SYSTEMIC RACISM

I've written about race in America quite a bit in the last eight or so years because it affects me deeply and personally, like on a soul level. From the above pics, you can see that I live in a very MULTI-RACIAL family. My sister adopted an African-American sibling pair the year before I adopted my first daughter, who is white, and four years before I adopted my second daughter, who is multi-racial. So when Americans started shouting "ALL LIVES MATTER" in 2016 and again in 2020, I had to dissent. ALL lives haven't mattered even though the preamble to our Declaration of Independence signed in August 1776 PRETENDS THEY DO!

I wrote in June 2016 that "the backlash to the Black Lives Matter campaign is rooted in ignorance," and it very much is. Ignorance of history. Ignorance about white privilege and how this country was founded. "ALL MEN" were endowed with "UNALIENABLE RIGHTS." But even as our forefathers penned that, they didn't really believe that ALL LIVES MATTER. In fact, they ruled that African men were 3/5 of a human being, justifying their lower status and white ownership of slaves. The founding fathers believed in Manifest Destiny and that it was bestowed on WHITES by their Creator. Hell, it is believed that George Washington's "wooden" teeth were actually those of slaves...but I digress.

Cartoon I posted in March 2016

I concluded in my June 2016 blog post that, "It wasn't blacks who created the divide amongst humanity. By and large, it was white people. It began with the premise that races OTHER THAN white were somehow inferior. In the case of Africans, they were classified subhuman. The African slave was classified chattel. They were no different than livestock and often treated WORSE! So white people created the US v. THEM culture between themselves and everyone of a "lesser race" (blacks were often referred to as "mud race")."

That STAIN ON AMERICA is what we are still living under the dark shadow of. It is the basis for the systemic racism we see in our Institutions, from governance (at all levels) to housing policies to media disinformation. But even still, in white-controlled America, we still have African-American's towing the line to protect the status quo of racial inequality. Watch this video about Tim Scott, one-time Republican Presidential Candidate, narrated and produced by a black man who compares Scott to a "magical negro" from Hollywood lore.

Not only do "conservative blacks" like Scott distort the narrative, they effectively try to REWRITE it! And our national narrative, as told in history books and propogated by the far right, is ALREADY AS WHITEWASHED as it can possibly be. It's why Republicans vehemently OPPOSE the ideology behind Critical Race Theory and want it banned from any and all curriculum. HOW DARE BLACK PEOPLE TELL THEIR OWN STORY IN THEIR WORDS!!! White America would rather keep them shackled and muzzled. WHAT'S NEW?!?!?!

Tim Scott shucks and jives with the very best of them, selling his version of "the American Dream." Ask most African-Americans what they think about this dream! Just like the preamble to the Declaration, it's HORSE MANURE! It doesn't apply equally. What Scott's story wishes to ignore (dare I say, WHITEWASH) is the struggle his parents and grandparents faced in a country that didn't see them as equal human beings! It ignores the fact of how they even got to this country. MOSTLY BY SLAVE SHIPS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC!!!

Most Black Americans did not immigrate here BY CHOICE, they were dragged here BY FORCE in some of the MOST INHUMANE means possible! And though their blood, sweat and tears built this country, sustained the Southern U.S. Economy until the Civil War, and was spilled on the battlefield (from the U.S. Revolution through the latest conflict in Afghanistan), they were not treated as equals until the civil rights movement some 100 YEARS after Emancipation!

So spare me the false narrative Tim Scott. Even today, you could just as easily be profiled, assaulted and killed as George Floyd!

To that point, I have to worry about my own daughter.

Unless you've had to "have the talk" with your kid, YOU DON'T GET IT!

My daughter has faced micro-aggressions her whole life! She doesn't look any more African than Kamala Harris. But she's a lot more brown and "ethnic-looking" than her white friends. If a group of them is caught smoking weed (a legal drug where she lives) out in a public space, guess who the cops are going to single out! 

You don't think racism still exists in America?? YOU ARE BLIND. Maybe you're just too white and need some black friends, I don't know. But it is a SYSTEMIC problem rooted in our very dark past. It's just a fact.

And if you don't understand white privilege, I invite you to read my post from August 2017. In it, I write how us whites "benefited from the way the system had been rigged for all of history." That was an inherent privilege bestowed on us by "our Creator," I guess. It goes back centuries to Europe and the Roman Empire. It was the basis for the rise of Nazi Germany and wanting to engineer an Aryan society of blond-haried, blue-eyed whites. Nazism was very strong in America in the 1920's at the height of the KKK movement. Look it up. Manifest Destiny all over again.

The bottom line is, YOUR EXPERIENCE is not your neighbor's experience, regardless of the class or race of person he/she is. HOWEVER, the white American experience is VASTLY different than the black experience in this country, and if you'd just take the time to ask or to look into it, you'd see that. JUSTICE FOR ALL doesn't mean for folks on both sides of the tracks and it never has! We see it every day in stories of police brutality and racial profiling.

That's proof of systemic racism. It's built-in. It's always been there, from slave times forward. America is a melting pot and we all give society it's flavor. Without the black experience, told by black voices (not the Token Tim Scotts), we lose some of that flavor that makes us all Americans. I see that when I go to one of our oldest cities, New Orleans. You talk about rich American history, rooted in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean! Jazz music, which started in the Treme', a historically multi-cultural neighborhood in the heart of N'Awlins, is the most American music there is! Cultural diversity is our strenghth, not our weakness, and it should be celebrated.

This isn't my white angst or guilt coming out. I don't hate myself or the race I was born into. I had no say in the matter. Neither did my daughter. But this is deeply personal to me, not just because of her, or my brother-in-law or my many nieces and nephews. I got sick watching the original Alex Haley's Roots in the 1970's as a kid. It was so eye-opening and stomach-turning revelational to me. It changed my perceptions from then on about race and how one was so disgustingly treated. So please don't come at me with your white angst about how your power and circle of control is vanishing. White Americans will be in the minority in another couple of decades. Get used to it!

White America, Simma Down!

In my March 2016 post about white angst, I wrote, "But the Trump phenomenon is beyond weird. He played upon the growing angst of white, conservative America. He served up, in true reality TV fashion, all the most inflammatory rhetoric he could muster, like a grand dragon at a KKK rally in the deep woods of Mississippi. He's yet to distance himself from that domestic terrorist organization, by the way." And I wrote this a full year and a half BEFORE the Charlottesville incident!

