DoctorB's Social Ethics Blog

The celerity or alacrity with which Governor Terry Branstad rescinded former Governor Chet Culver’s restoration of voting rights for felons on his inaugural day, demonstrates both fear and animus on the part of the new Governor and his henchmen, namely Secretary of State Albrecht, that defy levelheaded rationality.  The adverse racial impact of this rescission is unconscionable—given that Iowa is the top state that disproportionately incarcerates African-Americans and that a quarter of the felons in the state are African-American!  Based on these facts alone, the action by Branstad is racist and, thereby, unconstitutional.

Of course, racial discrimination’s burden of proof is made so deliberately insurmountable, that it is ostensibly ridiculous even to make the effort.  Perhaps, something can be said about the speed of his action that calls into question his intentions; however, racial discrimination does not singularly point to a person, but, rather, to structures, processes, and policies that have racially disparate effects.  In other words, whether or not Branstad is a racist is beside the point; what matters is whether the disproportionate number of ex-felons who will not be able to vote is against the state’s compelling interests with regard to race.  The racial impact of his rescissory action is clearly egregious and the style likewise malevolent, but in the final analysis, opponents will have to hang their hat, so to speak, on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

When a citizen is unable to vote, especially one who is a member of an underrepresented category of people, that person is denied equal protection, fairness, and equity under the law—which breaches the Fourteenth Amendment.  Because one has committed a felony should not mean that person should lose any citizenship rights.  A criminal act has little to do with civil liberties and even less to do with suffrage.  The withdrawal of the franchise is a deliberate attempt to wield more power by allowing persons characterized as evil to be further humiliated and treated as less than human beings.  No one should be allowed to forfeit the right to vote regardless of the heinousness of the crime committed, for it removes another protection from a full-fledged citizen of the United States.  It flies in the face of the letter and spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the denial of the vote from anyone who is a citizen, with special reference to race, color, or previous condition of servitude.  Clearly, the denial to ex-felons in Iowa violates this law, for a disproportion of ex-felons is African American!  In addition, the stricture that one can only petition for the return of the franchise after all fines and penalties are paid amounts to levying a kind of poll tax upon those who are financially strapped already.  Certainly, anything like a poll tax is verboten according to this amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In terms of its racial dimensions, the forfeiture of the ballot for felons and ex-felons disallows them a very significant ally in the battle against further dehumanization.  Felons can hardly obtain gainful employment and a decent place to live because they are permanently stigmatized.  Denying the right to vote adds insult to injury and relegates them to second class citizenship reminiscent of the early three-fifths rule and the infamous Dred Scott decision.  Fortunately, well-meaning people over the past century and a half have recognized the folly of such policies and procedures.  Notwithstanding this realization, we find ourselves still battling against the unspeakable elephant in the room, namely racism.

I call upon all people of good will who enjoy representative democracy openly and in unison to demand Branstad reverse his racially tendentious rescission with all deliberate speed!

Since my adolescent years, I have undergone persistent criticism over my obvious stronger affinity towards Dr. King than towards Minister Malcolm.  Those intermittent attacks upon my intelligence and character, I deemed to derive from impassioned ignorance more than anything else.  Sadly, the supporters of Malcolm were most often completely bereft of knowledge about King, save for the ubiquitous “I Have a Dream” mantra that media brokers, political pundits, civic leaders, and the hoi polloi could barely stomach.  No one seemed to want to hear about the nonviolent warrior who fought against avariciousness and rugged individualism, jumboism, ghettoization, unsafe working conditions, underemployment, the military draft, escalation of the war in Vietnam, and poverty, in addition to racism.  King was no pipe dreamer, as many would claim made the Nobel Peace Prize recondite; rather, King was an enlightened patriot and internationalist who ardently sought after the beloved community.

The above notwithstanding, I want to clear up a few things that have been in discussions of Malcolm and Martin since the mid-1960s.  The point of contention centers around what would have happened if they ever met.  This question is not a moot point, for it is and should be a matter of the historical record.  Herein, I make it plain.

King and X met publicly in Washington, D.C., on March 26, 1964.  The occasion was to listen in on a congressional debate over the Civil Rights Bill.  Many claim that this encounter was the only time the two have set eyes upon each other and physically shook hands.  This point of view is highly suspect, for many go on to say that this meeting was the only time they communicated with each other in their entire lives.  Such is simply not the case!

