Sampling a Centuries’ Old Pain

Dear W. and M.,

I’m troubled. In my small universe, I shouldn’t be. You two, along with your cousin J., light up my life. During these COVID-19 days, my mask hides my smiles. You don’t hear my thoughts as I listen to you talk about your day, your new skills, your whatever it is that fascinates you. Our souls are bound, and nothing will separate us, especially the color of our skins, J. and me a pale vanilla, you two a rich chocolate. You three are the dreams of a grandfather (or Bubba in your case). You remind me of what should be, what can be.

You possess the enthusiasm of youth supercharged by visions of tomorrows extending infinitely. It’s so much stronger than mine, which has waned. It does with age. In my somber moments, I see my tomorrows coming to an end. It sounds sad, but it isn’t. It outcrops from a long, happy life shared with your Nana, your father, your uncle, you two, J., your mom, and aunt. It’s jagged because nothing is perfectly smooth, but the joys of that life smooth the waves of disappointment, sorrow, and anxiety, leaving pacific memories.

In moments of tranquility, I see your tomorrows. There are two, the first dreamlike. You are smiling. You graduate from college. You marry a strong individual. You raise beautiful children. There’s laughter, smiles, and sometimes tears, but it’s a good life. The second frightens me.

I will be gone, but that is not what stirs the fear. I foresee an unchanged America where a sizeable portion of our society tramples your well-being. It will use your skin tone and gender to define you three. It will cripple your futures, restrain you, and keep you at bay as if you were its enemies. It cannot remember how people of your ilk fought for its freedom, enhanced its sciences, built its cities, enlivened its pop culture, broadened its literature, arts, and music.

Some may say I exaggerate. Tamp my points. Tame them. Restrain them. They hold. It’s in American politics, starting with our founding fathers and continuing with Donald Trump. By the time you are men and J. a women, he thankfully will be dead. His legacy will live, for he has incited the fallen angels of Americans. He sows seeds of distrust and hatred, and the plants they will yield will last for generations.

He lies with impunity, leaving a legacy endorsing half-truths and falsehoods as a legitimate means to an end. He has blessed the bullies of the right and sullied individuals with malignant tropes and stereotypes based on the illegitimate claims floating around social media. He loves the mob, and you see it when you study videos of his rallies. He reminds me of Emperor Augustus, who bribed the Roman mob with cheap wheat and free entertainment, or as Juvenal described it as “bread and circuses.” Adolf Hitler did more or less the same with his Nuremberg rallies. He bathes in the glory bestowed on him by his followers.

Like his political forebears, Trump’s passion for the mob shifts. Quickly. When people protest government policies he favors, he calls them anarchists. His bellicosity reflects his childishness, but his followers hear strength, their emperor squashing rebellion. They cheer as the Roman mob did in the coliseum when gladiators killed one another and as the Nazis did at Nuremberg.

He is reinventing America and its politics. He tortures truth, for he assumes everyone lies, and everyone makes up facts. He has put truth on the rack, stretched it, and torn it apart some 10,000 times. All is transactional, and so, he ravages relationships. The quid-pro-quo? Love me, and I’ll love you back. With this attitude, he  has politicized most cabinet positions. He turned the once renowned Centers for Disease Control into a quasi-puppet and laughing stock that issues politically favorable statements only to remove them when they prove to be scientifically stupid. I would call US Attorney General William Barr Trump’s pit bull, but I am afraid I would insult a breed of dog already struggling with negative publicity. He appoints a new leader of the Postal Service, who slows delivery in time for the election.

He has created an atmosphere of political and judicial uncertainty. I have voted for 50 years. I never wondered if a candidate who lost would dismiss the results. Now I wonder if Trump will. He repeatedly questions the voting process's integrity, even though not one state secretary has produced evidence of fraud. Ironically, this same doubt will haunt Trump should he win.

