Straining At Invisible Chains

There is no Emancipation Proclamation for bigotry.

There is no Civil Rights Act for hatred.

There is no Civil War for racism.

No matter the extent of actions taken to drive out slavery and tamp down the racism behind it, it will not die. It may be strangled, it may be driven under rocks, it may be forced from the light of day, but it rests below the surface, sits quiescent in dark corners, and it waits.

The Black portion of America is straining at invisible chains. Ephemeral, insubstantial, but as strong as the strongest irons that ever held their ancestors in the bottom of ships bound from Africa. Chains forged in racial supremacy, scientific impurity, and patriarchal psychology, by a White race that has done its level best to make every effort to prove its inherent superiority while simultaneously proving Black inferiority. No amount of blood on the battlefield nor ink on paper has rid America of the scourge of systemic, endemic racism.

We can proclaim progress, we can point to a Black President and a museum dedicated to the African-American experience, we can point to all the walks of life where Blacks can now be regularly found, and still there are the invisible chains. No Black person may be made to dance on the auction block, but they are still for sale in the marketplace of ideas, and the idea that they are a threat, that they are lazy, that they are expendable, are all bought and sold in blood and rhetoric.

Police still routinely shoot Black people who pose little threat to them, claiming "imminent danger." GOP Congressmen regularly denigrate Blacks as dependent on government, and a GOP Presidential nominee has lumped all Blacks into the category of having little or nothing to show for their efforts.

We can see, in the clear air of the 21st Century, the biases that wove the bonds of slavery, that built the self-reinforcing system that perpetuated the idea of racial superiority. We can see the tricks and obfuscations and tyranny used to continue to hold the Black race in thrall to the White race. Even with all the steps taken by so many, Black and White, to scour clean the stain of slavery and bigotry from the nation, like Lady Macbeth, we curse that apparent inability to blot it away. It seeps out from the pores of a nation that has defective cells in its marrow that perpetuate this cancer.

Where will the day come that a Keith Scott, or a Sandra Bland, or a Tamir Rice, or a Mike Brown, or an Emmett Till, might walk down the street and not be the subject of the depredations of police? When will legislators understand that affirmative action is the redress for a system that was designed to prevent Black inclusion in colleges and universities? When will the Voting Rights Act no longer be necessary?

Right now, our nation seethes, as one man has brought into the daylight the bigotry and racism most decent Americans have tried to hold down for decades. Donald Trump's atonal ignorance on matters of Blackness is only superseded by his willingness to overlook the overt racism of many of his followers. He cannot see the chains that still bind Blacks to centuries of scorn and sabotage and slavery through White supremacist attitudes. It easier to claim on one hand that no one has helped them, and on the other that they need to help themselves, and that somehow, he alone, can be their emancipator, though his history is strewn with his own racist tendencies.

Now, in our nation, we finally have a chance to deal a severe blow to racism. We can take the Republican response to a Black President, the odious and fatuous bigot that is Donald Trump, and thrash him at the polls. Every decent American has a chance, through their ballot, to proclaim what we know in our hearts: there is no room for racism anymore. We can repudiate Trump and the minions who follow him, and deal them a death blow of seismic proportions. We can ring the bell of freedom for all Americans loudly and fully, by showing our Black brothers and sisters that we will no longer tolerate their being bound to the past. We can, once and for all, take up the hammer of justice and break those invisible chains.

Simply Murder

By now, you know here name: Sandra Bland.

You know what happened to her: pulled over by a police officer, he proceeded to abuse his authority, and she wound up in jail.

Then she "hung herself."

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As we reel off the litany of Black people who have lost their lives unfairly and unjustly - Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Renisha McBride, Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, John Crawford, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and on and on - we should, to use Eric Garner's words, find it difficult to breathe. The constant stream of dead Black bodies being heaped at our feet cannot help but tighten the chest of any decent person. In most, if not all, cases these people were no threat to anyone, not armed, not doing anything that could be construed at the moment of their death as a threat to anyone. Some were murdered in the street, some shot in the back, some killed in their own homes, some in their cars, some running, some standing, some looking for help... and they are ALL DEAD.

DEAD. Killed in the main by law enforcement, with the occasional support of "law-abiding" citizens and racist malcontents, they have been set down in the ground and there have been outcries and protests and meetings and speeches and calls for justice...

...and still they die.

Every day.

Every day, we are greeted with the latest addition to the butcher's bill. Even since Sandra Bland's horrific arrest and subsequent death, there have been more. It is a ceaseless parade of Black people being cut down for no reason, no purpose, no need. These people are just trying to live their lives and being deprived of those lives by a callous, cruel, heartless system of endemic racism that they cannot fight. Punches are thrown, jabs are taken, blows are struck, but at the end of the day, Whiteness is still the law of the land and Blackness is marked for death.

America may remove the chains, it may fight a war, it may pass laws, but all that does nothing to stem the infernal spread of toxic bigotry that envelopes and swallows Black life at a breakneck pace. Black people, ancestors dragged from their African homes to provide free labor, continue to suffer the depredations of taskmasters who have never known the feel of the lash in their hand. Whiteness is a disease, a despicable malady, that creeps into the souls of many who suffer from it but do not realize they are infected. They see the creeping, inexorable snuffing out of Black life as something that they are not party to, for not once in generations did they or their family own slaves, as if that were the only yardstick by which to measure such galling hatred.

We, the White people, are beneficiaries of a system that was built by the sweat, toil, and blood of Black slaves to provide White people comfort, strength, and power. Whatever strides have been made, whatever battles fought, whatever ink dried, that system lives and we benefit from it still. It is not torn down, rings and all, but stands in silent reproach of those who seek to surmount it, to collapse it, to bring White masters down to the level of everyone else, to take their rightful place in American life as free and equal citizens. No sound is made as its tentacles creep out from hidden dens to strangle and snuff out Black hope. Even a Black President cannot beat it down from the seat at the heart of that power.

