Apocalypse Now - Part II (The Trump Card)

On April 1, 2015, I wrote the words italicized below. The post was about George Corley Wallace and the people that voted for, supported, followed, and idolized him. The post was about why they identified with what he espoused, and why that group of people now comprise the base of the Republican Party. 

 For Wallace, the "problem" was the Blacks, integration, civil rights, and the "pointy-headed bureaucrats" in Washington that were determined to impose their will on the good people of the south.

Today, the "problem" is the Muslims, Mexicans, Syrians, Blacks, gays, and Islamic terrorists that are determined to kill us all and destroy western civilization.

Wallace would use his unique form of demagoguery and scare tactics to become Governor of Alabama. He would run for President and carry five southern states, winning 46 electoral votes, using the same racist messages on the nation at large.

The Republican Party has continued to use racial politics since 1968 to flip the former confederate states from a Democratic stronghold to their own impregnable base of operations. However, what was once accomplished with coded words, a wink, a nod, and the power of the local purse, has been laid bare by the brash, egomaniacal, billionaire bigot from New York.

The old white people, the white people that did not finish high school, and the white people that did not go to college, are the base of the Republican Party. They are the Tea Party Patriots. The Republicans cannot win the presidency without them, and the base is pissed. They are supporting Donald Trump because he fearlessly, clearly expresses their fears and frustrations, their prejudices and bigotry. 

That’s what George Wallace did. Wallace was too extreme for the Democratic Party, so he ran for President as an independent. His believers voted for him anyway.

Recent polling suggests that more than 65% of the Republican base will do the same for Trump.

There is no way out for the Republicans. They created this monster. The apocalypse is upon them.

April 1, 2015

The date was January 14, 1963. Fifty two years ago. The streets of Montgomery were packed with visitors from all over the state. Many others were there from other states. The local, state, and national media were there as well. The occasion was the inaugural address of the newly elected governor. The speech had been written by Asa Carter, founder of the local Ku Klux Klan. The editors of the local daily newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, had urged the fiery young governor-elect to remove the fateful passage from the speech, but their request was denied. He stood on the portico of the Capitol building, looking down on the mass of people stretching down the boulevard known as Dexter Avenue. Surely, he was aware of the symbolism. This was the same place that Jefferson Davis had stood as he was sworn in as the first (and only) President of the Confederacy. 

And then, he said it.

“Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us have done, time and again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny….and I say….Segregation today….Segregation tomorrow….Segregation forever!”

Five years later, the man that said these words would run for President as an Independent. He would carry 5 states, including Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. He would garner 46 Electoral votes, 13.5% of the total vote, and 9.9 Million votes. In other words, he was not alone in his sentiments or his vision for the future of America.

It would be foolish to think that this point of view on diversity, that was so demonstrably prevalent 50 years ago no longer exists. 

Xenophobia, homophobia, and racism are all fueled by fear. So what are so many people in America afraid of? Why the intolerance? Why so many voter suppression efforts? Why so many reactionary laws targeting the LGBT community? Why so much animosity toward immigration reform efforts?

According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of the American population classified as white was 75.1% in 2000. In 2010 it had decreased to 63.7%. At the current rate, it is estimated that in less than thirty years America will no longer be a country where white people are in the majority. In 2005, only 28% of the American public supported same-sex marriage. Today, more than 50% of the public supports it, thirty seven states have legalized it, and a conservative Supreme Court seems primed to make it the law of the land.

America is changing. Rapidly. And “Change”, is scary.

The number of Americans that are 65 years or older is larger than it has been at any time in the country’s history. According to the 2010 census, more than 40 million Americans are 65 or older. They make up 13% of the total population. They also make up the base of the Republican Party. They grew up in the sixties. Many of them did not go to integrated schools, do not socialize with minorities, and did not compete against them in the workforce. They are very resistant to the change that is occurring in America today.

The firestorm generated by Indiana’s religious freedom law is the latest example of the conflict between competing views of America’s future, the old and the new, “segregation forever” or “I have a dream”.

The differences are real, deeply ingrained in the fabric of our nation’s culture. They will not go away easily, if ever. It is a cultural divide that was settled, but not forgotten, by civil war. Economic forces have forced the Indiana legislature to reconsider its effort to clothe its bigotry in subtle legislation. The same forces have prompted the governor of Arkansas to reconsider his legislature’s similar effort. Nevertheless, every Republican presidential candidate did not hesitate to weigh in on the side that the Republican base demands. They know that they cannot win a Republican primary without pleasing the base.

I am reminded of the first shots fired at Fort Sumter.

Once, George Wallace was asked why he started using racist messages. He is quoted as having said, “I tried to talk about good roads and good schools, and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*****s, and they stomped the floor.”

They stomped the floor. They stomped the steps. They stomped the street and they stomped the grass in Montgomery….On January 14, 1963.

The minorities are coming. Will the older, white Americans allow it to happen? Or will they take America with them, to their graves?

The Myth of Reagan

When I heard the first news reports that National Airport in Washington, D.C. would be renamed "Ronald Reagan National Airport" I immediately embarked on the five stages of grief. Denial and anger kicked in almost simultaneously. I think I skipped right over bargaining and eventually settled into depression. Although this happened in 1998, I'm still fighting with acceptance.

