Waiting to Exhale

My best friend and I argue about many things. I think he enjoys it. There are times when I am sure that he takes a position on a certain topic for no other reason than he knows that I feel differently about it. He calls it “poking the bear”, and it works… We fight about football, baseball, basketball, golf, guns, movies, books, food, history, politics, and a thousand other things. One of our more memorable arguments was about the causes of the American Civil War.

We both have read extensively about the war, and visited the battlefields together. We agree that the Civil War was the pivotal event in American history, an existential threat to the nation itself. I have always believed that the reason for the war was slavery. He insisted that the cause was “states’ rights”. For years, he used that argument as the proverbial stick to “poke the bear”. It worked every time. Every time he brought it up he would truly piss me off, and he knew it. Eventually, we decided to agree that the root cause of the Civil War was the Confederate States’ insistence on their “right” to own slaves.

Imagine that. Our nation split in two. State against State. Brother against Brother, Neighbor against Neighbor. We went to war against each other, because one half of the nation, convinced of its racial superiority, insisted it had the right to own Black people as slaves. By the time the war was over, more than 620,000 men would lose their lives in the line of duty, more than World War I, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam, combined.   

That is the power of racism. It is a human defect that has been present within us since the beginning of time.

The Civil War began in 1860. Four score and four years after the Declaration of Independence. One hundred years later, in 1960, the nation found itself engaged in another existential struggle caused by racism. The Civil War had resulted in three amendments to the United States Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship rights to African Americans and former slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans and former slaves. Nevertheless, one hundred years later, in 1960, none of the rights granted by the war and these amendments were reality.

The Civil Rights Movement was required to ensure that the 620,000 lives sacrificed during the Civil War were not given in vain. The movement ensured that the majestic words enshrined in the Lincoln Memorial were not meaningless. More sacrifices would be required. More blood would have to be shed. More tears would have to fall, but once again, the scourge of racism would be forced to retreat, and America would move ever closer to the promise of its creed.

Forty-eight years later, America would elect its first African American President.

Many thought that the election of Barack Obama was clear evidence of a post-racial society. Many thought that his election was proof-positive that American racism was a thing of the past. They were wrong. Racism is not an American problem. Racism is not a Southern problem. It is a human problem, and the election of a Black man as President of the United States was more than most racists could stand.

On Tuesday, November 8, 2016 (just two days away), America will elect a President to succeed Barack Obama. In many ways, Obama’s successor will be more fortunate than he was. They will inherit a nation with few of the problems Obama faced on his first day in office. The worst financial crises since the Great Depression is no more. Interest rates are at record lows, inflation is non-existent, unemployment is 4.9%, and the country has enjoyed 72 consecutive months of job growth, the longest consecutive streak since 1939! Last year, the country had the largest increase in median household income since 1968! And, the number of Americans without health insurance has reached a record low. Not to mention the two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) that were raging are no longer claiming American lives.

I believe that Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States, but I’m not absolutely sure. Donald Trump could win, and that scares me. After watching and listening to Trump for the past year, I am astounded that 40% of American voters are willing to make him President. There have been so many times when he has said and done things that embarrassed me as an American because I know the world is watching, I know that impressionable children are watching. How can tens of millions of American citizens believe that this man should be the leader of the free world? I have asked myself, “is racism that powerful?” “Is ignorance that pervasive?”

I have heard the arguments that all of this is a manifestation of “economic populism”. I listen to the people on television who are paid to say intelligent stuff talking about how all the manufacturing jobs are gone because of “immigration” and “bad trade deals.”

But then I think about the changes that have occurred since the Civil Rights Movement, how the racial caste system was finally destroyed and how the legal barriers to minority achievement have begun to level the economic playing field for minorities. Perhaps that is why minorities are overwhelmingly Democrats, despite the fact that economically and socially they are still suffering more than white Americans.

I hear the pundits talking about how the jobs that only required muscle are gone overseas (where wages are lower). They talk about our “21^st Century” economy that places an emphasis on education. Today, educated minorities are visibly more successful than uneducated whites. Their once “superior” status, which was based simply on being white, is a thing of the past. Many of them still live in towns that have been adversely affected by these fundamental changes.

Is this what they mean when they say they want to “take our country back”?

When Trump says, he will “Make America Great Again” is he talking about before all of this happened? Before the Civil Rights Movement? Before the Civil War?

Who will he take the country back from? The Latinos? The Jews? The Muslims? The African American in the White House?

My best friend and I argue about a lot of things, but we agree on Trump. He is an existential threat to the United States and civilization itself. His appeal is rooted in racist appeals and bigotry. Many of his supporters are victims of an evolving economic system that demands more than they have to give. This is a problem that could, and should be addressed. America has solved bigger problems before, but this one will require Democrats and Republicans working together.