Malcolm and Martin communicated with each other as early as the late 1950’s.  In this regard, many scholars attest that they never spoke on the phone or wrote a letter and sent it to each other ever.  Clearly, assertions like these are completely untrue.  Malcolm and Martin did speak on the phone more than once, and correspondence between the two took place with and without an intervening person.  A number of these interactions occurred prior to the beginning of extensive wire tapping of both parties.  Consequently, there are no records of how they interfaced prior to the middle of the Kennedy administration.

Both men were warm and personable individuals.  Although Malcolm was wolnt openly to criticize King during public addresses, whereas King always refused to do so, they clearly had immense respect for each other.  After Malcolm left the nation of Islam, he was ever more amenable to reaching out to his non violent brother.  As a matter of fact, Malcolm himself was primarily non violent in private, while in the political arena he shouted invective about self defense and confrontation that kept the media spinning scary tales of proposed violence against whites and against law enforcement officers.  And the beat of lies drums on!

During the early stages of the Selma campaign Malcolm chatted with Coretta more than once, and left messages for Martin with her.  The ease with which Malcolm and Coretta spoke reveals an intimacy between her husband and Malcolm that could only have been developed through direct contact.  It is in shame that we cannot fully recover dates, times, and locations of these exchanges!

What must be stated herein is the stark reality of their lives.  They were both assassinated during the very prime of their lives.  We will never know nor should we ever speculate, what would have happened had they lived.  However, it is clear that the divide that separated their rhetoric was appreciably closing as the battle for full human rights continued to be waged.

In my opinion, it is incumbent upon us to continue that struggle until victory is won!

It is a principle of community that each watch out for the other as much as possible—for reasons of safety, childrearing, role modeling, and stability.  Oftentimes, people do not want to get involved in the neighborhood, for a focus on community seems to take away from individual concern and prosperity.  Because of this tradition of self-centeredness and a combination of anthropophobia (i.e., fear of people) and soteriophobia (fear of dependence on others), the notion of sacrifice for the betterment of neighborhoods and the overall community has been anathema in American traditions in social relations.

Hence, it is no wonder that many people are up in arms that people are required to purchase health insurance, even when they are not sick or have not had any serious ailment.  The major individualistic strand in the United States condemns any governmental mandate—alleging that it interferes with human freedom and the right to decide what to do with hard-earned income.  Usually, there is little, if any, consideration about how their participation, or sacrifice, might help others challenged by existential circumstances.  Those who can easily afford buying health insurance ruthlessly chime in, in opposition to mandate because they are hesitant to support any measure that goes against their frequently rudimentary and erroneous understanding of old-time laissez-faire capitalism and communism.  Forcing people to buy into some plan, thought privately run, raises, to them, the specter of socialized medicine, Western society’s perennial nemesis.

When I was in professional school, pursuing a post-baccalaureate in religious and theological studies, I encountered a colleague who argued that the bible commands us to take care of ourselves and not to lift our hands and voices on behalf of the needy.  I was both alarmed and appalled, and I genuinely wondered whether I was missing a few pages in my copy of the scriptures or had gotten my hands on an underground, subversive copy somehow!  One of the most ubiquitous messages and lessons in the bible is to care for the exploited, marginalized, and oppressed.

By buying into health insurance, the healthy help to drive down the escalating costs of health care and enable those otherwise uninsurable to obtain minimal coverage.  Just as we are required to pay taxes on our earnings to subsidize, for example, the military-industrial complex and rarely make any bones about it, we should likewise refuse to rankle over reducing the costs of medical care through buying into health insurance.

Why would anyone with a modicum of decency allow one’s nebulous comprehension of rights and freedoms to trump the receipt of healthcare services to those currently unable to acquire them?  Private insurers are looking for the bottom line: money and profits.  They do not care whether a person receives insurance, for anyone denied is quickly replaced by another who’s picked up.  The cruelty of the market economy is clearly discerned, and the only way to curb its inertial juggernaut is through radical intervention by the public and governmental sectors.

I am not a doomsday theorist.  However, it is incumbent upon me to say that the United States cannot continue to survive without changing its economic structure’s reliance on free enterprise market capitalism.  For this system disproportionately makes paupers and exculpates imperviousness to the needs of others.  An economic approach that works first to ensure fundamental and existential needs are met for everyone, including access to quality health care, would undergird our democratic republic and launch new vistas of opportunity.  It would also help us to be perceived better in the world and become a harbinger of efforts for global peace.