There’s one mighty exception: America’s military. This unit of our government comprises thousands of men and women who have sworn an oath to protect America. They have fought our endless wars. They have risked their lives. They have lost limbs. But they didn’t pledge allegiance to the political and personal interests of Donald Trump. While at one moment, he takes credit for GI legislation initiated by the Obama administration, he insults the hallow traditions of the military. He discredits its leaders and the sacrifices of its foot soldiers and sailors.

No other individual has so insulted the nation’s integrity. Yet he rides a wave of support, and he imagines he’s glory bound, propelled by his ego and force of will. He teases out the idea of having his face carved on Mount Rushmore. He inserts a letter with his signature with the checks intended to help Americans during the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s inflated self-worth, a counterpoint to his flaccid ego that never seems erect. He’s fueled by greed, his own, and that of megadonors.

He drools over Vladimir Putin with his golden rooms and his additional terms of office—the glorioles of a true leader. Trump too yearns for the halo of an imperial presidency. I imagine him late at night, sitting in his bed imagining crowds cheering: Hail Donald, Hail Donald.

This is not the America I want to leave you. The three of you deserve better. You are individuals, and your worth should be measured based on your integrity, empathy, and talents. Your creeds, races, and genders are immaterial to your humanity.

I thought I would feel better writing this. I don’t. These issues will not vanish if Trump loses the election and if the Democrats take the Senate. A change in leadership will help. Evolution, the change I am talking about, does not come from the top down. It’s from the bottom up. Americans, particularly White Americans, must change. They must call for justice for all people, demand a greener America, disparage hypocrisy, and praise equity for all. This is the America I want for you three.

At this moment, I feel shame. My sentiments, frustrations, and anger are new to me. As painful as it is, it’s comparatively small. African American fathers and mothers feel this for a lifetime, and they are sentiments, frustrations, and anger repeated and reinforced for centuries. I feel that shame because it has taken almost a lifetime for me to recognize that pain.

For the Want of Heroes

Friday evening, the world lost a superhero, Notorious RBG (a.k.a. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg).

Her body had not chilled, and Senator Mitch McConnell announced that he would put forward Trump's nominee for the seat of Justice Ginsburg. Why? There was no one American with common sense who didn't know that he started making phone calls as soon as he heard. Why did he have to announce the obvious? Why could he wait under after she lie in state on Monday and Tuesday? He could have aligned his ducks in quiet. Then Americans had to listen to Lindsey Graham flip-flop on the issue of confirming a nominee a few weeks before an election. Then Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Democrats would riot in the street. This genius also claimed that slavery was a "necessary evil."

I heard this Republican crap all weekend. It was exhausting. Then I read about Sean Doolittle, a pitcher for the Washington Nationals. He's staying at home today. He's not seeing Donnie at the White House with his teammates, who won the 2019 World Series. He has problems with the president and has no desire of helping him with what is basically a PR stunt. His agrees with policies of the president, but that's not all. "At the end of the day it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country," said Doolittle.

Sean Doolittle of the Washington Nationals

Doolittle is no RBG, but he is a baseball hero. He and RBG stand heads taller than Trump, McConnell, Gratham, and Cotton.

P.S.: I almost forgot another hero of our time. Again not a politician. Again a great athlete. "As Jonathan Irons emerged from prison, Maya Moore fell to her knees. It took a moment for her strength to return. Then she got up and embraced him, a free man for the first time in over 23 years.

https://youtu.be/Zr4pRupLQGY

"Irons' first steps outside that building were also the last on a path the two had been walking together for more than a decade. Once she had regained composure, Moore turned to the phone filming the momentous occasion and said: 'OK guys. It's done. It's over.' This is the story of their extraordinary journey." Read the rest on BBC. There's also an ESPN Films documentary about the two individuals in production.