Abraham Lincoln, when facing the nation’s first great existential threat, said “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature”.

It seems as if I have been holding my breath, waiting for this election to end. I pray that this threat to our nation, the “last great hope of mankind”, shall soon pass.

Revenge of The Racists

On June 17, 1994, my niece was married in a beautiful ceremony in New Jersey. I was on my way home, waiting to catch a train back to Maryland in New York’s Penn Station when it became obvious that something was happening. People began to gather around whatever television they could find. Eventually, the buzz was palpable. Almost everybody in the massive edifice was transfixed by the flickering images on the screens. The famous and beloved football player, celebrity, and pitchman, O.J. Simpson and his childhood friend A.C. Cowlings were fleeing the police on the Los Angeles freeways. Live, on T.V., with helicopters overhead, and people lining the streets cheering him on. O.J.’s wife, Nicole, had been murdered along with her friend, Ron Goldman. Their throats had been slashed. Obviously, O.J. was the murderer, why would he be running (with a gun to his head) if he wasn’t? The entire scene was surreal, mesmerizing.

The story would dominate the news for the next year. The trial would make household names of the participants. The nation would hold its collective breath on the day the verdict was announced. Despite a literal mountain of evidence to the contrary, Simpson would be acquitted. Many Black Americans would celebrate. Many others, Black and White, were totally shocked. Many saw the verdict as payback. Figuratively, for the historical abuse of Black people in the legal system since the settlement of the continent, and literally, for the recent acquittal of several white police officers in the vicious, videotaped beating of Rodney King, an unarmed Black man that had precipitated recent riots in Los Angeles.

For once, the system had worked for a Black man as it had worked so many times for whites. It didn’t matter that Simpson may have debated the point if you called him a Black man. Nevertheless, a predominantly Black jury, encouraged by a flamboyant Black defense attorney, decided to exercise the old Southern concept of interposition and nullification and set “The Juice” free.  

Personally, I was never comfortable with the O.J. verdict. I was among the many that were shocked by the acquittal. I understood the possible reasons for it, but deep inside, I felt there would be a price to pay in the future.

Today, Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States of America. Despite the absurdity of it all, Trump could win. The white supremacists love Trump. The Ku Klux Klan loves Trump. Trump admires the dictatorial leaders of Russia, North Korea, China, and Egypt. He despises the American President. Trump advocates torture, murder (of families of suspected terrorists), profiling, finding, and expelling more than ten million Latinos (and their American born children) from the country, while leaving undocumented white people alone. He also wants to block all Muslims from immigrating to America.

The Republican nominee for President has never held an elective office. He has not served in the military. He claims that his enormous success as a businessman qualifies him to be President of the United States. However, he refuses to validate his business acumen or success by making his tax returns public. The information that investigative reporters have been able to obtain casts serious doubt on Trump’s claims concerning his net worth, charitable giving, and yearly income. He would be the first Presidential candidate in more than 50 years that refused to disclose his tax returns.

Recent polling suggests that at least 40% of American voters will vote to make Donald Trump the next President of the United States. More than 80% of them are White. Most of them do not have a college education. Most of them are at least 50 years old. They don’t care if Trump has the intellect, temperament, or organizational skills required of an American President. They don’t care if his stated intentions would make a mockery of the American constitution. They don’t care about what will happen to the Latinos. They are totally unaware of the terrible parallels between Trump’s plan for the Latinos and Adolph Hitler’s plan for the Jews of Europe. They are unaware of the catastrophic effects that banning people of a particular faith (Islam) from the United States would have. They don’t care if American law enforcement mimics the German Gestapo, ordered to spy on Muslim homes and mosques, implicitly signaling that if you are Muslim, you are guilty until proven innocent.

To be sure, not all of Trump’s supporters are old. All of them are not uneducated, ignorant or stupid. Many are smart, intelligent, and calculating. Some are motivated by the possibility of power, celebrity, wealth, and hubris. Nevertheless, the ways and means they obtain their desires are unimportant to them.

Some Republicans can see the danger, and have made their feelings clear. Many of them are cognizant of the facts, and have chosen country over party. They have chosen light over darkness, right over wrong. They realize that it is impossible to alter the arc of history. They understand that the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is not restricted to whites only. They believe it when they pledge that the United States is “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all”.

America is a pluralistic nation, a multicultural society. It always has been, it always will be, or it will cease to be a nation at all.

Recently, I have often found myself thinking of the day when the verdict was announced in the O.J. Simpson trial. I was sure he would be convicted. Just like that day of the police chase on the interstates of Los Angeles, people were gathered around television sets in anxious anticipation of what would happen next. Many were hoping that the jury would interpose their own version of justice. They were hoping the jury would nullify the evidence and set Simpson free. Many others were hoping, even expecting the jury to just do the right thing.

