose skin is black, brown, red, or yel­low. In no small part because of the tra­di­tion of slav­ery, Blacks have long been tar­gets of abuse. The use of patrols to cap­ture run­away slaves was one of the pre­cur­sors of for­mal police forces, espe­cial­ly in the South. This dis­as­trous lega­cy per­sist­ed as an ele­ment of the police role even after the pas­sage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In some cas­es, police harass­ment sim­ply meant peo­ple of African descent were more like­ly to be stopped and ques­tioned by the police, while at the oth­er extreme, they have suf­fered beat­ings, and even mur­der, at the hands of White police. Questions still arise today about the dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high num­bers of peo­ple of African descent killed, beat­en, and arrest­ed by police in major urban cities of America.

Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Foundation Professor
School of Justice Studies
Eastern Kentucky University

You remem­ber when we were sup­posed to be spread­ing democ­ra­cy around the world? When nations were invad­ed and tens of thou­sands killed all in the name of spread­ing democ­ra­cy, how is that work­ing out today?
It seems to me that when you sow seeds you should have expec­ta­tions of a har­vest, that is not an alien con­cept. The thing is that the road to hell is fraught with good intentions.
When the most pow­er­ful nation in the world act it impacts the actions of oth­er nations. Those nations are look­ing on and they are learn­ing. And did Russia ever learn?
In mat­ters of style, swim with the cur­rent; in mat­ters of prin­ci­ple, stand like a rock. – Thomas Jefferson

One has to be either will­ful­ly igno­rant or just plain stu­pid to ignore the assess­ment of all of the US intel­li­gence agen­cies, that Russia inter­vened (not med­dle) in the 2016 elec­tions to aid Donald Trump at the expense of Hillary Clinton.
I am real­ly annoyed at the Media’s use of the term (med­dled), in the con­text of what the Russians did in 2016. Children med­dle in their par­en­t’s stuff.
Busy-body gos­sips med­dle in oth­er peo­ple’s busi­ness. Powerful nations do not employ active mea­sures on behalf of one can­di­date against anoth­er sim­ply because they want to meddle.
“Facts are stub­born things; and what­ev­er may be our wish­es, our incli­na­tions, or the dic­tates of our pas­sions, they can­not alter the state of facts and evi­dence.” ‑John Adams

They engage because they have designs which vast­ly out­size sim­ply putting Trump in office. Russia does not like for­mer Soviet states in their back­yard join­ing the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance(NATO).
Russia would like noth­ing more than to relive it’s for­mer Soviet glo­ry days, those designs do not include its for­mer Sattalites hav­ing alle­giances to, and being pro­tect­ed by a west­ern defense alliance.
Russia under­stands that if there are frac­tures in the world trade orga­ni­za­tion and nations can­not get along they do not have the eco­nom­ic pow­er to chal­lenge its designs in Eastern Europe and beyond.
The great­est abil­i­ty in busi­ness is to get along with oth­ers and to influ­ence their actions. – John Hancock

And so Russia is wag­ing a mul­ti-pronged attack on NATO the WTO and the entire order which emerged after the sec­ond world war. This all while reap­ing the added rewards of a dis­unit­ed America with its dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups at each oth­er’s throats and the Government dis­re­spect­ing and alien­at­ing it’s clos­est and most loy­al allies.
Men often oppose a thing mere­ly because they have had no agency in plan­ning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dis­like. ‑Alexander Hamilton

The American excep­tion­al­ism of which we hear much talk only exist­ed because to a large extent most American Presidents adhered to exist­ing norms. No mat­ter how close they col­ored to the lines there was an expec­ta­tion that regard­less of the reck­less­ness of their actions they act­ed on behalf of America, until now.
We are real­iz­ing shock­ing­ly, that past pres­i­dents were con­strained not so much by laws but by respect and awe for the posi­tion they held, until now.
What we thought were laws were just norms, those norms were always there to be exploited.
The lib­er­ties of a peo­ple nev­er were, nor ever will be, secure, when the trans­ac­tions of their rulers may be con­cealed from them. – Patrick Henry