Being Handed the Short End of the Stick

Dear W. and M.,

Laila Lalami is a Muslim Moroccan-American. Sometimes American society considers her White, sometimes Black. Never Christain, which seems to be citizenship requirement in the minds of some Americans. She presents her story and that of Muslims here. She writes well. She's emotionally dispassionate, allowing facts to ellicit the reader's disgust for events facing Lalami or other Muslims.

You should read it someday. (Again now you're too young.) She shares two versions of "immigration." She dwells on American slavery, noting that many Africans taken to America were from the continent's west coast. Probability says there were Muslims among them. So, Muslims settled on North America before the forebears of most European Americans.

Second, she protrays the struggles that Muslims and Muslim immigrants have had in America. Her accounts should remind most Americans that their forebears too were not accepted in this country. They struggled for two or three generations before being "accepted" by the dominant culture. In my case, that dominant culture was Anglo-Saxon.

The struggle of immigrants does not mitigate the struggles of African Americans or Native Americans for that matter. The typical immigrant never endured centuries of inhuman treatment that the European American inflicted on those who did not want to come to North American and to those who settled the land long before Europeans knew it existed.

Based on my experience, dominant cultures --even when they are the minority, such as the original Spanish explorers in North and South America -- rarely accept or respect the culture, religions, and traditions of the cultures they have subbordinated. Maybe America can break that arrogances. Maybe Americans can take one or two difficult steps forward and embrace each other. We may become the first society to eliminate the distinction between the dominant and subordinate cultures within our nation. God, I hope that day comes soon.

Suburban Women Not Falling for Trump's Southern Strategy

Dear boys,

You're too young to care, but our president's attempt to frighten suburban women is failing, according to an article in the New York Times: "Their communities feel safe to them, and they’re not too concerned about poorer neighbors moving in, according to polls in some key battleground states by The New York Times and Siena College. They say in a national Monmouth University poll that racial integration is important to them, and unlikely to harm property values or safety. In interviews, many have never heard of the federal fair-housing rule encouraging integration that the president has often cited by name in arguing that Joe Biden would abolish the suburbs."

I find the report hopeful. One, the attitude of suburban women will make it more difficult for Donnie to get reelected. Two and more importantly, their attitude demonstrates a much wider acceptance of all people by white Americans--at least far more accepting than I ever thought possible, even in your lifetimes.

The women of America give the nation hope.

The Looter of the American Spirit; the Arsonist of American Liberty

Dear grandsons,

There are days when I so dislike writing this blog that I feel sick. This is one of those days. It’s not the writing, nor the topic (equity for those not paying attention). I wanted to puke because of Americans' willingness to accept those politicians who pander to the lowest common denominator of American society. They don’t respect women, the right of dissent, and minorities.

I will start with the simple, as in simplest to explain.

• When the COVID-19 virus was first being discussed in the administration, Donnie thought it might be a good thing. He wouldn’t have to shake hands with people any longer.
  
  
• Former model Amy Dorris accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her. The attack reportedly happened at the 1997 US Open. She was attending the match. She and her boyfriend were guests in Donald’s private box. She went to the bathroom, and he is said to have groped her and stuck his tongue down her throat. Read more in the Guardian exclusive.
  
  She is the 26th woman to accuse Donald of sexual misconduct. His first wife, Ivana, used the term “rape” to describe an encounter with the  man. That’s more than two dozen women, most offering some kind of evidence of the encounters.
  
  He surrounds himself with women, primarily his wife, daughter, and his sons’ special others, who look and stand as if they were animated Barbie dolls. At some point, one must wonder about his relationship with his mother and father. It borders on the sick. “
  
  “In the almost 20 years since, Mr. Trump has called his eldest daughter ‘voluptuous.’ He’s said it’s OK to describe her as ‘a piece of ass,’ though she is a senior executive in his business empire. And he’s said that, if she wasn’t his daughter, ‘perhaps [he’d] be dating her.’” Does this man, who interrupts female journalists more often than males, respect women?
  
