Author: tonihall805@outlook.com

I’ve been celebrating Juneteenth in Oxnard, California for many years. It is a recognition of the end of slavery for those slaves in Texas who didn’t hear about the Emancipation Proclamation until 2 1/2 years later. Flash forward to Thursday, June 17, 2021 when, amid much fanfare, President Biden signs the bill proclaiming the date June 19th a federal holiday. Of course, more than a few Republican lawmakers opposed the bill, but thankfully they are in the minority. The same minority that promotes the big lie about a stolen 2020 election and the same folks who now want to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). I doubt that they’ve taken the time to understand what it is and even if they did, I believe they aren’t genuine in their opposition to it. But enough white moms are crying that their children are feeling guilty about being white after learning that in this country people who look like them have been afforded some advantages because of their white skin that others did not get because of their darker skin color. The truth is threatening.

I first encountered CRT when I was doing the literature review for my doctoral dissertation at UCLA. It was rooted in legal studies and analyzed the role race played in the policies and practices of American society as it related to the opportunities of racial minorities, in particular black people in the U.S. That said, we all know that the only way to fix a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem. However, systemic racism is not a problem many on the right want to fix for selfish reasons.

If white Americans are honest with themselves, they will acknowledge that the system of slavery followed by Jim Crow, segregation, housing red lining, and desperate treatment of blacks in education, healthcare, banking, and the criminal justice system have hindered the progress of the majority of black Americans while at the same time benefiting white Americans. The system works well for people who believe in a zero-sum socio-economic game. It goes like this: If I give you fewer opportunities to succeed, then that gives me more. But for that system to continue operating, it must remain hidden because most humans also recognize and truly hate unfairness.

This racist system is a deluded way to think. Instead of wanting to support and utilize the gifts, talents, and ingenuity of the entire populace to benefit the nation, fragile white supremacist are fearful of being exposed as being on the same human level as blacks. For years, white people were brainwashed to believe in their inherent superiority based solely on the color of their skin. And now, they are witnessing the truth with their own eyes. This fear has always lead to violence. We saw it in the lynching of Blacks who dared to display their equality and we saw it in the burning of Black Wall Street. We saw it in the death threats to Jackie Robinson, Tiger Woods, and every other black American who succeeded in ways that threatened the notion of white superiority. And having the first Black president who excluded grace and intelligence seemed to drive the point home.

I’ve said it many times: humans are tribal at our core. I admit to feeling proud when I see a black person excel. But I am also thrilled on an intellectual level because I understand the additional obstacles that person had to overcome to succeed. For example, for all of post-slavery history, blacks were systematically denied the benefit of accumulating generational wealth through unfair housing, banking, job, and even insurance practices. Despite serving in wars, for many years they were often denied access to veteran benefits like the GI Bill that provided jobs, education grants to college, and housing loans. These benefits were conferred easily on white male veterans, giving them a huge head start while leaving black veterans behind to struggle.

Structural systems like that added roadblocks to black Americans but gave easy access to whites in almost every facet of American life. This is what Critical Race Theory addresses. It is evident that white politicians do not want to expose the hidden practices of discrimination that limit the upward mobility of black Americans. They prefer to keep them hidden to perpetuate the lie of a meritocracy that helps whites to succeed while continuing to believe in their superiority.

I encountered this myth with my white university students who honestly believed that black people in poverty only had themselves to blame for their poverty because they were too lazy to work. They believed everyone had been given the same opportunities as they had growing up. They believed so many blacks were in jail because they committed crimes and deserved to be there. They were unaware of the disparities in K-12 education, in targeted policing, in inequitable judicial sentencing, in housing, in job choices, and in access to capital to build businesses. Exposure to the reality of American’s racist and discriminatory history changed their viewpoint and they in turn became advocates for change. It was helpful to show them undercover news reporting that exposed how blacks even paid more for the same cars than whites. It took them seeing that the schools in black neighborhoods had far fewer basic resources than they took for granted for them to appreciate the reality of inequity.

It is important to note that I always assured my white students that while they benefited from this system, they were not to blame for it, and most importantly, they could be part of building a more inclusive and equitable country moving forward.

Critical Race Theory exposes the myth of the level playing field and that is why white Republicans want so desperately to outlaw it. They want to preserve the past in present discrimination that hampers the progress of blacks. And to do this, they understand that they must suppress their vote and the votes of educated young people who want a more just and fair society. Republicans want to continue to claim that everyone has an equal opportunity, while hiding the decades of obstacles that hinder blacks from taking advantage of opportunities. They point to the few exceptional blacks who have made it as an excuse to proclaim that America is indeed the land of opportunity if people are willing to work hard enough. Of course, they leave out the part where some people have to work exceptionally harder than others and be exceptionally more talented, creative, intelligent or lucky.

This is how past in present discrimination looks. An employer sets a minimum standard that applicants must type 50 words per minute to be eligible for the job. Sounds fair except for the fact that the blacks in the employment pool didn’t attend a school that had computers. In this country under-resourced schools in black areas is the norm. The school to prison pipeline is a very real reality because lawmakers do not want to acknowledge the underlying inequities that CRT exposes. The tragic disparities in COVID-19 deaths between blacks and whites is yet another example of how past disparities in diet, environmental pollution, and access to health care lead to pre-existing conditions among blacks that made them more likely to die from COVID-19. CRT exposes the history and current reality around these inequities.