It was­n’t dif­fi­cult for the Russians to exploit America’s sim­mer­ing racial divide. For four hun­dred years plus, America has exploit­ed, abused and mis­treat­ed its racial minori­ties. Regardless of the suc­cess­es of its white major­i­ty, there has always a cold indif­fer­ent lack of empa­thy for their black and native American broth­ers and sisters.
Their fail­ures and anx­i­eties, cou­pled with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of becom­ing a minor­i­ty among the nations com­bined eth­nic groups have rekin­dled old hatreds.
Those fis­sures did not need much to make them gap­ing crevices, all that was required was a divi­sive con-man with an agenda.
A per­fect storm which pre­sent­ed the per­fect open­ing for a hos­tile for­eign power.
A long habit of not think­ing a thing wrong gives it a super­fi­cial appear­ance of being right. ‑Thomas Paine

Racism has a price, hatred has a price. Unless we refuse to see what is hap­pen­ing right in front of our eyes, or we stu­pid­ly tell our­selves that it is some­thing else, we must agree that Trump is upend­ing the exist­ing order to aid Vladamir Putin’s Russia.
The strangest part of all this is that the entire Republican par­ty which always wrapped itself in the American flag[faux patriots]and parad­ed as patri­ots are in on it.
The shock­ing inevitabil­i­ty of its unfold­ing, cou­pled with the robot­ic accep­tance of the pop­u­la­tion, seems almost Biblical in proportion.
How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or res­o­lu­tion enough to mend them. – Benjamin Franklin

Continue read­ing →

Earth’s resources are by no means infi­nite, as the plan­et heats up sci­en­tist warns that our plan­et is get­ting warmer each year. It is time for us to take stock of how we treat the pre­cious resources at our disposal.
The wealth­i­est among us are the most lib­er­al with the use and dis­pen­sa­tion of earth­’s resources, that is not to say that those of us on the con­sumer end of the spec­trum are not equal­ly as reck­less in the way we use and con­sume pre­cious resources.

Sure, the process­es which pro­duced those resources may still be at work replen­ish­ing them in some instances but do we want to run out of drink­ing water and wait on the replen­ish­ment process? Are we pre­pared to destroy our oxy­gen sup­ply then wait for replenishment?
Even with the abun­dance of food, pover­ty, droughts, famine, wars and oth­er forces are wreak­ing hav­oc, forc­ing mil­lions into star­va­tion, and the death of count­less others.

The monied pow­ers which drill for oil and nat­ur­al gas, destroy moun­tains and oth­er lands for coal have a vest­ed inter­est in deny­ing cli­mate change. Sure we need those resources to main­tain the mod­ern lifestyle we have come to trea­sure and enjoy but in as much as the mega-cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to be judi­cious with our nat­ur­al resources we all have that same respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the environment.
That respon­si­bil­i­ty can come in the form of sim­ply turn­ing off the tap while brush­ing our teeth. turn­ing the lights out in rooms we are not using.

On aver­age about two gal­lons of fresh water flows from a tap each minute. According to (sus​tain​abil​i​ty​.nscu​.edu), although 70 per­cent of plan­et Earth is cov­ered with water, only 1 per­cent of it is avail­able for human con­sump­tion? Our surg­ing pop­u­la­tion is leav­ing our lakes, rivers, and aquifers strug­gling to meet this grow­ing demand for fresh water. In fact, water demand is expect­ed to climb 50 per­cent from 2007 to 2025.

