Monthly Archives: March 2022

Point of View Columns

A Look Back at the End of March 2022

It is said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

That is certainly not the case with March 2022. It began with the most serious military combat in Europe since World War II and it is ending with more warfare and more madness and perhaps, just perhaps a few signs of hope.

And here are some (not so) random observations….

Trump the Traitor

Just thinking about Trump being president during this current crisis is the stuff of nightmares.

Today there is no need to wonder. Because today we were able to watch a video with Trump asking Vladimir Putin to find any “dirt” on President Biden.

It is important to keep in mind that this is in the middle of the most intense military encounter between the United States and a foreign since World War II. One commentator compared this to a Republican presidential candidate calling on Hitler or Mussolini or Tojo to help attack Franklin Roosevelt politically.

That may be over the top…but just a little.

Clearly there are no boundaries of propriety or patriotism or sanity when it comes to one Donald J. Trump.

And is just as clear that by engaging in this kind of bizarre activity he gives Putin all the encouragement that he needs – Putin knows that if Trump becomes president again he will have an ally in disemboweling NATO and turning the United States into his autocratic wingman.

And if that seems too extreme, then you just haven’t been paying attention.

Is a New Senate on the Way?

Every two years roughly one third of the U.S. Senate seats are up for election- this year the number is 35. Of those seats, there are at least ten that are believed to be a matter of serious contest between Republicans and Democrats, and of those ten seats, five of them feature Black candidates.

For the first time since the days of Reconstruction over 150 years ago, there are five Black men and women who have a very real chance of being elected. Since Tim Scott (South Carolina) and Cory Booker (New Jersey) are not up for reelection, there could be seven (7) Black members of the U.S. Senate by this time next year.

Aside from the literal complexion of the Senate changing, the prospect of so many Black senators serving creates the promise of some new perspectives, new vision and the possibility of the possibility of institutional change.

We will just have to wait and see.

The Clarence and Ginni Show

It turns out that we have been the unwitting audience for the “The Clarence and Ginni Show” starring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, neo-conservative activist Virginia (Ginni) Thomas for many years.

Justice Thomas is well-known for his right wing of the right-wing approach to justice. He can always be counted on to abolish – voting rights, abortion rights, the Affordable Care Act, same sex marriage – his grievance list is infinite.

Ginni Thomas is Clarence Thomas’ right wing of the right-wing soulmate, with a healthy helping of autocratic tendencies that use the Constitution as a cudgel, not a tool of justice.

And now we learn that during the January 6th insurrection and thereafter, Ginni Thomas was a leading voice of the “Stop the Steal” movement which was meant to overthrow existing constitutional norms and invalidate the votes of over 70 million Americans.

And when a case involving a congressional investigation of the insurrection came before the Supreme Court, 8 justices voted to let the investigation go forward. One justice, Clarence Thomas, voted against the investigation. Clearly, he was concerned about the revelations of his wife’s attempts to invalidate democracy in the United States, perhaps forever.

And even though the conflict of interest is as clear a full moon on a cloudless night, Justice Thomas did not recuse himself.

Justice Thomas is a living breathing example of conflict of interest and injustice.

Smith v. Rock

Everything that can be said about the Will Smith/Chris Rock contretemps at the Academy Awards ceremony. It is more than sad that what appeared to be an utter lack of self-control resulted in Will Smith diminishing his stature and reputation, perhaps for all time.

It is also sad that some would praise his actions as “a man standing up for his woman” as if we still live in some prehistoric time where slights and insults needed to be settled with a club or a sword.

Chris Rock has been a comedian who has always had an edge to his humor. If he can be given the benefit of the doubt that he did know about Jada Pinkett’s malady (a fair assumption), it is still a matter of walking on a virtual tightrope to make fun of the physical appearance of anyone in the audience – it can be taken as a good-natured joke or…not.

In any event, Chris Rock will make even more money on his current concert tour. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett will continue to live the life of celebrity and luxury and ease.

