Author: tonihall805@outlook.com

I’ll begin this post by saying that I am a huge fan of the book, “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson. He is absolutely right that the current criminal justice system targets and criminalizes our black children as though they were adults with mature brains. I must also state that I support those aspects of the Black Lives Matter Movement that seek to end police brutality, racial profiling, the over-policing of black neighborhoods, for profit prisons, and the unfair incarceration with harsher sentencing of blacks as compared to other racial demographics. However, I am against the notion of “defunding the police” because it would be disingenuous to assert that police don’t have an important role to play in investigating and prosecuting actual crimes, regardless of the race of the criminal. That said, I understand why New York elected Eric Adams as major and why Laurie Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election for major of Chicago. Crime is out of control and victims of crime, many of whom look like me, are scared that the crime situation will continue to get worse, leaving us prisoners in our own homes. And honestly, there is good reason for the fear.

In my early thirties, I considered becoming part of the rehabilitation of young women caught up in criminal activity. However, after just one visit to the juvenile detention center where I talked to individual young women and observed their group therapy session, I was convinced that I was ill-equipped to meet these young women where they were. I couldn’t relate to their way of thinking at all. In fact, I found the chasm between their sense of morality and mine to be too wide to even imagine where to begin to build bridges that would allow us to share a common language, let alone a common set of values to build upon. Some were clearly sociopaths, some had learning disabilities, while others received their moral upbringing from adults unable or unwilling to instill the basics of social norms. They were all victims of trauma, desperate to survive. I had compassion for their situation but no way to reach them. It was like we were from different planets, speaking a different language and living by different social rules.

What I observed were young women with low self-esteem who were raised in poverty, had little to no empathy, were poorly educated, and yet had a sense of entitlement that baffled my mind. There was no sense among them that others deserved respect or had any rights to security in their person or property. They took what they wanted or needed by any means necessary whether manipulation, theft, or violence. Might seemed to make right. In that place, it was apparent that mental toughness and physical strength determined the pecking order. With all the guards around, I didn’t fear for my safety, yet I felt a strange uneasiness by the predatory looks I saw directed at me. I saw young women calculating how they could use my presence to their advantage. These were young women who were in survival mode. They had been abused, neglected, and knocked around their entire short lives and now they viewed others as a means to their survival. I left the facility that day, not only discouraged, but feeling helpless to turn any of these girls around. I didn’t blame them for their predicament; I blamed the adults who were supposed to nurture and protect them but failed to do any of it. I hoped that there were other women who were equipped to mentor these young women into becoming productive members of society as opposed to allowing them to become more cunning and dangerous predators.

I guess I view most actual criminals to this day as predators who have little respect for the lives and property of others. Except for the few with actual social disorders, I continue to blame the system of oppression we live under in addition to the generations of adults who brought them into the world and then failed to raise them. The saying goes that hurt people, hurt people. Among my African Americans peers, I’ve witnessed the emotional trauma caused by discrimination, racism, violence, and low self-esteem. All contributed to a sustained poverty that is difficult to break free of. The reality is that it takes an extra-ordinary level of resilience, resourcefulness, and intelligence to overcome the legacy of slavery and ongoing systemic racism and prejudice in a society that is anti-black at its core. White people like to ignore the systemic obstacles while pointing to the few successful blacks as if their rise from poverty proves that success is likely if only black culture wasn’t so lazy and violent at its core. What a lie and a false justification for over-policing and outrageous incarceration rates, many from unfair plea deals.

So, we have a lot of hurt and neglected young women bringing babies into this society without the capacity to adequately nurture and effectively guide them because they themselves received too little nurturing and not enough proper guidance. Many of the young women at the detention center were already mothers whose children were in foster care or being raised by relatives. The reality is that mothers learn how to mother from their own mothers, passing neglect and abuse from one generation to the next.

Over the years, from childhood to adulthood, I’ve silently observed abusive black mothers in their homes, in church, at the beauty shop, and at the grocery store. Each time, I’ve lamented the damage being done and I knew I had to mind my own business because not one of those women would tolerate my intervention. Impoverished, traumatized, uneducated, and desperate people are the most dangerous people and unfortunately, these people exist among us in growing numbers. The more children born into poverty to traumatized women, the greater the number of desperate people seeking survival by any means available to them. However, there are ways to mitigate the problem.

The first is to nurture other people’s children every chance we get. It means taking the time and effort necessary to engage the children in our lives, especially those who appear to lack nurturing and guidance. We must support community efforts to boost the self-esteem of black girls and boys through role modeling, empathy, education, programs, career opportunities, and access to health care, including abortion care. We need to treasure and raise our children in community to ensure that each black child (and their mother) receives the nurturing, love, encouragement, support, guidance, and financial stability they deserve. If we see each black child as our responsibility, fewer will grow up with that dangerous survival mentality. My mother was a very nurturing person, but so were my maternal grandparents and so were my aunts and uncles. They surrounded us with love, guidance, correction, and financial stability. Because of extended family (including church family) and a few nurturing schoolteachers, we grew up with high self-esteem, a good work ethic, and respect for others. Thankfully, our run-in with law enforcement have only included traffic tickets (sometimes without merit) and profiled traffic stops for driving while black.

The second thing we can do is push our city leaders to reform our police departments. We must insist that they hire mentally stable police officers who actually want to protect and serve the community because we know that bad actors really do exist. We must report every unfair traffic stop and disrespectful police officer. We must demand that there be accountability for anti-black policing, charging, and sentencing in the criminal justice system.

The third thing we can do is demand more of our education system so that our children receive an equitable education. We should be pouring our resources into our schools and insisting that the children in our lives excel in school. We need to show up at School Board meetings to demand that our history be taught and that every teacher in our schools is actually qualified to teach. Under the pressure of violence, crazy parents, and low pay, good teachers are leaving the profession and children will suffer the consequences. A teacher without training will set children back and black children have suffered under this problem for years and it is only becoming worse. As parents and relatives of black male students, we must insist that our boys do better in the classroom than on the playing field. We should ask to see their report card before asking when their next game is. Let’s remind them that they should be scholar-athletes, but not just athletes.