Finally, we could become a nation that not only pays lip service to human rights, but also transforms itself from a sad tradition of rugged, dispassionate individualism to the fulfillment of the beloved community and a society of the best possible.

Extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest in the United States was an unnecessary concession of the Obama Administration, which is concluding a very disappointing second year in the executive office.  These acquiescences on the part of Pres. Obama to the minority party in the two houses of the legislature are poor examples of his campaign promise to begin a new era in the nation’s capital.  Being a centrist is nothing new, for Obama has a perfect model in the former president who recently visited with him in the Oval Office, namely William Jefferson Clinton.  Universal health care has yet to be realized, and the end to the economic recession is nowhere in sight for the middle and lower classes—not to mention the persistent underclass, for which the current administration seems to have little, if any, regard.

What is the point of allowing the rich not to pay taxes on income that they receive for doing very little, while their workers are being laid off or are making wages that are morally unconscionable in comparison?  Who benefits from these tax breaks besides the individuals receiving them?  History and common sense show that they do not redound to the favor of the middle and lower classes, not to mention job creation and the general economy.  There is no trickle down reality that we are missing here, for it never has and does not exist.  Just because a person repeats the lame idea does not make it healthy; the theory was invalid from its propagandistic inception!

Charity is always a good thing, and as many people should engage in it that can afford to make the sacrifice.  There are some who can give much more than others’ proportional giving, for they have way more materially than they and their family need or could spend.  So, it comes as no surprise that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and an assortment of multi-billionaires and multi-millionaires have pledged philanthropic donations—as if they are going beyond the call of moral duty to give money they have earned because of cheap labor, tax incentives, subsidies, and the floor of capitalism that inevitably create and divide folks into economic classes.  The bottom line is that their largesse will not change a system that produces paupers out of necessity.

Charitable donations are not intended to reform, transform, or revolutionize structures, processes, and policies that discriminate against the middle, working, and lower classes and the poor.  In order to improve the life chances of the masses of people who work every day, but cannot easily make ends meet, the market economy on which this country relies has to be seriously changed.  This movement towards change may seem as an insuperable challenge, but there is very little alternative to stem the unethical sequestration of the haves and the have-nots.  Radical change in our economic structure is not a new idea in theory, but it is very fresh as an action agenda.

What is really at stake is what type of society makes for fairness, equity, and the satisfaction of basic physical and existential needs.  It is absurd to think that some inhuman economic forces should be relied upon instead of human intervention to construct our society.  We can build a society that guarantees an income for all Americans, affordable housing, exceptional educational resources and facilities, and promise for continued opportunities for the next generation.

Our concentration on the merits of American democracy often avoids identifying and seeking to redress the failures of the republic.  We would rather imprison anyone that calls attention to those failures than seek to root out the causes and build a society that make all citizens full participants.  Instead of forging the best possible society, we foolishly seek to perpetuate the status quo that is clearly not working.

Approaching the midterm election, I was very apprehensive.  I knew the electorate would regard the economic woes of the past two years as President Obama’s fault—having unfairly developed a convenient amnesia about the erstwhile Bush administration.  Admittedly, I have been very disappointed over the bailouts and the stimulus packages, which unsurprisingly did not trickle down to the middle class, let alone to the working class, the impoverished, and the utter indigent.  Nevertheless, I still had hope that folks would reason they could not vote for political candidates who to a greater or lesser degree endorse the policies of the executive branch what got us into this mess in the first place.

I was wrong!

Any reference to some halcyon day of peace, contentment, and economic bliss, I have long since realized, is sheer nonsense and fundamentally insulting to those who have been underrepresented and underserved for decades.  In my opinion, it is disingenuous to make the claim that tax cuts for the wealthiest in the United States will benefit the rest of the economy and somehow transform paupers into ebullient purchasers.  Reducing the taxes of the rich does not redound to the favor of anyone but the rich: it does not create jobs, raise the minimum wage and household income, or change them into philanthropists of the poor.  It is a curious form of welfare, and the masquerade continues while millions languish in abject poverty.

We cannot continue in this fashion.