So what’s my problem?

My issues with Reagan began when he announced his second campaign for the Presidency. In 1980 he made a speech at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi. This is the place where three civil rights workers were killed in 1964. Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were buried in an earthen dam by the ku klux klan. Their murders would help to galvanize the nation in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Reagan went there and made a speech in support of "States Rights". He might as well have pissed on their graves. Any one from the South knows what "states’ rights" means. This was the Confederacy's politically correct excuse for starting the civil war. This was their rationale for slavery itself.

Reagan would also go on to tell an audience in Atlanta that "Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine", and describe the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as "humiliating to the South". If there remained any doubt about how Reagan felt about equality and human rights, he made his feelings clear in 1986.

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was passed by Congress in 1986. It imposed sanctions on the racist, minority South African government that was violently enforcing strict racial segregation. The law outlined five preconditions for lifting the sanctions that would essentially end the system of Apartheid. The law enjoyed the support of the entire civilized world.

Ronald Reagan vetoed it.

The US Congress overrode the veto and the Bill became law. The Senate voted 78 to 21, and the House voted 313 to 83. Apartheid came to an end in South Africa in 1991.

As quiet as it's kept, the Reagan administration was one of the most corrupt in American history. More than 100 members of the Reagan Administration were convicted, indicted, or resigned while under investigation during Reagan's eight years in office, including some of his most prominent aides. The list includes Edwin Meese III (Attorney General), Lyn Nofziger (Senior Aide), Michael Deaver (Senior Aide), Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defense), James Watt (Secretary of the Interior), Ray Donovan (Secretary of Labor), Elliot Abrams (State Department), Robert McFarlane (National Security Advisor), Oliver North (White House Staff), John Poindexter (National Security Advisor), Alan Fiers (CIA), Clair George (CIA), and Duane Clarridge (CIA).

On December 21, 1982 President Reagan signed an appropriations bill that included the Boland Amendment. The amendment made it illegal for the United States to provide assistance to the Contras, a group in Nicaragua that was trying to overthrow the Marxist Nicaraguan government.

In 1985 the Reagan administration agreed to secretly supply anti-tank and other weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for Iran's help in obtaining the release of six Americans being held hostage in Lebanon. The administration then took the money generated from the sale of these arms and gave it to the Contras in Nicaragua, a clear violation of the law that Reagan himself signed just three years earlier. Subsequent investigations resulted in several indictments, convictions, resignations, and pardons of high ranking administration officials. Reagan himself was forced to testify under oath, and incredibly answered "I don't remember" 130 times.

Many Americans are familiar with the phrase "once a Marine, always a Marine". I was once a marine, and on a Sunday morning in October of 1983 I experienced a spasm of anger that I will never forget. On that day, 241 American servicemen, 220 of them marines, died when an Iranian suicide bomber crashed a truck filled with explosives into their barracks while most of them slept. They were in Beirut, Lebanon on a "peacekeeping" mission.

Reagan responded two days later by ordering an invasion of Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. The US sent more than 7,000 troops to "rescue and protect" 61 American medical students on the island. The United Nations condemned the military action as "a flagrant violation of international law" by a vote of 108 to 9. A similar resolution failed in the Security Council as a result of a veto by the United States. Seven Democratic Congressmen introduced an unsuccessful resolution to impeach the President.

The entire Granada operation lasted less than three months. Reagan declared victory against the spread of communism. The United States suffered 19 killed and 116 wounded. More than 5000 medals and commendations were awarded to the participants. Meanwhile, the 241 servicemen that died in their bunks in Lebanon were out of the headlines.

The most baffling part of the revisionist history enveloping Reagan has to be his stewardship of the American economy. Has everybody forgotten what REALLY happened to the economy during those eight years??? How could they forget "Black Monday", October 19, 1987 when the stock market crashed by 508 points (22.61%)? Have we forgotten prime interest rates of 20%? Have we forgotten home loan interest rates of 16%?  That’s what was happening in the "Reagan Years". The Reagan years also saw unemployment rise to 10.8%, the highest rate since the Great Depression!

Reagan, today's patron saint of the conservative movement, increased federal spending by 80% during his eight years in the White House, doubled the federal deficit, MORE than doubled the national debt, and raised taxes seven of the eight years he was in office. Had he not, the deficits would have been much worse.

 Imagine what would have happened if this was the record that the Obama administration was leaving with us.

  Somehow, for some reason, the American people, the American press, and the American intelligentsia have allowed the Reagan loyalists to create and perpetuate a myth of historical proportions and sell it to America and the world.

Simon Hoggart, writing in "The Observer" said this about Reagan, "His errors glide by unchallenged. At one point....he alleged that almost half the population gets a free meal from the government each day. No one told him he was crazy. The general message of the American press is that yes, while it is perfectly true that the emperor has no clothes, nudity is very acceptable this year."

 If we really need another hero, is this the best we can do?