White angst is rooted in the real population data which shows a declining percentage of white Americans, down more than FIVE MILLION in the second decade of the 2000's. Pew Research Center found in 2021 that only FIVE PERCENT of Republicans think the dwindling of white Americans is "a good thing." And because the whites now feel marginalized--Native, Black and Brown Americans are saying "WELCOME TO THE CLUB!"--and their way of life under attack, they have lashed back. "This is why they cling to their 'traditional' and 'family' values. They want to believe that life was actually once like 'Leave It To Beaver' and their favorite black-and-white television shows of the 1950's. They'd like nothing more than to turn back the clock and relive those heydays of segregated bliss. They want prayer back in school, abortion abolished and white privilege to once again reign supreme," as I wrote way back when. That last line could be the promotional ad for Project 2025, Trump's current platform of Christian extremism. But I highlighted the segregation part of my quote because that gets to the root cause of white angst, a topic I've taken on several times on this blog page.

No longer in the majority, many whites feel like they're world is crumbling, like the people of color are taking over and their rights will be stripped away. To heighten those fears, the traditional, family and "Christian" values they've held since the 50's (when a lot of GOPer's were born) are no longer in the mainstream, widely accepted, adhered to or en vogue. In the 2020's we've seen church attendance dip below 50% for the FIRST TIME EVER in this country. More and more Americans are non-religious; and those who once were are no longer attending church nor are they requiring their children to attend Sunday school, VBS or youth services. Those were all things I was required or encouraged to do, growing up in a middle class, Christian American home.

But this country, sorry to tell you Heritage Foundation, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, WAS NOT FOUNDED on the Bible or Christianity. Morality DOES NOT depend on your scriptures or sacred texts. There were codes of morality in the Mesopotamian region LONG BEFORE your religion or the texts even existed. Morality is determined by humans who make the laws governing society--humans who are both influenced by religion, but also by humanism, atheism and lots of other ISMS! Quit ringing your hands that Jesus was taken out of government and the classroom. HE NEVER BELONGED THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even HE washed his hands of government and politics. "Then he said to them, 'So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'" Luke 20:25, Mark 12:17 and Matthew 20:21. So for those keeping count, that's ALL THREE Synoptic Gospels quoting Jesus on his views about taxation and government. He wasn't too concerned with it. His concern was "his father's heavenly kingdom," which he makes quite clear throughout the gospels (and might I insert here, he never once mentions homosexuality anywhere in the gospels).

So now that we've made clear that Jesus agreed with our Founding Fathers on one issue--that is separation of church and state--let's get back to our main point. White Christians, in particular, feel that they are under attack. Because they no longer control the narrative or censor Hollywood or the media or control the halls of justice, they feel marginalized and bullied. Guess what, TOUGH SHIT! You controlled the narrative for long enough! Ever since the Roman Empire co-opted Christianity, white Europeans have controlled the narrative, written and told the story still printed in our history textbooks today. Talk about INDOCTRINATION!?!?! When was the minority view ever considered? When were they're stories ever told?

Only since the civil rights movement of the 1960's have we even BEGUN to learn about black and brown contributions to our great country. Only in recent decades have the voices of Native Americans been heard. ALL OF THOSE MARGINALIZED PEOPLES since the beginning of Western Civilization contributed greatly to our history! Think of the Native American code breakers who assisted our war effort, the black Union soldiers (and black veterans in every war since) who left their blood on battlefields around the South and the World, the migrant workers who put half of the produce in your local Walmart, etc...they have helped to shape America into the inclusive, representative republic that it was supposed to be. Their stories are finally getting added to the history books, but not without white backlash. Take for example, Critical Race Theory and how angry that made white Christians and other conservatives. HOW DARE THEY HAVE A VOICE! DON'T 'THOSE PEOPLE' KNOW THEIR PLACE???!

Which brings us back to whites becoming the minority. When you are the minority, your stories don't get to dominate the history books, the media, the collective narrative anymore. Again, WELCOME TO THE CLUB! How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine???

Like I wrote in March 2016, "white privilege breeds fear and it has ever since the end of slavery." Conservatives who want to roll back time and "Make America Great Again," are just perpetuating age-old stereotypes, now including brown immigrants, and preying on white people's fear, their angst. Back in the 1870's, they didn't know what to do with newly freed slaves roaming the countryside, looking for work, housing, equal rights to free white citizens, so there was a huge backlash. Enter the Jim Crow era for the next 100 years!! And now, since civil rights assured them their equality, we are seeing the same Jim Crow-like backlash. It's called Project 2025 and the new, more aggressive, more fascist Trump regime. He's preying on that white angst like a mother####er!

Those "Christian values" they hold so dear are the same ones that "put Africans in shackles, Native Americans on reservations, turned a blind eye to the mostly Jewish Holocaust, interred Japanese-Americans and now wants to deport every 'illegal' back to their homeland," I wrote in 2016. Are the whites now afraid of a new black and brown backlash? That the same oppression they perpetuated for millenia will be brought back to bear on them??? Is that their fear? "Did the African-American President ever open those FEMA camps to inter white folks? Has any minority--Latino or otherwise--ever considered putting privileged white folks in shackles and selling them into slavery? So what are they so scared of?"

We've seen how the Establishment of old, rich white dudes react every time black or brown people seek to be heard, whether it's kneeling through an anthem or marching to protest George Floyd's death. I wrote in October 2017, "It's like a sudden eruption of white-hot angst from just below the surface that bubbles over in the form of hate, outrage and bigotry." And now that a WOMAN OF COLOR will probably be the next Democratic candidate for President, watch how the right responds. We already know how the white Christian right feels, it's in their manifesto (Project '25).

Their fear is that eons of "white privilege" is slowly being eroded away due to the fact that they will SOON no longer be in the majority. The socialist redistribution of wealth is a threat to the stranglehold they've had on this country since it's foundation. This is at the heart of their angst. This is why conservatives have aligned themselves with hate groups (like in Charlottesville, 2017) who shout, "WHITE POWER!" They are not ready to give over their privilege or their power. It causes them to lash out in anger and support a neo-Fascist (but only on Day One, right?) who whips them into a frenzy, even leading them to attack our government (like on Jan 6, 2021), to deny election results and to hate their black and brown neighbors--both legal and illegal. See my post from May 2019, "White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism."

It's about to all play out again this November and probably in January, when the election results are contested by the Orange Cult Leader and his minions.

I'm just going to need the white Christian nationalists and those worried about their white privilege, to sit down and simmer down! We've heard ENOUGH out of you. Let the black and brown people speak. It's their turn now.

NEVER EVER TRUMP!

I grew up in the Heartland of America, in a Reagan Republican household, believing unions are bad for business, Democrats are bad for the economy and that "the Commies" were our number one enemy.