Over the next two years, the U.S. House of Representatives will simply flail in the water, rather than make any significant headway. The economic recession that we are in will scarcely rebound, and they will be the victims of their own criticism of the Obama administration. Regrettably, in politics, what goes around comes around. Hence, in 2012, that biracial man with the big ears and the inveterate mole by his nose will be a picture of health and strength and vision once more!

Hope restored.

In the meantime, we cannot waiver in our persistent fight against the conservative juggernaut seeking to wreak havoc upon the masses without rhyme or reason. Because they will take every opportunity to replace social programs with empty promises about jobs and to replace opportunity with a not-so-subtle diatribe depicting America as some cheery meritocracy. The future of our children prohibits us from such folderol.

And yes, we can!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not predicting Obama’s country will become a sort of panacea; rather I am asserting that the only viable counter to the destruction through the inevitable destruction of the conveyers of conservative politics is an increasingly progressive praxis that puts power in the hands of the people. Obama should forge ahead and run into brick walls as he tries to elevate the middle class, reinvigorate the public schools, frustrate global warming, refuse militarily to police the entire world, and serve the countless numbers suffering at the bottom of the major life indices.

Langston Hughes’ poem, “Let America Be America Again,” was really a revelation of the fact that America had always been a pipe dream for many looking for the promises of freedom and democracy.  We are not there yet, and will never be.  But we can steadily get closer, if we only have the will.

Over the last three years, I have been cited for speeding more than the previous quarter of a century since I have been driving as an adult!  I am not certain what has caused this increase in apprehension, for I am neither alleging that I am a speeder, nor admitting my success at rarely being caught.  The last two years have been the worst, and I have seriously considered that my right foot has turned to lead or my sore right knee has finally locked, as the doctor predicted it would nearly ten years ago.  I have even contemplated I have acquired some sort of attention deficit recently or am entering the first stages of undiagnosed dementia or senility.

I have felt that certain tickets for disobeying traffic laws are utterly ridiculous.  Stopping for three seconds at an intersection when there is a four-way stop and clearly no traffic is clearly one example.  Unless there is something radically wrong with a person’s eyesight or hearing, ticketing a driver is ridiculous under these conditions and rather petty.  Likewise, when most cars are speeding on an interstate freeway and traffic is running smoothly, singling out a driver and ticketing that individual for speeding is surely wrong.

On one occasion, I was driving ten miles over the speed limit along with three or four other cars.  As I approached my exit, of course, I slowed considerably and eventually was moving near single digits as I reached the line of cars towards the end of the ramp awaiting a traffic signal to turn from red to green.  When the light changed and it came my turn to move, I turned left at the corner onto the overpass, where I was stopped by a state police officer.  After asking me for my license and registration and telling me I was speeding, I asked him why he chose to stop me when I was simply driving along with three-to-four other cars whose drivers were also exceeding the speed limit.  His answer was that I decided to get off the freeway.

I was appalled.  I was now driving most recently at 10 mph, while the vehicles going ten miles above the speed limit were allowed to continue speeding!  It did not make any sense to me, for I was no longer speeding.  The state trooper agreed with me, but indicated my easy accessibility, despite my currently snaillike pace, mandated I be cited.

In addition, I mentioned that I was only speeding on that freeway for about five minutes, and prior to that time, approximately another five minutes, I was probably going less than the maximal speed limit.  During the ten miles between my home and the interstate, I never exceeded the posted speed limit.  So, I asked him what constituted my getting a ticket for speeding.  He told me that some aerial radar had clocked me going ten miles over the speed limit during a moment in time, despite the fact that others matched or exceeded my speed, for I was not ahead of the bunch.  Needless to say, I was curious as to why I was singled out and why I was ticketed after I had significantly slowed and was awaiting a traffic light to change along with other drivers in their resting vehicles.  I told the officer that I could understand it if I was apprehended while speeding, but I was being cited when I was no longer speeding while the other speeders accompanying me were still speeding the last I had looked!

It seems to me that speed limits are designed to promote safety among the concourse of vehicles.  They are not primarily instituted as a source of revenue for the locality or state.  There was no reason to ticket me in the above example, for I was not endangering anyone and I had stopped speeding anyway—and my speeding had only lasted five minutes of the twenty-five-to-thirty minutes I had been driving that day.  I was topped because of convenience, and not because public safety was jeopardized.  There was no lesson instructing the public regarding the “folly” of my five minutes of exceeding the speed limit.  The ticket did not deter me or anybody else from speeding for a brief period of time with the flow of traffic.

