Fully Present Post 50

While science has finally concluded that from a biological standpoint, black skin means nothing with regards to full membership in the human race, the social value attached to black skin remains problematic for black people. While we may finally understand intellectually that blackness does not determine inherent intelligence, creativity, talent, nor morality, the world continues to behave as though skin color is attached to all these things. As a result, black people like me, experience a confusing mixture of esteem for our contributions and disrespect for our person on a daily basis from a society that is itself confused, guilt-ridden, stubborn, and afraid of us. The same people who eagerly enjoy, consume and imitate our rhythms, artistry, and creativity ignore, debase, and ridicule us as inferior beings. We are a traumatized people. I am traumatized. We suffer from PTSD. I suffer from PTSD. And we die younger. The highly prevalent health issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cancer are connected to our trauma.

To survive in black skin continues to mean that daily stress levels will be higher, resilience must be higher, creativity to overcome hurdles must be higher, and a combination of street smarts and book smarts must be higher. The confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson showed how we have to do more, take more, and be more to be allowed to occupy the same space as our white counterparts. And once we arrive, people continuously question our presence. Her story is the story of many black people (including me) since Affirmative Action opened doors that were previously closed to us despite our qualifications. White conservatives refuse to acknowledge that for most of U.S. history they closed the doors of opportunity to us. And now they choose to ignore how we had to struggle against all odds to gain the required qualifications to apply for college admission or a job position that was once closed to us. Affirmative Action wasn’t some “give-away” program for inferior black folks, but that’s what the conservatives want people to believe. They want to hide the historical legacy of black discrimination and claim a level playing field that never existed. The denial of past in present discrimination is an attitude that just further traumatizes black people.

What we saw in the horrifying Will Smith incident was the result of generational trauma. I believe that Chris Rock’s response was also born from that same place of trauma. Generations of black women have lived their lives undefended, disrespected, abused, and invisible. We go missing, die in childbirth, watch our sons murdered by police, and suffer abuse and no one comes to our rescue. At the same time, generations of black men have born the frustration of being unable to defend their black wives, mothers, and sisters against a society that denies both their worth and vulnerability as females. When Chris Rock made his insensitive joke, I think we witnessed the explosion of a black man finally feeling empowered enough to defend his wife. And I think Chris Rock knew it, too, and refused to allow the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest Will Smith. Although we understand and think that finally a black man is defending a black woman, nothing about that incident was acceptable except that Chris Rock didn’t escalate the incident by fighting back. I must admit that I wonder whether Will Smith would have had the same confidence to slap a white comedian.

And finally, the world got to witness first-hand how caring the powerful are when white hardship from war is on display. In this world, white people’s tears are more highly valued and deserving of media attention and actual care than the hardships of people of color in similarly dire situations. The coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is on CNN all day and night with every aspect of the Ukrainian sufferings being broadcasted as though no others in the world are also suffering the atrocities of war at this very moment. The opening of borders and homes, the outpouring of humanitarian aid, the financial donations, and even the willingness of people to travel there to help Ukraine fight is like nothing we have seen in the many other countries laid bare by war. War correspondents have said as much without realizing it that these are “Europeans” and that makes the suffering untenable.

As a country and as a world, we know in our heads that humans are the same whatever their skin color. The problem is that our hearts have yet to get the message and until we do, black skin will continue to be a problem for black people.

I had an incredible first week with my son and his family helping them settle into their new home. This second week of my stay has been a bit different. In fact, it has been a kind of torture from a purely physical standpoint. A few issues converged to challenge my ability to accomplish everything I desired in my usual fashion. Some of the problems can be attributed to my own negligence, others to those blasted steps.

Why is it that when I leave home, I think I can simply abandon some routines that literally promote my well-being? While at home, I begin my day with a 4-minute morning warmup stretching routine. I follow a wonderful app on my phone called “Stretching Exercises”. It’s a great app and I use it for multiple routines. Stretching improves flexibility and helps prevent injuries. I know this. And yet, I embarked upon my first week in a home where I had to climb up and down a total of four staircases multiple times a day. I had to go up a flight or down a flight just to use the bathroom. I did this without warmup nor warning for my knees and now I am paying the price. My weak left knee became overly stressed and inflamed, rendering it painful and almost entirely useless.

My son tapped into his compassion and purchased a knee brace and Tylenol for me. Someone told me that he considered a cane, too, but didn’t go there. I added more anti-inflammatory foods like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, broccoli and turmeric to my daily menu since I can’t take Ibuprofen because of my chronic kidney disease. And instead of unpacking, organizing and decorating at my usual pace, I sat on the sofa with an elevated knee and an ice pack several times a day, giving advice. I spent a lot of time ordering needed items from Amazon than putting them away. The most disappointing thing was that I could no longer sit on the playmat with my grandson because I literally could not get up. Thankfully, he’s good sitting on my lap, staring into my glasses or playing with my sparkling Brighten beans that I wear especially for him.

