Journal of the Plague Years

    Three days after the massacre of 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a white supremacist terrorist, we remain numb with shock and horror.  We are sickened by the act itself, as well as by the canny way the murderer harnessed modern media to amplify his message of hate, uploading his 74 page “manifesto” to the internet and outfitting himself with a body camera in order to stream the carnage in real time, (Source:  “A Mass Murder of, and for, the Internet,” by Kevin Roose, The New York Times, 3/15/19).

     The footage went viral before people could fully process what they were watching.  Images of men, women and children being senselessly slaughtered while in the midst of Jumu’ah will be seared in the consciousness of the countless people who clicked unthinkingly on the retweets and shares that raced ahead of the social media platforms’ efforts to take them down. Continue reading “White supremacy—our greatest global threat”

March 13, 2019

 

Yesterday’s news was dominated by the announcement of the indictment of 50 people in a massive criminal operation by which wealthy and prominent parents cheated and bribed their children’s way into elite schools, including Stanford, U.S.C., Georgetown and Yale.  The unsealed indictment announced by the U.S. Attorney in Boston detailed a complex scheme that involved cheating on standardized tests (after claiming a disability to obtain extra time); lying about participation and achievement in sports such as crew, tennis, soccer and water polo; and bribing college coaches to falsely state that the students were being recruited, (Source:  “College Admissions Scandal:  Actresses, Business Leaders and Other Wealthy Parents Charged,” by Jennifer Medina, Katie Benner and Kate Taylor, The New York Times, 3/12/19).

It is hard to even know where to begin in cataloguing the myriad ways in which this sprawling scheme is enraging.  There is the fact that parents invented athletic records, making a mockery of the thousands of parents who placed a racket or a bat in their toddler’s hands and spent the next fifteen years shuttling them to farflung games and tournaments chasing the dream of recruitment by a top college or university, in order to secure their children’s future.  Then there is the fact that the vehicle for the payments to cheating standardized test proctors and lying college coaches was a nonprofit foundation, giving these wealthy reprobates tax deductible criminality. Continue reading “The myth of meritocracy”

March 11, 2019

 

Late last week, the dramatic injustice of our “justice” system was once again made evident by the extraordinarily light sentence meted out to Paul Manafort by Judge T.S. Ellis of the Eastern District of Virginia.  Diverging wildly from the sentencing guidelines, which recommend 19-24 years, Ellis sentenced Manafort to a mere 47 months, citing his “otherwise blameless life” as a rationale, (Source:  “The ‘Otherwise Blameless’ Life of Paul Manafort,” by Franklin Foer, TheAtlantic.com, 3/7/19).  As Franklin Foer and others have detailed, far from leading a blameless life, Manafort made a career lobbying for brutal authoritarians, bilking both his erstwhile business partners and banks and lying about all of it to save his sorry hide.  In addition, Manafort displayed none of the contrition that is normally a precondition for a lenient sentence.

None of that mattered, as Judge Ellis seemed eager to help Manafort evade responsibility.  Compare that with the sentence that Judge Ellis handed down to African American Congressman William Jefferson in 2009.  Jefferson, who was convicted of bribery and arrested with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, was sentenced to 13 years in prison, (Source:  “Paul Manafort’s Sentencing Produced One Last Awful Thing,” by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire.com, 3/8/19). Manafort’s light sentence is merely the latest in a long line of travesties proving that there are two sets of rules in this country depending on your race. Continue reading “Freedom is elusive”

March 4, 2019

     The Germans have a word for it— Weltschmerz.  Black people invented an entire genre of music to describe it— the bone deep weariness of being trapped in circumstances that you feel powerless to change.  

      Over the weekend, the news cycle was dominated by the performance of the demented clown in the center ring of the CPAC circus.  While numerous journalists devoted hundreds of words to dissecting Trump’s rambling, overlong, angry screed,  Black people were forced, once again to process our anger and incredulity over a decision showing just how little our lives matter.

     Saturday, Sacramento prosecutor, Anne Marie Schubert, announced that the police officers who murdered Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard for allegedly being guilty of vandalism, would not face charges.  Despite the fact that Stephon Clark was unarmed. Despite the fact that police officers fired 20 times. Despite the fact that video shows that the cops continued to shoot him when he fell and provided no medical assistance for six minutes, (Source:  “No Charges in Sacramento Police Shooting of Stephon Clark,” by Jose A. Del Real, The New York Times, 3/2/19).  None of that was sufficient to dislodge the default assumption that Black people are criminals per se, so any harm we suffer at the hands of the police is deemed justified. Continue reading “Inner City Blues”

February 28, 2019

 

Yesterday we were transfixed by the spectacle of Michael Cohen’s blistering Congressional testimony.  Cohen gave us preview of what to expect in the opening statement released Tuesday night, in which he dubbed his former idol “a racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat,” (Source:  “Michael Cohen Testifies That President Trump is a ‘Con Man,’ a ‘Cheat’ and a ‘Racist.’  Read His Opening Statement,” by Katie Reilly, Time.com, 2/27/19).  Trump’s blustering former fixer, who lied and threatened people on Trump’s behalf for a decade appeared yesterday, chastened and contrite.

