Fully Present Post 50

I’ve spent considerable time researching land for sale in and around Las Vegas and looking at custom house floorplans to price things out. We’ve decided to build our own home for retirement, although we haven’t concluded just where that home will be. My vote is somewhere close to younger family members, with decent weather, and a cost of living index that is friendly to seniors. So our options are limited. I’m a project person, all this excites me. With my background and formal education in interior design apart from my university degrees, I worked for a time as an interior designer and of course acted as my own project manager when we renovated our current house. I’m prepared to do it again. However, when deciding on our “must haves” for our retirement new home, I found it amusing that we want such a big home on a large lot for just the two of us.

This new home will be a one story, about 3,000 square feet, sitting on 1/3 to 2/3 acres of land. At first, I scratched my head when we decided that we needed five bedrooms. The reality is that only two will be utilized as bedrooms: our master and a guest room for family and friends who visit. Eventually one of the rooms will be use for an in-home caretaker if we live long enough. We will continue to have our separate office/den spaces. And because the climate will be different from California, the garage gym we have now, complete with treadmill, stationary bike, Bowflex, and free weights will have to be moved indoors. That makes for five bedrooms.

We’ve also opted for three full baths. One really large master, one Jack and Jill for the guest room and my office to share, and one guest bathroom that will be a full bath with an eye toward future occupants’ needs.

We debated whether we wanted to waste the money on a formal living room and dining room. For resale it is probably wise to keep them, although we realize we likely wouldn’t utilize them that much. I have been thinking of making the formal dining room into a game room for my puzzles, complete with a reading area with built-in book shelves and board game table. Michael might opt for a pool table. It could have a fireplace with a television above it, too. Future occupants could easily revert it back to a formal dining room.

We do want a super large kitchen with an open concept that includes a spacious informal everyday dining area and a family room with a fireplace and build-in television area. This will be the heart of the home.

One of the ways we plan to keep healthy besides utilizing our gym is to have a large yard and a workshop in the three car garage. The third space in the garage would be for Michael’s wood working projects. We’re accustomed to growing most of our produce, but we’re in California. I’m not really sure how to do in other states where the climate is different. Gardening is a passion for me and I’ll have a steep learning curve to learn what’s possible where we land.

We continue to argue about a swimming pool in that big yard. It would be a way to cool off in the summer. But I’m thinking about the added expense of the upkeep for a pool. Neither of us are big swimmers, but I think my husband believes the grandkids and family members would enjoy it.

Solar panels are a must have. Large doorways are also a must have. 10 foot ceilings are a requirement throughout the house. A large walk-in, lipless shower in the master is a must as are very large walk-in closets. Even though I am starting to question my need for such massive closet space since my commitment to start scaling down as I near retirement, I recognize that future owners will appreciate ample closet space. My commitment extends to not purchasing any more clothing unless I loose enough weight to warrant it.

It seems that we are talking about when I will retire almost daily. We can afford for me to retire today, but the question is whether I’m emotionally ready. Until I can answer that particular question with complete confidence, then I will be satisfied to make plans and proceed with finding and buying the land and then building our dream retirement home. In my mind, that means I’ll continue to work for about two years at least.

This is turning out to be a highly traumatic year for the world in general and for the U.S. in particular. We are grappling with a deadly pandemic, social unrest, economic distress, uncertainty, and an election all at the same. To say that 2020 is shaping up to be the most stressful year in my life is not an understatement. And while I’m anxious about the position we find ourselves in, I realize that this year gives us the opportunity to set a few new social rules for ourselves.

First among these new rules is that we are responsible for the health and well-being of one another. The majority of us finally realize that public health is our collective responsibility and not an individual endeavor. An individual’s “right” to not wear a mask in public because of a particular belief or preference is crumbling amid the spreading of this pandemic across the nation. We are watching in horror as more people get sick, more families are grieving the loss of family members, hospitals and healthcare workers are stretched to capacity, and economic disaster looms large. The need for a single payer healthcare system where the profit motive is removed from healthcare is now more evident than ever. And in the short term we will also pay for our individualistic ways with schools not being able to safely re-open this fall. Too many individuals were too late to understand that decisions to gather without masks and without social distancing spread the disease to dangerous levels.