On top of my knee problems, I was shocked and worried when my ankles and feet swelled up. At first, I assumed the issue was related to overuse of my limbs. But I was also having weird heart issues at bedtime when I took my newly prescribed blood pressure medicine. It was my mistake not to ask the doctor about the possible side effects since he neglected to mention them on his own. I stopped taking it for fear that I might not wake up in the morning and I looked up the side effects of the medication. My physician daughter-in-law confirmed my suspicions. Sure enough, the most common side effect was swollen ankles and feet and heartbeat issues. Since my blood pressure is borderline and my kidney disease hasn’t gotten any worse in five years of monitoring it, I’m hopeful that my switch to a plant-based diet will solve the issues and eliminate the need for medication.

Although my timing wasn’t optimum, becoming a vegan was a good idea. I think perhaps I should have waited until I returned home to fully immerse myself in this new lifestyle. Being here, I find myself cooking vegan meals for myself and meat-centric meals for my son’s family. In other words, I’m doing double duty in the kitchen every day. Besides going to the bathroom and a store or two, cooking is my only sustained movement every day.

One thing I did prepare for was the fact that they have hardwood floors throughout the entire house. Knowing the fragility of my feet on hard surfaces, I purchased a pair of OOFOS Sport Slides for myself and my son and his wife in advance of my trip and their moving in. The slides are cushiony and protective against the hard surfaces. I purchased them on Amazon for a worthwhile $60 a pair. They are so incredible that I’ve decided that close family members are receiving these slippers from me for their birthdays this year.

As I prepare to head home tomorrow, I’m both proud and regretful. Next time, I won’t neglect my morning stretch and hopefully I’ll weigh a lot less, eliminating some of the stress on my knees as I tackle the stairs in their beautiful new home.

I don’t really know if I invented the term, “grand-mothering”, but that’s what I’m calling my stay in Philadelphia for the next two weeks to help my son’s family settle into their new home while also celebrating my grandson’s first birthday.

These two professional working parents have a live-in au-pair from Columbia who is here on a J-1 visa. She takes incredible care of my grandson from 7am – 3pm and then she seems to disappear into thin air until dinner. She does absolutely no housework as per her contract and is here for primarily for cultural exchange. I first met her when she arrived last July 2021 when my son asked me to come to help her transition to the U.S. and to teach her how to care for my grandson. I spent my career primarily working with international students, so it really was a natural fit and I enjoyed it. We got along really well and I was happy to hear that she was eager for my return.

My son and his wife invited me to come this time because they needed help again. My son is busy transitioning to new work duties after a substantial promotion and my pediatrician daughter-in-law is already overwhelmed with long work hours at the hospital and motherhood. A move to a brand-new home was too much. My assignments are to organize and decorate the new house, cook and clean, and enjoy baby James.

I walked into their newly built five-level row house and was simultaneously stunned by the beauty and chaos before me. There is so much to do! And I only have two weeks. I spent the first evening just setting expectations, discovering their preferences, budget, and determining how decisions would be made. One thing was evident, they were stressed out by all the chaos and lack of organization.

As a cook, my first priority was to organize the kitchen and then stock the refrigerator and pantry after determining what they wanted to eat. I should note that before arriving, I switched to a vegan diet (more about that another time). They are in no way vegans, however, and we’re uninterested in becoming vegans. So, our trip to the grocery store took longer than they would have liked since we were shopping for two separate meal plans. In fact, it was their first trip to a grocery store in a few years. They usually order their groceries and have them delivered. It was my grandson’s first ever trip to a grocery store and he seemed fascinated by it. I wasn’t certain how many vegan products I would find in the Philadelphia Acme supermarket, but they were not lacking at all. I did end up ordering a few products from Amazon afterward, though.

This first week has been fun and challenging. I’ve been working from sunrise to sunset to get this place in order. Friday, I spent almost the entire day hanging pictures and mirrors on two levels. I was relieved when my choices met with their enthusiastic approval. I ordered printouts of family photos in various sizes from Costco and my son wanted that to be a surprise for his wife. We worked out a system whereby I provide them with the choices of a variety of home furnishing items. They select the items they like most and we order them. It feels like deliveries are being made two to three times every day. I’d like to spend a lot more time in actual stores for some of the items they need, but it’s been like pulling teeth to get there.

My grandson is handsome, intelligent, and adventurous. He never stops smiling and staring at me whenever we are in close proximity. He allows me to play with him, carry him around and rock him to sleep. For St. Patrick’s Day, his Irish mother insisted that he wear the clover leaf pajamas she had especially ordered for that evening. Of course, my son forgot. After a facetime call with her at bedtime, my son had to change him into those pajamas. For his birthday, we all went to the “Please Touch Me Museum” and enjoyed a specially ordered birthday cake.

I’m hopeful that some of the bigger items will arrive before I leave in another week. But if not, I’ll see them installed at the end of April when I return for another two weeks of “grand-mothering” when the au-pair returns home to Columbia for a visit. Grand-mothering is a wonderful retirement occupation.