Gunsmoke

The first and only time I got in trouble in school I was in seventh grade, my first year in junior high school. Many of the older boys in the school would regularly gather in the boy's bathroom to smoke. Like most high school students then and now, I wanted to be cool. I had never smoked a cigarette before, but thats what everybody seemed to be doing, so I decided to do it too. There were probably between ten and fifteen of us in that bathroom, and very quickly the place was filled with smoke. It wasn't long before our Principal stormed through the door, waving his arms to see who we were through the choking smoke. He ordered all of us to his office, and once there, called each of us in individually to meet our consequences.

The moment I heard him call my name to go in that office was one of the scariest moments of my life. He got right to the point. There was a large razor strap hanging on the side of his desk. He told me I could take three licks with that strap or he could tell my father I had been smoking cigarettes in his school. I quickly nodded at the strap, because I knew if he told my father (who was a holiness preacher) I might literally die. He told me to stand up and put my hands on the desk. The pain was sharp, but tolerable. He then told me if he ever caught me smoking again he would give me TEN  and tell my father too. I never smoked another cigarette. I was twelve years old. The year was 1965.

This was a time when there was a culture of smoking in the United States. The society accepted those who smoked. The glamorous, rich, and famous smoked regularly. The military supplied soldiers, sailors, and marines with cigarettes as part of their daily rations. Cigarettes were ubiquitous in movies and television programs. People smoked in bars, restaurants, stores, schools, churches, trains, buses, airplanes, and at work. Cigarette ads were everywhere, and the tobacco companies were flush with power and profits.

Then, something happened.

In September 1950, the British Medical Journal published an article linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. In 1954 the British Doctors Study confirmed those findings. In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health agreed that cigarettes were killing people. In the United States, people began to sue the tobacco companies for damages related to their use of tobacco. During the next forty (40) years more that 800 lawsuits would be filed against the major tobacco companies. "Big Tobacco" would win them all...every single suit.

Things would change in the mid 1990's when states begin to sue. The states were seeking to recover the costs for medicaid and other public health expenses incurred from treating patients for illnesses caused by smoking. Eventually, every state's attorney general would sue on the simple premise that "you (the tobacco companies) caused this problem, you should have to fix it". Big Tobacco agreed to settle. They agreed to pay the states $365.5 BILLION dollars, be subject to FDA regulation, add stronger warning labels to cigarette packaging, and restrictions on advertising.

During the last twenty years the culture of smoking in America slowly but surely ceased to exist. Federal laws, State laws, and local ordinances have eliminated smoking in literally all public places. Cigarettes are rarely seen in movies and television programs. The rich, famous, and glamorous are rarely seen smoking. Smoking is simply no longer cool.

Today, we have a culture of guns. Guns are ubiquitous in our movies and television programs. States are passing laws to allow guns in our schools, bars, restaurants, workplaces, and airports. Americans are being shot and killed everyday at rates that challenge the imagination. 

Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by guns than were killed in ALL of America's wars COMBINED. America's combined war dead is 1,171,177. Americans killed by guns since 1968 is 1,384,171.

According to the Washington Post, if a "mass shooting" is defined as 4 or more shot, there were 204 mass shootings in the first 204 days of 2015 in the United States.

That's right. I did not stutter. There have been 204 mass shootings in this country in the first 204 days of this year. http://shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015

You might be saying, "but I didn't hear about all those shootings on the news", or "but the President didn't make a speech". You did not read about them because thats just what we do. Thats how we roll. Just go to a movie or turn on your television and you will see what I'm talking about. We have made shooting people cool. Ask any Hollywood "action star". Today's star without his gun is like Humphrey Bogart without his cigarette.

That is how you define "culture".

It took 50 years to change the American attitude and appetite for cigarettes. It will take at least as long to do the same for guns. The war against tobacco was won in the courts, not the US Congress. The same will be required for guns. It is much easier to lobby (buy) a congressman and a senator than a judge and a jury. 

In my lifetime alone, 1,384,171 people were killed by guns on American streets and in American homes. For many of them, your tax money and mine paid for their care, as well as for millions of others that were shot and survived. 

America decided that the death toll from cigarettes was unacceptable. True, the motives of those attorney generals were not entirely noble ($365 billion dollars is an attention-getter).

Nevertheless, when will America tell the gun makers "you created this problem, now you will have to fix it"?

Tobacco smoke kills people.

Gunsmoke does too. 

Don't wait until you're a victim to do something about it.

Appreciating Jimmy Carter

The first bumper sticker I ever put on my car was a “Jimmy Carter for President” sticker. I was a senior in college, he was running against Gerald Ford, who had become President when Richard Nixon resigned. Those were the days before I decided I was a Democrat.

In fact, I had voted for Nixon in the previous election in 1972. It took me a little time to decide to support the peanut-farming governor from Georgia. Instinctively, I had doubts about a governor whose lieutenant governor was the avowed segregationist Lester Maddox. But there was something different about this guy with the “Pepsodent” smile. The more I listened to him, the more I came to appreciate a fundamental honesty, sincerity, and pragmatism that was severely lacking in other politicians. Even then, I felt that this was someone whom I could trust.

