Featured Posts RSSSat, 22 Feb 2025 23:05:30 GMTEverywhere I turn, a new movement is underfoot.  Having declared victory over the evils of discrimination and hatred, institutions around the country are moving on from their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, known more commonly as the apparently pejorative term of “DEI.”  For some reason, I had not realized that are long national nightmare of systemic oppression and derisively othering various groups had come to an end. But I sure am glad to learn the news!We did it! Right?!  After four centuries of chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and de facto wide-spread discrimination, America’s “Negro Problem” is finally solved.   We accommodate our disabled friends fully in all aspects of our common life. Antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination have been transformed as we are now the religiously pluralistic society envisioned in the first Amendment.  We have realized the great melting pot and are now a nation that welcomes immigrants, no matter their origin. Women have realized equal pay for equal work, their bodily sovereignty is protected, and they no longer face the incredible risk of sexual violence that they used to.  Trans folks are fully accepted without fear for their lives and our gay friends feel welcome no matter where they go. Poverty?  Economic class is a thing of the past and no kid goes hungry at night. Police violence targeting minorities?  No longer.Congrats America!  We did it!  I mean it must be true. If happy, diversity commercials-laden Target is out on DEI, then we definitely solved it. Universities deeply committed to DEI work have brought their programs to an end, so we must have reached equitable outcomes in education.  Medical schools find themselves dropping DEI, so health care equity must be the case as well. So proud of us for having finally conquered the multitude of issues that DEI covers.  And to think, we did all of this less than 5 years after the mur... Read more

]]>Sat, 22 Feb 2025 23:05:30 GMTThe last two weeks a radical right wing Supreme Court radically transformed American life in all the wrong ways across a broad array of issues: women's rights, environmental regulations, gun safety, immigrant rights, indigenous rights, housing, public health, and protecting people from police violence. The conservative majority made decisions to take away fundamental rights and in other cases the Court stripped away legislation and regulation that the overwhelming majority of Americans desire and demand. The Supreme Court fed every right wing ideological bent undermining their own legitimacy and with it, the foundations of our democratic republic. Our democracy does not consistently represent the will of the people in any branch of government creating a crisis of legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. The ongoing January 6 hearings remind of us how razor thin close we were to a dictatorship. This reality is sadly reinforced by a Republican Party within which support for the outcome of dictatorship far outweighs the voices of reason fair and free elections. We are living in times when it is courageous and notable for Republicans to simply voice support for the basic tenets of democracy and the longstanding norms and functions of the Constitution. The moribund state of American political parties are not just an issue for one side.   We should be rightfully concerned about the fecklessness of the Democratic Party establishment that finds great difficulty in prosecuting traitors who led an insurrection and refuses robustly and politically to ostracize enablers and supporters of would be autocrats. The Democrats seem to look the gift horse of hold majoritarian positions on most issues in the mouth, failing time and again to advocate forcefully and to implement the will of the people.  The challenges of our day require more than the political wrangling of normal politics, of the promise of winning the next election. The current situation requires a fu... Read more

]]>Mon, 04 Jul 2022 16:04:47 GMThttps://youtu.be/LZ055ilIiN4When day comes we ask ourselves,where can we find light in this never-ending shade?The loss we carry,a sea we must wadeWe've braved the belly of the beastWe've learned that quiet isn't always peaceAnd the norms and notionsof what just isIsn’t always just-iceAnd yet the dawn is oursbefore we knew itSomehow we do itSomehow we've weathered and witnesseda nation that isn’t brokenbut simply unfinishedWe the successors of a country and a timeWhere a skinny Black girldescended from slaves and raised by a single mothercan dream of becoming presidentonly to find herself reciting for oneAnd yes we are far from polishedfar from pristinebut that doesn’t mean we arestriving to form a union that is perfectWe are striving to forge a union with purposeTo compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters andconditions of manAnd so we lift our gazes not to what stands between usbut what stands before usWe close the divide because we know, to put our future first,we must first put our differences asideWe lay down our armsso we can reach out our armsto one anotherWe seek harm to none and harmony for allLet the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:That even as we grieved, we grewThat even as we hurt, we hopedThat even as we tired, we triedThat we’ll forever be tied together, victoriousNot because we will never again know defeatbut because we will never again sow divisionScripture tells us to envisionthat everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig treeAnd no one shall make them afraidIf we’re to live up to our own timeThen victory won’t lie in the bladeBut in all the bridges we’ve madeThat is the promise to gladeThe hill we climbIf only we dareIt's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,it’s the past we step intoand how we repair itWe’ve seen a force that would shatter our nationrather than share itWould destroy our country if it meant delaying democracyAnd this effort very nearly succeededBut while democracy can be perio... Read more

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