Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul

Aretha and I have a relationship. She has been there for me, been there with me, for my entire life. I loved Aretha, but not in a romantic way.

Aretha had an uncanny physical resemblance to my sister, which made it impossible for me to think of her in sexual terms. I reserved those feelings for her sister Carolyn, who sang back-up for her. What I loved about Aretha was her style, her playfulness, her sense of humor. I loved her songs, and the way she sang them. But more than anything else, I loved her voice, that amazing, powerful, beautiful sound that she created from within. Nobody. Nobody could sing like Aretha.

I was not surprised when I heard that Aretha died today. It was common knowledge that her condition was grave, her family was present, and her death was imminent. I thought I was prepared for it. But when I saw her standing on the portico of the nation’s Capital, dressed like my mother dressed on Sunday mornings, singing “My Country Tis of Thee” as only she could and would, my heart began to ache. As I saw President Obama sitting behind her waiting to be sworn in as President of the United States, and the incredible throng of people crowded into the National Mall for as far as the eye could see, I could feel my emotions as they rose from the pit of my stomach, rising inexorably through my chest, my throat, searching for an outlet through my quickly moistening eyes. I knew what would happen next, but I did not want to cry, so I quickly turned the television off.

I knew that there were other ways to remember Aretha, so I reached for my phone and went straight to the playlist called simply “Aretha”. That playlist has 28 of my all-time favorite Aretha Franklin songs, and I turned it on… loud, clear, and strong. The first song to play was “Dr. Feelgood”, and my God, she sounded so good.

As I sat and listened, it felt as if I was experiencing a mosaic of my life. “Ain’t No Way” recalled a love affair gone wrong. I remembered walking to the record store after saving my lunch money for a week, so I could buy “Chain of Fools” for 98 cents. “Rock Steady” brought back the parties. “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” reminded me of Carole King, my friends in the Marine Corps, and my realization that white people could write beautiful, soulful songs too. “Until You Come Back to Me” made me think of Stevie Wonder. “If Ever a Love There Was” made me think of Levi Stubbs, the late, great lead singer for the Four Tops. This was the first duet that I heard Aretha do, and it is filled with the love and admiration they had for each other. “Oh, Me Oh My (I’m A Fool For You)” … took me back to college at Auburn. “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Call Me”, “Day Dreaming”. The songs and the memories just kept coming. For a while, it was comforting. There were times when I found myself smiling. My thoughts were almost centered on how fortunate I was to have shared this life with such a prodigious talent.

But then I heard Aretha say;

“I got a call the other day
It was my sister, Carolyn, sayin
Aretha, come by when you can
I've got somethin' that I want to say
And when I got there she said
You know rather than go through a long drawn out thing,
I think the melody on the box, will help me explain”

The song is called “Angel”. Out of all the Aretha Franklin songs that I love so much, this one is my favorite.

As Aretha began to sing;

“Gotta find me an angel, to fly away with me …”

The emotion came flooding back. I stopped thinking about my life and started thinking about hers. I started to wonder about the joy and pain that all of us endure. I thought about her family, her allegiance to the church, and wondered if she found comfort there. I remembered her triumphs, and the countless awards and accolades she received during her life. I thought about the relentless scourge we call pancreatic cancer and wondered how the knowledge of what she would be forced to endure affected her mentally.

I will never know the answer to any of these things, but I do pray that Aretha found peace and happiness then, as I am sure she has found those things now. I feel this way because I love her. And love, is when the happiness of another, is essential to your own.

Aretha made my life better. Aretha made the world better.

Her job is done. May God Bless her forever.

How To Fix America (By This Time Next Year)

“I have a dream.

 It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

 I have a dream…”

“I have a dream that one day, this nation will rise up…

 live out the true meaning of it’s creed…

We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.”

I just got back home today. I spent the past few days in Alabama, “Sweet Home Alabama”. I had decided I had to go home again when the Equal Justice Initiative opened the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Legacy Museum, both in downtown Montgomery.

I flew into Birmingham and checked into a hotel there. My first full day would be spent in Selma. One-hundred-degree weather, Brown Chapel AME Church, the Visitor’s Center, the Interpretive Museum, the Alabama River, and the Bridge. I had to walk across that bridge.

Just like John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and all those other incredibly brave African-American citizens that decided to march 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery in the Spring of 1965, to tell a racist governor and the people of America that the time was now for the country to live up to its creed.