No matter the circumstances, the actual events, of Sandra Bland's death, we mark it murder, wicked and foul. She was Black, she was strong, she knew her rights, and it did her no good, for the White power would not recognize her simple humanity or rights. Automatically, without thought, she was reduced in the eyes of a law enforcement officer who saw her challenges as weapons as potent as knives and guns. He stepped out of the guise of peace keeper and into the well-worn suit of slave master, and proceeded to attack her as if she were no more than an animal.

Our nation may well burn, consumed in a fire set by our recalcitrant need to maintain a death grip on a past that has no purpose or place in the 21st Century. If we suffer such self-immolation, it will be well-deserved, for allowing ignorance and bigotry to flourish in a time of knowledge is a crime that only a society may be asked to pay for in its own blood. We may weep at the destruction, but as the flames lick us, we should remember well that our hands could have put out the fire, if only we had reached down to our Black brethren and brought them up to their rightful place as equals. There is yet time, but Sandra Bland is the first wisp of smoke, a signal of the fire that waits to rage among us.

President Lincoln Was Wrong

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Abraham Lincoln uttered those words at the Republican State Convention in Springfield, Illinois on June 16, 1858. He was accepting the nomination of his party to run for the Senate. It was a radical speech for its time and perhaps led to Lincoln eventually becoming President. Based on Biblical scripture, it was a simple enough idea: dividing the nation over the idea of slavery would destroy both halves. Union, above all else, was paramount.

157 years later and as I read the speech, then look at the horrible deed done by the 21-year-old Charleston Terrorist, I must point out to Mr. Lincoln that, while a fine speech, it was wrong.

While true, that breaking apart the structure of a house causes damage, the damage can be repaired, if attention is put to the details. A home, otherwise wrecked, can be rebuilt stronger and sturdier for having been heinously damaged or even rent asunder. However, it does no good to reconnect a divided structure, where part of said structure festers with rot and decay.

THAT, is the Union we live in now. A "united" nation stitched together by iron and blood one hundred fifty years ago, that is still shot through with the fetid stink of racism and the rotting timbers of "heritage." The forcible re-connection of the Union seemed a good idea at the time, but recent events lead me to believe that reuniting a home so pervasively rotten simply allowed that disease to spread too far.

It was not enough to so vanquish the Confederacy as to make them feel the pain of their stubborn pride rattling deep in their bones. Crushing armies and torching cities could only leave physical scars that would be easily wiped away; those same crushed armies and burnt cities, would leave deep, resonant scars that simply mingled with that wounded pride, to make a people even more resistant to change. There would be no beating down the South. Absorbed back into the Union, the former Confederate States would not so quietly resume their status as Americans.

The Civil War may have reassembled the map of a nation and its political structure, but could not easily erase centuries of racism. Southerners were not predisposed to believe that Blacks were anything other than property, wrested from them by a pitiless, self-indulgent North. They might no longer have them as slaves, but Southerners would not automatically elevate Blacks to the level of persons. They would make their displeasure felt via the Klu Klux Klan, poll taxes, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the destruction of Black churches. No loss of a war would tarnish the South to a degree that they would simply drop the matter.

So it goes.

In this day, we still live in a nation divided along lines thought erased those one hundred fifty years ago. The South is still a seething cauldron of hate, a spirit broken but unbowed by a "war of Northern Aggression" it still sees as a fundamental violation of the rights of States. No amount of progress in our world has tapped out the rich vein racism in the core of the former Confederacy. That vein continues to be mined, its products disseminated among the impressionable minds that know only poverty and blame their lot, not on a lack of industriousness or investment, but on Blacks - and other minorities - who seem to be "taking" all that is supposed to be theirs. The same self-indulgent ignorance is repeated as law in households far and wide, sowing the seeds of racism in a new generation.

Invariably, this leads to events like the Charleston Terrorist Shooting, where a young White man, inculcated in the ways and means of hate, takes it upon himself to single-handedly launch a new war, hoping to eliminate the Black race and magically restore the honor of the beatified Confederacy. He walks into a storied Black church, observes the love and tolerance shown there, and still allows the darkness of his soul to envelop the lives of nine innocent people.

This pervasive, systemic racism, this dark stain on the American nation is no longer allowable. It is no longer tolerable. It can no longer be allowed to lie furtively, striking at Black Americans with a singular will. Bigotry can no longer be coddled. We have left it to sink into the foundation of our once divided house, and now the whole house threatens to crumble. A house divided against itself cannot stand, but a house left un-maintained will as surely and as easily fall. We have let the maintenance go a hundred and fifty years and can no longer sit idly by and watch it crumble. It is time to pry up and cut away the rot.

Unbearable Blackness

There is a suffocating wind choking us almost daily now. It whistles through poor neighborhoods and posh suburbs and city streets and country lanes, a thick, odious sirocco filled with malevolence and meanness that scours away the facade of America as world builder and paragon of democracy. It leaves a deformity behind in our society that is ignored by many and suffered by too many more.

It is the unbearable blackness.

Unbearable, in that several hundred years of sable servitude's savagery was not erased by a continent-shaking war, nor all the legislation committed to reams of paper since. Not even as august a thing as a Constitution could hydraulically fracture out the deep wells of misbegotten bigotry buried so far down in the foundation of a nation. A few hundred, a few thousand years of gauging others by their tongues, their beliefs, and their skin, that pressure could not be released by so many pinpricks of the rough hide of a foreign-born nation.

Our European ancestors, wherever they went, saw the natives as "savages," because they were unaware of or unwilling to hear the words The Bible and absorb the sacrosanct belief that White Anglo-Saxon Protestants had been commanded by a swarthy prophet of the desert kingdom of the Israelites to go out and conquer the world that was rightfully theirs. New Testament churches driven by Old Testament zeal led to the corruption and conscription and dissolution of societies that had existed before Jesus set one foot upon the ground. They took the Savior's name, cloaked it in the God of Abraham's wrath and wrought conversion upon the "unenlightened."