I believe Jesus said it best, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. Juneteenth is a celebration of the truth reaching the slaves in Texas, freeing them. Critical Race Theory is just an attempt to expose the truth of our nation’s racist history so that people of goodwill can work to set things right. After all, our nation was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and should be afforded equal opportunities under the law. If we have lawmakers who oppose this basic value, they shouldn’t be lawmakers. Of course, this is why we must protect access to voting. If we lose the ability to vote, the lies will only continue and fewer of us will be free.

When I was fourteen, I joined a branch of the Boys Scouts of America called the Law Enforcement Explorer Scouts. The Los Angeles Police Department had developed a grow your own program through scouting and I thought it would be a great experience to see if this might be a viable career path for me. I quickly learned that it wasn’t.

I was a highly successful recruit, having been awarded the “Outstanding Explorer Recruit” at graduation from a six-week training program with about 600 other teenagers at the Los Angeles Policy Academy. For six weekends, we underwent classroom training about the laws and “PT” or physical training where we went on 5 mile runs through the mountains and did all manner physical training. At the end of the six weeks of training, we were tested on our knowledge and physical fitness and I came out on top. I was really proud of myself and excited to see what came next at the local San Fernando Valley police station where I was assigned.

Needless to say, I was a law enforcement explorer scout for less than a year. The policemen with whom I interacted and overhead talking to their peers quickly convinced me that their worldview of humanity was different from mine. I saw men who seemed to view most civilians as criminals just needing to be caught doing wrong and I recognized a level of power tripping that actually frightened me. They seemed to bask in the level of power they could exert over people with impunity and they wanted me to believe this was a marvelous thing. I was repulsed to say the least. I looked to other policemen who seemed motivated to actually protect and serve to contradict what was being said and acted upon, but they were silent. Without a word of explanation, the outstanding explorer recruit for all of Los Angeles County, simply quit.

In retrospect, I realize that my training and perhaps that of police officers in general was absent any mention of the necessity of ethnics, character, integrity, and service. The motto “To protect and serve” was never unpacked as a core value. In fact, it was never even mentioned. There were no personality tests to root out the anti-social, psychopathic, power-hungry, bigoted, and just downright cruel individuals from their ranks. My distrust of the police began when I was fourteen when I saw them up close and personal. Even the good ones were too cowardly to influence the toxic culture I experienced.

Since then, I have had several interactions with the police in Ventura County, a county away from Los Angeles, where I raised my family. We, too, have a problem with racial profiling. Black and brown young men at the University where I work were routinely followed and stopped by the police. The students were traumatized by this. As the advisor to the Black Student Union (BSU) I called for a meeting between the BSU and the local police department. The first time they sent a Latino officer and he apologized for the profiling but explained that he could do nothing about it. He advised the students to be respectful and to comply with the officers’ requests. I complained how officers were following the students until they could find a reason to pull them over and how they were negatively affecting the mental well-being of our students. The complaint was met with a shrug. “Then whom are you protecting and serving?” I asked with less respect than I intended.

Another time they sent the only black police officer on the force to meet with the students. This officer pointed to the BSU president who was dressed in a green track suit, and said, “If I saw you driving on the streets in Thousand Oaks, I would find a reason to stop you.” We all gasped. His reason was that the student was by virtue of his skin color and dress a person who didn’t belong in the area and was therefore suspect. In an instant, I was fourteen again. I called the department to complain about the systemic problem and was then seated on a community panel where I took part in several one-day training sessions at the police academy to talk about the impact on community members of color when police are not there to protect and serve them, but to look for reasons to criminalize them instead.

My other interactions with police were also disturbing. I have received two speeding tickets in my life where the police officer had discretion to say, “Please slow down” instead of giving me a ticket. Neither took that route and the disparity in treatment was apparent when my white male middle-aged boss confessed that he was going 85 miles an hour on the freeway to go golfing and only got a warning. Of course, I was disgusted by this, especially because my tickets were both while driving to work.

The first was at 6:30am on a side street, just one block from home, where the speed limit had been lowered the week before. The officer stopped me and addressed me by name as he knew me from my years doing emergency foster care. He asked me if I knew what the speed limit was and I replied that it was 35 miles an hour. He informed me that it had just been changed to 30 miles an hour. I said okay. And then he asked me for my license and registration. It was at that moment that I realized he was going to give me a ticket which I knew to be unfair. I said two things to him. First, I pointed out that from the direction I was headed there was no posting of the speed limit visible. Second, I asked him whom I was endangering that a ticket was warranted as there was not a single other car nor a pedestrian was in sight. I already knew my fate was sealed because I recognized this police officer for who he really was: a white man who could exercise authority over a black woman in a BMW in an affluent neighborhood. I just wanted him to know that I recognized him for the kind of officer he actually was.

The second ticket was along similar lines. On my way to work in a brand new car with a bigger engine and more power and so I hadn’t realized my speed, which actually wasn’t that excessive. I explained that to the officer but he gave me a ticket anyway. Again, no grace nor mercy for people of color in this area. The next time I was stopped, the officer actually had no reason as I quickly exclaimed that I was going the speed limit. The officer asked me where I was going? Home, I said. Where I was coming from? The movies, I said. And then he let me go. What the hell was that? I was shaken and angry by the mental abuse.