Fast forward forty years and I'm looking at those ideologies a whole new way. I no longer believe any of those tenets of Republicanism. I don't think Reagan did anything good for this country. His "trickle down" economics policy is a big fat bust that I now call "trickled on," since most of us in the middle classes--upper, middle and lower middle class--got pissed on and pissed off. He was just another flip-flopper (big time Democrat and union leader in Hollywood turned rich, white Republican and union buster), who pandered to Middle America and their blue collar work ethic and Protestant virtues. He gave rise to the whole Moral Majority and politicization of the American pulpit for which we can now thank him because we have a militant alt-right movement where Neo-Nazis have found a home in the Christian Nationalist extreme neo-conservative right. It's disgusting.

Oh and enemy number one is no longer Russia. On that point, I'll bet Reagan, and all those who supported him, like my parents, are rolling over in their graves. What was the point of the Cold War and all those drills spent hiding under classroom desks??

The thing is, the Grand Ol' Party can no longer claim moral superiority when the candidate they clamor behind is a known rapist, misogynist, homophobe and xenophobe who now has 34 felony convictions to his name. His immoral behavior has racked up more criminal charges than a mob crime family. The Trump Crime Syndicate has sent countless among it's ranks to prison, most recently, their Minister of Propaganda, Steve Bannon. But the "moral majority," Christian Nationalists on the extreme right could GIVE TWO SHITS!!! They just want to see Hillary Clinton and the Bidens locked up for imagined crimes for which they have ZERO evidence.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, quietly observes his faith and attends church every Sunday with his wife, whom he didn't cheat on. His Christian virtue and morals are on display daily--in his actions, his social media posts, his White House demeanor. You won't find ketchup stains on the wall of his White House. You won't see him throwing virtual temper tantrums on a money-losing social media platform he had to set up after getting banned from all others. You also won't see him mocking our veterans, POWs, the disabled, his political opponents (or threatening them, for that matter). Yet the "moral majority" right want to sling all the mud they can at the ACTUAL Christian, not the Bible-hawking pretend one. They'd rather prop up the immoral, orange buffoon, as their beloved cult leader.

But that's just what the alt-right has become, a cult. They DO NOT SPEAK for the entirety of the Republican party! That's where they are about to get blindsided in 2024.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

If I were to switch my allegiance back to the conservative right and the GOP, it would be to one of these "Never Trump" sects of the fractured (beyond repair?) Republican party.

THE LINCOLN PROJECT

Founded by "former Republican strategists, The Lincoln Project is dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy. Since our launch in December 2019, The Lincoln Project has played a unique role in American politics. We entered the political arena with two stated objectives: first, to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box in 2020. (Done.) The second was to ensure Trumpism failed alongside him. We understand that the real fight against Trumpism is just beginning and we’re committed to seeing it through. Our democracy depends on it." (from their website).

REPUBLICANS FOR THE RULE OF LAW

"The American experiment in self-government can only survive if we all agree to abide by the laws and rules we make together. That means everything from election outcomes to jury verdicts to court decisions. Republicans for the Rule of Law hold fast to the principle that no one is above the law, from the average citizen to the president of the United States." This is what their website says on it's homepage below a quote from John Adams, a Deist NOT a Christian, per se, though the Library of Congress website says his faith remained a mystery to most. "Republicans for the Rule of Law is a group of life-long Republicans dedicated to defending the institutions of our republic and upholding the rule of law."

REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Their About Us page says, "On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by radical Trump supporters who were attempting to overturn a  fair election. The attackers were directly incited by Trump and the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress who had been falsely claiming, for months—and in the immediate moments before the attack—that the election had been stolen from Trump." They formed in May 2020 to produce a $10 million advertising campaign to ensure that Trump is not elected ever again. They vowed more recently to hold Republicans accountable for the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.

NEVER TRUMP

The New York Times reported, "In March 2021, one survey indicated that five factions of Republican voters had emerged following Trump's presidency..." and the first listed was the Never Trump Movement, made up of moderate conservatives who do not support the previous president. And even before his bid in 2016, there had been a growing divide in the GOP between establishment old-timers and small-government Tea Party new comers. It was that growing faction of anti-establishment, conspiracy theorists with a huge distrust of government that launched sites like Q'Anon and became the base of the Trumpist or MAGA Republicans. The factions became even greater after the January 6th insurrection, a debacle of epic proportions that could have led to our second civil war.

Wikipedia has a vast list of former Trump administration officials who endorsed President Joe Biden because they, too, are now Never Trump supporters.

Newsweek reported in late March of this year, "PAC Republican Voters Against Trump spent $50 million on 100 videos recorded by anti-Trump Republicans explaining why they no longer support him." That article also reported that in the previous month, "Trump's ex-chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, published an opinion piece for The Hill pleading for a 'viable' third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election." That's how fractured they have become. Some members of Congress have vacated seats over their disgust with their own party, like Colorado GOPer Ken Buck. He claims others will follow suit, giving their party less of a majority in the House. The Newsweek article still doesn't believe in the viability of a third party in this country, nor do I.

Groups like those listed above, who are more level-headed, non-conspiracy-supporting conservatives, grew like wildfire in the wake of what they saw as an attack on our Republic. They have actively campaigned AGAINST THEIR OWN PARTY LEADERS to ensure that Trump never gets re-elected. So yes, I would align myself with the Never Trump factions if I were ever to register again as a Republican (extremely unlikely).

My point in all this IS... that MAGA GOPer's are so drunk on the koolaid, so blind with tunnel vision and brainwashed by Fox, Newsmax and Lindell TV (and greed) that they don't even see how divided their own party is. How is a house divided ever going to stand? In more immediate terms, how do they expect to maintain control of Congress or win back the White House???

The Democrats need to grow a spine and quit calling for Biden to step down. He's their best chance at defeating a convicted criminal with only a PERCENTAGE of his own party behind him. We already know that the majority of Americans are center to left of center and would vote Democrat by a landslide if they would just vote. But the alt-right knuckleheads think they'll sweep the polls this November when their own party, a minority in America, isn't even on the same page. It'd be laughable if it just weren't so damn sad.

Democrats need to get their shit together, mobilize their base and get them to the polls, PERIOD. Get behind the nominee and incumbent President, despite how he comes across on TV or in debates. Hell, Reagan was in the early stages of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease when he was re-elected in the 1980s. Nancy propped him up in just the same way Dr. Jill Biden has her husband. We can do this, EASILY! We need to rally behind the moderate conservative Republicans and our OWN FREAKIN' PARTY and get the job done this November.

THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE HERE!!!

Even our own Supreme Court Justices see this! Hell, Justice Sotomayor wrote in her recent dissent that she FEARS for our democracy. This isn't hyperbole, this shit is real! Do we WANT another civil war on our hands? Because that's where this country is headed.

We should make this our mantra, then:

NEVER EVER TRUMP!