The school to prison pipeline that we are witnessing must stop and we ourselves must be the ones to stop it. Those of us who, by the grace of God, have managed to escape the generational trauma of poverty, neglect and violence have a special responsibility to help others to find their way, too. It may be through mentoring in a juvenile detention center or it may be through tutoring, teaching Sunday School, coaching, becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister, or giving to a local foodbank. It may be getting more involved as an aunt, uncle, older cousin, or grandparent.

For several years, I’ve taught parenting classes. I’ve been on community panels against racial profiling that spoke directly to police cadets. I’ve mentored countless black college students and young black professionals throughout my career. I’ve actively raised scholarship funds. These days, I donate monthly to the Boys and Girls Club of Detroit, Michigan. And now, I am encouraging others to get involved. Each of us can assume a role and we must if we want to combat crime instead of being consumed by it.

I grew up with wonderfully supportive grandparents on my mother’s side. My father’s mother died when he was only 15 years old and by the time I was born, his father was on his third wife and recovering from his third stroke. So, what I learned about grandparenting came from the example of my mother’s parents and then from watching my own parents assume the role of grandparents to my three children. My mother was terrific while my father failed miserably because of his struggle with alcohol. My former husband’s father passed away years before we were married, and his mother was too absorbed running a household of unmarried adult children and grandchildren who lived close by to pay any attention to my children.

My grandparents served as a “safety net” for my mother, particularly after she and my father divorced for the first time and my mother became a single parent, abandoned in California when I was two. My brothers were sent back to our hometown, Detroit, to live with the grandparents. For a short time, my grandfather came to California to take care of me while my mother got her footing in the workforce and secured childcare for me. I’m told that my brothers remained in Detroit for two years.

Throughout my childhood, I recall spending summer vacations and a few winter breaks with my grandparents in Detroit. I later learned that my Easter clothes, weekly allowances, and many extracurricular activities were funded by my grandparents. When my parents separated for the second time, it was my grandparents who provided the down payment on a lovely home in the San Fernando Valley for us to live. Even my first trip to Europe in high school was partially paid for by them. Their sustained support for my mother and for us made the difference between stability and instability in our lives. Their economic and emotional support kept us out of poverty and allowed us to thrive socially, economically, and educationally.

I can see now that it was their support (along with the support of my mother’s younger sister) that enabled my mother to thrive in her career, to climb socially as a community leader, and to establish her own import business. When I married and had my own children, my mother clearly decided that she was going to pay it forward. Even though we were not struggling financially, she decided to ease the financial burdens of raising three children by paying for their preschool, piano lessons, Easter clothes, and by providing them with their weekly allowance. We had fun shopping together. She watched the kids so we could have regular date nights and even travel on occasion. She attended recitals, graduations, and every special occasion involving the grandkids. When she visited, she did laundry and cooked. She was available 24/7 for consultation on every issue, sicknesses, or problem that faced me as a mother. My mother had decided to be a blessing to us, and she was.

Sadly, my mother passed away too soon. My eldest was 14 and the youngest, just eight. In my speech at her funeral, I shared how she taught me to be both a mother and an eventual grandmother by her example. I am so grateful that she left both a social-emotional legacy as well as a financial inheritance because none of us could have guessed that shortly after her death, I too, would become a single mom. Her fiscal responsibility, her example of resilience, her loving kindness, her unwavering faith in the Almighty, as well as her wise counsel throughout my life literally got me through the divorce and my seven years as a single parent.

In the last two years, I’ve finally been able to put those grandparenting lessons to use. The difference is that I am substantially older than my mother and my grandparents were when they became grandparents because my children took their sweet time becoming parents. For me, the only good thing about them waiting is that I am retired. I have the freedom, but not the unbounded energy, to come and go without work commitments.

I’m thankful that my children are married, employed, and are all homeowners. Their safety net is broader than my mother’s and mine ever was. They are blessed with parents on both sides who have the desire and means to help support them both socially and financially. Of course, like any family, they have issues and challenges to face because they are human. I’ve acted as consultant on many occasions. I’ve cooked, cleaned, and decorated. And I’ve done far too much worrying for my own good. I’ve suffered under the accusation of being called “pushy” on occasion as well.

But the question I struggle to answer for myself is where to draw the line? How do I reorganize my living trust and my will to provide “what” for my grandchildren? Because they don’t really need a safety net beyond occasional babysitting and consultation, I’m not certain how much spending and inheritance is too much or how much energy spent in caretaking is too much. I laughingly joke about how all my knitting and spending on baby clothes is like a sickness. But I question whether I’ve done too much when my daughter (who just had her first baby) told me that my son explained to her that the thing about Mom was that they’ve never had to buy their son any clothes. That grandson is nearly two years old, and I have yet another box of clothes wrapped up and ready to mail as I write this. Granted my son and his wife are busy professionals who seldom shop and happen to like my style choices, but is this the role I’ve carved out for myself as a grandmother? Child stylist?

I hope it is. The past two weeks gave me a scare when my daughter faced serious complications and even possible death from childbirth related complications. I worked to exhaustion cooking, shopping, cleaning, running errands, and taking care of her and the baby. The thought of having to help raise one of my grandchildren at this advanced age is terrifying to me. I know many grandparents raise their grandchildren and I applaud them for doing so. But I really do not want to be one of them. It would be a blessing to maintain the role of occasional babysitter, consultant, listener, and grandchild stylist. But given that life can be unpredictable, I must have faith that God will give me the strength, grace, and wisdom to face whatever comes my way as a grandparent.

Next month (March), grandson number three is scheduled to be born. And while he does have a lot of hand-me-downs to wear, I couldn’t stop myself from shopping for a few sharp outfits he can call his own.

