tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33154915091873112872024-03-05T10:11:19.101-08:00Black Woman BloggingOne black woman's views on race, gender, politics, family, life and the world.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.comBlogger410125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-68705665267888464912020-10-13T20:34:00.000-07:002020-10-13T20:34:35.507-07:00Black Woman Blogging's 2020 Not-Fucking-Around Guide to Voting Securely and Her California Voter Guide<p>It's been a minute since I've put fingers to keyboard to blog here. A lot has happened, too much to discuss at this point because voting is already underway in many states and the threats to voting from the Orange-in-Chief on down have been growing like mushrooms.</p><p>So let me get to the point. Black Woman Blogging (BWB) is not fucking around when it comes to voting this year. We saw how the Russian government tried to steal our votes in 2016. Now, the public housing tenant in the White House and the Republican Party want to steal them. </p><p>I want you to vote securely, and to my mind,<b> there's only two ways to be absolutely secure in your vote:</b></p><p><b>1. Vote in person at the polls, preferably early; or</b></p><p><b>2. Take your absentee/mail-in ballot directly to your county registrar or election office equivalent.</b></p><p>That's it. Everything else, to my mind, is a crap shoot. So if you're going to the polls, take your masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes (My husband, Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB), and I keep a "Covid Go Bag" that has masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and sanitizing wipes for when we have to venture out), a folding chair, bottled water, snacks, and some tunes. Bring enough to share. Be prepared to wait. Wear your mask. Practice social distancing. </p><p>Here's what I'm not fucking with:</p><p>1. <u>Drop Boxes</u>: Unless the drop box is inside a county registrar's office or county election office, I'm not fucking with it. We've already seen how the California Republican Party has created fake drop boxes and then have the goddamned nerve to ask on Twitter why that shit isn't illegal. REALLY? Because you are not the government and can't create your own drop boxes, Republican Party. You know that shit is shady.</p><p>Plus, drop boxes that are not inside of a county registrar's office sit outside, unguarded. It's THAT kind of year this year and I don't put it past folks to tamper with drop boxes that are located in predominantly Democratic areas. So, although I am permanently registered to vote absentee, I'm not fucking with drop boxes.</p><p>2. <u>The U.S. Postal Service</u>: Although there is a court order to restore mail processing equipment so that absentee/mail-in ballots can be timely processed by the U.S. Postal Service, I don't trust our government to do this in a timely manner. Although I trust our nation's Postal employees, I don't trust their bosses. So, I'm not falling for the okie doke. I will be taking my absentee ballot directly to the county registrar's office.</p><p>I understand there are some states, like Tennessee, that do not allow you to send your absentee ballot by any other method other than by mail. I would urge those of you who live in states with similar rules to see if you can send your ballot via FedEx or UPS. I would, if legal, avoid using the U.S. Postal Service at all costs.</p><p>3. <u>Election Day Shenanigans</u>: Undoubtedly there will be efforts to intimidate voters at the polls on election day. I'm ghosting the election day shenanigans by dropping off my ballot early and directly to the county registrar's office. I usually drop off my ballot at the polls on election day, but not this year. I will be sitting home, working from home and eating my homemade food while all the election day shenanigans happen.</p><p>4. <u>Not Following Absentee/Mail-In Ballot Rules</u>: This is not usually an issue for me because I'm a rule follower to a fault. What I would say for voters like those of you in Pennsylvania or South Carolina is to follow your absentee/mail-in ballot rules to a T and give yourselves enough time to do so up front. If you need a witness to witness you signing your absentee/mail-in ballot, get one. If you need to make sure your ballot is inside a security envelope before you put in the mailing envelope, do it. Take the time to learn the applicable rules for your absentee/mail-in ballot and follow them. The Republican party is looking for any little thing to disqualify your vote. Don't give it to them.</p><p>Now, on to my California Voter Guide. Here's what you need to know about me and how it influences how I vote:</p><p>1. I am socially liberal but I'm a Jerry Brown Democrat. I'm all for social programs, school spending, and any investment that is proven to make society better overall, but the shit's gotta be paid for and budgets gotta balance. I don't believe in tax reductions or bonds unless they are for a really good reason.</p><p>2. Some of my positions are specific to the experiences I have had in my life. They may not apply to yours. My voting his highly personal.</p><p>3. I am not easily swayed when large corporate interests say that they will stop doing business in California if they don't get what they want with a ballot measure. California is the fifth largest economy in the world. Fuck you and miss me with your bullshit, corporate interests. If you don't want to do business here, someone else will. I will not be blackmailed by ballot.</p><p>4. I support public schools. I believe public education is the ladder to social and economic mobility and uplift. Public education took my family from the cotton fields of Arkansas to Harvard Law School with one generation. If you come for public schools, you're coming for me.</p><p>5. Anything I see <a href="https://prospect.org/politics/alice-huffman-black-leader-taking-corporate-money-to-write-phony-newspapers/">Alice Huffman</a> in favor of is highly suspect to me. </p><p>With that, on to BWB's California Voter Guide</p><p><b>President and Vice President:</b> Biden/Harris. Next.</p><p><b>Proposition 14: Yes.</b> More bonds for stem cell research to cure Alzheimer's disease, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, ALS, spinal cord injuries, you name it. My mother had early onset Alzheimer's disease starting around age 57 and died due to her second bout of cancer at 64. She suffered. Cure all of this shit. Cure it NOW.</p><p><b>Proposition 15: Yes</b>. Proposition 15 splits the property tax rolls and allows for taxation of commercial properties valued at $3 million or more at fair market value for the taxable value. It splits those properties out from under the protections of Proposition 13, which only allows incremental increases in property tax rates for residential and commercial properties based on purchase price, not fair market value. Property taxes are how we pay for our schools. </p><p>I never liked Proposition 13 to begin with. I predicted it would be the death of public schools when I was a teenager. In junior high school, I wrote an article opposing it for our school paper. I got called into the principal's office and was told that my article would not be run in the school newspaper because it was too controversial. When I was a senior in high school, I interviewed for an internship in Assembly Speaker Willie Brown's office with his Chief of Staff, E. Dotson Wilson. Mr. Wilson asked me my opinion on Proposition 13. I told him. I didn't get the internship.</p><p>Look, I get slowing the rate at which residential property tax increases occur by basing them on purchase price because there's a societal interest in not having people turned out of their homes in old age simply because they can't afford the taxes on the fair market value of their homes. But that same interest doesn't hold with commercial properties valued over $3 million dollars. And with declining residential property tax bases in urban centers with old housing stocks affecting public school funding, I'm all for this.</p><p><b>Proposition 16: Yes</b>. Proposition 16 repeals Proposition 209, which eliminated affirmative action in State contracting, hiring, and public college admissions. I fought 209 when it was on the ballot, and I'm fighting it again now. I saw first hand how it chilled applications from people of color all around the country to the UC system, especially its law schools. Enough of the bullshit.</p><p><b>Proposition 17: Yes.</b> Proposition 17 would allow felons who have completed their prison terms to vote if they are out on parole. Before, parole was considered part of a prison term, so you weren't allowed to vote if you were on parole because technically you had't finished your prison term. You could vote, however, if you were on probation. I don't see much difference between parole and probation. You violate either and you're back before a judge. So I don't see a reason for distinguishing between parole and probation for voting purposes.</p><p><b>Proposition 18: Yes.</b> Proposition 18 allows 17 year-olds who will be 18 on the date of the next general election to vote in any primary or special election that occurs before the next general election in which that 17 year-old would be eligible to vote if he or she were 18. I'm all for increasing voting rights and getting young folks into the habit of voting and having a voice in our democracy.</p><p><b>Proposition 19: Not just no, fuck no.</b> Proposition 19 isn't just Proposition 13, it's Proposition 13 on wheels. Literally. Proposition 19 allows people over 55, the disabled, and victims of wildfire to transfer the taxable value of their current home to a replacement residence anywhere in the state. Let me give you a real life example. I'm over 55. I bought my house as a foreclosure in 2008 and paid $280K, and, under Proposition 13, the increase in taxable value of my house is not based on its current market value of $450K, but on incremental increases based on the $280K I paid. Under Proposition 19, I could sell my house for $450K, buy a new house, and keep the tax basis of my current house -- $280K plus incremental increases that don't come close to being equivalent to its $450K value -- instead of being taxed on the purchase price of my next house as I would be now. </p><p>The thing is, this shit is already legal for people over 55 in some counties that have so-called "reciprocity." I don't live in one. But I would benefit personally and immensely from Proposition 19.</p><p>This is just property tax avoidance by folks, and since property taxes pay for schools, I'm not just voting no, but fuck no. I'm a proud product of public schools, and I'm not going to turn around and fuck them now that I've got mine. Proposition 19 takes Proposition 13 a house too far. Literally.</p><p><b>Proposition 20: Not just no, fuck no.</b> I stopped reading when I got to the part about wanting to expand DNA collection to include folks convicted of misdemeanors such as shoplifting and forging checks. WTF? </p><p>First, I'm not about expanding any powers of law enforcement or increasing prison terms until we deal with the systemic racism in our justice system.</p><p>Second, I'm not for expanding DNA collection for fucking misdemeanors. For me, the purpose of DNA collection is identifying suspects of violent crimes because we all know facial identification of Black people is highly unreliable, to wit, The Exonerated Five. I don't buy the proposition that we need DNA collection for fucking misdemeanors. GTFOH.</p><p><b>Proposition 21: No. </b>First, whoever wrote the Voter Information Guide section on this proposition needs to be fired. It is neither clear nor detailed. That said, it increases the pool of dwellings subject to rent control to include any for which the first residential certificate of occupancy was issued within 15 years of the first date the owner sought to rent it out, not just those properties for which a first certificate of occupancy was issued after 1995. Given how tight and expensive California's rental market is, I'm for increasing the amount of housing subject to rent control until we get an overall plan for housing in California. However, the fact that it allows additional increases in the initial rental rate on top of those allowed pursuant to local law seems antithetical to controlling rent, so I'm going to vote no.</p><p><b>Proposition 22: Not just no, fuck no.</b> Here's my problem with Uber and Lyft: They are moral hazards. A moral hazard is something where there are no consequences for the risk taken. In this case. Uber and Lyft took the risk of opening up taxi companies -- and don't try to shit me with them calling themselves "ride sharing apps" -- without doing what other taxi companies had to do for decades in order to operate in many cities: Buy a fucking taxi medallion. They kept on building their business, putting taxis out of business (and, truth be told, the taxi business needed a shakeup because their customer service stank) without having to incur the same regulations or costs as taxi businesses were required to do, including background checks of taxi drivers. Uber and Lyft built their business model on flouting compliance with laws and built their business on the backs of gig workers. In the meantime, many taxi medallion owners, lots of whom were black and brown folks who had mortgaged their houses and sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into their taxi medallions, had to compete with Uber and Lyft and failed. Not fair.</p><p>What Uber and Lyft counted on is that, in addition to flouting taxi regulation, they could flout labor laws. Not so. The core of their business is built on these gig workers to the point that they meet the definition of "employee" instead of "independent contractor," and with the definition of being an "employee" comes certain rights, benefits, and protections that independent contractors don't get.</p><p>So now Uber and Lyft want to redefine their employees as independent contractors so they can keep on making money without complying with either taxi regulations or labor laws.</p><p>Enough is enough. They should have changed the laws before they went into business. What they are doing is asking for forgiveness instead of permission. That's not how the law works.</p><p>And what Uber and Lyft are not telling you is that those drivers are being used to perfect their algorithms for driverless cars. Yep, once driverless cars are perfected, those Uber and Lyft drivers are going to be out of a job, and Uber and Lyft will have gotten away with screwing over two classes of workers -- taxi drivers and their own.</p><p>So no, I will not support a proposition that encourages businesses to flout the law, engage in unsanctioned and unfair competition, and then ask the voters to give them a pass. And until those taxi medallion holders are made whole by Uber's and Lyft's shareholders, they won't be receiving my vote.</p><p><b>Proposition 23: Yes.</b> Proposition 23 requires a dialysis clinic to have at least one licensed physician onsite at the clinic's expense at all times that in-center dialysis patients are being treated. This physician shall have authority and responsibility over patient safety and to direct the provision and quality of medical care.</p><p>This one is personal for me. The father-in-law of a dear friend of mine bled out during dialysis. He was elderly and he was left unattended. By the time he got to the hospital, he died.</p><p>Contrary to the commercials opposing this proposition, I don't think the big name dialysis clinics are going to pull up stakes and go out of business just because they have to have a doctor onsite to prevent deaths. Miss me with that bullshit.</p><p><b>Proposition 24: No. </b>Why? I don't trust it. The fact that it took until page four for the drafters of this initiative to start showing how it would amend the law is suspicious to me, as if they were intending to wear me down and have me assume that by talking about privacy protections, I would just go along. I'm not even going to bother reading all 33 pages of this, and I'm an attorney. Come back when you can draft a shorter, concise, and clearer initiative.</p><p><b>Proposition 25: Yes.</b> This upholds the 2018 law that replaced cash money bail. No one should have to sit in jail awaiting trial just because they are broke and their family is through with them. You should sit in jail based on your risk to the community, not the resources you have.</p><p>Now, go vote like your life depends on it. Because it does. Here are some helpful resources:</p><p><a href="https://www.betterknowaballot.com" target="_blank">Better Know A Ballot</a></p><p><a href="https://www.whenweallvote.org" target="_blank">When We All Vote</a></p><p><a href="http://IWillVote.com">IWillVote.com</a></p><p><a href="https://www.getyourbootytothepoll.com">Get Your Booty To The Poll</a></p><p><a href="http://Vote.gov">Vote.gov</a></p><p><a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2020/10/Voter-Intimidation-Fact-Sheet.pdf">Fact Sheet: Protecting Against Voter Intimidation</a></p><p>Election Protection: 866-OUR-VOTE</p><p><br /></p>blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-9967599105485866732018-06-18T22:33:00.000-07:002018-06-18T22:33:18.209-07:00That Dog Whistle You Hear is Trump's Immigration PolicyWhen your president is a pathological liar and a racist, there is no shortage of things to write about. Where to begin when talking about our nation's separation and incarceration of immigrant children?<br />
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First, let's talk about what dog-whistle politics are, to wit:<br />