***UPDATE: Here’s a great video just released to underscore this post:

Waxing political...a common sense rant

I haven't posted much political content this year. I've been more focused on my health and reconnecting with an old flame. But with the recent conviction of Donald J. Trump and all the fanfare on social media, I felt the need to say something on this blog.

I was walking home from the grocery store on my island and ran across a work pickup with this window cling on the back of the cab. "Impeach Biden," is a ludicrous slogan (and pipe dream) meant to disparage the current president, the one who won the 2020 vote legally and fairly. He's NOT the one who interfered with the election! The other doofus is. He's not the one under investigation for criminality inside and outside the White House. There aren't even any TRUMPED up charges against him upon which to base an impeachment trial. That's what makes this window cling ridiculous. It is pointless and holds no merit.

IT IS IRONIC, THOUGH...

Ironic in the fact that the FORMER president actually underwent TWO impeachment hearings in the halls of Congress. Not once, but twice. No trumped up charges, only allegations supported by eyewitnesses and mountains of evidence. In my eyes, the douchebag WAS impeached.

He was also charged in a civil suit of sexual assault. He was convicted of paying off porn star Stormy Daniels after an illicit affair with her while current wife, Melania Trump, was pregnant with his child. Michael Cohen, who handled the hush money payoff, testified under oath that when he asked the former president if he was worried about the wife finding out, the orange buffoon's response was that he wouldn't be on the market long. His own wife, like every woman (or person), in the raging narcissist's life is 100% expendable. Once they aren't providing his "narc supply" (the goal of every narcissist to get their ego needs met), they are of no use to him. He just didn't want Ms. Daniels selling her story to a publisher, the press or the highest bidder. It would look bad for him.

NOT WITH HIS FOLLOWERS...

Nope, the slimy, curmudgeonly MAGA(t) masses who lap up his drivel and love every assault, sexual or otherwise, didn't think it looked bad at all. Cheat on your wife. Pay off the porn star. Laugh it off with your typical locker room vernacular. They just love their felons! I mean, their Christian Nationalist/Fascist Dictators! They'll continue to buy his Bibles, his hats, his lies and financially back his campaign for re-election this year. MORONS!

The 34 felony convictions did not bother them one iota, many of them Bible-believing Christians. The assault on our Constitution, the assault of women (multiple), the locker room talk, the illegal business dealings (his CEO is a convicted felon, too), the attempted coup to stop the peaceful transition of power and his inability to quote even ONE SCRIPTURE from the Bibles he's selling all points them to the logical conclusion that he's a moral guy, a Christ-like person.

UMMMMM...

Excuse me while I puke! Didn't Jesus take a bullwhip and kick people out of the Temple, turning over tables and tongue-lashing the "bible salesmen" of his day? Peculiar. Aren't there New Testament Scriptures, and I'm thinking primarily in that last book, about the anti-Christ and how easily he dupes Christians and the ignorant, heathen masses in the "end times?"

Stupid memes like this have been circulating on social media to compare what Trump is going through (the justice system) to Jesus Christ (persecution as a leftist rabbi)

Yeah, the orange one doesn't favor Damien from The Omen films at all.

On the contrary, his duped minions have taken to social media in the weeks since his conviction ON 34 FELONY COUNTS to compare their evil cult leader to Jesus Christ, Himself!!! NO LIE! If I've seen the comparisons once on Facebook, alone, I've seen them a gazillion times! Excuse me, the stomach bile is in my throat again.

That, in itself, is blasphemy. Do these dolts even OPEN their Bibles??? I haven't opened one in years and I can see it plain as the nose on my face!

I've seen this one posted over and over to Facebook. I see it in my news feed and I immediately SNOOZE the person, at the very least.

You don't ADD TO or TAKEAWAY from the "inerrant word of god," so the fundamental faithful say. Yet, here's this known snake oil salesman adding the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence to the Holy Book. I mean, it makes perfect sense, since Christianity started on these shores all those years ago. Oh, wait, no that was the Middle East in about 80-120 A.D.

Christianity started as a Messianic sect of Judaism in the first century. The Bible was codified by the CATHOLIC CHURCH in the fourth century by a council of bishops (SHHHH! Most American Christians don't even know this and think the Catholics are heretics and demon worshippers!).

We are NOT a Christian nation, so Marjorie Taylor Knitwit can sit down with her nationalist dreams and STFU! Many of our founding forefathers were DEISTS, not necessarily Christian. They didn't set up our republic as any one religion. Pretty sure they mandated the separation of church and state, meaning religion has no seat at the table and governments can't interfere with religious practices. The two are to remain separate, but don't tell that the mega-church-pastoring, 501(c)3-protected billionaires who preach politics every week!

Religion is the opiate of the masses, it's been said.

History is bound to repeat itself.

We don't need to return America to her 1930's self. That's where the MAGA(t) morons get their moronic slogan--from 1930's Nazi propaganda when Hitler and the KKK were still popular among WASP-y Americans. They were duped back then, during the worst depression in history, that we were a great nation. Women, black citizens and those in the gay community didn't find it so great. History is written and rewritten by the rich, white elites in power, the same ones who've ALWAYS held the power. And if we don't learn from it--if we don't even know where the MAGA slogan came from--then we are doomed, as the prophets foretold.

Just quit with the Jesus comparisons, already! And quit shoving your narrow-minded, mega church mentality down all our throats. I could out-quote the Bible to most of you, ignorant hypocrites, buying Trump Bibles and backing the convicted rapist and felon! Jesus would label you a "brood of vipers."

I just think your ignorant, opiate-addicted, easily duped FOOLS!

There is no choice, in my mind, but to rebut and rebuke fascism in any and all forms, and support the guy who's been about our republic his whole life, dedicated his life to it, in fact. He's old. He's a career politician. SO F-IN WHAT??? You want four years of that convict and lunatic with the wispy, orange combover and spray tan???

ARE PEOPLE REALLY THIS STUPID?

Sorry, unfortunately, I know the answer.

10 Reasons Why I'm Moving to Belize - #7 DIVERSITY

Belize may be English speaking and close in proximity to the U.S., but it's no one-size-fits-all, WHITE BREAD (aka white bred) community. There is diversity!

Yes, you have your older, white expats who've retired to places like Corozal, but you also have THIS:

BELIZEANS:
A multiethnic amalgam of African, Asian, Caribbean, and European influences. They are a very laid-back people with their own Cajun-like form of English (think Jamaicans). As Wikipedia points out, "Colonization, slavery, and immigration have played major roles in affecting the ethnic composition of the population." So, really, you could place all of those I describe below, even the expats of European descent, under this one umbrella.