Beyond the new rule that healthcare is a collective matter, is the movement toward anti-racism. The widely viewed cavalier murder of George Floyd drove home for many Americans why the term “Black Lives Matter” is not a statement against any other lives mattering. It is an acknowledgement that up until now, black lives have not mattered at all. The new rule is an examination and dismantling of a system that has devalued, stigmatized, and discriminated against people of color. A best selling book that helps white people grapple with the historical, social, and emotional mindset that keeps white supremacy in place to the detriment of people of color is “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo, a white American woman speaking directly to white people about the issue. Corporations, educational systems, and others are quickly changing their names, policies, practices, procedures and operations to eliminate vestiges of blatant racism and white supremacy. The few who are trying to hold on to the status quo are being overruled.

Although there are plenty of other new rules, the one that required lightening speed for adjustment is the work from home rule. In my case, I abandoned my home office in favor of the dining room because the internet reception is better. With all the Zoom meetings and a huge reliance on the internet the entire day, this became a necessity. I’m productive and can get everything accomplished in service to the students, but it truly isn’t as fun. Even as an introvert, I miss in-person contact with my students and colleagues. It’s great that we can see each other on Zoom or Facetime, but it isn’t altogether the same. The one blessing is that I have only filled my gas tank once since February and right now my tank is still nearly full. I do have to remind myself to stand up and to even step outside a couple of times a day. But other than these two complaints, I can live with this new rule. Unlike the previous two rules, I hope this one is temporary.

The final new rule is more of an aspiration. I hope the nation has learned its lesson and that it will never again elect a president without moral character, without a sense of history, and without respect for human lives, science, the rule of law, and expertise. That is one new rule that we can collectively begin to enact this November. And it’s one I hope will be permanent.

With the passing of civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis Friday night, I am reminded to be thankful that in 1965, people like me were finally afforded the right to vote because of efforts like his to convince white male lawmakers and then president Johnson that it was the right thing to do. Think about it. Lawmakers and presidents get to determine who gets which rights, which opportunities, when they get them and who doesn’t. These lawmakers get to determine the lifelong judges who then decide the legality of their decisions. This is why elections matter. And this November is the most consequential election of my adult life.

First, this election will likely determine who gets to appoint new federal judges but likely also a Supreme Court justice. While I admire the perseverance of Justice Ginsburg, I doubt that her body can persist much longer. This week’s hospitalization for an infection and the announcement of liver cancer shook me. It would be devastating to have Trump make another nomination and Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, has already announced that he would have confirmation hearings even though it is much closer to an election than when Obama nominated Merrick Garland and he blocked confirmation hearings. McConnell is precisely the reason we also need to flip the senate this November.

Imagine if we had a democratic president, House of Representatives, and Senate? We could move this country forward in terms of getting this pandemic under control, improving access to healthcare, protecting the environment, infrastructure, and passing reasonable gun control laws. We could finally protect Dreamers and pass comprehensive immigration reform and criminal justice reforms. These are all the issues the current Republican senate has blocked our country from making any progress on. Instead they have simply confirmed lifetime judges and protected a president whom they know is corrupt and a clear and present danger to our country.

Republican senators have shown themselves to be complicit cowards who care more about preserving their political lives than improving the actual lives of the American people. With that preservation in mind, they are working with Trump and wealthy plutocrats to suppress the vote in their home states enough to be re-elected. They don’t want people of color, college students, and ex-cons to vote. They suppress these votes by starting lawsuits to severely limit access to mail-in ballots, requiring unreasonable voter ID, providing fewer polling places to vote in poorer districts to discourage voters by creating excessively long lines, and now prohibiting ex-cons from voting if they owe any legal fees. Their strategy is happening in plain sight and it should be evident to all of us that if someone has to prevent you from voting to be elected, they don’t represent you or your best interests.