After 11 years of trying to get pregnant, my 40-year-old daughter Kim gave birth to a small (5 lbs, 2 oz) healthy son they named Ryder. After being induced because of her age and high blood pressure, three days later she ended up delivering Ryder via emergency c-section under general anesthesia on Super Bowl Sunday. That was followed by two consecutive trips to the emergency room for swelling and extremely high blood pressure (like 181 over 114). It turned out to be post-partum preeclampsia. Needless to say, I’ve been extremely busy cleaning like crazy, taking care of their 3 huge dogs, helping the baby and couple adjust, stocking up on supplies, running errands, and of course praying to keep from worrying. All this drama left no time to write my weekly blog. However, I hope you, my readers, will use this time to catch up on previous posts that were missed or revisit your favorite past posts. I’m always grateful to you readers for taking the time read about my life and I’m hopeful that my stories and reflections in some way enrich your lives.

Things are better now. The house is immaculate, supplies are well stocked, my son-in-law is fully invested in his new daddy role, and we’ve built a schedule that allows all of us a bit of sleep. I plan to return home sometime this week and should have a new blog post for next week. Believe me, I’ll be spilling on the drama of this birth experience.

It’s disheartening to see that some people are so resistant to change that they refuse to accept new information if it threatens their previous understanding of the world and the people in it. I was on another Tic Tok Live discussion where a black conservative male led a discussion on whether the term “cisgender” was offensive.

At first, I wondered why this was even a topic. But when I heard one woman after another complain that it was highly offensive to them to be referred to as cisgender, I realized this was yet another aspect of the culture wars. They agreed that they as original or authentic women saw no reason for anyone to add the “Cis” to their label because there are only two sexes: male and female. One woman was adamant that transgender folks were mentally ill or confused and that because transgender women could never give birth, they were not “real” women. She and others concurred that transgender women will never know what it is to be a woman and that adding “cis” in front of any gender was a slap in the face. They espoused the outdated science that people are genetically and anatomically strictly male or female at birth. They had no notion that there was a difference between sex and gender. Some said they had nothing against transgender women, because people can be who they want to be, however, they resented having to play along with their folly by being called “cis”.

Eventually, a brave transgender woman entered the Live discussion and tried to share her story and said that not all women experience womanhood the same way and pointed out that some biological women can’t have babies either. She tried and failed to convince them of a difference between sex and gender. She tried and failed to convince them that cisgender simply means that your sex assignment usually determined at birth matches your gender identity or comfort with set gender roles for males or females. She explained her own journey to her true gender identity, saying she felt like a girl trapped in a boy’s body from childhood. They belittled her feelings and attacked her horribly. One woman told her she would never know what it feels like to be a woman.

There were dissenters in the chat, like me, who tried to explain that “cisgender” is neither derogatory nor threatening to anyone’s gender identity. I asked them to educate themselves on the current science regarding chromosomes and how they have found that it is not actually the binary we once thought. I asked them to read up on the brain findings that biological sex is also determined in the brain and that sometimes the brain sex does not match a person’s genitalia. Others tried to explain that not everyone is born with clear physical appearance as a male or female and that a parent’s guess for sex assignment can turn out to be different from the biological brain sex.

And then an actual neuroscientist entered the live chat and explained in great detail using scientific language how about seven years ago they discovered that sex is a biological brain function as much as it is determined by genitalia and how sometimes they do not match. The scientific language proved too challenging for the women in the Live discussion, and they refused to even try to understand her. Upon request, the neuroscientist broke it down in plain language and they refused to accept it, saying if this was true, it would be all over the news. The neuroscientist explained that it is widely known in the medical field and in academia but that scientists aren’t necessarily the best communicators with the public. They were trying to get the word out as best they could but that scientific news that contradicts religious ideas and political agendas receives inadequate coverage from some new outlets. This was her reason for joining the discussion, but she was disheartened by the lack of basic science to build upon and by their refusal to even try to understand. One woman actually said she was too busy giving her biology teacher a blow job to learn the basics.

And the neuroscientist was absolutely right. The women reacted as poorly as people did when others first claimed that the earth was round and not flat. One woman said that she was taught in high school biology that people have either xx or xy chromosomes and she’s sticking with that. It was impossible to convince her otherwise.

Because I kept emphasizing the need for them to educate themselves on the current science to appreciate the actual sex and gender diversity that has always existed and in the sex chromosomal make up beyond the xx and xy, and because I insisted that “cisgender” is the language of the informed, educated, and inclusive, the moderator commented that they didn’t need to listen to me because I didn’t have a lot of followers. Others accused me of being transgender. I assured them that I was a “cisgender” female who was a mother and grandmother who happened to be educated and that I found nothing to be angry about because someone identifies me as “cisgender” which is simply the opposite of “transgender”. I wrote repeatedly in the chat that cisgender simply means that gender expression matches my sex genitalia.

Some of the women were outright bigots and bullies. The man who hosted the chat sat back silently and let the women attack and insult the transgender woman who joined the discussion in an effort to educate. She finally further identified herself as an academic professor and a practicing therapist who thought she could be provide information and a useful perspective to the discussion.

Sadly, some on the panel and others in the chat used that information to attack her professionally as well. It was appalling and I was among a few who stood by her side, on the side of empathy, science, an open mind to developing information, and educating oneself. Transgender people may be a small minority among us, but they are none-the-less people deserving of safety, dignity, and respect.

One principle of the Fully Present Better Human Project is to be a lifelong learner. Not only it is healthy for the human brain to keep active through learning new things, but it is good for humanity itself. We need fewer bigots and bullies in our society and lifelong learning is essential for good decision making and for understanding the people with whom we live and interact. For transgender folks, our collective learning and acceptance of the full range of human sex and gender could be the difference between a complete denial of some people’s right to even exist.

I spent a significant amount of time this past week participating in several Tic Tok Live discussions centered on a variety of issues vying for supremacy in the clash between conservative thinking and progressive thinking. My next few posts will focus on unpacking the opposing viewpoints and what I believe makes sense and what doesn’t. One Live that captured my attention (and my input) was a discussion on how some frustrated black men (termed “Passport Bros”) are leaving the country in search of submissive wives.