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<b style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Dog-whistle politics</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different, or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is often used as a pejorative due to a perception of deceptive intent in the speaker thought to be making use of such messaging. The analogy is to a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Dog whistle">dog whistle</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, whose </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasound" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="Ultrasound">ultrasonic</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> whistling sound is heard by dogs but inaudible to humans.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
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I disagree with the phrase "perception of deceptive intent." There IS deceptive intent in dog whistle politics.<br />
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Second, let me get some things off my chest.<br />
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Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen -- ye of the name that isn't even really "American" in the Trumpian sense of the word -- before you make the specious claim that forcibly separating children from their parents isn't child abuse, let's separate children from YOUR family from their parents, put them in a room with videos, meals, etc., and see how well they do. You can watch on closed circuit TV, which is more than what you've offered the parents of these immigrant children.<br />
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President Trump, you wouldn't know the truth if it took the form of a porn star's silicone tit and happily slapped you in the face. You blaming the Democrats for your child <strike>separation</strike> kidnapping policy is a lie. And don't think we don't hear the dog whistle in your immigration policy when you say "the United States will not be a migrant camp and will not be a refugee holding facility." Dude, the United States started out as a migrant camp. The migrants were called pilgrims. They founded this country on the principles of white supremacy, rape and genocide of indigenous people, enslavement of black people, and theft of land. The difference now is that the migrants coming in are not the color you prefer, since you clearly prefer Scandinavian (read: white) immigrants. That dog whistle in your immigration policy is getting louder and louder. <br />
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Chief of Staff John Kelly, you're just Beelzebub, plain and simple. You were the architect of the Muslim ban, you supported child separation as an immigration deterrent. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.<br />
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RepubliKlans, your party will be held responsible by the majority of voters, who did not vote for Trump, for this and all his other egregious, racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic acts. Unless your last name was Bush, McCain, Corker, Kasich, Flake, or Collins, you pretty much co-signed the President's entire agenda or stood silently and watched evil rule. You will pay, and history will mark where you stood. That means YOU, Chris "Sell Out and Suck It" Christie, Rudy "Emily Latella" Giuliani, and Mitt "I Can Be Bought With A Cabinet Post" Romney. Don't act like you didn't hear Trump's dog whistles early in his campaign.<br />
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Now for some immigration truths AND some American truths.<br />
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President Trump has been gunning for brown people from south of the border since Day 1 of his campaign, calling them rapists and murderers, maligning Judge Curiale for being of Mexican descent, saying we were going to make our sovereign neighbors to the south pay for a border wall like some white bully nation, and now telling Japan's President Abe he'd ship 25 million Mexicans to Japan and he [Abe] would be out of office really soon. I hear that dog whistle . . . .<br />
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America's immigration problem isn't a border problem -- it's a policy problem. If we were really serious about our immigration laws and policies, we'd track people who come in legally and make sure they leave when their visas expire. We don't. Forty percent of illegal immigrants came here legally and illegally overstayed their visas. We don't know where the fuck they are. But if they had the money and resources to get a visa, they're probably the kind of illegal immigrants Trump wants (read: white or Asian), not poor brown people trying to get to a land that was once inhabited by their indigenous ancestors before whites first arrived on these shores with their slave cargo. I hear that dog whistle . . .<br />
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And, as a Californian, I call out the height of hypocritical racist dog whistle politics in the Golden State that is our Central Valley -- which is disproportionately agricultural and dependent on the labor of undocumented brown workers from south of the border -- whose residents voted overwhelming for Trump. WTF? I guess they will need to have crops rot in the field until they realize how stupid their vote was. I hear their dog whistle, too . . . .<br />
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If you think President Trump's immigration policies toward brown people from south of the border is solely about immigration, you are politically deaf to the RepublKlans' dog whistle immigration politics. When they talk about merit-based immigration, that's a dog whistle. When they talk about ending so-called "chain migration," that's a dog whistle. When they talk about ending the visa lottery system because it lets in people from so-called "shithole countries," that's a dog whistle. We've been here before, America, with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act">Chinese Exclusion Act</a>, which unabashedly excluded Chinese from immigrating to American from 1882 to 1943, one of the only immigration laws with the express purpose of excluding an entire race of people. They didn't even have to do a dog whistle back then. They used a bull horn. Now they can't.<br />
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Oh, and don't forget the dog whistle of all Trump immigration dog whistles -- the Muslim bans, also aimed at brown and black people who aren't Christian or primarily white.<br />
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America, if we are silent, we are complicit. Is this who we really are -- a nation that separates children from their parents because their point of entry was on our southern border instead of our northern border?<br />
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History will mark where we stood, America. Those dog whistles will reverberate long into the future.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-72474936354069505522018-06-09T14:18:00.002-07:002018-06-09T14:18:28.997-07:00(Self-) Maintenance Is An Expression of Gratitude -- Keep MENS In Your LifeMy 2007 Honda Accord's leather driver's seat is cracking. I can count on one hand how many times I've had the leather treated and the car detailed since I bought it new in 2007.<br />
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The used yellow Huffy girl's bike I got when I was six, with too-high handlebars and a too-wide banana seat with ripped pleather? I adored it. I cared for it. I cherished it. I even made sure that the banana seat's condition didn't deteriorate further.<br />
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The difference? Gratitude.<br />
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When I got that Huffy bike, it didn't matter to me that it was used. It was <i>new to me</i>. And it represented <i>freedom</i>. It meant that I could travel as far as my legs could pump those pedals. It meant that I didn't have to ride on the handlebars or the back of other people's bikes (and risk getting injured) to know the joys of riding a bike and feeling the wind in my face. It meant that I didn't have to outrun anyone who meant me harm -- I could get on my bike and ride off. I was grateful for that bike.<br />
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The 2007 Honda Accord? Not so much. I never intended to buy it. I only bought it because I promised my paid off 1998 Honda Accord to a family member who was in need of a car at the time that I made the promise. I hated getting a new car payment when I already had a car that was paid off. Although I liked the look of my 2007 Accord better than that of my 1998 Accord, I wasn't grateful for my 2007 Accord when I bought it. I was paying off a karmic debt, a promise unwisely made. Although I get it serviced regularly, I haven't regularly done the things for it that would express gratitude -- car washes, detailing, etc. That's why the leather driver's seat is cracking. The leather seats in my 1998 Accord never did. The difference? Again, gratitude. I maintained that car better, <i>inside and out</i>, because I was more grateful for it.<br />
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I have come to realize that maintenance, including self-maintenance, is an expression of gratitude for whatever it is you are maintaining. I know this because of the bald spot on the back of my head.<br />
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When I last made one of my very infrequent appointments to get a relaxer on my hair (I hate getting relaxers because they irritate my eczema -- that's another blog entry for another day), my stylist told me, "You have a bald spot on the back of your head." Lo and behold, she held up a mirror, and there was a silver-dollar sized bald spot -- I'm not talking little hair, I'm talking bald as a baby's butt -- on the back of my head. "You need to see a dermatologist," she said.<br />
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I snapped a picture of the bald spot, sent it to my doctor, and she came back with a diagnosis: Alopecia Areata. Not traction alopecia from pulling your hair back too tight. An autoimmune hair loss treatable with topical steroids and time, not unlike the autoimmune disease that is eczema. Autoimmune diseases can be triggered by stress. I hadn't been maintaining myself, wasn't taking care to have MENS in my life -- Meditation, Exericse, Nutrition, and Sleep -- and the lack of self-care, coupled with stress, was expressing itself in my skin and hair. <br />
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My hair has long been a walking embodiment of a lack of gratitude. All of my life I've had long, and usually thick, hair. It grows easily and quickly. Men dig it when it's styled. I think my husband married me in part because of it. But I've never been particularly grateful for my long hair. I've viewed it as just another obstacle to getting to work on time. Sadly enough, it looks that way, forever sanctioned to a pony tail or bun and rough around the non-relaxed edges. I've had people tell me that I look like a totally different person with my hair down and styled. I have to admit that my neglect of my hair is an extension of my neglect for my body. I wash it, dry it, pull it back, and get on with it.<br />
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Sadly enough, since I didn't get a body like Halle Berry, I also long demonstrated the same lack of gratitude for my body, viewing it as nothing more than a house for what I considered my most important asset -- my brain. As long as my mind was working, I didn't care what I put in or did for my body. My mind, not my body, was THE asset.<br />
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I felt that way until my mother-in-law succumbed to cancer. She was 89 years old and in complete control of her mental faculties, but her body failed her. I realized that if your body fails you, it doesn't matter how well your mind is working. Then I started coming across research showing that exercise is THE most important factor in maintaining cognitive ability into old age. My body wasn't just a house for my brain. They were interdependent. To be grateful for my mind, I had to be grateful for my body and care for them both equally.<br />
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Additionally, in another show of lack of gratitude, I've let house maintenance slip, too. My garage is filled to the rafters with dozens of plastic containers filled with stuff I've been dragging from place to place over my adult life without purging. My wood floors haven't been polished in a minute. I've got weeds on the side of my house (although the gardener was supposed to take care of that). As grateful as I am for my humble abode, it doesn't show through maintenance.<br />
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Long story short, instead of looking at caring for ourselves, others, and the things given to us or earned as chores, to-do list items, or, even worse, tasks that can be overlooked, what if we viewed caring for ourselves, others, and the things we have as an expression of gratitude? Because, really, that's what maintenance really is -- an expression of gratitude for what we are maintaining.<br />
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Realizing this has changed my perspective. I thought of those things I need for basic self-maintenance, and I came up with the acronym MENS -- Meditation, Exercise, Nutrition, and Sleep -- to remind me to keep MENS in my life. For some, it might be PENS -- Prayer, Exercise, Nutrition, and Sleep. I've also come to the conclusion that the things that I used to do or had done for myself on the regular that I later came to see as frivolous -- massages, mani-pedis, standing hair appointments, solo travel/writing retreats, entire days spent reading on the sofa, and mid-afternoon naps -- are, in fact, a form of self-maintenance for me and gratitude for this one body, one mind, one spirit, and one life I have in this physical realm. Self-maintenance isn't just maintaining your physical self; it's maintaining your mental and spiritual self and expressing gratitude for them all in the process. I realized that, for me, it starts with trying to keep MENS in my life. They are the foundation, the beginning, for my self-maintenance.<br />
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You'll be surprised at how good expressing gratitude through maintenance, including self-maintenance, will make you feel. Maintenance, including self-maintenance, is not an undeserved luxury. It is a necessity for wellness and the full enjoyment of this one life you have. I hope you, too, will keep MENS (or PENS) in your life as the foundation of your self-maintenance.<br />
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Now, excuse me while I work on my garage, my hair, and my car's driver's seat, for which I'm grateful.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-91999613888363372692018-03-31T16:55:00.000-07:002018-03-31T16:55:22.897-07:00Changing Police Policy on Discharging Firearms/Use of Lethal Force (So Stephon Clark's Death Won't Be In Vain)<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We need legislation -- state and national -- to change police policy on discharging firearms/use of lethal force. Unless we change the laws, police will continue to fatally shoot suspects whom they "believe" to have a gun. Here are two principles and six changes proposed by Terrie L. Robinson (Twitter @IAspire) to the Sacramento City Council:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two Principles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. “Reasonable belief” shall no longer be enough for a
police officer to shoot an unarmed person when the only people who are
potentially in danger of harm are police officers. Police officers should not
be allowed to shoot anyone without actually seeing a gun or a knife in the
suspect’s hand, instead of “reasonably believing” that the suspect has a gun or
a knife, because “reasonable belief” can be colored by unconscious racial bias.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. If there is a risk of imminent danger of death or serious
bodily harm to a police officer, the risk of error should fall to the officer
who assumed the risk of putting his or her life on the line, not citizens.
Officers' lives are not more important than citizens' lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Six Changes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. Justification for the use of deadly force when only an
officer or officers are at risk of death or serious bodily injury shall be
limited to facts known by the officer or officers at the time, not facts
reasonably perceived by the officer. In such situations, officers shall only
discharge their firearm if they can visibly see that a suspect has a firearm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. Turning off or muting a police body camera before,
during, or after a pursuit of a suspect is evidence tampering. It shall be a
fireable offense and considered prima facie evidence of guilt in civil
proceedings, i.e., wrongful death and civil rights cases involving
officer-involved shootings of citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3. Every police officer shall be required to take an
“Implicit Associations Test” (IAT), available for free on the Project Implicit
website, to test for unconscious racial and other biases that may affect their
judgment in a deadly force situation. The results of those tests shall be
revealed to the officers and placed in the personnel files.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4. Pending conclusion of any investigation of an officer
shooting of a suspect, the suspect’s arrest and conviction record shall not be
made public so as not to bias the investigation or a jury pool in a civil
proceeding against a police department.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">5. There shall be no confidential settlements of wrongful
death or civil rights cases involving officer-involved fatal shootings of
suspects. The facts from any wrongful death or civil rights case should be laid
bare to the public hold the police department accountable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">6.