  Let’s compound the cruelty to women. Dawn Wooten, a nurse at an Irwin county immigrant detention center run by the LaSalle Corporation, blew the whistle. In a report, filed by the Government Accountability Project and Project South, she noted there was a high rate of hysterectomies on women who complained of heavy menstrual cycles. Most victims spoke little or no English and didn’t understand what was being done to their bodies. Trump’s administration is responsible for these centers and the people within their walls.
  
  
• He retweeted an altered video, first sent out by Donald the Lesser, that accused Biden of being a pedophile, implying that he was part of a cabal, identified by QAnon conspiracy followers, as being a cult of devil worshipping pedophiles. Donald the Bigger does several things with the retweet. He gives thumbs up to Little Donny. He lends the credibility of the presidential office to a conspiracy theory that has repeatedly been shown to have no foundation and whose “leader” does not exist. Finally, the retweet shows his deranged preoccupation with his sexuality and that of others. Remember the big hands-little hands debate during the 2016 Republican debates?
  
  
• His AG, William Barr, instructed US attorneys to find ways of charging protesters accused of looting and arson with sedition. This is the same man who encouraged federal forces to fire tear gas on Washington protesters so Donnie could pose with a bible in front of a church. (He held the bible upside down.)
  
  This is the same AG who claimed recently that only Donald Trump stood between America today and chaos and socialism of the Democrats. The prosecutorial powers of the US Attorney General are wide and powerful, as upheld by the Supreme Court, but those nine justices never said he (or she) has the right to be stupid. The young looters and arsonists were overwhelmed with anger.  Such immaturity jeopardized or destroyed life and property. The guilty violated a primal law of humankind, and they should be prosecuted—as looters, as arsonists, not as seditionists.
  
  I have yet to meet an individual of any race who wants to incite people to rebel against the authority of a state (that’s the dictionary definition, not the legal). Most looters were opportunists, taking advantage of the chaos for personal gain.  Barr politicized a criminal activity.
  
  He also tried to stigmatize the BLM movement as being seditious, which it isn’t. (After asking for four centuries, it’s not surprising that people get pissed off when they must ask or demand their rights as citizens.) Every African American I’ve talked with about this subject has no desire for the destruction of the US. They have one simple and centuries-old request: Treat me with the same dignity that you treat White folks. Nothing tremendous about that. It’s theirs according to the 13, 14, and 15 amendments as well as several federal laws. It’s theirs by rights of their citizenship.  If Barr wants to arrest people for sedition, try white supremacists who want to alter the fabric of American society by ignoring those very amendments and laws.
  
  The AG also compared a mandate for wearing face masks as a violation of individual liberty similar to that of slavery. That doesn't even make sense. I've worn a mask ever since the CDC recommended it. Was I in shackles? Was I told whom I could marry? Were my children or wife taken from me? Was I whipped if I didn't wear a mask? Was I lynched because I looked longingly at a White woman? Barr, thy name is hyperbole.
  
  
• For more than four years, I’ve listened to Donnie talk about “the” Blacks, “the” African Americans. Normally when someone is speaking in the plural number, he or she says Blacks or African Americans. She doesn't add the article “the.” It’s to particularize the noun it modifies. There is no reason or logical to particularizing a long group. Hence, the reason people don't. Why does Donnie feel compelled to particularize African Americans (or the African Americans as he would say)?
  
  He also stumbles over phrases such as African American communities or Hispanic communities. They are not tongue twisters. Are the phrases getting stuck in his throat?
  
  It goes to the core problem with the Administration and Donnie. As the reelection campaigns have powered up, our president (I hate using that term to describe Donald Trump) has resurrected the Southern Strategy created by Nixon and pandered by Ronald Reagan. They touch on a primal fear in White communities for more than 400 years.
  
