Activism

5/13/21  The House passed HR 1280 he George Floyd Justice  in Policing Act of 2021.  We must press the US Senate to do the same.   And we must pass HR.1- the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.  Jim Crow, 2.0 is happening in plain sight.  A democracy expands the franchise and an autocracy inspired by white supremacists retract the franchise.  We must life up our voices and protect our precious rights to vote.  It is the only way our government will make progress for all people.

7/2/21

The systematic disenfranchisement of people of color is happening all across this country and the supreme court has laid out a red carpet for the assault on our community.  We must continue to press for voting rights, police and gun reform.  What is the value of black and brown and poor peoples lives?  The white power structure is doing all it can to retain and consolidate their power.  We are in the battle of our lives.

9/17/21

I was moving into my new home and an older white woman who used to live in the community many years prior happened to be in the area hoping to take a look at her former residence or a similar apartment.  She spotted our movers and  moving truck on our street, approached the man in charge of the move (a white man) and asked him if she could see the apartment because it was adjacent to the one she used to live in many years ago.  He said, yes she could without consulting me,   BLACK LIVES MATTER.  Rather, he told me that he told the woman she could come to the house to look at it.  I immediately informed him that he had no business telling a stranger that she could come into my home.  His sense of entitlement to that decision really angered me.  Then I pivoted to the door and caught the unmasked woman who was about to open my screen door and enter my home.  I said, whoaaa, excuse me, can you please back up away from the door.  She said, oh, are you helping to clean the house, the owner said I could come in and look at the apartment.  I lived next door and I wanted to see what the place was like now.  I said, excuse me Miss, but that was the man I hired to move me and my wife into this home.  I am not the cleaning lady and you can not come into my home.   Perhaps someone else can accommodate you, this isn't the time for it today.  She then said, well I can see that they did some different things with the fireplace (she could see from the screen door) and that's all I wanted to see.  And then she turned around and went down the stairs.  BLACK LIVES MATTER.

5/12/22

It has been a while. I put my head to the grindstone in and around of all things medical to finally publish: Inherited Wisdom: Drawing on the Lessons of Formerly Enslaved Ancestors to Lift Up Black Youth..  You can order it on the books page. This book, completed with my partner Dr. Deborah Brooks Lawrence and mentored by Dr. Steve Burghardt has been a long overdue. The book is a homage to the sanctity of black lives, especially youth.

3-8-23

Black folks, black culture, black history, black studies continue to be under assault in the new trumpian amerikkka.  We must remain diligent and vigilant and stand up against racial oppression. We must also be allies with other targeted groups, especially LGBTQ people.