My letter to Michael Bennet on this MLK Day

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Monday January 15, 2018 · 11:56 AM PST

2018/01/15 · 11:56

bloomberg-michael-bennet*750xx3000-1691-0-0.jpg

Dear Senator Bennet,

On Meet the Press you recently commented that you were raised not to call people racist because once they had been called racist it would harden their hearts.

Let me tell you how I was raised. Before moving to Colorado I grew up in the red clay of south Georgia in the city of Albany, GA. Its motto was and is “The Good Life City” but life there was not and still is not good for so many black people. The city was the scene of the Albany Campaign during the Civil Rights struggle.

In early 1961 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organized a campaign against all forms of segregation in the city. By the end of 1961 Martin Luther King, Jr. became involved. By early 1962 the campaign had failed to achieve any significant desegregation and King left Albany with valuable lessons that would aid him and the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham and Selma. As such, it was a pivotal moment in the struggle against desegregation.

I attended Mock Road Elementary School until sixth grade where I was, as the sociologists say, a majority-minority student. After which I moved to the county north of Albany; Lee County. Despite what I am about to tell you the county is not named for Robert E. Lee.

Lee County’s school system was and still is the refuge of white children from the black filled classrooms in Albany. Every year on this date, on the holiday to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., a group of kids would sneak on to the school grounds and hang a large Confederate battle flag from the school’s water tower to greet students returning on Tuesday. At the small Baptist church I attended less than a mile from my house the deacons would occasionally tell the remarkable story of one solitary black man attending and how they grappled with handling it. I still remember being 10 or 11 and riding the church bus to a water park when one of the older kids started handing out KKK pamphlets. In the 1990s when I grew up there the community was still effectively segregated and remains so to this day.

There are two facts that were never spoken about in school. The first was the Albany Campaign. Despite happening less than 20 miles from the segregated school doors of the middle and high school I attended no one explained that on the same streets we drove to the movie theatre on history had been made in the struggle against racism, segregation, and hate.

The second fact that dare not be spoken was that the county line had been repurposed in the 1960s as a tool of segregation much as it has been in so many cities in America. You see the residents believed that their school system, a school system designated as a “system of excellence” by the state, was not segregated. It offered a better education to its children because the parents in Lee County cared more, they weren’t lazy, fathers weren’t absent in Lee County. The residents did not think their schools were better because white wealth and social capital segregated itself from the black population and no one dared tell them differently.

These are just two of the facts of my youth that were never spoken of, knowledge I had to find for myself in my 20s and 30s. How long could such a system last if spoken about plainly? How fearful are the white leaders in that community of the plain-spoken truth? The plain-spoken truth to racism is the first rumbling of a cave-in when you’re deep in the mine of hatred and bigotry. I know their fear of it. I have seen it. There would be much gnashing of teeth were they to read what I have written here.

As to your theory that it is hard for a racist to be rehabilitated once they’ve been called a racist I say that progress is never made with euphemisms but with hard and factual examinations of the truth. Our President today is a white supremacist. He is a racist. To deny this is to deny the truth, it is to deny the light of the truth.

Dr. King will be quoted a lot today by people who will mostly forget him tomorrow but allow me a quote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.” In these dark times we can afford nothing less than the love-filled light of truth.

I bought a security blanket today. You should too.

TheChop

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Friday November 20, 2015 · 10:46 AM PST

2015/11/20 · 10:46

My baby blanket was green with quilted patches of white squares decorated with frogs. It mostly resided on my bed but I did carry it with me if I ever had to sleep somewhere else. If we went up the road to Granny’s house I had it with me. At some point the blanket was usurped by a yellow Care Bear that I really did carry with me everywhere. In fact, when my brother and I decided to stake out the living room to see if Santa really existed or not, I got us busted by mom because I left Care Bear behind the couch when I went to pee.

As children we often have these talismans of security. They are familiar, comfortable and comforting, and they are very necessary when you are six years old and afraid.

However, the Constitution mandates that you have to be 25 years old to serve in the House of Representatives and the average age of the House of Representatives is 57. These are people that should not need security blankets but apparently they do because yesterday 289 were so scared of orphans, families, and people fleeing a hell hole that they voted for the SAFE Act.

Sadly we’ve all come to expect this kind of reactionary nonsense from the Tea Party controlled House over the years. They seem afraid of black people, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, the UN, nurses with ebola, and really a list so long that if I were to try to even be decently comprehensive it would take up the entire rest of my day, this diary, and your patience.

There are only 234 Republicans in the House which means that 47 Democrats voted, for this fear baiting nonsense. Here is the list of Democrats that voted for the bill courtesy of Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees. (User names must be getting scarce.)

