Fully Present Post 50

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reportedly said, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger”. When it comes to being an African American, I’ve often wondered if the many adversities we have faced beginning with surviving the middle passage from Africa to the U.S. in chains, naked, in unsanitary conditions, in the belly of a ship and then enduring slavery, Jim Crowe, lynching, segregation, a civil rights movement, and continuing covert discrimination have made those of us who have survived stronger than many are comfortable with.

I know as a young girl, my mother often reminded me that I had to be better and do better to receive half the recognition. And so I took what intellect and talent I had and worked it. It’s no wonder that at age 16, the doctor said my blood pressure was too high due to stress. I didn’t slow down, but found ways to work smarter. I’m no longer reluctant to admit that I was identified by the state as an intellectually gifted person, but I am sad that I have had to prove my intellect countless times and in multiple settings throughout the years. There was always the assumption that because of my skin color, I was less than I am. I’ve never taken pleasure in proving white people wrong because I recognize that most of those same white individuals will never grant me the status, recognition, or promotion that is warranted. And when the recognition is given, others oppose it, resent it, or minimize it. That has been my lifelong experience but I suppose not being beaten or hanged for displaying intellectual ability is progress.

As a nation, we’ve watched black athletes come to dominate in many sports when access is granted. Who would have guessed just twenty years ago that the best female gymnast of all time would be a black girl named Simone Biles? However, with the rising fame of black talent, we also witnessed the death threats to men like Jackie Robinson and Tiger Woods and the insults hurled at Venus and Serena Williams. White violent backlash to black excellence and prosperity has been the norm among insecure white folks. And our judicial system has turned a blind eye to it. I argue that our nation is not better for it. Today, we see the overly harsh and unfair treatment of sprinter Sha Carri Richardson that will prevent the fastest woman in the world from competing in the 2021 Olympics to bring home the gold for America.

The backlash to black excellence was again apparent with the ascendancy of Michelle and President Obama to the White House. As black athletes, entertainers, intellectuals, business people, and political leaders display their excellence, a few white people grow increasingly intimidated and insecure. They’re too insecure and fragile to face the history of racial discrimination evidenced by the 1619 Project or Critical Race Theory. I wonder how these folks handled the news that Zaila Avant-garde is the first black girl to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in its nearly 100 year history? Do they stop to think that their white supremacist ancestors only have themselves to blame for this growing display of black excellence?

Given the historical mistreatment of black Americans, the survivors of such harsh treatment have no choice but to evolve to be more intelligent, creative, talented, energetic and resilient. According to evolution, only the fittest survive. And we are still evolving. With continued discrimination in nearly every aspect of American life, the least fit among us continue to die from poverty related ailments such as street violence, environmental hazards, poor diets, stress, lacking healthcare, and now COVID-19. Only the luckiest and most fit black people are surviving and their very public ascendancy poses a threat to the notion of white supremacy. Perhaps this is why too many white people chose racist strong man, Donald Trump, to lead them.

These insecure white supremacist know that in terms of character, grace, intelligence, and integrity that Donald J. Trump can’t hold a candle to Barack Obama. And yet, they embraced the morally and intellectually inferior white guy because they believe he will protect their tenuous position of economic and political power. These white bigots are afraid of black excellence and they are even more afraid of Jewish excellence. Could it be that adversity has also made Jewish people stronger and brought out the creativity, the talent, the drive, and the business acumen that threatens to unseat these white supremacists?

In reality, white supremacists are a threat to the nation’s progress because they are not interested in helping the best and the brightest to succeed and represent the best of us. They are more interested in maintaining a false narrative of white superiority where they maintain power, privilege and economic advantage. They are afraid that if they must compete on a level playing field, they will ultimately loose. And for too many of them, their ego can’t abide such a defeat. They were never groomed to compete, having been handed every invisible advantage from the birth of the nation. As they are confronted with the truth that their manifest destiny was a lie, they are having a very public temper tantrum.