There are many people in America that consider themselves Christians (70% according to the Huffington Post). A relative few however, live the kind of life that justifies the title. Jimmy Carter has. I don’t know a lot of people that “do unto others, as they would have others do unto them”, EVERYDAY. I can’t imagine Jesus Christ insisting that every person in America should have unlimited access to any kind of gun they might desire, (like so many of his critics do). Somehow, I can picture a modern day Jesus negotiating peace among warring nations (like he does), building homes for those without housing all over the world (like he does), and advocating healthcare for everybody (like he does). I can literally see Jesus Christ teaching Sunday School in a little-bitty church in Georgia every Sunday morning (like he does). And, I can imagine people travelling from all over the world and sleeping in front of the church to attend one of those Sunday School sessions, just like they do in Plains, Georgia today.

On Thursday, August 20, 2015, President Jimmy Carter held a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He had recently undergone surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. It was determined to be cancerous, and the doctors informed him it had spread to his brain. During his press conference, he said that at first he thought he had only a few weeks left to live, but surprisingly, he felt at ease. Who among us could face such a diagnosis with such grace and good humor? The 90 year-old former President said “I have had a wonderful life…. I’m ready for anything and I’m looking forward to new adventure”. With his trademark smile, he would simply say, “It is in the hands of God, whom I worship”. I was inspired by his faith, and reminded of my own.

Some of today’s politicians like to make fun of President Carter and his presidency. Many of them spend a lot of time espousing their own Christianity. They don’t mention Carter was the first evangelical Christian elected President. They don’t mention his extensive knowledge of nuclear physics or his service as a senior officer on America’s second nuclear submarine (most of his critics never served at all). They never talk about the 28 books he has written, the peace treaty he brokered between Egypt and Israel, or his Nobel Peace Prize. Nobody ever mentions the promise he made (and kept) to the American people. He told us he would never lie to us, and after Richard Nixon, that was a hell of a promise. Those that like to denigrate President Carter, would prefer to deify Ronald Reagan.

In our modern world, it is difficult to imagine an honest, God-fearing, truth-telling, kind, compassionate, incorruptible, humble person running for and winning the Presidency. But that’s what Jimmy Carter was, and that’s what he did.

The consensus among historians when it comes to the Carter presidency is that it was average at best when compared to other administrations. However his post-presidential years have been universally praised. He established the Carter Center in 1982 with the goal of advancing human rights. Since that time he has travelled all over the world brokering peace agreements between nations, serving as an observer to ensure free and fair elections, and working to eradicate infectious diseases in developing nations. He has also become synonymous with “Habitat for Humanity”, physically building homes for the less fortunate in the United States as well as other nations.

When he told the world that he had brain cancer, and mentioned that he had “a wonderful life”, it was an understatement. I was so impressed by his total lack of self-pity. I was so encouraged by his light-heartedness. What remarkable faith must be required to face one’s impending demise in such a way. What a testament to one’s own faith in the way a life has been lived. As I sat and watched him laugh and joke with the reporters, yet expressing in intimate detail the seriousness of the situation, I was inspired to be able to live my own life that way, to be able to face my own death in the same way.

When I put that bumper sticker on my car in 1976, the green and white sticker promoting “Jimmy Carter for President”, I did not know what kind of man he really was. There was just something about him, something that made me believe that he would do the right thing. I have never put another bumper sticker on a car.

I probably never will.

Auburn vs Alabama

I think I was five years old, and the year was 1958. I was living with my family on Finley Avenue in Birmingham Alabama. The duplex apartment was not far from Legion Field, which had been the scene of the annual “Iron Bowl” football game between Auburn’s Tigers and Alabama’s Crimson Tide since the two schools had resumed diplomatic relations and agreed to play each other again after a 41 year dispute. It was only at the behest of the state legislature in 1948 did the games resume. It was sometime during that year that I decided that I preferred the orange and blue of Auburn over the red and white of Alabama.

Yes, it is true, they start us young in Alabama.

As the years went by and my awareness of the world around me increased, other things solidified my allegiance to the War Eagles of Auburn. Alabama’s head coach at the time was the iconic and legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant. Auburn’s coach was the soft-spoken and gentlemanly Ralph “Shug” Jordan. They were a study in contrast. Coach Bryant was a big, tall, hulk of a man. Mean, gruff, intimidating, he was a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, winner whose voice sounded like a growling bear. On the other hand, Coach Jordan was a southern gentleman right out of central casting. He looked more like a preacher than a football coach. Instinctively, I preferred Coach Jordan.

Auburn won the National Championship in 1957 under Coach Jordan. In 1958, Alabama responded and hired Bear Bryant. From 1959 until 1968, Alabama would defeat Auburn nine times out of ten. Bryant would go on to win Six National Championships and Thirteen Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships. By the time he retired in 1982, he had won more football games (323) than any college coach in history. But to me, Bear was a bully, and I would rather beat a bully than follow one. So, score another one for Auburn. All of my life Auburn has been considered the underdog in the state, and I identify with underdogs. I have no doubt that I experience ten times the joy when Auburn beats Bama, than a Bama fan gets from beating us.

