Executing the Gays

Last night I read an article in the New York Times that left me in a state of shock. It was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning. According to the article, a California lawyer, Matthew McLaughlin, has “proposed a voter initiative that would mandate the execution of sexually active gay men and women”. The California attorney general is quoted as saying “This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible and has no place in a civil society”.

That’s putting it mildly.

The attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, has asked the California Supreme Court to allow her to refuse to give a summary and title to what is being called “The Sodomite Suppression Act”

Regardless, the reality is Mr. McLaughlin will get his chance to collect the 365,880 signatures of registered voters that would be required to put his initiative on the ballot. He will have 180 days to get it done. If he succeeds, the people of California will be allowed to vote on whether sexually active homosexual men and women in their state will be killed.

In 1986 I received a phone call from my younger brother. He was a big, good looking guy that had just returned to the States from Germany where he had served in the Army. He was distraught. The first thing he said was “I’m scared, Charlie”. By the time we finished talking I was scared too. He told me he had AIDS. He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want me to tell our mother or anyone else in the family. When I asked how he knew, he said he had taken a test, but I convinced him to have another one, and told him I would come to Birmingham to be with him when he did it, so he agreed to do it again. We went to the VA hospital in Birmingham together. I was in the room with him when the doctor gave him the news. My brother had ARC, or Aids Related Complex. He also had Hepatitis C. I will never forget the look on his face when he heard the doctor say those words. It seemed as if his soul had already left his body. I doubt if he heard another word that doctor said.

We left the hospital and went to a restaurant and had some lunch. We talked about everything but the HIV virus. We talked about growing up and being in the military. We talked about school. We talked about family and friends. Before we left, I remember telling him that a lot of people had managed to live a long time while carrying the virus. I told him he could spend that time living, or spend that time dying.

Ten years later, my brother died from complications of AIDS. I never told anyone else about his status. I wanted to, but a promise is a promise.

My brother was gay, but he was just as human as me. He was just as much an American citizen as I am. We both served in America’s military. He paid his taxes just like I do. His faith in God was as strong as anyone I know. It is nauseating to me for anyone to suggest that because of his sexual orientation he was not deserving of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

Discrimination and bigotry is personal to me.

In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. If they come for the homosexuals today, will they come for the Jews tomorrow? Will they come for the Blacks after that? Who will follow? The Muslims? The Latinos?

Last night, I thought of how asinine this ballot initiative in California really is. I thought to myself that it is next to impossible that the fool that is proposing this thing will be able to get more than 365,000 people to sign up for this. Then I thought, even if he does, no way a liberal state like California would vote to implement it. Then I thought, even if they do, the Supreme Court would strike this thing down in a New York minute. Then I thought about Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. And then I thought, oh shit.

When the Nazi’s first suggested that maybe Germany would be better off without the Jews, I am sure that many Germans thought to themselves that they can’t be serious. By the time those same Germans (and the rest of the world) realized how serious they really were, it was too late.

Matthew McLaughlin is not the only right wing, homophobic zealot in California. They are others that will sign his initiative in California, and there are those in other states that wish they could. The big question, is will the right-wing money show up?

March Madness

It’s March, and I’m caught up in the madness of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Again. The fire was lit when inextricably, the Auburn Tigers won three straight games in the SEC tournament. Three straight! You have to understand, we won four conference games during the entire season! Of course, deep down inside, I knew that winning the tournament and getting an automatic invitation to the “Big Dance” wasn’t happening, not with Kentucky in the building. But it was sweet, really sweet, to still be there, fighting, after sending three other schools home.

I’m not the only one with this disease. Most of America suffers from bracket-itis. Office productivity is affected nationwide during March, as office workers secretly watch the games on their computers, form gambling pools based on their opinions on who will win every game, and spend significant portions of the work day, discussing and debating every school, game, coach, player, and commentator that comes to mind. Even the President of the United States fills out a bracket. On National TV! More than $3 Billion dollars will be bet on the tournament this year.

The “Big Dance” seems to overshadow everything else that may be happening in sports. We don’t hear about baseball’s spring training or the NBA. Nobody knows or cares about what golf tournament is being played, especially with Tiger Woods on the sidelines. The NFL becomes mute. We even seem to be a little less concerned about the news around the world.

Meanwhile, the NCAA is making some serious bank. In 2010, The NCAA signed a 14-year agreement with CBS and TBS to televise the tournament. The deal was for $10.8 BILLION.

Every once in a while, when I’m watching the games and anxiously checking and agonizing over my bracket selections, my conscience taps me on the shoulder and tries to convince me to get an attitude about the fact that the kids providing the labor for this incredibly entertaining economic enterprise are getting screwed. Instinctively, I want to say, “These kids should be getting paid”. But, after further review, the reality is, they are getting paid, and paid quite handsomely as well. Still, my conscience won’t let go.

The top four seeds in this year’s tournament are Kentucky, Wisconsin, Villanova, and Duke. The estimated cost of attendance for four years at Kentucky is $129,856. Wisconsin, $166,276. Villanova, $228,944. Duke, $254,120. Most of today’s college graduates will leave school with similar debt following them everywhere they go. The scholarship athletes playing in the tournament have an opportunity to leave school with a degree, and no debt, no interest, free and clear.