I expect that election day this year will be very similar.

The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case was revenge. Plain and simple.

Will the racists get their revenge this time? 

Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein

In prison culture, a pedophile is called a “short eyes”. A “short eyes” is despised by the rest of the inmates. They are usually separated from the rest of the prison population to prevent them from being killed. They are the lowest of the low.

Donald Trump’s attorneys have been ordered by the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, to appear in courtroom 1506 on September 9, 2016, for an initial status conference for case No. 16-CV-4642 (RA).
https://timinhonolulu.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/20160630-7-order-and-notice-of-initial-conference.pdf

Why? Donald Trump has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1994.

During his campaign for the Presidency of the United States, Donald Trump has said many things that would seemingly disqualify him for the position. Nevertheless, he has persevered, triumphed, and continues to survive. Despite ominous recent polls, he still commands the support of a bedrock base of 35% of the American electorate.

For some reason, despite around-the-clock coverage of the Presidential campaign, the major news organizations refuse to touch this case. It is possible that they all believe it is simply a frivolous lawsuit that could not possibly be true. It is also possible that the consequences of informing the American public would be so catastrophic that no organization wants the responsibility of breaking the story, destroying Trump, the GOP, and its elected officials, and later having Trump exonerated.

Nevertheless…

This is the third time that Donald Trump has been publicly accused of sexual assault or rape.

His first wife, Ivana, in a 1989 deposition accused him of attacking her, pulling her hair out and forcibly penetrating her without her consent. According to the “Daily Beast”, he was angry with her because she had referred him to a cosmetic surgeon to perform a procedure to cover a bald spot, but the result was painful, which is why he pulled her hair out. They were later divorced, and Mrs. Trump later said she did not mean “rape” in a “literal or criminal” sense.

In 1997, According to the “Guardian” and the “Huffington Post”, Jill Harth alleged in a federal lawsuit that Donald Trump violated her “physical and mental integrity” when he touched her intimately without consent after her husband went into business with him, leaving her “emotionally devastated (and) distraught.” She later withdrew the suit when a parallel suit against Mr. Trump brought by her husband was settled. As recently as this year Ms. Harth has stood by her sexual assault allegations.

Lisa Bloom, a legal analyst for NBC News, attorney, and best-selling author described the Jane Doe case in a haunting article in the Huffington Post. In it, she said;

Jane Doe says that Mr. Trump “initiated sexual contact” with her on four occasions in 1994. Since she was thirteen at the time, consent is not an issue. If Mr. Trump had any sexual contact with her in 1994, it was a crime.

On the fourth incident, she says Mr. Trump tied her to a bed and forcibly raped her, in a “savage sexual attack,” while she pleaded with him to stop. She says Mr. Trump violently struck her in the face. She says that afterward, if she ever revealed what he had done, Mr. Trump threatened that she and her family would be “physically harmed if not killed.” She says she has been in fear of him ever since.

New York’s five-year statute of limitations on this claim – the legal deadline for filing – has long since run. However, Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Meagher, argues in his court filing that because she was threatened by Mr. Trump, she has been under duress all this time, and therefore she should be permitted additional time to come forward. Legally, this is called “tolling” – stopping the clock, allowing more time to file the case. As a result, the complaint alleges, Jane Doe did not have “freedom of will to institute suit earlier in time.”

Two unusual documents are attached to Jane Doe’s complaints – sworn declarations attesting to the facts. The first is from Jane Doe herself, telling her horrific story, including the allegation that Jeffrey Epstein also raped her and threatened her into silence, and this stunner;

“Defendant Epstein then attempted to strike me about the head with his closed fists while he angrily screamed at me that he, Defendant Epstein, should have been the one who took my virginity, not Defendant Trump…”

And this one;

“Defendant Trump stated that I shouldn’t ever say anything if I didn’t want to disappear like Maria, a 12-year-old female that was forced to be involved in the third incident with Defendant Trump and that I had not seen since that third incident, and that he was capable of having my whole family killed.”

The second declaration is even more astonishing, because it is signed by “Tiffany Doe”, Mr. Epstein’s “party planner” from 1991-2000. Tiffany Doe says that her duties were “to get attractive adolescent women to attend these parties.”

Tiffany Doe says that she recruited Jane Doe at the Port Authority in New York, persuaded her to attend Mr. Epstein’s parties, and actually witnessed the sexual assaults on Jane Doe.

“I personally witnessed the Plaintiff being forced to perform various sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were advised that she was 13 years old.”

It is exceedingly rare for a sexual assault victim to have a witness, but Tiffany Doe says;

“I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.”

I will never be certain that Mr. Trump did or did not commit this unspeakable crime. What is certain, is that the allegation has been made. We are certain that a witness that worked for Mr. Epstein at the time corroborates the allegation. We know that a personal relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein existed at that time, and that Mr. Epstein is a billionaire pedophile who is a “Level 3 registered sex offender”, “a threat to public safety” – after being convicted of misconduct with another underage girl.