Police shootings of suspects shall be investigated by an independent body whose
composition shall be a majority of non-law enforcement citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-31037013412084392512017-10-04T22:52:00.000-07:002017-10-04T22:55:51.132-07:00Black Woman Blogging's Gun Control Proposal<br />
Thanks to a relative who sent me death threats, I became a gun owner. Reluctantly. What can I say. You don't choose your family.<br />
<br />
That said, I'm for gun control. <br />
<br />
As far as I'm concerned, America lost its moral compass when we didn't do squat after Sandy Hook. If you can allow a madman to murder children and not be moved to do nothing, you have no moral compass. Period.<br />
<br />
Now that we've broken an unfortunate record for the number of people killed in a mass shooting, perhaps we as a country are ready to get our minds right about gun control. Perhaps. So in that spirit, I offer my gun control proposal.<br />
<br />
First, we need to agree on some real (not alternative) facts and principles:<br />
<br />
1. <u>There is no such thing as an unlimited right</u>. Yes, people, there are no unlimited rights protected under the Constitution. Your right to free speech? Well, not all speech is protected under the First Amendment and even protected speech can be limited by time, place and manner. Your right to own property? Well, eminent domain limits that. So any idea that you have a Second Amendment right to own as many guns as you want and as many kinds as you want? Fuggedaboutit.<br />
<br />
2. <u>More guns are not the answer</u>. I listened to some fool from Gun Owners of American argue that if Las Vegas had not been a gun free zone, the victims of the Las Vegas shooting would have been able to defend themselves. Really, fool? Like they could have been able to return fire accurately from their distance? No, more guns are not the answer. And this line of B.S. that we need more "good guys" with guns to protect us from the "bad guys"? Simplistic B.S. What we need is to make it so that fewer people have guns to begin with. Fewer guns, lower risk.<br />
<br />
3. <u>Nobody should have better weapons than law enforcement.</u> Nobody should be able to mow down law enforcement folks. So, to my mind, no one but law enforcement should have semiautomatic weapons and no one needs automatic weapons. If you need a semiautomatic or automatic weapon to hunt, maybe you need to get with some bow hunters who get the job done without any ammo 'cause you're not ready for gun ownership.<br />
<br />
4. <u>We need to learn from other countries that don't have as much gun violence as we do.</u> I don't know what it is about America, but we act like no matter what we do, we do it better than any other country. Not so. If we want the greater peace and safety of countries that have less gun violence, we need to do what they do and learn from them.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, here's my gun control proposal:<br />
<br />
1. <u>You get no more than two guns per person: One for protection, one for hunting</u>. That's it. Even if you're ambidextrous, you can only shoot two guns at a time. The more guns you have, the more of a danger you are to the rest of us.<br />
<br />
2.<u> No semiautomatic or automatic weapons</u>. Because no one should have better guns than law enforcement. And no grandfathering in, so you will have to give up your semiautomatic or automatic guns.<br />
<br />
3. <u> If you have ever been convicted of a felony or adjudged to have been mentally ill, you don't get to own a gun</u>. Ever. Sorry, not sorry. Again, there is no such thing as an unlimited right.<br />
<br />
4. <u>Every gun owner gets an annual federal background check, mental health screening, and gun safety class in order to get and keep a gun license</u>. You don't get these done annually, a warrant is issued for your arrest, your guns confiscated, and you're done with gun ownership.<br />
<br />
5. <u>No alterations of weapons to make them semiautomatic or automatic</u>. If you alter your weapons, you lose them and your right to own guns. Bump stock and other alterations will be outlawed.<br />
<br />
6. <u>Bullets will be taxed to pay for gun control.</u><br />
<br />
That's it. Simple. Clear.<br />
<br />
Now let's see what our elected leaders do about it.<br />
<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-55236371400568607632017-05-14T09:26:00.000-07:002017-05-14T09:26:14.640-07:00What White House Journalists Can Learn From the Chauncey Bailey Project: How to Journalistically Crowdsource the Trump/Russia InvestigationWith President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, one thing has become apparent: A truly independent investigation of any ties between the Russian government and the Trump presidential campaign will only be accomplished by the free press, for however long it remains free.<br />
<br />
There is precedent for journalists coming together across a variety of platforms to conduct an investigation together and report on it: <a href="http://chaunceybaileyproject.org/about/staff/">The Chauncey Bailey Project</a>.<br />
<br />
Those of you who know me personally know of my brief interactions with the late Chauncey Bailey, a respected Oakland journalist who was killed investigating criminal activities of the Your Muslim Bakery in Oakland. Journalists from television, print, radio, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Center for Investigative Journalism, and the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism came together to pick up where Chauncey Bailey was stopped in his investigation by murder and to investigate his murder themselves. They agreed on ground rules about sharing what they found and publishing across platforms. Their work ultimately led to arrest and prosecution of Bailey's murderer. In short, these journalists journalistically crowdsourced the investigation into the Your Muslim Bakery and Bailey's murder.<br />
<br />
The importance of the Chauncey Bailey Project is that journalists didn't wait for the government to investigate Bailey's death. It may have been the idea of a journalist being gunned down in America for doing his job that galvanized journalists from competing platforms and organizations to make sure justice was done and the truth was told.<br />
<br />
I don't mean to trivialize Chauncey Bailey's murder, but the stakes with the investigation into the Russian connections to the Trump presidential campaign are at least as high as the stakes in the investigation into Chauncey's murder because of the potential for upending American democracy as we know it. Trump's attacks on the media, the intelligence community, and pretty much anyone capable of getting to the truth of the matter are highly disturbing. The firing of FBI Director Comey while the FBI was in the midst of investigating this very matter smacks of Watergate. The Congress, unlike the Watergate Congress, is hopelessly compromised by the Republicans' intoxication with their own power. The late Senator Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee who played a pivotal role in the Watergate hearings and was known as the "Great Conciliator,' would not claim these Republicans. Or, he would woodshed them.<br />
<br />
So instead of being mad about Sean Spicer hiding "among" the bushes of the White House or Trump's threat to end press briefings, White House journalists need to come together a la the Chauncey Bailey Project and do their own investigation of Russia's involvement in the Trump campaign and the 2016 American election. The freedoms that still exist that allow them to do their work demand no less.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-13991407511323438962017-04-30T11:25:00.000-07:002017-04-30T11:25:56.770-07:00Retired Man Walking: Too Young to Retire, Too Old to Take ShitA while back I ran into a friend and fellow professional employed by the State of California, and he offered me his perspective on State employment as a tail-end Baby Boomer like myself -- someone who can't retire because he lacks the requisite age or years of service, but, unlike myself, is tired of taking shit from superiors who don't know what to do with you.<br />
<br />
Although my friend gave his permission for me to use his name in this blog entry, I decline to do so because what he does is so specialized that it would not be hard for anyone to identify him as one of the few African American men, if not the only African-American man, in California state civil service who does what he does. For purposes of this blog entry, I will refer to him as he now refers to himself: Retired Man Walking.<br />
<br />
Retired Man Walking, or RMW, has an interesting philosophy he applies to working for the State as a professional who isn't old enough to retire but has been around long enough to know the score. Like many state workers of his age, race, and qualifications, he encounters roadblocks to advancement because the State of California doesn't reward intelligence, achievement, innovation or efficiency among its rank and file employees; oh no, the only thing the State of California rewards is seniority. You could die waiting for the few spots above you in the hierarchy to open up when someone retires or, well, dies, no matter how stellar you might be.<br />
<br />
Like many other African-American professionals in state civil service, he encounters "intelligence racism": The cognitive dissonance experienced by whites and sometimes people of other races when they simply cannot believe the intelligent words and ideas coming from your African-American mouth are, well, coming from your African-American mouth. Because they cannot reconcile your race with your intelligence, which is oftentimes superior to theirs, they endeavor to disprove your intelligence or undermine you in some other way as undeserving of what little stature you have.<br />
<br />
At the other end of the spectrum, RMW, like many other African-American professionals in state civil service, also experiences being a financially pimped out professional by the State enjoying the benefit of his college and graduate education without paying you enough to cover the burden of the student loans necessary to pay for that college and graduate education. Too Short ain't got nothin' on the State of California when it comes to pimpin' professionals.<br />
<br />
However, RMW has adopted a philosophy I found so intriguing that I felt compelled to share it with you. He's adopted a policy of not allowing himself to be stressed out by the intelligence racism, lack of upward mobility and the like, and here's why:<br />
<br />
He wants to live long after he retires.<br />
<br />
RMW noted how many people retire only to die shortly after, oftentimes from diseases that are stress-related, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and the like. As he puts it, "How you live the 25 years before you retire will determine whether and how you live the 25 years after you retire." RMW is determined to not let workplace stress cause him to develop diseases that will cheat him out of a long and healthy retirement.<br />
<br />
As a result, he has declared himself to be "Retired Man Walking." He simply does not care anymore. As he put it, "I have two speeds at work -- slow and stop." He's not trying to prove anything, impress anyone, or race to get things done. He takes full advantage of alternate work schedules, vacation days, and breaks during the day. It's just not worth it to him to get stressed out in the last years before retirement. He has "retired in place."<br />
<br />
As for upward mobility and the lack thereof, he likens them to the ephemeral traffic jam on I-80 west going from Sacramento toward San Francisco. "Notice how the traffic always backs up around Berkeley and Emeryville? Did you ever notice how there's no traffic over there by the Berkeley Marina, and if you get off near the marina and go around, you can get back on 80 and beat the traffic? Upward mobility in the State is like that -- sometimes you have to get off and go around to move up."<br />
<br />
Very wise, indeed.<br />
<br />
Here's to a long and healthy retirement, RMW.<br />
<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-37268514337244411912017-04-23T11:06:00.000-07:002017-04-23T11:06:33.578-07:00Poverty of Imagination Is A Sin Against YourselfSometimes in life, you have to imagine yourself to where you want to be. You have to create where you want to be in your life in your mind first, see what no one else can see, and speak, create, and work what only you can imagine into existence. You especially have to do this when you don't see around you what you aspire to be, see, or do.<br />
<br />
The inability to do this is what I would call "poverty of imagination." I see it all around me.<br />
<br />
I even accused a dear friend of mine of suffering from this. She was taken aback, offended. I told her that, in imagining all the possible ways a legal conflict could be settled to the benefit of her client, she failed to imagine other options for no other reason than that they had never been done before.<br />
<br />
"That, my friend," I declared, "is poverty of imagination."<br />
<br />
I then told her the story of my dad and uncle that epitomized poverty of imagination, as told to me by one of my younger uncles.<br />
<br />
When my dad and my uncle, his next oldest brother in age, were young children, they picked cotton alongside my widowed grandmother in the rural South during the 1930's. My uncle said to my dad, "When we grow up, we're going to be rich, so rich that our mama is going to pick cotton in a SILK dress, not burlap!" My dad agreed.<br />
<br />
Neither of them could imagine the possibility of being so rich that their mother, my grandmother, would not have to pick cotton at all. <br />
<br />
Poverty of imagination. And poverty of imagination is worse than poverty of one's real life situation because the failure to imagine yourself out of your present circumstances will keep you in your present circumstances, no matter what they are. Even if those circumstances are not dire, if they are not what you want, and what you want doesn't exist, you have to imagine your way out. Your imagination is the only way out because everything starts with an idea and an intention.<br />
<br />
I've seen this with family members who immediately disqualify themselves from a position they're interviewing for because they can't imagine that the hiring powers that be would hire them. I see this in folks who can't imagine doing anything other than the work they're doing that they hate. I see it when I sit in meetings and hear coworkers say, "We've just never done it that way before."<br />
<br />
Poverty. Of. Imagination.<br />
<br />
I believe poverty of imagination is a sin against one's self. Why? Who gave you that imagination? GOD! HE put that ideas in YOU. HE gives you the ability to imagine something different than your circumstances. When you don't even try to imagine something different or when you reject something different simply because you've never seen it done before, it's like saying to God, "Nah, I'm good. What You, Father God, have in store for me? Nah, I'll pass."<br />
<br />
REALLY? Because what HE has for you is for YOU. And HE isn't always going to make it appear in the physical realm. HE puts it in your mind. It's there for you to imagine, if and only if you are open to it. If, in the words of The Rock, you are smelling what the Creator is cooking.<br />
<br />
Are you?<br />
<br />
I'm as guilty as the next person of poverty of imagination. Right now, there are so many changes happening at my current workplace that I have been asked by coworkers whether I will be staying to see those changes through, whether I have any other plans that would cause me to jump ship, so to speak. They tell me that the skills and exposure I have gained in my current situation make me extremely marketable as an attorney. They say these things with what looks like a mixture of curiosity and fear in their eyes.<br />
<br />
I told my coworkers that, no, I have no plans to leave until I finish the projects I started.<br />
<br />
And then I broke free from my poverty of imagination and spoke my next phase of life into existence by saying this:<br />
<br />
"But this is my last legal job."<br />
<br />
<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-44734354593780906682017-01-20T20:43:00.002-08:002017-01-20T20:43:43.056-08:00Progressives, Liberals, Democrats and Trump: No Quarter Asked Nor GivenNow that Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States, progressives, liberals and Democrats need to wrap their mind around a wartime concept that violates The Hague Convention:<br />
<br />
No quarter asked nor given.<br />
<br />
What does that mean? According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_quarter">Wikipedia</a>, in war, a victor gives "no quarter" (or takes no prisoners) when the victor shows no clemency or mercy and refuses to spare the life of a vanquished opponent in return for their unconditional surrender. <br />
<br />
No amount of protest or persuasion is going to change the fact that President Trump has no intention of compromising on the more inflammatory ideals he campaigned on -- the wall, repealing Obamacare, not acknowledging climate change, rolling back regulations because they are regulations, a Muslim registry, the deportation of Dreamers.<br />
<br />
Republicans are so drunk with their power that they don't care what ideological compromises they made to get it. They backed a sexist, racist, xenophobic, Islamaphobic candidate without remorse. The President's inaugural speech showed no signs of trying to heal wounds and create an inclusive vision of America. Nope, he played to his base. I don't know what the Republican party stands for anymore. Neither do they.<br />
<br />
But I do know this: Unlike Chrisette Michele, my dignity is not for sale and not for compromise. "No quarter asked nor given" is, for me, a battle cry. I will ask no quarter from this administration and expect none. I expect that the institutions and ideals that President Obama held dear and fought for will be eliminated, undermined, and under constant attack. I expect that no matter who is hurt, especially with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act -- and, dear broke-ass red state people, that means "Obamacare," since you don't know they are one in the same -- President Trump will try to deliver on his populist promises. And the Republican party, with a majority in both houses of Congress, will piggyback on Trump's agenda by adding in their own policy wet dreams -- defunding Planned Parenthood, drilling off the coasts and in Alaska, you name it.<br />
<br />
I intend to do what I said I'd do: Put my family and friends in a position to weather this political storm until 2018 or 2020. I will weather this political storm because I firmly believe in the strength and resilience that was imbued in me by my black parents and in them by their black parents. But I will not attempt to persuade or negotiate with people who share Trump's beliefs for any compromise or, as many have suggested, "get behind the new president." No, this president is unlike any other. I know of no president in my lifetime who came to office by insulting an entire race of people (Mexicans), an entire religion (Islam), a disabled person, women, the free (for now) press, Gold Star parents, even Republican standard bearer John McCain. I don't care how many jobs President Trump promises or delivers, I will not normalize achieving political power by demeaning people based on race, gender, religion -- you know, the same kinds of categories that are protected from discrimination under federal law, at least for now. To do so would be to compromise my dignity, the dignity that my ancestors fought and died for. The dignity that Chrisette Michele sold for $750,000 and won't ever be able to buy back. (Can you tell I'm a disappointed Chrisette Michele fan?)<br />
<br />
I will not normalize the administration of Donald J. Trump. I. Will. Not.<br />
<br />
No quarter asked nor given.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-10848443020322350972016-12-31T13:14:00.001-08:002016-12-31T13:14:59.013-08:00My Prayer and Mantra for 2017 -- Do Not Waste Time on People and Things That Don't MatterIn this era of fake news, fake political candidates, and fake people all around, my prayer and mantra for 2017 is simple: Do not waste time on people and things that don't matter.<br />
<br />
In 2016, I spent too much time and money on things and people who didn't matter. I allowed myself to become distracted by stuff that, for me and Black Man Not Blogging, didn't really matter for our happiness. These distractions not only didn't improve the quality of our life together; they decreased it with additional and unnecessary stress.<br />
<br />
The good news is that, for the most part, we're okay. Yeah, Trump and his ilk really suck, but instead of a lot of hand wringing and commiserating, I'm going to do the one thing my late mother She Who Is Exalted (SWIE) did better than anyone I know: Play the hand you've been dealt. My mother was a black female without a college education and with six kids, so playing the hand she was dealt was her survival skill. Now it will be mine.<br />
<br />
She also didn't spend a lot of time on things or people who didn't matter. She was too focused on her purpose: Raising six children who didn't end up on drugs or in prison. For the most part, she succeeded. To the extent that what someone wanted from her detracted or distracted from her purpose, she really didn't have much time for them. She was too busy playing the hand she was dealt.<br />
<br />
Well, relatively speaking, I've got an even better hand to play. I am educated. My job is pretty secure. I make decent money. I have good health insurance. My elderly father is safe and well cared for. Most of my siblings are retired and living like teenagers with money. There are things I want to see, do, and be while I'm still relatively healthy. I want to enjoy more of the people I love and what I've worked for. I refuse to get my anxiety up over things I can't control.<br />
<br />
I do not want to waste even a second on people and things that don't matter 2017. That is my prayer and my mantra.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year to you and yours. May you also not waste even a second on people and things that don't matter in 2017.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-35942509689324558342016-12-08T23:02:00.000-08:002016-12-08T23:02:55.837-08:00Hillary Clinton Can Stop Trump -- If She Releases Her ElectorsHillary Clinton isn't going to be President of the United States. At least not yet. And not in 2017.<br />
<br />
But she can possibly stop Donald Trump from being President by releasing her pledged electors in the Electoral College to vote for a compromise Republican candidate.<br />
<br />
This is part of the strategy of the <a href="http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/">Hamilton Electors</a>, members of the Electoral College who see that Donald Trump is not qualified to be President. They argue that the Electoral College's role is not to rubber-stamp the popular vote -- which, in this case, would belong to Clinton -- but to serve as a check on the popular vote to make sure that no one who is unfit assumes the office of President.<br />
<br />
According to the Hamilton Electors, named for Founding Father Alexander Hamilton (Yes, he of the very popular musical for which I can't get tickets) Hamilton stated that the Electoral College's test for fitness to be the President was as follows (and I'm quoting):<br />
<br />