With the Polar ice caps melt­ing even more rapid­ly than sci­en­tists had ini­tial­ly antic­i­pat­ed, the warm­ing of the earth is effec­tive­ly assured, the less ice on the plan­et is the more dark ocean which attracts the suns rays and the process is self-fulfilling.
Melting ice caps means ris­ing ocean lev­els. Rising ocean lev­els means cities and towns sub­merged under water. More vio­lent storms. Population cen­ters forced to move fur­ther inland. Disputes over liv­ing space. Contamination and stress on fresh drink­ing water sources. And con­flicts asso­ci­at­ed with the foregone.
I doubt that there is a ratio­nal per­son who would dis­agree that these events are not hap­pen­ing today, not abstract pre­dic­tions for future generations?

The cur­rent warm­ing trend is of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance because most of it is extreme­ly like­ly (greater than 95 per­cent prob­a­bil­i­ty) to be the result of human activ­i­ty since the mid-20^th cen­tu­ry and pro­ceed­ing at a rate that is unprece­dent­ed over decades to millennia.

The heat-trap­ping nature of car­bon diox­ide and oth­er gas­es was demon­strat­ed in the mid-19^th cen­tu­ry.² Their abil­i­ty to affect the trans­fer of infrared ener­gy through the atmos­phere is the sci­en­tif­ic basis of many instru­ments flown by NASA. There is no ques­tion that increased lev­els of green­house gas­es must cause the Earth to warm in response.

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and trop­i­cal moun­tain glac­i­ers show that the Earth’s cli­mate responds to changes in green­house gas lev­els. Ancient evi­dence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sed­i­ments, coral reefs, and lay­ers of sed­i­men­ta­ry rocks. This ancient, or pale­o­cli­mate, evi­dence reveals that cur­rent warm­ing is occur­ring rough­ly ten times faster than the aver­age rate of ice-age-recov­ery warm­ing.³ argues https://​cli​mate​.nasa​.gov/​e​v​i​d​e​n​ce/

These images are not sexy, we tend to quick­ly turn the page and move on because these things are only hap­pen­ing to those peo­ple. But are they real­ly? In our increas­ing­ly inter­con­nect­ed world, how long are the con­se­quences of famine drought wars, and oth­er mal­adies going to avoid our doorsteps?
The truth of the mat­ter is that the poli­cies of pow­er­ful gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions have direct cau­sa­tion on some of these events play­ing out in real time.

Policies which upend the frag­ile sta­bil­i­ty in less pow­er­ful nations have a rip­ple effect on where we live. When we wage wars or desta­bi­lize oth­er nations we cause the mass migra­tion of peo­ple. When we desta­bi­lize the del­i­cate and frag­ile peace with­in those coun­tries bor­ders, by choos­ing one side over anoth­er, we are con­tribut­ing to the move­ment of people.
It is one of the most nat­ur­al things for humans to become nomadic as they look for food water and a bet­ter life.

When pow­er­ful ener­gy cor­po­ra­tions are giv­en carte blanch to upend our eco-sys­tem just so that they may have more zeroes on bal­ance sheets, we are by default con­tribut­ing to the mass migra­tion of peo­ple to our shores.
These are the hard chal­lenges which face the lead­ers of pow­er­ful nations.
Building walls as a means of safe­ty and secu­ri­ty is a tried and failed con­cept, his­to­ry is replete with the exam­ples. Subsequently, the order which came out of the Marshall plan after the sec­ond world war despite its imper­fec­tion has held to date.
There has been stu­pid uncalled for war since 1945, we all know that when moron­ic lead­ers are giv­en pow­er they are going to make moron­ic decisions.

Nevertheless, the peri­od of rel­a­tive peace between the end­ing of the first world war and the begin­ning of the sec­ond began is a mere 21 years.
Between the end of the sec­ond world war in 1945 and today is 73 years. Seventy-three years and still no world­wide vio­lent conflagration.
The world order has held. It is up to present lead­er­ship to strength­en the exist­ing order so that future gen­er­a­tions may have a plan­et on which to live.
Those who went before us did not destroy the earth, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure that oth­ers have the same oppor­tu­ni­ties on this anoth­er American Independence day.