They started their march six blocks away, at Brown Chapel AME Church. I would do the same. When I got to the crest of the bridge and looked down to the other side, I tried to visualize what they saw. In my mind’s eye I could see the militarized force of State Troopers and deputized klansmen waiting in formation at the foot of the bridge. I imagined the weapons they brandished; nightsticks, brass knuckles, guns. I thought about how intimidating the troopers on horseback must have been, waiting menacingly in the rear of the formation as if they were Jeb Stuart’s Cavalry during the glory days of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

When I got to the bottom of the bridge, I tried to imagine what must have gone through the minds of the marchers when the troopers donned their gas masks, the cavalry started to advance, and the troopers began their advance to break up the march.

The African-Americans wanted to vote. The white people did not want them to vote. The result was Bloody Sunday.

On my second day in Alabama I drove from Birmingham to Montgomery. I drove down Dexter Avenue and parked my rental car in front of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. This was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, and ironically, perhaps even poetically, it is literally adjacent to the Alabama State Capitol. Jefferson Davis took the oath of office to be the first and only President of the Confederacy on it’s steps. On the building’s portico, George Wallace declared “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”. However, less than a block away, within plain view of that building, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and by extension, the Civil Rights Movement was born and nurtured at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The capitol building is the actual birthplace of the Confederacy.

In the Spring of 1965, the March from Selma to Montgomery would conclude on Dexter Avenue. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would stand on those same Capitol steps and make one of his most memorable speeches to the massive throng of people that stretched the length of the avenue. During that speech King reminded the marchers and the nation that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Because of the blood and courage of the people of Alabama, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965.

But, I didn’t stop there.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is located high on a hill overlooking the city of Montgomery. That is appropriate. It is the first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the memory of thousands of African Americans that were lynched in the most violent, despicable, ways imaginable. The purpose of this widespread and culturally sanctioned terror was to enforce the proposition that all men were NOT created equal, and that Black people had no rights that whites were bound to respect. This state of mind is what made it suicidal for a Black person to try to vote.

That is the essence of the courage displayed by the people that marched across that bridge. They put their lives on the line. They risked being lynched, to make it possible for everybody to vote.

Every single person memorialized at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a martyr for justice. They should be lifted up, high above the city that epitomized the evils of slavery, bigotry, and racism. It seems so right that the thousands of names memorialized there, with the date and places of their victimhood in plain sight, can now look down on the Alabama River and the former slave markets from a higher place.

Once again, I am reassured that unearned suffering, is redemptive.

But, I didn’t stop there.

I drove down the hill to Coosa Street and the Legacy Museum. It’s located on the site of a warehouse where Blacks were imprisoned in preparation of being sold. It’s about half-way between the old slave market and the main dock on the Alabama River. Montgomery was the capital of the slave-trade in Alabama, and Alabama had more slaves than any other state except one.

I was thinking of all these things as I drove back to my hotel in Birmingham. I thought of our current President. I thought of his problems, issues, and inadequacies. I thought of the Republican Party, and their total submission to the madness that has engulfed our nation. During my drive I realized ever so clearly that the answer to all that ails us is simple.

The answer is to vote. That is how the system is designed. That is the power of “we the people”.

The people in Selma knew that in 1965. That is why they risked their lives on that bridge. 

The key is the young people, the millennials, the gen-x’ers, the kids that are just graduating from high school. If they decide that it's cool to vote, if they decide that they're tired of waiting for the world to change, they could turn the government upside down.

Here’s the deal. Imagine that the Democrats win the House of Representatives. Imagine that the Democrats win the Senate. Imagine Pence is indicted, and Trump is impeached after Mueller names him as an un-indicted co-conspirator and lays out a devastating case of money laundering, bank fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy against the United States. Imagine the officers of the NRA and Republican cabinet members and congressmen are indicted as well. 

The Speaker of the house would be a Democrat. With Pence and Trump gone, The Speaker would become President.

 At that point, our current nightmare would be over.

Can’t happen, you say? 

Registered Republicans are only 28% of the American population. The young people in America hate Trump and everything he stands for. But, they don’t vote! If they did, we could elect a Democrat senator in Alabama…. Oh wait! We did that!

Nothing is more important in a democracy than the vote. Young people changed the world in the sixties. Young people can change our world in November.

The Republicans

          Last night the President of the United States said that Black people have been voting for 

Democrats overwhelmingly for one hundred years. That was a lie. It may have been an ignorant lie, it may have been a vicious lie. Chances are, it was both. However, there is no doubt, it was a Damn Lie.

          In theory, Black men were given the right to vote in the aftermath of the Civil War. The 15^th Amendment to the Constitution was required because the original version stated that Blacks were only “three fifths of a person”.