Before that Tic Tok Live, I had never heard of the Passport Bros. Apparently, there are black men with the means to travel who leave or are threatening to leave the country in search of submissive women to marry because black women in the U.S. aren’t submissive enough. The men on the panel were of two mindsets. There were the outright misogynists who expect women to obey them without a word and to service their needs and ambitions. The other men, saw themselves as compassionate men who wanted to take care of “their woman”. They, too, believed that the role of women was indeed to be submissive and supportive, but they saw value in legitimate questions and respectful challenges, so long as their decisions were followed. Both men acknowledged that finding black women who wanted to be submissive on their terms was nearly impossible in the U.S. and so they needed to go abroad.

I found it interesting that the women were also of two minds. The first group of women were willing to be submissive with the right man in charge and the other viewed marriage as a partnership between two thinking adults with differing skill sets. I was part of the latter group.

The major criticism of the Passport Bros was a perception that they were insecure men seeking to enslave, control, and dominate vulnerable women who were poor, passive, and uneducated. They bashed black women and saw themselves as sticking it to black women by going abroad, but the women on the panel and in the chat were like, “Good riddance; please go” because no adult female with a healthy self-esteem and an education would willingly submit to blind obedience and exploitation. These men seemed desperate to fulfil a need to exploit women for sex and ego. It seemed that they either had a distorted view of women or that they cared nothing about the humanity of women, making them capable of treating women like children, sex toys, and slaves that they would “treat well”. Even the “reasonable” men had expectations that any self-respecting educated woman with ambitions and a voice of their own would find unacceptable. Later, a female law enforcement officer on the panel acknowledged that men who viewed women in this fashion were the most prone to use violence against their wives and girlfriends.

The men on the panel weren’t interested in partnership nor collaboration while the women were either seeking an unattainable level of competence, confidence, and strength in a male to submit to or like me, a partnership. But the reality in the U.S. today is that black females have college degree attainment at twice the level of their black male counterparts. They are less likely to have prison records and less likely to be unemployed. A combination of poverty, mass incarceration, violence, and single parent households as experienced in the U.S. have led black women to depend on themselves. Black females have gained a reputation for being educated, strong-willed, independent, hardworking, competent, ambition and very vocal. I guess it should be expected that many black males (along with others) find black women intimidating and emasculating. Many black women neither need nor want to be lead, however, they do want to be nurturing and loved and some are willing to be submissive under ideal circumstances. To the lament of many black women, it’s become common to find educated black males with white women.

On the flip side, black women are turning to men of other races for partnership much more frequently. All three of my biological children have married outside their race and I don’t find anything wrong with it. They have found someone who is a loving partner to them and that makes me happy. They have all elevated their social-economic status in partnership with the person they married. Contrary to the myth, they haven’t encountered a whole lot of drama from their ethnic differences. Rather, their life experiences and opportunities for growth have been expanded. At the same time, their spouses have become greater advocates for black lives. While I never married outside my race, I would not have been opposed to it. I just happened to meet partners who were black.

I’m thankful that twice in my lifetime, I married black men who were seeking a partner, not someone to dominate. We recognized each other’s knowledge, skills, and expertise and deferred to each other accordingly. The first marriage ended because he finally admitted that he didn’t believe in monogamy. I was confident enough in myself to file for divorce, but many women are not. Because we had been partners, we negotiated the terms of our divorce without drama and remained as collaborative co-parents. In both of my marriages, major decisions have been made through discussion until we reached consensus. The idea that one person makes all the decisions and the other mindlessly follows only works when the follower is incapable of rational thought. I pity the many women I saw in church who were passively submissive wives and later found themselves thrust into poverty and hardship when the man they trusted moved on.

I know there are religious women who believe in total submission because they accept the teaching that man is the rightful head of the household. That system works for women who are willing to place their trust, their talents, and their personal feelings in service to the ego, whims, and ambitions of a man because they trust God. If the man is generous, kind, really smart, has integrity, and values his wife’s feelings and gifts, then it might work. The problem is that very few men can meet the high standard required to command absolute submission. So, in my humble opinion, I’ll take partnership and collaboration in marriage over absolute submission any day.

I doubt the Passport Bros will change their mindset and so I feel sad for the women who may become their victims. A few may be happily submissive and do well in these marriages. But moving forward, I hope we as mothers and grandmothers do a much better job of raising our sons to respect and value the full humanity and dignity of women.

A black person can in fact hate black people. Scholars have long provided the term, “internalized racism” to describe animosity toward people from one’s own group identity. Over the years, I’ve encountered anti-blackness in black students and adults. I had one black student confess that her grandmother advised her to avoid other black students on campus because they were “trouble”. This kind of racism against one’s own identity comes from being subjected to years of negative messaging coupled with a few incidents that reinforce those negative messages. So, the fact that five black officers beat an innocent young black male to death is not evidence that racism wasn’t a factor in this particular case. It likely was front and center along with their character flaws. However, racism is at the root of the problem with policing today.

At the historical root of modern policing is the brutality of slavery, overseeing slaves, and slave catching. Post-slavery, policing was used to feed the prison system, which was legalized slavery, providing cheap labor to industry. Black men have always been the most targeted group to feed the system. The era of Jim Crow added particularly egregious laws that targeted the behavior of black people and severely limited their civil liberties, making black life difficult and black incarceration easier. These oppressive laws were eventually replaced by “non-discriminatory” laws that were overly enforced in black communities as a way to justify the arrest, ticketing, and conviction of black citizens for offenses. Too often, these same offensives are ignored in white communities by police and judges. The many examples of unequal justice are backed by statistics that show over-policing, racial profiling, excessive ticketing, and harsher sentencing for black people. For many years media reporting highlighted the crimes of blacks while simultaneously ignoring the fact of over-policing and harsher sentences. These flawed reports fueled calls for tough on crime legislation that further targeted black communities and gave a tacit pass to police brutality. I’ve heard white people say that blacks get arrested so often because they are the ones who commit most of the crime. But that isn’t necessarily the whole truth.