It is unfortunately true that I wake up every morning to a new revelation of what white conservatives think America should be. In a nutshell, they want America to be ruled by white “Christian” men; they want everyone to be heterosexual and male or female as assigned at birth; they want fantasy to replace actual history and science; and most importantly, they want freedom and justice for themselves, but not for others whose backgrounds, values, and beliefs differ from theirs. And they are willing to fight dirty or violently to get what they want.

These older white conservative men grew up in an America built on a foundation of genocide, slavery, racism, and sexism that specifically catered to their needs and their ambitions. They didn’t have to compete with feminists, people of color, or LGBTQ folks for access to the best education, highest paying jobs, capital from banks, or political power. Even when feminists and people of color finally won the right to vote, white conservative men were able to pass laws that ensured their unfettered choices and opportunities for success in life for many more years, while legally finding ways to oppress the freedoms and opportunities of everyone else. Every small victory for the access was met by opposition from the conservatives and complaints of “reverse discrimination”. However, just recently, the doors of freedom and opportunity seem to have cracked open for the previously oppressed and they want to close them again.

Feminists, people of color, LGBTQ folks, religious minorities, and fair-minded white folks were able to ban together to demand access to justice, opportunities and equal rights. They effectively used a combination of protests, creativity, the political process, lawsuits, and determination to pry open these doors. For conservatives, I think the election of Obama followed by the legalization of gay marriage terrified them. Obama signaled to many white Americans that they were losing “their” country and the passage of gay marriage signaled that they were losing their “freedom” to discriminate and oppress those whom they never accepted as fully American in values, color, or religion.

Instead of turning to prayer, they turned to Trump. I think in their heart of hearts, they know that Jesus isn’t on their side. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, not to judge nor oppress them. I think they know that the devil is a liar from the beginning, and yet they embraced the liar and his ongoing lies with gusto. To say these conservatives are “Christian” is a disgrace to true followers of Christ. These folks have truly abandoned the faith for an evil bigot and his oppressive ways. They are almost foaming at the mouth in their level of hatred for the push toward justice, freedom, and opportunity for all.

While draping themselves in the American flag and crying freedom, they want to force women to give birth, ban books, prevent teachers from teaching history and science, prosecute parents seeking care for their transgender children, force media companies to carry networks that promote lies and misinformation, defy mask and vaccine mandates that save lives, and block reasonable gun regulations. Their policies are deadly, yet they claim to be “pro-life”.

So, I wake up each morning realizing that it’s not time to celebrate the glimmers of freedom, opportunities and justice feminists, people of color, religious minorities and LGBTQ folks have finally won. The battle continues and it’s only becoming fiercer. The battles are taking place in the courtrooms and school boards across the country and will soon be waged at the ballot box. And it is no coincidence that the conservatives have made it more difficult to cast that ballot.

Gasoline prices are high and they are expected to rise even higher. A few days prior to the Russian invasion into Ukraine, I decided I’d better fill up my gas tank before the prices soared despite having about a third of a tank left. So, I drove my Lexus 300 hybrid to Costco on a Monday around 11am, thinking I’d avoid the weekend traffic, but that wasn’t the case at all. Others must have had similar thoughts to mine because the line was really long. Some drove away, but being retired and with time on my hands, I decided to wait. It cost $47.94 to fill my tank.

As expected, gasoline prices have soared here in California to over $5.00 per gallon. I still have my full tank of gas because I don’t drive very much. At the height of the pandemic, when I was working from home and rarely leaving the house, it took me four months to use up a tank of gas. Gasoline has never been a huge part of my budget because I worked only 6 minutes from home, drove a hybrid, shopped locally or online whenever possible, consolidated errands, and I’m not fond of taking long drives. My Lexus is now eight years old, and I only have about 36,000 miles on it.

Without sending our children to fight, I think we should ban together to inflict as much economic pain as possible upon Putin because of his war on the innocent people of Ukraine. Putin’s major export is oil and about 8% of the oil we consume is from Russia. I already wrote to President Biden and Nancy Pelosi asking that we stop purchasing oil from Russia even though prices will go up. I also expressed to them that reducing our supply of oil and higher prices might motivate us to build the kind of structures that will enable us to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and thereby protect the planet from climate change. This is something we should be doing anyway. I hope others share my sentiment and contact them as well.

History has shown that there are things we can do quickly as a nation during times of stress that seem impossible during peaceful times. This war in Ukraine, while horrible, could be our opportunity to greatly improve our public transportation system, increase production of electric vehicles and charging stations, move to a four-day work week and increase opportunities for remote working where feasible.

Businesses can be encouraged to offer vanpools or help organize carpools or offer remote working, four-day work weeks or a hybrid working situation. They can provide vouchers for public transportation or provide pick-up services from bus and train stops. They can make their car fleets electric. They can install electric charging stations at the workplace. Larger employers can offer on-site food services, childcare, laundry, and gym facilities thereby reducing the need to drive while also improving the work-life balance of employees.