          During the Reconstruction years in the South many Black men did vote, electing former slaves to public offices on local, state, and federal levels. Since the “Great Emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, it was unthinkable for Blacks to vote for anyone that was not a Republican. By the same token, no self-respecting white man in the former Confederate states would consider voting for anyone that was not a Democrat, since being a Republican was tantamount to being a Yankee.

          The Civil War ended in 1865. The Reconstruction years lasted from 1865 until 1877. During that time, the Union Army remained in the South. The army protected the former slaves from domestic terrorists like the ku klux klan, protected the schools that the Freedmen’s Bureau provided for Blacks, protected the homes and property of Blacks, and ensured that Blacks were allowed to vote.

          The Presidential election of 1876 was between Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, and Samuel Tilden, a Democrat. The vote totals in four southern states were disputed, and in order to secure the Presidency, Hayes made a deal with those four states that were controlled by Democrats. In exchange for their electoral votes, Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to withdraw all remaining Federal troops from the South.

The ku klux klan would do the rest.

          Immediately, life for Black people in the South returned to antebellum customs. No more voting. Enforced apartheid. Forced labor. Institutionalized debt, incarceration for non-payment, and devalued education. All of these things were savagely enforced by custom, law, lynching, and the ku klux klan.

          Meanwhile, the Democrat party ruled. Southern states were one party states. Republicans need not apply.

          Today, that statement is still true, except for one thing. The labels have switched. Southern States are still one-party states, but today, the Republican party rules. Democrats need not apply.

What the hell happened?

          Just like the Civil War, just like Reconstruction, just like the Compromise of 1877, Southern states supported the Democrats because of racism. If Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, white people in the South were Democrats. It was as simple as that.

 But again, what happened? How did it change? Why did it change?

Harry Truman was a Democrat, but he desegregated the military.

John Kennedy was a Democrat, but he integrated the University of Alabama and supported the Civil Rights Movement.

Lyndon Johnson was a Democrat, but he passed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the Voting Rights Bill of 1965, and the Fair Housing Bill of 1968.

On the other hand, ….

Richard Nixon was a Republican, and devised “the southern strategy” to get elected President in 1968, demonizing Blacks under a cloak of “law and order”.

Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and he kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the place where three civil rights workers were murdered, touting “state’s rights”. He campaigned against “welfare queens” and Black people buying steaks with food stamps, and vetoed a law that enforced sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid practices against the majority of its citizens.

George H.W. Bush was a Republican, and at the behest of his notoriously racist campaign manager Lee Atwater, used a blatantly racist campaign ad featuring “Willie Horton” to win election.

George W. Bush was a Republican, and he allowed thousands of Black people to die in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, many of them begging for help on rooftops and the Superdome, or floating lifelessly in the flooded streets of the city.

          There was a time in American history, when African-Americans were allowed to vote, that vote overwhelmingly went to the Republicans. The reasons were obvious. Republicans freed the slaves from bondage. The Republicans gave them citizenship, property rights, equal protection under the law, educational opportunity, the right to vote, and hope for a better future.

          During that same period, white people in the south voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats, because the Republicans took away their property (slaves) destroyed their homes and cities, killed their sons, husbands, lovers, and brothers, took away their dignity and altered forever their way of life.

          Since July 26, 1948, when Harry Truman desegregated the military, it has been the Democrats that have consistently done what was right for America’s women and minorities. As a result, it has been the Democrats that have slowly but surely earned the allegiance of African-Americans in the voting booth.

          On the other hand, the Republicans decided to make a deal with the devil, trading justice and morality for a dependable block of votes from what was once the Confederate States of America. By using a strategy of division along racial and cultural lines, tactics of overt racism, covert racial dog whistles, fear, intimidation, educational malpractice, and voter suppression, the Republicans have conquered the Southern States as well as many other states in which the defining factor is nothing more than a predominantly white population and education and economic norms below the national average.

          As a reward, they now control a majority of the country’s governorships and state legislatures, as well as the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House.

          I do not care if the President is a Democrat or a Republican. I do care if he is a racist. I don’t want my President to be a racist. I don’t care if the congress is controlled by Democrats or Republicans. I do want a congress that is not an apologist for a racist. I want my congress to be an independent, equal branch of the government, dedicated to doing what is best for the country, not what’s best for a political party.

          Abraham Lincoln once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. He was right. The Republicans have been dividing us since Richard Nixon.

How much longer can we stand?