The Republican lawmakers do not deserve re-election. They are complicit in the overturning of the rule of law, limiting our democracy, and even the lack of common sense when it comes to controlling this pandemic. Again, I think they see a perverse benefit in allowing the elderly and people of color die of COVID-19. Remember that these groups have a much higher mortality rate than the general public? These senators are fearful of the vocal bully in the White House who has managed to take over a few media outlets that conservatives watch and listen to. How is it that they are not savvy enough to join forces to oust the bully from their midst? Because of their willingness to protect a failed president, to suppress the right to vote, and to even endanger lives, they do not deserve our votes. And we must vote against them! We must support the candidates running against them with our money, our voices, and our votes.

Elections definitely have consequences, and this November we must all vote. If we excise our civic duty, we can rid our nation of this dangerous president and flip the senate. We can improve our nation. We need to vote like our lives depends on it. Because they actually do.

My husband rebels against any form of nagging. So, on Friday when he mentioned how it seemed strange to him to hear that elbow bumping was the recommended greeting over shaking hands, I immediately countered with an angry, “What part of social distancing allows for elbow bumping?” While I stay home, my husband is out there golfing and taking every opportunity to go to Costco or the grocery store. Each time, I remind him to wear his mask and keep his distance and to use the hand sanitizer. Each time, he counters angrily that he knows. But I was with him on a neighborhood walk when I stepped off the curb or crossed the street to avoid close contact with people coming towards us and he didn’t. We arrived home angry with each other and haven’t walked since.

And herein lies the problem. With so many mixed messages out there, people of good will are either making their own rules and are not taking the situation seriously enough. It shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us that under these conditions, COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire throughout our country. People are congregating, people are refusing to wear masks, people are being lax. As a result, people are getting infected and inadvertently infecting others. And some of those infected will die.

The biggest perpetrator of misinformation, mixed messages and confusion is the president of the United States, Donald Trump. He refuses to wear masks as an example to the nation. He lies that 99% of people will be okay after contracting the virus. He uses his megaphone to promote wishful, magical thinking as if his predictions outweigh science. He lies about the availability of testing and now wants to stop the testing altogether because it makes the him look bad. He lies about just about everything related to this virus. On top of that he villainizes Asians, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and Dr. Fauci, whom he now claims has made many mistakes. America leads the world in infections and deaths and I lay this tragedy at the doorstep of President Trump who continues to mishandle or ignore the pandemic that is destroying the fabric of our health and economic lives. And now, in the middle of this pandemic, he is ordering K-12 schools to re-open in the fall and making policies that make it difficult for higher education to continue distance learning. I had to ask myself why he would do these things.

My answer was scary. I looked at who was dying from the disease and saw that the highest percentages were among black and brown people. We are people he devalues. We are not his base. We are not people who would vote for him. We are not the America his administration nor his supporters consider in his “Make America Great Again” strategy. We are the object of his distain and blatant racism. So, it seems that spreading the disease works as an indirect method of ethnic cleansing given our comparative lack of financial resources, poverty-related pre-existing health conditions, and reduced access to healthcare. True, white people will also get infected and some will also die, but not in the proportion as blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. So, to help spread the notion among the general public that it’s okay to convene in large numbers without social distancing and masks, he will gladly sacrifice his ignorant supporters by holding a big rally here and there. His push to re-open public schools is a push to spread the disease even more. The others whom he will gladly rid the nation of are intellectuals and the elderly. So, open Universities and he’ll get rid of those pesky intellectual professors, the staff, and the parents of those students who likely oppose him. Keep the virus spreading and he will reduce the cost of Social Security and Medicare by letting the virus kill off retirees in great numbers. Is there another explanation for ignoring public health officials? I couldn’t find one. And even if I did, the outcome would be the same: greater numbers who oppose him or who are a “burden” to the economy will die.

