Black Woman Blogging's 2020 Not-Fucking-Around Guide to Voting Securely and Her California Voter Guide

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.

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.  

I want you to vote securely, and to my mind, there's only two ways to be absolutely secure in your vote:

1. Vote in person at the polls, preferably early; or

2. Take your absentee/mail-in ballot directly to your county registrar or election office equivalent.

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.   

Here's what I'm not fucking with:

1.  Drop Boxes:  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.

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.

2. The U.S. Postal Service:  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.

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.

3. Election Day Shenanigans:  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.

4. Not Following Absentee/Mail-In Ballot Rules:  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.

Now, on to my California Voter Guide.  Here's what you need to know about me and how it influences how I vote:

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.

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.

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.

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.

5.  Anything I see Alice Huffman in favor of is highly suspect to me.  

With that, on to BWB's California Voter Guide

President and Vice President:  Biden/Harris.  Next.

Proposition 14:  Yes.  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.

Proposition 15:  Yes.  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. 

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.

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.

Proposition 16:  Yes.  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.

Proposition 17:  Yes.  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.

Proposition 18: Yes.  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.

Proposition 19:  Not just no, fuck no.  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.  

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.

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.

Proposition 20: Not just no, fuck no.  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?  

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.

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.

Proposition 21: No.  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.

Proposition 22: Not just no, fuck no.  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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Proposition 23:  Yes.  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.

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.

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.

Proposition 24: No.  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.

Proposition 25:  Yes.  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.

Now, go vote like your life depends on it.  Because it does.  Here are some helpful resources:

Better Know A Ballot

When We All Vote

IWillVote.com

Get Your Booty To The Poll

Vote.gov

Fact Sheet:  Protecting Against Voter Intimidation

Election Protection:  866-OUR-VOTE

That Dog Whistle You Hear is Trump's Immigration Policy

When 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?

First, let's talk about what dog-whistle politics are, to wit:

Dog-whistle politics 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 dog whistle, whose ultrasonic whistling sound is heard by dogs but inaudible to humans.


I disagree with the phrase "perception of deceptive intent."  There IS deceptive intent in dog whistle politics.

Second, let me get some things off my chest.

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.

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 separation 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.

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.

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.

Now for some immigration truths AND some American truths.

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 . . . .

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 . . .

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 . . . .

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 Chinese Exclusion Act, 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.

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.

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?

History will mark where we stood, America.  Those dog whistles will reverberate long into the future.

(Self-) Maintenance Is An Expression of Gratitude -- Keep MENS In Your Life

My 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.

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.

The difference?  Gratitude.

When I got that Huffy bike, it didn't matter to me that it was used.  It was new to me.  And it represented freedom.  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.

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, inside and out, because I was more grateful for it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now, excuse me while I work on my garage, my hair, and my car's driver's seat, for which I'm grateful.

Changing Police Policy on Discharging Firearms/Use of Lethal Force (So Stephon Clark's Death Won't Be In Vain)

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:

Two Principles

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.

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.

Six Changes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

6. Police shootings of suspects shall be investigated by an independent body whose composition shall be a majority of non-law enforcement citizens.

Black Woman Blogging's Gun Control Proposal

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.

That said, I'm for gun control.

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.

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.

First, we need to agree on some real (not alternative) facts and principles:

1.  There is no such thing as an unlimited right.  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.

2.  More guns are not the answer.  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.

3.  Nobody should have better weapons than law enforcement.  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.

4.  We need to learn from other countries that don't have as much gun violence as we do.  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.

With that in mind, here's my gun control proposal:

1.  You get no more than two guns per person:  One for protection, one for hunting.  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.

2. No semiautomatic or automatic weapons.  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.

3.  If you have ever been convicted of a felony or adjudged to have been mentally ill, you don't get to own a gun.  Ever.  Sorry, not sorry.  Again, there is no such thing as an unlimited right.

4.  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.  You don't get these done annually, a warrant is issued for your arrest, your guns confiscated, and you're done with gun ownership.

5.  No alterations of weapons to make them semiautomatic or automatic.  If you alter your weapons, you lose them and your right to own guns.  Bump stock and other alterations will be outlawed.

6.  Bullets will be taxed to pay for gun control.

That's it.  Simple.  Clear.

Now let's see what our elected leaders do about it.

What White House Journalists Can Learn From the Chauncey Bailey Project: How to Journalistically Crowdsource the Trump/Russia Investigation

With 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.

There is precedent for journalists coming together across a variety of platforms to conduct an investigation together and report on it:  The Chauncey Bailey Project.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Retired Man Walking: Too Young to Retire, Too Old to Take Shit

A 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

He wants to live long after he retires.

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.

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."

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."

Very wise, indeed.

Here's to a long and healthy retirement, RMW.