Fears that President Trump's Racism is Undoing the Military's Anti-Extremist Policy

by Nomad

Social media erupted with outrage on Saturday after video footage seemed to show cadets from West Point and midshipmen from the Naval Academy flashing what some claim to be white supremacists hand gestures.
Was it a case of "much ado over nothing"- a harmless bit of horsing around, or yet another case of "everything Trump touches turns to crap"? President Trump had traveled to Philadelphia to attend the annual football game and reportedly received a standing ovation.

How Trump's "Alternative Facts" Fuel His Racist Policies for Urban America

by Nomad

Recent remarks from Trump have reopened accusations of his racism. Yet, looking back to his campaign, Trump's racism has always been on full display, particularly when it came to his views on the urban life.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump preferred to paint an ugly portrait of urban life where things were on the verge of collapse and crime was out of control.

In his narrative, things were falling apart in the black community.

“Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever. You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street.”

How Ignoring American Diversity is Warping of our Heritage and Sense of Pride

by Nomad

The mission of the non-profit organization the Ad Council "is to identify a select number of significant public issues and stimulate action on those issues through communications programs that make a measurable difference in our society. "  

In the ad featured below, American professional wrestler, rapper and actor, John Cena points out that you cannot celebrate and honor America without recognizing its diversity.

Patriotism is, he says, more than pride of country. it’s a kind of love that goes beyond labels.

This Social Experiment Gives a Fresh Look at Empathy

by Nomad

This is a video experiment was produced by a Lithuanian website. The site is a kind of online handbook on how to deal with hate speech not only online but also in the mass media, and in real life situations.

The experiment setup was fairly standard for a "prank." Various people, all non-actors, all Lithuanians with English language backgrounds- were invited to a casting call for a commercial. They were clueless that the scenario or the hidden cameras. The unsuspecting targets were then given a simple task- translating an online message from Lithuanian into English.

That's enough background information. Watch and see what happens next.

Frederick Douglass and the Limits of Tyrants

by Nomad

Langston Hughes on Democracy

by Nomad

How Rudy Giuliani is Keeping His Poisonous Legacy Alive with Donald Trump's Campaign

by Nomad

The other day, the New York Times gave this warning to former New York City mayor and avid Trump supporter, 72-year-old Rudy Giuliani:
Rudy's ardent support for Mr. Trump could come at a cost to his legacy.

That's what happens, I suppose, when you attempt to defend indefensible things. Former Giuliani aides, the article claims, are concerned about their ex-boss' unquestioning loyalty to the Republican nominee.

They cited his unsubstantiated questioning of Hillary Clinton’s mental and physical health.  He has also championed Trump's promise to build an “impenetrable physical wall” on the country’s southern border and to severely restrict immigration from Muslim countries. (When Trump was pressed for specifics, he began to sound more and more supportive of what is presently being done by the Obama administration.) 

So strident - some would say delirious- has been Giuliani's support for Trump, the editorial boards of some newspapers have raised the possibility that Rudy is "unhinged."

But then, in this election, how on earth could you know? 

Awakening an Insidious Evil: Why Trump Has Made a Farce of the SCOTUS Ruling on Voting Rights Act

by Nomad

Three years ago, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court declared that times had changed when it came to race and voter discrimination. Justice Roberts hadn't counted on the cynical tactics of Donald Trump.

On 24 June 2013, in the case of Shelby County, Alabama b. US Attorney General Holder   the Supreme Court struck down one of the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The following day, the "deeply disappointed" President Obama issued a statement in which he called the ruling "a setback" but not the end of efforts to eliminate voting discrimination.

This landmark Civil Rights Era legislation was instrumental in ensuring that discriminatory practices based on race were finally and completely abolished. One problem that had faced legislators and justices was the question of states rights vs. federal authority. 

The 1965 legislation ended that. After the enactment of the law, certain states, mostly in the South, were required to submit any election law changes for federal approval. 

The reason was basic. 

Free and fair elections were too important to be left to whims of the local governments which, minorities claimed, was infested with both open and covert racists. On those states, federal oversight was required to ensure fair elections.

The 2013 decision split the high court along ideological lines, five to four.  The New York Times reported:

At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court said that the need to maintain strict federal oversight was in 2013 a thing of the past. 

In the Words of Justice Roberts

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. who wrote for the majority explained that our country had changed. When the Voting Rights Act was enacted, attitudes on racial discrimination were very different.  The chief justice concluded that 

times have changed: the formulas that govern singling out one state from another for different treatment, which once "made sense," have lost their relevance, and "nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically."

Why Pointing Out and Righting an Injustice is Everybody's Business

by Nomad

It's disheartening to think that the color of a person's skin can still have such a effect on people's attitudes. It makes me depressed to think that, in this day and age, it is still necessary for a white person to step in for whatever reason.  

On the other hand, it's even worse to think that a person would look the other way and not step in when they see unfair treatment.