Most people assume that the game was played in Birmingham for so many years because it was a “neutral site”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Birmingham is less than an hour’s drive from the Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. The critical mass of Alabama fans and alumni live in Birmingham. Up until the turn of the century, Alabama played the majority of its “home” games in Birmingham. Alabama simply felt it was beneath their dignity to travel to Auburn, and because of the power of their alumni in state commerce and government, they were able to continue this indignity until 1989, when the simple fairness and equality of a home and home rotation was agreed to.

Alabama has had a long and illustrious history in college football. They are one of, if not THE most honored and respected programs in the country. BUT, Alabama has had only three (3) Black starting quarterbacks in its entire history. They are Walter Lewis, Andrew Zow, and last year’s starter, Blake Sims. Auburn has had eleven (11), including Charles Thomas, Pat Washington, Reggie Slack, Dameyune Craig, Jason Campbell, Kodi Burns, Cam Newton, Kiehl Frazier, Jonathan Wallace, Nick Marshall, and Jeremy Johnson. What’s up with that?

Of course, the time that I spent at Auburn as a student cemented my allegiance to the school. When I attended Auburn in the early 70’s I was one of approximately 350 Black students at the school. The total enrollment at the time exceeded 17,500. Nevertheless we did not become lost in that sea of humanity. We were allowed to be ourselves, express ourselves. We were granted an opportunity to learn and grow. We were not subjected to endless confederate imagery. We were free to study what was interesting and relevant to us, and to enjoy a social life that was not foreign to us. We were given access to opportunities for professional and cultural advancement as well as access to positions of leadership and authority. And every once in a while, we would beat Alabama.

December 2, 1989 is a day I will never forget. For most of my life it had been hard to imagine that Auburn would play Alabama on our campus, in our own Jordan-Hare stadium. All of us knew that if that day ever came, there was no way in hell that we would lose that game. That game was played in front of the largest crowd ever to watch the game live. Alabama came to town undefeated, but it didn’t matter. We beat them 30-20, and shared the SEC Championship that year with the Tide and Tennessee. Most people don’t realize it, but since that day, Auburn actually has the better record in the series. When the games were played only in Birmingham (Alabama’s pseudo home field) Alabama lead the series 34-18. Since then, Auburn leads the series in Tuscaloosa 7-3, and in Auburn, we lead the series 8-4.

Equality and fairness is a wonderful thing.

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye once said that the difference between Alabama people and Auburn people is simple, “Alabama people love Alabama football, but Auburn people love Auburn”.

I love Auburn. Even if my brother did go to Alabama.   

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

The President of the United States believes that it would be a really good idea if all of America’s police were provided body cameras and were required to use them. I do too. I suspect that many Americans are beginning to feel the same way. During the past year there have been numerous episodes of police misconduct that was captured on cell phone video, or by cameras being used by the police officers themselves, that have profoundly changed the tone of the conversation when it comes to how the nation’s police often act when dealing with minority citizens. This video evidence, appalling and disgusting as it often is, does not surprise me, nor does it surprise most African Americans. Most of us have seen this type of behavior. Some of us have experienced it personally. We have reported it, and complained about it. Many white people however, found the stories hard to believe. When faced with believing us or the trained police officers that had sworn an oath to protect and serve, well, we lost. Besides, the police did not act like that with them.

But, during this past year, a change occurred. Something is happening in the minds of many white Americans. It is hard to dispute what we see with our own eyes, what we hear with our own ears. Let’s go to the video tape;

On July 19, 2015, a Cincinnati police officer shot and killed Samuel Dubose in the head while he was sitting in his car. Mr. Dubose was not obstinate or belligerent, he was not threatening. He was stopped for not having a license tag on the front of his car. America and the world saw and heard it all, thanks to the officer's body cam.

On July 10, 2015, a Texas State Trooper stopped Sandra Bland. Her mistake was changing lanes without turning on her turn signal. The trooper got angry when she refused to put out a cigarette, threatened her with a stun gun, ordered her out of the car, wrestled her to the ground, handcuffed her and took her to jail. A few days later she was found dead in her jail cell. The officer’s dash-cam and a bystander’s cell phone recorded it all.

On June 5, 2015, McKinney, Texas police were called to a pool party attended by Black teenagers in a gated community. Cell phone video captured one of the police officers pointing a gun at several of the teenagers before grabbing a Black girl in a bathing suit, tackling her, and shoving her face into the ground.

On April 12, 2015, cell phone video allowed the world to see Freddie Gray being arrested and dragged into a Baltimore police van. He was in obvious pain. His legs were not moving. He would die of a spinal injury a week later after being tossed around without a seat belt in that van before arriving at the police station.

On April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, a bystander with a cell phone recorded video of a white police officer shooting Walter L. Scott eight times in the back as he ran away. Scott was not a suspect in any crime. He was unarmed. He had been pulled over for a traffic violation. He died on the scene.

On November 22, 2014, In Cleveland, Ohio, 12 year old Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun in a public park. A white police officer arrived, got out of his cruiser and immediately shot the Black boy twice from point blank range, killing him. Surveillance video captured it all.

On August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, cell phone video shows Michael Brown, an 18 year old Black teenager lying in the middle of the street for hours after he was shot and killed by a white police officer. He was unarmed.

