Happy 500th Birthday to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

I find it rather amusing hearing white supremacists like Richard Spencer or David Duke or Jason Kessler talk about how the United States is a white nation and belongs to their people. On occasion, you’ll hear of them saying something to the effect of wanting to kick out all People of Color as part of their dream of a whites only nation. Richard Spencer, for instance, has talked about “peaceful ethnic cleansing” as a way to rid the country of people they find undesirable (i.e. those of us with more melanin than most white folks).  He claims it can be done peacefully, but the smarmy asshole isn’t fooling anyone, because you can’t reasonably expect roughly 41% of the population to be cool about uprooting their lives and going to some other country on some other continent all because a racist hatemonger thinks the country is only for white people. But even if it were possible to peacefully kick people out of this country, there would be a fairly immediate problem: the loss of nearly 41% of the population.  The idea of white supremacists proudly celebrating their success only to see it undercut by the loss of millions of people in all industries brings a very satisfying smile to my face. Along with that smile comes a good chuckle when I think of how this will no longer be the case:

Foreign-born residents not only expanded the U.S. high-tech workforce but helped start new businesses that have generated billions in revenue and hired tens of thousands of workers. Foreign-born entrepreneurs helped start one-fourth of all new U.S. engineering and technology business established between 1995 and 2005, including Google and eBay. In high-tech Silicon Valley, California, more than one-half of business start-ups over that period involved a foreign-born scientist or engineer; one-fourth included an Indian or Chinese immigrant.

Among those companies that are already established, the loss of much of their foreign-born workforce would hurt. Badly. Come to think of it, the U.S. military would take a hit as well, since they actively recruit from communities of color.  Of course, my amusement ends when I think about the number of people who would suffer.  It’s likely the U.S. economy would take a nosedive, with everything from agriculture to the service industry to jobs in STEM fields being hard hit. Not to mention the emotional toll on those white people who were friends or loved ones of the forcibly relocated POC. Ultimately, I am not convinced that forcibly relocating all People of Color is feasible.

To be honest, even if it were, I don’t think there would be sufficient support. Yes, the United States is still a country with white folks in control of the wheel, brakes, accelerator, and even the turn signal (the latter can be seen in the 2016 election when the majority of the population was unsuccessful in preventing the nation from driving off a cliff). Yes, the interests of non-whites are only paid lip-service to (and only at convenient times), And yes, there are far too many racial extremists in this country. Despite all of that, and despite the fact that implicit and explicit racial bias is prevalent in white people of all backgrounds, I do not believe most of the white people in the United States want a whites only nation. Heck, even if a Richard Spencer and Pat Robertson ticket won the presidency in 2020, I don’t think any ethnic cleansing–peaceful or otherwise–would receive widespread support.

There is only one hope for those longing for a whites-only nation. It’s a long shot, and one that’s going to take a few steps, a lot more blood, and someone with Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Victor Von Doom level intellect. That last part is essential, because they’ll need a time machine to travel back to the year 1518 to prevent the events that led to the true birth of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:

Continue reading “Happy 500th Birthday to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”

Happy 500th Birthday to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
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The press is not the enemy of the people

They awaken every morning to a brand new day, just as we do. Brushing teeth, kissing spouses, grumbling at the difficulty in getting a child out of bed and ready for school. They drink their morning cuppa coffee or hot chocolate or orange juice.  Some of them grab a bite to eat at home, while others are in a hurry bc that child–or those children–dragged their adorably precious, but annoying butts just a little too slow and everyone is going to be late if they don’t leave right now.  Others get to take a more lackadaisical approach to the morning, relaxing with little more than the morning paper and Spotify playing in the background. There are even those who awoke before everyone else. Springing from the bed as if they just slept a week, they freshen up throw on some clothes and go for a walk/run/jog, head to they gym at the ungodly hour of it’s not even sun out yet, or hop on their bike to see the sunrise. They are us.

They eat what we eat.

Vacation in the places we vacation.

Thrill to baseball, basketball, football and no-ball just as we do.

They stress over paying the mortgage, the rent, utilities, the water bill and more, just like we do.

They gasp in shock and disbelief at the never-ending series of tragedies that unfolds on a daily basis.

They do so many of the things we do, these women, non-binary folks, and men.

In so many ways, we and they are the same. Except they are hiding a secret.  A secret that, of course, they don’t want you to know. These people have insinuated themselves into the fabric of our country, eating our food, enjoying our culture, using our resources, acting as if they belong here. They go about their days with smiling faces, doing their jobs, but beneath it all, they are not our friends. They are not our family. They are not our loved ones at all. They are something more insidious.