Moreover, I am a teetotaler and I don’t do drugs.  I was wide awake, having already been up for a couple hours and was not at all groggy or drowsy.  I was alert and hardly distracted by the enjoyable tomfoolery of the syndicated broadcast on my local public radio station.  Yes, my cell phone was with me, but merely lying dormant on the passenger seat.  I was going to a restaurant to eat before my visit to the cinema to watch a just-out movie.  The only thing my stoppage by the state trooper did was compel me to skip the meal and go directly to the theater, as now I was running late!

Although I am oft labeled a civil libertarian, I am far from an anarchist.  I believe in certain controls as necessary by government and law enforcement.  However, I am opposed to arbitrariness, and attendance to the letter of the law, while the spirit of the law is damned.  I would not go so far as to say citing me that day was immoral; but I will insist that it was entirely unnecessary and purposeless, for no one was ever in danger and public safety was never imperiled by my innocuous, momentary speeding on a short stretch of moderately trafficked highway during a splendid Saturday morn.



I wouldn’t call myself a city slicker, but I did grow up in an urban area compressed with people.  My developmental years were spent in an eight-story tenement building, one of sixteen, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, which at the time was the most affluent county in the nation.  Of course, I knew what road kill was, but I did not encounter it nearly as much as I have in the Midwest.  For the most part, I have been spared colliding with stray animals, until Thursday of last week.

Getting off the highway and onto a county road, I had slowed from 65 mph to about 50, when I entered an area that was pitch black.  Before I knew it, two dark and thick animals scurried from the wire-fenced median and darted in front of my car.  I realized it was impossible for me to stop, so I steeled myself for the bump: more concerned about injuring one or two of God’s creatures than the bloody smudge that might appear on my bumper.  What actually occurred was a complete surprise!

You see, I had decided earlier this year to sell my Toyota Camry of eight years to someone in need of a vehicle.  I had already determined I wanted to find a new car, one that was cheap and good on mileage and did not have the thrills to which I had grown accustomed with my sleek, six-cylinder sedan.  I considered getting a hybrid, but finally settled on a Yaris—the two-door liftback kind.  I took the car on the lot, which was white and without any of the electronic gadgetry I enjoyed with my Camry.  It took some getting used to, but I was pleased with its simplicity, except for the exterior white.

I am not a small man.  Needless to say, I encountered many people who simply got a kick out of me being cramped in the driver’s seat.  Having not experienced the Yaris, they were unaware of the deceptively roomy interior.  To make a long story short, I suffered from their attempts at humiliation with a secret pride that I had decided to opt for a bare-boned vehicle.  No regrets!

Last Thursday night, my vehicular disposition completely changed.  I heard a crack, then a thud, as I hit at least one of the animals in front of me and continued on my way to by traditional stop at the gas station a few blocks from where I live.  I had thought the crack and the thud were a bit much for two trifling raccoons, but I had no qualms about my obeisance to traffic recommendations regarding deer and pesky vermin.  As I exited my car, I cavalierly glanced at the front of my vehicle.  Much to my surprise, the bottom of the fender was broken in two and bent inward, where the prongs had punctured the car’s radiator!  Fluid from the radiator was pouring out onto the asphalt and the red pool at first made me think that the bloody raccoon was somehow still attached to my car’s underbelly.  One of the brave clerks at the convenience store informed this automotive ignoramus that the redness was Freon and that I could probably make it home before damaging my car.

At the collision center where I brought my car, I was told that at least one car each day is brought in with damage from a sturdy, apparently well-fed raccoon.  Momentarily relieved, I tried to convince myself that I had not gone wrong in my car selection in the late winter of 2010.  After all, the damage was fixable and the bulk of the $1,500 would be covered by my insurance.  However, when I was given a raggedy loaner vehicle for a day, because I couldn’t locate a rental car, and then finally found one with only 11,000 miles on it but still a clunker, my heart started to change a tad bit.  What if it were a deer?  Would my whole car split in two, with me standing on the concrete as if in one of Fred Flintstone’s motor-less contraptions?

Tomorrow, I am meeting with a car salesperson, a friend, to upgrade to some hybrid or other.  At the very least, I got a poem out of the ordeal!

There once was a raccoon named Bud,

Who was ye old stick in the mud:

He and his mate, Paris,

Ran front of my Yaris,

And broke it in two with a thud!