I am also certain that I am in agreement with the prison population of America when they say they want nothing to do with any man that would sexually abuse a child. They don’t want a man like that on their cell block or in their cell. I don’t want a man like that in my neighborhood or in my house. They think a man like that is disgusting. I do too.

I’m trying to picture a man like that in the White House.

Short Eyes.

I can’t do it. 

America, is better than that.

Black Lives DON'T Matter

On Tuesday, July 6, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Alton B. Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man was arrested by two white police officers. They wrestled him to the ground. While he was pinned to the ground at least one of the officers pulled his service weapon and shot him several times. Mr. Sterling died. The event was captured on cell phone video and broadcast to the world on social media.

The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American man was driving his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Riding with him was his girlfriend. Her 4-year-old daughter was riding in the back seat. Police officers pulled him over. According to his girlfriend, Mr. Castile informed the officer that he had a license to carry a firearm and that it was in the car. The officer shot him as he sat in the car. Mr. Castile died. His girlfriend used her cell phone to record the scene, including the haunting image of the officer’s weapon pointed menacingly inside the car. The video was broadcast around the world on social media.

The protest marches began immediately. From coast to coast large groups of people gathered to protest the killings. The “Black Lives Matter” movement was center stage, rallying young, old, Black, Latino, white, and Asian Americans to demand an end to the continuing destruction of Black lives by the police.

One of the protests occurred in Dallas, Texas. This time, a Black, U.S. Army veteran decided to use an assault rifle to attack the police. Targeting white police officers, he shot 14. He killed five.

Everything changed.

The grief and anger I had experienced on Tuesday and Wednesday was now fear. I feared that the racists and bigots would use the killing of five white police officers to encourage and justify additional violence against Blacks. I feared that the cable news networks would sensationalize the tragedy to the point of feeding a perpetual frenzy of retaliation. I feared 1968 all over again. I feared the race war that the skinheads, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists have been pining for just might be possible.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement is polarizing, but needed because Black lives don’t matter in our country. That has been a fact since the birth of the nation. It was codified in the Constitution. It was certified during slavery. It was confirmed by the Supreme Court. It was practiced via Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, segregation and systemic discrimination. The fact that Black lives don’t matter in America is in evidence by comparing segregated rural and inner city schools and predominately white suburban and private schools. It is evident by comparing the incarceration rate for black men to others, by comparing household incomes, and unemployment rates. Notice the political response to the victims of crack addiction and the victims of prescription opioid addiction. The former was considered a criminal justice problem, the latter is considered a medical problem.

It is precisely because Black lives don’t matter in America, that Black people must insist that they do. It is insulting for anyone to say white lives or blue lives matter. That is simply stating the obvious. Everybody already knows the lives of white people and police matter. Black people are simply saying, “our lives matter too… so stop killing us, stop marginalizing us…

There have been several times in recent years when I have been shaken to the core by unspeakable violence and ultimate evil… 9/11, Newtown, Orlando, Charleston, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino, Dallas, and the Washington Navy Yard. It did not matter to me what color the victims were. My humanity is not based on the color of the victim.

Thou shalt not kill.

How can a “Christian” nation allow such unabated carnage?

I am encouraged by the courageous voices of some of our nation’s leaders that are urging a peaceful dialogue and reconciliation. Americans continue to gather together to express their anger, pay their respects, and to insist that Black lives do matter. I am encouraged that they continue to gather peacefully, and to express their appreciation to those police officers that treat them respectfully, making an effort to understand and respond to their righteous anger in a caring and understanding way.

There are times when I don’t know what to do, times when I don’t know what to say. Most often, grief is the villain that leaves me this way. Today I grieve for the Black victims of unnecessary police executions. I grieve for the White victims of senseless retaliation. I feel for those that will die tomorrow and the people that love them. When I don’t know what to say, I read the words of others…

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

Begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,

But you can’t murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,

But you do not murder hate.

So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

Adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

Only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

      

Ali! Ali! Ali!

I was afraid that Muhammad Ali was going to die. It was a Tuesday, October 29, 1974, and I was

really afraid he would be killed. I had watched in horror as George Foreman had brutalized Joe Frazier in Jamaica the year before, knocking him down SIX times in less than two rounds before the fight was mercifully stopped. Frazier had been the only person to defeat Ali, and now Ali would face the menacing killing machine that was the new heavyweight champion of the world. This was a strange and terrifying feeling for me. This was the first time I had had any doubt that Muhammad Ali would win a fight. But not only did I doubt his ability to win, I questioned his ability to survive. I was acutely aware of his confidence. I was too aware of his pride. No one alive questioned his courage. I knew he would never quit. All of those characteristics that were such tremendous assets, now seemed to be even more reasons that Foreman could kill him.