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Election of a Qualified Person: As Hamilton stated [in Federalist Papers 68], the purpose was to ensure that “…the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”</i></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Preventing Election of a Demagogue or Charlatan: The Founders did not want a person who would play on public fears and temporary passion to hold the office. Hamilton again: “Talent for low intrigue…may alone suffice to elect a man… but it will require other talents and merit to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union.”</i></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Preventing Election of a President under Foreign Influence: The Founders feared attempts by other countries to orchestrate the election of a person under their influence. The Founders believed, as Hamilton put it, that the decentralized, layered electoral college guarded against foreign nations “…raising a creature of their own to the chief magistry” of the United States.</i></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Clearly, Trump fails all three tests. </span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit;">The strategy of the Hamilton Electors is this: If 38 Republican electors do not vote for Trump when the Electoral College votes on December 19, the election will be in hands of the House of Representatives, which can choose to elect someone else. The Hamilton Electors are not trying to get the Republican electors or Republican members of the House to vote for Hillary, but to join with Democrat electors to choose a qualified Republican candidate. Governor John Kasich has been discussed, although he has publicly declined, as well as Mitt Romney and John McCain. Purportedly, there are as many as 40 Republican members of Congress who are not comfortable with a Trump presidency and would choose another Republican if they could</span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit;">The roadblock: Hillary Clinton.</span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Republican electors are not going to flip unless the Democrat electors flip, too. Yet, Democrat electors may feel loyal to Clinton and want to make history by casting their electoral college votes for the first woman to be nominated by a major party. President Bill Clinton is a Democrat elector for the State of New York.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But desperate times call for desperate measures. And we're running out of time. </span></span><span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig and a California law firm, through an effort called <a href="http://www.electorstrust.org/">The Electors Trust,</a> are providing free, confidential legal advice to electors who want to understand the legal ramifications of breaking their state-imposed "pledge" to vote for the candidate who received the majority vote in their state.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's what you can do:</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1) Donate to the <a href="http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/">Hamilton Electors</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2) Follow the Hamilton Electors on Twitter (@HamiltonElector) and retweet their tweets to your followers with the hashtag #HamiltonElectors. Post a video to social media of </span></span><span style="color: #111111; font-family: inherit;">yourself supporting their effort.</span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3) Spread the word about the Hamilton Electors and their strategy through your other social media outlets.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4) Attend or organize a <a href="http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/find_a_candlelight_vigil">candlelight vigil to stop Trump.</a></span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5) Write or tweet Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) and ask her to release her Democrat electors so that a bipartisan compromise can be reached.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's not too late, but time is running out.</span></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px;">
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hillary Clinton, you could change the course of history. Put your country before your party and your ambitions. Your nation needs you to step up.</span></span></div>
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-83211329335851909752016-11-30T20:12:00.000-08:002016-11-30T20:12:01.371-08:00Smarter, Harder, Blacker: My Guide to Being Black in the Trump Era<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">When
I started to write this, it just wouldn’t flow as easily as previous blog
entries had.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I didn’t like the tone – me
pontificating on what we as black folks need to do to get through the oncoming
Trump era.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I realize now why I didn’t
like the tone:</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;">I’m not qualified to
pontificate on what black folks should do.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Remember,
I’m the <a href="http://blackwomanblogging.blogspot.com/2016/10/november-3-2016-day-without-black_2.html">one who called for a boycott on Colin Kaepernick’s birthday in support of Black Lives Matter,</a> and that fool didn’t even vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bought his jersey and everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Posted a picture of myself on social media
wearing it and taking a knee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Damn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
instead of me telling you, Gentle Readers, what you should be doing to survive
Trumpocalypse as black people, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s not much different than what I am
doing or have already done, if you remember from my blog posts in 2011 about <a href="http://blackwomanblogging.blogspot.com/2011/10/smarter-than-wall-street-my-familys.html">my family’s revolution</a> to be smarter than Wall Street during the Great Recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, let me tell you want I’m not going to
do:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’m
not going to hate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have white family
members I love and conservative friends I like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hate, like guilt, is a pretty useless emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As my husband Black Man Not Blogging said,
“What you saw in this election isn’t hate; it’s fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What passes for hate is really fear.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’m
not going to go all separatist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not
going to give the Trumpeters the pleasure of my retreat from this nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I’m going to get louder, prouder,
and more present than ever before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
the “blacker” part of my strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
I’m not going to be afraid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I come from
people on both sides of my family who are just this side of crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What our ancestors put up with during Jim
Crow, well, we’re just not having it in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our family motto is, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re the kind of people who, if faced with
death by murder, would try to kill our murderer on the way out because we
wouldn’t want to die without getting revenge first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just who we are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">In
that spirit, here’s Black Woman Blogging’s Guide to Being Black in the Trump
Era.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">I.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Black Woman Blogging’s Prime Directive in the
Trump Era:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As much as possible, protect
my family and myself from the effects of racism.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I define racism as the harming or disadvantaging
of someone based solely on their race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That harm or disadvantage can be physical, mental, financial,
educational, or economic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And why am I limiting my efforts to my
family?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I think we as people
either don’t do enough or try to take on too much in advancing our people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If every black person would simply start with
his or her own family, the entire race would be okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Now, I’m not so stupid as to think I can
completely insulate my family from racism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What I can do, however, is reduce the odds and attempt to put them in a
position to withstand it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How so, you
ask?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s where I’m putting my efforts:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Health – to withstand
the stress of the days to come and do the work that’s necessary<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Financial stability and
literacy – to protect against racism in the marketplace<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Education – to overcome or
at least withstand racism in the job market<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Conscientious
consumerism and entrepreneurialism -- to be less vulnerable to racist economic
policies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Supporting and
strengthening the institutions that support and strengthen black people, for
obvious reasons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Staying out of the
criminal justice system – ‘nuff said<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Political engagement –
to police the government and, when possible, shape its laws and policies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Knowing my history<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Spiritual warfare –
because I know where my strength comes from.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">II.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Black Woman Blogging’s
Guiding Principles for Being Black During the Trump Era<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My grandmother, a widowed mother of eight,
survived the Great Depression in the Jim Crow South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She owned her property, she lived off her land as much as possible, and
the entire family pulled together to get out of poverty and leave the Jim Crow
South for California, where greater opportunities existed. She was an educated
woman – she attended Spelman College but had not finished – and she was a
God-fearing woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I come from her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she could raise seven boys and one girl,
not lose a single boy to lynching, and still have enough Christianity in her to
feed homeless white people who came to her back door begging during the Great
Depression, I, with my Ivy League degrees, house in the ‘burbs, 401(k) and
fairly secure government job, can survive the Trump era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The key: Being prepared for the worst but
hopeful for the best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To that end, my
guiding principles during the Great Trumpcession are as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Every tub must set on
its own bottom</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone must prepare to or be able to take
care of himself or herself, and quite possibly others who can’t take care of
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are able-bodied and
between the age of three and retirement, you need to be doing at least one of
three things:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Getting
an education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Working.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Starting
and running a legal business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Some people are going to
get left behind</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how much you encourage, cajole,
teach, preach, cry or yell, there will always be able-bodied family members who
don’t want to take responsibility for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question I ask when trying to help
someone is, “Are they coachable?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not,
I move on to the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are too
many people who are coachable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
Malcolm X acknowledged that some people would be left behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Word.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">If you are able to work,
I’ll teach you to fish, but I won’t give you one</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not trying to support a perfectly healthy
person while I get up every weekday and work for The Man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m willing to help you help yourself, but
I’m not willing to help you mooch off of me if you’re not doing anything to
help yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">III.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Black Woman’s Blogging
Plan for Achieving Her Prime Directive During the Trump Era<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Health</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Black people
are going to be stressed by the unrepentant and audacious expressions of racism
that have become normalized as a result of Trump’s election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stress is a killer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I’m easily prone to anxiety and
physical illness when I’m stressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
goal is to be in the best health possible during the Trump era to do the work
I’m called to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I intend to achieve
better health through healthier eating, regular exercise, rest, meditation,
rejuvenation, mindfulness, and, if necessary, therapy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I said it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therapy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>IMHO, we as black people don’t give mental health the respect it
deserves and we dismiss mental illness of any type as the province of weak
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mental illness runs rampant in
my family and I’m not foolish enough to think I’m immune or that only weak
people have anxiety or depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
I don’t want to have happen is to have to invoke an insanity defense when a
Trump supporter says that one thing that makes me reach for a weapon and then black
out about what happens next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Financial stability and
literacy<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Financial
stability and financial literacy will be weapons, but not absolute shields,
against racism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Trump era will mean
deregulation writ large.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m predicting
the repeal of Dodd-Frank, the rolling back of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, and the resurgence of all the shady financial instruments that led to
the Great Recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2011, Black Man
Not Blogging and I held a series of family meetings and talks titled “Something
to Think About” to promote financial literacy so that our family members, many
of whom lost their homes due to bad mortgages, would not be taken advantage of
again by unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are considering bringing back those talks
and our family sou-sou, but the materials are already on this blog, so they may
not be necessary. We do plan to take those talks to another level – financial
stability -- by teaching anyone in our family who is interested how to get a
civil service job with the State of California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Civil
Service Jobs with the State of California<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Why a civil
service State job, you ask?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
during the Great Recession, the State of California laid off, for the most
part, only non-essential positions – temporary positions, student positions,
retired annuitants—and furloughed the rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, we State workers got paid less for the duration of the furloughs,
but we kept our jobs and, more importantly, our benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, the benefits paid, regular raises,
opportunities for advancement, and civil service protections against capricious
termination make civil service State work appealing in tumultuous times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, banks and lenders are more willing
to lend to State workers because their jobs are considered more secure than
other jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My goal is to get everyone in
my family who wants such a job hired within the next two years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Home
Ownership<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My second
financial stability goal for my family is to get as many adult members of my
family as possible owning their own homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As my uncle put it, renting is just another form of sharecropping,
putting you at the mercy of your landlord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You cannot control your housing costs if you don’t own your own home,
and you can be subject to housing discrimination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those very family members who lost their
homes in the Great Recession? They are the ones I want to help get back into
home ownership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Sitting
Out the Stock Market – For Now<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
Idiot-Elect still hasn’t gotten a lid on his tweeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he doesn’t understand or doesn’t care
about is that a single flippant statement from the Leader of the Free World can
make markets drop in an instant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talking
about trade wars with Mexico and China doesn’t help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember when the stock market dropped in
1987 and my law school professors fled their classrooms to talk to their
brokers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve worked too hard to regain
the ground I lost in my 401(k) during the Great Recession to lose those gains
in a volatile Trump market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Jim
Cramer, I don’t think the current “Trump Rally” is going to last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, as Jim Cramer says, “Bears make money,
bulls make money, pigs get slaughtered.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve achieved a very healthy return on my 401(k) investments since the
Great Recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m cashing out the stocks in my 401(k) and
sitting on the sidelines until I figure out how crazy our future POTUS really
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d rather not lose money than hope
that I will make money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not going to
be a pig about this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Paying
Off Credit Card Debt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I have more credit card debt that I’m
comfortable with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My goal is to get it
all paid off by the end of Trump’s first and only term. My dad always says that
debt is just another form of slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Word.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Education<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">In my view, education is going to be
indispensable for the next generation to be competitive in the job market, to
be critical thinkers capable of seeing through Trump’s rhetoric, and to
understand the effects of Trump’s policies on black people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Black Man Not Blogging and I have taken it
upon ourselves to provide advice, and, when possible, financial support to the
young people in our family who want to go to college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have provided tutoring, supplemental
educational materials, and insight on the college application process and
preparing for college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will continue
working to ensure that the young people in our family – and some of the older
ones, too – who want to go to college can do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">We don’t believe solely in college education as
the only means of advancement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vocational education, trades, you name it – if it will help someone in
our family get a stable job and earn a livable wage, we’re down to help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Conscientious
consumerism and entrepreneurialism<o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: large;">My intention
during the Trump era is be conscientious about how and where I spend my money and
to get my side hustle on so that I can do what I’ve encouraged others to do –
to have more than one source of income.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">In terms of
conscientious consumerism, I’m going to be a lot more careful about the
corporations with which I spend my money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I will be spending a lot less at companies that supported Trump and more
with those that didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not going to
work hard only for my money to be an instrument of racism, sexism, and any
other of the isms to which our President-Elect is prone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’m also
going to try to consume less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been
pretty good at shopping at thrift stores, clipping coupons, and keeping my
costs low.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just going to do less
consuming of stuff and possibly more consuming of experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experiences, like travel, make me happy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And when I
do buy stuff, I’m going to actively seek out black businesses first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tend to do this with brick-and-mortar black
business, but not as much with internet black businesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No more. I know better and intend to do
better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">As for
entrepreneurialism, I’ve got an iron in the fire for a new venture which should
be taking off before the new year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep
your fingers crossed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would encourage
everyone to have more than one source of income. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Supporting and
Strengthening the Institutions That Support and Strengthen Black People<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Every year,
I receive a call from Harvard Law School asking for a donation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Every year I am asked to do admissions interviews for Princeton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I usually do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But even without my minimal donations and participation, these
institutions will endure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have, for
hundreds of years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’ve decided
to redirect my giving to those institutions that support and strengthen black
people because those institutions may be under attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So instead of donating to Harvard Law, I will
donate to an HBCU or the NAACP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead
of doing admissions interviews for Princeton, I will direct my time towards
other institutions that support and strengthen my people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mind you, I’m not anti-Harvard or
anti-Princeton, but as I learned from my parents, you give where the need is.