And finally, my son was injured after a neighbor sent his dog after him. While in the emergency room getting stitches, a policemen appeared to take the required police report. My son explained the events and the officer appeared to listen and take notes. However, when I requested the police report for my attorney, I learned that the officer never filed the report, completely against department policy. At my insistence, the police department sent a different officer to our home to take a new report. My hope is that that officer was reprimanded, but I seriously doubt it.

What is clear from my perspective is that police reform is long overdue. You know there is a problem when you believe you can’t call the police even if someone is breaking into your home because you know the police will shoot your 6’4″ black husband. People of color keep learning the hard way that police are likely to shoot to kill your mentally ill child if you call them. Police are not mental health professionals and we should not ask them to do this work under any circumstances. I am not for defunding the police, but I am for funding community health care crisis managers and for major police reform.

The reform that needs to take place begins with whom they hire. The current problem is in the police screening process and their training. They need to refrain from hiring individuals who exhibit qualities and character traits that are incompatible with the motivation to protect and serve. They need to remove those officers who demonstrate qualities incompatible with these values. And finally, they need to focus officer attention on de-escalation techniques, dealing with actual crimes and true community threats. They should give warnings for minor offenses like selling loose cigarettes and not seeking to arrest folks who are no danger to society. Walking down the street should not be provocation for being stopped and questioned. Driving to school in a nice car shouldn’t automatically trigger suspicion.

Our country would be better off if the police were actually hired, trained, and deployed to protect and serve everyone, including people like me. That’s really what the Black Lives Matter movement is about. The time for better policing is now because we all deserve better.

History has shown us that when humans with opposing views can’t or won’t find a middle ground in which to reside together peacefully, they resort to violence. My greatest fear is that America is once again heading in the direction of civil war. The most tragic thing about this potential disaster is that the conflict is again rooted in the baseless lie of white supremacy. This lie dates back to the founding of this country and eventually resulted in the American Indian Wars and a Civil War that ended 400 years of slavery. However, the lie lives on in the hearts and minds of some white people. At sake in another war is the loss of innocent lives, economic disaster, and perhaps a permanent loss of our Constitution, democracy, trust in government, and freedom.

To sugarcoat the big lie, Republican leaders, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and their fake news outlets are peddling a bunch of more palatable lies to garner the support of white Evangelical Christians. They repeatedly convey the alarming message that they are losing their country and their religious freedoms. Instead of openly admitting their desire to protect and defend white supremacy and white privilege, they instead accuse democrats of being election stealers, baby killers, anti-law enforcement, socialists who drink the blood of children, pedophiles, and Jews trying to control minds through 5G technology and microchips planted through COVID-19 vaccinations. They convince white Evangelicals that their heterosexual marriages, sis gender identity, and sexuality are under threat. It’s doubtful that the advocates of these ridiculous accusations genuinely believe this shit (yeah I said it), but they are actively recruiting supporters who are sufficiently afraid and enraged to be willing to take up arms if necessary to defend themselves against a made-up enemy.

The white supremacist fostering these lies understand that the majority of white Americans hate being viewed as racists and have some level of shame about our nation’s history. That is why they deny the existence of white privilege and oppression, and why they seek to suppress history and to silence the voices of advocates for diversity, inclusion, and equity with spurious claims about reverse discrimination whenever companies or schools attempt to give “previously closed” opportunities to people of color and LGBTQ individuals. Keeping a system of oppression in place benefits heterosexual white people and that is what an impending civil war would be about.

These instigators understand human nature enough to know that racial, religious, and political tribalism operates at the subliminal level and that self-preservation is a basic human instinct. Convince a tribe that they are in danger and they will arm themselves for a fight. And that is precisely what is happening now.

The white supremacist young man who entered a black church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed nine people said that he was hoping to start a race war. He was premature because the groundwork hadn’t been fully laid. Enter Donald Trump and his blatant empowerment of white nationalism. The media gave too little attention to the praise of the 2nd Amendment as a tool to fight the government by Congressman Matt Gaetz at his rally last week. It was a dog whistle for white supporters to take up arms. The word is leaking out here and there with comments from Mike Flynn and others. And just this past week, a conservative California Federal judge overturned the 30-year ban of automatic assault rifles in California, comparing an AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. The judge called these weapons “a perfect combination of home defense and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle.” Battle against whom exactly? Fellow Americans?

If white supremacists can’t reverse the move toward greater diversity, inclusion and equity through voter suppression or their army of conservative judges whom they strategically put in place, then they are willing to take over this nation through violence. They are arming themselves as I write this and continuing to incite unsuspecting white Americans to violence and ultimately civil war. And then we all lose except for the few rich media investors, gun makers, and white supremacists leaders who will gain power and profit from it.

The time to sound the alarm is now. It’s not time to dance around the issue of white supremacy that once again threatens our country’s people. It’s time to be vocal, not silent. We can not afford to be apathetic in the face of this clear and present danger. Remember that six millions Jews were slaughtered because the German people allowed lies to feed their white supremacist protectionist instincts. I’m hopeful that we will learn from history and not repeat it. In every election moving forward, we must take the opportunity to rid ourselves of white supremacist in every leadership role. It is time to only vote for those who appreciate our diversity and have a record of actively working toward inclusion and equity.