It may have been a performance, but Cohen brought receipts.  The exhibits that accompanied his testimony included copies of  a check that Trump wrote during his presidency to reimburse Cohen for the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.  He brought copies of Trump’s financial statements from 2011, 2012, and 2013, to demonstrate how Trump inflated the value of his assets in an effort to secure a loan from Deutsche Bank to buy the Buffalo Bills.   Cohen submitted documents showing that Trump recruited a straw bidder to drive up the price of his portrait at a charity auction, and then reimbursed that bidder out of the funds of his charitable foundation, to show that Trump may have committed tax fraud (Source:  “Here are the documents Michael Cohen brought to Congress,” by Katie Mettler, The Washington Post, 2/27/19). Continue reading “Ruin or redemption?”

February 24, 2019

      The news of the last few days has ricocheted from one rage inducing story to the next that demonstrates just how little regard this country has for women and girls.  On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra issued a decision finding that federal prosecutors violated the rights of the victims of pedophile sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, (Source:  “Jeffrey Epstein’s deal with federal prosecutors wasn’t normal. The men who arranged it need to face the music,” by Mimi Rocah and Berit Berger, NBCNews.com, 2/23/19).  As Miami Herald journalist, Julie K.Brown, details in her award winning series, “Perversion of Justice,” Epstein was a truly revolting predator who ran a sex trafficking ring involving as many as 42 underage girls, some as young as 14.  

     Once caught, Epstein used his wealth and network of influential friends to hire a phalanx of high powered lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, to enable him to avoid the decades’ long prison sentence that his depravity deserved.  Despite the fact that Epstein was charged with, not only luring underaged girls to his home to be repeatedly raped by him, but with “trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean,” Labor Secretary, Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S. Attorney, negotiated a Non-Prosecution Agreement that shut down the FBI investigation, allowed Epstein to plead guilty to two state prostitution charges and to serve a mere 13 months in a county jail, (Source:  “Perversion of Justice: How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime,” by Julie K. Brown, Miami Herald, 11/28/18). Continue reading “Trigger warning”

February 21, 2019

 

The news in the last two two days has been consumed with debunking Jussie Smollett’s account of being victimized by a racist, homophobic attack or anxiously reacting to the news that Mueller will be issuing his final report shortly.  Our screens and feeds are full of smug right wingers reacting gleefully to each new revelation that seems to indicate that Smollett staged the attack himself, implying that this one anecdote debunks the reality of the increase in racist and homophobic attacks over the last three years. On the other side, serious journalists speculate on how much Mueller will reveal and to whom.  They fret about whether a paucity of information will allow Trump to escape unscathed.  Both sets of commentators, through willful or hopeful obfuscation, are misapprehending the very real danger that remains, regardless of the outcome of the Smollett story or the Special Counsel’s report. Continue reading “The Threat (h/t Andrew McCabe)”

February 16, 2019

     Since racism and greed has condemned us to have a “president” with the demented sadism of the demon doll from the “Chucky” franchise, it is only fitting that he would usher in Presidents’ Weekend by announcing an unconstitutional power grab.  Yesterday, Trump used the Rose Garden to announce that he was taking by fiat that which he couldn’t achieve legislatively. Aided by his cabal of deeply cynical lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, his declaration of emergency was dressed in a thin veneer of legality that was flimsier than a press-on nail.

     Trump flouted Congress’ exclusive appropriation power by announcing that he was “redirecting” $600 million of the Treasury Department’s forfeiture funds,  $2.5 billion of the funds allocated for drug interdiction at the border and $3.6 billion of the funds allocated for military construction, (Source: “A new, uncertain era for Trump,” by Damian Paletta, Mike DeBonis and John Wagner, The Washington Post, 2/15/19). Continue reading “Presidents’ Day”

February 14, 2019

 

On a day that is supposed to be suffused with the spirit of love, we are instead celebrating the somber one year anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Exactly one year ago, 17 people, including 14 children, were gunned down by a former student.  In the year since, the students of Parkland, have built a tremendous movement, that has effected real change.

Their activism has led to the passage of new gun control laws in over half of the states across the country, from raising the age for gun purchases from 17 to 21, to banning bump stocks, to instituting red flag laws to prevent people with mental health issues from buying guns, (Source:  “Parkland Shooting:  Where Gun Control and School Safety Stand Today,” by Margaret Kramer and Jennifer Harlan, The New York Times, 2/13/19).  The Parkland students built an intersectional movement, highlighting young Black and Latino activists from Chicago and East Los Angeles at their national March for Our Lives in Washington, which took place barely one month after the massacre.  They mobilized young voters on their Road to Change Tour, contributing to a 10% increase in youth turnout in the 2018 midterms (Source: ibid).  The Parkland student activists have been an inspirational example of how to turn grief and love into transformative action. Continue reading “Where is the love?”

February 10, 2019

    The news this past week has had a distinctive tabloid quality, with multiple instances of high ranking officials donning blackface (or editing entire tomes full of it); multiple credible allegations of sexual assault; not to mention a scandal involving an actual tabloid.  Although most of the behavior in question predates the officials’ time in office, it is disturbing to discover that those entrusted with high office have a history of denigrating or victimizing the very people they are charged with representing.

      These scandals are merely another example of what may be Trump’s defining legacy — the end of feigned innocence.  The stack of yearbooks unearthed that are replete with racist imagery shatter any illusion that racism is a relic of the distant past.  If we have learned nothing else this week, it is that the foundational creed of anti-black racism is bipartisan. The difference is that one party is clearly grappling with that messy, destabilizing fact, while the other wears its history of intolerance like a badge of honor. Continue reading “Watch the Court”