Putin, like Hitler before him, needs to be stopped and he must be made to pay for his war crimes. But every challenge is also an opportunity, and my hope is that we will use this opportunity to punish him enough to help Ukraine while at the same time taking advantage of this stressful time to build a greener and more efficient economy for our country. In the meantime, I pray for the brave and determined people of Ukraine as they fight for their freedom from the tyranny of Putin. I just hope we will care enough about freedom and democracy to be willing to pay more at the gas pump to stop him.

I rarely encounter overt Trump supporters in my daily interactions. On occasion I might pass a pick-up truck decked out in Trump stickers with American flags waving in the wind. Every now and then, I might see a maskless supporter strutting in a store, itching for someone to confront him. And for the first time, I encountered a Facebook friend of a friend who supports Trump. I’m aware that I can have a big mouth and that I lack patience in the face of stupidity. So, not surprisingly, this wasn’t a positive experience for either of us. But it did prompt me to think about why someone would abandon all reason, morality, and reality to embrace someone like Trump.

I looked up definitions for the word “cult” to determine for myself if the Trump supporters I encountered were actually members of a cult as others have described them. One definition taken from my Dictionary phone app defined cult as: “a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.” From my observation, Trump supporters do revere or adore Trump and they are definitely glued together by their reverence and loyalty to him. Their intensity is downright dangerous as demonstrated by their attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, believing his lie that the election was stolen from him.

The woman I encountered on Facebook was quick to assert that Trump won the election and to attack Biden as a person with dementia, as only caring about himself and his “crackhead son”, and to attack me personally as a person who didn’t know the truth and not worth listening to, especially after I told her I wasn’t buying her nonsense which lacked evidence, context, history, logic, and common sense. I called upon her to watch Biden’s press conferences and speeches and to listen to actual journalism and no longer allow herself to be feed a bunch of propaganda. I suppose I only succeeded in making her furious. Funny thing is, I never got angry, never lost my cool, and never resorted to calling her names. At the end, she called me a liberal and told me to grab an ice cream and go sit in a creepy basement with Joe Biden and then to go sit under a rock with my BS. I ended by thanking her for the compliment and saying there was nowhere else I would rather be and that at least my liberal BS is based in reality.

Coming from a career in higher education, I’m not accustomed to dealing with people who uncritically accept rumors, gossip, innuendos, false accusations, conspiracies, and lies as truth worth acting upon. The scary part is that these people have not only armed themselves with guns, but they are actively running for local, state, and federal offices to enact laws that fit and defend their perverted version of reality. They are also enthusiastic about voting. God help us if they gain power in our local, state and federal governments. History tells us that truth-bearers like academics, journalists, and their books are the first people on the chopping block in a society run by immoral lying autocrats who depend on an ignorant and apathetic populace.

The reality is that our society currently has too many people who cannot distinguish between actual news and propaganda. I believe that if they knew better, they would do better. I realize it is unwise to wait until college to teach critical thinking skills. Trump said out loud that he loved the uneducated. Indeed, every autocrat depends on the loyalty of those who are simple-minded, apathetic, and easily swayed.

In conclusion, I learned from my encounter that Trump supporters won’t be swayed by reason nor evidence. It is therefore up to those of us who rely on evidence, appreciate democracy, respect science, and demand social justice to rally all those around us to vote in the mid-terms this year to elect reality-based candidates and to do it again in 2024. Otherwise thinking people and this country will be in big trouble.

If I step back for a moment, I can clearly see why President Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of America. We are currently deciding whether we will be a democratic republic that values truth, voting, and fairness or if we will be an autocracy that uses propaganda, lies, and violence to oppress minorities under the guise of preserving freedom.

During the years when President Obama was elected and then re-elected, many white political conservatives and under-educated whites which included many white evangelicals, began to feel threatened by progressives pushing an agenda for diversity, inclusion, and equity that demanded access to opportunities and seats at the decision-making tables for people whose access had previously been denied, first through overt discrimination, then through covert tactics. In order to maintain power and superior wealth, the political conservatives needed a unifying strategy.

Before I get to that strategy, let me say again how many white university students came to school wrongly believing that we were a colorblind society and that discrimination ended with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Because they believed these myths, they attributed poor education, generational poverty, mass incarceration, and widespread unemployment among people of color to personal failings among members of these groups. They also viewed Affirmative Action as reverse discrimination because they honestly believed that urban public schools with high concentrations of black and brown students were comparable to their wealthier and heavily resourced suburban or private schools. They honestly believed the falsehood that prisons were full of black and brown people simply because they were the ones committing all the crimes. Through education and exposure outside their segregated neighborhoods they learned the reality of the systems of oppression at work in our country.