I think most of us agree with the Greek proverb that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The truth of that axiom became apparent to me this week when I found myself having a visceral negative response to Margorie Taylor Greene and Matthew Graetz as well as a random older white woman who defended Greene’s ridiculous and offensive comment equating mask wearing mandates to the Nazi treatment of Jews. In my view, these are ugly people. I also find Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Cruise to be particularly ugly humans. It doesn’t surprise me that others find them incredibly attractive. I’m starting to realize that the beauty or ugliness we see in others says more about the human attributes we value on an instinctual level rather than a conscious one.

When I think about the people I find attractive whether male or female, I realize that it is less about physical appearance and more about the persona and aura the person projects. I greatly value intelligence, authenticity, warmth, hard work, generosity, honesty, humility, caring, modesty, and confidence. People who strongly project these attributes are beautiful humans in my eyes and the more they project these attributes, the more I want to see them, listen to them, and be around them. I want humans like that to lead our nation and major corporations.

Not surprisingly, the opposite is true of people who project attributes I abhor. These include ignorance, stupidity, violence, dishonesty, arrogance, hostility, selfishness, greediness, boastfulness, self-centeredness, and meanness. I don’t want to be around such people and when they come on the television or appear in front of me, I find the fastest exit. These are ugly people in my eyes. But I realize that there are people who find these attributes attractive, particularly in leaders whom they think with protect them, further their aspirations, or feed their emotional needs.

While I recognize that every human possesses a cross section of these attributes, it is the tipping of the scale towards one attribute set versus the other that determines how attractive or ugly a person is in my eyes. In my determination of beautiful or ugly, intelligence, caring, and honesty tips the scale towards beauty while arrogance, violence, stupidity, dishonesty, and boastfulness tips the scale towards ugliness. If any of these latter qualities are prominent, then the person is really ugly in my eyes.

If I’m truthful with myself, I can’t view a stupid person as beautiful; that person will be pretty ugly to me no matter how generous or modest. Perhaps that is why I found that white woman who defended Greene’s comment to be absolutely ugly. I couldn’t say anything about her other attributes because I was focused on her unwavering love for Greene. This white woman was obviously ignorant, but knowing nothing, her stupidity was on clear display with how she valued attributes in Greene, even comparing Greene to Jesus.

I find myself asking why so many white people find Donald Trump attractive enough to want him as president. I wonder what attributes he projects that makes them believe he is good for America. It sounds sad, but I surmise that their loyalty to Trump has to do with protecting a false image of themselves. I think that recent human history has convinced many white people that they are better than everyone else and that they should maintain power over the country. As people of color quickly grow in numbers and slowly emerge from the oppression sustained by white violence, they feel threatened. I haven’t forgotten the Charlottesville march.

To their horror, the weight of oppression is lifting and they want to stop it. I suppose that Donald Trump is projecting their own arrogance and hostility back to them. Perhaps they need the boastfulness, the violence, and even the dishonesty to boaster their collective self-esteem. It is no wonder that Matt Gaetz stood up in his rally this past week and promoted the 2nd Amendment as a right to be used, not for hunting, but to take the nation back. From whom? If they can’t sustain white supremacy via lies and voter suppression, then will they once again resort to violence like on January 6th? But will they be heavily armed next time?

When people feel under threat, they are willing to abandon intelligence, honesty, caring and generosity in favor of deception that keeps a comfortable narrative in place. That narrative being white supremacy. And no matter how ugly the messenger is to the rest of us, these white supremacist find that messenger beautiful.

One of the first songs I learned in Sunday School was, “Jesus Loves the Little Children” wherein the song proclaims that Jesus loves all the children of the world and how they are red and yellow, black and white, and how they’re all precious in His sight. Another basic Sunday School lesson was about the importance of truth, being truthful, and how it is the truth that sets us free. And finally, the key lesson in Sunday School was to love God and our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. For years, the religious right Republicans claimed that they had the corner on Godly morality. They were the protectors of life and morality. They were the law and order party. They were the family values party. That is no longer accurate. Their full-fledged embrace of Donald Trump, the opposite of espoused Christian values like diversity, truth, and love for God and others, has corrupted their party to its core.

It saddens me to see supposed Christians turn a blind eye to the dehumanizing and demonization of immigrants. Christians, following Trump, abandoned basic Christian values by ignoring or even endorsing the separation of babies and children from their parents at our border. They forgot that a very pregnant Mary and Joseph were immigrants desperately fleeing danger at home. They forgot the parable of the Good Samaritan wherein Jesus taught us to welcome the stranger. Notably Jesus pointed out that it was the religious folk of the day who lacked compassion. Sound familiar? They’ve forgotten the condemnation Jesus had for those who harm children. They instead remained silent or complicit in the face of human cruelty and condoned the lie that blames the victims, abandoning the compassion Jesus requires of His followers. Instead they follow Trump. Sounds like idolatry to me. But that’s yet another problem right wing Christians are having and that a few upstanding Evangelical pastors are trying desperately to combat.