They are the enemy. The enemy of the people.

That’s what the current occupant of the White House would have the citizens of this country think of them: journalists, reporters, the Fourth Estate, the press.  It is well known by now that POTUS45 has a high level of disdain for the press. In fact, disdain is probably not a strong enough term.  Given the naked hostility he regularly displays toward the press, antipathy is accurate and even hate really isn’t too far off.  This is the same individual who openly admitted to wanting United States citizens to treat him as North Koreans treat their leader. Given his numerous, well documented attacks on the media (attacks with deep roots) it is not a huge leap of logic to assert that, based on his behavior over the last few years, that the forty-fifth President of the United States would prefer a state-run media, under the control of some branch, probably a new one with a catchy name like The Media Force. If the media were government controlled, one can easily imagine that new coverage of him would be far more favorable.  Because favorable coverage, rather than honest, accurate truth telling is what the media should be about in his eyes.

Continue reading “The press is not the enemy of the people”

The press is not the enemy of the people

It was an absurd idea, but it worked

Scale of 1 to 10, how believable is the following?

Back in the 1970’s, the Colorado Springs Police Department hired its first African-American (as an officer, not as the help). Not long after being hired, Ron Stallworth (if you thought CSPD would hire a Black woman before a Black man, recall that while Black men are Black, we’re still men, so a society that values men over women would still show bias against Black women and in favor of Black men) saw an ad in the newspaper for the Ku Klux Klan, who were looking to increase their membership. I’m guessing members of everyone’s favorite cross-burning racist organization were doing some spring cleaning and noticed a surplus of white sheets in their stockroom. So instead of donating the sheets to the Red Cross or Goodwill, they figured to begin a recruitment drive. Given that monitoring and dismantling extremist groups was part of his job, Stallworth had an idea. He would infiltrate the KKK and learn all about the local chapter, gaining crucial information that would enable him to bring them down. Yeah, his idea hinged on him, a Black man, infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. By April 1979, he had not only joined the KKK, but he’d also pulled the wool over the eyes of the local KKK chapter and the Grand Wizard himself, David Duke.

Sounds like something out of The Onion, doesn’t it?

As preposterous as that sounds, it’s all true. Today,  just shy of the 40th anniversary of Black Man Makes Fools Out of Local KKK Chapter, BlacKKKlansman debuts, further immortalizing Stallworth’s efforts. Starring John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington) and Adam Driver, the Spike Lee-directed film tells the story of Ron Stallworth’s successful bid to do that which most other African-Americans don’t even have on their fictional bucket lists, let alone their real ones.

a copy of Ron Stallworth's 'certificate of citizenship' into the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Essential to verifying his highly implausible tale, here is Ron Stallworth’s actual certificate of citizenship (don’t ask me why the haters didn’t go with the more logical ‘certificate of membership’). See, I told you it was true.

Continue reading “It was an absurd idea, but it worked”

It was an absurd idea, but it worked

The NRA may be dying and thats the best news all day!

image of a billboard featuring the NRA logo and the letters NRA in bold black against a white backdrop with a red forward slash across the image
Cropped Photo: Lord Jim / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

In 2016, the most recent year they have data available on, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that firearm related violence resulted in:

(It should also be noted that mass shootings, as horrific and tragic as they are, only account for a small percentage of the firearm related homicides each year)

In addition to those numbers, Everytown For Gun Safety finds that an average of 7 kids and teens (up to 19 years of age) are killed each day, intimate partner violence leads to the monthly death of 50 women (average figure), Black men are 13 times more likely than non-Hispanic white men to be killed by gun violence, and the gun homicide rate in the United States is 25 times greater than world’s most “high income” countries (by the World Bank).

Be it injuries sustained via firearms, mass shootings, or suicide, it is clear as day that the United States has a massive problem with gun violence. A problem that needs to be seriously addressed by political officials at all levels of the government,  gun control advocates, and non-governmental organizations dedicated to reforming our country’s gun laws with the goal of reducing gun violence.  Unfortunately, there exists tremendous opposition to such a sensible goal: the National Rifle Association. Founded in 1871 in the wake of the Civil War, the NRA originally had one goal: improving the marksmanship skills of northerners. The founders of the group felt that southern soldiers had superior marksmanship skills, contributing to the length of the war. It is hard to believe this, but for several consecutive decades (beginning in the 1920s), the NRA was a strong advocate for gun control laws:

Continue reading “The NRA may be dying and thats the best news all day!”

The NRA may be dying and thats the best news all day!