All things black are now targets for unrepentant racists thanks to Mr. Trump,
and they may remain so for a long time to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they’re not going down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
on my watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Staying Out of the
Criminal Justice System<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I definitely
intend to stay out of the criminal justice system, but I also intend to keep
those I love out of it, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I voted for
California’s Proposition 64 not because I love weed – I hate it, actually – but
because of the provisions that allow for the expungement of criminal
convictions for possession of marijuana that would now be legal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will have “that talk” with young people on
what to do if they get arrested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will
make myself available to help with expungements for my family members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I will keep my criminal defense attorneys
on speed dial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, any attorney worth
his or her salt has a criminal defense attorney friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Political Engagement –
To Police the Government and, When Possible, Shape Its Laws and Policies</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">More than at
any time during my existence, I am compelled to become politically engaged
because our federal government is in the control of liars, demagogues, and
those who stand for no principles whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve watched as people who rightly called out candidate Trump during the
campaign have now deigned to entertain joining his administration or have
joined it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve seen how the press has
woken up too late to the normalizing of Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia and
attacks on fundamental rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, more
than ever, I am compelled to get and remain politically engaged, to raise my
voice, to write this blog, to march, to support Black Lives Matter, and to
stand up for those who would be the targets of Trump’s toadies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of my approach in this regard is to tell
people what they can do when they or their family is subject to discrimination
in their schools, places of work, or public accommodations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to law school to become a civil rights
lawyer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although that is not my field of
legal practice, I will be using my legal training to inform people who are
under attack because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or place of
birth of their legal rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be
writing opposition letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will call
out racists, sexists, homophobes and xenophobes when they show their bias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I won’t be is silent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Knowing My History<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I know I draw great
strength from learning black history and critical race theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more I learn, the stronger I feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I think of all that my ancestors came
through, I can’t help but know that I’ll get through the Trump era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll be dusting off all of my Derrick Bell
books, Bayard Rustin’s writings, Dr. King’s speeches, and black history tomes
and immersing myself in the strength of my people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Spiritual Warfare – Because
I Know Where My Strength Comes From.<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I don’t have
a church home, but I hope to find one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I don’t need a church home to wage spiritual warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve heard it said that there is nothing more
powerful than a child of God with a made up mind, and that’s what I intend to
become during the Trump era and beyond – a spiritual warrior on the side of
righteousness, justice, equality and fairness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although I respect the right of atheists and agnostics to not believe, I
can’t imagine having the strength to deal with what is to come without a belief
in a higher power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know in the days to
come I will be called to stand up not only for myself, but for others who can’t
stand up for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve already
had to do this with my own Facebook family. Knowing that I’m doing the right
thing and that God has my back makes it so much easier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">All
in all, the days ahead will prove to be challenging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m up for the challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
had a conversation with my 91 year-old dad, who has dementia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I try to bring him good news about how our
family is doing well and moving forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My father’s eyes have seen far worse than what Trump and his people are
capable of inflicting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were talking
about Trump, and he became very serious, saying, “Black people .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . we have to be strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to be prepared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to keep on moving forward.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
replied, “Because we’re not going back.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt;">He
chuckled, “Oh no. We ARE NOT going back.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-86117193525328228442016-10-02T14:01:00.001-07:002016-10-03T09:43:09.978-07:00November 3, 2016, A Day Without Black People: A National Strike & Boycott In Support of Colin Kaepernick & Black Lives Matter<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"<i>Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."</i></span></div>
<div>
~ Maya Angelou</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
I will be participating in what I hope will become a nationwide strike and boycott by all black Americans and our supporters on November 3, 2016, Colin Kaepernick's 29th birthday, in support of Colin Kaepernick's protest and Black Lives Matter. Let's call it "A Day Without Black People."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On November 3, 2016, I will not be going to work. That's the strike. I will also not be spending any money. That's the boycott. If I had children, I would keep them out of school. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Clearly the problems of African Americans -- injustice and murder at the hands of the criminal justice system -- are considered aberrations and not AMERICAN problems. We're told to leave if we don't like America and that Kaepernick's protest is unpatriotic and anti-military. Clearly America doesn't see African Americans as Americans. America doesn't see our problems as American problems. America doesn't see anything wrong with how we are treated in America.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I think America needs to know what America it looks like without black people, if only for a day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I understand that not everyone has the luxury of taking a day off work. Here's what you can do if you can't afford to take the day off:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) If you can't strike, don't spend any money that day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2) Take a selfie of yourself taking a knee -- wearing Kaepernick's jersey if you can -- and post it on your social media with one or more of these hashtags:</div>
<div>
#ADayWithoutBlackPeople </div>
<div>
#TakingAKneeOnNovemberThree </div>
<div>
#QuarterbackForJustice </div>
<div>
#BlackOut</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
3) Have a moment of silence in your workplace or home for all of the black lives lost at the hands of the police and vigilantes like George Zimmerman. Say their names and pray for them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4) If you must spend money, write "Black Lives Matter" on your bills when you spend them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
5) Tell everyone on social media that you support A Day Without Black People, even if you aren't black and/or can't take the day off.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
6) Have the conversation with co-workers, family and friends about Kaepernick's protest. Here are some talking points when you hear the usual arguments:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
a) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument;</u> It's disrespectful to not stand for the national anthem.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer: </u></b> The NFL only began playing the national anthem consistently when the military started sponsoring military displays at NFL games. The Supreme Court has upheld as constitutional the right not to salute the flag or engage in shows of patriotism. When a nation does not live up to its own standards, the people have a right to peacefully protest to hold the nation accountable. That is what Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter are doing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
b) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument:</u> If you don't like America, you should leave.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer:</u></b> As African Americans, we are a stolen people in a stolen country. The only people who have the right to tell anyone they should leave American are Native Americans. Besides, the blood and sweat of our ancestors built this country and the economy on whose backs your people profited. If anyone should leave, it is the slavers and their ancestors, not the stolen and enslaved and their ancestors.</div>
<div>
I believe in my country and the ideas for which it stands, including equal justice under law. I most certainly will not leave, but will stay and make my country live up to its values. If everyone left when the country fell short of living up to its values, the country would fall apart. Right now, my country is not living up to its values.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
c) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument:</u> Kaepernick should do his protest on his own time.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer:</u></b> What Kaepernick is doing is not illegal, and he is doing it peacefully. Would you be saying the same thing if you agreed with what he is protesting for?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll be the first to admit: I supported what Colin Kaepernick was protesting for, but I didn't support his method, or the method of Black Lives Matter, for that matter. I felt that a protest without a clear goal, e.g., the end of a war, the passage of legislation, would be never-ending and ineffective. Given the backlash against Kaepernick -- calling him unpatriotic, saying that if he doesn't like America he should leave, saying he should just shut up and play -- I believe that the effort to silence Kaepernick is an effort to silence all black people. It takes a lot for a young black man to be as courageous as Kaepernick is being and take the heat for it. So here is my individual effort to be as courageous as Colin Kaepernick for all my people. Instead of being a drum major for justice like Dr. King told us we could be, let's support Colin Kaepernick and be quarterbacks for justice.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
See you -- or rather, I won't be seeing you -- on November 3.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
#ADayWithoutBlackPeople </div>
<div>
#TakingAKneeOnNovemberThree </div>
<div>
#QuarterbackForJustice </div>
<div>
#BlackOut</div>
</div>
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-42544200068411283722016-10-02T14:01:00.000-07:002016-10-03T09:42:39.383-07:00November 3, 2016, A Day Without Black People: A National Strike & Boycott In Support of Colin Kaepernick & Black Lives Matter<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"<i>Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."</i></span></div>
<div>
~ Maya Angelou</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
I will be participating in what I hope will become a nationwide strike and boycott by all black Americans and our supporters on November 3, 2016, Colin Kaepernick's 29th birthday, in support of Colin Kaepernick's protest and Black Lives Matter. Let's call it "A Day Without Black People."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On November 3, 2016, I will not be going to work. That's the strike. I will also not be spending any money. That's the boycott. If I had children, I would keep them out of school. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Clearly the problems of African Americans -- injustice and murder at the hands of the criminal justice system -- are considered aberrations and not AMERICAN problems. We're told to leave if we don't like America and that Kaepernick's protest is unpatriotic and anti-military. Clearly America doesn't see African Americans as Americans. America doesn't see our problems as American problems. America doesn't see anything wrong with how we are treated in America.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I think America needs to know what America it looks like without black people, if only for a day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I understand that not everyone has the luxury of taking a day off work. Here's what you can do if you can't afford to take the day off:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) If you can't strike, don't spend any money that day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2) Take a selfie of yourself taking a knee -- wearing Kaepernick's jersey if you can -- and post it on your social media with one or more of these hashtags:</div>
<div>
#ADayWithoutBlackPeople </div>
<div>
#TakingAKneeOnNovemberThree </div>
<div>
#QuarterbackForJustice </div>
<div>
#BlackOut</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
3) Have a moment of silence in your workplace or home for all of the black lives lost at the hands of the police and vigilantes like George Zimmerman. Say their names and pray for them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4) If you must spend money, write "Black Lives Matter" on your bills when you spend them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
5) Tell everyone on social media that you support A Day Without Black People, even if you aren't black and/or can't take the day off.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
6) Have the conversation with co-workers, family and friends about Kaepernick's protest. Here are some talking points when you hear the usual arguments:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
a) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument;</u> It's disrespectful to not stand for the national anthem.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer: </u></b> The NFL only began playing the national anthem consistently when the military started sponsoring military displays at NFL games. The Supreme Court has upheld as constitutional the right not to salute the flag or engage in shows of patriotism. When a nation does not live up to its own standards, the people have a right to peacefully protest to hold the nation accountable. That is what Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter are doing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
b) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument:</u> If you don't like America, you should leave.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer:</u></b> As African Americans, we are a stolen people in a stolen country. The only people who have the right to tell anyone they should leave American are Native Americans. Besides, the blood and sweat of our ancestors built this country and the economy on whose backs your people profited. If anyone should leave, it is the slavers and their ancestors, not the stolen and enslaved and their ancestors.</div>
<div>
I believe in my country and the ideas for which it stands, including equal justice under law. I most certainly will not leave, but will stay and make my country live up to its values. If everyone left when the country fell short of living up to its values, the country would fall apart. Right now, my country is not living up to its values.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
c) <u style="font-weight: bold;">Argument:</u> Kaepernick should do his protest on his own time.</div>
<div>
<b><u>Answer:</u></b> What Kaepernick is doing is not illegal, and he is doing it peacefully. Would you be saying the same thing if you agreed with what he is protesting for?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll be the first to admit: I supported what Colin Kaepernick was protesting for, but I didn't support his method, or the method of Black Lives Matter, for that matter. I felt that a protest without a clear goal, e.g., the end of a war, the passage of legislation, would be never-ending and ineffective. Given the backlash against Kaepernick -- calling him unpatriotic, saying that if he doesn't like America he should leave, saying he should just shut up and play -- I believe that the effort to silence Kaepernick is an effort to silence all black people. It takes a lot for a young black man to be as courageous as Kaepernick is being and take the heat for it. So here is my individual effort to be as courageous as Colin Kaepernick for all my people. Instead of being a drum major for justice like Dr. King told us we could be, let's support Colin Kaepernick and be quarterbacks for justice.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
See you -- or rather, I won't be seeing you -- on November 3.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
#ADayWithoutBlackPeople </div>
<div>
#TakingAKneeOnNovemberThree </div>
<div>
#QuarterbackForJustice </div>
<div>
#BlackOut</div>
</div>
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-10557544683752449992016-09-30T22:46:00.002-07:002016-09-30T22:46:07.767-07:00Shit Gets Real At FortyDear Gentle Readers,<br />
<br />
If you don't learn anything else from my many years of musings, learn this:<br />
<br />
Shit gets real at forty. <br />
<br />
No. For real.<br />
<br />
Here's what I mean: If you are the average American, by the time you hit forty, your children are probably halfway to adulthood or in early adulthood. You may be paying for their college education or trying to help them get established in a job or an apartment or anywhere that isn't your home. And you may or may not be succeeding. Or you may be stressing about how you will pay for their college education because, unlike when I came up, parents are more frequently having to take out private loans to pay for their children's educations.<br />
<br />
If you are the average American, at forty your parents are probably alive but getting older. You start to realize that they aren't immortal or invincible. If they haven't planned for their retirement, you're justifiably concerned. If they are infirm, you're more than concerned. You're worried -- worried how long they can continue to live on their own and whether they will have sufficient health insurance to cover them.<br />
<br />