  It emerged in the slave states of the nation when the population of African slaves outnumbered European American farmers. Slaves were treated like animals (legally they were animals). As their numbers grew, White slave owners feared insurrection. (It wouldn’t have been insurrection. It would have been a revolution, with more justification than the American Revolution.) They were right. Slaves did revolt. The most famous revolt was organized by Nat Turner, a genius and a liberator, no different than John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson (except for the fact that the last three owned slaves). Each leader wanted freedom for themselves and their people.

  Myths developed and European Americans spread them throughout the South. Eventually they crept North. They took hold. They didn’t vanish with the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
  
  It spread into Northern cities. As African Americans fled the South after World War II for jobs up North, European Americans fled the cities for the suburbs, towns with zoning requirements that prohibited multi-family buildings and rental properties. There were unwritten rules that prohibited real estate agents from showing property to African Americans in suburban towns. Those days are gone. Now towns keep themselves white with zoning restrictions, ensuring that whoever moves into town is a person of means. (Green always beats color.)
  
  Now Republicans are saying that if the nation elects Joe Biden, the looters and rioters of the BLM movement will invade the suburbs. There are European Americans who are buying into the argument. They are terrified of African Americans. And they are buying more than an argument. They are buying guns.
  
  It came to a head recently. Donnie retweet a video of Joe Biden making a presentation in Miami. It obviously was doctored. The original sender inserted the NWA song “Fuck tha Police.” If you know the lyrics, the video becomes just an oddity.

  Most White people don't know the lyrics. It becomes a great trope for the the Southern Strategy. First, there’s the group’s name: Niggaz wit Attitude. To the frightened individual, it sounds like a challenge. It is. They were saying we will not be pushed around. That was the attitude. After centuries of abuse, the name makes sense. Secondly, every American should agree with the sentiments of the song:

"Right about now, N.W.A. court is in full effect / Judge Dre presiding /In the case of N.W.A. vs. the Police Department / Prosecuting attorneys are: MC Ren, Ice Cube / And Eazy motherfuckin' E" / "Order, order, order / Ice Cube, take the motherfuckin' stand / Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth / And nothin' but the truth so help your black ass?" / "You Goddamn right!" / "Well, won't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?" / Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground / A young nigga got it bad 'cause I'm brown / And not the other color so police think / They have the authority to kill a minority / Fuck that shit, 'cause I ain't the one / For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun / To be beatin' on, and thrown in jail / We can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell / Fuckin' with me 'cause I'm a teenager / With a little bit of gold and a pager/ Searchin' my car, lookin' for the product / Thinkin' every nigga is sellin' narcotics / You'd rather see, me in the pen

• They are complaining, back in 1988, about the same problem happening in the streets of America today. Are they using my style of argument? No. Then again, they are not me. Then again, my forebears, family, and I have not put up with the same unjustifiable violence faced by the forebears, family, and themselves of Doctor Dre, Ice Cube, Arabian Prince, DJ Yella, Easy E, and MC Ren.
  
  Donnie’s retweet fires up the irrational fear of European Americans. He deliberately divides America. He wants chaos. He is the looter of the American spirit. He is the arsonist of American liberty.

Understanding “Lift Every Voice” in Context with Its Time

Dear Princes of my life,

Yesterday, I told you that “Lift Every Voice and Spring” should be our nation’s anthem. It’s a beautiful song—its lyrics, melody, and sentiment—reflecting the ideals of America. I forgot to mention its context. Thomas Mallon in the New Yorker reminded me. He wrote a powerful piece about the 1920 election of Harding. It sounds surprising similar to our 2020 election.

War World I cost the country about 70,000 lives. It was a war opposed by many people. Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke, making him less than energetic about fulfilling his Presidential obligations (the 25th amendment would not be ratified for another 45 years). The Spanish Flu finally subsided after two years. It killed almost 700,000 Americans. Immigration was on the rise, and “native” Americans, meaning White people of English or Dutch descent, were panicking about the influence of Rome on the electorate.

Ku Klux Klan marching in Washington DC during the 1920s.

