Month: March 2019

I wonder when it became okay for people to thumb their noses at common decency.  This week, I’ve found myself repeatedly feeling sick to my stomach every time I heard Trump speak about the Mueller investigation and how he has been totally exonerated and how those who accused him of wrong doing are deserving of punishment.  It makes me want to scream. 

I said last week that I didn’t need the results of the Mueller Investigation to inform my opinion as to whether or not Trump is guilty of wrong doing.  He clearly is.  Mueller didn’t exonerate him as he so loudly claims.  Mueller didn’t proclaim him innocent of all wrongdoing.  In fact, on the issue of obstruction of justice, Mueller didn’t pass any judgement, except to say that the President is “not” exonerated.  On the issue of conspiracy, I’m actually relieved that the Trump campaign’s underhanded conduct with the Russians didn’t rise to that level.  However, the campaign clearly knew that it was wrong to take so many secret meetings with the Russians during the campaign.  Otherwise, why did they keep lying about them?   

 I’ve grown weary of Trump’s impertinent and crass behavior.  I find it difficult to believe that any decent human being is okay with his constant lying, exaggerations, and ignorant claims.  He stands before crowds of people and spews the nastiest, most meanspirited, divisive things and the crowd cheers.  Who are these people?  Who were their mothers? Who were their teachers?  What wrong has this society done to them that they cheer on someone whose ideas and demeanor are so insolent?  We have a President with so little respect for the American people that he will steal away their healthcare with nothing to replace it.  He shamelessly separated children from their parents as a deterrent to families fleeing violence and abject poverty.  He allows industry to pollute our air and water and enacts deregulations that may eventually destroy our planet.  He ignores the science behind climate change as floods, draughts, and fires ravage our country and the world. He breaks every rule learned in Sunday School about how to treat others.  He even picks fights with dead war heroes. And still, these sad depraved souls will cheer him on at a rally. Is feeding xenophobia, packing are courts, and giving tax breaks to the wealthy really worth it?

There has to be a counter narrative.  Justin Timberlake wanted to bring sexy back.  Meghan Trainor wanted to bring boodie back.  I wish some artist would write a song about bringing decorum back.  We need a song about bringing the truth back.  We need a song about bringing science back.   But most of all, we need to get our nation back from the impertinent person occupying the highest office in the world.

Friday evening I heard the news that Robert Mueller had completed his two year investigation into possible collusion between Trump and Russia to aid in Russia’s interference in our 2016 election and also to determine whether or not Trump’s firing of James Comey was obstruction of justice. I realized during the announcement that his findings don’t really matter to me.

The findings don’t matter because I can see who this president is. For these two years, Donald Trump has made his character known by his words, tweets and actions. I don’t need the results of an investigation to tell me that Trump skirts the law and even breaks it when it suits him. I don’t need the Mueller investigation to tell me that Trump and his administration lie about practically everything. They are masters of misrepresentation. They are thieves who are using their positions for personal financial gain. We see it pretty much every day in their dealings using tax payer dollars. They routinely scoff at the laws and ethics. They arrogantly see themselves as above it all and the rest of us as law-abiding suckers.

The truth of the matter is that we put a crime boss in the White House. The folks around him are criminals and some are finally going to prison. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, was his personal henchman who turned on him. Cohen’s descriptions of how Trump operates and of the things he did on behalf of Trump for the past ten years, including during and after the election, only confirm that the man has no business being president. It bothers me that he remains in the White House when we can see clearly who he is and how he has greatly diminished the office of the presidency. He has made our country a laughing stock across the world.

What bothers me most is that too many Americans don’t care. Their admiration of this mob boss in the White House seems to stem from their distain for corporate and government elites and their fear of minorities. It’s as though a third of the American people are cheering for Bonnie and Clyde. Back in the day, the public knew Bonnie and Clyde were breaking all the rules, but they were wooed by the bold personalities that gave the middle finger to the elites. Trump does the same. He loudly and proudly voices their bigotry in public, strokes their egos, and ignites the lowest instincts in the human brain. On one of the news shows, a woman takes an audience microphone and tells Steve Bannon that she wasn’t for dictatorships until now. Trump is the only person she would welcome as a dictator in our country. And the audience applauded. What the hell?

So, this is how low some of us have sunk. This is how low Republican lawmakers have sunk. They are either silent or they betray themselves to publicly defend the indefensible. This is precisely why the Mueller investigation doesn’t matter. The best it can do is confirm what we already know and a third of the country won’t believe it anyway. But still worse, it may be inconclusive. It may point toward wrongdoing, but no indictments for crimes dealing with collusion are being issued.

For many Americans, like me, the decision about this president has already been made. We either want him in or we want him out. Personally, I want him out. I don’t need the Mueller investigation to determine that.

There has to be a balance between self-preservation and being my brother’s keeper.  Friday at 11:30am I joined some campus members in a gathering around the campus flagpole at the invitation of Campus Ministries to support our Muslim campus members in the face of yet another tragic massacre of innocent lives at two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand.  Forty-nine souls were lost.  We were gathered in community to say that we are our brother’s keeper in the face of hatred that characterizes itself as self-preservation.  In the gunman’s distorted thinking, white people were targeted for genocide and he was fighting back.  Am I too distraught to believe that mankind can truly act as though all lives matter as much as our own?

How is it that some white heterosexual males are seeing themselves as in peril?  How after all these years of discrimination and oppression against women and people of color, do they now see themselves as justified in murdering innocent people as a means of “not being replaced”?  They are cowards. They fear having to compete with others for the first time in a very long time.  They question their true place in the world and find that they are not smarter, wiser, or more deserving of wealth and influence than others.  They just had bigger guns and were more willing to use them to slaughterl the Native Americans, enslave blacks and oppress women and other minorities.  Their tactic was brutality back them. Some are resorting back to their weapons while others have resorted to cheating. 