That lust for the conversion of everything into a Christian kingdom overspread the Earth. Fed into its maw were tribes and villages and cities and creeds, to be converted into missions and cathedrals and gold and piety. And where the natives would not be pacified, they would be harnessed, and if that were too hard, exterminated. Commanded to "be fruitful and multiply," these European invaders took that as a tacit command to take what was needed to create God's kingdom there upon the ground and woe to those who stood before his host! If a Black body could be bent to serve the Lord, upright or upon their knees, so be it.

That has been the groundwork, that has been the fire, that has been the catalyst, that consumed all before it, left lands far and wide, barren and sere, removed of their joyous multitudes, now yoked to the plow of progress. With a the human landscape burnt and blasted, the winds could sweep up into a maelstrom, to plunge down upon the scattered children and suffer them further indignities.

Now we see it every day, almost. Darker skin thought cancerous, drawing the evil naturally down upon itself. Lady Macbeth wailed against a spot; now our brothers and sisters wail over the darkness of their skin, that attracts the fingers of death. The whitest among us act as if nothing is wrong, that they brought the stain upon themselves somehow, that their skin was always meant to be beneath the notice of Men. So many voices raised in Christian song on Sunday, spit epithets on Monday at the outrage of thousands of their Black countrymen beweeping the deaths of their brothers and sisters at the hands of White taskmasters thinly cloaked as purveyors of Law & Justice.

Even in our highest halls, those sent to govern instead throw fits when it appears a Black man is more competent, forthright, and knowledgeable than they. They curse The People for their progressiveness and seek to wound them at every turn, casting the orphan out on the street, failing to fill the bellies of hungry, denying the destitute refuge, even shunning those who fought so they might have the freedom to be petulant and peevish. They stammer and stamp their feet as the man duly elected to lead the nation succeeds despite their every impediment and roadblock and remains adored by a nation that not so long ago was on the brink of destruction.

This blackness is unbearable. That it suffocates the living with fear and hatred, that it pervades the souls of so many who claim to be the best of God's flock, that it is draped upon the bodies of too many who are gunned down in the street and left to die... it is a weight that cannot be withstood for much longer. The darkness of skin should not be the arbiter of human value. "All Men are created equal" it says & if we are to interpret that in the spirit it was meant, then no thing, no belief, no skin color, no sexual orientation, no language, no nationality should bar the individual from the Rights that are so inalienably theirs. No Black person should walk down the street with the thought in their mind that there is a target on their back and it is only a matter of time before the hunters come. It is wrong. It is unjust. It is un-American. And it is unbearable.

His Name Was Walter Scott

He was a 50-year-old Black man.

He was pulled over for having a broken tail light on his car.

An officer confronted him. He broke and ran.

And received 8 bullets in the back for it.

From a White police officer.

The whole thing was caught on video.

I won't link to the video. You can find it easily enough. It's sickening. It's repulsive. It's irritating. It's mystifying. It's enraging.

I wrote a lament for Eric Garner (Sons And Daughters Of Rodney King) after there was a video of him being choked to death by a police officer, even though he was doing nothing that could be considered harmful or dangerous. That hearkened back to Rodney King, for like King, Garner's attacker was let off the hook. A Staten Island District Attorney did a slapdash job of presenting a case and a grand jury refused to convict. The only person charged with anything was the man who took the video.

The death of Walter Scott, more brutal and violent than that of Eric Garner, might have been just another source of outrage, protest, condemnation for the Black community and, ultimately, ambivalence by the White community, but the officer involved was arrested and charged with murder. His after action report read like so much bad fiction compared to the reality of the unblinking camera eye. That he felt no compunction to honesty, spinning tissues of obfuscation into the whole cloth of "fearing for his life," points to how "acceptable" we, as a society, have allowed this to become.

These police officers, they are not the Sergeant Joe Fridays of "Dragnet" or the Lennie Briscoes of "Law & Order"; those are fabrications that Hollywood purveys in an effort to secure ratings. These are White men, mainly, who have deep seated veins of casual bigotry running through the valleys of their minds. They see the Black person as automatically the villain, the criminal, the threat. This default value denies the flight and energizes the fight, and the moral circuit breaker that should snap before they brandish a weapon is fused shut, leading to hails of lead and bleeding bodies in the street, often unarmed.

If the circle of White-Officer-on-Black-Person violence and murder is to end, this may be the first crack that breaks the linkage. It may be. Innocent until proven guilty, there is still a trial to be navigated, a jury to be seated, and an array of law enforcement and justice officials to be overcome, all of whom are naturally predisposed to believe the officer if infallible and honest. It makes the landings at the Normandy beaches seem a Sunday stroll through the park.

As Eric Garner taught us, not even the clearest evidence of impropriety can guarantee charges, let alone a guilty verdict. George Zimmerman, not even a police officer, was let off even though there was no solid evidence Trayvon Martin ever posed a threat. For the Justice system to earn it's name back in this case, it will have to set aside all the prejudices and predispositions as to the stalwart trustworthiness of a police officer, and judge his actions as a man, a man emboldened by the shield on his chest to follow a course of action that no one should ever follow. The death of Walter Scott must become a watershed moment, like Selma, if we are ever to disentangle ourselves from the skein of bigotry and racism still clinging tightly to the fabric of America.

The Promised Land

The man had a dream, a dream he did not live to see. This day, April 4th, 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was laid low by an assassin's bullet. The man who had worked tirelessly to raise people of color up and out of the mud that white America continually forced them to wallow in, the light and fire of a people's righteous indignation, the scion of non-violent protest in the name of justice, was taken from us by the bigotry and racism he fought. No power on Earth could shield him from the determination of hatred to see him struck down.

The night before he died, he uttered the stirring and prophetic words that have since become iconic:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

One believes The Promised Land that Dr. King saw was that which he outlined in perhaps his most famous speech: a land in which people of all races and creeds could live in harmony. He had a vision of the future that -- to him -- was as palpable as the pressure of the collar of his shirt or the weight of a Bible in his hand. Somehow, some day, he knew it would come to pass. He was also sure he would probably not live to see it.