It confounds me to watch supposed Christians embrace a liar and then repeat lies he tells them. Christians were taught in Sunday School that the devil was a liar from the beginning and that he is the father of lies. Jesus taught us that it is the truth that sets us free. How can these Republican Christians completely forget that the Bible says that all liars will be cast in the lake of fire? And how can they completely ignore the lesson that bearing false witness is among the six things that God hates the most? The Bible, which they claim as their guide for living, repeatedly warns against lying and siding with liars. There are so many Bible references for the plight of liars. Here is just one: “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.” (Proverbs 19:9) This is basic Sunday School 101 and Republican leaders and even some Evangelical ministers are repeating lies that come directly from a confirmed liar, Donald Trump. Their source is the one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy and it’s so sad to hear that nonsense coming from the pulpit on Sunday mornings.

However, the worst of the worst is their total abandonment of love for neighbor. As they move to deny voting rights, human rights, public health, and human compassion in favor of protecting a non-existent plea for liberty disguised as white supremacy, we are all in peril. There is not a love for neighbor, but a fear and hatred of anyone who does not look like them, worship like them, or love like them. They are in favor of gun rights that claim innocent human lives in this country more than any other. They claim to be pro-life, but refuse to wear masks, social distance, or take a vaccine to protect us from COVID-19. They are actually just pro-white seeing how it is people of color who are dying the most from COVID-19 due to years of poverty and healthcare neglect.

All of this stems from the fact that the number of whites in this country is declining and people of color are making some political and economic progress. They feel threatened. Their pro-life abortion stance isn’t about anything other than how the statistics show that the highest percentage of abortions is among white women at greater nearly 60%. And most of those are among educated women who are claim Christianity as their religion, whether Catholic or Protestant. White supremacist want to stop this. They don’t care about black and brown babies; they care about white ones and getting that birth rate up. It is no surprise that black and brown women are more likely to die in childbirth due to lack of care and the downplaying of complications in childbirth. White supremacist masquerading as Christians have shown time and time again, that only their white lives matter. They push Jesus aside when they get bent out of shape when anyone else claims, what God Himself has said, that their lives matter, too.

It saddens me to conclude that white supremacy has supplanted true Christianity. But many may argue that this truth dates back to slavery itself and Jim Crow and lynching. They have forsaken their Sunday School lessons that center around love and truth in exchange for a bunch of political stances that are based in hatred and lies from the father of lies through his mouth piece, Donald Trump. I’m reminded of a scripture that talks about how God will eventually give godless and wicked people over to a reprobate mind. And it has become pretty apparent that the Republican Party has become morally bankrupt and incapable of living in reality. Their cowardly party leaders need to be ousted. But ultimately, I trust that the promises of God are true and that these lies and liars will meet their just end. If nothing else, their lies about COVID-19 will find them and hell will be their destination sooner than they think.

As for our country, it is up to the rest of us to make sure that we do not allow this immoral political party to succeed with their hateful white supremacist agenda. We have to keep the House and Senate in 2022 which means we’re going to have to vote like our country’s survival depends on it, because it literally does.

I saved the biggest retirement concerns for last. Medical concerns and financial considerations are the greatest sources of anxiety in retirement and require the greatest amount of attention. I know this has been true for me pre-retirement and for my husband during his four years of retirement.

In preparation for my retirement, I’ve been steadily checking off a list of medical checkups. I began in late January with a complete physical exam. It wasn’t surprising that my doctor told me that I need to eat less, eat better, sleep more, and continue to exercise. He stated his goal was for me to enjoy a healthy retirement. Following his advice was bound to improve my numbers and three months later, my lab test results were in fact much improved. I’m grateful that my pap and mammogram were both normal. My colonoscopy will occur later this month when the surgery center reopens. I had my post-COVID-19 dental cleaning and x-rays. Although I had no cavities, I had a filling replaced and scheduled a voluntary cap to take care of a food trap to prevent future problems. My dentist recommended a new toothpaste and two extra cleanings per year for added gum care recommended for older adults. My vision appointment is schedule for next month and I’ve obtained a referral to see a dermatologist for a check-up and also to remove several unsightly moles and to obtain a cream for age spots. I’m fully vaccinated against COVID-19, shingles, and pneumonia. Long time health issues are being monitored and treated effectively. My plan is to go into retirement with a good baseline and a medical regime in place. Of course, paying for healthcare will be a major monthly expense for the rest of my life, even with Medicare. In fact, it is a monthly expense that is larger than my mortgage.

Turning to expenses, over the last few months I reconfigured my monthly budget and developed a detailed plan to take distributions from my pension, savings, investments, and retirement savings over the next 30 years, saving Social Security for maximum payments later. I am now very happy that I began saving and investing for retirement in my early 20s. That slow and steady decision along with corporate and University contributions has put me in a very good place financially. Never doubt the power of time and steady market investments to build wealth. The best financial advice I received early in life was to automatically pay myself first every month, to protect my credit rating by paying bills on time, and to only take on good debt like a mortgage, student loads, and a car payment. These are debts that actually represent an investment in the future and a great credit rating results in the lowest available interest rate. It was my goal to be debt free with the exception of our home by retirement and we’ve accomplished this. Even though we have a mortgage, we have a lot of equity that puts us well into the black. A financial advisor once said that in retirement we should keep a mortgage for tax purposes, so even if we do sell and purchase a less expensive home, we will still finance that new house.