On July 17, 2014, in Staten Island, New York, several police officers tried to arrest Eric Garner for selling illegal cigarettes. Mr. Garner was wrestled to the ground, placed in a chokehold, and strangled to death. A friend’s cell phone recorded it all.

It would be foolish for anyone to think that these types of crimes only began in the last two years. What is different today is that we now have the ways and means not only to record these atrocities, but to independently broadcast the evidence to the world ourselves. A police officer can falsify an official report of an arrest and a suspect being killed in the process, but actual video and audio of the actual events cannot be disputed. That is the brilliance in what the President wants to do.

Obviously, he could never say it, but I am confident that as a Black man from Chicago, and with the intellectual prowess that he possesses, President Obama doesn’t trust the police any more than the average Black person. Of course, the question, as always, is what are you going to do about it?

Mandatory video just might be the answer.

On December 20, 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a speech at the Williams Institutional CME Church in Harlem, New York. During that speech, she said the following;

“…..Quit saying that we are free in America when I know we are not free. You are not free in Harlem. The people are not free in Chicago, because I’ve been there too. They are not free in Philadelphia, because I’ve been there too. And when you get it over with all the way around, some of the places is a Mississippi in disguise. And we want a change…..” “For three hundred years, we’ve given them time. And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want a change.”

I’m sick and tired, of being sick and tired.   

The Sin of Doubt

I hope that to sometimes doubt the teachings of world religions is a pardonable sin. I am inclined to believe it is. If by chance it isn’t, all of us are doomed to eternal damnation. Too often I am overwhelmed with doubt when I think of the pain and suffering so many people all over the world endure each day. Too often I doubt that anything can or will be done about it. There are times when the grief from the loss of a loved one is incredibly painful, and the temptation to wonder if the salvation that we read about, and the resurrection the preachers preach about is really, really there. Over and over again, I have retreated to my reservoir of faith, and yes, I have wondered if someday I will go there and find it empty.

Who among us have not wondered if God is really there? Surely, at least once in your life, you have wondered if the atheists are right, and all that we behold is some kind of crazy cosmic coincidence. Did somebody make it all up to explain the unexplainable? Do we need religion to maintain our mental health when those we love die? Do we need it to justify and enforce our preferred standards of social and moral conduct?

I recently read a book called “Who’s Who in the Bible”. It was produced by National Geographic and is a beautiful, leather-bound volume that is the best explanation of what is going on in the bible that I have ever seen. It explains the events chronologically, provides excellent maps to pinpoint geographically where events took place, provides biographical information for major characters, and provides a historical context that allows the reader to understand the culture of the times in which the events took place. I have been going to church since the day I was born. Despite all of the sermons, bible studies, prayer meetings, and casual discussions with friends, I was never aware of the tales of violence, sex, deception, indiscretion, conniving, conspiracy, and outright evil-doing that can be found throughout this incredible book. The reality is that the people depicted in the bible were very similar to us. They had similar fears and desires, the same vices and virtues, they lived and they died, loved and fought wars, just as we do. They too, had their doubts.

Samuel Johnson once said that “Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.” It takes great courage to have faith in God when you are consumed by grief. Only courage brings one back from the precipice of surrender. It takes courage to recover from a broken heart. Courage allows us to march on when faced with fear and despair.

What I have come to realize is that faith cannot erase all doubt. Perhaps it is a good thing that it does not. Most educators would agree that doubt is the foundation of inquiry, which is the foundation of learning. On the other hand, ignorance is fed by certainty, and that very lack of doubt creates the intolerance that causes so many of the problems in our modern society.

One of the questions that I have struggled with for most of my life remains unanswered. I have always wondered if Christianity is the only pathway to salvation, to resurrection, to heaven…. Then what happened to all of the good people that lived and died before the birth of Jesus Christ? What about all of the people that lived and died on the other side of the world and were not aware of the Christian movement at all? What about the countless good people of the world that are and were faithful practitioners of other religions?

As Jesus was being crucified on the Cross, he is believed to have cried out in anguish, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” I have always wondered if Jesus himself had doubt. Why didn’t he smile? Why didn’t he calmly anticipate the heavenly reward he was surely due for the life he had led on earth?

If doubt is a sin, I am guilty.  

But who among us can legitimately claim to understand it all? If our intellect is finite, how can it hope to comprehend the infinitesimal? Every time I find myself attending the funeral of someone I love, I search for comfort in the mysticism of it all.

Now, I realize that I really don’t have to figure it out. I will find out soon enough.

The Power of Martyrdom

When Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina he had no idea that what he was about to do would result in the demonization of the symbols of the Confederacy that he held so dear. Not in his wildest dreams did he think that his actions alone would create a national conversation that would eventually remove the confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama, the license plates of Virginia, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as remove the emblem from the state flag of Mississippi. I am sure he had no idea that within days, anything with the battle flag on it would be impossible to buy at Wal-Mart, Sears, Amazon, Target, or E-Bay. I am sure that he had no idea that with his singular, incredibly evil act he would do more to illuminate the true purpose of the Civil War than all of America’s schools have been able to do. Surely, he had no idea that he would bring all of God’s children, Blacks and whites, Jews and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholic, Democrat and Republican, together to a table of brotherhood and mutual respect.