That diary ends with a great sentiment. These people must be shamed.

So I fired off a little Facebook quip to Rep. Polis (CO-2) last night. I’m a pragmatist. I can understand that this might be an issue a Democrat in a right leaning district might support but the guy who is based out of Boulder? Are you kidding me?

Three sentences on Facebook is nothing though. So when I woke up this morning here is what I did and what I want you to do as well. I got on a widely known commerce site, selected a blanket, and shipped it to Polis’ Boulder office with a note attached calling him out for the vote. Send these Democrats a security blanket so that maybe next time they think of running scared from five year-old orphans they’ll have some spine.

Since Representatives make $174,000 a year I doubt they need these blankets. I hope the blanket that will arrive Monday morning at Polis’ headquarters in Boulder will be donated to Syrian refugees. Currently there is a coat and blanket drive run by Embrace Relief going on in the Washington, DC area. He can also choose to donate it to one of the Denver area charities that serve our growing homeless population.

I understand that donating physical goods isn’t the most efficient and effective way to help those in need. However, I also understand that casting a vote that legitimizes fear-mongering is a very powerful way to hurt the refugees. If we can stop Democrats in Congress from pouring gasoline on the fire of ignorance and hate then we should do it.

Harry Reid has already stated that this won’t come up for a vote in the Senate. However, if it plays well with the voters there is no telling what the Senate will do. Make sure that they know it won’t play well. Make sure that Senators know their office will be inundated with bulky and difficult to store blankets if they want to give the GOP fear mongers a helping hand.

Apply pressure. Agitate. Argyle or fleece!

Here are the cowards. I’ll add addresses as I find them. If anyone wants to help me look up the addresses it would be helpful.

Pete Aguilar (CA-31)

685 E. Carnegie Dr. Suite 100

San Bernardino, CA 92408

Brad Ashford (NE-02)

7126 Pacific Street

Omaha, NE 68106

Ami Bera (CA-07)

8950 Cal Center Drive

Building 3, Suite 100

Sacramento, CA 95826

Sanford Bishop (GA-02)

235 West Roosevelt Avenue

Albany Towers, Suite 114

Albany, GA 31701

Julia Brownley (CA-26)

300 E. Esplanade Drive, Suite 470

Oxnard, CA 93036

Cheri Bustos (IL-17)

3100 N. Knoxville Ave. Suite 205
Peoria, IL 61603

John Carney (DE-AL)

233 N King Street, Suite 200
Wilmington, DE 19801

Gerry Connolly (VA-11)

Jim Cooper (TN-05)

Jim Costa (CA-16)

Joe Courtney (CT-02)

Henry Cuellar (TX-28)

John Delaney (MD-06)

Lloyd Doggett (TX-35)

Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02)

John Garamendi (CA-03)

Gwen Graham (FL-02)

Gene Green (TX-29)

Janice Hahn (CA-44)

Jim Himes (CT-04)

Steve Israel (NY-03)

Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)

Bill Keating (MA-09)

Ron Kind (WI-03)

Annie Kuster (NH-02)

Jim Langevin (RI-02)

Dan Lipinski (IL-03)

Dave Loebsack (IA-02)

Stephen Lynch (MA-08)

Sean Maloney (NY-18)

Patrick Murphy (FL-18)

Rick Nolan (MN-08)

Donald Norcross (NJ-01)

Scott Peters (CA-52)

Collin Peterson (MN-07)

Jared Polis (CO-02)

1644 Walnut St.

Boulder, CO 80302

Kathleen Rice (NY-04)

Raul Ruiz (CA-36)

Tim Ryan (OH-13)

Kurt Schrader (OR-05)

David Scott (GA-13)

Terri Sewell (AL-07)

Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)

Louise Slaughter (NY-25)

Marc Veasey (TX-33)

Filemon Vela (TX-34)

Tim Walz (MN-01)

Thanks for reading!

Stop Laughing. Stop Being Ignorant. Voter Intimidation is serious.

TheChop

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Tuesday November 04, 2008 · 12:33 PM PST

2008/11/04 · 12:33

I've just read two diaries about two New Black Panther Party members standing in front of polls. One of the members has a billy club and was subsequently asked to leave by Philadelphia's finest.

To understand this I'm going to say this upfront: the Black Panthers are no more. A group of black supremacist is now operating under that name as the New Black Panther Party. The New Black Panther Party is responsible here.

I write this diary because there's two very important parts of this story and we have to understand it to react to it and there is a whole mess of ignorance on Daily Kos about it and it makes me angry because I've had a very personal and scary experience with the New Black Panther Party and to see this community defend or brush this off sickens me.

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