The Rise of Racism

Countdown to 2022

A Blue Wave is Coming!

5 August 2020

Talking about race is uncomfortable for whites. It is painful for Blacks. There is a world of difference between discomfort and pain. Up until the heinous murder of George Floyd by ##### which was captured for the world to see in a viral video no one could have imagined that discussion about race would be a national dialogue.

Let me stop right here and say that I have not watched the video only clips. I lack the strength to do so. I have two sons and two grandsons, nephews and cousins, all of whom are young/very young Black men. Anyone of which could have been and may yet be murdered like George Floyd. I feel that I should have watched it and I am ashamed that I lacked the courage to watch It. If George Floyd lived, and died in, those 8 minutes, I should be able to bear witness to his life and death in those 8 minutes.

What If Obama Did It?

28 January 2019

On August 28, 2015, in his 6th year in office, the biggest “scandal ”of Obama’s presidency erupted. He wore a tan suit to a White House press conference. He was not meeting with world leaders, addressing the nation or at a funeral. He walked down the hall to a briefing room full of reporters in which some of the men were not even wearing ties. He was not the first president to wear a tan suit while in office. Reagan and Bush occasionally wore tan or khaki suits. This was Obama’s first time showing work in anything other than a black, blue or grey suit. He wore it well. I updated this post to add this WaPo article looking back on the tan suit affair 5 years later.

of the tan suit scandal. That was a calmer, less frightening and more joyful time

And then there’s today. It took Trump to teach the media about scandal and after 3 1/2 years of his two-scandals-a-day administration you can say they are magna cum laudes.

So just imagine what would have happened had President Obama said he was thinking about declaring a national emergency to divert money budgeted by Congress for other purposes to fund the Affordable Care Act?

Neighbor Against Neighbor Hate Crimes

24 January 2019

Propublica, an independent, non-profit organization of investigative journalists, wrote a well-researched article on hate crimes. Hate crimes is nothing new. The willingness and enthusiasm with which people engage in acts of bigotry and hate on the basis of religion, race, and sexual orientation in America is well documented. So what was so special about this report?

Propublica added details and statistics to my growing library of anecdotal stories reported here and there in the media. Their interviews with the victims of harassment, intimidation and violence humanized the victims experiences in a way that other stories did not. Perhaps this is because of the number of interviews they conducted. Other stories focused on a single incident, Propublica’s article covered many,