There have been two people in my life that were heroes to me. They were Martin Luther King Jr., and Muhammad Ali. One was a Baptist preacher devoted to non-violent social change. The other was a brash, trash-talking fighter that said louder than anybody else that he was Black, and proud. When Ali defeated the fearsome Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight boxing championship in 1964, he was 22 years old. I was 11. I liked him immediately because he was fast, smooth, handsome, and funny. He was cool, articulate, and man, could he fight! He would pick the round that a fight would end, and then damn! if he didn’t go out and do exactly what he said he would do.

He was easily the most charismatic athlete in the world, and I was fascinated by him.

However, as we both matured, as the turbulent decade of the 60’s continued, choices had to be made. Black people had to decide if they would stand up for their freedom, stand up for their dignity and humanity, or sit idly by and let others fight the fight for them. Ali chose to fight. That is when he convinced me and so many others that he was worthy of being not only an athletic icon, but an American hero.

Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. shared many characteristics and virtues, but the most important thing they shared in my eyes was courage.  The courage Ali displayed in the boxing ring was obvious, but the courage he displayed in refusing to go to Viet Nam was mesmerizing to me. The fact that his stand would result in five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine did not deter him. The fact that he would lose his ability to continue his career as a boxer did not deter him. I am sure that there were many people that were focused on the millions of dollars that he stood to lose as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, but that did not deter him.

He defied the United States Government, and inspired me.

It was 1967. He was 25 years old. I was 14. For the next four years, Ali would not fight. His attorneys would appeal his conviction during that time, and Ali would spend that time lecturing on college campuses. He was as electrifying on stage as he was in the ring. College students loved to listen to him as he would seamlessly go from sermon to rap to poetry.

 I was amazed by his ability to articulate truth to power, and his courage to do so.

In 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Ali’s conviction unanimously. Finally, he was free to fight again. Now, he was 29 years old. I was 18, and just graduating from high school. Later that year Muhammad Ali would fight the fearsome Joe Frazier in New York’s Madison Square Garden. They called it “The Fight of the Century”. It probably was. Frazier had been crowned Champion during Ali’s government imposed exile. Ali insisted Joe’s title was bogus, stolen, and promised to take back what was rightfully his. The fight went the full 15 rounds. Frazier won a decision, knocking Ali down in the fifteenth round. I was crushed, until I listened to what Ali said and the way in which he said it after the fight. He was kind, and gracious. He was poised. He displayed class. There was no bitterness, and the disdain that he had poured all over Frazier before the fight was replaced with respect and dignity.

Once again, I was inspired.

Muhammad Ali would continue to fight until 1981. He would win the Heavyweight Championship three separate times, the only person to do so. He would fight Joe Frazier three times, winning the last two. He would have 61 total fights, winning 56. He would lose three of his last four fights. He would often shout to whoever would listen, “I am the Greatest of All Time”!!! In the beginning, many would laugh or scoff at what they considered the braggadocius wit of the young fighter, but as time went by many would come to agree.

In retirement, Ali would fall victim to Parkinson’s Disease. Eventually the disease would eliminate his ability to speak. The smooth, athletic grace with which he once moved would disappear.

 In the Summer of 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, the world waited in anticipation to see who America would choose to light the Olympic torch over The Olympic stadium. When Ali magically appeared to receive the flame from the brilliant young swimmer Janet Evans, the spectators in the stadium, Olympic fans all over the world, and me, exclaimed in unison, Ali! As he took the flame, his arms trembling from the effects of the disease, I could feel the tears welling in my eyes in tandem with the emotion-fueled pride that I felt inside. It took tremendous courage for him to be there, to represent all of us and everything our country stands for when the entire world was watching. It took that same athletic arrogance to believe that he could accomplish the feat despite the ravages of Parkinson’s, despite the pressure and consequences of catastrophic failure on such a conspicuous stage.

Nevertheless, he did it, and I was proud… of him, and my country.

On that October night in 1974 I was in Montgomery, Alabama. The only way that the fight could be seen was on closed circuit television in a public venue. In Montgomery, the place was Garrett Coliseum, and the place was full. If my man was going to die, I wanted to be there, and I was. Most of the Black people there were Ali fans. Most of the white people were rooting for Foreman. During the first few rounds we were almost frantic as Ali allowed Foreman to pin him against the ropes and unleash furious fusillades of punches to his head and body. Ali would simply lean against the ropes and urge George to keep punching. Meanwhile most of us were screaming at the screen imploring our hero to get the hell off those ropes and dance! Curiously, it seemed that during the last few seconds of each round Ali would punch his way off the ropes, backing Foreman off, and we would freak out. By the end of the seventh round it was obvious Foreman was done. Ali knocked him out in the eighth round and the Africans in the stadium in Zaire started shouting “Ali Bombaye”! “Ali Bombaye”! Which means, “Ali Kill Him”! As for us in Montgomery, we were yelling at the top of our lungs... “Ali, Ali, Ali”!!! We yelled it in the auditorium. We yelled it in the streets. We yelled it in our cars on the way home.