That this man saw the future so clearly is testament to the vision that some human beings, harnessing the native power of cerebral intellect, can will into existence in their own minds, laying aside the dark fears, incongruities, and instincts built up over millions of years in more primitive parts of the brain. Not given to fear or to hate or to prejudice, he extrapolated forward and saw the world that would come to pass, and saw his role in bringing that world into sharper focus. Fortified by the words of The Bible, girded for battle in a cloak on nonviolence, the man would will that world into existence, if he could. He laid out that vision, in the hope that others would recognize it, clutch it to their chests, incorporate it, make it their own, and help propel humanity forward.

It is sad to say that we seem no closer to The Promised Land now than we were that day in Memphis. The election of President Obama, which might have been seen in another light as a true representation of our progress, only served to highlight how much work still remains. His election awakened the ghosts of April 4th, and let them loose to vex us once more. Our nation is now locked in a desperate struggle against the forces of intolerance and bigotry once more, and these enemies of all that is human are even more entrenched and brazen. The hangman's noose has been replaced by the 9-mm automatic. The poll tax has been replaced by voter identification requirements. Slavery has been replaced by the prison cell. Now, more than ever, it is imperative to pick up the baton that fell on that horrible day. It is time to show that Dr. King's faith in humanity was not misplaced. It is time for us -- each and every one -- to lead the way to The Promised Land.

Clothes Minded

It was a hoodie. A simple piece of clothing, really; nothing more than a sweatshirt with some pockets on the front and a hood to keep the head warm and dry. A utilitarian piece of clothing, cheap, durable, ubiquitous...

Deadly.

Trayvon Martin found out. George Zimmerman took that as a sign, beyond Trayvon's mere blackness, that he was "suspicious." Because on a cool, rainy Florida evening, who in their right mind would be wearing such a piece of clothing? A black kid, in a hoodie, in a predominantly-white neighborhood... had to mean trouble. And it did...

For Trayvon.

It was a hijab. The simple cloth adornment some Muslim women wear out of respect for their faith. A covering for the hair and head, a symbol of modesty, a utilitarian piece of clothing.

Deadly.

Shaima Alawadi found out. Mother of five, from Iraq originally, moved to the United States in 1995. Someone didn't like her. Someone left a note, telling her to go home, that she was a "terrorist." She took it as a prank. A Muslim woman, in a hijab, in a Navy town like San Diego... had to mean trouble. And it did...

For Shaima.

The clothes no longer "make" the person -- they mark them. They mark them for death at the hands of narrow-minded, spiteful, hate-filled, bigoted, ignorant savages masquerading as decent Americans. They walk among us, carrying their hate like a badge, as if it is the acme of patriotism to denigrate and defile people for what they wear and who they are. They walk among us, fondling knives and hidden pistols, waiting for the day that they can cleanse America of "evil." They pretend to love their country, even as they shred the very fabric of it by denying others their right to freedom and liberty and justice.

These clothes, they did not arrive from the manufacturer or the clothing store or the weaver with some hint of malevolence woven into the fabric nor sewn into every seam. These are not the raiment of the wicked, the costumes of the malevolent, the uniforms of the nefarious -- they are clothes, simple clothes, clothes that may or may not represent more than they are. They are imbued with connotation not by the wearer, but the observer, and the prejudices, misconceptions, and stereotypes that person carries around in the secret compartments of their mind. Festering in the manifold creases and canyons of the most powerful computing engine extant, lie thoughts and ideas contrary to the very evolutionary system that brought it into existence, a system that rewards diversity for its ability to overcome changes in the environment, and condemns rank conformity to the fossil record.

These haters, these self-righteous, self-important miscreants, lie in wait for the unwary person of color or non-Christian or woman, like living landmines, set to go off when the pressure is just enough. No warning. No chance. And then they are dead, killed for being who they are, and we are left to wonder what offense there really was in being black... or Muslim... or Latino... or trans-gendered... or homosexual...

Humanity is what our species is. Human beings are what we are. Human, is what we should be. To be human means to recognize that being one of many, our differences make us no more or less a human being than the next. To be human, we must understand and tolerate and celebrate the differences, because they are what allowed our species to grow and thrive. Diversity is our strength. Where we seek to deny it, where we seek to contain it, where we seek to eradicate it, we rot out the trunk of the human tree, until the next good wind topples it. We must stem the rot. To pretend it does not exist, to ignore its very palpable presence, to leave it to others, is to hear the creaking in the wind, a wind whipped up by the souls of the innocent who died for wearing a piece of clothing. Even now, humanity shudders under the breath of their dying moans.

Shot For The Crime Of Being Black

Trayvon Martin died by the hand of George Zimmerman. This is not in dispute. Zimmerman claimed self defense, which is a tacit admission that he killed the boy.

What is in dispute, thanks to a new body of evidence, including 911 calls and eyewitness testimony, is that there is a case for self defense at all.

Shot In The Dark

His name was Trayvon Martin... was, because the 17-year-old black boy is dead of a gunshot wound.

It was not a drive-by shooting.

It was not a drug deal gone bad.

It was not a "gang-banger" scuffle.

He was shot and killed on his way back to his father's home, in a gated, predominantly-white community in Sanford, Florida, carrying a bag of candy and an iced tea. No weapon. No drugs. No nothing. Just candy and a drink.

He was shot by a member of the neighborhood watch, one 26-year-old white man, George Zimmerman, after Zimmerman had reported a "suspicious person" to the police and was told not to intervene.

Mr. Zimmerman claims "self-defense."

Mr. Zimmerman has been released from police custody. He has not been charged.

It does not take the tremendous powers of deductive reasoning of a Sherlock Holmes to uncover the fundamental truth behind this incident: it need never have happened.

As days come and go, more facts will come to light, perhaps more concrete data will be made available for public consumption, but on the face of it, it does not take much logic to put the simplest parts of this narrative together into a coherent picture. A white man, seeing a young black man, "determined" him to be "suspicious," and took matters into his own hands after being told not to by the authorities.