Most important, white supremacy had risen and taken hold in many parts of the country—not just the South. For example, Ellsworth, Maine, near where we took your father and uncle for vacations, was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 20s. (Few African Americans lived up there, but Mainers feared the influence of Jews and papists, as Catholics were called).

African Americans caught the brunt of the hatred of anything perceived as “non-American,” and Blacks, Jews, and Catholics fit that bill. Jews and Catholics weren’t lynched. African Americans were as Mallon noted: “Racial violence remained a phenomenon of such dailiness in 1920 that its occurrence, even when reported, was perceived as being more inevitable than eventful, something that required an occasional word from the candidates without anybody believing it would seriously affect the election. During the campaign, there were lynchings in Duluth, Minnesota; Paris, Texas; Graham, North Carolina; Corinth, Mississippi; Macclenny, Florida; and elsewhere.” Just before election day in 2020, Whites and Klansmen lynched a promising businessman and destroyed his neighborhood in Ocoee, Florida. A year later, there was the massacre of African Americans in Greenwood Oklahoma. Three years after that, Rosewood, Florida, was leveled. In each case, not one single White man was even charged with a crime.

Rosewood, FL, 1923

This was the atmosphere of America when the NAACP declared “Lift Every Voice and Sing” the negro national anthem. It was an act of defiance as much as a celebration of hope and freedom. That sounds more American than the story behind the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Lift Every Voice and Sing—A National Anthem?

I’ve never liked the “Star Spangled Banner.” It’s hard to sing even for the proficient of singers. It’s a war song, not a song about liberty and freedom. The lyrics. Well. Let’s be kind and say they stink.

Francis Scot Key wrote them while being held on a British brig during the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The soldiers of Fort McHenry repelled the British attack from sea. Key wrote these words a few months after his patrol was wiped out by British soldiers. The soldiers happened to be former slaves whom the British granted freedom for fighting on the side of the British. Key was the only survivor, and being a slave owner, he was none too pleased to have been defeated by a group of Black soldiers. 

Let’s forget history for a moment. Our anthem is based on the poem by Key, which by any literary standard is a lousy poem. Its music is not original. It’s not even American. It was the music for the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen’s club of amateur musicians. Its actual  title, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” It was sung after meals when the booze flowed more freely. Hence it developed a reputation as a drinking song.

That’s the history of America’s anthem, which didn’t become an anthem until 1931. Our soldiers and citizens weren’t singing it during the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered it played at military and other appropriate settings. I’ve wondered if this racist of presidents selected it for the third verse: … Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution./No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave… He was praising his dead battalion for losing to the Black “hirelings and slaves” who did not flee the fight.

What made it popular? Baseball. Yeap. In 1918, major league baseball started playing the song before games during the First World War. That is why it beat out “Hail, Columbia” and “America the Beautiful,” the more popular patriotic songs and much easier to sing.

The anthem’s history surrenders to nothing grand about America.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” however, does.

https://youtu.be/wp3akp5Yv70

Melba Moore singing "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

I’ve heard it many times, most strikingly when I heard a recording of the song by Melba Moore. There are recordings by Branford Marsalis, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and BeBe Winans, Beyonce, and a host of other performers. You may have heard a version of the song at the start of the NFL games this past weekend as performed by Alicia Keys. Its history tells the story of America.

"The Harp" by Augusta Savage

The lyrics were written by James Johnson in 1900. His brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, put it to music in 1905. It was first performed as a poem in a celebration of Lincoln’s birthday. In 1919, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People declared it the “Negro national anthem.” For the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, Augusta Savage sculpted “The Harp,” a commissioned piece, which was inspired by the anthem. Unfortunately, she could not find the funding to have the sculpture cast in bronze, so the plaster cast was destroyed at the end of the fair.

It’s time we make it the national anthem.