It is sad and disgusting to suggest that COVID-19 has become a biological weapon in the hands of Trump and his administration, but it appears that it may very well be that. Whether it is true or not, this nation cannot afford to give this dangerous and utterly corrupt person another term in office. To do so would be at our collective peril.

Yesterday, Independence Day, I laid in bed from about 4am to 6am listening to a variety of Americans answer whether or not they were proud to be an American. Apparently, a recent Gallop poll revealed that the percentage of Americans claiming to be very proud or proud had slipped. As I listened carefully to the responses, I realized that C-Span was asking the wrong question. They should have been asking whether we love our country, not if we are proud to be American. To be proud of someone or something indicates approval and acceptance of what that person or entity has achieved or stands for. It was evident that those who see the trouble in our streets and problems with our government or who are grabbling with the racist history of the nation more often struggled to say they were proud Americans. However, the least educated seemed to be gushing with pride. For this, I blame our K-12 educational system and the history books that were designed to engender a sense of pride and patriotism by omitting or downplaying the warts, failures, and misdeeds of the country.

I was taking an American history class in college when I got my first glimpse of the true history of America. And what I learned wasn’t at all the rosy picture that was painted for me in K-12 where Christopher Columbus discovered America; where indigenous people gladly moved into missions and onto reservations; where cheerful African slaves picked cotton for their caring planation owners and then were freed by Abraham Lincoln because white Americans came to believe slavery was wrong because of a book called, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. The Civil War was about succession and states’ rights, not about slavery and both sides were to be respected and honored. Women were given the right to vote because the country evolved. Nothing was ever mentioned about the immigration policies and legal discrimination that shaped the demographic and economic structure of the country in a way that privileged whiteness. The heroes of the nation who fought and died in our wars were all white males. The classic books were by white authors. The museums were packed with art from white people and even today only 1.2% of the art in our national museums are by black artists. It is likely even fewer are from other minority groups.

The seeds of the cognitive dissonance between what I was programmed to believe about America and the reality I was living needed further explanation. Our school system was created to turn out patriotic adults who believe that America is the best place in the world “with liberty and justice for all”. The rich and powerful need ordinary Americans to be proud enough of their country to willingly pay taxes and to die for it so they can maintain their place. But knowing the actual history puts that blind patriotism in jeopardy. In my gut, I knew something was wrong. The narrative and the reality didn’t match up. And so, I began to read. I read a lot. One of the first books to provide me with a much clearer understanding of U.S. history was, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James W. Loewen. There were others, but notably, “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson helped me better understand my family’s journey from Mississippi to Detroit, to California. And finally, “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

Granted, the actual history of the U.S. does not make one overly proud. So, it is not surprising that as Trump inadvertently exposes this dark history by scheduling a rally during Juneteenth close to the site of the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre near Tulsa, Oklahoma, the nation as a whole is exposed to a horrifying piece of American history that has been locked away from view. And Friday, yet another episode of American horror stories was revealed when he held his rally at Mt. Rushmore amid protests from the Lakota Sioux Indians who claim that land as sacred and we learn how it had been stolen from them-a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980. His current actions also reveal that monuments to traitors and slave perpetrators standing in public places in the south were erected in order to proclaim white supremacy during the time of Jim Crowe. I’m grateful that his inadvertent exposure is helping to destroy a collective false pride and invigorate the need for change.

While I don’t claim to be a proud American, I do claim to be a patriotic American who loves my country and will work hard to see her reach her full potential of her promise. I actually think that loving America is better than being blindly patriotic based on a sense of pride predicated upon a mythology and ugly hidden truths. As a nation, I think it’s like we are learning for the first time that our parents are not perfect. But like children, once the shock wears off, they realize that they love their parents none the less and will protect them at all costs based not on their perfection, but on love and devotion to them. So on this Independence Day weekend, I can say with confidence that I love America. And one day, maybe I will be proud of her, too.