I was dismayed but not surprised earlier in the week to learn that some 800 or so wealthy and famous parents were scheming to get their children into prestigious universities at the expense of hardworking, unconnected, but more deserving students.  This was all about preserving the status of the next generation.  It wasn’t enough that their children had every educational advantage growing up.  And perhaps the side door to the most prestigious universities that was always open to the children of the rich and famous willing to make a huge donation was closing a bit amid equally and sometime more talented students from diverse backgrounds.  I read a book several years ago titled, “The Price of Admission” that details the alternative methods into the most prestigious institutions.  While society laments Affirmative Action that seeks to remedy the past in present discrimination of black and brown students as being somehow lacking in fairness to whites and now Asians (current law suit), this other game was going on for years.  It was a form of Affirmative Action for the privileged where a student gets extra points because of a parent’s alumni status.  But as diversity became an educational value along side of educational justice for students from disadvantaged backgrounds grew, fewer slots were reserved for the children of the wealthiest donors and legacies who were typically white.  So, we accidently learned about the cheating schemes of the last ten years. 

This is why I’m angry.  I know that self-preservation is a human trait.  But so is altruism.  So is caring about others.  So is a sense of fairness and fair play.  How do we get to the balance?  I feel like the scales have tipped toward white self-preservation and that Trump’s comment last week about having strong people on his side was a threat to those of us who demand access and opportunities for everyone.  If white people can’t convince themselves, their family members, and their friends that other men and women are human and capable and also worthy of opportunities, no matter their skin color, religion, or sexual orientation, then I think that there will be more flagpole vigils in my future. 

Friday, March 8^th was International Women’s Day.  I started the day intending to focus and celebrate women from all over the world in a meaningful way. For a tabling event on campus, I had prepared a trivia wheel, featuring influential women from around the world and I had designed empowering door knockers for the occasion.

I was glad to begin my day by hearing on a morning news program a few important statistics about how important it is for mankind to focus on educating and supporting women. For example, when women earn an income, 90% of the money is invested in their family’s welfare versus only 30% of the income men earn.  I learned that 98 cents of every dollar invested in businesses run by women is used to generate greater revenue versus only 47 cents on the dollar by men running businesses.

I’ve long supported international women’s education by donating monthly to Women for Women International an organization that provides marginalized women with the resources they need to elevate themselves and their families.  Educating women is key to lifting families out of poverty. I am proud that I paid the tuition from junior high through high school of twins Adama and Awa whom I met on a trip to the Gambia in 2008.  Since then, the twins have gone on to college in China on full scholarships.  Because of how empowering the Boys and Girls Club was in my personal life as a child, two years ago, I added the Boys and Girls Club of America to my automatic monthly giving routine.  I decided to help where I know there is a great need, so I chose my hometown, Detroit, Michigan to receive my monthly donations, even though the one I frequented was in Los Angeles.  And then this morning, I added FINCA International, a microfinance non-profit that helps impoverished women build businesses to my list monthly support list before going to work.

On campus, the student group, Her Campus, put together the tabling event I mentioned for their annual International Women’s Day Fair. There were many creative tables hosted by campus clubs and offices, including my own.  It was a pleasure to visit each of the tables honoring women, providing “girl power” encouragement or highlighting women’s issues such as labor and sex trafficking.  The campus community, both males and females, were actively engaged in the process of educating and learning and trying to make a difference in the lives of women around the world. 

Friday was one of those rare days, when I could go to bed and say to myself, “Mission accomplished”. It was definitely the most impactful International Women’s Day that I can recall and I hope individuals find the most suitable way to encourage and empower women, or like me, just take one more step toward upping the contribution. When we educate and empower women, we change the world for good.

As parents, mentors, and teachers, we do our best to instill the value of honesty and integrity in our children.  We use stories like “Pinocchio” to demonstrate the consequences of lying.  We share with them the fairy tale of the boy who cried wolf to remind them to keep their credibility in tact so that people will believe them when it’s important.  We teach them to let their word be their bond. We might even use Bible verses that associate lying with the father of lies, Satan, and how “…all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone…” (Revelation 21:8) But these days, it may to be difficult to instill these lessons.

I watched about two hours of Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress last week.  Boy does he have a tale to tale about the criminal and immoral character of Donald J. Trump after 10 years working for him. But, he has to deal with credibility issues stemming from all the lies he told while he was loyal to his former boss.  He lied on bank loan applications. He lied about a myriad of things, some of which were to cover up the misdeeds and criminal behavior of our sitting president, both before and after the man took office.  So, now he wants people who believe him and the Republicans just kept pointing out the fact that he is a convicted liar.  Of course, the president got on television and said that no one should believe Cohen because Cohen is a convicted liar.  But what of this president himself? How does he have any credibility?

I had to laugh when a Republican congressman suggested that Congress should only call witnesses to testify who were not known and convicted liars.  I thought to myself, “Does such a person in Trump world even exist?”  They are all liars!  Integrity doesn’t seem to exist among them as a value.  Even Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was proven to be a liar this week when she said in an interview that she and Jared received no special treatment to get their security clearances. He and his associates are caught on tape lying about so many things and so often that no one is surprised any more.  In fact, one newspaper counted over 8,000 lies Trump has told since his candidacy for president.  What kind of example are these people on the world stage setting for our children? 

Perhaps the best way to teach our children to be truthful today is to allow them to see our reaction to the abhorrent behavior happening before our eyes so that they can be exposed to and repulsed by it as opposed to being encouraged to emulate it.  We should let them hear the lies being exposed on a daily basis. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump, and his associates might be the real life and perhaps best examples and caution for our children against lying.