So, we watch in horror and disbelief as they take up arms, march through the streets with Tiki torches, mount an insurrection at the nation’s Capitol and now try to suppress the vote in the next election. Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders saw the writing on the walls and took over the courts during the Trump administration. And now they desperately want to win the 2022 and 2024 elections by any means necessary. This includes keeping fair-minded citizens from voting. Their ultimate goal is to maintain power and to limit the progress of others. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past them to take up arms if necessary to preserve their power. Scared people do scary things.

At this moment, the number one job of truly patriotic Americans is to make sure we vote and that every fair-minded American we know is willing and able to cast a ballot in 2022 and 2024. Beyond that, I’m a bit fearful of what comes next. I hope it is a battle for the hearts and minds of white supremacists and not a battle for the right of black and Jewish people to exist.

On day two of my retirement, I tearfully cancelled my flight to Philadelphia to spend three weeks with my new grandson. It was a sad but easy decision as soon as we got the bad news that my husband’s lung cancer has recurred and has spread to his lymph nodes. The doctors plan to treat the cancer aggressively meaning another possible surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. His first appointment is this Tuesday, the same day of the scheduled flight.

I struggled to wrap my head around this huge change in mindset and plans. We never fully recovered from the recent cancer battle and we are about to embark on a more rigorous fight. I find that I process better when my hands are busy, so I spent the day returning my dining room to its pre-pandemic space–not the work space I used it for the last 15 months since COVID-19 sent us all home to work, but an actual dining room. I did a lot of gardening. I cleaned the guest room. And finally, I just sat in my backyard and starred at the flowers and trees, allowing my mind to just wander.

I admit that I am afraid. I also know that this time I must approach this battle differently if I want to maintain my own health while supporting and caring for my husband. I’m aware of an unhealthy pattern I’ve developed when I am in the midst of a cancer battle wherein I focus on the battle at hand and force my anxiety and fears aside. But I’ve learned the hard way that my body absorbs the anxiety and fear that my conscience mind refuses to entertain, resulting in health issues. I’ve traveled the cancer road first with my mother, who eventually died of breast cancer when I was 35. I traveled the cancer road when my husband survived colon cancer about 15 years ago. And then we thought he had defeated this past year’s bout of lung cancer, but it has recurred.

This time I will allow myself to feel the fear. This time I will nurture myself by nurturing my garden. This time I will exercise through it daily. This time I will not allow comfort food to be my primary source of comfort. I will lean more heavily on mediation, prayer, conversations with family and friends, music, and if necessary, I will engage the help of a therapist.

This isn’t how I planned to spend the first months of my retirement, but life is like that. So, when life changes, our best laid plans change, too. I covet the positive thoughts and prayers of my readers as we venture once again into battle against cancer.

I’ve been an observer of human behavior my entire life. At one point in high school after taking two psychology classes, I thought I might want to become a psychologist. Thankfully, I was able to shadow an actual psychologist for a day and that experience completely erased that notion from my mind. I couldn’t fathom listening to people’s emotional traumas and mental health issues all day. However, I am extremely grateful for those individuals who feel called to do this important work and who have the training and emotional capacity to do it well. I’ve even visited them on several occasions to help me deal with particularly difficult times in my life. I found that their empathetic probing and great listening skills were life savers. Seeing a good therapist to help navigate difficult life situations can steer us away from our base killer instincts. I’ve recommended therapy to family members and my students over the years. Those who followed my advice were helped and I wonder how many actual lives are saved by investing in therapy as opposed to guns.

I don’t have a chronic mental health struggle like some, but I am human and so strong emotions can be triggered. I believe there are people with chronic anti-social mindsets. Whether their issue stems from nature or nurture or a combination of both is not the issue. The issue is making therapy much more accessible early on to help these individuals curb their own impulses before they self-destruct or destroy others. Our former president, Donald J. Trump was one of those individuals whose mental health issues have caused and continue to cause great damage to our nation and to individual lives. His pathologies were so obviously dangerous that psychologists broke their own code of ethics to warn the public by exposing the anti-social tendencies they saw. His niece, who is a psychologist, wrote a book about his need to win and his sociopathic mindset. Without apology, she announced that he is not only unfit, but dangerous as a president. For the sake of society, parents, family, teachers, pastors, doctors, and friends need to recommend therapy more often when people around them are struggling.