If you are the average American, at forty you're staring down retirement within the next two and a half decades regardless of whether you have your own financial shit together, because time just marches on whether you have your shit together or not. Even if you want to work past 67, you have to plan for the fact that you may not be healthy enough to do so. If you are the average American, at forty you probably don't have enough set aside to retire by 67. You may not even like your current job or your career path, but you're feeling vulnerable because you're officially within the group of workers subject to age discrimination.<br />
<br />
In other words, at forty, you become the meaty center of a stress sandwich.<br />
<br />
When I look at younger people in my family who are approaching or passing forty, I wonder if they really appreciate the position they're in and how they're on the clock to deal with what awaits them.<br />
<br />
I got married five days before my fortieth birthday. A month after my wedding, I was officially unemployed. After moving back and forth between practicing and teaching law with not much to show for it financially, I had to make a paradigm shift, as Black Man Not Blogging would call it. The one thing I knew how to do was to get a state government job, like my parents and my material grandmother before me. I consciously chose job security -- because you have to be an absolute idiot to get fired from a rank-and-file job with the State of California -- financial security, and a pension over career passion and excitement, at least for the short term. Somehow, passion wasn't getting me where I wanted to be financially, and when I thought about how much I didn't have for retirement, I wasn't particularly excited. I was willing to make some short-term sacrifices to get on the path to financial security and personal peace. Over time, I was able to find a state government position that I enjoy with all the financial and retirement security I so sorely need. It has come in handy. I've been called to help out others financially, and I have been blessed to have been able to do so.<br />
<br />
My advice to anyone who is staring down forty is this: Stop. Take stock of where you are, where you want to be, and who you are going to be responsible for. Don't deny the truth of your situation, no matter how ugly it may be. Be willing to make some sacrifices in the short term for long-term goals. Be flexible. I'm not saying dump your dreams, but be willing to find other ways to achieve them while shoring up your financial position and your retirement. Assume that you won't have anyone to help you financially in old age, because that may in fact end up being the case. If your current path isn't working for you financially or spiritually, find a different way.<br />
<br />
Shit gets real at forty, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-36102186712934613962016-07-19T20:14:00.001-07:002016-07-19T20:14:34.720-07:00If Black People Embrace The Underwood Doctrine, Cops Will Be Killed**WARNING: SPOIL ALERT FOR THE END OF SEASON FOUR OF "HOUSE OF CARDS."**<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dWnT3JUmwXc/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dWnT3JUmwXc?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>"We don't submit to terror. We make the terror." </i>Frank Underwood, "House of Cards"<br />
<i><br /></i>
I'm a huge fan of Netflix's original series, including the original original series, "House of Cards." I think the writing is unsurpassed and Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright insufficiently acknowledged for their extraordinary work.<br />
<br />
In the last episode of Season Four of "House of Cards," the context of which I won't discuss, both Frank and Claire Underwood look into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, while Frank declares, "We don't submit to terror. We make the terror."<br />
<br />
I would call this the "Underwood Doctrine." At least two blacks, one in Dallas and one in Baton Rouge, have embraced it.<br />
<br />
From slavery to now, there has always been a contingent of my race that has believed that violence is an all-too-appropriate response to violence against us. If you think of African Americans -- or any Americans, for that matter -- on what I would call a violence acceptance spectrum, I would say that, at one end of the spectrum, there are the violence acceptors, followed by the violence sympathizers, the violence understanders, and the violence rejectors.<br />
<br />
The violence acceptors, especially the two black men who shot police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, embraced the Underwood Doctrine. One could call into question their mental stability, but I would venture to argue that not all violence acceptors are unstable. Violence acceptors have no problem with retaliating against those who are part of the group who terrorize, even if such individuals have done no wrong themselves.<br />
<br />
The violence sympathizers won't personally engage in retaliatory violence, but they support those who do. They might even post bail for them, mount a legal defense for them, seek mercy for them. They believe the retaliatory violence is justified. The violence sympathizers might use violence in self-defense, but they won't use it in retaliation against those who have not directly harmed them.<br />
<br />
The violence understanders don't agree with violence in retaliation for violence, but they understand those who do. They seek to explain to those who don't understand retaliatory violence how the violence acceptors got to the point where they feel retaliatory violence is justified.<br />
<br />
Finally, the violence rejectors reject violence of all kinds against anyone. Dr. King was a violence rejector.<br />
<br />
The problem is that with each unjustified killing of an unarmed black person by police officers or vigilantes like George Zimmerman, the more the rejectors become understanders, the understanders become sympathizers, and the sympathizers become acceptors. The more black people become acceptors, the more likely we will not submit to police terror, but make the terror instead.<br />
<br />
Or as my 91 year-old dad so aptly put it in the haze of his dementia, "We ain't gonna lay down this time."<br />
<br />
As I see the Black Lives Matter movement being demonized as a hate group even though no one involved with Black Lives Matter has picked up a gun and killed police, I ask that we talk about the hate that got us where we are today, where black lives can be extinguished by fearful, racist police officers and vigilantes -- of all races, mind you -- without justification, explanation, condemnation, or consolation from the people doing the killing.<br />
<br />
America, you got some 'splainin to do, as they say in the South. But stop blaming Black Lives Matter. Your hate and fear made Black Lives Matter not just possible, but necessary.<br />
<br />
America, what you need to fear more than you fear us is to fear us armed. Fear us making runs on gun stores like you do every time gun control legislation is introduced. Fear us becoming Nat Turner radicalized, especially in open carry states. Fear us at the gun ranges, preparing to retaliate.<br />
<br />
Fear us putting real context to the faux "All Lives Matter" movement, with police officers' lives being extinguished without justification, explanation, condemnation, or consolation from black people.<br />
<br />
Fear us embracing the Underwood Doctrine.<br />
<br />
I do.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-90057549105051921062016-06-02T22:25:00.000-07:002016-06-02T22:25:28.345-07:00The GOP and Donald Trump: Fart Lighting the American Electorate<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Gas lighting: <b style="color: #252525;">Gaslighting</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;"> or </span><b style="color: #252525;">gas-lighting</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;"> is a form of </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_abuse" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Mental abuse">mental abuse</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;"> in which a victim is manipulated into doubting their own </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Memory">memory</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;">, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Perception">perception</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525;">, and </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanity" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Sanity">sanity</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Fart lighting: A form of gasligthting when someone does something really offensive, e.g., farting, pretends that the offensive act did not occur, and tries to manipulate the memory of others who witnessed it.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was dismayed to hear that Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed Donald Trump today. Given the Speaker's past interracial romantic relationship with a black woman, I thought he might be cooler than that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He isn't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What troubles me most about the GOP now rallying around Donald Trump is that they either want the rest of us to forget the racist, sexist and xenophobic comments he's made and continues to make, or they just don't care if we're offended. They're not a deal breaker for the GOP as long as Trump beats Clinton.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The GOP's willingness to rally around Trump because of commonality on other issues, such as abortion rights (and since when did Donald Trump become the standard bearer for the pro-life movement? Like, uh, yesterday?) means that, to their mind and the minds of their party members, unmitigated and unrepentant racism, sexism and xenophobia are not disqualifiers for holding the highest office in the Free World. This is despite the fact that the very nation the GOP wants to lead is increasingly diverse, so much so that states like California are made up of a majority of people of color. As Bob Scheiffer of CBS news put it, there aren't enough white people to make up for the minority votes the GOP will lose with Trump.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Where the fart lighting comes in, and you can thank me for the new turn of phrase, is in the GOP's not even acknowledging that these comments were made. It's like when someone farts in a room such that everyone heard it and smelled it, but the farting party continues to pretend like it never happened. What's worse -- they will deny that it happened if you call them on it and blame it on you instead. Kinda like the way Donald Trump turns the table on the press and insults them when they seek to hold him accountable for his words or his record.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even more insulting to the increasingly diverse American electorate is that the GOP has in no way tried to explain away or apologize for the offensive remarks Trump has made. It's as if the remarks don't matter, the people offended by the remarks don't matter, or both.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As one of my cousins often writes on Facebook, GTFOOH. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am a member of a predominantly African-American sorority whose founders marched for the equal rights of women of all races to vote. I am a member of a race whose people marched, sat in and died for the equality and dignity of all races. I am an affirmative action baby whose potential was realized because of the sacrifices of generations who came before me. I am highly educated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I will not be fart lighted or gas lighted. I will not forget Trump calling Mexicans rapists, denigrating women, and painting all Muslims as terrorists. The more the GOP wants to fart light me and pretend those words were never spoken by Trump or that they don't matter, the more I will speak up and put my money where my mouth is by donating to the DNC. If the GOP is determined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a racist, sexist and xenophobic candidate, I will not remain mute. I will call them out on their choice. To my mind, standing with Trump is no better than standing with David Duke.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I will be neither fart lighted or gas lighted when it comes to Donald Trump. My ancestors and all who sacrificed for my freedom and equality under the law deserve more from me.</span>blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-86410169119882983652016-04-21T17:14:00.000-07:002016-04-21T20:33:36.821-07:00The End of the Purple Reign (Prince Rogers Nelson, May He Rest in Purple Peace)I was just leaving my sister <a href="http://www.escribadiva.blogspot.com/">The Writing Diva's </a> job when she called me on my cell phone. I was thinking I left something behind. In less than a breath, she said:<br />
<br />
"Prince died."<br />
<br />
I asked, "Prince the musician?" <br />
<br />
She replied, "Yes."<br />
<br />
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"<br />
<br />
I was shocked. Last I heard, he had just briefly come off his "Piano and a Microphone" tour to battle the flu. He was, to my mind, young. He had always seemed fit. I figured I'd catch him the next time around. Now here I am, learning the same lesson I learned when Etta James and Ray Charles died -- go see the artists you love while they're still living.<br />
<br />
And I blame Kimberly Hancock for all of it. She introduced me to Prince's music, which was the slow death of my innocence and the birth of my appreciation of his genius.<br />
<br />
Kimberly Hancock was my age and my race and lived down the street from me in the 1970's. As I recall, she introduced me to Prince when we were both preteens. She gushed over how cute he was, cute as the Sylvers. I questioned her taste, since every teenage black girl knew that the Jacksons where way cuter than the Sylvers. She had a copy of his first album, "For You." I'm pretty certain she played "Soft and Wet" for me.<br />
<br />
I. Was. Hooked.<br />
<br />
For starters, even as a kid, I'd always been a sucker for a good bass line. "Soft and Wet' was like nothing I had heard before. But what got me, more than the falsetto, more than the bass line, were the album credits. Yes, I was THAT kid who read album credits, even as a preteen. I was the kid who had to know what instrument was making the sound of a tennis ball being hit on Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." (Moog synthesizer, if I recall correctly).<br />
<br />
The album credits stated that all the instruments were played by Prince. All the songs were written, arranged and produced by Prince, with the exception of "Soft and Wet," for which he shared a writing credit, I think.<br />
<br />
There was only one musician, one artist, one person I knew of at that time who wrote all his own songs, played all his own instruments, and produced and arranged his own music: Stevie Wonder.<br />
<br />
That's when I knew Prince was a genius. He was a musical badass before there was even a name for it.<br />
<br />
But, my oh my, was he taking an early toll on my innocence.<br />
<br />
I fell hard for what sounded like synthesized bass lines in "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and "Head." It wasn't until I started college at Stanford when my friends, who took great joy in bursting my innocence, explained what exactly was "soft and wet," what the double entendre in "I Wanna Be Your Lover" meant -- "I wanna be the only one you come for" -- and explained what "Head" was talking about, to which I responded, "EEEUUUWWW!"<br />
<br />
By the time "Controversy" came out, I didn't care whether Prince was black or white, straight or gay. No one did. We were having too much fun dancing to his music.<br />
<br />
It was after "Controversy" came out that I went to my first concert ever (Did I tell you I had a very sheltered childhood in Sacramento?) with my college friends to see Prince, The Time and Vanity Six at the Oakland Coliseum. It was and remains the best concert I've ever attended, with each act trying to outdo the other and none being able to hold a candle to Prince. <br />
<br />
I remember seeing the movie "Purple Rain" and thinking that although the acting was okay, the music was phenomenal. I wondered how autobiographical it was and felt saddened by what I thought might have been Prince's life before stardom. I know I was shocked that he won an Oscar for the song "Purple Rain." More shocked than I was when Isaac Hayes won for the theme from "Shaft." To put it mildly, I thought of Prince's music as a black thing, and I didn't think white folks were ready for him just yet.<br />
<br />
I was wrong. So wrong.<br />
<br />
I'll admit it -- over the years, I didn't buy all of his albums. He was simply too damn prolific and I couldn't keep up. But every once in a while a song would just hit me and I'd have to have it. What I adored most about Prince was that, through all his phases and changes, including the symbol phase, his music was unmistakably his. He wasn't trying to be anyone but himself. He didn't chase trends; he made them. Even the rise of hip-hop didn't shake his game as it did other stars of the 1980's. When he wrote "slave" on his cheek and tried to get out of his contract with Warner Brothers. I rooted for him. I thought, "Why shouldn't he have the full benefit of his genius? He's Prince!"<br />
<br />
Prince was generous with his genius, sharing his spotlight with the likes of Mavis Staples, Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes ("Betcha By Golly Wow" video, anyone?) and the most unlikely Sheena Easton. Yes, Sheena Easton, of "Morning Train" fame. I loved "U Got The Look" because it was so unexpected and yet danceable, taking her game to a higher level. I also doubt that Sheila E''s "Glamorous Life" would have happened but for Prince. When she kicked that high hat with her foot in the video? All I could think was, "Well damn!" Thanks, Prince.<br />
<br />
My musical memories of Prince are too many to name. My favorite songs tend toward the early ones, like "How Come U Don't Call Me," which I first heard performed by Stephanie Mills. It is still timeless because you hear the black church influence in it. Another is "Little Red Corvette." Yes, it was yet another nail in the coffin of whatever was left of my innocence, but that song was straight up feminist. In that song, Prince portrayed a woman who totally owned her sexuality and pursued sex for sex's sake without commitment or fear of judgment. Her sexuality clearly intimidated the narrator in the song -- "I guess I should have closed my eyes when you drove me to the place where your horses run free . . . I felt a little ill when I saw all the pictures of the jockey who were there before me . . . . " To my mind, it was the first musical acknowledgement that women's sexuality could mirror that of men, that women were sexual beings without guilt or shame, even though the narrator warns that she "needs a love that's going to last." Thanks, Prince.<br />
<br />
When I was going through my very bad dating phase during the 1990's, the chorus to Prince's "Anotherloverholenyohead" became my anthem: "You need another lover . . .like you need a hole in your head." It was so true. I needed to do what I eventually did -- stop dating, regroup, and figure out what I really needed in a man, as opposed to what I wanted. Once I became clear, I found that what I really needed I had had all along: Black Man Not Blogging. We reconciled in 2001 and married in 2003. Thanks, Prince.<br />
<br />
But my favorite Prince song? "Kiss," and for one reason and one reason only: My late mom.<br />
<br />