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, State Senator. Ms. Cynthia Hurd, Librarian. Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Speech Therapist and Girl’s track coach. Mr. Tywanza Sanders, recent graduate of Allen University. Ms. Ethel Lance, seventy-year-old member of Emanuel AME, served as church sexton for more than 30 years. Ms. Susie Jackson, 87-year-old member of Emanuel AME, choir member and usher. Ms. DePayne Middleton Doctor, retired Charleston County Director of the Community Development Block Grant Program. Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. 74-year-old retired pastor, member of Emanuel AME ministerial staff. Ms. Myra Thompson, 59-year-old wife of a local minister. They are all dead. They were murdered on Wednesday night while attending bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. They have become martyrs, known all over the world.

On June 23, 1963, fifty-two years ago yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made a speech in Detroit, Michigan in which he said, “A man who hasn’t found something he is willing to die for is not fit to live”. Later that year, Dr. King would deliver the eulogy for three of the four little girls that died when another church was desecrated by the act of those poisoned by racism. The 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed on a Sunday morning by the ku klux klan. The deaths were an awakening for white America. “Conservative” politicians declined to defend the indefensible, and in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the laws that mandated racial segregation and discrimination came to an end.

In 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo gave the “last full measure of devotion”. The march from Selma to Montgomery was sanctioned and protected by the federal government, and the Voting Rights Act was passed. As a result, one hundred years after its passage in the aftermath of the Civil War, the promise of the 14^th and 15^th amendments would be fulfilled, Blacks would finally be allowed to vote, and true citizenship for African Americans would at last become an American reality.

Dr. King himself would pay the price in 1968. His martyrdom would silence his many critics, and secure his place as an American hero. He would take his place beside Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt on the National Mall. His birthday would become a national holiday, and his legacy would continue to advance the cause of freedom and equality all over the world thru the present day.

The power of symbolism cannot be underestimated. The Nazi’s recognized this power, and the swastika and what it means was and remains unmistakable to this day. The Stars and Stripes of the United States is a beacon of hope and symbol of freedom all over the world. The Cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the essence of Christianity, and the martyrdom of Christ and its effect on the world is unequaled.

It is very likely that the nine people that died at Emanuel AME Church had no desire to be martyrs. Like most of us they wanted to live, and enjoy their lives as long as possible. But I am confident that all of them, if they knew that that day, would be their last day, would hope that their living, their lives, would not be in vain. I am sure that if they knew that their blood would be sacrificed on the floor of their place of worship, they would want something good to come from it. As natives of the South, it is unlikely they would have imagined the response from the people of Charleston, America, and the world.

Something momentous is happening in the old Confederacy. Eyes have been opened, hearts have been touched, and minds have been changed. The racists are embarrassed and searching for excuses and reasons for being. Love, respect, understanding, and brotherhood is winning. The blood sacrifice of Mother Emanuel is generating mass empathy all over the South.

“A man who hasn’t found something worth dying for, isn’t fit to live”. Dr. King’s statement is one that all of us should take some time to think about.    

Freddie's Dead

In the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, I would watch the television coverage anxiously. During the days when the city was under the curfew that had been imposed by the mayor, and was being enforced by legions of imported police officers, including the Maryland National Guard, I would grow more and more nervous as the hour for everyone to be off the streets approached. Each night I would silently pray that the citizens of the city would go home. I silently cursed the hundreds of reporters, camera men, and photographers that seemed to outnumber the citizens on the streets. It seemed as if they were hoping for something to go wrong, something sensational to photograph and report. Some seemed disappointed when it didn’t happen. I have no doubt that their ubiquitous presence was an irresistible temptation for those that were the last to leave the streets each night. The desire for even momentary fame is almost a universal desire for many young Americans. We are drawn to television lights like moths to a flame.

I was one of the many that breathed a sigh of relief when the police officers involved in Mr. Gray’s death were charged with various crimes related to his death. I have no doubt that the charges contributed to the détente in the streets. I am willing to accept the results of their trials. If the citizens of Baltimore that sit as their jurors find one, some, or all of them innocent, so be it. But they had to be charged.

 I never thought about what the police might do in response to those charges.

According to the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC News, The Guardian, and several other news outlets, May was the bloodiest month in Baltimore since December of 1971. The city had 43 homicides in May, 2015. In December, 1971 it had 44. In 1971 the city had 900,000 residents. Today it has 600,000 residents, (a third less). Since January of this year there have been 116 homicides. Most of the killings have occurred in the same west Baltimore area that was the epicenter of the recent riots.

One Baltimore police officer was recently interviewed on Fox News with his face and voice disguised. According to him, the citizens in west Baltimore wanted less of a police presence, and “that’s exactly what they are getting”. According to him, the police are acting in unison because they are angry about the charges against the six officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray. The facts support what the officer said. A Baltimore TV station, WBAL, reported that there has been a 32% drop in arrests since the curfew, and the homicide rate is up 40% over last year. Apparently, their duty to “protect and serve” only applies if they are not to be accountable for breaking the law themselves.