Just Say No

The President of the United States is a racist. There, I said it. Wrote it down for the record. Published it for posterity. I’ve said it before, but today, I feel the need to say it again. Loudly. Maya Angelo once told Oprah Winfrey that “when someone shows you who they are… believe them.” Oprah has said it was the best advice she ever got. Donald Trump has been showing us who he is for decades. I believed him then. I believe him now.

Now you probably think that I am about to go off on Donald Trump and his rant about all the “shithole countries” in Africa. Actually, I’m not. Sure, it pissed me off, but it didn’t surprise me. Remember, he showed me who he was decades ago, and I believed him. Besides, Trump says something or does something everyday that pisses me off. That’s what he does. That’s how we roll.

What I really want to do is talk to the democrat lawmakers in congress. I want to talk about morality, humanity, DACA, CHIP, hostages, backbone, and dreams.

In June of 2012, President Barack Obama, after congress refused to do so with legislation, established by executive action the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” immigration policy. It allowed certain individuals to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and be eligible for work permits. Eligible individuals are referred to as “Dreamers” after the “Dream Act”, the ill-fated bill that failed to pass in congress and precipitated President Obama’s action. There are strict requirements to be eligible for the program. “Dreamers” must be able to check each of these boxes;

• No felony convictions or serious misdemeanors. Not convicted of three or more misdemeanors.

• Arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday.

• Were under the age of 31 on June 15, 2012.

• Completed high school or a GED, or honorably discharged from the armed forces, or enrolled in         school.

• Born on June 16, 1981 or after.

• Was physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making their               request for protected status.

• Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012.

As of December 2017, approximately 800,000 people were enrolled and protected from deportation by DACA. In September 2017, Donald Trump rescinded the program, making all of them subject to deportation. Many to countries they had never known, countries that had cultures they had no knowledge of, countries that spoke languages they did not speak.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program, or “CHIP” provides health insurance to families with children. The program covers uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. The program has been in place since 1997. As of December 2017, approximately nine million lower-income children were covered by the program. As of January 2018, the republican congress has refused to provide long-term funding for the program.

On January 19, 2018 the federal government will run out of money. A spending bill to fund the government and prevent a shutdown of non-essential government functions must be passed by that date. Many government functions that are considered “essential” will become more chaotic than they already are. Fortunately, this time the republicans can’t do whatever they want and ignore the democrats in congress. The democrats in the senate must contribute precious votes to get a spending bill done.

Predictably, the President has decided to create a hostage situation. Trump is telling the democrats “if you want the government to continue to function, if you want your 800,000 Dreamers to stay here, if you want your precious nine million children to keep their insurance, fine. I will give you that. But, in return, I want 18 BILLION dollars, so I can START building my big beautiful wall to keep all those Mexicans out of the country”.

I am often amazed at how often throughout my life I am guided by the words and advice of just a few indispensable individuals. My grandmother often reminded me that “you cannot reason with a fool.” Donald Trump is a fool. If the democrats pay the ransom he demands today, there will be more ransoms to pay later.

Ironically, this is the weekend that America celebrates the birth and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am reminded of something he said that became a guiding principle of my life. On October 22, 1964 Dr. King gave a speech at Oberlin College in which he said, “the time is always right to do what’s right”. That is what I hope every member of the senate will remember.

Humanity and Morality demands that men and women of character say “No” to blackmail, “No” to hostage taking, “No” to racism. “No” to Trump. If Trump and the Republicans insist on shutting down the government, if they insist on deporting the “Dreamers” and every other immigrant of color from America, if they insist on removing nine million children from their insurance coverage, then we have an entirely different kind of problem.

Incredibly, Nancy Reagan said it best.

Just Say No. 

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? 

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.

      

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.

The Fierce Urgency of ... 1967

She was a beautiful little girl, fourteen months old. She had an exuberant smile, with plump cheeks that begged to be kissed. Her name was Maleah Williams. On Christmas Day, in an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Maleah and her mother were outside celebrating Christmas with almost a dozen other children and their parents.

Maleah’s mother, Tylena Williams described what happened next. “….. I saw a car drive through the parking lot, then back up a hill before stopping near a set of dumpsters… then a man inside the car started spraying bullets into the yard below… he just started shooting and I started running… I felt my body being so warm and my baby was just bleeding so much and gasping for air, and I kept telling her I love her, please don’t leave me.” 

Maleah had been shot in the head. She would die three days later.