Muhammad Ali did not die in Kinshasa, Zaire as I thought he might. Instead, he was king of the world… again.

History will say that Muhammad Ali died on June 3, 2016. History will be wrong.

“The Greatest of All Times” will never die.   

The Role of Discipline

When I sit in the loft of my home I am surrounded by the accolades bestowed on Crossland High School. Crossland is the high school in Prince George’s County, Maryland that I served as Principal from 2004 until 2013. The honors include three citations from the Governor of the State of Maryland, two citations from the State’s General Assembly, another citation from the Prince George’s County Council, and a feature article printed in the Washington Post. By no means do the honors stop there. We were also featured on the United States Department of Education’s “Doing What Works” website, named “School of the Year” for the National Capitol Region, praised by the Heritage Foundation from the political right and the Center for American Progress from the political left, and received an invitation from Michelle Obama for 50 of our students and staff to visit the White House. In other words, we did some really great stuff at Crossland.

In 2004, Crossland High School, with its 2100 students, was the worst of twenty-two high schools in Prince George’s County. The school was dangerous. The quality of the educational program was poor. The morale of its students, parents, and the surrounding community was poor as well. Hopeless was an accurate description of the school and all of its stakeholders. More than 65% of the students qualified for free and/or reduced meals, the government’s benchmark for poverty. In 2004, 15% of its students passed the State’s high school assessment for Algebra, 22% passed in English.

Crossland received all of the accolades mentioned above because we were able to change a culture of mediocrity, distrust, intimidation, and fear into a culture of respect for the individual, service to the community, and the pursuit of excellence. By 2013, test scores in Algebra had steadily increased to a passing rate of 76%, and English scores had improved to 78%. Students taking Advanced Placement classes had increased from 30 to more than 750. The school had been approved as an International Baccalaureate school, and 90% of its Seniors had applied to four-year colleges with at least a 70% acceptance rate for four consecutive years.

During my first year as Principal at Crossland my fellow Principals’ in the County teased me about having a pool to decide on when I would be fired. I quickly developed a reputation for being a very strict disciplinarian. We had many suspensions, so many in fact, that the other Principals were sure that the parental complaints would eventually result in my professional demise. Some of my students took to describing me as “Joe Clark”, the notorious Principal depicted in the movie “Lean on Me”.

The suspensions were the result of four simple rules that were put in place as soon as I arrived at the school. They were;

1.       No Profanity

2.       No Loitering

3.       No Class Disruptions

4.       No Fighting

All of the above violations resulted in suspensions. Initially, no one believed that such rules were possible, not until violators started going home. Eventually, the profanity that had been commonly used in classrooms and hallways ended, and respectful conversations became the norm. Eventually, the hallways became empty when classes were in session. Eventually, class disruptions ended, and teachers were able to teach, and students were able to learn. Eventually, the constant fighting ended, and students no longer were afraid for their safety while in school.

The rules, and the consequences for breaking those rules, were the only way that we could establish an environment that was conducive for teaching and learning. Once that was established, everything else was possible.

However, this was not a ”Zero Tolerance” environment. Our teachers, security, and administrators exercised discretion on a daily basis. The only zero tolerance situations were established by the Board of Education, and one of those was an automatic request for expulsion for any student bringing a weapon to school.

The “Principal’s Leadership Team”, was a special group of students at Crossland. They were my student advisory group, composed of one member from every student organization in the school. The members were personally selected by me at the beginning of each year. I met with them monthly, and we would have lunch and discuss everything that was going on in the school. We took field trips to Gettysburg, Pa., Monticello in Virginia, Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, and yearly trips to either Montreal, Quebec City, Niagara Falls, or Toronto in Canada. They were outstanding students, outstanding people, they were my student leaders. Membership on the Principal’s Leadership Team was something that was considered to be a tremendous honor. Our graduates wore a special collar on graduation day to indicate their membership. Some of the students that were selected as freshmen remained on the team for four years. They were in effect, leaders of leaders.

At the conclusion of one of our meetings, one of my senior students, a young lady that had been on the team for four years asked to speak to me in my office. When our meeting was over she got up to leave and when she picked up her purse a large knife fell on the floor. For several seconds neither one of us said a word. She knew the rules. Everybody in the school knew that if you were caught with ANY weapon it was an automatic expulsion. She was a senior. She was an honor student. She was already accepted to college. Her financial aid was already in place. I finally said, “sweetheart…what were you thinking???” She started to cry as she told me how she had been threatened, and was carrying the knife for protection. I picked up the knife and placed it in my desk drawer. I knew what I was supposed to do. I did not know what I was going to do. I told her I would talk to her the following morning, and sent her home.