I woke up Saturday morning with my heart racing because of yet another nightmare. I’ve been plagued by them lately as my subconscious struggles to deal with the fears I suppress during the day in an effort to be productive. This nightmare was based on a combination of two fears: white supremist terror and COVID-19.

In my nightmare, I was shopping in a local store wearing my mask and minding my own business when this older white man, looking like one of those stereotypical Trump supporters, stepped up to me without a mask, blew right into my face and said, “I hope you die.” I startled awake and could no longer set aside my fear that there really are a few people in this country who would do something like that.

The day before, a dear old friend from high school posted a June 25th article on Facebook from the New York Post about a county sheriff in Washington state who used a bull horn to tell residents, “Don’t be sheep” and to defy the governor’s order to wear masks in public. That sheriff, Robert Snaza, is a republican and a law enforcement officer who deserves to lose his job for encouraging people to break the law, endangering public health, and all while wearing his law enforcement uniform. He was in a church parking lot, surrounded by a crowd of those stereotypical white Trump supporter types and a second sheriff. He is precisely the kind of officer we need to take off the streets and I hope both officers are summarily fired. You have the freedom to speak, but it is not the freedom from consequences of that speech, especially when you are being paid with public funds to protect and serve.

While I believe these officers violated the public trust and their duties as law enforcement officers, I also think that people like them are going to help usher in disparities in survival rates between the educated and the uneducated. The sheep are the ones who listen to Donald Trump, the politician who refutes science and common decency clearly influenced these idiots in a uniform. Too many Trump followers willingly and stupidly expose themselves and their loved ones to a deadly virus to prove an irrelevant point in this situation: freedom. Freedom to jeopardize the health and well being of other human beings. Some have gone so far as to threaten public health officials and governors over their promotion of mask wearing to protect against this virus. How inconsiderate can people be? For people who say they value life, where is that value now? Sadly, COVID-19 will have its way with people like this and everyone unfortunate enough to encounter them. That’s why I’m having nightmares.

As a society, we have generally agreed that our collective public health should not be left to the whims of individuals. We’ve enacted speed limits, safety belts, traffic lights, alcohol limits for driving, driver’s licenses, age limits on cigarettes and alcohol consumption and many other laws to curb human behavior. Why? Because we recognize that some people are not wise enough nor considerate enough and as a result they risk the lives of others.

The requirement to wear a mask in public during a pandemic is no different. Clearly we cannot depend upon the wisdom and good will of our fellow Americans. So, I’m for making the wearing of masks in public places the law of the land and imposing stiff fines or community service on those who refuse. It’s an issue of public safety, not freedom, and it might help end my nightmares.

I’m tired. I’m tired that we’re having a public debate over whether or not human beings should wear masks in public to protect each other from a deadly virus that doesn’t care about individual freedoms, political affiliation, age, religion, or race. I’m tired that a president who has shown himself to be corrupt, lacking in sound judgement and leadership, lawless, and morally depraved is even on the presidential ballot this November. I’m tired that in 2020 anti-blackness is still a thing that has to be spotlighted, explained, argued about, and protested against in the streets. I’m tired that it takes the Supreme Court to rule that LGBTQ people have a right to work. I’m tired that the debate over Dreamers remains an issue. I’m tired that Mitch McConnell is still the Senate Majority Leader despite his devil’s horns on full display.

Being so tired this week and looking for a way to rally, I called to mind a poem I often read in my youth titled, “Don’t Quit”. The author is none other that American Quaker and abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier. It just so happens that this past week, his statue was vandalized and that, too, makes me tired because the vandalism was an assault on what this man stood for. But even before I heard about that incident, I was fixated on one particular line in the poem that I repeated over and over this week as a mantra. The line was, “…..rest if you must, but don’t you quit.” This week I will simply share the first part of this poem as I rest. But rest assured, I will NOT quit.