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

Racism Lives

Dear guys,
We live in America, home of the brave and land of the free. The day before the anniversary of 9/11, I wondered just how many Americans respect the concept of freedom.

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans met for an opening game to the NFL season. It was thought of as a moment of hope during the pandemic, which has robbed us of some many activities we enjoyed as a nation.

The players and the league still believed that they needed to recognize the lack of equality in American. Rather than taking a knee, which many Americans--fueled by the blubbering of Donald Trump--disliked, the players of both teams stood in the middle of the field and linked arms. Some fans booed.

Are they opposed to freedom, to equality? If you asked, they would say no. Personally, I think they objected to a large group of powerful, physically and economically, Black men implying that there's something more to life than football. I believe that that group of Americans, probably White Americans, did not like Black men pointing out a failing in this country.

People of your hue have suffered from this indignity for centuries. It is as if these Americans are saying because of your African heritage, you do not have the same rights as European Americans. It's strange statement.I assume that many of the boo-people are also Trump supporters. (That's a presumption on my part, but a logical one.) Yet, the Donald has done nothing but criticize America, its foreign policy, and its leaders--political and military--for four years straight. He has complained about our environmental policies. He has criticized our courts by pardoning the convicted only because they have been loyal to him. Yet they do not boo him. What is the difference? The real hue of his skin.

Much has improved for African Americans in the past 70 years, but much, much more has not. We have made overt racism a crime, but we have done nothing to deal with the racism infecting too many Americans and the invisible racism of those who don't point it out.

Securing Better Education for America

Dear W. And M.,

I received the following email from Janette McCarthy-Wallace, NAACP, Interim General Counsel. You might think: boring. Not so much. She with the support of the NAACP are fighting to make sure that your generation receives the best education America can provide. She wrote:

"The coronavirus pandemic focused the nation’s attention on the essential role public schools play in the lives of families and communities. It’s also exposed the severe racial inequalities that continue to plague our education system and disadvantage students of color.

"But rather than addressing these problems, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, fully supported and endorsed by the Trump Administration, took action to exploit the pandemic and promote her personal agenda of funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools and taking resources away from the schools and the students who need it most.

"We weren’t just going to standby and watch it happen. That’s why we sued on behalf of students of color across the nation – and we WON!

"This decision sends a clear signal that Secretary DeVos cannot use illegal means to advance her harmful agenda to the detriment of our highest need students.

"Joseph, we didn’t stop with Betsy DeVos. We also sued Governor DeSantis in Florida for trying to force schools to reopen in August – endangering teachers and students alike. The court found that DeSantis arbitrarily prioritized reopening schools statewide over the safety and the advice of health experts.

"This decision showed that the DeSantis Order was unconstitutional to the extent that it arbitrarily disregards safety, denies local school boards decision making with respect to reopening brick and mortar schools, and conditions funding on an approved reopening plan."

Americans deserve equity, financially and politically. It starts with education. That does not mean that the nation lower its standards. Rather, we as a nation must demand that our education system is best that America can achieve for all students regardless of race, creed, or gender.

To some Americans, this may sound like a socialistic call. It's capitalism at its best. In the past 50 years, the nation has changed economically. Brain power has become society's greatest asset--even in occupations usually associated with brawn. The more students who graduate high school and college and who excel in language and mathematical literacy, the more powerful the nation will be economically. Such a nation will lift the financial well-being of all Americans. I repeat its capitalism. The greater the investment, the greater the yield.

The NAACP has been behind this push for some 70 years. The organization deserves our support, regardless of race, creed, or gender.

Celebrating Our Bright Lights

Dear grandsons,

I forget that I write this column for you, the reason I wrote "For a Dignity Deserved." I'm masked and sitting in your dinning room typing this. W, you're upstairs attending school virtually, and M., you are outside with Nana working on a bird feeder. Your Dad is at the doctor's, and your Mom went for a run.

