Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "ben-carson"
The Problem with the Single Mother: Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous
Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most unqualified 2016 Presidential candidates, has a back story somewhat similar to mine. Like me, he has one sibling, a brother, and like my mother, his mother became an involuntary single mother. The involuntary single mothers are the ones who were married before they were pregnant, but whose husbands either deserted, died, or were divorced by the mothers. My father, who was an alcoholic, deserted us twice, the second and final time when I was twelve. My mother later divorced him and remarried. Carson's mother divorced her husband when she discovered that he was a bigamist.
According to the Carson legend, his mother was thirteen when she married the bigamist and had only a third grade education. After she divorced her husband, she lived at times with a half-sister, and she received welfare and food stamps. But she also worked hard at multiple low-paying jobs and figured out how her children could become successful. She encouraged them to read and do well in school. Some Republicans might like her story because it illustrates the importance of hard work and education, but more of them probably like it because it supports the stereotype of immoral (the bigamist husband), uneducated blacks.
My less stereotypical, but equally hard-working mother graduated from all-black Douglass High School, married at eighteen, and had her first child at nineteen. As she will proudly tell anyone who will listen, she and her children were never on food stamps or welfare. What she doesn't say is that she didn't go on welfare after my father deserted, and a few months later she lost her job at the hosiery mill, because she didn't want anyone to tell her what she could and could not buy.
Instead of letting the government support her and her children, my mother left Henderson, Kentucky, and moved to Highland Park, Illinois, where she took a job as a live-in maid. But children are not usually welcome in homes where maids work, so my brother and I stayed with relatives. Initially, he stayed with our paternal uncle while I stayed with our paternal aunt and grandmother (who lived with her daughter). After trying to live in Evanston, Illinois, with a maternal second cousin, my brother and I moved back to Henderson and continued living with relatives. For the next two years (until my mother remarried), my brother lived with our paternal aunt and grandmother while I lived with our widowed maternal grandmother.
Until I became an involuntary (since neither of us expected her to live long enough to need the kind of care she now needs) caretaker for my mother, I always believed that she had financially supported my brother and me during those years when we lived with relatives. After all, she sent money to our temporary guardians every week. However, now that I am her sole financial support, I realize that she had financial help. While she sent me enough money to buy my food, pay for the beautician, church dues, etc., I didn't give my grandmother any of that money. I didn't help her pay utilities, nor did I pay for the food--her food--that she occasionally cooked for me. And while my grandmother's rundown home was paid for, she still had to pay property taxes, and I didn't use my mother's money to help with those. So my involuntary single mother not only received free child care from our relatives, but they also provided her children with free shelter.
Of course, single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) are not the only parents who need help. As another more qualified 2016 Presidential candidate once said, it takes a village to raise children. So even mothers who live with their babies' daddies need their parents, siblings, neighbors, their children's teachers, ministers, doctors, and various entertainment, political, and athletic role models to help them raise their children. However, two-parent households are less likely to need financial support from the government, relatives, friends, or charities.
The problem with single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) is illustrated by two sisters in my family. The older sister graduated from high school but did not attend college. At nineteen she had her first child, and before she finally "had her tubes tied," as we Southerners describe the sterilization process, she'd had two more living children, one miscarriage, and one stillborn with two different men. This woman, who will be 39 this year, has lived, to quote another Southern expression, "from pillar to post," and she (to quote still another one) "doesn't have a pot to piss in." She and her three children have stayed with one baby daddy and often with her parents. She's now living with her fiancé, who is not the father of any of her children and has his own children (I'm not sure if he was married to their mother(s)). She is so broke that she can't afford to come to California to see her relatives.
The younger sister completed college with a double major in criminology and Spanish. She found a job in criminology and worked several years before marrying a Marine. She and her husband bought a home before they were married. After the marriage, they had two children. The younger sister is now doing well enough financially to pay for her parents to visit her and her family in California.
Usually, I prefer the hard-working or even non-working poor to the entitled, pampered rich, but when it comes to single mothers, I prefer that they be rich or at least middle class. I appreciate celebrities like Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie (she was single when she adopted the first two children) who adopt children and give them a wealthy, pampered lifestyle. I don't appreciate single mothers like my relative who have to depend on the government or family members to help them financially support their children.
In fact, on this Mother's Day, I not only salute the voluntary wealthy single mothers but the women who gave up the children adopted by the wealthy celebrities so that their babies could have a chance at a better life than they would have living with mothers who couldn't support them without help from taxpayers and taxed relatives.