Minister’s comments recirculate after leader of far-right League party announces ‘census’ of Roma community

Footage has re-emerged of Italy’s new inte­ri­or min­is­ter call­ing for a “mass cleans­ing” of migrants from “entire parts” of the coun­try. Matteo Salvini’s com­ments are being shared on social media after he announced a “cen­sus” of the country’s Roma com­mu­ni­ty, set­ting the stage for depor­ta­tions of the eth­nic group. “We need a mass cleans­ing, street by street, piaz­za by piaz­za, neigh­bour­hood by neigh­bour­hood,” Mr Salvini, who is also Italy’s deputy prime min­is­ter, said in an inter­view last year. “We need to be tough because there are entire parts of our cities, entire parts of Italy, that are out of control.”

During the same inter­view, the 45-year-old sug­gest­ed Italy could adopt poli­cies on immi­gra­tion sim­i­lar to those of Donald Trump in the US.

Earlier this week, Mr Salvini said those Roma found to have Italian nation­al­i­ty would “unfor­tu­nate­ly” be allowed to stay in the coun­try while oth­ers would be expelled. The new anti-Roma pol­i­cy is one of the first acts of Mr Salvini’s inte­ri­or min­istry; his par­ty formed a coali­tion gov­ern­ment at the start of June with the anti-estab­lish­ment Eurosceptic Five Star Movement.

“I’ve asked the min­istry to pre­pare a dossier on the Roma ques­tion in Italy,” the min­is­ter told broad­cast­er TeleLombardia. He added that the dossier would involve a “cen­sus of Roma in Italy” which would “see who, how, how many”. He added: “Unfortunately, you need to keep Italian Roma in Italy.”The coun­try is esti­mat­ed to be home to between 100,000 and 180,000 Roma.

On Wednesday, Mr Salvini met with Austrian pop­ulist lead­ers in Rome, where they pledged to increase pro­tec­tion of Europe’s south­ern bor­der from immigration.

“It is a his­toric moment because Europe has nev­er had the pos­si­bil­i­ty to change like in these days. We think it can change for the bet­ter on the top­ics of immi­gra­tion, secu­ri­ty and the fight against ter­ror­ism. Finally there is a deci­sion to pro­tect the exte­ri­or bor­der,” he said.

Inside Italy’s new emergency housing development for Roma

Mr Salvini’s move against the Roma com­mu­ni­ty drew con­dem­na­tion from rights groups and oppo­si­tion politi­cians. “The way is short from a cen­sus to a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Salvini appar­ent­ly decid­ed to cel­e­brate the 80^th anniver­sary of the racial laws,” Chiara Gribaudo, a deputy from the cen­tre-left Democratic Party said, ref­er­enc­ing the Mussolini era. Carlo Stasolla, pres­i­dent of Associazione 21 Luglio, a group that cam­paigns for Roma rights, said: “The inte­ri­or min­is­ter does not seem to know that a cen­sus on the basis of eth­nic­i­ty is not per­mit­ted by law.”
https://​www​.inde​pen​dent​.co​.uk/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​/​e​u​r​o​p​e​/​i​t​a​l​y​-​m​a​t​t​e​o​-​s​a​l​v​i​n​i​-​v​i​d​e​o​-​i​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​m​a​s​s​-​c​l​e​a​n​s​i​n​g​-​r​o​m​a​-​t​r​a​v​e​l​l​e​r​s​-​f​a​r​-​r​i​g​h​t​-​l​e​a​g​u​e​-​p​a​r​t​y​-​a​8​4​0​9​5​0​6​.​h​tml

AMERICA, A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS.