I love the song's lyrical nod to grown women, "Women, not girls, rule my world." But "Kiss" means so much more to me. You see, my mom worked really hard trying to house, clothe and feed six children and keep us in school and out of trouble. She loved music, but she didn't always embrace what we kids listened to. She certainly didn't embrace our dances. Saturdays were her time to catch up on her housework and listen to her music while doing so. Watching my mom, a middle-aged, short, chubby woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, pushing her Hoover vacuum cleaner on a Saturday morning when Prince's "Kiss" came on? Priceless. When the bridge begins with Prince declaring, "Think I wanna dance," my mom would break out into what can best be described as her "mom dance." She didn't care how out of date it was. She didn't care what anyone thought. She was just having a good time, dancing along with Prince, just as joyful as she could be. It is one of the happiest musical memories I have of my mom.<br />
<br />
And for that, I am forever grateful to Kimberly Hancock and to Prince Rogers Nelson, may he rest in purple peace.<br />
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blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-75173004701809626502016-02-20T22:49:00.001-08:002016-02-20T22:49:45.597-08:00Godspeed, Nelle Harper Lee, and Thank YouI was sorry to hear of the passing of Nelle Harper Lee, author of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Go Set A Watchman," and otherwise known by her pen name, Harper Lee. What a weird coincidence that an author who artfully exposed America's racist underbelly passed during the same week of the passing of a U.S. Supreme Court justice who seemed oblivious to his replication of said underbelly in word and legal decisions.<br />
<br />
I am a member of the "TKAM" cult. I am the daughter of a black Southerner and briefly lived in the South. Lee's book confirmed the stories I would hear from my Southern dad and relatives about the precarious position of African Americans in the Jim Crow South. The major difference between my father's childhood in the 1930's Jim Crow South and what is portrayed in TKAM is that the Atticus Finches of the world were few and very, very far between in his childhood home of Gould, Arkansas. <br />
<br />
I can't say that I was inspired by the character of Atticus Finch to become a lawyer; I was already well on my way on the path to becoming a lawyer by the time I read TKAM, or at least I was in my mind. What I found oddly comforting about TKAM is that it confirmed the stories my dad had sometimes inadvertently shared about his childhood, which he occasionally let slip but tried mostly to shield us kids from in our lives in what he called his "Promised Land," California. He didn't want to bring the South and its Jim Crow past with him into our lives that were relatively untainted by racism, but sometimes he let things slip. He wanted better for us. He still does.<br />
<br />
But Nelle Harper Lee gave me a greater appreciation of how precarious my father's existence as a black boy in the 1930's Jim Crow South had been, long before Isabel Wilkerson would write "The Warmth of Other Suns." I'm grateful that TKAM was assigned reading. May it forever remain so.<br />
<br />
When "The Mockingbird Next Door" came out, I was thrilled to learn more about this lady who had confirmed what I had heard of my father's childhood. She courageously put America's racist predilections front and center in the form of a YA novel that the South could at once claim proudly as stellar writing in the Southern literary tradition and disclaim falsely as aberrational in its portrayal of Southern race relations. There would be no sequel, no sophomore effort, at least none she would speak of. I had to know more about this woman who wrote one of the best novels of the twentieth century.<br />
<br />
Before I got around to reading "The Mockingbird Next Door," word came that her novel that preceded TKAM, "Go Set A Watchman," was "discovered" and would be published, allegedly with her permission. I planned a weekend of literary excess around its publication: I would read "The Mockingbird Next Door," then "Go Set A Watchman," and then re-read TKAM. TKAM was indeed the sophomore effort. "Watchman" was her first novel that was never published on the advice of her editor, who counseled her to write something more positive than TKAM. After reading "Watchman," I understood why.<br />
<br />
Contrary to the Amazon reviews bashing "Watchman" because of the questionable circumstances under which it was published, I loved it. I loved it because I realized what courage it took for Lee to write it when she wrote it. I loved it because in this era when people finally have a name for the concept of white privilege, Scout was having a philosophical discussion about it and white supremacy with Atticus and about his role in preserving them, a role that Atticus fans could not have imagined from his portrayal in TKAM and Gregory Peck's film portrayal of Atticus.<br />
<br />
Simply put, given the racial upheaval happening in the South when Lee wrote "Watchman," had it been published when she wrote it, I am confident that Lee would have met up with a terrible end. White Southerners intent on preserving their "way of life," i.e., white supremacy, had already rallied 'round the Confederate flag, literally, when Lee put pen to paper to write her first novel. I am confident white Southerners would not have countenanced one of their own exposing them in such a manner. TKAM made racial oppression in the South look like something that Southern whites of good will would not support, when in fact it was most often the other way around -- racial oppression was something the majority of southern Whites, of good will and otherwise, did and would support.<br />
<br />
And Atticus? He didn't support racial oppression, but he sure did believe in white supremacy. And to a lesser degree, so did Scout. Go read for yourself if you haven't already.<br />
<br />
No matter how she told it, in TKAM and "Watchman," Nelle Harper Lee told the truth about race and racism in the South without flinching. She told the truth in a manner that made white Americans reckon with that truth and feel good doing so because of her craft in telling a good story. Because of her own white Southern privilege, she was considered a credible witness.<br />
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For that, Nelle Harper Lee, I thank you. Godspeed and rest in peace.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-61140926899922503872016-01-07T23:15:00.000-08:002016-01-07T23:15:24.992-08:00"Hi, Black Woman Blogging. This Is the Universe Calling."There are times when I feel like the universe is calling, leading me in a different direction. Now is one of those times.<br />
<br />
During the holidays, I received a call from a dear old friend. We studied for the bar exam together, struggled in misfit jobs early in our careers, and attended each other's weddings. We talk from time to time, and we pick up right where we left off without missing a beat.<br />
<br />
I told my dear fried that I wanted to invite him and his family to dinner at my home. He paused and then said, "Wait . . . I remember . . . you can cook! You made some dish with chicken breasts, pine nuts, and sun-dried tomatoes . . . "<br />
<br />
"And ricotta cheese," I added. "It was a baked Italian chicken dish."<br />
<br />
"I remember," he said. "And that chili you make is off the chain."<br />
<br />
Mind you, I made these dishes for him over twenty years ago.<br />
<br />
I also had the pleasure of cooking Christmas dinner for my family this year. We moved the location of the dinner to my sisters' home, so I sent my husband ahead with the food while I showered, changed, and came later. I told my family to start without me.<br />
<br />
When I arrived, they had eaten. The food got rave reviews, with my oldest sister telling my husband that it was "caterer quality" food and that he should find a way for me to be a stay-at-home wife so I could cook that way every day. That's high praise. My oldest sister is an excellent cook.<br />
<br />
I've always discounted my cooking skills because, unlike my mother, I don't cook many recipes from memory. I'm heavily reliant on cookbooks. I guess that doesn't really matter if the food tastes good. For the most part, I enjoy cooking. It requires creativity and trusting your instincts, like when I had to decide between using the Pioneer Woman's recipe for scalloped potatoes for my Christmas dinner or recreating my mom's recipe from memory. I chose my mom's recipe and it came out quite well, judging from the response.<br />
<br />
Going into the holidays, I was tired and exasperated from the never-ending demands of my work and the ever-increasing expectations of stakeholders. I've struggled for years with being a lawyer. Even in the best of legal positions, which I think I have at this time, I tire easily of having to think hard and be right all the time. My successes don't satisfy me as they did when I started the job. My failures, no matter how small, shake me more than they should.<br />
<br />
I'm a big fan of Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist," and the following quote from the book: "When you seek your destiny, the universe will conspire to help you achieve it."<br />
<br />
What made me think the universe might be calling with its conspiracy was what my oldest sister said to me about my Christmas dinner: "You should do this professionally." Cooking that dinner was a lot of work, but I enjoyed planning it and deciding which dishes would compliment the meat entrees and so forth. I had all my cookbooks and recipes gleaned from the internet spread on my kitchen table before deciding to modify my Thanksgiving menu, substituting scalloped potatoes for macaroni and cheese and keeping Tiffani Thiessen's Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta in the lineup.<br />
<br />
The week after Christmas, I had to furnish and decorate a family member's space in four days. It's a long story. Since my hobby is budget decorating and interior design (think "Trading Spaces"), I pulled together much of what I had on had -- comforter set, curtains, pillows -- and shopped like a madwoman at high end and discount stores for furniture, linens, and the like. I fired up my printer and made copies of family photos and framed them in picture frames I'd bought on sale long ago. The room came together quite nicely, judging by my oldest sister's response, which was this: "You should do this professionally." It took a lot of time and effort and left me exhausted, but I had a blast pulling that space together. Then, my older sister asked me to decorate the home she shares with my oldest sister. Talk about validation!<br />
<br />
I long to upholster headboards, make ottomans out of thrift store coffee tables, and make seasonal door wreaths out of grosgrain ribbon wrapped around Styrofoam rings with hot glue. I'm excited about pulling paint samples from Home Depot and hardwood flooring samples from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for my sisters' decoration project. I buy decorative plates from the Goodwill and give my other sister instructions on how to hang them decoratively. I fervently believe that slipcovers and decorative pillows can make all the difference in the world. I'm always eager to share recipes, with the Tiffani Thiessen Brussels Sprouts recipe and Paula Deen's Sour Cream Poundcake recipes at the top of my list as of late.<br />
<br />
The TV shows "Fixer Upper" and "Rehab Addict," as well as Pinterest, the Cooking Channel, the Food Network, and Young House Love websites, are my porn.<br />
<br />
Creativity and autonomy are my drugs of choice. Long before I started blogging, I've had this struggle between my creativity (which, at its best, has paid about $150 total from placing in two short story contests) and my analytical abilities, which, although not as satisfying, have been more remunerative.<br />
<br />
But, like many people my age, I'm running out of time. I don't know if I want to go to my grave not as fulfilled as I could have been if I'd just given my creativity the chance to flourish. I enjoy my successes in the legal arena, but not nearly as much as I once did. What it takes to achieve them takes more and more out of me. <br />
<br />
When people tell you that you should do professionally something that makes you feel alive, is that the universe calling with its conspiracy to help you achieve your destiny?<br />
<br />
All I know is that Howard Thurman's quote is ringing loudly in my mind:<br />
<br />
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because the world needs people who have come alive."<br />
<br />
I think coming alive when you do something is just the universe calling, conspiracy in hand. Excuse me while I take this call. . . .blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-86390685462637539852015-12-19T18:16:00.000-08:002015-12-19T18:16:17.522-08:00No Guilt. Do Better. (Because Guilt Is A Wasted Emotion)There are a lot of things in my life about which I feel guilty. Too many to share. Too much shame.<br />
<br />
Looking over my goals for 2015, I realized that I didn't achieve a single one. Not a one. I had successes in areas I hadn't planned for, though. Successes that are intangible. But the guilt was still plaguing me.<br />
<br />
The funny thing is that I remember popping off (to borrow a turn of phrase from President Obama) pearls of wisdom in my 30's and 40's that are more relevant to my life now than they were then. One of those pearls of wisdom was this: Guilt is a wasted emotion.<br />
<br />
I remember the late Joan Rivers saying that. For whatever reason, it stuck with me, and I'd liberally share that little pearl of wisdom with friends and family who felt guilt about their past.<br />
<br />
Guilt doesn't change the past. Guilt doesn't undo what you did, nor does it do what you should have done. It doesn't make the person you wronged feel any better. An apology might, but guilt, in isolation, does not.<br />
<br />
Whenever I had a friend tell me they felt guilty about something, I'd just pop off, "Guilt is a wasted emotion." Just like that. But I didn't give any guidance on what to do with that guilt or how to deal with it. Even if it is a wasted emotion, you still feel it.<br />
<br />
Now that I'm in my fifties, I have that guidance, and I'm giving it to myself in the form of yet another mantra I plan to apply going forward: No guilt. Do better.<br />
<br />
Instead of emotionally flogging myself with guilt over what I've done or haven't done, I'm just going to try to do better. I can't change the past. I can only forge the future.<br />
<br />
Plus, I've seen people use my guilt against me, not for the purposes of helping me do better, but to exploit it for their own gain or to hurt me. As one of my relatives always says, "No bueno."<br />
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So, Gentle Readers, I invite you to join me in letting go of guilt as best you can and simply trying to do better. At least you'll have the possibility of something to show for all that guilt. Guilt by itself doesn't change anything, but action does.<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas, Gentle Readers.blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-51707788180449020292015-11-08T12:12:00.001-08:002015-11-08T13:33:34.853-08:00A Darker Shade of Cardinal (Stanford Black Alums Coming Back to the Farm)<i>You will never meet Black folks like this again.</i><br />
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<i>~ A Stanford Black alumnus, Class of 1978</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending my Stanford Class of 1985 Reunion. Yes, it's been thirty years since I graduated college. Well, not really, since I didn't graduate with my class. The beauty of Stanford is that Stanford doesn't care about when you left; what matters is when you came and with whom you identify. For me, that's the Class of 1985.<br />
<br />
But I don't identify with all of the members of the Class of 1985. I didn't then, and I don't know. That became painfully clear to me at my reunion. More on that later.<br />
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There's a reason why Stanford ranks so highly among African American students, and it's not its location in Silicon Valley. Stanford embraces "microcommunities," and it is because of that embrace that I was able to have what I would call a Black college experience in a predominantly white institution, with absolutely no pressure to assimilate. That's a good thing. As I said to one of my Black classmates whom I hadn't seen since she left in 1985, my belonging to Stanford, if you want to call it that, is not tied to the institution; it's tied to the Stanford Black community that made it possible for me to get through Stanford while still being myself. They are my belonging, and it is because of them that I even deign to return to a Stanford Homecoming.<br />
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To say that I belonged to the Stanford Black community doesn't go far enough to explain my affinity. The Stanford Black community is an extraordinary Black college community, and I have both Princeton and Harvard with which to compare.<br />
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To its credit, Stanford, the institution, created the environment that allowed this community to flourish. When I was accepted to Stanford, I had to fill out a housing preference form. This form allowed me to voice my preference for what kind of dorm I wanted to live in (all freshmen, multi-class, cultural theme house) and whether I wanted a roommate of the same race. While I thought I wanted to be in a predominantly white dorm (my high school had been extremely diverse), my oldest sister had the good sense to snatch the form from my hands, check the box for me to live in Ujamaa, the Black cultural theme house, and also check the box voicing my preference for a Black roommate.<br />
<br />
My life has never been the same, and for the better.<br />
<br />
What I experienced living in Ujamaa my first two years at Stanford rooted me in the idea of unlimited Black possibility. I had never met so many Black folks who were on their way to their dreams -- future doctors, lawyers, engineers, writers, consultants, educators, you name it. We worked hard -- on Thursday nights, the hallways were full of Black pre-meds and engineering majors working together on problem sets for calculus and a host of STEM courses long before we had the acronym for them. We played even harder -- the Ujamaa Lounge, or, when a black fraternity or sorority was throwing a party, the Lagunita Dining Hall -- thumped hard with the musical magic our our resident deejay, Greg Gardner, AKA "GG Disco." Black parties at Ujamaa or Lagunita Dining Hall rarely, if ever, bombed, because he was an excellent deejay with a great reputation not just on campus, but with all Bay Area colleges.<br />
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More than that, we had each others' backs. I remember times when I missed classed because I was either ill or just lazy, and one of my Black classmates would put the class notes under my door. I remember some Black classmates not having enough money to swing housing fees, and they'd simply bunk with a Black classmate who had housing. When one of us knew of a job opening, whether it was at the Faculty Club, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the Stanford Mall or doing research for graduate students, we hooked each other up. At one point, I had four part-time jobs on campus during the summer, all because my fellow Black classmates hooked me up. We shared cars, mopeds, bikes, dorm rooms, whatever it took to get through.<br />
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And that Black freshman roommate I was assigned because of my sister's intervention? She became my best friend and my matron of honor at my wedding. All of my closest female friends are Black women I met at Stanford. But for having lived in Ujamaa, I doubt I would have met, dated, and ultimately married Black Man Not Blogging. <br />
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In the words of one of my favorite Al Jarreau songs, we got by. And through. At least most of us.<br />
<br />
I haven't since met Black folks that brilliant, resilient, resourceful, unpretentious and supportive. Not at Harvard Law School, not at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. I was naive enough to expect that I would have the same Black experience at Harvard and Princeton that I had a Stanford. It was not to be, not by a long shot.<br />