My husband jokes that he has enough saved for the both of us. And while that is definitely true, I’m an independent person who does not want to rely on anyone. And frankly, I enjoy financial planning and I can’t do that with someone else’s money. Since we married in 2003, we’ve always kept separate bank accounts and joint accounts for shared expenses. I’m sure that this being my second marriage has made a difference in my thinking about my financial independence. However, I encourage my children to look after their own financial health and not to rely on their spouses.

Another consideration unique to our second marriage is that my husband and I each have three children of our own. We agreed that we wanted to ensure that our children are beneficiaries of our joint and respective estates. I took a lesson from my father’s family situation wherein my grandfather married three times. His only five children were from his first marriage before she died. My father and his siblings had to watch in horror when my grandfather died from a stroke and everything my grandfather and their mother built together, including the family home and a vacation home, passed directly to his third wife and subsequently to her biological children. Neither of us wanted a scenario wherein our biological children were excluded from the money and assets we both worked to accumulate our entire lives. So, we spent $120 on notary fees to reconfigure our beneficiary list to provide 60% of our respective savings, investments, and retirement savings for our respective children. In California, a spouse is automatically guaranteed at least 50% from these accounts unless a notary witnesses the spouse’s signature to waive this right. So, we did this.

A long time ago, we established a Living Trust, then revised it a few years ago. Once I retire, we are going to revisit that Trust again to make revisions to include guidelines for the distribution of funds and items to our respective grandchildren. We have conversations about the different components that go into our Trust such as the will and the healthcare directives. These conversations help us determine what we really want and prevents future arguments among surviving family members.

Among one consideration, I would now prefer to be cremated instead of buried. As I continue with my decluttering project, in preparation for this revision, I am taking pictures of my jewelry and other special items and deciding who will get what specific item. Before I had broad categories listed. I’m thinking that I might begin distributing certain items throughout my retired life. It might be nice to actually see the items valued and enjoyed.

I built into my retirement distribution plan a set amount of mad money per year for just plain fun. Whether it’s money to take a trip, to take a class, to start a new hobby, or complete a pet project, it is nice to be in the position to know I have adequate funds to simply dream and enjoy myself.

In concluding my series of reflections on preparing for retirement, I think it has become clear that retirement planning starts years before retirement, particularly when it comes to health and wealth. The decisions made in ones twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties, will all have either a negative or positive impact on whether retirement is an option and at what level it can be enjoyed. Of course, there are those, who like me, didn’t believe in retirement back in my thirties. A financial advisor told me to save and invest anyway and to take care of your body anyway. And I’m so glad I did.

When my mother passed away in 1994, I was amazed by the amount of stuff she had accumulated and that we had to weed through. Her closets were jammed packed with clothes and many other items, some of which she had never used. Her garage had items that had been stored untouched for years. She wasn’t a hoarder, but just the average person who was too busy to declutter.

I’m not a hoarder either, but I recognize that I have more clothes than I need, more household items than are necessary, more kitchenware than I use, and in general more stuff than I really want. And this remains an issue despite the six or seven trips we make to the Goodwill donation center every year. Beyond not wanting to leave a mess for my children to sort through, I reference the observation Dr. Gupta makes in his book, “Keep Sharp”, that clutter is bad for brain health as it disrupts clear and organized thinking. And I have found this to be true. However, beyond promoting clearer thinking, decluttering has other benefits, but the task isn’t as simple as it seems.

Those trips to Goodwill represent our elimination of the easy stuff such as the replacement of an old television with a newer version or the donation of pants that no longer fit. What’s more difficult are the items we purchased because we liked them, thought we needed them, or think we might need them in the future. I struggle with getting rid of the perfectly good sweater that fits well but that I haven’t worn for three years but might want to wear next winter. Will I regret donating such a sweater?

To help me with this conundrum, I enlisted the help of Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese art of decluttering and organizing”. From this book, I learned to take my time with decluttering and to get in touch with my actual feelings towards items like the sweater I didn’t wear for three years. Her question, “Does it spark joy?” was a breakthrough. The idea of what to “keep” as opposed to what to throw away was a different mindset that I embraced.

Through the book, I learned to approach each item of clothing and other items to determine if I really want the item because it “speaks to the heart”. Perhaps the item once sparked joy, but no longer does. Rather than feel guilty about discarding a perfectly good item, she says to thank the item for “giving me joy when I bought you”. Expressing that gratitude before saying goodbye to items that the rational me would keep but the intuitive me knows I no longer desire, is liberating.

So, I recently began my slow journey of deciding what to keep, drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf, closet by closet. It is really a slow and ongoing process. The one thing I did decide to do was to stop purchasing new stuff for now. I’m seriously reflecting on the lifestyle and fashion style that will suit the retired me. As I sort through clothes and household items, the truth of who I am today and what sparks joy and excitement in me is bound to emerge. That will reveal who the early retired me is.

I am excited that the process of decluttering is not a one time process, but an ongoing process that will help keep my mind sharp, provide that euphoric feeling of lightness, keep me in touch with who I am as a human being in the moment, and when I leave this earth will be less of a burden on my children.

