No Affirmative Action - Become Water

 

On June 11, 1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doors of the University of Alabama to keep Black students from registering and said ”segregation forever!” I was four years old and two years later attended an all Black, separate and unequal, Jim Crow elementary school in East Texas because I could not, by law, attend the all White elementary school closer to my home because I was Black. I did not understand the situation at the time because I was six years old. I studied from hand me down books, but the information was the same. Two years later The laws changed and my original school was shut down and I attended the formerly all White school closer to my home. My prior teacher prepared me well with those second hand books and I was like water. You see, water will find a way in, around or over any obstacles place in front of it. I knew what I knew. I knew what I was taught. I was not going to pretend to be less than anyone else regardless of their race, background or socioeconomic standing. 

I progressed through elementary, junior high and high school and did my best, even when I was one put in, what I called a warehouse class and my friends asked me, “What are you doing in here?” They knew me and I was moved to another group. Later I realized some students were set aside and given up on by their schools, many of them minorities, but like water I went around that. After finishing high school I was recruited by an HBCU for their business school and graduated Summa Cum Laude. I didn’t have a legacy of higher education in my family, I was the last of nine children and the first to go straight to college and earn a Bachelor of Science degree, but other siblings earned even higher degrees later on in their lives because they were like water also and would not be denied. 

 One Eigth of a Man

I came back to East Texas with my shiny new degree and went into business to business sales, but when I walked into establishments with my suit on, the question I got most often was not, what do you have of offer, but where are you from. The implication was that I must not have been from around there or I would have known I was out of my place walking into their business like that. I was you and newly married and thought, these people aren’t going to stop me, so I relocated, not far, but different. I was like water again and was able to utilized everything I knew and was taught to grow, provide for my family and prosper, then I came back on my terms.

Sixty years after George Wallace blocked the doors to the University of Alabama the Supreme Court of the United States of America essentially overturned Affirmative Action in the ability of colleges to use race as a factor in deciding who is admitted to their schools. You see, I’m the same person who could not attend a nearby elementary school because I was Black and in my same lifetime the SCOTUS said it is all even now. On June 29, 2023, 60 years after George Wallace blocked a university’s doors to keep Black students out, the Supreme Court determined everything was even. Slavery began 400 years ago and in 1966 I was legally barred from attending elementary school with White children, so now the SCOTUS has determined the weight of that oppression has been lifted. Native Americans were forced from the lands onto reservations and it is like a mulligan in a golf game and all even. Hispanic Americans relegated to the underclass for years laboring in fields, domestic work and exploited and it’s all equal now. 

Do not allow that Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action stop you from achieving your dreams. Behave like water and go around, through and over obstacles place in your path. Those before you did it and you can too!

Wartime President Trump Signals Surrender to COVID-19

The third world war is in progress with all nations aligned against a common enemy, COVID-19, also known the novel coronavirus. The attack from this viral enemy from another world was swift and started in China and quickly spread around the globe. It appears COVID-19 may have come for the animal kingdom and made the jump to humans who had no immunity, vaccination or therapeutic treatments to battle the respiratory disease. With an infection and mortality rate higher than influenza it appeared the best way to battle the spread of the novel coronavirus was to keep people separated from each other, so nation after nation reluctantly instituted policies that effectively shut down their economies to slow the infection rated of COVID-19. Individuals were ordered to stay at home and most business closed down to fight the march of COVID-19.

 Available on Amazon.com

The novel coronavirus came to the United States on a flight with a United States citizen who had visited relatives in China. Despite alerts that COVID-19 was coming; President Trump seemed to blow it off and called it a Democratic hoax, said it would go away or not be that bad. While the President was the denier in chief other nations like Italy and Spain were crippled by COVID-19 with infections and deaths mounting while their healthcare systems were overwhelmed. As the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, Trump reluctantly imposed social distancing restrictions that largely shut down many businesses across the nation, but he did not impose a national stay at home order to keep people apart so governors and local official across the country did so on their own. The United States ended up with a patchwork of regulations in some areas and no regulations in other areas to keep people away from each other. The stock market crashed. Medical professionals indicted the worst was yet to come and due to the late start the United States got in fighting the virus the peak of infections was not known. Trump stated he saw himself as a wartime President, but this enemy has no soul, no political agenda and can’t be spun with political rhetoric or deceived with lies.  