And in no event should the Academy Award incident be seen as somehow smearing or shaming the national Black community.

The bad behavior of a couple of privileged and entitled men have nothing to do with any assessment of the Black community.

It was a train wreck of a night.

Now it is time to move on.

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Point of View Columns

In the Matter of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson – Continued

It was not necessary to consult with the legendary seer, Negrodamus, to predict what the Senate Supreme Court Justice confirmation of hearings regarding the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would be like. It was beyond predictable – it was inevitable.

After the rehearsed formalities and the transparently fake promise of fairness, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee went to work like paupers at a banquet. There were the seemingly obligatory references to critical race theory, an academic discipline that has nothing to do with teaching white children to hate themselves. But literacy and common sense are not in the Republican tool kit.

Somehow, it made sense for Judge Jackson to be asked about the Dred Scott decision of 1857. The irony escaped Republican Gang Who Couldn’t Think Straight. That is because the Dred Scott decision was a classic example of the institutionalized nature of white supremacy at that time, holding that Black people could not have the right of citizenship whether enslaved or free. Asking the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court was simply an abomination.

Ted Cruz (aka CancunTed) continues to prove that there is no bottom to the cesspool of misinformation and veiled racism that is his habitat. Asking Judge Jackson if babies could be racist – a twisted application of the much-abused critical race theory – actually brought a moment of exasperation in Judge Jackson’s otherwise composed demeanor.

While she had to be prepared for dog whistle racism given the composition of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it took Ted Cruz to make it clear that no outrageous and convoluted interpretation of the legitimate concerns of Black people in this country was out of bounds. And, of course, Cruz intended for her to get so exasperated she might actually provide a sequel to the Bret Kavanaugh meltdown in a prior confirmation hearing.

Sorry Ted.

But that did not stop other Republicans from questioning her work as a defense attorney as if (1) a person accused of a crime is automatically guilty and (2) that the provision in the Sixth Amendment that requires that defendants in criminal cases be provided with counsel is really just a suggestion and not one that should be taken seriously by truly good Americans.

Judge Jackson was questioned on her defense of accused 9/11 terrorists at Guantanamo Bay was an indication of her tacit support for terrorists. Somehow Senator Grassley seemed to forget that Judge Jackson was working in the federal public defender’s office and was assigned to the case – in other words she was doing her job.

But, of course, these Republicans are building a house of cards and lies to provide some gossamer covering for the fact that they are simply not going to vote for a Black woman to be on the Supreme Court unless she is an intellectual of Clarence Thomas.

One can only hope that the Democrats can keep it together along with a few Republicans with some sense of decency so that Judge Jackson will be Justice Jackson in time for the fall term.

No one ever said it was going to be easy.

But no one ever said it was going to be this hard.

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Point of View Columns

Someone Has to Say It

Like the dog in the manger or the drunken uncle at Christmas dinner, the truth is not always welcome. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. Sometimes the truth is the subject of dispute. And sometimes the truth just has to be spoken.

Take the current conflict in Ukraine as a perfect example of the need for the uncomfortable, unwelcome truth to be spoken. Because, while there is no doubt that the Ukrainian people truly deserve the sympathy of the planet, there is more to the story in Ukraine.

We know that many Ukrainians are noble and incredibly brave in defending their country against the insane aggression initiated by Vladimir Putin. But the fact is that these noble and incredibly brave Ukrainians pointed guns at African residents and prevented them from boarding refugee trains leaving the country. They may not have spoken a lot of English, but they knew how to say “no blacks”.

And the criticism of the racist attitude of the Ukrainians was so muted that it was drowned out by the tidal waves of concern and care that flowed from all over the world.

Consider the outpouring of support and sympathy from around the world, and certainly in the United States, regarding the plight of Ukrainian refugees. Uber now has an app on its site so that you can contribute to the welfare of these brave and noble Ukrainian refugees. GoFundMe accounts are overflowing with cash to support the noble and brave Ukrainians.