Plantation Politics: How Some in the Old South Continue to Deny the Evils of Slavery

by Nomad

Can racism ever be extinguished in the USA when there are still some people who wish to ignore the inhumanity of slavery and to absolve the slave-owners of all responsibility?

Recently, I saw this article the other day and thought it was worth sharing.
Margaret Biser, a tour operator for a Southern plantation,  reveals that so many of her visitors seemed determined to ignore (or at least, minimize) the human costs of slavery. 

Admittedly some of this is based on a profound but genuine ignorance about history. Blame our education system or home schooling?
However, in other cases, the problem went much deeper.
In a word, denial of the history of an enslaved race's degradation and misery.

What can one make of people who want to tour a historical plantation but who refuse to acknowledge that all the wealth and grandeur on display was based on the sweat and toil of an army of bought and sold slaves? 

Why Should Your Destiny be Decided by The Color of Your Skin?

by Nomad

Is it possible that in America the color of your skin will determine how well you will do in life?

A look at the statistics suggest that, despite all of the past progress on racial equality, if you are African American you will have the cards stacked against you. But especially if are also a man.

After reviewing numerous studies,  Jorg Spenkuch, an assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at Kellogg School of Management  in Chicago came to a shocking conclusion.

"No matter where you look, race is a really important predictor of how well people do in life.”

He is one of the authors of Racial Disparities in Job Finding and Offered Wages which investigate how much discrimination can explain racial wage gaps African- Americans and other groups. 

How, fifty years after the Civil Right Era, can this still be a problem in America? 

Segregation and Dot Counts: What History Tells Us about Resistance to Progress

by Nomad

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the story behind this photograph? The young woman's name is Dorothy Counts.

We tend to think of the 1960s as the Era of the Social Movement but in fact, the great sweeps of reform began a decade earlier. The movement. it's true, reached its zenith during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. However, the impetus for social change began as a result of a constitutional challenge mostly that eventually made its way to the high court. 

It was the culmination of a campaign by The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its legal offspring, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, against the doctrine of “separate but equal.” 

How a Community Quilt Project Reveals the Other Side of Selma

by Nomad

Selma, Alabama might have a long dark history of strife and discord, but one project underway is a symbol of unity for the Alabama town. 

Journalist Alaina Denean, writing for the Selma Times-Journal, explains how the residents of the Alabama town have been working on a quilt as a sign of their united community.

Selma has a long history, much of which centers around discord, confrontation and  defiance against injustice. The quilt project recognizes this history but is also a symbol of harmony by as equal contributors. Selma has, the organizers say, changed for the better.
The quilt, when finished, with be part of an upcoming walk on Sunday March 1.

Searching For Intelligent Life

 by Nomad

The Other Side of Discrimination: Why Understanding White Privilege is So Important

by Nomad

It was a phrase I heard my father whenever I complained about something. "Who ever told you life would be fair?" As a child, that blunt defense of injustice was usually enough to shut me up like a clam. 
It was true that I couldn't actually recall any person  saying that life was going to always be fair.

The idea was, however, constantly implied and consistently drummed into my trusting mind. 

How would you like to be treated like that? was something I heard often enough. That is the essence of fairness. 

The Sunday school taught us the Golden Rule as a fundamental principle of the Christian faith. One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.
It was so simple and yet things were still not fair.

Privilege and the Advantage of Being White

Despite our egalitarian pretensions, American society is, like most societies, often unfair. It is based less on merit but on privilege and status.

Once upon a time, our forefathers might have dreamed of a classless society in which opportunities were not limited to a certain group. How serious they were is of course debatable, since many of them owned slaves.

Today. we might talk about equality for minorities, but, in reality, we tend to accept that some people have it better than others. The reason for this is based on nothing more than inborn privileges.
More and more, we watch as people with very limited talent, some not particularly intellectually-gifted people, are able to advance in life with the minimum of effort. (Based only on a brand name, people like this can even be elected president.)

How We Came to Accept Police Brutality as the Norm 2/2

by Nomad

In Part One of this two part series we discussed the origins of the present problem between the black community and law enforcement. Reagan's get-tough on crime was based on a theory that came with some direct warnings about the potential for discrimination. The president chose to ignore them.

Reagan's anti-crime crusade led to giving law enforcement more freedom to do their job. At least that was how it was portrayed in conservative circles at the time. That policy was called "pro-active policing." 

Problems with Pro-Active Policing
An  ultra-conservative American libertarian think tank, The Cato Institute, paints a very different picture of the policy today. A site run by that organization, which attempts to highlight police misconduct, describes pro-active policing as..

the use of nearly autonomous elite police units that are trained to be more aggressive than regular officers as a response to gang and drug related violence by targeting people they suspect of being criminals before they commit crimes. These units are encouraged to use whatever tactics they can get away with in order to get results, those results being a high arrest rate.