According to the Carson legend, his mother was thirteen when she married the bigamist and had only a third grade education. After she divorced her husband, she lived at times with a half-sister, and she received welfare and food stamps. But she also worked hard at multiple low-paying jobs and figured out how her children could become successful. She encouraged them to read and do well in school. Some Republicans might like her story because it illustrates the importance of hard work and education, but more of them probably like it because it supports the stereotype of immoral (the bigamist husband), uneducated blacks.
My less stereotypical, but equally hard-working mother graduated from all-black Douglass High School, married at eighteen, and had her first child at nineteen. As she will proudly tell anyone who will listen, she and her children were never on food stamps or welfare. What she doesn't say is that she didn't go on welfare after my father deserted, and a few months later she lost her job at the hosiery mill, because she didn't want anyone to tell her what she could and could not buy.
Instead of letting the government support her and her children, my mother left Henderson, Kentucky, and moved to Highland Park, Illinois, where she took a job as a live-in maid. But children are not usually welcome in homes where maids work, so my brother and I stayed with relatives. Initially, he stayed with our paternal uncle while I stayed with our paternal aunt and grandmother (who lived with her daughter). After trying to live in Evanston, Illinois, with a maternal second cousin, my brother and I moved back to Henderson and continued living with relatives. For the next two years (until my mother remarried), my brother lived with our paternal aunt and grandmother while I lived with our widowed maternal grandmother.
Until I became an involuntary (since neither of us expected her to live long enough to need the kind of care she now needs) caretaker for my mother, I always believed that she had financially supported my brother and me during those years when we lived with relatives. After all, she sent money to our temporary guardians every week. However, now that I am her sole financial support, I realize that she had financial help. While she sent me enough money to buy my food, pay for the beautician, church dues, etc., I didn't give my grandmother any of that money. I didn't help her pay utilities, nor did I pay for the food--her food--that she occasionally cooked for me. And while my grandmother's rundown home was paid for, she still had to pay property taxes, and I didn't use my mother's money to help with those. So my involuntary single mother not only received free child care from our relatives, but they also provided her children with free shelter.
Of course, single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) are not the only parents who need help. As another more qualified 2016 Presidential candidate once said, it takes a village to raise children. So even mothers who live with their babies' daddies need their parents, siblings, neighbors, their children's teachers, ministers, doctors, and various entertainment, political, and athletic role models to help them raise their children. However, two-parent households are less likely to need financial support from the government, relatives, friends, or charities.
The problem with single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) is illustrated by two sisters in my family. The older sister graduated from high school but did not attend college. At nineteen she had her first child, and before she finally "had her tubes tied," as we Southerners describe the sterilization process, she'd had two more living children, one miscarriage, and one stillborn with two different men. This woman, who will be 39 this year, has lived, to quote another Southern expression, "from pillar to post," and she (to quote still another one) "doesn't have a pot to piss in." She and her three children have stayed with one baby daddy and often with her parents. She's now living with her fiancé, who is not the father of any of her children and has his own children (I'm not sure if he was married to their mother(s)). She is so broke that she can't afford to come to California to see her relatives.
The younger sister completed college with a double major in criminology and Spanish. She found a job in criminology and worked several years before marrying a Marine. She and her husband bought a home before they were married. After the marriage, they had two children. The younger sister is now doing well enough financially to pay for her parents to visit her and her family in California.
Usually, I prefer the hard-working or even non-working poor to the entitled, pampered rich, but when it comes to single mothers, I prefer that they be rich or at least middle class. I appreciate celebrities like Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie (she was single when she adopted the first two children) who adopt children and give them a wealthy, pampered lifestyle. I don't appreciate single mothers like my relative who have to depend on the government or family members to help them financially support their children.
In fact, on this Mother's Day, I not only salute the voluntary wealthy single mothers but the women who gave up the children adopted by the wealthy celebrities so that their babies could have a chance at a better life than they would have living with mothers who couldn't support them without help from taxpayers and taxed relatives.
Bensplaining: Educated Fool Or Idiot Savant?