The times when seeing a therapist meant the most to me were during instances when I recognized that my anger at being unfairly treated could lead to destructive behavior if allowed to fester. There are times when talking things out with a friend. pastor, teacher, or family member is enough, but there are other times when the hurt, frustration, and anger are so overwhelming that one could potentially inflict permanent damage on oneself or others. I acknowledge that in those times, a therapist was able to stand between me and my killer instincts. Thankfully, I didn’t have access to a gun to commit murder, but I recognized that my words can be a pretty lethal weapon too.

The first time I went to therapy was to deal with loss. In the span of a few years, I lost both of my parents and then endured a surprise divorce stemming from my ex-husband’s infidelity. I was so hurt by the betrayal that rage was bubbling up inside me. Not only was I a mother bear wanting to protect her cubs from yet another loss, but I was a woman scorned and tossed aside. Therapy helped me connect with my better angels so that I could continue to be a good mother and regain my worth as a woman. I regained my self-esteem and learned that while I cannot control the bad behavior of others, I can control how I respond to that behavior in a way that preserves life, dignity, and healthy boundaries. Therapy gave me the strength not to transfer my anger towards their father onto to my children, but to use it to build an even better life for myself and them. That it what I did. I also came to understand that despite everything, I really wanted my children to retain a good relationship with their father and that I had the power to explicitly give them that permission. The therapist helped me listen to my heart and my rational mind so that I wasn’t so overwhelmed by my killer instincts that I burned the whole house down, destroying all of us in the process.

The second time I spent time in therapy had to do with being falsely accused at work by a superior and suffering the consequences of those false accusations. It was through therapy that I was able to deal with my emotions and develop a course of action that preserved my dignity, integrity, and didn’t get me fired because I loved my job. Therapy helped me come to terms with the reality that the perpetrators might go unpunished and how I could turn my current lemons into lemonade. The skilled therapist pulls the answers out of the client by asking the right questions and actively listening. The answer to overcoming our killer instincts is good therapy. I understand the rage of individuals who take a gun to their former workplace and kill everyone in sight. I truly believe that people around the murderer knew he was struggling but failed to get him to a good therapist.

Too many people in our nation right now are acting on their killer instincts. They are scared, angry, and frustrated by injustice, afraid of change and a fear of losing what they wrongly believe is theirs. Without receiving help from family, friends, teachers, pastors, or a therapist, we will see a continuation of the mass shootings, the riots, and the ridiculously hurtful twitter comments. These days it is more important than ever that we intervene when we start see our family members or friends start to stray from normal levels of fear, outrage, or frustration. Rage is plaguing our nation.

We must be honest with ourselves that our society has a problem with allowing self-promoting, money-grubbing, fear-mongers like Donald Trump, Tucker Carson, and Matt Gaetz to stoke the flames with lies to purposefully enrage otherwise stable people. They encourage greater access to guns as protection from imaginary enemies. They need to be stopped if we are going to have a society where we can live normally and have some degree of certainty that we can go to the store, to work, to church, to school, or the movies without fear of gun violence.

We can stop Tucker Carson and Donald Trump by calling them out, removing their platform, or simply not supporting them. The Capitol insurrection showed us that any human being can be pushed to act violently. There is an instinctual violence built into us for self-preservation. But what if the enemy isn’t even real? Again, our country has a burgeoning violence problem because we have a burgeoning rage problem. If we don’t stop fanning the fames by continue to allow injustice, white supremacy, and the voices of liars to prevail, the killer instincts will overwhelm our rational minds and we’ll all be prisoners in our homes because of new pandemic: violence in the streets.

As I prepare to retire this week, I hope there are many young people with the desire and the capacity to become psychologists and therapists because they are needed more than ever to help calm our rage, channel our passions, and deal with underlying mental health issues where present.

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.