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But I did have the same experience with white students at Harvard and Princeton as I had at Stanford. With white students, I had no "melting pot" experience, but a "tossed salad" one -- we were in the same bowl, so to speak, but we didn't become part of each others' lives. I know few, if any, white classmates from Stanford, and I don't feel at a loss because I received so much support and affirmation from my Black classmates.<br />
<br />
When I attended the Stanford Class of 1985 panel discussion during Reunion Weekend and looked around the predominantly white audience, I nodded to myself and thought, "I didn't know these folks thirty years ago, and I don't know them now. And I'm okay with that." Why? Because I looked down the row I was sitting in and down the row behind me where my fellow Black Stanford Class of 1985 alums were sitting and thought, "This is my belonging. They are my belonging."<br />
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Yes, thirty years later, all the Black folks at Stanford were still sitting together. This time, we all left together, too.<br />
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We are a distinct part of the Stanford experience but still part of the Stanford experience. I prefer to think we are a darker shade of Cardinal.<br />
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<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-15020055097401133662015-08-28T01:38:00.000-07:002015-08-28T01:38:23.497-07:00Donald Trump and the GOP's White Privilege Moment (The DNC Says "Thank You")<em>Tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>~ Jose Ortega y Gasset</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>~ Maya Angelou</em><br />
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The GOP is paying a lot of attention to Donald Trump. In the process, GOP Trump supporters are telling the nation exactly who the GOP is, and I'm believing them the first time. And for that, the Democratic National Committee says, "Thank you, GOP."<br />
<br />
At first I thought the whole Donald Trump thing would die out, especially after he made misogynistic remarks about Megyn Kelly. I thought he definitely could not continue to pick up steam after using the term "anchor babies."<br />
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Not only did he pick up steam, he got Jeb Bush jockin' him and using the term, too.<br />
<br />
Poor Chris Christie wants to avoid paying attention to Trump, but he can't seem to do so. Yesterday on CBS This Morning, Christie said it wasn't his job to talk about Trump but to talk about his own ideas. He did, however, take a swipe at Hillary Clinton, saying she was not qualified to run for president because of the FBI investigation of her email server. That's funny coming from someone who almost caught a case himself behind a missing Democratic endorsement and some resulting bridge constipation induced by his staff. The lack of self-awareness among the GOP candidates almost rival's Clinton's, what with her ill-chosen SnapChat joke.<br />
<br />
But the rally in Mobile, Alabama -- Black Man Not Blogging's hometown -- said it all. That crowd was whiter than the sheets at a Klan rally. With Donald Trump, they were having their White Privilege Moment, getting high on their own supply -- of white privilege, that is.<br />
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"White Privilege Moment?", you ask? Yes, it's a moment, for electoral purposes.<br />
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What Trump's supporters like about him is his "tell it like it is" way of speaking and his refusal to be "politically correct," with him making a sexist joke about a female reporter and making amends with her male boss, and not her, about it, or having Jorge Ramos thrown out of a press conference for daring to take him on about his immigration policy (more about the two-faced nature of GOP immigration politics later). These GOP Trump supporters like the idea of Trump telling countries like Mexico that they're going to build a wall between them and the U.S. AND pay for it, or threatening to put China in its place. These poor folks long for a President who will tell marginalized people (people who don't look and/or think like them) and other countries what he ain't gonna do for them and what they ain't gonna do about it.<br />
<br />
Cue "Dixie."<br />
<br />
To borrow a turn of phrase from my mama, I'ma let them have their White Privilege Moment, just like they did when they put Mitt Romney up against Barack Obama and got b-slapped in the general election. Why?<br />
<br />
Because demography is destiny. <br />
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Jorge Ramos is right -- the GOP cannot win the general election without the Latino vote, 'cause they sho ain't gonna get the black vote. Threatening to send U.S. citizens -- children no less -- born of undocumented parents back to their parents' home countries is no way to get the Latino vote. Epic. Fail. You can't even think of trying to tack to the center after being so far to the right of the Latino vote and much of the electorate in general especially in light of the two-faced nature of GOP immigration politics.<br />
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The GOP is so damned two-faced on immigration policy that it makes me want to scream. Who does Donald Trump think builds his buildings, cleans his hotels and casinos, and serves in his restaurants? If ICE did an immigration sweep right now of every Trump entity, I'm sure there would be a whole lot of undocumented workers caught up, undocumented workers who come to this country to work and whose presence in industries owned and run by GOP voters is benignly ignored when the GOP talks about immigration policy. If "President Trump" were to ramp up deportations, California's agriculture industry -- its biggest industry by far - would come to a screeching halt. Yet, California's central valley farmers, most of whom are Republican, are strangely silent on Trump's immigration policy. Trust me, if you deport the undocumented, no one else is going to step up to do the hard labor they do, especially not my people. Field work is so last millennium for my peeps, and they sure would open up a can of "Si Se Puede" union organizing in a heartbeat if you tried to get them to pick crops. When it comes to immigration policy, the GOP has a stunning lack of self-awareness.<br />
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But the Trump supporters continue on with their White Privilege Moment. In their mind, a Trump presidency would, to borrow from an old song, "lift them up where they belong," i.e., not having to give a crap about people who don't look or think like them. Demography be damned. And so they'll continue to support Trump because the White Privilege Moment feels so good to them, and because the rest of the GOP contenders collectively and individually lack the balls of a field mouse when it comes to having the courage to call Trump out.<br />
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But demography is still destiny. The demographic the GOP needs but does not have in its winning coalition is taking note of who the GOP is paying so much attention to. Just like the polls were misleading with respect to Mitt Romney's standing, they will be misleading with respect to accurately capturing the amount of Trump disgust among the Obama coalition of voters -- young people and people of color -- because these voters don't always vote consistently enough to be considered "most likely voters" pollsters use, and yet they come out in droves for the general election like a sneaker wave when there's a candidate they love (Obama) or hate (Romney or Trump).<br />
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Which means that Trump. Can't. Win.<br />
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But go on, GOP. Enjoy your White Privilege Moment.<br />
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P.S. Vice President Biden, please put Democratic donors out of their misery and run. You know Hillary can't win, either.<br />
<br />
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-80512230259906752312015-08-23T04:31:00.000-07:002015-08-23T04:31:48.502-07:00An Inherited Mindset? (Or Why You Shouldn't Marry a Sharecropper's Child)I had the good fortune to sit down with my 87 year-old uncle, whom I will refer to as "Uncle B," because of extremely bad fortune: The death of his brother, my Uncle F. The reason why this sit-down was such good fortune is because I learned a lot about myself from learning from him about his mother, my grandmother who I never met.<br />
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My grandmother died before I was born. She appears in the 1930 census in the rural Deep South as a twenty-seven year old widow with young children. Because my grandfather owned his own grist mill, a shoe cobbler shop, and the land his shop and his house were on before he died in 1928, my grandmother was a property owner in the Deep South during the Great Depression when she was widowed.<br />
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Which means she could vote as long as she paid her 50 cent poll tax. She paid, and she voted.<br />
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Mind you, this was no small feat for a widowed black mother in the rural Deep South during the Great Depression. History tells us that black folks were getting killed for even daring to register to vote during that time, much less actually voting. <br />
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Yet and still, she voted.<br />
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Uncle B. also told me of something that she did that might not have met with the approval of other rural black townspeople during that era. Imagining a widowed twenty-something black mother during the Great Depression as being someone weak and in need of protection, I asked with fear, "How did people treat her? Did they shun her?"<br />
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Uncle B. said, "No. What could they do to her? We were property owners. We didn't depend on other folks." Uncle B. elaborated on their property owners' mindset. "Back then, we used to say, 'Don't marry a sharecropper's son' or 'Don't marry a sharecropper's daughter.' It wasn't about them being a sharecropper's son or daughter. It was about the mindset they inherited from their parents. Sharecroppers didn't believe they would ever own anything. If you don't think you'll ever have anything, you never will."<br />
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Uncle B. also told me that my grandmother was considered quite the catch after she was widowed because she could read and write and she owned property. She had been sent away to Spelman for high school and college (Uncle B believes my grandfather, for whom she worked before she married him, paid for her education, but my dad always said her sisters paid for her education). My grandmother would spend her weekends reading and writing letters for black folks who couldn't read and write. Uncle B. also told me that when she broke up with one suitor, she told him, "I'm through with you. Don't come back. And get off my property." <br />
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And when someone did her wrong or threatened to do her wrong, she called on her sisters, and they had her back. And they would fight for and alongside her. Even against men.<br />
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I'm so much like my grandmother that it's not even funny.<br />
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Does this mean I inherited a different mindset, from a grandmother I never even knew, no less?<br />
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Perhaps.<br />
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Exhibit 1: <u>I am a fanatic about voting</u>. I once stopped a lecture in one of my Property courses to harangue my students about the importance of voting. I scolded my black students, telling them that too many black folks had died for the right to vote for them to disrespect that sacrifice by not voting. When I was single, I wouldn't even date a guy if he didn't vote. To me, the failure of a guy to vote was the equivalent of having bad hygiene. Ick.<br />
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Exhibit 2: <u>I am a strong believer in property ownership and not depending on anyone financially</u>. That's why I spent a year with Black Man Not Blogging creating and teaching a curriculum on financial independence for my family.<br />
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Exhibit 3: <u>I have always believed that every act starts with a belief</u>. I never doubted that I would go to college. I never doubted that I would attend Harvard. I never doubted that I would be an attorney. I never doubted I would achieve any goal about which I was very serious, because I simply believed. I did not have a sharecropper's mentality -- the belief that you won't have anything. <br />
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Exhibit 4:<u> I've never believed that I was less than men just because I'm a woman.</u> Last summer, I designed and helped oversee the remodel of my mother-in-law's house. Quite frankly, I used the remodeling as an excuse to use my own power tools. When I was putting up the last of seven curtain rods, all of which I had installed by myself (Thank you, Ryobi drill people!), one of my in-laws said to me: "You really do think you're equal to men, don't you?" I replied, "I just don't see what having a penis has to do with being able to measure and do math." When I shared my in-law's comment with Uncle B., he said, "Well, that's just stupidity on steroids." He turned to my sisters and me and said very seriously, "Girls, know your worth." Clearly, my grandmother knew her worth. (By the way, only an 87 year-old uncle would call his fifty- and sixty-something nieces "girls." Too cute.)<br />
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Exhibit 5: <u>I learned not to have qualms about dismissing men from my life if they were not for me</u>. When I was single, once I learned how to break up with the first two boyfriends, breaking up with the rest of them was easy, and I started to do so more quickly whenever I realized they were not for me. There was one guy who owed me money when I was getting ready to break up with him. I broke up with him AND demanded a check for what he owed me. He paid me on the spot. And yes, the check cleared. Like my grandmother, once I decided that a man was not for me, I dismissed him for good, with one notable exception: Black Man Not Blogging. Like my grandmother telling her suitor, "Get off my property," I kicked boyfriends or aspiring boyfriends out of my car, out of my apartment, and out of my office at a law firm when I was single.<br />
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Exhibit 6: <u>When I need backup, I call on my sisters</u>. They always have my back, even if they think I'm wrong, which is something we resolve within the sisterhood, not outside of the sisterhood.<br />
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Exhibit 7: <u>I know my worth</u>. My grandmother knew her worth. So do I.<br />
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I'm so grateful for having had this wonderful grandmother I never met, for inheriting her mindset, and for my Uncle B. sharing her with me.<br />
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Now I have to think about the mindset I'm passing down . . . . . <br />
<br />
blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3315491509187311287.post-77587750850123021072015-06-29T21:59:00.000-07:002015-06-29T21:59:05.998-07:00If You Wait Long Enough, Good Things Will Happen (Charleston, Forgiveness, the Confederate Flag, the ACA, Gay Marriage, and Amazing Grace on My Mind)I'm going to let you in on a little secret:<br />
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Sometimes, I think God talks to me.<br />
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No. Really. Like when I heard a little voice tell me, "Put away some money. You're going to need it." I did. The next month? BAM! Hit with major car repairs.<br />
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Or when Black Man Not Blogging and I were coming back from a day trip and stopped in a McDonald's in a South Stockton neighborhood. He went in, I stayed in the car. A little voice told me, "You need to get out of here." I called him on his cell phone to tell him to get out of the McDonald's, that we needed to get ghost. He did, and we did. The neighborhood just felt unsafe. If I recall correctly, the next day there was news of shootings that occurred in South Stockton.<br />
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When the Charleston shooting occurred, I was at a loss for words. I couldn't believe that someone would gun down church members at a prayer meeting. A PRAYER MEETING! Could there be anything more demonic?<br />
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Then, in an act of what can only be called amazing grace, the victims' families started to forgive the shooter.<br />
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And that's when I heard the little voice: "If you wait long enough, good things will happen." I smiled. <br />
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In what appeared to be a whirlwind of good things happening, people began calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house and other government buildings. Ebay, Amazon, Sears, and Wal-Mart pulled Confederate flag merchandise from their shelves or stopped selling them online. Given Wal-Mart's southern roots, that's huge. The cynic in me says that it was the fact that black people were killed in a church by a racist who literally wrapped himself in the Confederate flag that moved people to reconsider the flag, but I'll take this reconsideration no matter how it comes, even if I think it would not have happened but for the murders taking place in a church. It forced white Southerners to choose between heritage and faith. They chose faith.<br />
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The Affordable Care Act was upheld, as well as disparate impact analysis for housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.<br />
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The President found his voice on race, using the n-word to explain that this country's racial atrocities hundreds of years ago are not yet forgotten, the wounds not yet healed. In the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinkney, President Obama found his voice on race once again, saying that although those who fought for the Confederacy may have been honorable, the cause for which they fought was not. He then raised his voice in a rousing rendition of "Amazing Grace." And the church said, "Amen."<br />
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To top it all off, the Supreme Court declared bans on gay marriage unconstitutional. To some, this may not be a good thing. I don't see how equality under the law can't be. The southern states, and the Ted Cruzes of the nation, will stand in opposition, just as George Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama declaring, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. Ted Cruz will be remembered in much the same way as Governor Wallace would have been had he not had a racial epiphany. The work of the LGBT community is not done, but there's just a little less of it to be done.<br />
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If you wait long enough, good things will happen. Sometimes you have to wait centuries, sometimes a generation, sometimes a decade. But if you wait long enough, good things will happen.<br />
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Amen. <br />
<br />blackwomanblogginghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13179156751612506333noreply@blogger.com0