After what seemed like less than two weeks of war against COVID-13 with pleas for medial masks, ventilators and more hospital beds than could be mustered, Trump appeared to be weary of the battle. The novel coronavirus had an ally in the failing economy that worked on Trump’s psyche and possibly generated visions of his reelection slipping away. Against the advice of almost every scientist and medical professional around, President Trump began talking about reopening the United States for business within a few weeks by saying the cure could be worse than the disease, in short, Trump was signaling surrender. POTUS Donald J Trump alarmed many by stating he may be willing to sacrifice and untold number of soldiers on the battlefield to get the economy running again. Let us not forget that we, all American residents, are the solders that will be put in the line of fire. We don’t fight COVID-19 with a shiny new gun, but by staying away from it and starving it of a fresh host to spread it to someone else. If Trump reopens business prematurely it will be a tragic trade-off of lives for commerce and one of the most tragic chapters in the history of the United States.

Republicans Are Trump's Three Wise Monkeys

Three Wise Moneys - Republicans On Trump Impeachment

As Trump's impeachment trial, or lack there of, looms in the Senate, Republican Senators who will take an oath to be impartial jurors play their roles as one of Donald Trump's Three Wise Monkeys. The Three Wise Monkeys saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil because they had their hands covering their ears, mouth and eyes. The principles behind the Three Wise Monkeys may date back to hundreds of years BC before taking its final form in Japan. The framers of the U.S Constitution never thought a co-equal branch of government created to be a check on an out of control Executive Branch would be controlled by Three Wise Monkeys and become subservient to the Executive Branch to the point of being jointly complicit in covering up and enabling constitutional breaches including inviting foreign interference in our elections to advantage a sitting President. 

 

 

Living in The Age of White Reparations 

As the fourth estate of the press revealed that Trump rolled over his top advisors after they advised him not to withhold congressionally approved aid to Ukraine the truth is sitting in front of their faces to see, read and hear. Trump asked the President of Ukraine to, "do him a favor though" in order to get aid and that favor was to announce an investigation into his rival Joe Biden and his son. If this impeachment trial is like the Brett Kavanaugh FBI investigation for his confirmation to the Supreme Court when people called and went to the FBI with information that was ignored because it was outside the very narrow scope defined by the White House, then we no longer have three co-equal branches of government. If the Senate conducts a rigged sham impeachment trial and clears Donald Trump summarily then we no longer have a President, but an unchecked and untouchable head of state who could wreak havoc for the rest of his current term and do untold damage if reelected with no risk of constitutional restraint or reelection.

 

 

Photo of Three Wise Monkeys 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rayinmanila/42687150801

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

     

Impeachment: If Soldiers Face Death, Senators Can Face Witnesses To Preserve America

Work of  U.S federal government, in the public domain in the United States

In the Constitution Congress has the sole power to declare war. In recent years, Presidents have entered the United States in multiple wars without Congressional declarations of war. When the United States enters a war the expectation is for those in military service to fight in those conflicts and if required, to give their lives in combat. Military members, members of Congress and the President take an oath that all contain these words, "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  

Trump: Nixon on Steroids

 

Congress and Presidents have sent Americans to face deaths in wars foreign and domestic to maintain our republic! The least they can do is face the truth, witnesses and voters to make sure we protect our republic from foreign powers being invited to interfere in our elections going forward! Impeachment is not a political party exercise, but an emergency button to be pushed if a President, of any political party, is violating his oath of office and placing our republic in peril. We expect military men and women to sacrifice their lives in order to protect our freedoms, among those, to have free and fair elections free from foreign influence. The United States was born because it broke away from foreign rule through a bloody war and it should be obvious why an invitation by a sitting U.S. President, elected under a cloud of election interference by Russia, to the President of another country to assist him in an upcoming election by smearing his political opponent.

 

If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to hear key fact witnesses before acquitting President Donald Trump of the articles of impeachment drawn against him, then the Senate has lost its moral authority to send brave Americans to their deaths in defense of their right to display such moral cowardice in a free country.   

Trump, Lebron James and Fear Of A Brown Planet

In typical fashion the 45th President of the United States denigrated successful persons of color when he attacked Lebron James and Don Lemon of CNN in reference to an interview James did with Lemon. James was discussing the new school for disadvantaged youth he opened in Akron, Ohio. James was asked about Trump and he responded that he was using sports to divide people. Trump, who has skin so thin that it is translucent, responded by insulting the intelligence of Lemon and James. Trump then attempted to drag basketball legend Michael Jordan into the fray by stating that he liked Mike. Jordan responded by stating he supported Lebron James. Trump's own wife, Melania, stated she thought Lebron was trying to do good. 