When my children were young and they injured someone, I taught them that it wasn’t enough to simply apologize. An apology was to be followed by, “Are you okay?” with the responsibility attached to it of repairing any damaged resulting from their actions even if unintended. The collective of the U.S. has injured black Americans dating back to 1619 when the first African slaves were brought to this country. It is not enough to only now acknowledge the injury of slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, and anti-black systemic racism that has finally been exposed for what it is. An apology isn’t enough. Just as freeing slaves in 1863 without education, money, and a place to work or live was not enough. America literally said, “You’re on your own now and because we see you as inferior to us, we won’t hire you unless you work for less. We won’t allow you to go to our schools. We won’t let you compete for our good jobs. We won’t let you live in our neighborhoods. We won’t let you go to our hospitals, stay in our hotels, or eat in our restaurants. And when you build your own, we will burn them down. We will do whatever we can to keep you from voting. When you talk back to us, question us, or make us feel uncomfortable, or run away from us, we will kill you with impunity. In fact, we look for legal reasons to lock you up and throw away the key.” America can finally see that the lingering poverty, lack of opportunity, exclusion, health and education disparities, and emotional and physical vulnerability of blacks was caused by 400 years of systemic racism towards blacks. Reparations are required, starting with an acknowledgement by every governmental and educational institution as well as corporate business that black lives matter.

I actually smiled a little at the June 12th announcement by Band-aid that they are launching a new line of band-aids that matches the range of skin colors in this country. This is a form of reparations. It is righting a wrong that has existed since they introduced the band-aid. Walmart is unlocking the cases that prevent black people from accessing black hair products without assistance in their stores that implemented that practice. Removing that indignity is a form of reparations. Cofounder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, gave up his board seat to be replaced specifically by a black person as an act of reparations. The University of California removed the SAT from its admission requirement. Eliminating a test that has long been known to privilege wealth is a form of reparation. The NFL finally acknowledged that it was wrong to denounce and punish Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee and is now supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. This is only the start of repairing their wrong. When we see Colin signed to another team, then they have truly acted to repair their damage.

Reparations are not handouts or charity. They are acts to take responsibility for damage inflicted by proactively working to repair the damage. In my mind reparations from a state and federal government means that we fully fund our public schools so that a child who walks into a school in the inner city will have access to the same facilities, materials, activities, and quality teachers as children in the suburbs. But in addition, repairing the damage in minority schools means putting in place social services to repair the years of financial, mental, and physical neglect. Reparations means that police and the criminal justice system are held accountable for their desperate treatment of people of color. Those who have been given sentences greater than their white counterparts for the same crime, should have their sentences reduced. Those who served longer sentences should be paid for the extra time served. Communities who have been over-policed and fined should be provided with community development grants by their state to build libraries, parks, community centers, business development centers, free health clinics and hospitals and mental health centers. Police departments should be dismantled and rebuilt under a model that truly seeks to protect and serve all humans. Mental health screening must become a part of the police hiring process to root out the sadists, bullies and white supremacists. And finally, police departments and offending officers should be subjected to civil lawsuits for excessive force that ruins the lives and livelihoods of many black families. A new name was just added to the list of racist police deaths in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks. In health care, reparations means providing blacks and Native Americans with Medicare. The physical and emotional toll on the health of Native Americans and Blacks specifically because of this nation’s racism is well documented and must be repaired. Price gouging in stores in communities of color should be illegal and fines that benefit the community should be imposed on violators. State and local governments need to pass laws that require banks to pay fines directly to victims who experience discrimination in lending. Trade schools, community college, and state universities throughout the nation should be free for blacks and Native Americans for the next 20 years. And finally, black social security benefits should be raised to compensate for the years of discrimination that stifled the earning capacity of current retirees.

For all of this nation’s history, Black lives have been devalued, oppressed, and discriminated against to their detriment. Black lives have been diminished, denied opportunities, and even lost too soon as a result of systemic racism. It is time to acknowledge the collective wrong of a nation and to not only acknowledge that wrong, but to repair that wrong with real investment that actually pulls people up to a level playing field. The time for reparation has come.