In this COVID-19 world, our worlds have shrunk. We social distance. We don't hug and kiss as we usually do. We don't touch when playing or having conversations. We don't see relatives frequently, and our relationships with friends become virtual.

Our pandemic-enforced cloister shuts out much of the world. We can remember those around us and those who came before us if we read, digitally or in-print Both work equally as well. (Forget social media. Too much crap is posted by lonely, frighteningly, intellectually stifled individuals on both sides of the political spectrum.)

I discovered two such people recently.

Lawrence Brooks, the oldest living World War II American veteran (on the left in the picture), will turn 111 on September 12. For five years, the National World War II museum in New Orleans has celebrated Brooks's birthday. The pandemic has changed this year's celebration. Gone are the cakes and the band. The museum has asked that Americans send a birthday card. Let's celebrate Mr. Brooks and send him a card: The National WWII Museum, c/o Happy 111th Mr. Brooks!, 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.

Lawrence Brooks on left.

I'll bet that you did not know that one of the great inspirations of Beethoven's life was of African descent and an astounding concert violinist who held the courts of Europe in awe by his virtuosity. His name: George Bridgetower. He gallivanted with the maestro They drank in taverns and they whatever in the whore houses. Beethoven was so impressed by Bridgetower that he dedicated the "Kreutzer” Sonata to him. He toured Europe. He played with the Prince of Wales's concert band. He might have studied with Franz Joseph Haydn. He might even have played a role in pulling Beethoven out of his suicidal funk when he discovered was going deaf.

George Bridgetower on left, Beethoven on right

Celebrate Black Women

History generally ignores the contributions of women. For centuries, they worked behind the scenes making the impossible possible with patience and dignity. For the most part, history not only ignored the contributions of Black women, it disregarded the contributions and accomplishments.

There was Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, celebrated for their heroics and vilified for what some narrow-minded White people would call audacity. How dare they break the law in the name of freedom? Dare they did, and history could not ignore that courage and fortitude. History was not mindful of others, unfortunately.

A few weeks ago, I noted the contributions of Black women to the suffragette movement. Now it is time to honor just a few of the thousands who have improved America, who have made America great.

Accomplished Black women today continue the pioneering spirit of Bass. Let's step out of politics. There are the Serena and Venua Wiliams. They are highly succcessful tennis players, two of the greatest of the 21st century, as well as successful entrepeneurs. Their dignity and performance gave many other players of color a chance to play within the white lines of tennis.

Charlotta Bass

Charlotta Bass was overlooked. She was the first women to run for vice president of the United States. She was the first black women. "Taking the stage to accept her nomination before some 2,000 delegates [for the Progressive Party] in an auditorium on Chicago’s West Side, Bass — who would receive endorsements from civil rights luminaries like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois — declared: 'This is a historic moment in American political life.'" She was also the first African American woman to own and publish a newspaper, the California Eagle from 1912 to 1951.

With such astonishing individuals, it's fitting that Black women have become the nation's new superheroes--at least on screen. Now it is time to recognize them in the real world.

In counterpoint, "Women in Hate" explains the complicated lives of women from the farright movement. It's a book that deals fairly with the lives of three women, whom I would call troubled, and shows how they chose to tumbled into the world of White nationalism, sometimes only to leave latter. Are they heroes? No. Are they human? Yes.

It's America's shame that it did not treat Black women over the past four centuries with the same respect.

Centenarian Leads Law Suit for Greenwood Reparations

The Guardian reported today the following:

“A group of Oklahomans, led by 105-year-old woman, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday demanding reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre which saw white mobs burn down a thriving black neighborhood and kill hundreds of people. The lawsuit alleges that the massacre, one of the worst acts of racial violence in US history, still overshadows the neighborhood of Greenwood, and that racial inequality in Tulsa today can be traced back to the events of almost 100 years ago.” The lead plaintiff is Lessie Benningfield Randle, one of the two known survivors of the massacre.

Three cheers for Ms. Randle.