Living In the Age of White Reparations - 

Caged Migrant Children, Kneeling Athletes & White Supremacy - on Amazon.com 

 

Trump has a pattern of attacking positive figures in the Black community in order to gin up support among his solid 33% or so base. Trump attacked President Obama, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Black NFL players and Congressman John Lewis. Combined with Trump's attacks on the gold star Khan family, immigrants from south of the U.S. border and labeling some people from majority Black or brown population nations as residents of shit hole countries it is clear that he is stoking fears of a brown nation and world, but that train has left the station. Projections are that the United States will be a majority minority country by 2044. Trump can fan all the racial fear, social anxiety and hate he wants, but the tsunami wave of demographic change is coming and there is little he can do to stop the United States from becoming the melting pot it was destined to become.

 

The idea that a President of the United States is actively the leader of a racial and social division campaign in America should chill the souls of all of citizens he is supposed to be serving. It is one matter to feel there may be an issue with local officials in regards to race relations, but to feel that way about the POTUS is frightening. All of our taxes support the house Trump lives in, the aircraft that transports him and the secret service that protects him, so Trump should understand he works for all of us and when an employee is insubordinate they should expect to hear the words, "You're fired!"  

Why Voting Matters – Kennedy Retires - Trump Gets Another Supreme Court Pick

Here we go again. Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring from the Supreme Court and Trump will get to place another Justice on the bench of the highest court in the land. A lot of people were not excited about Clinton and did not vote or voted third party and Trump won. The entire episode of Trump winning by about 70,000 votes in three states has changed the direction, character and standing of the United States in the world. Trump will select the most right wing judge possible that can get confirmed. Many of the protections we take for granted will be at risk like Roe versus Wade on abortion.

Available on Amazon.com

There is very little Democrats can do to block a Trump Supreme Court pick since the rules only require a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court Justice. Republicans just won multiple decisions out of the Supreme Court due to Trump's appointment of Neil Gorsuch. People must take their votes more seriously or one day we will wake up in a country we don’t recognize.  

Let Them Eat Beautiful Chocolate Cake

When the Republican tax plan was signed into law near the end of 2017 we were told that the lower tax rates on business would allow them to keep more of their profits and pour money back into jobs in the United States and employee pay. Six months in the year of 2018 and it seems that the tax plan was not working as sold. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated the following:

Real average hourly earnings were unchanged, seasonally adjusted, from May 2017 to May 2018. Combined with a 0.3- percent increase in the average workweek, real average weekly earnings increased by 0.3 percent over this period.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf

So if increased profits from companies paying lower taxes didn’t go to workers in the form of higher wages, where did that extra money go. Large public companies use their additional profits to buy their own stock back and pay dividends to their shareholders. As warned by many, the trickle down of trickle-down economics never happened, but according to the Congressional Budget Office the tax plan is pushing the United States towards a debt disaster:

 Available on Amazon

At 78 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), federal debt held by the public is now at its highest level since shortly after World War II. If current laws generally remained unchanged, CBO projects, growing budget deficits would boost that debt sharply over the next 30 years; it would approach 100 percent of GDP by the end of the next decade and 152 percent by 2048. That amount would be the highest in the nation’s history by far. Moreover, if lawmakers changed current law to maintain certain policies now in place—preventing a significant increase in individual income taxes in 2026, for example—the result would be even larger increases in debt. The prospect of large and growing debt poses substantial risks for the nation and presents policymakers with significant challenges.  

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53919

Many Americans are cheering the politicians enacting these budget busting and economic crisis inducing policies, so where is the pushback from those of means with platforms? The current tax plan is structured to pump a lot of money into the bank accounts of those at the top of the economic ladder and has bought their silence. As for the rest who will shoulder the debt, get no pay raises and possibly have their Medicare and Social Security cut to lower the self-inflicted deficit, the message is like Trump said about his meal with China’s President Xi,”It was the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.”

It seems, like Marie-Antoinette, Trump is saying let them eat the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.

Photo of cake authored by Carl Black from Decatur, GA, US - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license