Living in a white community, I’ve seen and experienced the disparity firsthand. When a white kid commits a crime, he is let off with a warning. His actions are written off as, “boys will be boys”. When I was working at the University, police wouldn’t bother to even come to campus to arrest a white kid for possession and even sale of marijuana. Twice, violence against my own son was written off that way. And on one occasion, I later found out that the police officer didn’t even file a report, breaking police policy. However, when a black child commits a crime, he is treated as a bonified criminal for the exact same indiscretion. National news reports show black children as young as five years old being led away by police in handcuffs, further pushing the narrative that even black children are dangerous. And in communities across the country, young black men are routinely stopped, and their cars searched for drugs in hopes of making an immediate arrest. Policing in this country has always been used as a weapon against black people. Something is terribly wrong when the police are called and then show up when a black person is simply minding their own business in a space where their presence is seen as a threat by a white person.

Calls for police reform have little chance of passing this current Congress because the object of the unfettered brutality is primarily young black males. Media and public sentiment toward black people have to change drastically for lawmakers to finally enact necessary police reform. I’m hopeful that change will come because our broken criminal justice system is finally being exposed. I’m thankful for the body cameras and the cell phone videos of private citizens. I’m thankful for the CCTV cameras that captured the beating of Tyre Nicols and exposed the bogus reason for the stop. They couldn’t find any reckless driving. I’m thankful for the brave people coming forward to tell their hidden stories. I’m thankful for the “peaceful” protesters who take to the streets to demand justice.

In recent years, each senseless death, has helped to expose the racism and underlying injustice built into our criminal justice system. It is right that the five black officers were immediately fired and charged with second degree murder in this case. But it would be foolish of me to ignore the fact that they, too, were black males and that justice was much swifter in their case than in all the cases involving white officers caught in the act of police brutality.

I’m not saying we don’t need police. We do and I appreciate individuals willing to put their life on the line every day to protect and serve the public. I just want this system to recognize that people with black skin also deserve to be protected and served. And that starts with hiring police officers with the right mindset. Too many of them have overly inflated or fragile egos and become bullies. Some are violent at their core and chose policing to feed that craving. I think initial and continuous psychological testing is needed to assess suitability for duty. I think mental health services must be provided and mental health awareness training should be required. It is estimated that about a third of incarcerated individuals have mental health issues. We need to end the practice of accidentally hiring police who were fired or pushed out of other departments due to misconduct.

There is work to be done and the only way to get Congress to pass the George Floyd Police Reform Act is to push them to do so. If it means writing letters, then we must write. If it means, protesting, then we must protest. If it means meeting with Congressmen, then we must meet. Until we are willing to demand better, black people will continue to be the target of over-policing and police brutality.

When it comes to getting anything done in Washington, politicians have admitted that they are forced into action by the people. Without our loud voices pushing them, they won’t do much. These days, Republicans are hearing a lot from conspiracy theorists, white Christian nationalists, and white supremacists while the rest of us look on in absolute horror and wonder why they are making such horrific choices. They are being driven by a very loud voting minority. It’s time for the rest of America to become even louder to push them in another direction. While protesting and voting are important, we have another tool in our toolbox that too few people realize or fail to utilize.

The First Amendment grants us the right to petition our government. What this means is that we have the right to use our individual and collective voice to express our grievances or desires directly to our elected government officials without threat of reprisal. This is a right that I have used frequently by either taking the time to read and sign petitions created by others or by sitting down and either emailing or writing a letter. Some people prefer to pick up a phone to call their representatives. I’ve done that, too, although I prefer to email or send letters. A few people, make an appointment for a face-to-face meeting. This week, I sent two such letters. I sent one to the new Speaker of the House, Republican Kevin McCarthy along with a copy of it to the new House Minority Leader, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. I sent a second letter to the new Chair of the Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, after being disturbed by his interview on the PBS News Hour.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to the new Speaker. My hope is that readers will become inspired to do the same. The more emails, letters, and phone calls, the better. His Washington DC address is 2468 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515.

Dear Speaker McCarthy,

As a tax-paying, law-abiding, voting citizen of this country, I am writing to express my disappointment in the Republican agenda and the looming (and unnecessary) fight over the deficit.  The Republicans look like revenge-seeking hypocrites who will do absolutely nothing to address the actual problems that face the nation.

You whine about deficits now that Biden is in the White House but gave Trump an easy pass.  In fact, you cut revenue (taxes) for the wealthy and corporations.  Of course, we have a deficit!  When an American family can’t pay their bills, they not only cut spending, but they find another revenue source like working overtime or getting a part-time job.  You want to cut spending on essential things that will hurt average Americans, especially the poor, when you really should be collecting more taxes from the wealthy and from those (like Donald Trump) who cheat on their taxes.  Warren Buffet and others publicly admitted that he didn’t need those tax cuts.  We have people with more wealth than they can possibly spend and yet their wealth is only growing while others work long hours and can’t afford necessities. Perhaps you should start a Go Fund Me page for the wealthy to “donate” to the government since you refuse to tax them.

I find your rhetoric and your agenda to be bogus on just about every front.  First, you refuse to hold Trump accountable for breaking laws, lying, and causing an insurrection.  Second, you have given committee appointments to Santos who became a congressman through lies and deceit and is very likely a criminal. At the same time, you gave committee assignments to conspiracy theorists who lack common sense and common decency.   Your party punishes upstanding representatives who tried to hold Trump and the January 6^th insurrectionists accountable for their attack on our democracy.  And anyone with eyes understands that Dr. Fauci was a public servant who worked to save lives during a pandemic.  And for God’s sake, Hunter Biden is not the president and doesn’t hold any kind of public office, so why are you wasting my taxpayer dollars investigating a private citizen?  Instead, you should stop ignoring the business and financial connections Trump, his daughter and son in law had with foreign countries during their tenure in the White House.  This is hypocrisy at its worse.