But does anyone remember that it was less than a year ago that Haitian refugees, fleeing both natural disaster and the total implosion of anything resembling governmental order, were met at the U.S.-Mexican border with the whips and horses of the U.S. Border Patrol. There was some commentary, but obviously not enough as those Black Haitian refugees were given $50 and forcibly boarded on planes to take them back to the hell on earth that they were trying to escape.

No live coverage on CNN or Fox News when these refugees, now deportees returned to Haiti. Indeed, they were literally forgotten. How are those Haitian refugees faring now?

Does anyone know? Does anyone truly care?

There were no GoFundMe accounts to help the Black Haitians. There were no concerts. And there were certainly no vigorous, stentorian utterances of dismay from the White House or anyplace else to the Black Haitians who arrived in numbers that were miniscule in relation to the millions of white Ukrainians who are now suffering.

Consider that a few years ago brown men, women and children from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras approached the U.S.-Mexican border. Infants were taken from their mothers and hundreds have never been reunited. These brown men, women and children were treated in a fashion that would have been considered inhuman during the European Middle Ages.

And there were no apps on Uber for the brown men, women and children from Latin America. Just as there were no apps anywhere else for the Haitians or the Black African refugees coming across the Mediterranean on rubber rafts.

But the Ukrainians, blond and blue-eyed as they may be receive a different treatment. Certainly the Euro-American mindset has proven over centuries that the lens in which the world is viewed is first and foremost black and white.

And what was true in 1522 is true in 2022.

The truth may be unwelcome. The truth may be uncomfortable.

But the truth is the truth.

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Point of View Columns

In the Matter of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

It has never been seriously suggested that being Black in America was, is or will be easy. It has never been seriously suggested that being a Black woman in America was, is or will be easy. And therefore it cannot be a surprise that the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the most highly qualified nominees in recent history, will be facing serious opposition in the U.S. Senate.

Most of the opposition will, of course, come from the Republicans. But it should be clear that this opposition reflects a certain train of thought, a viral strain really, that exists in America.

This viral strain presupposes the inferiority of Black Americans. When a Black man or woman achieves at a high level that person is seen as being exceptional, out of the ordinary and certainly not representative of the overall talent pool in the Black community. Because, after all, it is not useful, so the thinking goes, to expect exceptional achievement from any Black man, woman or child.

Further, even when a Black woman or Black man does achieve, very often there is an unspoken question mark. Is this person the beneficiary of affirmative action or a lower bar for achievement forgetting the fact that the legacy admissions to elite colleges has been the inheritance of white girls and boys for centuries.

It seems that there is always a reason why the qualifications of a Black woman or a Black man must be questioned – or praised as being exceptional from the perspective of race rather than being exceptional from the perspective of humanity.

As we come to the matter of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, we see that the American racist myopia is still very much with us. The fact that she graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School should make her credentials bullet proof. Instead they represent a bullseye for those who would question her credentials by use of the false lens of affirmative action. The fact that she graduated with honors seems to make no difference to the likes of Ted Cruz and John Kennedy and never will.

That fact never will make a difference because the basic proposition of white supremacy and black inferiority is omnipresent as a virus in the American intellectual bloodstream – and there seems to be no way to immunize the vast portion of this of the American bloodstream. And the virus makes itself known in obvious ways as seen in cases like those involving George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

Less obvious, but arguably more virulent are the way the virus presents itself in corporate America that cannot find even five (5) Black women or Black men to be CEO’s in the Fortune 500, and in the American electorate that can only find three (3) Black people out of one hundred to serve in the United States Senate as you are reading these words.

Now we will watch the members of the United States Senate try to denigrate the qualifications and abilities and experience and expertise of Ketanji Brown Jackson while claiming that they are being fair. It is a baptism of fire that Judge Jackson has experienced before and the good news is that in this case – it is not a fair fight.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will prevail.

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