The roman­tic idea of America as a place where dis­pos­sessed peo­ple come from dis­tant shores seek­ing to prac­tice their reli­gion freely may be no more. Not for those flee­ing per­se­cu­tion, not for those flee­ing gangs which mur­der their fam­i­lies, not for those seek­ing a bet­ter life, not for those flee­ing death.
The statute of Liberty stand­ing in New York har­bor has inscribed on her, these words.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With con­quer­ing limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sun­set gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the impris­oned light­ning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glow’s world-wide wel­come; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged har­bor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your sto­ried pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your hud­dled mass­es yearn­ing to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teem­ing shore.
Send these, the home­less, tem­pest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the gold­en door!”

Whether the roman­tic ideals of immi­grants flee­ing per­se­cu­tion to prac­tice their reli­gion in peace were behind the flood of immi­grants to these shores or it was rather the Knights Templars who came after Christopher Columbus, killing every­thing in their path, is a ques­tion for hon­est intel­lec­tu­al discourse.
Nevertheless, the result is a coun­try built by waves and waves of fresh immi­grants, preg­nant with the desire to suc­ceed, filled with the hope of the promise of a bet­ter life.
Like a riv­er cas­cad­ing down a moun­tain­side adsorb­ing trib­u­taries and streams, it mean­ders along, all the time becom­ing stronger, wider, more pow­er­ful, as it flows head­long to its des­tiny with the mighty ocean.

That real­i­ty has been America’s great­ness, the excit­ing con­cept of a coun­try where those want­i­ng to live in peace could be all they want­ed to be. It has been one of the defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the American experience.
A nation which is very much an ide­al as it is a reality.
That has been America through­out, from the Moors who came and saw the native Americans, through Columbus who hap­pened here and all of a sud­den dis­cov­ered a land where peo­ple already lived. From all who came, some by free will, oth­ers in chains. The refresh­ment of the human pool has stood as the sin­gle great­est fuel for the reju­ve­na­tion of the American idea.

The jour­ney has been less than direct. Former President Barack Obama stat­ed, the American jour­ney has not been a straight line but two steps for­ward, one step to the side and anoth­er backward.
It is not dif­fi­cult to learn that most whites did not vote for Obama but enough did, Obama had enough good­will among some whites to get him­self elect­ed twice despite the vit­ri­olic hatred and push­back from the right.
On that basis, it is enough to at least agree that there is evi­dence of progress, though there is much work to be done. And yes we are in the year 2018, well into the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, why exact­ly are we hav­ing a dis­cus­sion about race?
We are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about race because despite the pas­sage of time hatred is still as entrenched as it has ever been, cou­pled with illit­er­a­cy it is next to impos­si­ble to eradicate.

As I have point­ed out in pre­vi­ous arti­cles there are priv­i­leges avail­able to white Americans which are not avail­able to black Americans. Some peo­ple are not even aware of those priv­i­leges because they have not been held up against the injus­tice peo­ple of col­or face dai­ly. Others do not care and are even adamant that they deserve them because they are some­how enti­tled to them.
The present occu­pant of the white house sees the fight he is wag­ing against immi­grants as a win­ning strat­e­gy for the fall elec­tions. In oth­er words, he believes that there is enough hatred in whites to guar­an­tee a mid-term win despite his gov­ern­ing record. Time will be the judge of that, nev­er­the­less, the mere fact that we are hav­ing that kind of con­ver­sa­tion demon­strates the lev­el of cor­ro­sion which still exist and it lays bare a malig­nant strain of embed­ded racism that Americans refus­es to shed.

When we go from lynch­ings after church to a black fam­i­ly in the white house it is dif­fi­cult to deny progress. However, keep­ing Barack Obama’s state­ments of American progress in mind, it is not dif­fi­cult to under­stand how we could be at this place in our his­to­ry. Freedom is worth fight­ing for and the fight must be enjoined by every gen­er­a­tion that wish­es to remain free.