I credit the persistent work of academics, activists, and journalists for exposing the ongoing inequities in education, employment, housing, banking, and criminal justice. This information has fueled demands for diversity, inclusion and equity for women and minorities across the country. It became evident to a lot of educated citizens that the U.S. was not a colorblind society, that women had been subjected to sexual harassment with impunity along with lower pay, and that black and brown people were unfairly and routinely targeted and brutalized by police. The term, “white privilege” became a catch phrase to explain the ongoing inequities. And I saw firsthand how things became very uncomfortable for white males upon learning that a system was in place to boost their success while disadvantaging others. I knew the pushback was coming. I repeatedly asked why white males would be eager to change a system that favored them. So, I wasn’t too surprised to see young white males marching in Charlottesville, including a student from my own university.

I argue that having President Obama in the White House served as both a trigger and a red herring for white political conservatives, closeted white supremacists, and white evangelicals who desperately wanted to end abortion and stop LGBTQ rights. In a perverse way, President Obama’s presence provided a moral cover for white evangelicals who stubbornly clung to a mythical colorblindness to deny ongoing racial injustice while joining the camp of conservatives with white supremacist leanings. But the conservative leaders knew that abortion and gay rights were not enough to enrage to actively engage white evangelicals and the socially liberal in their ranks. They needed to unite white people by reinforcing that mythical colorblindness while simultaneously stoking a fear of losing 1) their job opportunities to illegal immigrants, 2) their religious freedoms to discriminate against LGBTQ folks, and 3) their right to protect themselves against those dangerous black and brown people. And today, the conservatives have added the false fear of losing their “right” to make their own healthcare decisions by not wearing a mask nor getting vaccinated during a pandemic (and just how is this pro-life?).

It could be argued that supporting the immoral and bombastic Donald Trump was perhaps a bridge too far, but they did it anyway because he promised judges and a return to covert discrimination that would keep white people firmly on top without the inconvenient exposure of an unfair system of white privilege. He and the conservatives attacked the Black Lives Matter Movement as racist and unamerican. They cozied up to white supremacists as good people who love their country. They promoted conspiracy theories to gain additional supporters no matter how ridiculous. And now they are banning books and the teaching of Critical Race Theory which they equate with the racist parts of our history. They want to erase the widening knowledge of the system of white privilege that serves them so well. To rake in high ratings and the accompanying dollars, Fox News and conservative radio are happy to serve as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party, pushing stories that stoke these fears and support Trump and his lies.

As cynical as it may seem, I’m convinced that their primary motivation continues to be both power and money for the few conservative white males holding the reigns. It no longer matters that they are leading the country towards autocratic leadership, Covid-19 deaths, shortages, inflation, racially motivated violence, book bans, voter suppression, and who knows what else. Their motives are sinister, lacking morality and patriotism, but empowering bad actors.

Last week, a Neo-Nazi group hung banners over a freeway overpass in my county that read, “Honk if white lives matter” and “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” These bigots are pushing the propaganda that white people are in danger when it continues to be black and brown people who are struggling for equity.

I would never have guessed just a few years ago that U.S. citizens would become so vulnerable to the kind of propaganda that pits Americans against each other over issues like public health, fairness, equality, science, history, decency, the rule of law, and common sense. But here we are.

And we’re here because there are greedy white men willing to mislead and arm enough uneducated, frightened and sometimes bigoted white people to help them stifle equity and fairness to preserve their continued superiority in wealth and power.

I asked myself this week whether rules, mandates, and laws are necessary? And if they are, why is it that some people break them with impunity while others are held to the strictest codes? In particular, these last few years have been stressful with newly invented rules, mandates, and laws on the one hand and the constant breaking of established rules, mandates, and laws on the other. The constant flux is both frustrating and confusing, especially when the changing rules, mandates, and laws are detrimental to our safety, our education, our civility, and our democracy. Do we even need or want rules, mandates, and laws to govern our behavior?

I suppose what I believe about human behavior informs my opinion about the need for rules, mandates, and laws as well as their enforcement. It comes down to the degree of faith I have that my fellow humans will behave in a public manner that is decent, reasonable and beneficial to society without the assistance of behavioral boundaries. My answer is, “not much”. I don’t have much confidence that my neighbors, family, friends, or leaders will to be considerate of others without them. And yet sometimes the rules, mandates, and laws themselves are immoral and deserve to be challenged. Civil disobedience is absolutely essential to challenge and overturn laws that discriminate and harm people.

Rules provide us with structure within our families, communities and institutions. They are an agreed upon set of behaviors that make our interactions with others safe and predictable. We start learning them as soon as we are born. For example, a rule each of my breastfeeding babies learned was not to bite mama’s breast. My swift and highly negative reaction to that first bite was enough to ensure that not one of them bit me a second time. By kindergarten, most children have learned to share, take turns, to reframe from hitting others, to follow the instructions of the teacher, and to say, “please” and “thank you”. Rules help us to get along with others without continuous conflict and a constant battle of the wills. Without rules, the determined, the strongest, and the bully always gets his way. However, history reminds us that we must be suspicious of rules made by bigots and bullies because other people will suffer. Rules are only enforceable through social means. So, when someone breaks social rules, they experience the displeasure of the entire community. In the past, the fear of public shaming, physical violence, or even death was enough to ensure people obeyed the rules.