The singular landfill in Hawaii is along the Leeward Coast in Oahu, an area that houses a poor community of indigenous, or native, Hawaiians.  So, when you want to relieve your country of inordinate amounts of garbage, why not parallel dump it near an Indian reservation in the United States?   Makes perfect sense, right?

Honolulu officials had been contemplating sending 100,000 tons of plastic-wrapped bales of garbage every year to the state of Washington.  Hawaii Waste Systems, a Seattle-based firm, had the audacity to authorize the waste-dumping on land overseen by the Yakama Indian Nation.  Needless to say—or it must be said!—the insensitivity to indigenous peoples is alarming and the ostensible imperviousness to issues of environmental justice is simply mind-boggling!

Hawaii’s Big Island has enough land, but there is an ordinance barring any dumping of garbage hailing from outside the island.  Heaven forbid if another landfill would block the beautiful scenery that brings in millions of dollars from the tourist industry each year!  Rather, since certain folks already are used to being put upon and oppressed, what would be wrong about continuing such discriminatory practices by putting a landfill by or on an Indian reservation?

Congratulations on the restraining order that the tribe won against the U.S. Department of Agriculture before the first bale of garbage would be sent to Washington!  After all, the potential dangers to individuals’ health is astronomical, albeit it is not known exactly what type of spillage and corrosive effects could eventuate.  The USDA has become a bit notorious regarding some of its decisions as of late.  Add this one to the list!

I guess there is a positive side to this near-debacle.  A group of citizens, usually ignored, was able to win a federal court case against the USDA!  A tribal group empowered and somewhat vindicated in the USA?  That’s news!  That some people of conscience were able to expose the irony and injustices involved in this transfer of stuff—fantastic!  There is still hope in judicial system, despite its unseemly record with regard to natives and people of color.  A large percentage of Hawaiians are people of color, but, apparently, those in positions of power could overlook their history and unwittingly, perhaps, make policy discriminatory to their racial ancestry and to other folks of color who have been mistreated and underserved.  A bit confusing, to say the least!

Four decades ago, a group of sanitation workers wanted to be treated as adult human beings.  Today, sanitation workers are able to make decisions whether other human beings are going to be treated fairly!  Ah, the more things change, the more things stay the same!

Dr. Laura Schlessinger knew that she was being provocative with her guest, but she did not care.  She ignored the response of the caller who had expressed distaste for the expletive the radio counselor was reiterating.  The discussion of interracial marriage, and the specific concern her guest was sharing, did not warrant any reference to using the so-called n-word.  Schlessinger’s insistence on recounting her use of the term was indisputably deliberately insulting and insensitive—and she consciously chose to do it.  The “it” can only be characterized as hate speech.

Dr. Laura embarked on a commentary completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and definitely beyond her expertise.  Bearing the cloak of white privilege and arrogance, she felt at ease remarking on the status of race relations after the election of the country’s first black president.  Her ability to control her show, to disconnect from guests, and to make statements as if she is in the know about subjects about which she is substantially ignorant demonstrates the very definition of racism.

Schlessinger wants to have the liberty to be able to use incendiary rhetoric whenever she pleases, even when her words cross over into the area of hate speech.  She made the claim that she did not call her guest the n-word; however, the tone of her echoing that word betrays her xenophobia and disrespect for the millions of people who believe that term to be derogatory, explosive, and unconscionable.  At sixty-three, having spent over twenty-five years on the air, she is financially solvent and able to quit her show to avoid engaging in the necessary dialogue regarding not only her impertinence, but also her impudence.  She is running away from the discussion of her actions, and she has the privilege to eschew any responsibility for her feckless behavior.

In our very racialized society, there probably should remain the perspective that the n-word cannot be spoken in the same manner by African and European Americans.  It may be reduced to an unfair double standard, rather than appreciating the historical and social circumstances and contexts that necessitate the distinctions about who can say what at the present time.  As a civil libertarian, I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech and antagonistic towards censorship.  Nevertheless, I do believe the court of public opinion analyzes what is fitting and proper to attribute to people, and the masses of people need to be ready to censure the remarks of a commentator without embracing the scourge of censoring.