Understandably, no coun­try can sim­ply open its bor­ders and allow any and every­one to waltz in, but the demo­niza­tion and depor­ta­tion of peo­ple of col­or while throw­ing open the doors to Scandinavia are all too trans­par­ent a strat­e­gy to ignore.
The sin­gle largest issue dri­ving this pol­i­cy is the brown­ing of America and the numer­i­cal com­bined strength of the minor­i­ty communities.
This dem­a­gog­ic Xenophobia is fuelled by racism, it makes crim­i­nals out of peo­ple of col­or who present them­selves at the bor­der as is man­dat­ed by law and for the most minor infrac­tions. It’s not that peo­ple have not been com­ing to America through­out its his­to­ry. What we are see­ing now is that there is ginned up fear about peo­ple of col­or as the stark real­i­ty of the chang­ing face of America along racial lines looms to peo­ple who are death­ly afraid of equality.

ME FIRST

The tide of Nativism sweep­ing America is sweep­ing Europe as well. Britain’s exit from the European Union is not an anom­aly but part of a larg­er swell of anti-immi­grant fer­vor sweep­ing white run nations includ­ing Italy and as far away as Israel.
It is the same tide which swept Italy’s Giuseppe Conte to pow­er quite recent­ly. Conte was sworn in on last month as Italy’s prime min­is­ter, head­ing west­ern Europe’s first anti-estab­lish­ment gov­ern­ment bent on over­haul­ing European Union rules on bud­gets and immi­gra­tion. Where have we heard that before?

According to [Reuters] Italy host­ed the European Union’s found­ing Treaty of Rome 60 years ago, but the once enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly pro-EU Italians have pro­gres­sive­ly become dis­en­chant­ed with Europe, blam­ing its fis­cal rules for two decades of eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion. The dis­af­fec­tion has grown in recent years as hun­dreds of thou­sands of migrants have land­ed on Italy’s shores from North Africa, fuelling sup­port for the League which accus­es the EU of aban­don­ing Italy to deal with the influx on its own.
Widespread vot­er dis­en­chant­ment has seen anti-estab­lish­ment par­ties upset main­stream pol­i­tics across the con­ti­nent, includ­ing Germany and France,

In the Zionist state of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as labeled African Jews in the state of Israel as Infiltrators”.Netanyahu insists that by accept­ing African migrants the Zionist state risks los­ing its identity.
Donald Trump stat­ed that he would not allow America to become an immi­grant camp. He insists Immigrants are infest­ing America.
Yes, you have heard right, “infest­ing” as ver­min does!

Roots of white rage: America’s clash of class and race, from the Civil War to the rise of Trump.

Salon talks to Keri Leigh Merritt, author of “Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South”

lib­er­als, pro­gres­sives and oth­er dream­ers who want a true democ­ra­cy in America often lament how race and the col­or line have inter­fered with and too often made still­born a uni­fied strug­gle that advances the col­lec­tive inter­ests of all poor and work­ing-class peo­ple in America, and around the world. At present this takes the form of how Bernie Sanders and oth­er lib­er­als bemoan how “iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics” have become too promi­nent on the left and among the Democratic Party. Of course this for­mu­la­tion is impre­cise and myopic: all pol­i­tics is iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics; it is only when black and brown peo­ple as well as gays, les­bians, women, and oth­er mar­gin­al­ized groups orga­nize for their full and equal rights that some­how “pol­i­tics” needs a mod­i­fi­er which dimin­ish­es the legit­i­ma­cy of a giv­en claim on rights and justice.

And there are oth­er obvi­ous com­pli­ca­tions as well. From at least before the found­ing through to the present those Americans who are con­sid­ered “white” have con­sis­tent­ly cho­sen the psy­cho­log­i­cal wages of white­ness over work­ing with black and brown peo­ple to advance shared mate­r­i­al interests.

In the United States, this rid­dle often focus­es on why poor whites in the South and else­where chose to fight for the Southern slaveoc­ra­cy and the trea­so­nous Confederate States of America when as a group they were not made wealthy by the trade, abuse, and mur­der of black human property.