MAYANS:
Or descendants of the ancient Central American civilization that built great cities with pyramids and such. Since so much has been written about them, I won't elaborate here.

MESTIZO:
Latino or Hispanic Belizeans who make up 2/3 of the country's population. The name literally translated means mixed, as in mixed heritage. They are a multilingual people, fluent in Spanish, Creole and English. Many of them fled Mexico and practice a mix of Catholicism and indigenous religion, according to this site.

KRIOLS:
21% of the population are the Belize Creole people, like many islanders brought to the "West Indies" against their will by European slave traders, the same African descendants (mostly) who make up America's Creole population.

GARINAGU:

Or Garifuna People (singular), are considered an indigenous tribe of African-Americans in Belize and Nicaragua, though their roots are in the islands of the "West Indies," like the Kriols above. They have a unique culture and language. To read more about their history, CLICK HERE.

MENNONITE:
CNN featured this population in a story last year, calling it a secluded "community frozen in time." According to the report, they number 12,000 but began as a colony of about 3,000 Canadian Mennonites who migrated from Mexico to Belize in the 50's. They are a Christian religious sect related to the same in this country, and likewise dress very conservatively and live off the land.

As you can see, there are many distinctions among the people of color in Belize, both indigenous and immigrant. And white people make up JUST OVER ONE PERCENT of the population...so I finally get to call myself a ONE PERCENTER!!! I certainly don't mind living as a minority.

The diversity of the population there, which nationwide is only about 400k, really fascinates me. I can't wait to go down and learn more about these indigenous and Afro-Caribbean communities. I love collecting peoples' stories, as a rule, but to learn something new along the way? BONUS!

America is a melting pot of cultural diversity, as well. It's just that we no longer honor it or hold it up as a virtue, like what our Statue of Liberty once represented. We've become very tribalistic, even xenophobic. It's led to a deep divide, not just politically, but culturally. If you are someone who thrives on knowledge and discovery, or tends to hold progressive ideals, you are labeled "Woke," and for a lot of the country, that is a BAD THING! How can learning and progress be bad for society??? But that's the state of affairs in America...and I can't wait to get away from it.

While I'm sipping water from coconuts on a white sandy beach, seabreeze in my hair, I look forward to learning from the people of Belize and of honoring their diversity. The people there, I'm told, are so friendly, accepting and laid back. I doubt there is a lot of tribalism or xenophobia.

Even in minority populations here at home, I've found a welcome embrace. I'm an adopted member of the brown community, partly because of my adopted children (and their cousins of mixed origin). My family is NOT straight Anglo-Saxon/European! I actually embrace diversity. I like to think I'm a bit cultured (NOT xenophobic or nationalistic).

So REASON #7 I'm drawn to Belize and looking so forward to moving there? It's DIVERSITY! Celebrate that shit!!! :D 

Good Morning, White America

Dateline--May 31, 2020 (USA)

Good Morning, White America.
How'd you sleep while our cities were burning and tensions boiling over?

Oh, you thought I meant last night?

How about the last 401 years?

I'm talking to you Karen Van Winkle. Are you awake now? Did it really have to come to this?

You thought it was "all better" once we afforded a few civil rights to our neighbors of color. You told them, in essence, to "Calm Down!" when they protested by taking a knee. Your white, American sensibilities got all riled when they wouldn't stand for the anthem. Well now your cities are burning, both literally and figuratively. And you're going to sit there, in your Anglo-Christian self-righteous indignation, and call them "thugs" and "savages" for burning it down?

Where ya been, Karen?

This didn't start with George Floyd in May 2020. It started in 1619 when your white ancestors brought African slaves to this continent. It's been going on ever since. Maybe these images will remind you of our long history of brutality towards blacks. OUR COLLECTIVE KNEE ON THEIR NECK.

In the 52 years that I've been alive, I have seen with my own eyes the stain of slavery on American society. It was mere months before I was born that we took out Martin Luther King, Jr., because we didn't care to hear his message of freedom.

And over that half century, we've taken out countless numbers of black men who we didn't care to hear. Well, their blood is crying out to be heard.

How long did you expect them to remain silent, peaceful, "in their place," white America? Racial tension was already at a boiling point, with black America dying at a significantly higher rate from COVID-19. And while we were all home, watching from our living room, more racial injustice played out in living color across our devices. What did you expect them to do, Karen, just take it? More abuse, more death by cop, more senseless killing, more white outrage over their method of protest while ignoring their message?

They are starting fires because you weren't listening. They are rioting in the streets because in four centuries not that much has changed. They are demanding justice because we pretended like all footing was made equal in the 1960's.

For 52 years, I've watched you turn a blind eye to their plight. Generations of poverty, oppression and marginalization didn't affect you, white America, so you went about your "Leave It To Beaver" lives in your white suburbs, pretending like all was good across this great country of ours.

Then our nation was forced to deal with our ugly scars. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic hit and forced us to shut down for about 8 weeks. Karen Van Winkle got restless. Her hair grew out in all it's natural glory. We saw her roots. She demanded her freedom. She likened the lockdown to slavery and oppression. White America was finally getting a taste of it's own medicine--limits on liberty, joblessness and in some cases, hopelessness. How do you think it's felt for so many of our neighbors to be black in America? That's been their existence for generations, dating back to 1619.

You were inconvenienced for 6-8 weeks, unable to get your hair done, have Girls Night Out and attend Celine Dion concerts. That's not even in the ballpark of centuries of oppression and marginalization, Karen! Get over your pasty white self.

Your city is on fire. Are you paying attention, yet?

It is burning because you failed to give proper attention, proper respect and human dignity to your neighbors of color. It is burning because from 1619 on, you didn't see them as fully equal, fully human or fully American. It is burning because white people started this violence, not the "thugs" and "savages" looting your precious Target.

White America doesn't understand this at all. They don't understand that this has been a violent struggle since the beginning. Instead of crosses burning, police vehicles and businesses are burning. Why? Because you started this mess, Karen!

Do you think the African slaves boarded ships because your ancestors told them to? No they were bought and sold and herded like cattle. The white men took what they wanted violently and made them their property.

Fast forward about 340 years and you have the civil rights marches of the 1960's. White America didn't understand why black America couldn't just be happy "in their place." And when these peaceful protests fanned out across the South, we released the dogs, the hoses and the police brutality. WE were the aggressors, Karen, the purveyors of violence! Not them.

Fast forward another 50 years and you have black athletes taking a knee in silent protest. Even that, you met with vocal outrage and faux patriotism. White America still wasn't listening. They drowned out the message with attacks on the protestors, turning their backs and a blind eye toward what was still going on right under their white noses.

You know, if you ignore it, it might just go away, right?