What intensifies the racist juggernaut of Schlessinger’s words is her disparagement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  Her comment about that organization is belittling and, again, demonstrates a depreciation of history and the celebrated role of that organization in concert with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  Last year, the NAACP celebrated 100 years since its founding and the wonderful work it has done during that period to oppose the perniciousness of discrimination.  Schlessinger took advantage of the recent attacks of the NAACP on conservative politics and media to throw a dart at that esteemed organization.

It is an irony that Dr. Schlessinger’s comments reveal that prejudice, stereotyping, and the paradigm of racism are alive and well in this country—especially when she seemed to be claiming that racism is illusory today and that people are taking advantage of a black president to claim that race is still a problem in the United States.  As she departs from the air waves in December, let us be thankful for this lesson she has so graciously taught us!

Recently, I was driving in my car and happened to pop into the CD player a disc of the greatest hits of Louis Armstrong.  I don’t listen to music very much, but when I do, it’s usually some old gospel tunes or rhythm and blues and some pop—all, of course, from the second half of the twentieth century.  Usually, I settle for a few recognizable songs, changing the selections like a couch potato with a remote in one’s hand.  In a daze as I manipulated local stop signs, detours, and the scourge of young pedestrian traffic, I caught the lyrics to a song called “What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue.”

Cold, empty bed,
Springs hard as lead,
Pains in my head,
Feel like old Ned.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?

No joys for me,
No company,
Even the mouse
Ran from my house,
All my life through
I’ve been so
Black and blue.

I’m so forlorn,
Life’s just a thorn,
My heart is torn,
Why was I born?
What did I do to be so
Black and blue?

I’m white inside,
But that don’t help my case.
‘Cause I can’t hide
What is on my face,
Oh! What did I do to be so

Black and blue?

What stopped me, literally, in the middle of the road was the line: “I’m white inside, but that don’t help my case.”  I was floored, flabbergasted, flummoxed, and flapping my arms all at once in the little cabin of my vehicle, not knowing exactly what to do.  I was aware that many black entertainers had disparaged Satchmo as being an Uncle Tom or too friendly with whites in the heart of Jim Crow America.  Nevertheless, I was very fond of Pops, whose ubiquitous sweaty brow and oft caricatured soppy white handkerchief and unique gravely swoon and strong white teeth and bulging brown eyes were the thrill of audiences across the globe.  How could this man, whom I was told I could perfectly imitate in high school and college after he had passed away, allow his trumpeter’s lips mouth such an ostensibly self-deprecating line?

I found myself becoming quite angry as I listened to the CD over and over again until I finally made it to a parking space at my place of employment and practically ran to my office to surf the Internet all about this gruesome folly.  I had gotten upset because the audience, which I assumed was predominantly white, thunderously applauded the song as if they were impervious to its tragic meaning.  I read and reread the entire lyrics and discovered the wonderful story of another musician I had loved in old movies and had just seen recently in Stormy Weather and a documentary about black bands during the Harlem Renaissance, namely Fats Waller.

Waller had a countenance that could just make you break out in instantaneous laughter and you didn’t know why.  He was a gifted pianist with a knack for one-liners and for songs that could make you laugh uproariously or cry like a newborn baby!  I came to feel that the song must have been partly written in jest, with a tinge of sarcasm or an ironic flair, yet intentionally and glaringly heartrending as a depiction of internalized racism.  It was one of those Ah, ha, moments for me that softened my bitterness as I took some time to watch clips of Satch and Fats and Ella and Mahalia and Lena and the Duke and Count and. . . .

It’s no wonder that, during the 1950s and 1960s, the period of the classic Civil Rights Movement, many black musicians joined together to raise money for the cause.  They had been and were still enduring a vicious system of structural racism that the ordinary citizen had resigned themselves to and called home.  They fought it tooth and nail, and would not let it drag them down into the quagmire of fatalism and self-hatred.  Rather, they repeatedly bucked the system and their music, while shortly winning the hearts of their white audiences, continually threw daggers at the heart of bigotry and ignorance.

As I watched the final clip of the aged Louie singing “Mack the Knife,” tears welled up in my eyes and my posture improved and I was compelled within myself to challenge those artists of yesteryear who belittled him as a buffoon, like the character Steppin Fetchit or Buckwheat of The Little Rascals fame.  I now saw a very generous man who had lived through a lot and who had become a gentle soul in spite of a system that could make anybody embittered or suicidal or diffident.  Mr. Armstrong had straitened my back—disallowing anyone to bring me so low as to feel humiliated, inferior, or broken.  What a wonderful world!