Why did poor whites not ally with black slaves and black free peo­ple to bring down a sys­tem of racial tyran­ny that was also a means for the slave-own­ing plan­ta­tion-indus­tri­al class to wield great pow­er over whites of the low­er class­es? How did the lives of poor whites dif­fer from those of poor blacks, both free and enslaved? What of the per­verse­ly dis­tort­ed view of American chat­tel slav­ery where some­how it was “poor whites” who had it “worse” than black human prop­er­ty? How can this fic­tion be exposed? What type of polit­i­cal work do myths about the South and the Civil War do in a moment of resur­gent white back­lash and white suprema­cy under Donald Trump and the Republican Party?

In an effort to answer these ques­tions I spoke with Keri Leigh Merritt. She is a his­to­ri­an and author of the wide­ly-praised and provoca­tive book “Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South.

You are a his­to­ri­an whose schol­ar­ship focus­es on the American South, cul­ture, and the world made by white on black chat­tel slav­ery. You are also a Southerner. There is the oft-cit­ed quote that, “To under­stand the South, you have to under­stand that they’re the only part of the coun­try that lost a war.”

What does “Southern pride” mean in a moment of white rage, when the Republican Party has embraced neo-Confederatism and all the poi­son that comes with it?

When peo­ple are usu­al­ly talk­ing about Southerners, they’re talk­ing about white Southerners. So I want to make that dis­tinc­tion because there is an incred­i­ble lack of will­ing­ness by white Americans, and par­tic­u­lar­ly white Southerners, of deal­ing with the sins of our fore­fa­thers. It is hold­ing us back a great deal. We must con­front what our ances­tors did. The ten­den­cy to cling to Confederate stat­ues and the whole Confederate myth has stemmed I believe large­ly from sheer igno­rance. Most peo­ple don’t know when and how these stat­ues were erect­ed, and most peo­ple do not know under what cir­cum­stances their ances­tor may or may not have fought in the Civil War. Were they forced? Compelled? Did they do it to just earn a wage?

And being thought of in terms of being those Americans who lost the war does put a chip on the shoul­der of white Southerners. Therefore they cling to false nar­ra­tives of the Confederacy.

A huge ques­tion, but one that is cen­tral to your new book: In America how do race and class intertwine?

Well, it’s a very com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship depend­ing on place and time, and how dif­fer­ent groups of peo­ple nego­ti­ate com­pet­ing inter­ests. But dur­ing times of great eco­nom­ic upheaval, there’s always a chance, a glim­mer of hope for work­ing-class peo­ple and poor peo­ple to band togeth­er across lines of race. At times they do start doing that and then there’s always a big backlash.

In those moments there is despair and want, but also the kin­ship between peo­ple across the col­or line to achieve some­thing on behalf of work­ing people.
Read more here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​1​9​/​r​o​o​t​s​-​o​f​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​r​a​g​e​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​s​-​c​l​a​s​h​-​o​f​-​c​l​a​s​s​-​a​n​d​-​r​a​c​e​-​f​r​o​m​-​t​h​e​-​c​i​v​i​l​-​w​a​r​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​r​i​s​e​-​o​f​-​t​r​u​mp/

Conservatives’ anti-immigration fervor is political: They think keeping America white will save them

On Monday, in a court­room in Wichita, a fed­er­al judge told Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that he had so bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ed fed­er­al dis­cov­ery rules in a case he argued, defend­ing a law requir­ing vot­ers to prove their cit­i­zen­ship, that she ordered Kobach — a for­mer Department of Justice offi­cial under George W. Bush — to take reme­di­al legal cours­es. She also ruled against the law itself, say­ing there was no evi­dence it was necessary.

Kobach is best known for writ­ing the “show me your papers” law in Arizona that was also struck down in fed­er­al court. He also head­ed up the ill-fat­ed Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was dis­band­ed after many states balked at Kobach’s demand that they turn over their con­fi­den­tial vot­er rolls to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. He had very big plans:
Kobach is cur­rent­ly run­ning for gov­er­nor of Kansas, and the cru­sade to cur­tail immi­gra­tion and vot­ing rights will con­tin­ue no mat­ter how his check­ered polit­i­cal career turns out. This is now a cen­tral orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple of the Republican party.

