Commentary: THE 92% is tired of protesting when voting is more effective.
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
At the beginning of 2023 I wrote the opening of last year’s Black Kos with this story (diary) — Black Kos, New Year - Democracy and the Rule of Law On the Ballot and these words:
Black people more than any other group in American history (with the exception of Native Peoples) have seen what are the consequences of the denial of democratic rule and the rule of law. Through out most of our history in the New World this was our norm not the exception.
The US billed itself as a beacon freedom, liberty, and a government ruled by the will of it citizens. But from its founding in 1776 through two hundred years of slavery and then Jim Crow, the US denied some of it’s citizens the ability to exercise their fundamental rights.
When I see scenes like this:
My mind runs to the history of violence to deny the right to vote in our past. Scenes like this:
Black Americans have seen and felt the consequences of the use of mob violence to distort and destroy democracy. As a student of history I also am aware of the 50th anniversary rule. When an event happens the 50th anniversary marks the turning point where more people alive where were not alive during that event than were alive.
The generation that fought the dangers of fascism fades away, and younger generation lack the same revulsion to ideas they didn't witness the consequences of. The generation that witness the violence associated with denying people of color the right to vote, fades to a new generation that thinks mob rule is OK when you don’t like the results of an election.
Next on the line in the battle for the rule of law, are those who rule on the law. The most of our nation's history the courts have not been and ally to secure the rights of Black people. Recent Supreme Court decision dismantling reproductive rights, environmental protections, and affirmative action, has America reeling. The discussion revolve around the Roberts’ Court as “very conservative” or “right-wing”. These commentaries are written as if the Roberts court is a departure from the norms of American jurisprudence.
Many in Hollywood came of age during the Warren Court with the idea of the little guy going the court and challenge racial discrimination and winning being ingrained in American popular culture. But looking back at over 330 years of American jurisprudence would show the exact opposite. For most of American history the courts have been allies to black people and woman’s oppressors not a beacon of justice.
Well even with all of these consequences before their eye’s the American people took a different path and voted for man that embraces fascism. The rule of law was on the ballot on November 2023 and sadly the rule of law lost. That for better or worse is the consequences of living in a representative Democracy sometimes the wrong side wins.
But as the opening artwork shows one demographic in particular saw the danger of losing the rule of law, and voted accordingly. But as the resistance regroups and prepares to oppose the incoming Trump administration, one thing needs to be made clear, even the 92% can’t do it alone.
As Trump’s inauguration date approaches and the realization is starting to set in that his administration DOES in fact plan to target vulnerable groups and perceived enemies many activist from these groups have begone to fearfully search for allies. But the 92% WERE allies before the election, how much more heavy lifting can they expect? When 85% of Black voters overall voted against these policies how much blood can realistically be drawn from this stone? The 92% watching the world burn aren’t enjoying the seen they are resigned to fact because they knew they gave their best. Even 92% can’t do it alone.
Those angry or disturbed by this image need to ask where there ladies allies before this scene. These ladies are just tired of protesting when voting would’ve worked better. We are all tired of protesting when voting is more effective. I just don’t know how we can get people to understand this simple fact.
The next four years are going to be difficult, but unlike the first Trump term I’m much more interested in protecting allies. Unfortunately I’ve reached the sad conclusion that other than letting some people experiencing FAFO I don’t know what will wake this country up. Not a happy new year to the Black Kos family, but a new year none the less. We can’t win the next fight alone but we also need allies to be allies 100% of the time..
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Los Angeles County is engulfed in flames as a series of devastating wildfires rage from the coastline to the city’s heart. While the media often paints Los Angeles as a haven for celebrities and the wealthy, these fires have displaced thousands of working-class families, leaving many uncertain if they will have homes to return to.
Among the four active wildfires tearing through the region, the Palisades and Eaton fires have collectively scorched over 30,000 acres, destroying an estimated 10,000 structures. The Eaton fire, burning on the east side of the city near Pasadena, has completely obliterated a vital piece of Black history.
Altadena was more than a neighborhood; it was a beacon of opportunity. As California’s first middle-class Black community, Altadena thrived as a rare refuge exempt from redlining, offering Black families the chance to acquire land, build homes, and create generational wealth amid systemic oppression. During the Great Migration, the area became a sanctuary for Black Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South.
Over the decades, Altadena blossomed into a diverse suburb with a significant Black population, climbing from under 4% in 1960 to 31% in 2000. Black homeownership flourished, creating a foundation for economic empowerment that spanned generations. Now, in just 24 hours, relentless Santa Ana winds and roaring wildfires have reduced this historic land of opportunity to cinders.
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Presidents don’t just wield power directly; they set the mood for the country. It’s not uncommon for their grassroots base to flourish under their administration, as the far right did during Donald Trump’s first term in office.
It is less common, however, for that base to remain strong after defeat. But, defying the odds, the MAGA movement continued to flourish under Joe Biden. Now, with Trump returning to the White House, the far right grassroots is barreling into 2025 with plenty of momentum, while their leader both helps set their agenda while sustaining it by crowd-sourcing their conspiracies and lies for his own use.
The far right is currently animated by several themes, many of them interrelated. For several years, demonizing “DEI” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) frameworks—which focus on identities, racial and otherwise—was an obsession. But the far right has gradually replaced DEI with “woke,” a vaguer and broader idea which can refer to the vast majority of left-leaning positions and be applied to any number of hot button, culture war topics.