As for the sweater, I did in fact thank it for the joy it brought me when I purchased it before gently placing it in the Goodwill donation bag.

Last week I unveiled the 7-8 hours of sleep rule, the eat well and less rule, and the minimum of 150 hours per week of exercise rule as three of my rules for retirement. I’ve been trying to establish these rules as habits by paying attention and self-parenting. I have to admit that the last two nights, I had to tell myself that it was bedtime at 9pm. It felt strange, but I complied with my voice of discipline. Eating right is proving to be the greatest challenge. I’ll eat the good stuff with no problem. My problem is lacking discipline to refuse the bad stuff, especially when my husband lays the bad stuff right in front of me. I feel like I need to ban his trips to Costco and the grocery store. Perhaps when I retire, I will simply accompany him there to provide “adult” supervision.

Rule number four comes directly from Dr. Gupta’s book, “Keep Sharp”, on brain health. In the book, Dr. Gupta goes into great detail about the need to stay actively engaged in learning and socializing. He makes the argument for staying employed as a means of fulfilling both of these brain requirements as well as maintaining a sense of purpose. I thought about changing my mind about retirement for about 30 seconds before deciding that I really do want to retire from my current job.

I’ve spent the last several months really contemplating how I want to spend my time and energy. Sitting around watching television all day is literally a death sentence to both the brain and the body. However, the freedom to direct my brain and body to pursue the things my job hasn’t allowed time for feels really good. As I’ve aged, I’ve noticed a decline in my physical energy. I’m no longer the energizer bunny I was in my twenties, thirties, forties, and even fifties when I could come home from a full day of work, excited to take on the house, kids, friends, church, classes, community, teaching, and hobbies. I look back at my former self and wonder how I did all that. In those days, I couldn’t even imagine retiring. But as my energy began to wane both physically and even mentally, I noticed that my life was consumed with work demands and that I had very little energy for anything else. For the first time, I learned what it meant to be physically tired and mentally drained at the end of a work day. I didn’t want to see anyone or do anything after work because I was exhausted. The weekends became a way to recharge for another demanding work week.

So, retirement comes as a welcome relief that will allow me to channel my current energy level into the people and activities I actually care most about. I care most about my family and friends, but over the last few years, I realize that too much of my physical, emotional and mental energy has been channeled into my University and it’s students whose needs have grown. I find myself digging deep into my reserves to meet the needs of my husband and kids, often ignoring extended family and friends just to survive. In retirement, family and friends can once again emerge as the primary beneficiaries of the best I have to offer in love, laughter, kindness, and support. I’m excited to reconnect with extended family and friends more consistently and without having to apologize for presenting my exhausted self.

Retirement will also offer me the opportunity to pursue my current interests with renewed vigor and take on new interests as well. I have plans around children’s books that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion as a worthwhile human value. I will continue to knit and I’ll donate items to hospitals, perhaps the neo-natal ward where my daughter-in-law is a pediatrician. I will continue to garden because being outside nurturing flowers, fruits, and vegetables is not only incredibly rewarding, but good exercise. I will take drawing and painting classes and re-engage with learning Spanish. I will become more active with my sorority after taking a break for most of last year because I believe in service to all mankind. I am considering getting involved with political campaigns as I care deeply about who runs our country. And finally, I am considering the possibility of doing some more traveling, although the thought of another long flight is unappealing.

For me, retirement is the opportunity to reset my priorities to reflect the legacy I want to leave in this world. The rule to stay actively engaged in learning and socializing is a rule where compliance is easy.

I’ve been reading Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s new book, “Keep Sharp”. It’s a book about how to keep our brains functioning well as we age. It’s a terrific book and I highly recommend it to people of all ages because keeping the brain healthy and functioning well is a lifetime commitment. It is especially important as we age to make lifestyle choices that help rather than harm brain function. As a result of reading this book, I’ve made a list of commitments to myself that I’ve begun to implement and which I’m determined will be solid habits by my July 1st retirement date.

Number one on my list is getting seven to eight hours of sleep each night. I know I’ve mentioned many times about how difficult this is for me, but I learned a few things from reading the book that have helped me finally achieve this goal. Dr. Gupta makes the usual suggestions like creating a bedtime ritual, maintaining a dark cool room between 60 and 65 degrees, avoiding blue lights from clocks, televisions, cell phones, and e-readers, and avoiding conflicts before bedtime. The change I implemented was establishing an earlier bedtime hour to match my naturally early waking time. That means I’ve started getting ready for bed at 8:30pm and climbing into bed at 9pm. Wearing a mask definitely helps with the light from my bedside clock. As expected, the first couple of nights I woke up earlier than expected, but seeing that I had only been asleep for 4 or 5 hours, I made myself continue to lay in bed and think the kinds of thoughts that generally help me fall asleep. It worked. I quickly fell back to sleep and this week I managed to get between seven and eight hours of sleep every night. So early to bed is kind of strange, but I’m finally getting those important hours of sleep.