Donald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has the most extreme immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy in a cen­tu­ry. Among his first acts as pres­i­dent was his the­atri­cal Muslim ban. He’s beefed up the bor­der patrol and ICE and told them all to “take off the gloves.” He put one of the most anti-immi­gra­tion politi­cians in the coun­try in charge of the Justice Department, and they are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly deport­ing peo­ple, even those who have been here for 50 years. Trump backed out of a deal to legal­ize the DACA recip­i­ents at the last minute. Now they are sep­a­rat­ing chil­dren from their par­ents at the bor­der and putting them into deten­tion camps in order to “deter” Latino immi­grants, even those who are seek­ing asy­lum from the ram­pant vio­lence in their home countries.

It’s tempt­ing to chalk all this up to sim­ple Republican racism and nativism. That is cer­tain­ly what fuels the emo­tion on this issue on the right. Conservative media pounds the mes­sage that “the ille­gals” are all on wel­fare (which isn’t true) and are ruin­ing the cul­ture with taco trucks on every cor­ner. (If only.) But that isn’t the whole sto­ry Back in 2014, when the wave of unac­com­pa­nied minors from Central American came to the bor­der, Laura Ingraham led the charge against those kids: Read more @https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​1​9​/​c​o​n​s​e​r​v​a​t​i​v​es-anti-immi­gra­tion-fer­vor-is-polit­i­cal-they-think-keep­ing-amer­i­ca-white-will-save-them/

Wait — Did Mr. All-American Tom Brady Tell Oprah He Has ‘Respect’ for Players Taking a Knee?

I begrudg­ing­ly have to admit that Tom Brady, the QB I love to hate, is now less hat­ed in the cock­les of my heart because of a recent com­ment Mr. All-American made about the NFL protests.

The pret­ty boy who was at least one time friend­ly with President Trump—but who has also crit­i­cized our Dotard-in-Chief (Kim Jong-un’s words, not mine) — told Oprah Winfrey that he has “respect” for the play­ers who chose to take a knee dur­ing the nation­al anthem last sea­son in protest of the deaths of African Americans by law enforce­ment, many times the car­nage cap­tured on video; often­times with no reper­cus­sion for the death-eaters save a pension.

Brady began by say­ing that foot­ball has afford­ed him the rare-in-America expe­ri­ence of being able to inter­act with play­ers from all “all dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try. Every col­or, race, belief, background.”

He con­tin­ues, “I respect why peo­ple are doing what they are doing. And they’re doing it for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, and that’s okay. You know, you can do things for your rea­son. They can do things for their rea­son, and you have respect for that. But, I thought it was great,” Brady told Winfrey in an upcom­ing inter­view on OWN’s “Super Soul Sunday” air­ing this weekend.

Brady said that the team had a lot of meet­ings after prac­tice, dis­cussing how they want­ed to act as a team with “a lot of good healthy con­ver­sa­tions … in our lock­er room.”

Brady also dis­cussed his teams’ action last sea­son, when the Patriots locked arms as they walked onto the field.

“We sup­port what peo­ple are going through,” he said, adding, “I’ve been play­ing sports long enough [to know] every­one comes from some­thing dif­fer­ent, and I think show­ing respect for every­body, in a lock­er room, with a team of guys try­ing to go in the same direc­tion — you bet­ter have that empa­thy for every­body. That’s what sports are about.”
https://​www​.the​root​.com/​w​a​i​t​-​d​i​d​-​m​r​-​a​l​l​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​-​t​o​m​-​b​r​a​d​y​-​t​e​l​l​-​o​p​r​a​h​-​h​e​-​h​a​s​-​1​8​2​6​8​8​7​279