It’s that time again! But, I can’t turn the page on 2020 until several crucial questions are answered:

Dec 30, 3030 What lessons were learned from 2020? Trump, the pandemic, and George Floyd defined the year, overlapping and changing America and our lives and impacting our future. Trump is packing his bags (we hope), although the sour taste he forced down our throats will linger on. Hopefully, we can say the same about […] The post It’s that time again! But, I can’t turn the page on 2020 until several crucial questions are answered: appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.

It’s that time again!  But, I can’t turn the page on 2020 until several crucial questions are answered:

Dec 30, 3030

What lessons were learned from 2020? Trump, the pandemic, and George Floyd defined the year, overlapping and changing America and our lives and impacting our future.

Trump is packing his bags (we hope), although the sour taste he forced down our throats will linger on.

Hopefully, we can say the same about the pandemic.

That, however, may depend on how many people take the vaccine.  Medical experts believe there must be a 75% saturation to arrest the disease.  Is that possible?

Floyd’s video murder by a Minneapolis ‘slave chaser’ (that’s a cop for those non-POC’s who aren’t culturally attuned…like the Boogaloo Boys) sparked a national crusade for justice and racial harmony.

But we would be naïve to believe the walls of apartheid were torn down by the demonstrators’ goodwill and moral integrity.  We’re foolish if we think the cancer of systemic racism can be cured by anything less than an exorcism.

Some believe the demonstrations morphed into a political movement fixated on national politics and the eventual election of Joe Biden instead of overhauling local governments where real decisions and policies are made and carried out. And, as the old saying goes, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

 

If you had invested a few dollars into the Asian hair industry—specifically weaves and wigs—would you need a stimulus check?

I can’t get the image out of my mind of looters running out of an Asian beauty supply store during the rioting over Floyd’s murder, their arms holding weaves and wigs.  Are sisters so obsessed with looking European that they are willing to go to jail?

 

Some say we should take an empty suitcase into 2021 versus one filled to the brim with the weight of centuries of oppression, betrayals, and nightmares?

Would it benefit us to struggle with the heavyweight of the past, or would it be better to start anew?

Or is it a burden?

Instead, maybe we should view the suitcase as being filled with lessons learned, a foundation built on the stones of his-story, a paradigm that has prepared us for the future.

The weight of history helped build muscles that we can use to tear down the walls of apartheid, ignorance, and cultural dysfunction.

Remember, our ancestors left us with the Sankofa bird’s symbol to remind us to always look back as we move forward.

 

 

 

Read a post from the TMI Project that asked, ‘Am I Black enough?’  The question was posed by a bi-racial brother who had signed up for a Black Stories Matter storytelling workshop.

Black enough?

Was Barack Obama Black Enough?

Is Blackness a color or a concept?

 

What does it say that more African American men are in prison today than were in slavery in 1850?

Obviously, you have to put that narrative into perspective, particularly as it relates to the two period’s respective population sizes and the role of institutional racism.  Even if that analysis is incorrect (as is the posit that there are more of our men in prison than in college), it is indisputable that Wisconsin has one of the largest Black incarceration rates in the northern hemisphere.

And if that’s the case, what are our Black state lawmakers and our ‘progressive’ governor doing about it?

 

Speaking of Black political silence on crucial issues of import to our tribe, a strong case can be made that few of our agenda items are being addressed at the city, county, and school board levels.  Why?

 

When I asked former Mayor Marvin Pratt about that reality, he raised two possibilities around criminal justice—crime.

Many Black lawmakers aren’t speaking up because they don’t have solutions or believe in potent remedies they are hesitant to mention for fear of being cast as ‘conservative.’

He’s right on that point.  Most solutions will require giving up some of our civil liberties.  Are you willing to give up rights to feel safer?

 

Does it bother you that illegal immigrants without a social security number will not receive a stimulus check?

 

I thought it was a mistype.  But there is a new reality show called ‘Dr. Pimple Popper.’  And it’s actually about a serious physician that pops ugly pimples.

Have we sunk that low?

Maybe they should combine that show with the (soon to mercifully end) Kardashian show and call it ‘Popping bootie pimples.’

Oops, sorry, their pimples are surgery-induced.  Guess they wouldn’t qualify.

 

If it’s true there is a perfect mate for you somewhere on this planet of four billion people, what are the odds of you finding and developing a relationship with him or her? And since it seems improbable that you will ever meet that person, much less establish a connection, does that mean you settled for someone halfway through your journey?

 

It seems like every other product offering on late-night television will double your order if you pay a second S&H charge.  But what if you don’t need a second tomatoe slicer or pancake maker?  Why can’t they just cut the price in half and give you the one you’ll probably stick in the back of the cabinet and forget about anyway?

 

A new television series with a Black Batwoman?  Makes sense to me.

 

What goes up must come down doesn’t apply to taxes.  And if you don’t believe me, answer this question:  how are the federal, state, and local governments going to pay for the stimulus packages and deficits?

I expect Biden and local leaders to institute ‘temporary’ taxes to fill the deficit gaps.  Temporary?  Yeah, right!

 

Heard a guest on the Karen Hunter satellite radio show provide a plausible theory on how Whites will maneuver to maintain their status as the largest racial group in America:  Expand the concept of whiteness.

As a guest on her show explained, when Italians originally arrived in America, they weren’t considered ‘white.’  But they were eventually included to increase majority control.

Now that whites will be in the minority in the next 50 years or so, a similar strategy will be employed.

African Latinos are already making the shift, and soon that ‘privileged status’ will be bestowed upon Asians, Native Americans, and Third World Indians.

 

 

Will Republican Trump trolls ever acknowledge the civil war is over?  Or are they planning a new one?

 

Can we assume that Santa had the virus this year, which explains why so many of his ‘helpers’ were trying to fill the void?  Then again, maybe it was Jolly Old St. Nick who spread the virus while entering people’s homes last year.  I think we should pull a ‘Trump’ and ban him from American shores.

(more next week.)

The post It’s that time again! But, I can’t turn the page on 2020 until several crucial questions are answered: appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.