Number two on the list is 150 minutes of exercise five days a week and movement throughout the day. I already exceed the 150 minutes exercise five days a week but I notice that I spend too much time sitting throughout the day for work, television, reading, writing, or knitting. Dr. Gupta suggests that we need to be active every hour even if it is just to walk around for two minutes. So, I created little paper chore strips and put them in a bowl. I’ve made it a point when I am home, to pull at least three chores from the bowl throughout the day to motivate movement. Some of the chores include: washing a window, vacuuming a room, mopping a floor, dusting a ceiling fan, pulling weeds, or cleaning a toilet. There are tons of them and it makes my movement meaningful. Because of this innovation, I’ve ceased to dedicate one day to house cleaning because the chores are now spread over seven days. At the office, I use the two minute movements to slowly pack up my office or to get rid of things. Admittedly, I really enjoy this new found productivity.

The third commitment on the list is to eat less and to eat well, meaning to consume more of the seven colors of vegetables and fruits and far less meat and starches like pasta and rice. We switched over to organic foods a while back and we only have protein and vegetables for dinner. I gave up potato chips about two months ago in favor of organic skinny popcorn. It certainly helps that we grow most of our own produce. A few months ago, my doctor put me on an intermittent fasting diet and Dr. Gupta’s book seems to suggest that it’s a good idea. I’ve been limiting sugar for a while, so that isn’t new, but Dr. Gupta affirms the danger of sugar, fast food, fried foods, and processed foods. So, I’ve given up most processed foods and on cookies and cakes and pies unless there is a very special occasion and I’m working on limiting my trips to drive through fast food joints. I eat nothing from 6pm to 6am. That satisfies Dr. Gupta’s rule to not eat three hours before bedtime and provides me with the 12 hours of fasting my doctor suggests. That said, I admit that I can’t imagine a happy life without an occasional piece of fried chicken, though.

In total, I created a list of eight commitments for my retirement because I want to be as healthy, productive, and happy as possible for this next chapter of my life. I’m realizing that as with every other chapter in life, retirement is a journey, not a destination.

Next week I will address more of these commitments and how I plan to turn them into my lifestyle for retirement.

I asked myself this week why we collectively allow so many greedy, self-serving, unethical, and ignorant people to lead us. Too many of the leaders in our churches, media, and government today are literally leading us on a path toward death and destruction and we are allowing it. Are we really just sheep? Do we really trust charismatic personalities even when their protestations defy reason? Are we really so caught up in our busy schedules that we don’t notice the dangerous path we are on? Or are we too confused, too tired, too gullible, or just too passive to put any energy into selecting better leaders?

How many COVID-19 deaths, how many mass shootings, how many power outages, collapsing bridges, police shootings, voter suppression laws, extreme weather events, food lines, and racists attacks will it take for us to collectively demand leaders who actually address our pressing problems? Instead, I’m watching in dismay as many Americans follow the familiar name or the most loud and obnoxious voices who play to tribal fears of being replaced by minorities, whether ethnic, religious, or sexually different. Too many Americans have embraced these unfounded fears instead of demanding that their leaders address our actual problems we are facing. It is infuriating that we’ve been collectively unwilling to oust those who have shown us that they will do nothing to address our problems. I’m calling out conservative media hosts, unhinged pastors, and politicians like senators Ted Cruise and Mitch McConnell who both won re-election.

I watched in horror this week as Republican Representative Jim Jordan argued with Dr. Fauci over the notion that personal liberty is more important than public health. How much freedom can a dead person exercise? The loud and obnoxious confrontation was absurd and Jim Jordan has absolutely no business representing human lives if he can’t appreciate the fact that COVID-19 has killed more than 560,000 Americans and threatens to kill more if we do nothing. Perhaps he likes the idea that the majority of those dead are poor, elderly, and people of color. There seems to be a hidden agenda among some Republicans. My guess is that conservative media wants to make money while these unhinged ego-driven pastors seek the power, fame and money that comes with growing their congregations.

While I am for thoughts and prayers, they do nothing to get to the root of the problem we have in this nation with easy access to firearms. Almost daily, we watch in horror as high powered, rapid fire weapons are used to take the lives of innocent people at work, out shopping, at school, in theaters, enjoying a concert, or as we experienced here, in a dance club. And again, Republican leaders and conservative media behave like easy access to guns is more important than public health, especially if those gun owners are white. I’m not ignorant of that reality. While the majority of Americans want to control access to guns with background checks and eliminating weapons of war, Republican lawmakers won’t do it. Could it be that they are preparing for a race war? It seems so much more likely after Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced the creation of an Anglo-Saxon congressional caucus to protect Anglo-Saxon traditions. We must finally admit to ourselves that we have white nationalists in our midst who are infiltrating our evangelical churches, our media outlets, our police forces, our military, and now our government.

History has shown us what happens when one ethnic group gains economic, political and military power over others. First comes stoking fear that minorities are a threat followed by widespread oppression of rights, and finally ethnic cleansing or genocide. It should not surprise us that the fear of people of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people is already circulating and growing to the point that many of these gunmen are targeting minorities.

If we do nothing, if we allow these Republicans to block gun control and restrict our access to voting so that white nationalist can continue to elect government officials like Jim Jordan, Ted Cruise, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, I truly believe American ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people will be led like sheep to the slaughter within the next twenty-five years. So, the bottom line is that we can’t afford to allow ourselves, nor our family and friends to continue being sheep.