Mandates are rules put in place by those whom we have given the authority to lead. It could be a parent, a teacher, a boss, a school board, or a governmental leader. Mandates are rules meant to respond to conditions faced by the community to benefit the whole by keeping everyone safe or helping things run more smoothly. A parent might mandate a new bedtime in response to their kids having difficulty waking up in the morning. A teacher mandates an assignment deadline. A boss might mandate new work hours in response to consumer demand. A school board might mandate face masks in response to a pandemic. And a governor might mandate vaccines to prevent unnecessary deaths and the collapse of the healthcare system. So long as a mandate helps and does not harm people, it should be supported.

And then there are laws. Laws are carefully thought-out restrictions meant to provide legally enforceable guardrails for human behavior in service to the public good. Laws tell us what we can and cannot do within a particular city, state, country, and even internationally. We have police to issue citations or to arrest suspected law breakers and to deliver them to the justice department who determines whether or not there is sufficient evidence to prosecute them for breaking a given law. A jury of their peers might be called upon to determine whether or not the law was broken. And a judge will ascribe the penalty for the crime. In our country, a person convicted of breaking an existing law has the right to appeal their conviction to the Supreme Court if they believe that the law itself violates their rights under the Constitution. It often takes massive violations of a particular law before that happens, making civil disobedience an important tool for overturning unjust laws.

However, what we are witnessing today is a dangerous collapse of our system of rules, mandates, and laws because they are not based on benefiting the public, but on satisfying the immoral desires of bullies. I first noticed something was really wrong when Donald Trump announced his presidency despite having broken all the rules of common decency and morality both in his personal life and in his businesses. His was openly bigoted. He insulted and called his opponents names. He admitted to sexually assaulting women. He lied about everything. He bragged about his wealth and his brains. And he never apologized for anything. For some who wanted the freedom to be bigoted, rude, and obnoxious, he was a breath of fresh air, and they supported him. We later learned that many of his supporters were too embarrassed to publicly admit their support. They didn’t want to be lumped in the “deplorable” category. His winning the election was a blow to our system of rules, mandates, and laws that had been marching toward greater justice and decency.

Another blow to positive progress was when Senator Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. For the sake of Republican political power on the Supreme Court, he broke a longstanding Constitutional mandate that the Senate provide advice and consent for a president’s Supreme Court nominee. Instead, he introduced a new rule that there would be no hearing close to an election. Of course, with an evil smile he later broke his own rule under Trump and provided an advice and consent hearing for a justice even closer to the election than Obama’s nominee. In addition, McConnell changed the longstanding rule that required 60 votes to approve lifetime appointments to federal and supreme court justices. Instead, he lowered it to a simple majority, seizing extraordinary Republican influence on the legal system. And the final blow from McConnell was his refusal to find Trump guilty in his two impeachment trials, despite overwhelming evidence of criminal and moral wrongdoing.

It is fair to say that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell paved the way for the broken rules of common decency in America and opened the door for a slew of immoral laws and ridiculous violations of public health mandates. Under their leadership, the rule of law is in jeopardy.

Mask and vaccine mandates are under fire from people who either believe lies, are deplorable in their selfishness, or a combination of both. Some of these people have died, caused others to die, or have stressed our healthcare systems to the brink of collapse. How is it okay for 2500 people to die every day when we have vaccines and masks to prevent those deaths? It’s scary to think these ill-informed bullies are prolonging a pandemic that causes needless deaths and hurts the economy because Trump and McConnell destroyed the guardrails wherein social pressure once led people to do what was beneficial for the community.

And finally, we continue to watch the over-policing of people of color followed by too many wrongful convictions and longer sentences. The justice system has shown itself to be controlled by politics, given that Trump has been breaking law after law without arrest and prosecution. We are quickly becoming a country absent any accountability for rules, mandates, and laws for the well-placed white male. And as we watch these things erode with each passing day, every day of inaction on the part of the Department of Justice with regard to Trump, emboldens the bullies. One day our communities and our nation will be governed, not by reasonable rules, mandates, and laws for the public good, but by the selfish whims of the uniformed, the violent, and the indecent.

Within the past few months, I’ve had numerous conversations with family and friends about how the actions of Trump and the Republicans threaten our democracy, freedoms, and the rule of law. While they express universal agreement about the threats, there is no commitment to join the fight to save our country beyond voting. It’s not that they don’t care enough, but more that they aren’t inclined to join the fight.

The mindset that I’ve found to be most prevalent is apathy or a lack of concern. I’m assuming that many people are like my close associates. Some believe that none of what happens in the country’s politics will actually affect how they live. As a result, they believe it’s a waste to invest their time, energy or money in a political struggle. The completely apathetic have to be convinced to vote. Others believe in the power of prayer to the extent that they take this burden to the Lord and leave it there for God resolve on our behalf, saying that perhaps these are the end times and things are supposed to get really bad before Jesus returns. And then there are the “don’t worry, be happy folks” who don’t want to hear, “no bad news”. They surround themselves in positivity and blissful ignorance. Apathy makes authoritarianism and legalized oppression possible.