I did not request the expulsion. I told no one what had happened. The student graduated, went to college, and graduated. Today she is married and a mother. I kept her knife in my desk drawer until I retired in 2013.

I’m glad I did not do, what I was supposed to do.    

How Obama Destroyed the GOP

The Republican Party is at war with itself. Thirty-five percent of the party faithful is enamored with Donald Trump, the bigoted, xenophobic, vulgar, narcissistic, ignorant, billionaire racist from New York. The other seventy-five percent of the faithful can’t agree on who to support for President instead. The conventional wisdom at this point, is that Trump will win the Republican nomination for President, or all hell will break loose at the Republican Convention in Cleveland this Summer.

 I believe that if Trump gets the nomination, the rest of the Party will form a third party and run someone else for President. I also believe that if there is a brokered convention, and the powers that be somehow manage to give the nomination to someone else, Trump will leave with his middle finger in the air, take his thirty-five percent of old white people, uneducated white people, poorly educated white people, bigots, racists, and Obama haters, and run for President on a third party ticket himself.

Either way, the Republican Party, as we know it today, will cease to exist.

Ironically, that could be a good thing for all of us, Republicans included. Believe it or not, it’s happened before, to the Democrats, for similar reasons.

In 1948, President Harry Truman (a Democrat) ordered an end to discrimination in the military. More than two million Blacks had served in World War II, and Truman decided that they deserved equal pay and the same benefits from the Veteran’s Administration that white veterans were getting. Truman’s executive order, in effect, was the beginning of the modern struggle for civil rights.

Since the end of the Civil War, the former Confederate States had been a literal block vote for the Democratic Party. They were, understandably, totally opposed to the Republicans, the “Party of Lincoln”, the man responsible for freeing their slaves, killing their sons, taking their wealth, and destroying their way of life.

When the Democrats nominated Harry Truman for a second term during their convention, the Southern Democrats were incensed. A few days later they held their own convention in Birmingham, Alabama. Out of that convention the “State’s Rights Democratic Party” was born. They would come to be known as the “Dixiecrats”, and their nominee for President would be the true-blue segregationist from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond. Twenty years later, Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” would use the fierce anger and percolating racism of southern whites resulting from the Civil Rights Movement, and the Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s support of the movement to completely transform the “Solid South” from a Democratic “block vote” to a Republican one.

So, what does Barack Obama have to do with what’s happening now?

As of today, Donald Trump has won 12 states. Among them are Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, with Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina yet to vote (Trump is leading the polls in all of them). The only former Confederate state he did not win is Texas, where Ted Cruz, a Texas Senator, prevailed, and Trump placed second.

Few will admit it, but it is nevertheless true. In all of these states, “Race” trumps everything. The Civil War was never reconciled, and at least thirty-five percent of the population truly believes “The South will Rise Again”.

The election of Barack Obama, a Black man, as President of the United States was unacceptable in the former Confederate States. The Republican Party today “IS” the former Confederate States. They cannot win a national election if they lose any one of them. That is the reason why so many believe the President is not an American, that he is a Muslim, that he is deliberately trying to destroy the American way of life. That is the reason why the Republicans vehemently opposed everything he tried to do, even when he adopted their own ideas. That is why they have disrespected him and the office he holds. They are in agreement with Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who famously ruled that a Black man had “No rights that a white man was bound to respect”.

It is because of Obama that the “tea party patriots” were created. Hatred of Obama fueled the insanity espoused by the National Rifle Association. It is because of Obama that the Republicans were able to dominate off-year elections, promising their followers that they would stop Obama no matter what. They were able to win state legislatures, governorships, the U.S. Senate, and solidified a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. All of them ran against “Obama”. All of them were going to “stop” him. None of them did.

As Donald Trump would say, all the President did was “win, win, win”. He won on healthcare, immigration, Iran, the debt limit, climate change, Cuba, same-sex marriage and deficit reduction. He added 14 million new jobs, with more than 70 consecutive months of job growth, reducing the unemployment rate from over 10% to 4.9%. He saved the automobile industry, rescued the economy, and provided health insurance for 20 million people that would otherwise not have it.

The confederate, uh, Republican faithful are tired of losing, especially to people that are less than them, like Blacks and Latinos, and Muslims, and Syrians. They like Trump because he says what they’re thinking. They don’t like the Republican establishment because they lied to them, tricked them, hoodwinked them. They fell for the Okey Doke. The Republicans said they would put the Black guy in the White House in his place, the faithful gave them their votes, and they didn’t do what they said they would do.