Like the later preemptive strike doctrine of the Bush era, it is easy to see in retrospect how easily pro-active policing could be abused. The danger of this practice was that notion that police should be responsible for preventing crime before it happens. How is that even possible? 

Well, one description might remind you of the sci-fi film "Minority Report"

In proactive policing, law enforcement uses data and analyzes patterns to understand the nature of a problem. Officers devise strategies and tactics to prevent or mitigate future harm. They evaluate results and revise practices to improve policing. Departments may combine an array of data with street intelligence and crime analysis to produce better assessments about what might happen next if they take various actions.

This high tech description however tends to gloss over the more controversial aspect, a highly visible street presence which is intended to intimidate criminals before they commit crimes.  The more intimidating, the better.

Ironically, what developed over time was a gang mentality of thugs within the police force.

These teams tend to be close-knit and insular, trained to use highly aggressive tactics with very little oversight, and taught to think and act like the gang members and drug dealers they investigate while under cover.

In other words, the balance between the lawless and the lawful was so blurred that it was difficult to see which element was the greater threat to the community. The police force- especially when made up of white officers- took all of the appearances (as well as the mentality) of an occupying military.  

How We Came to Accept Police Brutality as the Norm 1/2

by Nomad

With all the protests around the country against abusive law enforcement, it is a good time to ask how we as a country got into this situation. Is it simply a matter of racism permeating police departments or does it go deeper?

With all of the safeguards hard-wired into the Constitution, how could we have allowed it to happen?

A Simple Question of Trust

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.    Frederick Douglas

There's been a lot of superficial analysis about the reasons for the nationwide protests in the wake of the Brown and Garner cases. The fact that US law enforcement can literally get away with murdering unarmed citizens in front of witnesses has shocked the nation. 

(In fact this phenomenon has been going on for decades and if anything, the patience of the black community is the truly surprising aspect.) 

Racism in the country's police departments has been blamed. A broken-down justice system has also been pointed to. In fact, it's all of those things but there's a deeper problem as well:  A lack of trust in the law enforcement agencies by the black and minority communities. 

This lack of trust has been further reinforced by a lack of credibility of the oversight process after possible violations have occurred.

It's not something that should be under-estimated. Trust is the glue that holds the entire justice system together. Without trust, the entire structure of law and order collapses pretty quickly. Now America has begun to question whether we might not have bestowed too much trust in law enforcement.  

Every time a case of police brutality goes unpunished, it becomes a double failure for the entire justice system. Firstly, from the offense itself and secondly, by the damage it does to public trust.

Abe Lincoln vs. The White Man's Sense of Entitlement

by Nomad

I stumbled across this Lincoln quote in the archives and I was stunned that I hadn't heard anything like it before. I have no doubt it is authentic since the source was a book published well over a hundred years ago. I thought it deserved a meme of its own so that it might reach a wider audience. 

Doesn't this seem so very appropriate for our day and age? I just hope that we can take courage and take up the fight that our forefathers began. 

Arkansas, the Ebola Virus, and the License to Lie

by Nomad

When the town of Harrison, Arkansas decided to cancel a planned visit by a delegation from Ghana, was it just ignorance about Ebola or old-fashioned racism?

Lately a lot of people from the Far Right have been making some pretty irresponsible and ignorant remarks about Ebola. It's not just hysteria. Actually, it's a symptom of something worse- an outright betrayal of the public trust. 

Africa and Ebola in Perspective
Sarah Palin might not realize it but Africa is not a country. It is a continent and a mighty large one at that. Africa covers a full six percent of the Earth's total surface area and over 20  percent of the total land area. But then geography - along with any other subject you wish to name- isn't really Palin's forte.  

As the second most populated continent, Africa has a population of around 1 billion people. Depending on who you ask, there are 47 countries on the African continent, (53 if you count some of the islands off the coast.)  Of those 47 nations, only five of them have had reports of the much-discussed, much-feared disease known as Ebola.

As scary as it is, the deaths and the infection rates from the Ebola virus are not very impressive. The disease has up to now claimed more than 1,400 lives and infected over a thousand more across West Africa. 

Dreadful, terrible. And yes, it is better to do something before the situation gets any worse. Now is the time to act.

Martin Luther King on the Futility of Hating the Haters

by Nomad

A quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us that matching hate with hate, violence with violence, is not the solution. 

I saw this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. and thought it deserved a little more attention. In my opinion, what he said is the essence of Christian doctrine as preached by Jesus. (Nevertheless, we hear a lot of hate speech from people claim to be Christian.)

In Chapter six from the Book of Luke, it says:

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you....

In Matthew we also see:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 

To resist matching hate for hate must be the hardest advice to follow. I am not sure whether most of us are up to that task. I suppose the underlying idea is that love is an irresistible force. I hope that's true. But the idea goes beyond that. It is also a warning that hate is a contagion that can infect even the purest angels among us.