None of your attacks on women’s health, LGBTQ civil rights, the poorest among us, health care, and social security are going unnoticed by average Americans who care about the lives of others.  You can’t dress up your harmful agenda as fiscal responsibility when you continuously cut taxes on people who don’t need it and ignore doctors and scientists in favor of flimsy conspiracy theories, ignorance, and a rejection of historical facts.   

And as an aside, I tried to call the IRS to get a tax question answered and had to wait for hours to get an answer because they are understaffed.  On another occasion, I had to give up altogether and never received a call back.  We desperately need more agents to answer questions and to collect taxes from cheaters like Trump.  So, I fully reject your suggestion to defund the IRS.  And a national sales tax is an unfair tax on the poorest among us.  If anything, you should be raising the income tax rates and social security tax on the wealthiest Americans or ask them to donate to the U.S. Treasury.

I’m disgusted by your party’s unwillingness to spend money on the things this country needs like infrastructure, healthcare, a safety net for the poor, clean-air and water, fighting threats like climate change, and an immigration system that works. 

We have real problems in this country, and I am livid that your party plans to spend its time on revengeful investigations and fights over spending cuts instead of addressing the real problems I mentioned. 

I am expecting you to raise more revenue to cover necessary spending.  I am expecting you to hold Trump and members in your party accountable for their attacks on our democracy. I am expecting you to listen to healthcare providers, scientists, and other experts to try to solve real problems.   I am expecting you to pass comprehensive immigration laws that deal with the issues at our border and to process people who are here in a timelier fashion.  I am expecting you to protect the reproductive rights of women.  I am expecting you to pass legislation that curbs the rampant gun violence, gun suicides, and gun accidents that are happening every day. I am expecting you to deal with domestic terrorist who threaten educators, public health care workers, election officials, judges, and legislators.   I am expecting you to address the drug crisis tearing through communities.  You cannot do this by defunding the FBI and investigating the justice department.    

All of this comes under what our government was established to do:  provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  We need revenue to accomplish these things and until now, we have collected taxes.  So, stop cutting taxes unless you plan to run the government on donations from the wealthy.

Sincerely,

Dr. Juanita Hall

Cc: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries

My hope in sharing this is that my readers will seriously consider taking the time to make their opinions known to our lawmakers. They only act when we push them. And for those who think these letters fall on death ears, please know that that is not the case. I’ve had lawmakers respond directly to specific comments in my letters. One aide told me that each letter is important because they understand that it represents a lot of people who don’t take the time to write but who feel the same way.

While making small talk with my dentist this week as she prepared to clean my teeth and examine the progress from my Invisalign braces, she mentioned that she hadn’t watched any news for two years to preserve her mental health. Coincidentally, my husband confessed on one of our walks this week that he can no longer watch the news in the morning because it ruins his entire day. I, too, have limited my consumption of news for the same reason as the two of them. Watching the news, particularly the political news is like watching a slow-moving train wreck happening before my eyes and feeling helpless to stop it.

However, I am not entirely helpless. People say that to address a problem one must first acknowledge that a problem actually exists. As a human, it’s tempting to ignore, avoid, or to pretend like a problem doesn’t exist, especially when you feel like you don’t have the means to address it. Today, our nation faces a collective problem presented by the MAGA Republican agenda. They are white “Christian” nationalists, not very different from the Nazi Party and they want to take over the nation.

In my lifetime, I have never encountered a group of people so determined to lean into conspiracy theories, debunk ideologies, and wishful thinking as opposed to actual science, history, and social and psychological research. Their willingness to promote dangerous misinformation, lies, and to distort facts is difficult to swallow. The level of blatant racism, xenophobia, and hypocrisy is disheartening and uncomfortable to watch. The fact that MAGA Republicans are willing to allow a fraud like George Santos to continue to be seated in the House of Representatives shows just how depraved and unhinged this party has become. Truth and integrity are not a priority; power is. It’s clear to anyone watching a Congressional hearing that they are opposed to allowing science, academic research, and medical professions guide decision making regarding climate change, abortion, public health, and transgender issues. The evidence shows that they want to hide or manipulate history so they can characterize any attempts to rectify the damage done to minorities as attempts to discriminate against whites. They are against immigration from non-white countries. Like moderate Republicans, they too want to end Social Security and Medicare as well as income taxes. So then, what are they for?

First and foremost, they are for re-establishing white male “Christian” dominance in the United States and the world. They embrace a false narrative that this is a “Christian” nation. They embrace the strong man approach over the constitution that now grants freedoms to minorities and women. To reestablish white Christian male dominance, they are willing to hand over the reins of government to a leader who is willing to kill, imprison, or silence anyone who threatens what they believe is their God-given right to rule and dominate. In their distorted view of things, the founders created freedoms solely for them. They alone truly have the right to vote, so voter suppression of minorities is good until they can again eliminate that right altogether. This is why they think there are stolen elections. If you don’t believe people of color legitimately have the right to vote, then you view their votes as fraudulent. They believe that freedom of speech applies only to them, even if their words cause chaos or puts others in harm’s way. They believe the right to their religious practice justifies denying the civil liberties of other citizens. They believe they have the right to protest, but others are unpatriotic if they do so and should be punished. They believe they have the right to bear arms, but view others as a threat to be killed on the spot by police if they bear arms.

Behind this anti-democratic stance is the underlying reasoning that white people discovered and fairly conquered the indigenous people to establish this country as a white protestant nation. In their minds, only white people are true Americans. The surviving indigenous people belong on reservations. All others are merely guests and inferior humans who were brought in (in chains) or allowed to enter to help build the infrastructure, industry, and agricultural foundations that made this country to function and prosper for them to enjoy.