Another reason expressed for not engaging in our current political struggle is a legitimate preoccupation with work, illness, and family life. It makes sense that work, illness, and family life take up massive amounts of emotional and physical energy and time, leaving little to no time nor energy to watch the news, let alone do anything about it. The busiest among my family members and friends were largely unaware of some of the issues we were facing. They had a vague idea that something was wrong but had no time nor energy to get sucked into it. There are others who are willfully distracted by the desire to enjoy life above all else. They are too distracted by television, video games, sports, and partying to engage in real life issues. This group of distracted folks will vote only if it’s convenient and if they aren’t too tired. The overly distracted are the unwitting enablers of authoritarianism and legalized oppression.

And then there are the fearful. They are afraid to speak up about their beliefs for fear of offending people, alienating people, losing relationships, or being judged. Others are afraid of current threats or future threats should things turn south. They don’t want to leave a trail of opposition that might lead to violence or imprisonment in the future. They point to the KKK cross burnings, the lynching of black people, the acts of intimidation, the arrest of protestors, and the growing number of death threats and believe their personal safety depends on their silence. The threat of armed poll watchers may stop them from voting. However, history tells us that intimidating people into silence is a tool of the authoritarian and the oppressor. The tyrant depends on the coward to gain ground. We are seeing this play out in real time with Trump and how he took over the Republican Party and is making them disregard our Constitution, decency, and the rule of law. The cowardly silence and compliance of the Republican leadership has opened the door to an overthrow of our democracy in favor of a Trump authoritarian government where elections are truly rigged in his favor and opponents are thrown in jail.

And finally, I’m amazed by my family and friends who have no sense of agency with regard to what happens in their lives or in the country. They are resigned to a false notion that others, not them, decide everything. They throw up their hands and say that they can’t do anything or that nothing is going to change. When I was in education, I encountered students who didn’t believe their voice, nor their actions mattered. I would spend time convincing them that this was their community and that they had a say in its future, too. I would tell them that they did not have to accept injustice nor mistreatment. I had to convince them that just because that was how things were didn’t mean that was how things had to stay. I truly believe that each person can be an agent of change and I was able to convince many of my students of this fact. Those with a resignation mindset don’t bother to vote because they don’t believe their vote matters. Given the Republican efforts to install partisan election officials who can disregard election results, they might be right if we don’t stop these changes.

In my retirement, I am doing my best to convince as many people as possible to join the fight for our democracy. I’m witnessing firsthand the apathy, distractions, fears, and resignation among family and friends and it scares me. If we don’t collectively get beyond our immediate self-interest and do just a little bit in this fight, like vote, then our democracy will be lost and restoring it will be an even harder task.

In truth, even the busiest, most distracted, or fearful person can donate to upstanding candidates or organizations like NAACP or ACLU or Moveon.org who are fighting the legal battles for civil rights and voting rights. How long does it take to send an email to a local lawmaker expressing your support for equal access to voting or your opposition to banning books in our schools? Is it possible to carve out 15 minutes in the day to watch NPR for news? Will enough people be determined enough to defy history, overcome voter suppression, and vote in the mid-terms this year to increase democrat majorities in the House and Senate?

Our collective future as a democracy is at stake. So, these days, I’m sounding the alarm along with others with the hope that enough citizens will join the fight to save our country before it’s too late. I’ve determined that I’ll keep sounding the alarm, keep donating, keep writing to lawmakers, keep supporting good candidates for office, and I’ll vote in the mid-terms. My hope is that others will join me and that the apathetic, the distracted, the fearful, and the resigned will at the very least vote in 2022 and 2024 to preserve our nation.

The right-wing chatter questioning the qualifications of black female nominees for the Supreme Court has already begun. And so has their colorblind and rose-colored distortion of American history and society. They know that for white supremacy to endure, Republican leaders need a few spurious narratives to exist in the minds of white Americans. So, they continue to perpetuate the notions that 1) blacks are inherently under-qualified; 2) that a person’s race doesn’t matter; and 3) that this is an equitable society where every person succeeds based on the merits of a level playing field. These absurd claims are attempts to hide their actual racism while they shamelessly imply that black women lack the mental acuity to be on the Supreme Court.

When I was an educator at the university level, I worked with many white students who found themselves confronted for the first time with the notion of white privilege and racial inequity. They came to the University believing in the existence of a level playing field. As a result, they would get angry and complain that certain people were unfairly given preferential treatment or special programs because they were black or brown. They would argue that the Civil Rights Movement made everything and everyone equal. They believed that it was admirable to be colorblind. However, they soon became confused when their black friend got stopped by the police while driving because the seat belt looked like it was on funny. They were confused as to why their black roommates couldn’t afford to buy pizza or go on that cool weekend getaway. They thought it was odd that the black premed major sitting next to them had never even seen the periodic table, never used a microscope, and had never dissected anything. They had grown up with the mythology that their black and brown peers were experiencing life and school in the same way as them. A few wealthy or sponsored blacks had similar upbringings to them, but the vast majority had not.