The most violent month in the history of Baltimore occurred in August, 1972, when the city suffered from 45 homicides.  That same year, Curtis Mayfield released the soundtrack for the movie “SuperFly”. One of the songs from the album was called “Freddie’s Dead”. The lyrics included the following;

“Why can’t we brothers, protect one another?

No one serious, and it makes me furious

Don’t be misled, just think of Fred,

Cause Freddie’s dead”

The psychological, sociological, and economical reasons that young Black men are conducting this intractable war against themselves is debatable. But a “War” is exactly what it is. The casualty rate is unacceptable. The collateral damage is affecting the women and children that live in the war zones all over America. For the moment, the national media hordes have left to seek out more sensational opportunities to increase their ratings.

 Fortunately,??? recent events have inspired certain media outlets to at least count the casualties.

The challenges facing the leaders of Baltimore are similar to those facing the leaders of Chicago, Birmingham, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and many other cities. The lack of national media coverage does not mean that the urgency is less. People are still dying, violently, needlessly, every day. Women are still being widowed, children are losing parents, mothers and fathers are grieving. Something must be done. The status quo is not sustainable. There is nothing more important than stopping this daily, violent loss of life. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is present not only among the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is also present among the men, women, and children that live in America’s urban war zones.

Curtis Mayfield was right. In Baltimore, the police peacekeepers have withdrawn from the battlefield. It’s going to be up to the brothers to protect one another.

The Rise and Fall of The Common Core

I was on a plane, cruising at 35,000 feet. There were several Principals on the flight. We were returning to the east coast from the annual NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals) convention when the conversation turned to NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and how our students were doing on our State’s annual exams. I was talking to a Principal from Mississippi, and when I asked him how his kids were doing I was left speechless by his response. According to him, his students were passing his State exams at a rate of more than 90%. That is when I knew that something was really wrong with American education in general, and NCLB in particular.

It is both logical and sensible to evaluate how well students have mastered the material that they are being taught. It is righteous and illuminating to disaggregate the data from those evaluations by racial groups, economic status, and the learning disabled as well. It is also important to have short term and long term goals for student achievement. Consequences for failure and/or non-compliance are necessary too, because all educators know that rules and expectations without consequences are not rules or consequences at all. All of these things were a part of NCLB, and all of these things are good.

However, NCLB had a fatal, obvious flaw. Bowing to “States Rights”, the law allowed the states to devise their own tests, set their own standards, and by so doing, devise their own definition of success. The result, was 50 different sets of standards. A successful student in Mississippi could move to Maryland and find him or herself hopelessly behind. A successful school in Louisiana might be a failing school in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, business leaders were complaining that high school graduates did not have the skills to do the work that their companies needed their employees to do. State superintendents of education, corporate leaders and Governors were looking at results from the NAEP, (National Assessment of Educational Progress) which is considered by many to be the “nation’s report card”. The NAEP asks the same questions and is administered in the same way in every state. It allows you to compare one state to another, one state to the nation at large, and the pace of improvement for a particular state and the nation. It was obvious to these state-level policy-makers that the country needed to have the same educational goals, the same standards. Not necessarily the same curriculums, not the same tactics or strategies, but as in football, the field needs to be 100 yards for everybody, or in basketball, the goal has to be ten feet from the floor for all. The nation needed common standards, not for every subject, just the core subjects of English and Math, Common Core Standards. The overall rationale was not only educational, but economic as well.

By 2010, forty-four of the fifty states had agreed to adopt and implement the Common Core Standards. The only states that refused to participate were Oklahoma, Indiana, Texas, Virginia, Alaska, and Nebraska. The standards had been conceived and developed by the states themselves. The effort was funded by the states, with additional funding provided by the private sector, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Somehow, between 2010 and today, this remarkable cooperation and near consensus among the states and corporate America to do the right thing for the education of America’s children began to fall apart.

 The genesis of the politicization of the Common Core occurred in July 2009, when the Obama administration announced a competition among the states to receive “Race to The Top” funding. As an incentive for states to initiate educational reform, States were awarded additional competitive points to adopt “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place”. This additional educational funding for cash-strapped states became a powerful incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards.

As a result, the Common Core Standards became “President Obama’s program”. Republican Governors such as Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina began to back away from the program. National think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation criticized it as well. Conservative talk radio hosts weighed in, as well as Fox News. It has been described as a “federal top-down takeover of state and local education systems”.

The persistent attacks from the political right have been effective. By the end of 2014, four states had repealed the legislation that adopted the Common Core Standards. Seventeen additional states had introduced legislation to repeal or delay implementation.

Hatred is debilitating. It affects our ability to think and act rationally. We are all given reasons to hate others. When we submit to the temptation, we do more damage to ourselves than we do to those we allow ourselves to hate. I will not go into the reasons they feel the way they do, but the hatred that so many conservatives have for President Obama is sad to see. It is an intense, blinding, hatred that is debilitating not only to them but to the nation as well. It is a hatred that is debilitating to the nation’s uninsured. It is a hatred that is debilitating to the nation’s economy. It is a hatred that is debilitating to the nation’s children, for what is more important than their education?

I have never known anyone that I disagreed with on everything. I have never known anyone that I wanted to destroy at all costs, by any means necessary.

I pray to God, that I never do.