However, those few white protestants realized that they were quickly outnumbered by indigenous, blacks, and immigrants from around the globe who were pouring their blood, sweat and tears into this nation without rights. Their answer was to expand what it meant to be white and therefore an “American” with full access to education, voting, and positions of authority. Immigrant groups literally petitioned the Supreme Court to be classified as “White”. Some were granted whiteness while others such as Southeast Asians and Japanese were denied. My Armenian son-in-law was shocked to learn that he is white because the Supreme Court said so. Some Mexicans cling to their whiteness because of a similar Supreme Court ruling. The expansion of whiteness was a way to maintain dominance over people of color and to restrict competition for land, education, employment, and power. Legalized discrimination made the escape from poverty nearly impossible for all but the extremely talented or lucky.

As second-class citizens who fought in every war and helped build the country, it was inevitable that people would form an alliance to demand full citizenship rights. Jews, who are white, are most hated for joining with Blacks, feminists, and other people of color in fighting for Civil Rights. This ongoing the alliance of feminist women, ethnic, religious, and LGBTQ minorities makes up the democratic party today. They are continuing to fight for access to opportunities and the expansion of higher education and a safety net. While Conservatives are individualists, Democrats see us as being in this together and affecting each other’s lives.

It’s undeniable that strides have been made to educate and give more access to land, capital, education, employment and power to people who were previously excluded from all these opportunities. What we’ve achieved with the limited access we earned is remarkable, but it is also scary to some white conservatives, particularly those like Trump.

The election of Barack Obama awakened fears within the hearts of some white people that “their nation” is being overrun by outsiders and overly ambitious people of color. MAGA Republicans are fearful of losing what power they think they have and so they have unleashed an all-out war on feminists, ethnic minorities, Jews, LGBTQ folks, and immigrants. “Make America Great Again” really meant, “Make America ‘White’ Again” where white males hold all the wealth and power.

The MAGA Republican agenda is simple: Restore power and privilege to white Christian Americans. First, they will close the borders to non-whites. They will force pregnancy upon women to stifle their ambitions and curtail their progress. Then they will cripple poor communities by eliminating all social safety nets while re-establishing discrimination (disguised as freedom) so that poor people and LGBTQ people will no longer have the energy nor desire to seek political power. They will replace income tax with a national sales tax that unfairly taxes the poorest among us. If they can create a permanent underclass of cheap labor who must work until the day they die (and they will die sooner with more poverty-driven crime and without decent food and healthcare), then they will have achieved their goal.

The time is right now to acknowledge that we have a problem in this country that will not be ignored, avoided, nor wished away. It matters that we stay informed and that we use our individual and collective voice to advocate for what is true and just. We must defend those among us who are under attack. It matters more than ever that we vote for officials who are inclusive and who value equal justice under the law and who tap into the current wisdom of science, history, and medicine. This is our collective fight to win against a very vocal and relentless MAGA Republican Party. So, watching or reading a little bit of news every day is a task that must not be entirely avoided even though it makes me uncomfortable.

Anyone watching the news this past week saw drama unfold as the two faces of the Republican Party did battle over who would become the next Speaker of the House. The situation sparked a conversation with my husband over what the Republican Party stans for. In my mind, there are two agendas and neither of them suit my taste. This week, I’ll share my take on the moderate Republicans

What I’ve observed about the moderate or traditional Republican Party is that they are primarily rugged individualists who believe that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps without government intervention and low taxes. They point to the “American Dream” as though every American has the capacity, pathway, and opportunity to achieve it if they go to school, get a job, get married before having babies, and work hard enough. With that mindset, they view the poor as failures.

The reality is that Republicans choose to ignore the reality that some people cannot follow their prescribed path for a variety of economic, physical, social, and emotional reasons. Few children born in poverty have the extraordinary talent, courage, and drive to overcome the trauma and lack of resources associated with growing up in poverty. In my opinion, Republicans are far too quick to demonize the poor as lazy “welfare queens” looking for a handout instead of looking for a job. To them, poverty is a character flaw to be punished, not mitigated. As rugged individualists, I watch as they continuously vote to withhold the funding needed to address both the immediate and underlying problems of the poor. Instead, they are willing to allow children to go hungry, be under-educated, and to become desperate enough to view crime as an opportunity if they aren’t especially talented in some way. Their answer to the crime their individualism inspires is to invest in greater numbers of police and prisons. They simply lock up the criminals and the mentally ill, the majority of whom are black and brown people as a direct result of this country’s history of systematic discrimination that perpetuated poverty.

Moderate Republicans have a staunch belief in limited government, free enterprise, a strong military, and fickle immigration. They assert that people should be trusted to make decisions for themselves as individuals regarding gun ownership and mask wearing, despite the obvious risks to public health. Like poverty, they believe that people are fully responsible for their own outcomes, whether positive or negative. Their repeated answer to innocent lives taken by Covid-19 and victims of mass shootings is the offering of “thoughts and prayers”. They expect individuals to take precautions like arming themselves as though the good guy with a gun can always stop a bad guy with a gun. They seem to prefer a self-imposed isolation for Covid-19, not mask-wearing or vaccine regulations. I’m disheartened, but not surprised by their policy of going out in public at your own risk. This explains their opposition to universal healthcare. They believe an individual’s health and related expenses are personal and should be handled on a personal level.

This rugged individualism extends beyond public health. They allow for blatant discrimination against women, LGBTQ people, and people of color, while also allowing for the exploitation of illegal immigrants by employers as “free market strategies”. Employers in labor intensive industries like agriculture, meat packing, and construction desire cheap labor and so Republicans refuse attempts to increase legal guest-worker programs and to increase governmental capacity to process more immigrants. Their strategy has been to score political talking points by demonizing migrants as drug dealers, murderers and rapists while forcing desperate migrants into an illegal status that provides industry with cheap slave labor.

I don’t find the moderate Republicans to be overtly racists. In fact, they hate even the idea of it. Instead, they approve of a false “meritocracy” that gives obvious advantages to the children of wealthy people in education, business, and housing while crippling the historically less fortunate, who just happen to be primarily black and brown people. They genuinely claim to be “color blind” and they truly believe that they are adhering to Martin Luther King, Jr. speech about character being more important than color. This is why they so easily demonize the poor as deficient in character and so happily praise the few people of color who have risen out of poverty to join their ranks. So, of course, they cry, “reverse discrimination” should any special access to opportunities be given to those who have been historically disadvantaged through discrimination. This is why they are quick to highlight the extraordinary accomplishments of the few minorities who are successful as though they are living proof of the righteousness of rugged individualism.