We've been ignoring it for the 52 years I've been a natural-born American citizen. And now our cities are burning.

We reached a boiling point. The death of George Floyd, an American murdered on the streets of Minneapolis, was a catalyst, a tipping point. Blame the pandemic, blame the jobless numbers, the deafness and ineptitude of our leaders in the face of crisis, but the tone deafness of white America towards 400 years of racial injustice and inequality is the real culprit.

We've had our collective white knee on the neck of African-Americans this whole time. You think 8 minutes is a long time (and I grieve with you Floyd family), try 401 years!

It's time to wake up and to own this culpability, white America. You've remained silent and willfully ignorant for too long. Your silence has spoken much louder than your words.

Stop pinning the blame on protestors, rioters, your neighbors...take your own knee off their neck and STOP THE VIOLENCE!

Have a great day!

Sins of the Father: American Hypocrisy

It was our Christian European forebears who first landed on America's shoreline, and the white colonists who followed, that cemented our fate. As the Old Testament says over and again, the sins of the father will be visited upon their children.

The Scripture noted above is followed by three more in Exodus and Numbers, each talking about future generations of family, down to the fourth. We may be well beyond that generation in America. I mean, I've traced my own ancestral roots back to my 6th great grandfather, a Revolutionary War hero from Maine. It's apparent, at least to me, that the sins of his British ancestors, some of them Quakers, are still being visited upon our ilk.

I've been watching the fictional drama on Paramount Network, Yellowstone, featuring producer/lead actor Kevin Costner, which deals not-so-delicately with the tenuous relationship between non-native and Native Americans near his fictional ranch in Montana. Each episode reminds me of the hypocrisy of Manifest Destiny, white privilege and American power. Today, the Biblical-rooted idiom, "sins of the father," kept repeating in my stereophonic brain. And this blog post began formulating therein.

No more succinct indictment of American hypocrisy has been made than this by the Brown Political Review last November:

If the United States wishes to punish human rights violations abroad, it must also come to terms with its own flawed record. To be clear, the United States’ claim to moral authority has never been strong. From the genocidal colonialism of indigenous peoples under the guise of Manifest Destiny to the forced internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II, the history of the United States is rife with severe human rights violations (Source: "The Man in the Mirror: Human rights and American hypocrisy," 8 Nov 2018, cached on Google).

The above article goes on to remind us that "the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), joining Iran, Eritrea, and North Korea as the only countries refusing to participate in the council." That's sadly telling.

It's the proof positive, to me anyway, of the snowballing effect of Manifest Destiny. We see it in the current administration's stance on everything from women's rights to the rights of immigrants and foreigners and the LGBTQ+ community. The hypocrisy is that we forget history (doomed to repeat itself), our own heritage, our non-native origins.

A Foreign Policy article, The Heart and Hypocrisy of the American Empire (19 May 2019), describes
"American power" or Pax Americana as "overbearing, lustful, and mendacious." I call it sinful. It sickens and saddens me that this is both our heritage and our legacy.

In Rob Larson's article earlier this year, Capitalist Freedom is a Farce, he quotes American icon Frederick Douglass, who railed against unfettered capitalism, "Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other. . ." It led Larson to conclude, "capitalism limits both positive and negative freedom...the dynamics of capitalism generate unbelievable concentrations of private power," tending toward monopolies.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   ~Lord Acton (1887)

That's one way to say it. We are, as a nation, enslaved to the Almighty Dollar. Let us not pretend that we operate under some divine right or that our allegiance to this nation is somehow ordained by Almighty God. That's not the bronze calf at who's altar we worship. Let's be clear about that. Capitalist America is greed-driven. It's power is not god-ordained in anyway, don't be fooled by the inscription upon our currency, "In God We Trust." It might as well read, "In This Almighty Dollar We Trust." Yet, that paper currency isn't worth the pulp it's printed upon.

Yes, our hypocrisy runs deep.

The sins of our father's father's father (well beyond four generations, now) is certainly visited upon us today. This shouldn't be a source of national pride or patriotism. For me, it is a source of great shame.
As the people said in response to Pontius Pilate (Matt. 25:27), "His blood be on us and on our children." We sacrificed human dignity and sanctity upon the cross of Manifest Destiny. It's blood is surely on our hands, America.

White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism

If I could start any non-profit I wanted tomorrow, I think it would be an educational program to treat middle-aged (and older) white males in denial. Their disease? Denial of white privilege. It's an epidemic that seems to only affect that demographic.

Disclaimer: I'm a 50-year-old white male who has benefited from white privilege my entire life.

My co-patriots would like to claim that I'm a guilt-ridden, self-loather who thinks reparations are in order and we should all self-flagellate. Sure, make me a victim in this scenario. But isn't that what "they" do? If you listened to all the alt-right propaganda, it's people like me, in the media, on the streets, waging a war against whiteness! Their way of life, their race and even their gender are under attack!

Poor little white dudes.

The predominance of white privilege has shown it's ugly face throughout history, but I don't need to prove it's existence. To me, it seems as obvious as the nose on my face. To others who've benefited from it THEIR WHOLE LIVES, it's become a "dirty word." We don't like to face our own prejudices and shortcomings. I get it. But denying it's existence would be like spiders denying that they benefit from webspinning, or lions denying their royal jungle lineage. To further this metaphor, white men have existed at the top of the cultural food chain for so long, we even mold our deities in their image. Have you seen most portrayals of Jesus Christ?? I grew up believing that Jesus was a fair-skinned, blue eyed Westerner with a British accent.

Anthropologists best guess


Fighting the denial of the blatantly obvious would be the mission of my non-profit. I would force my target demographic--men who look like me and a lot less like the Jesus pictured above--to look into the mirror and get real with themselves.

In thinking on this idea yesterday, I had a moment of real gratitude. I said thank you to the Universe for my health, my intellect and my good looks. Yes, I'm a frumpy, aging, white man with graying brown hair, wrinkles around my green eyes and a gray goatee. But I could walk into any establishment, even after a long period of unemployment, and talk my way into a job. No one would bat an eye as I sauntered into the building because I fit the model of "normal" in our white-bred, Chrisley Knows Best society.

All I'm asking of my Wonder Bread, milk toast brethren is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes; consider for one minute what their world might look like if they looked like confused, Arab Jesus (see photo above). What would their middle class American suburban experience have been like if they'd been born with brown skin, a disability or even as the opposite sex of their OWN race? Because even white women have been marginalized throughout world history. EVERYONE EXCEPT WHITE MEN HAVE!

But to accept that truth would be to accept all the baggage that comes along with it--from patriarchy to slavery to abominations of every sort (think Hitler and Nazism). We've got a barbaric past. But why own any of that when you control the narrative? See my post last year in the wake of "kneegate" in the NFL.