I listened to people in powerful leadership roles this week deny the existence of systemic racism. It occurred to me that the denial of such a system actually helps keep an effective system of white privilege in place. These leaders keep insisting that racism is the problem of a few depraved individuals. They refuse to acknowledge that the system in place (the institutional and societal set of policies, processes, and practices) actually enable the individual acts of racism to proceed largely unchallenged and unabated. It is important to understand how systemic racism operates under the radar of most white Americans. And at its roots is a fairly recent anti-black mindset that was introduced to promote and perpetuate the institution of black slavery throughout Europe and the Americas.

Before institutionalized black slavery, the tribal mentality built into the human psyche had led to constant Us versus Them tribal conflicts. It is surreal to me how these basic conflicts continue to plague the human race today. Throughout the world, the tribe with the better weapons of war, immunity to diseases, or cool new gadgets dominate and enjoy the spoils of both land, power, and subjugated human labor. It was once normal for conquered people to be turned into slaves. Originally, slavery wasn’t based on the notion of the innate human superiority of one race over another. In fact, racially homogeneous societies operated and continue to operate under a class system where there is a ruling class, an educated and merchant class, and then a working class (which includes slaves) based on inherited family status. Humans also seem to be trapped by an instinctual need rank each other. These hierarchies serve those at the top while brutalizing those at the bottom. And to this already unjust societal norm, humans added a new layer of ranking: ranking according to skin color.

What began in the 1500s as white tribes seeking to dominate the world for wealth and power (greed) became scientific racism by the 17th century wherein white tribal success lead scientists to began to speculate that some races were inherently better than others, with the White race on top. These false notions gave moral fuel to a highly profitable system of black slavery, providing justification to classify blacks as only 2/3 human, inherently inferior to every other race, and therefore deserving of perpetual slavery. Later, the eugenic movement, led by Americans and taken up by the Nazis has solidified itself into the mentally of people all over the world. It’s like racism easily latched on to the human brain’s proclivity for tribalism and ranking. The notion that one tribe is better than another based solely on skin color has infected the entire human race. These deeply embedded beliefs pollute the minds of almost every American, including black Americans themselves (internalized racism). Since the 1940s the Black Doll Test has consistently shown that the majority of young children, including black children, associate white skin with good character traits and dark skin with bad ones. When whiteness is the standard for all that is good and right across the world, it is impossible not be a little scared and repulsed by blackness.

Racism is a combination of this inherent belief in white superiority mixed with the power to make decisions. It is the belief in the inherent inferiority of a particular person and the power to act negatively toward them. Systemic racism is the societal set of policies, processes, and practices that the ruling class has in place to uphold, excuse, and permit individual racist behavior. The following example should help to illuminate how this works.

An apartment owner has an apartment for rent and places an add in a local newspaper. A black couple shows up to view the apartment and the apartment owner, believing that black people are too poor, too dirty, and will lower his property value, tells the couple that the apartment is no longer available. This is individual racism. The individual is acting on his belief in the inferiority of the black couple and has the power to simply deny them the opportunity to rent his apartment based on his racist behavior even though there are fair housing laws on the books. In order to pursue their rights, the black couple would have to spend money, time, and energy to prove housing discrimination. And even if they did sue, they would likely face a white judge who is sympathetic to the plight of the apartment owner. The system works in favor of the racist apartment owner who can act with impunity because the process and practices in place to ensure fairness even when the policies are fair are is too cumbersome.

Examples like this are everyday happenings for people of color. With policies, processes, and practices in place that signal to people of color that the individual racist will not be held accountable for his racist actions, the system allows for teachers who have low expectations of their students of color to continue teaching with racists views, employers who don’t hire qualified people of color or set higher barriers for employment and promotion to continue to discriminate, for bankers who require additional layers of financial scrutiny for home or business loans to continue to deny loans to people of color, and for the criminal justice system that arrests blacks for crimes they ignore among whites to continue to fine, brutalize and incarcerate blacks in unpresented numbers and for longer sentences to continue to do so.