Moderate Republicans chose to ignore history, science, and sociology in favor of advancing “opportunities” for personal and corporate economic gain. If a vaccine, clean energy, or technological advances makes money and creates jobs, then they are all it. However, I think they approach history and science and social change as threats to the status quo and so they inject the fear of losing what they have into every argument. This is how they earned the title, “conservatives”. For example, they continue to adhere to a disproven theory of trickle-down economics in order to continue to support policies that favor the wealthy “job creators” who are in reality labor exploiters, not much different from slave owners. Their policies have only increased wealth inequality because nothing really trickles down.

In the seventies, Republicans needed more Americans to join their ranks and so they added issues to their agenda that appealed to white evangelical Christians. They put forward the protection of the unborn and the notion that the U.S. was a “Christian” nation in danger of being taken over by secularism. They boosted their numbers among white evangelical Christians.

But it was the election of the first black president that ignited the racism and white supremacy that has become the Trump “MAGA” faction of the Republican Party. Next week, I’ll talk about what they stan for and why they must be defeated.

Like many people, I welcome the new year as an opportunity to reflect on the past year and to reset my priorities for the new year. I take time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to consider who I want to be, how I want to live, and what I hope to accomplish in the coming year. Often times I make resolutions to lose weight, change bad habits, learn a new skill, or do more of something good. I always use the time to review, reorganize, and revise my finances (and this year was no different). I created my financial strategy for the year including a budget. This year’s reflections and revisions are heavily influenced by the fact that I’m about to become a grandmother to two additional grandsons in February and March and the relief that my husband’s 2 1/2 years of treatment for lung cancer have been officially concluded with success. He will start 2023 without any traces of cancer in his body!

I’ve reviewed the charities and political organizations to which I contribute on a monthly automatic basis and I’m not making any changes. My giving reflects my desire to help in areas that touch my heart the most. I have limited resources, so I can’t give to every worthy cause, although I would really like to. I’m thankful that my husband has his own set of charities that he donates to at the end of each year, and they are different from mine. He prefers to write big checks, while I like the monthly approach. So, I’ve made the tough decision to continue to give to St. Jude, Doctors Without Borders, Women for Women International, FINCA, UNICEF USA, the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Michigan, and World Food Programs. On the political organization side, I’ll continue to give to MoveOn and Emily’s List. Throughout the year, I’ll donate to individual campaigns during election season, give one-time donations for disaster relief efforts, and donate to educational institutions and scholarship funds during fundraising campaigns.

On the educational and social justice front (my vocational purpose), I’ll continue with the Fully Present Better Human Project using my social media accounts, website, and promotional products. It’s not a money-making venture, but a passion project with the hope of encouraging better human behavior. Starting in January, my daily posts will be posters promoting the nine better human behaviors to build a safer and more equitable society. I’ll also put forth my social justice poems and promote the products I’ve created to help others spread the message with me.

I drastically changed our eating in 2022 to a plant-based diet (except Fridays) and I practice intermittent fasting where I eat during an 8-hour window and fast for 16 hours. These changes along with exercise have improved my health and even improved my kidney function, which I didn’t think was possible. I firmly believe this new diet also helped with Michael’s recovery. I’ve lost ten pounds so far and all my lab numbers are within the normal range. So, I’ll just continue eating this in 2023 alongside my gardening and other activities that involve working with my hands.

I spent most of the last two years knitting for my grandsons. I made hats, booties, blankets, sweaters, and mittens. That’s all done. I’ve put the yarn and the knitting needles away. However, during a time of stress in early December, I found myself wanting to paint for emotional relief. I also purchased a Cricut Maker that went on sale at Costco. I’d been eyeing it for crafting purposes for a couple of years. I watched YouTube videos to see all the projects I could make and to learn all the tricks. I was fortunate to catch all the Christmas sales and after Christmas clearance to stock up on paints, vinyl, wood, and supplies at greatly reduced prices. My husband purchased a Cricut hot press for me on Amazon as my Christmas gift. I’ve found many premade designs and fonts in the ETSY Store for a nominal cost and easily downloaded them onto my computer for use. This completely eliminated the need for the $10/month Cricut subscription. The Dollar Tree has been my go-to place for multiple surfaces to embellish and for small paint canvases. I even found youth t-shirts to customize at the Dollar Tree. I have so much stuff to work on to keep me crafting in 2023. And it’s been nice watching my husband put his wood working skills to work for some of my projects.

Although I paint like a 5-year-old and my crafting skills aren’t that great, I’ll enjoy crafting when I’m home. But with two new grandsons on the way, I plan to spend a lot of 2023 on the road visiting these precious little ones or filling in with childcare for their busy parents. I sometimes wonder if they waited for me to retire to have their babies. In some ways it is nice that they are older parents with established careers, but pregnancy after 35 isn’t the best way to go. I message to young women seeking a career first is to freeze those eggs. We’ve talked about driving to Texas for Michael’s granddaughter’s college graduation and then taking our time to sightsee in New Mexico. In any case, my crafting projects will likely be focused on the kids and the grandkids as I have very little desire to accumulate more things.

And that leads me to my one resolution for 2023. I’m going to get rid of things in a big way. I plan to send precious items to the kids. I plan to update my will. I plan to throw things away and shred papers. I plan to have a huge garage sale by this summer. And I plan to donate items to charity. My first task though is to reorganize my crafting space to accommodate all my new supplies.

My goal for the new year is to be lean and clutter free moving forward. I did one pass through when I first retired, getting rid of a lot of things. But now that I’m in my second year of retirement, I realize how much less I want or need. So, 2023 will be the year I achieve freedom from extra weight and extra stuff.