Men, since the dawn of time, have controlled the narrative. We wrote all of the ancient, sacred texts, the basis for our morals and laws. Then, we made all the rules, we enforced the rules and we protect that patriarchy with a fierceness not even matched by the Spartans (or the Nazis). And because we were simply born into the ruling class--dominant gender, dominant race--we believe we get to continue making all the rules, writing the white-washed narrative and keeping everyone else in the margins. That has been our man-given right since the dawn of time, right?

And all I want is for my brothers all of white mothers to own up to it. Well, that's the first step, anyway. I really want them to go further and consider what this world has been like for people outside their Truman Show bubble. Understanding breeds compassion and empathy.

Denial of white privilege breeds the opposite. In today's American political climate, it's given us the resurgence of white nationalism. It's that militant side of white America who is ready to take up arms to stave the non-white onslaught. You know, all those rapist Mexicans that want to steal our jobs! Too much? Sorry, not sorry. Those are the outlandish claims being made (mostly on Fox News) by the alt-right.

"They" are so worried that someone else is going to usurp white control of everything and take with it all the power, the pen and the privilege. They will rewrite the rules and the narrative--this mythic, monolithic "them" (non-whites). Diversity of skin tones, gender identity and ideas scares the ever-loving shit out of the white aristocracy, especially those on the alt-right. They literally feel that they are in the fight of their lives. The world has turned against them--their government, the media, the people they've oppressed and marginalized for eons.

Maybe they SHOULD be scared! Maybe it'll make them re-evaluate their stranglehold on society and all of it's "norms." But, sadly, it hasn't. It's made most of them dig foxholes in their mostly white, cookie cutter, McMansion suburbs. It's forced them to drag us back, as a nation, into the white ages of Cleaver-land. I'm talking 1950's black-and-white sitcoms, where Father Knows Best and you can Leave It To Beaver.

Life was so much easier for whitey back then, wasn't it? We didn't have "the blacks" rioting and burning down their own neighborhoods and scaring us half to death. We didn't have "the gays" pushing some gender-twisting, liberal agenda down our throats. We didn't have "the gentler sex" demanding equal pay or speaking out (think #metoo). We didn't have "the godless atheists" challenging our WASPy ideals and core beliefs. It's SO scary being a white person these days!

The threat to white privilege has caused this huge backlash and talk of border walls, national (meaning white) security and bringing God back into the classroom. And it's not just non-whites under attack anymore. We have to dominate and control our women, once again, by rolling back advances like abortion rights (Roe v. Wade), voting rights (women are incarcerated, as well) and affirmative action (it benefited women, too). We have to continue to marginalize the voice of gay, white men, even, save their voice be heard and their "chosen lifestyle" be normalized (think recent PBS show, Arthur, debate). Everything non-Christian, non-white, non-male is in the crosshairs because White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism!

It's akin to someone's most deeply entrenched personal issue becoming exposed. The defenses go up immediately. Fight or flight in full effect. Same goes for WASPy, white America. They are deeply afraid of exposing their sacred right (think Manifest Destiny) and having it trampled. Because you understand that to give ANYONE else rights (think #blacklivesmatter) is to somehow diminish THEIRS! Anything that threatens their centuries of control is to be pushed back, demonized and utterly defeated.

I don't feel guilty about it. I didn't make these rules and I certainly don't defend them. My white ancestors were not slave owners. They were immigrants from all parts of Europe, some who were literally despised when they got here (think Irish potato famine refugees). I've totally enjoyed and benefited from my white man card and all the privileges it served up to me. But I wasn't raised to despise anyone who didn't belong to the club (membership certainly has it's privileges). I was raised in a multi-racial, middle class, Midwestern city neighborhood. I walked to school and/or played with neighborhood kids that were African-American, Asian-American, European-American...notice these all have qualifiers. We are all immigrants from somewhere else...NON-natives. So PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU MY WHITE BROTHERS, get over yourselves!!!

Let's end white nationalism today and embrace all cultures, all Americans and even those trying to become Americans. Let us willingly lose our privileged status, the us and them labels and be more courageous. Get out of your foxholes, lay down your defenses and embrace diversity. It is about to be 2020 for God's sake! Let's let go of 1950's stereotypes (ding, ding, ding...it wasn't THAT GREAT back in the old days!) and fully embrace the moment we live in. It's not scary. It's exciting. Change is good. Lay down the crack pipe. Let love rule!

9/11 Remembered

Why today, you may ask? No special reason. This isn't September 11th, it's not an anniversary or a day for remembrance. But it is Memorial Day Weekend. And thanks to a post by my cousin, Eric, I find myself enthralled, and horrified all over again, by the images of 9/11. Eric posted this article from the New York CBS station yesterday morning. I only saw it this morning in my Facebook newsfeed. It led me into 3 hours of watching TV coverage of that fateful day in 2001.

On the tenth anniversary, I dedicated two blog posts--Nine-Eleven (9/9/11) and Never Forget (9/10/11)--to commemorate the melancholy of such tragedy and senseless loss. It was all so surreal, the television coverage that morning, the feeling that we were under a coordinated terrorist attack and the way it hit home because I worked across the street from the State Capitol and the President's brother. Watching it this morning, including the 1-hour, 58-minute uncut footage from New York's NBC4, brought it all back so vividly despite the fact that nearly 16 years have passed since it happened.

Sixteen years ago, on that day, I'd only had my first child for a couple of weeks. She had turned two months old that very day, but we got her at 6-weeks. She's adopted. I was at work in the Claude Pepper Building in downtown Tallahassee, just starting my day with Legislative Services. It must have been around 9:00 that I began watching live coverage on MSNBC from my desktop in my cubicle. I remember a couple of coworkers watching over my shoulder in horrified disbelief, or they may have been in the cubicle opposite mine, but I remember their reactions either way.

I took an early break to get to where I could watch live coverage on the televisions in the mall food court, a safe distance from the Capitol complex. I received the call not to come back to the office, as it had been shut down and evacuated. There was no immediate threat, but panic had stricken the nation and no less so the home of Governor Jeb Bush. I went home early that day and was glued to CNN and MSNBC. I'll never forget the images that day of the twin towers burning, of the second plane careening into the WTC-South Tower, of the towers falling one at a time, of the enormous dust cloud that enveloped all of lower Manhattan and the ghosts that emerged from it covering their mouths, their faces. Like I said, it was all so surreal, like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Watching the news footage on YouTube this morning brought all the feelings back so vividly that I had to write about it. I created the image at the top of this post as a memorial. I figured what better way to honor those who were killed in cold blood by enemies of the State than with a tribute on Memorial Day Weekend. This spontaneous post is dedicated to all the men and women who died that day, 9/11/01, on commercial airliners, in the World Trade Center, in the line of duty and at the Pentagon. It is also dedicated to the brave men and women of our Armed Forces who sacrificed all in the months and years that followed. As the image above suggests, may we never, ever forget.