The difference in the lifetime earnings of a person with a college degree and one with a high school diploma is more than one million dollars.

For many years I had great admiration for John Thompson Jr. and Mike Krzyzewski. I admired the fact that Georgetown and Duke not only fielded tremendously successful basketball teams, but they also refused to de-emphasize academics. Their players graduated. I never felt that their players were being exploited. I always felt that their players got as much from the university as the university got from them.

Here is the real issue;

Too many college athletes don’t graduate. That is how the majority of them are misused and abused. Some of them are unprepared for the academic rigors of college, and should have been refused admission. Some of them are not given the academic support once they arrive on campus that would allow them to succeed in the classroom. Many athletes have their scholarships taken away, not for academic reasons, but because they may have been out-performed athletically. Some are not allowed to compete as freshmen, but they are “red-shirted” for athletic reasons, not academic reasons. This year, despite having rosters of twelve to fifteen players, Kentucky has 3 seniors, Wisconsin has 3, Villanova has 2, and Duke has 2.

Making all of this right would be both difficult and complicated.

 It has been suggested that all freshmen should be ineligible to participate in varsity sports. I believe that freshmen should be eligible based on their ability to perform in the classroom, not on the field or court. Let freshman eligibility be based on a minimum high school grade point average and/or their ACT/SAT score.

Stop taking scholarships from students based on an injury, a better recruit coming to the school, or a coach’s whim. Make all scholarships irrevocable and good for five years. Let the schools apply for waivers from the NCAA to increase scholarship limits if a student suffers a major injury.

Allow students to be paid for endorsements and outside activities related to their participation in the school’s athletic program. Require the school to negotiate the contracts and place all proceeds in a trust fund that would be made available to the student upon graduation or withdrawal from the school.

These three things won’t fix everything that is wrong with intercollegiate athletics, but it might just allow my conscience to leave me alone during March Madness, (college football season too).

By the way, I had SMU in the “Sweet Sixteen” and Virginia in the “Final Four”. Obviously that screwed up my bracket pretty good. In fact, right now my wife is beating me by one point. But, I’ve got Kentucky winning it all and she had Villanova.

Who you got?

Oklahoma

On the first day of May in 1911, Austin Nelson, a Black man, stole a cow from Claude Littrell, a white man in Okemah, Oklahoma.

Nelson was married to Laura, and they had a 14 year-old son that they called L.D. and another infant child. Austin admitted stealing the cow, saying that the reason he did it was to feed his family. The next day, George Loney, a deputy sheriff in Okema and three other white men arrived at the Nelson home to investigate the theft. Upon the arrival of the men at the Nelson home, L.D. grabbed a rifle. His mother, Laura tried to take it from him. The gun went off and Loney, the deputy sheriff, was shot in the leg. He bled to death.

In an effort to save her son, Laura said that she was responsible for shooting Loney. Nevertheless, all four of them, Laura, her infant child, L.D., and Austin were taken to jail. On May 11, both Laura and L.D. were charged with killing George Loney. On May 12, Austin pleaded guilty to larceny and was sentenced to three years in the McAlcester State Penitentiary. Laura was placed in a cell at the courthouse to await trial. She kept her baby there with her. Her son L.D., was placed in the county jail in Okemah for the same purpose.

Sometime around midnight on May 25, 1911, a vigilante lynch mob of more than twenty men arrived at the county jail. They kidnaped L.D., and then went to the courthouse and took Laura and her baby as well. Both were taken to a bridge over the North Canadian River. Laura was raped. She was then allowed to leave the baby at the foot of the bridge before she and L.D. were hanged from it. The bodies were still hanging from the bridge the following day.

A large group of white people returned to the bridge the next day, posing on the bridge for photographs with the bodies of Laura and her son still hanging from it. The photographs were later sold and used as postcards from Oklahoma. It is not known what happened to the infant child.

One hundred years later…..

On March 7, 2015, America was given access via video to a party bus filled with members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, one of the oldest and largest college fraternities in the world. The brothers and their dates were in a very good mood, a singing mood. The video depicts them belting out a short ditty that sounds exactly like the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. But the words were different. America was shocked to hear these privileged white students of the University of Oklahoma chanting “There will never be a n****r SAE, There will never be a n****r SAE, You can hang them from a tree, but they’ll never hang with me, There will never be a n****r SAE!”

The reaction was swift and relentless. The President of the University, David Boren, could barely contain his anger. He immediately banned the frat from the campus. He gave the members two days to vacate the fraternity house and offered to pay for their bus tickets out of town. The National office of SAE shut down the OU chapter. The football and basketball teams at Oklahoma staged separate protests with the full support of their coaches. The students staged protests and vigils. The leaders of the chant on the bus were expelled, and issued apologies for their actions. The news media from coast to coast were unanimous in their condemnations.

Okema, Oklahoma is not very far from The University of Oklahoma in Norman. Using interstate 40, you can make the trip in less than an hour and a half.