Mr. Zimmerman was carrying a licensed weapon. He was in a car. He was a white man in a predominantly-white neighborhood. In every respect, in every fashion, he had every advantage on his side.

Trayvon Martin had a drink and some candy.

Hardly a fair fight.

Mr. Zimmerman could have obeyed the police admonition to not get involved. He chose not to. He could have simply driven up to the boy and asked him where he was going, and left it at that. He chose not to. He could have refrained from handling his weapon. He chose not to. He could have stayed in his car until the police arrived. He chose not to.

What choice did Trayvon Martin have? Here was some white guy in a car, following him. All he was doing was walking back to his father's house; what was this guy's problem? Can't somebody walk back to their house?

If you are black, the answer to that question is: no.

On any city street, in just about any part of the nation, if you are a black person, there is an assumption by others, mainly white, that you are up to no good. Your mere presence "suggests" it... well, that, and the color of your skin. Is it any wonder that the majority of those in American prisons are young, black men? What chance does a black man have, when he has a strike against him that he does not deserve?

Apparently, there was a confrontation. The details are sketchy. Several people called police to report hearing the fight... and then the gunshot. Who started it and why is still unclear, but no doubt the white man with the gun -- in contravention of civil authority -- decided to confront the "suspicious" black boy. And the result of that was clear: Trayvon Martin died.

For now, Mr. Zimmerman goes free, but that freedom from restraint by the law does not leave him free from guilt, because this young black man's blood is on his hands. And this stain, this blot, will not be so easily washed away, because there must be a reckoning for this. Justice may be blind, but it is not deaf, and it will not suffer the anguished and outraged cries of a black community hounded and harassed still by those who choose to see them only as a blight on society, nor will it be allowed to ignore the millions of voices of decent Americans of all stripes, raised in anger, at this senseless and brutal killing.

We demand justice for Trayvon Martin and we demand it now!

Pointing Fingers

When is it acceptable to dress down a President?

Never.

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has joined a long list of her Republican compatriots, who have sought, at one time or another, to grab a moment in the spotlight (Remember Joe Wilson?) at the expense of President Obama. An intemperate wag of a finger at the sitting President, over his disagreement with the contents of her book, and she has taken her rightful place if the Hall of Political Ignominy.

The Unbearable Continuation Of Bigotry

Her name is -- as far as we know -- Taylor. She is -- apparently -- a Girl Scout. She is fourteen-years-old and is apparently concerned by the direction the Girl Scouts of America is taking, specifically with the admission last Autumn of a seven-year-old transgender child to a troop in Colorado. She is calling for a boycott of the sale of Girl Scout cookies, to send a clear message of disapproval over the inclusiveness that the organization is supporting by sanctioning such a move.

She is a bigot.

America, The Post-Racial

Here is a story that tells you where America stands as far as tolerance and individual liberty goes: James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing beside his car on a Sunday morning in Jackson, MS, when up drove two carloads of teenagers, who had spent the night drinking. The teens "allegedly" got out of their vehicles and proceeded to pummel this man, and then, when he tried to stagger back to his car, ran him over with a pickup truck and drove away.

The kids are white; Mr. Anderson was black. Was, because he is now a corpse, bereft of life and of any conceivable identity that could be assigned to him that would have any meaning other than deceased. He was a living, breathing man, American citizen, worker, brother and son. Assigned by the Constitution of the United States his inalienable rights to personal liberty, he had those rights stripped from him in a brutal and callous fashion, by unfeeling, uncaring, bigoted white teenagers. Allegedly. In the vernacular that we must adopt as outlined in that same Constitution, one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and so the crime is "alleged" to have occurred. Of course, the Founding Fathers never envisioned video tape or digital recordings.

The whole crime was caught on surveillance video. In sordid detail.

The Bloody Path

The Civil War was many things: a referendum, a reckoning, a revolution, a restoration. The match that lit the fuse to the powder keg was slavery; it was not a new fight, but one that had been simmering since The Revolution. If slavery was the match, the actual powder was the right of States to determine their own destinies, within the confines of the Union. Even after it was over, the shards of the conflict still rained down on the nation, and do so even to this day. The Civil War did not begin in 1861, and it did not end in 1865. The historical events from Fort Sumter to Appomattox are well known; the underlying forces, which continue to this day, are less well understood.

The Subtle Bigotry Of The Educated Mind

When we think of bigotry, we tend to recall the pictures and videos of groups of white policemen attacking black marchers on their way to Selma, Alabama, or Klu Klux Klan marches through the streets of sleepy towns, or protesters with placards decrying Mexican immigrants, or Japanese Americans being herded into internment camps after Pearl Harbor. We tend to believe that bigotry only expresses itself on the grand scale, and that those who make up such groups that perpetrate and perpetuate it are somehow less influential, less offensive in their individuality, where they can be safely ignored.

We also believe that bigotry only really expresses itself through large differences in people, like race or religion or sexual orientation, but we would be mistaken. Bigotry is any form of intolerance of prejudice or discrimination; it is the manifest extension of an ancient survival instinct, which tells us to be cautious around, or frightened of, anything or anyone that is superficially different than us. This instinct, millions of years in the making, resident in the corridors of our primitive brain, still holds sway, a siren call to the cerebral cortex, reminding it to remain cautious and exaggerating the differences between people to make discrimination easier. In its best form, it makes us wary in situations where we are unfamiliar; in its worst form, it creates paranoia.

The Color Purple

Today, people across the nation will be wearing various shades of purple, to show their solidarity with the LGBT community and to remember the recent deaths of six gay teens, who committed suicide due to bullying and/or through denigration by peers. We do this, not as a one-off moment, but as a resolution, that no teenager, gay or straight, deserves to be bullied for who and what they are. Hatred and fear can no longer be allowed to carry the day; Americans of good conscience must stand up, as one, and proclaim from every corner of the nation: "No person born to freedom and liberty shall have theirs infringed by anyone."