This is what systemic racism looks like and this is why people are taking to the streets. This is why black people are screaming that their lives matter. Not that they matter more than brown or white lives, but that they matter at all in a nation that continually demonstrates that they do not matter. Despite the debunked science of racial superiority or inferiority, we continue to live among racist individuals in a system that protects the racists. We are tired of living in a nation that continually demonstrates that black skinned people deserve less and that black lives do not matter. On every metric of survival and success, black lives are at the bottom. Many want to deny the racist system and blame black people for their own plight. There is no equal protection under the law and no ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness when a system of policies, processes, and practices block black people from receiving it.

I hope I have adequately explained systemic racism. I hope that now is the time that our society will begin to dismantle it. Change only begins with acknowledging the problem, confronting it, and then working really hard to fix the problem. I hope and pray that protesters will be able to force the ruling class to acknowledge the system they have upheld for centuries and then force them to tear it down. All of that is a heavy lift, but we are capable together.

For Americans who care about social justice and basic human dignity, silence is not an acceptable option in this moment. The recent events in which video captures the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the endangering of Christian Cooper by a privileged white woman (Amy Cooper, no relation) who calls the police with a false claim of threat. As I watch protests give way to full out rioting including the spectacle of both fires and looting across the country, I ask myself which path is the most effective.

Speaking as a black woman in America, I know we need change. We demand it. We have been demanding it since slavery and Jim Crow. I understand that blacks aren’t the only ethnic group who need a more equitable system in this country. Our nation’s history has shown that skin color determines treatment. And in this particular moment, black people are once again the ones under attack from multiple sides.

Years of economic, environmental, and healthcare discrimination have left us particularly vulnerable to dying from COVID-19. The virus doesn’t see skin color, but seeks opportunities. The economic and social systems in place created the heath disparities in conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, and diabetes coupled with an overrepresentation in frontline essential work that leaves us particularly vulnerable. And the fact that it is more difficult for blacks to even be tested speaks volumes about who is valued and who is not in this nation.

It wasn’t enough that COVID-19 is ravaging our families, but once again we have unjustified murders and a justice system dragging its feet toward accountability and justice. We only know about the murders caught on video. My guess is that many more go unreported, particularly involving police, because the cameras are not rolling. And just how many are serving prison sentences or paying large fines because of police malfeasance?

How can any decent American stay silent? At the very least protests are called for. Protest in social media. Protest among friends. Protest from microphones. Protest in writing to newspapers and lawmakers. Protest in the streets, but while wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

But has the level of offense against black lives reached the level where rioting is called for? Perhaps. But this is not my preference because it is scary and riots have proven to be self-destructive rather than constructive. I get that there is a symbolic meaning behind burning down buildings. It is a symbolic call to destroy an entire system. Burn it down to the ground in order to start again is the meaning. There is meaning behind looting, too. The meaning is that the economic transactional system currently in place is unfair in which the rich always win and the poor always loose. So, looting is a way to reject the transaction. For some, they think its just an opportunity to get free stuff. But even that mentality itself is a byproduct of an unjust system.

At this moment in time, I side with both the protesters and the rioters. I worry because I don’t see the street protesters and rioters wearing masks or practicing any social distancing. In 2-3 weeks there will likely be a horrible price to pay in more COVID-19 illnesses and deaths. This sad reality makes me even more hopeful that our business leaders, educators, and political leaders really see, really hear, and really understand that the present system is unjust and cannot persist.

People like me are longing for the current system that is built on structural racism to collapse. Death, destruction, and chaos are in our future if these leaders do not act to change things quickly. If these leaders just look at the burning cars and buildings and the looters as irrational acts of violence, then they are missing the point and eventually the whole system will be burned down with them inside it.