Legalizing Discrimination

"Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. 

Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. 

Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. 

As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. 

We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." 

In "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander

Historical Trauma

"[Jarvious] Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. 
His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. 
His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation. 
His father is barred from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. 
Today, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole." 

In "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Breaking It Down

"For too long, there has been no mass fight back against a multileveled assault on poor and vulnerable people...

'The New Jim Crow' is a grand wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable...

Martin Luther King, Jr. called for us to be lovestruck with each other, not colorblind to each other. 

To be lovestruck is to care, to have deep compassion, and to be concerned for each and every individual, including the poor and vulnerable." 

Foreword by Cornell West

Good Readings Can Be Like Good Therapy

I started going to a reader for the first time nearly 6 years ago.

It helped me to change my life.

I wasn't particularly perceptive - actually, I was blind and getting duped. I needed some insight.

Mostly, I experienced readings like good therapy - I felt seen and understood, deeply.

These are notes taken during readings. I read them over and over again. They are like wisdom from a grandmother I never knew. They are messages about loving, respecting, enjoying, and cherishing self - these probably ring true for any social worker.

Quieres felicidad completa. Prefieres decir las cosas al frente. Eres decidida. Tienes que ser egoista. Tienes que ver por tu vida. Piensa en ti. No te gustan los chismes. No le tienes miedo a nada. Eres triunfadora - nadie te puede aplastar. Caes y te levantas. Renacimiento espiritual - una vida nueva para ti. Obstaculos - sales adelante. Abrir los ojos - a sentir lo que soy y lo que valgo de mujer. Quererte todos los dias. Apapachate tu misma. Ve lo que tu vales, eres espiritual con muchos valores. Estas tomando decisiones bien. Limpia tu aura para tomar decisiones correctas. Ni para atras, ni para agarrar impulso. Date tu lugar mas. Se tiene uno que estar limpiando. Eres dulce. Sigue tus instintos. Eres mujer de razón - usa tu razonamiento. Lo que es para ti, nadie te lo quita. Con tranquilidad, no corras. Si no lo sientes, no lo hagas. Tu sabes quien eres. La fe mueve montañas. Eres mujer de lucha. No te gustan las mentiras. Te has vuelto muy decidida en tus cosas, organizada. La gente paga aqui. Aqui se pagan las cosas. Tu has tenido que batallar por todo - es una limpieza para ti. Buenas palabras - te alimentan tu espíritu. Te abri los ojos - hay cosas que no te dabas cuenta. Tu no te dejas. Ya no pienses - deja que las cosas fluyan. Podrán haber chismes, pero te vale. Arta, arta de chismes. Aceptar la gente come es. Tus espiritus y protectores te cuidan mucho. Eres mujer de una sola palabra. Ya sabes quien es quien. Introvertida. Lo que es para ti, es para ti. Lo que no, se va.

Yours Truly

Tell me what you want
what you really, really want!
-Spice Girls

If you know what you want but feel stuck and stymied,
the answer likely lies in your ambivalence.

Explore your fears, worries, questions, concerns and doubts -
these are major cock-blockers, pardon my french. Enchanté.

Uncovering and facing these fears can bring you closer to what you truly desire.
And remember that Creator does not put a desire in your heart to mock you.
If it's divine, imagine that it's already yours because it is.

Greed, Violence and Control

The following are excerpts from "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow on the maltreatment of slaves:

"On days when renegade slaves were executed at Christiansvaern, the white men formed a ring around the fort to prevent other slaves from interfering. Any slave who attacked a white person faced certain death by hanging or decapitation...after first being prodded with red-hot pokers and castrated. Punishments were designed to be hellish so as to terrorize the rest of the captive population into submission. If a slave lifted a hand in resistance, it would promptly be chopped off. Any runaway who returned within a three-month period would have one foot lopped off. If he ran away a second time, the other foot was amputated. Recidivists might also have their necks fitted with grisly iron collars of sharp, inward-pointing spikes that made it impossible to crawl away through the dense underbrush without slashing their own throats in the effort (p.33)."

• It takes moral courage, bravery, self-worth and tenacity to stand up for your freedom and rights.
• Here's what I think about your hellish punishments meant to terrorize: no fear, no effect, no submission. 

"The eight thousand captive blacks easily dwarfed in number the one thousand whites, 'a disproportion,' remarked one visitor, 'which necessarily converts all such white men as are not exempted by age and decrepitude into a well-regulated militia' (p. 19)."

• When the oppressor is outnumbered, overpowered, his behaviors are immoral, and he is desperate for control, his only cowardly power is state-sanctioned violence.

"The mortality rate of slaves hacking away at sugarcane under a pitiless tropical sun was simply staggering: three out of five died within five years of arrival, and slave owners needed to replenish their fields constantly with fresh victims. One Nevis planter, Edward Huggins, set a sinister record when he administered 365 lashes to a male slave and 292 to a female. Evidently unfazed by this sadism, a local jury acquitted him of all wrongdoing (p. 19)."

• The wealth of our white ancestors and their progeny rests on the tortured lives of our black ancestors.
• This is another reason to avoid the white-devil that is sugar.

"...Another British visitor said that 'if a white man kills a black, he cannot be tried for his life for the murder...If a negro strikes a white man, he is punished with the loss of his hand and, if he should draw blood, with death' (p. 19)."

• This a good example of why the redundant phrase, "Black Lives Matter," needs to be emphasized - because laws and practices have historically enforced just the opposite. It's being said because it needs to be said.

Preparing for a Fight Toward the Light

self-caring
and putting the house in order
because i suspect that we will be called on to fight for
the human rights we have previously taken for granted

the fight will be on many fronts
so making friends with
lawyers and entrepreneurs,
young and old,
rich, middle class and poor
mis-educated and educated
and people that are like me and not like me

and stockpiling skills for the post-election apocalypse :)