Cause And Effect

His name was Tyler Clementi. I say "was", because the smart and quiet 18-year-old Rutgers University student committed suicide. It is not unusual for high school and college students to kill themselves; the stresses of growing up through puberty and the pressure to excel in school often lead to children finding themselves isolated and unable to cope. Though not everyone succumbs to the creeping fears, doubts, and self-loathing, occasionally one will decide that death is preferable to the "torture" of living.

What makes this death more heart-breaking and mind-numbing than the usual, is the why. Two fellow 18-year-old students, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, perpetrated what can only be described as the most reprehensible and disgusting "prank" on Tyler -- they allegedly placed a video camera in his dorm room, and captured a video of one of his sexual encounters, then apparently broadcast it over the Internet. What was undoubtedly horrifying to Tyler, was that it was a sexual encounter with another man.

Let me be clear: that it was an encounter with a member of the same sex is nothing new, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. The body is a container, a shell, a power supply and protection for the human brain and the genetic material that created it. That we come in two genders is obvious physically, but gender is more than a function of genitalia. The profusion of LGBT individuals in the world shows us that "gender" goes deeper, is more a function of hormones and neural wiring that what sexual organs you happen to have. Love, the tenderest of human emotions, is figuratively a function of the heart, not the head, and there is no reason to think that two people of the same gender cannot love each other. Love is about feelings, emotions, and psychological compatibility, not which tab fits into which slot.

Still, our society has, for the most part, a hard time accepting this. As with anything that science brings to light, the beliefs of many override reason, and they see the human body as some divine arbiter of who you are, and believe that things can only work one way, where that way is merely the design, not the demarcation. A spiritual fear of same sex love over centuries has led to many homosexuals becoming easy fodder for the self-righteous and bigoted. Even now, with the virulent and voracious attacks on attempts to equalize the playing field for LGBT community, we see that innate fear being stamped with the approval of religious zealots, who are more afraid of the truth that stares them in the face, that perhaps their view of how the creator built his creation is not as simple as their ancestors once believed.

Given this, a society where homosexuality is a battleground, an easy target for the bigot and the bully, can we not feel the weight of this discovery of the transgression by Tyler as similar to a weight we have felt on our own hearts? How crushing, to know that his experimentation, in an earnest attempt to learn more about his feelings and desires, would be turned into fodder for the rabid packs of hate-mongers and ignorance-peddlers. More horrifying still, to know that this information would make it out to the world through the auspices of the Internet, bringing down misguided and vitriolic homophobia on a simple 18-year-old college student. How does one fight a world? How can one absorb the blows of dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, perchance even millions? What can you do, when something you thought few would ever know about, is now front-and-center on the greatest communications network of our time?

So, Tyler Clementi killed himself, his life snuffed out by the weight of a world of rabid hatred and fear that would rain down on him mercilessly. And now, two classmates stand accused, but only of an invasion of privacy; heinous enough, given what they did, but far from the only charge they should suffer. For as surely as the planner of a murder also receives a charge of capital murder, even though they have not pulled the trigger or plunged in the knife, so, too, must these two amoral cretins face their actions with a charge of manslaughter. No doubt, they thought nothing of what they did, for this "prank" was not a hallmark of true rational thought and social conscience, but the act of moronic, misanthropic, and mean-spirited individuals, with no consideration or clue as to what decency is. They may not have pushed him off the bridge, but they pushed the poor man's mind into a place where that seemed like the best resolution to a problem they caused.

These two are not alone in their indecency. This week has seen too many stories of LGBT individuals committing suicide, harangued and hectored by small-minded and socially inept peers, who no doubt pick up the threads of their abject hatred from their homes and from other members of their community. How can we be surprised, when the nightly news is filled with scenes of screaming and shrieking sycophants, claiming homosexuality an "abomination," and treating LGBT individuals as if they were lepers, or worse, subhuman? Why should we be shocked, when words spill down from pulpits for supposedly "Christian" ministers, condemning gays and their lifestyle, spreading homophobia in place of messages of mutual understanding and fellowship?

No more. We, of good heart and great conscience, cannot stand for this sort of behavior in our country, or in the world. You cannot look at an LGBT human being and not see them as any less, human, and certainly no less deserving of the freedom and liberty of everyone else. If we are to be true to the founding credo of our nation, that all are created equal, then to condemn these people simply because of what they are is morally reprehensible and hypocritical of us. They want nothing from us, they take nothing from us, and in the end, only seek that which they should have by fiat: the right to live their life as they will, free of ignorant persecution. If we cannot give them this, then our nation is broken, and we mark democracy as a failure.

The High Cost Of 'Free' Speech

As is often noted, the right to free speech comes at a terrible cost -- to enable us to have our right to say what we will, in a reasonable and measured fashion, we must tolerate those who will have their right to say what they will, even in the most lurid and unseemly fashion. So it is, that we endure the mounting dissension and rising tide of intolerance toward the Islamic religion as we approach the anniversary of September 11th.

This wave of intolerance is not, however, some new strain developed over the issue of Al Qaeda's attack on the Twin Towers, but a mutation of a very old strain, that humanity carries with it everywhere it goes. In America, it can be traced back to a fear of a Catholic President taking orders from the Pope instead of the people. It can be traced further still, to immigrant groups coming to our shores, who would steal jobs from "real" Americans. Back even further, we see it in the fear of the slave being freed, sowing the destruction of the American way of life. We can trace it all the way to the mistrust of the native "savages," original inhabitants of North America, and their weird ways, contrary to the laws of God. And those seeds were brought by the original colonists, fleeing societies that did not want them around, for fear of contamination of their countries. Go back as far as you like in human history, and you can see the seeds planted and the crop of intolerance harvested in full measure in each succeeding generation.

For all the advance of humankind from primitive existence to technological domination of the globe, we continue to carry the seeds and sow them at every turn. It as if we feel we cannot be who we are without them. It is as if the dogma and destruction of the past is part of our DNA, not, as it truly is, a product of fevered imagination, over-hyped fear, and rampant bigotry. To some, there is no point in hoping for a change, because it has always been so. For others, they thrive only in the presence of this bitter crop, and would fight to keep it, to justify their view of the world.