What brought us the Trumpinator? White angst.

I asked and answered my own question in the headline. "What brought us the Trumpinator? White angst." This blog post examines how we got to a place where a reality TV star and real estate mogul became the face of "white America" and why that scares me.

I don't dip my toe too often into political waters, not because I'm politically illiterate or can't swim, merely because I'm disenfranchised and I haven't felt like swimming in a long time. I don't believe my vote even counts. My say in matters of government mean absolutely nothing. I'm not represented by people inside the beltway. They are mere puppets of Super PAC's, Wall Street and men with money, influence and power, of which I'm none of those.

But I'm writing this post today, in the shadow of Super Tuesday, with a growing unease of where this election cycle is headed. If you think down the toilet, that'd be my feelings about the state of the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee and the SWFL beaches. No, my feelings about where DECISION 2016 is headed is subterranean, an upper ring of Hades, more like.

It all started with the three-ring circus run by the GOP this election cycle. The "Bad Lip Reading" videos of each GOP debate on YouTube were hilarious, but mostly because they weren't that far-fetched. And as Trump distanced himself from the other Republican candidates, I just sat back and laughed. I didn't take it at all serious until serious candidates, like Gov. Jeb Bush, dropped out of the race. That got my attention, but I still blamed Bush's inept advisors and campaign leaders. As it became more and more clear in the primaries leading up to Super Tuesday that Trump was indeed going to be the Republican candidate for President, I became more serious, as in seriously alarmed. What if this race boils down to Trump vs. Hillary? OMG! That's a very real possibility now.

Now, it's time to wake up and get active. I don't want either of those inept, morally bankrupt kooks running my country!

But how did we even get here?

I don't want to waste my time on a beltway insider like Hillary Clinton. We all know why she's there. And we pretty much know where she stands. We need another Clinton about like we need another Bush in the White House. I'm over career politicians, by the way. They only serve to exacerbate and extend the age-old problem in politics and to reinforce all the stale jokes about how far you can trust them. That is, about as far as you can throw them!

But the Trump phenomenon is beyond weird. He played upon the growing angst of white, conservative America. He served up, in true reality TV fashion, all the most inflammatory rhetoric he could muster, like a grand dragon at a KKK rally in the deep woods of Mississippi. He's yet to distance himself from that domestic terrorist organization, by the way.

And what is at the heart of that angst? Is it the same disenfranchisement that I've been feeling? I think it is, but for many different reasons. Where I feel voiceless is because I don't own any land, have any assets or any political clout of any kind. Where they feel voiceless is in stemming the tide of progress in Western society, in general. This is why they cling to their "traditional" and "family" values. They want to believe that life was actually once like "Leave It To Beaver" and their favorite black-and-white television shows of the 1950's. They'd like nothing more than to turn back the clock and relive those heydays of segregated bliss. They want prayer back in school, abortion abolished and white privilege to once again reign supreme.

If you gave them collectively the chance to roll back the changes brought on by the social revolution of the 1960's, I'd bet you they'd gladly do it! I say, "Let's buy them all 'Back to the Future'-style Deloreans and set the destination for them!" Back to 1955 and away they go!!!

Because what the cultural and social revolution brought us in the turbulent times into which I was born are the progressive values of the new millennium. And part of that creed is that everyone should have a voice. People, regardless of sex, race, sexual orientation or religion, are inherently equal. I mean, for the love of God, that's a 1787 value!!!

But white privilege breeds fear and it has ever since the end of slavery. I believe Trump has preyed upon that fear and stoked its evil embers. "Immigrants are bad!" "Be scared of anyone who doesn't look like you!" "They are only here to steal your jobs, your income, your wellbeing!" These themes are nothing new. In fact, they are ancient. But no one has marginalized the white, Anglo, Protestant majority more than itself! They have marginalized themselves because of their illegitimate fears and now they are fighting back against a straw man! And Trump is their new ideological leader. "Death to the straw man who is out to steal our money, our jobs, our way of life!"

It baffles me how these people, amongst who I was raised, feel threatened by the progresses we've made as a society, as humans. Science has progressed rapidly, allowing us to see far out into the galaxy and even to take a closer look at our own planet to see what irreversible damage we've done to it. Yet, now science is somehow bad. It's like they want to turn the clock back to Roman Imperial times and imprison the heretics who say the Earth is warming, or that it's indeed round!

In the new Millennium, with the freedom to practice and engage in any religious ritual one feels comfortable, the WASPy world wants to turn back the clock to Puritanical times when white Christians fleeing government tyranny ruled the day. We now know what those "Christians" did to the non-white minority (who were then actually still in the majority in this country). And it didn't stop there. Those same "Christian values" put Africans in shackles, Native Americans on reservations, turned a blind eye to the mostly Jewish Holocaust, interred Japanese-Americans and now wants to deport every "illegal" back to their homeland. WWJD, folks? (Hint: read about the Samaritan woman at the well...it's in the New Testament...that's to the right of all the warnings about homosexuality!)

What has white privilege bought these people? A growing sense of fear. They fear that they are no longer in the majority, a position of absolute power. And even if that were so, do they really think any of those great tragedies would be wrought upon them as a whole? Did the African-American President ever open those FEMA camps to inter white folks? Has any minority--Latino or otherwise--ever considered putting privileged white folks in shackles and selling them into slavery? So what are they so scared of?

I know how scary same-sex unions can be. Look at how stirred up the right got over gay marriage!

I know how scary it is to share the streets with men wearing turbans and women who keep their faces covered. You know, because it's so much better to have your skirt barely cover your hoo-ha and your boobs hanging out (a real American value).

I know how scary school desegregation was in the 70's. I LIVED IT! (and survived it, btw)

I grew up in a racially mixed, lower middle class neighborhood. I think diversity is what's so great about this country. But the growing polarization is what scares me more than anything...more than gun violence, terrorism, illegal immigration, even Donald Trump as President. If we keep on this current course, I fear we are headed for a revolution. But that's a topic for a separate rant/blog post.

I'm speaking up this year because it really concerns me how "white America" has responded to the perceived risk to their centuries-old privilege, the status quo and the new social norms. If Donald Trump is really their "savior" and the answer to all that ills them, then heaven help us!!! This is a time for all of us, even those of us who feel totally disenfranchised and unrepresented, to speak up and shine the light on white angst and fear mongering politicians. This is our country and it's about time that well-meaning, non-voting people of all color take it back.