The Confederates were once all in with the Democrats. When the party decided to do the right thing on equality and human rights, they split, and the Republicans welcomed them with open arms. This Summer, they will split again, unfortunately (for them), there will be no future as a majority party available.

As a result, America will be a better place. The body politic will be healthier. The recurring viral infection of racism, bigotry, homophobia, and xenophobia will go into recession. Unfortunately, some day, it will be back. Both parties have been infected by this cancer, who knows which party it will reappear in?

In the meantime, we can thank Barack Obama for destroying the cancer this time.  

Antonin Gregory Scalia

Often when we find ourselves in difficult or stressful situations we will depend on our formative years to decide what to do or say. I was shocked by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I find it impossible to remember a single legal opinion that he espoused that I agreed with. In fact, many of them I found to be personally repugnant and insulting. Nevertheless, I can hear my grandmother speaking to me right now… I can see her intense, gray-green eyes penetrating my soul, I can literally feel her tender touch on my face as she quietly says, “Charlie, if you can’t say something good about somebody, don’t say nothing at all”. So, I won’t say anything else about Justice Scalia. I will not say my “thoughts and prayers” are with his family, because that would be a lie, and I wish so many other people would stop telling that mindless lie. I do wish his wife and children well. I have known the grief of death too many times to wish that pain on anyone.

What motivates me to talk about Justice Scalia’s death is not the man himself, but the nation’s reaction to it. It is the knee-jerk opportunism, bigotry, obstructionism, and racism that emerged literally before his body could make it to the funeral home that is disgusting to me.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution clearly states that the President shall have the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices with the advice and consent of the Senate. There is no ambiguity about it. There has never been any question or debate about it. Until now.

The republicans now feel that since the President is in the last year of his second term, none of that stuff in the constitution really matters any more. They think that President Obama should not appoint anyone to replace Scalia, and if he has the audacity to do it anyway, they will not consent. Period. Forget about it.

The republican candidates for President are saying, “we’ll have an election in about 11 months, let the American people decide who should appoint the next Supreme Court Justice”.

My millennial daughter would say, “What just happened?”

Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968. Since then, there have been 17 people confirmed as Supreme Court justices. The average time it took to confirm them was 57 days, or less than two months. The longest confirmation was for Clarence Thomas, (99 days, or 3 months). The shortest confirmation was for Warren Burger, (17 days, or 2 weeks!).

Time, is obviously not the problem. So why? Why are the republicans doing this? Is it opportunism? Bigotry? Obstructionism? Racism? There is a case to be made for each. Scalia was the most rock-solid conservative of them all. He was their ideological leader. To replace him with another liberal could literally change everything in America.

I can understand why the republicans would freak out over replacing him with a liberal justice. All of the things that they stand for would be potential defeats for them if they were decided by such a court. Abortion rights, LGBT rights, and immigration executive actions would probably all be confirmed. Decisions on Voting Rights, Gun Control, campaign finance (Citizen’s United), and affirmative action could potentially be reversed. Future challenges to the Affordable Care Act would be dead in the water.

 I understand. I feel their pain. If I were a republican, I would probably vote against such a potential judge too.

But that’s the point. I might vote against that judge, but I would not stand up and say the President should not even nominate anyone. I would not say I was against that person before he or she was even nominated.  I would not say “delay, delay, delay”. I would not say that we should let the American people decide. The Constitution says the President shall appoint, and the Senate shall provide advice and counsent. Besides, the American people did decide when they elected President Obama. Twice.

It is words and actions like these that validate the charges of obstructionism against the republicans. Every republican senator swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. To refuse to hold confirmation hearings and hold a vote on any President’s Supreme Court nominee would be unprecedented and a violation of the oath that each of them swore.

Of course, the on-going Presidential campaign adds opportunism to the problem. What better way to generate additional enthusiasm among the tea-party faithful? What better way to demonstrate your disgust and disrespect for the foreigner that has been illegally occupying the White House for the last seven years? What better way to demonstrate your determination to “take our country back” and “make America great again” than to tell the Kenyan-born secret Muslim in the White House that he’s already dismissed?

The republicans could have taken the high road. They could have allowed the process to play itself out. They could have expressed their condolences for Justice Scalia, allowed the President to nominate someone to replace him, held tough, but respectful hearings, sent the nomination to the floor, and voted no. They then could have respectfully encouraged the President to send another pigeon to be slaughtered. Dean Smith’s four corners offense could not have run the clock out more effectively. But that’s where the bigotry and racism took over.

They could not fight the temptation to put the President in his place. Again. The adrenalin created by their hatred of the President would not allow them to wait, to reason, to act responsibly. They couldn’t wait until after the funeral.

They couldn’t even wait for the body to get to the funeral home.

Hatred is a bitch.