The backlash over gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights continues, with trans issues front-and-center. After Roe v Wade was struck down in 2022, attacks on abortion rights increased. And when Trump was reelected, the slogan “Your Body, My Choice” spread like wildfire after being embraced by far right leaders like Nick Fuentes.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric has also increased, particularly as Trump has promised to deport tens of millions. His racist vilification of immigrants was epitomized by his embrace of unfounded rumors that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio—who were, for what it’s worth, legal residents—were stealing and eating pets.
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Until Jimmy Carter's presidency, U.S. leaders had shown little interest in Africa, even as independence movements swept the region in the 1960s and '70s. The Grio: ‘Our country ignored Africa,’ Jimmy Carter said. He didn’t
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Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to make a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa. He once called helping with Zimbabwe’s transition from white rule to independence “our greatest single success.” And when he died at 100, his foundation’s work in rural Africa had nearly fulfilled his quest to eliminate a disease that afflicted millions, for the first time since the eradication of smallpox.
The African continent, a booming region with a population rivaling China’s that is set to double by 2050, is where Carter’s legacy remains most evident. Until his presidency, U.S. leaders had shown little interest in Africa, even as independence movements swept the region in the 1960s and ’70s.
“I think the day of the so-called ugly American is over,” Carter said during his warm 1978 reception in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. He said the official state visit swept aside “past aloofness by the United States,” and he joked that he and Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo would go into peanut farming together.
Cold War tensions drew Carter’s attention to the continent as the U.S. and Soviet Union competed for influence. But Carter also drew on the missionary traditions of his Baptist faith and the racial injustice he witnessed in his homeland in the U.S. South.
“For too long our country ignored Africa,” Carter told the Democratic National Committee in his first year as president.
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Intense negotiations in the past six months to end decades of chaos and bloodshed in eastern Congo collapsed in mid-December, when at the last minute Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, refused to endorse a new deal. He had been expected to shake hands on it with Congo’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, in Luanda, capital of Angola, whose president, João Lourenço, has been entrusted by the African Union (au) with the task of mediation. The upshot is that a Rwandan-supported rebel group known as m23, as well as an array of lesser guerrilla outfits, will continue to immiserate eastern Congo’s people. At least a million of them in the North Kivu district have fled since a resurgence of fighting in recent years (see map).
The m23 is a well-armed group named after the date of a long-abandoned peace deal signed on March 23rd 2009. It is led by Congolese Tutsi officers. Sharing the same ethnicity as Mr Kagame, they hark back to their families’ flight from the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, when at least half a million people, most of them Tutsis, were murdered by the regime that then governed the country. The group gets arms from Rwanda and some help from Uganda. It is supported by 3,000-4,000 Rwandan troops, though Mr Kagame has never openly admitted this in the face of numerous reports, including those issued by the un and America’s State Department.
Congo’s government began in earnest to pursue a dialogue a year ago, after repeatedly failing to defeat m23 by force of arms. The m23 rebels and their Rwandan allies continue to surround the city of Goma, the region’s hub, and have recently captured swathes of North Kivu. In April m23 conquered Rubaya, which hosts tantalum mines that are said to account for a good 15% of the world’s supply of a mineral used in smartphones; its sales fill the group’s coffers.
Congo’s regular army, which is riddled with corruption, has been no match for m23, though it is propped up by a ragtag bunch of local militias known as Wazalendo, a Swahili word meaning “patriots”.
In the past year international pressure to end the fighting has grown. In July 2024 America brokered a humanitarian truce which widened in August into a general ceasefire declared by Angola, the au’s mediator. The ceasefire has been endlessly broken but Congo’s government has continued to argue that it must be upheld.
As clashes persisted, Congolese and Rwandan spy chiefs hammered out a plan to defuse the conflict. The government in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, agreed to eradicate the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (fdlr), a militia active in eastern Congo whose original leaders included Rwandan army officers of the majority Hutu ethnicity responsible for the genocide of 1994. Rwanda considers the continued existence of the fdlr an existential threat. In return, Mr Kagame is said to have promised to withdraw from North Kivu the Rwandan troops who have been helping m23, despite his previous denials that they were there at all.
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Synthetic hair is made from special types of plastic fibers. These fibers can look and feel like real hair, but they are actually made from manufactured chemical materials... basically plastic. Some common materials used in synthetic hair include modacrylic, vinyl chloride, and acrylonitrile. Many of the fibers that are used are put into a copolymer that is largely stable unless disrupted by a process… and what we know right now is that heat is a culprit.
The synthetic hair is also treated with additional chemicals to make it useable, tangle free, shiny, etc. And what we may learn in the coming months and years is that while these materials help create beautiful hairstyles, they may also be harmful to our health, even if they’re simply just worn for long periods of time. And, if you’re a Black woman, you know that synthetic braiding hair has been a staple in our community for decades and has served as a protective style for many of us who want to tuck away our delicate hair for a while or just change up our style.
Synthetic hair products can emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when heated. A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene found that these VOCs can be toxic and may contribute to respiratory issues and other health problems. The heating process, often used during styling, can exacerbate the release of these harmful compounds, further increasing the risk for users.
The use of synthetic hair products is deeply rooted in cultural practices and personal expression. For many Black women, hair braiding and styling are not just beauty practices; they are cultural traditions that carry deep significance. However, the potential health risks associated with these products cannot be ignored. In Nigeria, for instance, a study highlighted the potential hazards linked to wearing synthetic hair, including allergic reactions and long-term health effects.
But there is so much that we don’t know. Keep reading.
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