Those who would picket the burials of the honored dead, claiming that we are paying the price for our wickedness, are harvesters of the crop. Those who would burn the Quran to send an incoherent message, are harvesters of the crop. Those who would deny their fellow Americans the right to have affordable health care, are harvesters of the crop. Those who would claim that the free practice of religion is valid only for their 'Christian' religion, are harvesters of the crop. Those who would deny a woman the right to determine what she will do with her body, are harvesters of the crop. Those who would deny same-sex couples the right to enjoy the fruits of lasting love and marriage, are harvesters of the crop.

America has spent decades now, planting a bumper crop of anti-intellectualism, ignorance, bigotry, and hatred. This goes far beyond the crops previously sown and reaped, for in an age when information is king and knowledge is everywhere, the stubborn denial of truth for the blinding light of belief shows no more sophisticated than our brethren two thousand years ago. For all our advances in technology, there have been few advances in community. Even the founding of the American nation did not bring about the salient changes in human behavior that could reasonably be said to have altered us and made us a singular nation. For while our Founding Fathers did their best to construct a foundation upon which to lay a new society, which allowed the individual to be as they are while being part of a larger community, the subsequent building upon that foundation has been haphazard, slapdash, and at time, has required things to be torn down and rebuilt.

Given the freedom to speak, that does not mean what you have to say automatically has value, especially where what you say is grounded in ignorance, and fear, and hatred. What Americans must do, now, is to speak up. The dialog is being monopolized by the narrow-minded and short-sighted; the great bulk of America is not so myopic or xenophobic. Decent people, strong-hearted people, we must rise up to challenge those who would pervert freedom and democracy to further their own self-serving ends, who would shape American traditions and values to prevent all Americans from sharing in the liberty they are guaranteed. Let our voices ring out, and let the true heart of America proclaim that we shall not tolerate intolerance and will not defend ignorance. It is time for the better angels of our nature to take the day.

Bigotry, Thy Name Is Texas

I consider myself a man of peace and compassion and, hopefully, tolerance, but all of that is tested so completely when I read about sheer and unadulterated bigotry writ large. From the intolerance evinced by supporters of Proposition 8 in California, to the anti-Christian homophobic vitriol of the Westboro Baptist Church, to those who feel the need to denigrate the President of the United States with epithets and thinly-veiled racism. But now my hackles are raised, my teeth set on edge, and bile has reached my throat, so great is the venom in my blood. For, Republicans in the "great" state of Texas have decided that homosexuals, and those who "conspire" with them, are now an enemy to be hounded, arrested, and driven to ground.

The Texas GOP has published their 2010 State Republican Party Platform, and it outlines, in detail, how Republicans in Texas are to go about destroying homosexuals and obliterating the "idea" of homosexuality, not just in their state, but in the entire United States. In addition to the usual screeds about the "defense of marriage" as a solemn union between "one natural man and one natural woman," but instead of stopping their, they call on Congress to enact such legislation as to make this the law of the United States.

But it gets better. In their own words:

Family Values – We affirm that this section is a response to the attacks on traditional family values. These include well funded, vigorous political and judicial attempts by powerful organizations and branches of the government to force acceptance, affirmation and normalization of homosexual behavior upon school children, parents, educational institutions, businesses, employees, government bodies and religious institutions and charities. These aggressive, intolerant efforts marginalize as bigots anyone who dissents.

The hypocrisy is so obvious as to be farcical. Not only do they intend to deprive American citizens of Constitutional rights, and override the judgment of any other State of the Union that approves of gay marriage, they intend to go on the offensive, to attempt to marginalize, de-legitimize, and brand homosexuals as societal rejects, and they will brook no dissent. Sound familiar?

And as if that were not enough:

Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

Not only will they deny homosexuality as a fact of life, but they would strip homosexuals of their basic freedoms, and make it possible for those with an intolerant and malevolent bent to attack homosexuals without fear of criminal penalty!!!

This pathetic, inflammatory, bigoted, and, frankly, un-American set of "principles" is the lowest ebb of American society. It is a declaration that the basic principles of freedom and liberty as espoused in the Constitution of the United States, only belong to those of certain classes of people, and those classes shall determine who else may partake of them. It as if the execrable parts of the Constitution -- those enumerating the actual human value of a Negro slave -- were to be re-written for homosexuals, and re-instituted. It seeks to undo the progress this nation has made in creating a union of equal humanity, with liberty and justice for all. It is a repudiation of all America has fought for and stood for, and is spit lobbed onto the graves of all those who died to defend her.

The Republican Party of Texas has decided that open homophobia in State government is preferable, and that they are to be arbiters of what is good and right in this nation, to which I say that I would prefer to declare war on one State in this nation, and take up arms against my fellow Americans, rather than to submit to the tyranny this platform would impose. Not normally prone to violence, I would gladly take up arms to defeat such blatant hatred, cloaked in the tattered fabric of "God and Country." There is no room in a nation of patriots and freedom-loving citizens for their ilk, and I, for one, refuse to countenance such backward and bigoted thinking.

No matter what your beliefs, no matter how you feel, no matter what convoluted and contentious view of the world you may hold, the freedom, liberty, and justice that is part of the fabric of this nation, is something to which each and every American citizen is entitled. You may wish no part of it, you may think them heathens or worse, you may decide to cling to words of your maker, but that gives you no right to deprive others of their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. To do so is tyranny, and a nation born of tyranny, that fought for independence from tyranny, has no business imposing it upon its citizens. Let it be known, that in the United States of America, such injudicious and unconscionable destruction of individual freedom and liberty shall not stand.

They Who Stand Against The Tide

Every decade, every century of America's existence has seen an inexorable crawl toward the clearer light, but not without strife, not without fear, and not without hatred. Slavery, women's rights, civil rights... to make strides in our quest for a united and free humanity, Americans have had to fight bare-knuckled against themselves, trying to expunge the worst parts of the human condition, literally stamping them out in some cases. Each fight seems bloodier than the last, even as the body counts grow smaller, maybe because the dead may lie in peace beneath the trees, but the damage to the American psyche never quite heals, never quite goes away.