Maleah was not alone. According to the Washington Post, twenty six other people were shot and killed on Christmas Day, 2015. They would include a barbershop owner in Alabama, a grandfather in Texas, and a young couple in Ohio. In addition to that, 63 other people were injured by gunfire. Not to mention suicides. Incredibly, more people died on Christmas Day in the United States last year than the number of people killed in gun homicides for the entire year in Austria, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia, Bermuda, Hong Kong and Iceland combined.

Today, 45 of the 50 states have “open carry laws”, which allow citizens to openly carry firearms on the streets. Imagine what would happen if a group of determined Black men were to listen to police calls on police scanners, rush to the scene of black people being arrested with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights? What if those men also happened to carry loaded weapons (in accordance with the law) which were publicly displayed but were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not to interfere with the arrest?

This is exactly what happened in Oakland, California in 1967. The California legislature responded to these “Patrols” with the “Mulford Act”, which banned open carrying of loaded firearms in California. The law was supported by the governor of California, Ronald Reagan. The bill’s conservative sponsor, Don Mulford, also a republican, argued as late as 1989 that “openly carrying a gun is an act of violence or near violence”. The bill also had the support of the NRA.

On May 2, 1967, a group of thirty young Black men and women arrived at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. They were armed with shotguns, but were careful to keep them pointed towards the sky. As they neared the entrance to the building, they were noticed by the Governor, Ronald Reagan, who was speaking with a group of children. Reagan turned and ran. The group continued into the building and eventually arrived on the Assembly floor, which was debating the Mulford Act. Bedlam ensued. Many of the legislators dived under their desks screaming “don’t shoot”. Security guards responded immediately, surrounding the group and pushing them out into a hallway. Reporters were everywhere, clamoring for information. They all seemed to be asking “who are you!!!” As the group was ushered into an elevator, one of them, a 16 year-old named Bobby Hutton replied, “We’re the Black Panthers. We’re Black People with guns. What about it?”

Less than a year later, On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Hutton would be killed in a gun battle with Oakland police. He would be shot more than 12 times after he had surrendered and been stripped down to his underwear to ensure that he was unarmed. More than 1500 people would attend his funeral. More than 2,000 would attend a rally held after the funeral. Those in attendance included Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. Bobby Hutton was 17 years old.

The Mulford Act is still the law in California. California is one of only five states that still prohibits the open carrying of guns. The law was not conceived in ideology. The law was motivated by the fear of Black people with guns threatening the police and the lawmakers themselves not with actual violence, but the mere possibility of violence. Fear demands an immediate response. The fierce urgency of now.

Today, the National Rifle Association is a fierce opponent of any and all laws that might restrict in any way the purchase or ownership of guns. The NRA owns the United States Congress. They bought it fair and square with campaign contributions. They control it with fear. They use the same methods many parents in the South used on their children, I would often hear my parents say, “I brought you into this world (congress), and I’ll take you out”. Republican politicians wear their “A+” grades from the NRA like a badge of honor. They will not be moved by that bullet in Maleah Williams head on Christmas day.

But, as quiet as it’s kept, the NRA, for most of its existence, supported gun control. In the 1920’s the NRA proposed legislation requiring permits for concealed weapons, adding five years to prison sentences for crimes committed with guns, banning non-citizens from buying hand guns, requiring gun dealers to turn over sales records to police, and creating a one day waiting period to purchase a gun. The NRA helped Franklin Roosevelt draft the first federal gun controls; 1934’s National Firearms Act and 1938’s Gun Control Act. These laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers, making it all but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government and convicted felons were barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939. The Gun Control Act of 1968 came in the aftermath of the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, the Black Panther’s visit to the California Legislature in 1967, and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassinations in 1968. The law added a minimum age for gun buyers, required guns have serial numbers, and excluded the mentally ill and drug addicts from owning guns. Only federally licensed dealers and collectors could ship guns over state lines. People buying certain kinds of ammunition had to show ID. The NRA supported all of these measures.

Today, on this national holiday on which we dedicate our thoughts to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems as if we live in what seems to be an alternative universe. During the great March on Washington in 1963, in his iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Dr. King spoke of the “Fierce Urgency of Now”. That “Urgency” of 1967, to make the nation’s people safe by addressing the violence of guns cannot be found. As I celebrate, commiserate, contemplate, where we go from here on this very special day, I think of the victims, not just the high profile mass killings that make the national news and set the twitter world afire, but the Maleah’s and their parents, the daily carnage that makes our nation the most violent in the history of the world. None of us are safe. We must find the courage to fix this.

As Dr. King said on that historic day in Washington, “Now is the time…..”

Now is the Time.