Coronavirus: more proof Black and poor communities are designed for racist death (and politicians don’t care enough)

ask your political leaders why they donʼt talk about ‘social determinants of health’ to see how much they care … I’ll start by heading off the near-inevitable “What about White people” pushback whenever someone else mentions a unique and more intense version of hell that Black and Brown folks are experiencing. Sure — coronavirus doesn’t […]

Democrat lawmakers agreed with Trump’s wall — 25 percent of the way

There’s a question I meant to raise a few weeks ago about the budget debate in Washington and President Trump’s Great Wall idea. “What would you prefer Congress to fund — $5 billion for border security or $5.7 billion for a border wall?” Yeah. That was a debate. In real life. Sure, I think paying […]

The emerging story of Jussie Smollett

I always tell you that my natural writing style is stream-of-consciousness — an approach I use for capturing my raw feelings about any topic. But that doesn’t mean I’ll write in the absence of cogent facts. You can pretty much figure that out by the number of sources I’ll cite in each post. A dose […]

Amazon’s pullout and New Yorker’s confusion about economic growth

My response — after laughing — when I heard Amazon is pulling out of that sweet deal to set up a second headquarters in New York City was short, but loaded with meaning. “Jeff Bezos must’ve thought he was playing with Independence, Iowa.” Or some other small town. But even those places are pushing back […]

Empty victory: young Black wrestler’s sacrifice

Reading Frantz Fanon or writers like him can make you easily relate to a dictum that seems to describe unequal societies: when you’re on the losing side, a “W” is an welcomed “W” — until you realize it’s not. I see this dictum in the angering story of Buena Regional High wrestler Andrew Johnson, a […]

Synagogue of blood and the warlock’s spell of hatred

The warlock’s latest spell — cast since June 16, 2015 — of manipulating hatred, paranoia, and economic exclusion, remains intact. This spell, like the others, can easily integrate with each other to present society with more complexity and danger. And extensibility. We saw evidence of this on November 11, 2016. We see additional proof today […]

Dallas police officer Amber Guyger — killer of Botham Shem Jean — may still retain God status after her arrest

Off-duty Dallas, Texas police officer Amber Guyger walks into civilian Botham Shem Jean‘s apartment last Thursday night — because she thought it was her residence — and then shoots Jean to death because she thought he was an intruder. The incident is another example of how cops are treated as God. Infallible. Uncorrupted. Not capable […]

When the beat stops dropping — marching after Trump

The synchronized goose-stepping to President Donald Trump’s White-America-First drumbeat seems highly familiar to many of you. And this is the point where most media analogies between Trumpism and Nazi Germany stop short. I want to go deeper and explore the policy and moral ramifications of Trumpism’s eventual end — and what will happen once the […]

They’re trying to downplay Ocasio-Cortez’ win this week — but we know better

While I thought the I’m-not-your-Liberal-donor-class flow of Congressperson-elect Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez was a refreshing breeze from the stale bullets spit by the ruling corporatist wing of the Party of No Guts, my crystal ball didn’t predict an Ocasio-Cortez primary victory over Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th Congressional district. However, I saw the seams bursting […]

A century of state-sponsored bananas, blood and bullets — facts that are missing from today’s immigration debate

I’ll preface my different angle of approach to the latest immigration episode concerning President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy by first addressing those of you who think droning children overseas, snatching them from parents at the U.S. border, physically abusing them, or injecting them with anti-psychotic meds without consent or proper diagnosis is symptomatic of a healthy […]