The reality is that most of the schools in the U.S. are segregated by race and economics. And those schools are by no means equal. I learned this firsthand when I was a child. Our family moved to a predominately white neighborhood when I was in the 4th-grade and so we attempted to attend the local white elementary school. It was the most magnificent school I had ever seen with these beautiful brick buildings. The classroom was cool and fancy and even the crayons were beautifully pointed and new. This school had a wonderful cafeteria that served hot lunches every day. I was amazed at how clean everything was and being the introvert, I cared little that none of the children bothered to befriend me. However, it took only a week for the school to inform my mother that we were not welcome and that we should attend an elementary school in another neighborhood. We left that school.

At the new school, I recognized the differences immediately. First, missing were the beautiful brick buildings and before me stood those familiar beige bungalows. All the cool stuff was absent including the cafeteria. Here, they had a hot dog day every Thursday. The second thing I noticed was that there was only a handful of black students and even fewer white students. This was a predominately Asian elementary school. For the first time I found myself surrounded by primarily Japanese students who were as interested in me as I was in them. And like me, most of them they cared deeply about school. The competition for the best grades was on and I enjoyed every minute of my competition with Bobby Ichihashi for top student, despite the lack of resources. Today, I consider myself lucky to have been at that school where striving for academic excellence was more important than beautiful buildings and creature comforts. A bonus was learning about the foods, living spaces, contributions, and values of Japanese Americans.

It is treacherous that the history most of the white college students I encountered during my career included a brief recounting of America’s dark discriminatory, exploitative, and predatory history. However, they had also been led to believe that everything magically became equal and equitable in America after Martin Luther King, Jr and the Civil Rights Movement pushed the country to provide equal protection under the law. As a result, many white students initially viewed laws like Affirmative Action as reverse discrimination. Strategically hidden from their view was the survival of inferior segregated schools, an unfair criminal justice system as well as ongoing employment, housing and banking discrimination. These unseen obstacles effectively handicapped black and brown people while they were allowed to progress unimpeded. But white students and arguably white Americans in general don’t know this. Believing the myth of a level playing field makes it easy to blame black people for their continued poverty and high rates of incarceration.

While in graduate school, at both the masters and doctoral levels, I would study the educational achievement gap in great detail after attending my first lecture on the subject in 1997. The speaker was Dr. Richard Ramirez. I then read many academic articles and books on the topic, the most influential book being, “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s schools” by Jonathan Kozol. I read two of his other books, “Amazing Grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation” and “The Shame of the Nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America”. Later, I had the opportunity to hear him speak at a conference and had an insightful conversation with him afterwards.

Being in higher education, I’ve had the blessing of reading the works, attending the lectures and then conversing with some of my greatest social justice heroes. But more important that gaining insight from these incredible thinkers is my lived experience as a black woman of a certain age in America. I know what it is like to have to be more than qualified for a job. I also know what it is like to have my qualifications and accomplishments publicly diminished, ignored, stolen, or even hidden. It has happened to me far too many times. While it is personally hurtful, it is also contrived to preserve the false narrative of white supremacy.

Black and brown excellence is a threat to white supremacy. While black and brown people are no more and no less talented nor intelligent than white people, in order to present us as inferior, they work hard to hide the heavy weights they place around our ankles that hinder our progress in the race for economic and political influence. They once wanted white school children to believe that everything became equal after Civil Rights, they now want to wipe out the entire history of slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese Internment, Indian genocide, etc.

The ultimate goal of the white supremacist is to be able to point to people of color and say that their poverty and incarceration and low status in society is a problem of their own making. When I put the pieces together: prohibit abortion, erase history, question black qualifications, over-police, but praise their value as entertainment, I reach the conclusion that none of this is random.

It may be cynical for me to believe that Republican leaders want to force pregnant black women to have babies to impede their educational, career and economic progress while at the same time preserving a flow of cheap labor. If Republicans can erase history, our lack of progress becomes our personal failures rather than the result of exploitation, discrimination and violence against us and leaves the door open for new atrocities. If Republicans question our qualifications, they effectively raise the bar continuing the reality that blacks must be more qualified than whites for the same position. If Republicans over-police. they eliminate competition through incarceration and feed a for-profit prison system. If they praise only our value as entertainment, they not only demean us as existing for white pleasure but limit our prospects for success in other careers. And finally, if they suppress our right to vote, they are free to enact any and all laws that inflict further impede our progress.

As I write this essay today, I am observing the banning of books, the suppression of voting rights, the push for banning abortion, and the public demand that black female nominees for the Supreme Court be far qualified than their white counterparts.