With each stride forward, we have had to drag along the unwilling, who count themselves Americans, but do not want to share their freedom and liberty with others, as if the Founding Fathers and the Constitution have granted them exclusive rights that they could dole out as they saw fit. Whether from the barrel of a rifle or the marching feet of peaceful protest, those who would not come willingly have been carried onward, toward a future they abhor, where everyone is truly equal, where we are no longer White or Black or Jew or Christian or Muslim or Man or Woman, but Human, something we have been all along, even as some refused to admit it.

The new battle line is homosexuality. Forced to incorporate people from other races, women, members of other religions, the intolerant have drawn a wide line in the sand, and refuse to budge. They will not acknowledge that homosexuals are people, with rights, privileges, feelings, desires, and hopes. They will cling to the dogma that tells them that these people are "abominations" before their god. They will not yield, not budge, not give up an inch of ground. They will make their displeasure felt... short of actually admitting it in words.

Nowhere was this thrown into sharper relief, than in the actions of school administrators in Fulton, Mississippi, who would not allow a gay student, Constance McMillen, to go to her prom with her girlfriend. To that end, they canceled the prom, only to draw a court challenge, recently won by the ACLU. So, they said they would hold a prom after all, apparently acceding to the ruling of the court. Little did anyone know that they did not intend to let a little thing like the justice system of the United States stand in the way of their disgusting hatred. They held a "prom," which turned out to be a fake, while the real prom was held somewhere else, sans Constance and her date. To do such a thing -- besides being blatantly homophobic and bigoted -- required the tacit assistance of the community, both to create the fake prom and to hide the real one. In essence, it takes a village to raise children capable of perpetrating and participating in such a heinous act.

Their stubborn refusal to give ground subjects them to the inexorable grinding away caused by the winds of change and the waves of liberty. Not unlike the rocks that stand sentinel at the edge of the sea, they may stand there in their imposing posture, but each wave that crashes against them wears them down, just a little. The constant friction will wear down and grind away the monoliths of ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry. They may believe that in getting away with their ruse, they have won; let them wallow in their self-congratulation, then. All they have done is seal their fate.

They will be excoriated, and rightly so. America stands for freedom and liberty for all people, and though the Founders could not have made that clearer, subsequent action by this nation has defined that intent for all time. Each group that once was on the outside, now enfolded in the protections they always deserved, removes one more impediment to true freedom and unity for all, and marks such contemptible actions as those seen in Fulton, Mississippi, as even further outside the bounds of decency. They should not be hated, however, but pitied; they could accept the inevitable and become part of a greater thing, the breadth and life of humanity, but instead, they condemn themselves to the slow, tortuous, miserable death by their fear and ignorance, forever deprived of the riches that come from acceptance of their place as part of the milieu we call humanity. Like the dinosaurs, they, too, shall pass from the Earth, to haunt it no longer, relics and fossils that will be looked upon in future centuries as part of an incomprehensible past.

Fear And Loathing In Mississippi

It should come as no shock, when Mississippi becomes a battleground over civil rights. The death of Medgar Evers, of three civil rights works, shot in the back, show the determination of some to halt the course of freedom for all Americans. That the battle over black/white segregation was lost has not deterred some from diverting their energies into trying to enforce gay/straight segregation.

Fulton, Mississippi has now become a new battleground, which may not take on the stature of the events of Freedom Summer, but most certainly will have far-reaching implications, as a public school attempts to banish the "taint" of homosexuality in its halls by cancelling the prom, rather than allow a homosexual couple to attend.

Given the current climate in America, this should come as no surprise. Right-wing pundits harp on the talking points having to do with how the government is stripping Americans of their freedom and liberty, even as elements of American society seek to actually do this to those who have created no offense other than to be "different." These elements do not come right out and say the words, but their actions expose their bigotry in its totality. They know that to state their hatred of homosexuals would lead to their excoriation, but they are naive enough to think that merely taking such an action as cancelling a prom could not possibly arouse a nation.

For which they are fools.

Racism, sexism, ageism, bigotry... no matter what flag they are wrapped in or cloak that envelopes them, they are as plain as clouds in a clear blue sky, as obvious as the full Moon, and as poisonous as the worst snake or spider. These poxes on the body politic are unwanted reminders of the illness that still flows through our country's bloodstream; no amount of marching, rallying, protesting, or legislating has seen fit to expunge them from our society. Their odious, cancerous existence is mute testimony to the fact that not everyone can see reason or be enlightened.

And so, school administrators in Fulton, awash in the bitter swill that is local bigotry and ignorance, are punishing all the students in the high school, rather than take the chance that two rather harmless young ladies might attend together, simply because they prefer the company of their own gender to that of the opposite gender. In a way, this is the most important civics lesson these high school students can learn, for they can see the tyranny of stale ideas and dogma first-hand, unadulterated, constituted in the very adults they have been told to respect, people no doubt held up as pillars of their community. They were not here in the 60's, to see Mississippi burn, but now the drama can play out before them with new actors, in new ways, that might amplify the history of their state.

That it would take an outside agency -- either the courts, or perhaps a benefactor -- to put on a prom that all these children could attend is incomprehensible, though not as much as the mere fact that such a parochial attitude clings to life in the 21st Century. Are we so reticent, so set in our ways, so glacial in our thinking, that we the people, Americans, lovers of individual freedom and liberty, are going to stand for the continued existence of such things? Are we so removed from the shot and smoke of the Revolution, that we have forgotten that our fore-bearers died to give all Americans the chance to pursue life, liberty, and happiness?

In the end it will not be the government, but we the citizens, who shall decide this issue. If we do not care for intolerance and blind hatred and unwarranted fear, then we must stand up and say we will no longer tolerate these things. If we are truly to be a freedom-loving people, then we must free ourselves completely from our own self-imposed oppression, for silence only allows those who seek to restrain liberty more rope.