There is also not a lot of difference in hanging someone from a tree and hanging them from a bridge.

 Some would say there is not much difference between 1911 and 2015. Many white people in Okema in 1911 would agree that Black Lives DID NOT Matter then.

How many people on that Sigma Alpha Epsilon bus would agree that Black Lives DON”T matter now?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that it was important for us to remember that we should love our enemies, but he was glad that Jesus did not say that we should “like” our enemies. He said it was hard to like somebody that disrespected you, someone that discriminated against you, or someone that lynched you. He said it was hard to like somebody that bombed your home, your churches, and killed your children. I can summon my training as a Christian and love those that may hate me, but God knows that I don’t like them. I respect the righteous anger of the Oklahoma President. I believe that it was genuine. I can only wish that it was prevalent. The reality is that those kids on that bus are not alone. There are countless others that share their sentiments and beliefs. They are silent now only because bigotry is no longer socially acceptable.

Like it was one hundred years ago.

In Okema, Oklahoma.

The Heart of Dixie

The license plates reflect the self-image of the people of the state. In Mississippi you are welcomed to “The Hospitality State “. Louisiana will remind you that they consider themselves the “Sportsman’s Paradise”. My home state, "Sweet Home Alabama”, takes pride in being “The Heart of Dixie”. Personal bias aside, I think that Alabama got it right. In fact, I believe it would be entirely appropriate if all three states adopted the same slogan, since collectively, politically, ideologically, and geographically, they are the “Heart” of Dixie. 

Unfortunately, “Dixie” is dead. It died at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant and the Union’s Army of the Potomac. There have been various attempts to revive it since then, but inevitably, its proponents are faced with the reality of the futility of trying to raise the dead.

However, the “South”… the land that I love, is alive and well. The land of breathtaking beauty, mountains, beaches, rivers and lakes is still there. The incomparable cooking, naturally friendly people, beautiful women, and that wonderful way in which they speak that sounds like music to my ears is still there.

God has blessed Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana with incredible natural resources, including timber, water, fertile soil and wildlife, iron ore, limestone, coal, petroleum, natural gas, as well as fish, and shellfish.

Each state is home to highly respected universities, including The University of Alabama and Auburn University, The University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University, and Louisiana State University.

But, for whatever reason, too many people in all three states can’t get past the war. The Confederate generals are deified. The battle flag is memorialized. When I was in school the teachers and the textbooks did not even call it a “civil war”. It was “The War Between the States”. Too many people are still fundamentally opposed to accepting the fact that “All men are created equal”… that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners” could possibly be equal. Somehow, the educators in the schools I attended managed to convince themselves and their students that the Civil War wasn’t about “slavery” at all. It was simply a question of “State’s Rights”.

I am convinced that this carefully nurtured illusion of innocence for one of the great crimes against humanity is the reason why Mississippi ranks 50^th, Alabama 49^th, and Louisiana 48^th in education. This is why Mississippi ranks 50^th, Alabama 47^th, and Louisiana 49^th, in poverty rates. This is why only 10% of the white voters in Mississippi, only 10.5% in Louisiana, and only 13.3% of white voters in Alabama voted for America’s first Black President in 2012.

During World War II Germany and Japan were mortal enemies of the United States. Both were totally defeated and forced to surrender unconditionally. Today both countries are among America’s strongest allies. Both are among the world’s most economically powerful nations. Both Germany and Japan faced and condemned the mistakes of their past and forged a future with constitutions forbidding a repeat of the mistakes of the past. Both countries have highly rated educational systems for their children. Neither country attempts to glorify those that led them into war and defeat. Neither country makes excuses for or tries to minimize or justify the atrocities committed in its name.

As I watched two American Presidents in Selma, Alabama commemorating the 50^th anniversary of that “Bloody Sunday” on the bridge that bears the name of an insignificant Confederate general, I was struck by the symbolism. As they walked across the bridge, one Black, one white, one in the right lane, the other in the left lane, one republican, one democrat, the white President that signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act, the Black President that watched helplessly as the Supreme Court rendered it impotent. As the two American Presidents walked hand in hand with others across that bridge with others that had been there 50 years earlier, I wondered what the 90% of white voters in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana that did not vote for the Black President were thinking. As they passed underneath the stately arch that bears the name of the grand dragon of the ku klux klan for which the bridge is named, I wondered what he and the other klansmen thought of the spectacle.

Finally, I thought of the blood, the blood shed by so many to make that moment necessary and possible.

The “heart” of Dixie lives on, but “Dixie” is dead. It died in the war. The war was wrong. The Confederacy was a tragic mistake. Slavery was an abominable sin. It’s over. I hope that someday, the people of the South will let it go. The incredibly brave soldiers, Union and Confederate, that died in that war deserve to rest in peace, knowing that their sacrifices were not in vain. The best possible legacy for all of them would be for the people of the South to have the best education in America, not the worst. It would be fitting if the people of the south were as economically solvent as the people of Germany and Japan, and if the children of the South was taught what really happened in American history.

It would be fitting if the people of the South could vote for their President based on the “content of his or her character, not the color of his or her skin”.

I believe. One day. They will.