Browsing: Opinions

     As a girl growing up in Live Oak in the 1980s, I have vivid memories of May Day celebrations. It was the one occasion when there was a multigenerational community celebration that wasn’t necessarily connected to a church. We would gather at the site of the local middle school, which had historically been the segregated Douglass High School. There would be good food–barbeque, lemonade, and all of our favorite cakes. There would be games–baseball, sack racks, and other competitions. Most of all, there was joy.

     That fire has taken up residence in my body; it has occasion to visit me often and knows each nook and cranny. And since May 1, when Jordan, a Michael Jackson impersonator and unhoused man complaining of thirst and hunger on the New York City subway, was choked to death by a white former marine, the fire has stayed.

    America’s path towards becoming the most powerful country in the world has undergone a Revolutionary War, Civil War, two World Wars, countless lesser wars, and the  infamous January 6, 2021, unsuccessful insurrection. Despite the devastating impact of each of these events on this Nation, the two that have and continue to represent America’s  greatest mortal enemies are a divided government and its people.

     The practice of Black self-hate and racial hatred was promoted during slavery days. The Willie Lynch theory of dividing Black people and turning the light-skinned slaves against the dark-skinned and the house N-words against the field N-words has endured and impacted our communities to this very day.

     A May 10, 2023 article titled, Housing on the way for Georgia’s largest veteran population, by Channel 12 news reporter Craig Allison offered a solution for Augusta, Georgia’s homeless veterans. But it raises the question, in 2023 why is there still not enough housing for America’s military heroes?

     It’s a monumental step in a fight I’ve been part of for more than a decade, since we launched the NAACP’s climate justice program and reported on the disproportionate harm to Black communities from coal-fired power plants.

     Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) play an essential role in the education of Black students in America. HBCUs open the path to higher education for Black students who did not have an opportunity, because Blacks were barred from a higher education.

      In the TV version of what went on in Dodge City, gunslingers, and lawbreakers were told to “get out of Dodge”.

     Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has willingly allowed his unethical behavior to cast himself as a Black  man beguiled by a billionaire white man. Justice Thomas is now reminiscent   of the Uncle Tom character angry 18th Century racists whites chose to mis-characterized in  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bestselling novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

In one of the most-controversial education issues of the 2023 legislative session, the Florida Senate on Wednesday passed a measure that would expand last year’s “Parental Rights in Education” law — known to critics as “don’t say gay.”