There are so many freaks and clowns in the absurd circus known as the Trump administration that it's hard to keep track of them. I had forgotten about Rick Head Of An Agency That I Planned To Eliminate If I Could Just Remember The Name Perry until someone posted a picture of a meeting of the worst cabinet ever on Facebook, and I noticed that Rick and several other people in the meeting where Trump was talking seemed to be either praying or sleeping. Oddly, one of the most religious and sleepiest Cabinet members, Uncle Ben (Carson), had his eyes mostly wide open. If the picture was a recent one, he might have been thinking about his upcoming appearance before a congressional committee. During that appearance, Uncle Ben briefly managed to snatch the spotlight away from the insane antics of the Clown-in-Chief by sarcastically pretending that he thought REO was OREO and AMWI was AMWAY. Of course, the scolds on social media (hey, I'm one of them, but I try to have intelligence behind my outrage) pounced. The smarter ones were infuriated that Carson was making fun of a serious situation. But others thought Ben was so stupid that he believed that REO was OREO. One woman cracked me up by calling him an educated fool. But another woman triggered this scold's outrage by claiming that the black man was being disrespectful toward the condescending white woman who was questioning his knowledge of acronyms related to his agency.
Maybe because I've successfully used that strategy, I appreciated that Carson used sarcasm instead of anger to attack California Representative Katie Porter. Since he claims that he had anger management problems as a youth, he probably was trying to diffuse the situation before he lost control of himself. The OREO comment was especially amusing to those of us who know what an Oreo is--a person who is black on the outside and white on the inside. I'm sure Carson was called that name by blacks even before he became the white supremacist's token dark-skinned Cabinet member. He's been an Oreo to black folks at least since he became racist conservatives' favorite black man by attacking Obama at a prayer breakfast. Unfortunately, as I learned when I signed up to buy Oreos (his favorite cookie) for a care package sent to a colleague who had been shipped to Afghanistan (he was in the reserves), and no one laughed, even well-educated white folks are often culturally illiterate when it comes to blacks and don't get the joke (or maybe the few who get it are scared to laugh).
It's not clear why some people believed that Carson, who is literally a brain surgeon, confused OREO and REO. Is it because they think all Trump cabinet members, no matter how well-educated and accomplished, are idiots and fools? Is it because he's black, and they think all black people, no matter how well-educated and accomplished, are idiots and fools? Or is it because he's said some foolish things in the past, and so they assume this specific black brain surgeon and Trump cabinet member must be a fool? I remember when Uncle Ben said something stupid about the origins of pyramids, and in trying to explain how such a well-educated man could be so foolish, I called him an idiot savant. When a scold on Google+ chastised me for ridiculing this accomplished black man, I pointed out that I am also a black idiot savant--really smart in some areas (anything involving reading, writing, and thinking) and really stupid in others--anything involving technology and common sense. I was actually complimenting Uncle Ben as well as making fun of him because idiot savants are as amusing as educated fools, but they're usually less obnoxious.
I never watched "The Big Bang Theory," but I assume it's about some amusing idiot savants. I assume the characters are brilliant in science, engineering, and technology, but they are socially awkward nerds. English and other humanities majors are less likely to be socially awkward and more likely to be technologically inept. I've also encountered four other English majors (a graduate school friend and three people I met in a literature forum on Linked/In) who have the same problems with spatial dimensions and geographical directions that I have. But I think I'm unique in having a problem determining left from right when I'm not in a car or not looking at pictures. For some reason, I have to fake writing (I'm right-handed) to figure out left from right if I'm not in a car. If I just guess, I'm wrong more than 50% of the time. At this point in my increasingly long life, I just let people know that I have this problem and tell them to point to where they want me to go. When a cheerful lab tech was conducting my mammogram recently, I told her to just move me to where she wanted me to be, and we both laughed.
My left-right problem is amusing, but I think Uncle Ben's idiot savant problem is more serious. He has a right-wrong problem, a problem with his moral compass. If he could distinguish between right and wrong, he would not have accepted a position as the head of an agency for which he has no experience. When he was offered the job, he reportedly laughed, thinking it was a joke. Then why did he take it? Why didn't he insist that he be appointed to the more appropriate positions of Surgeon General or Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services? Why would he work in an administration that has the stated aim (as expressed by Steve Bannon, probably another idiot savant) of deconstructing the government? And why would a black man work for and support a white supremacist?
Educated fools and idiot savants are usually harmless, even entertaining, as "The Big Bang Theory" has illustrated for many years. But when the idiot savant lacks moral intelligence, he's dangerous. I appreciated Carson's sarcastic response to the California Representative's condescension because it was an appropriate response to unintended and unrecognized racism, but I don't appreciate his immorality. There is nothing funny about a morally ignorant person with power.
Maybe because I've successfully used that strategy, I appreciated that Carson used sarcasm instead of anger to attack California Representative Katie Porter. Since he claims that he had anger management problems as a youth, he probably was trying to diffuse the situation before he lost control of himself. The OREO comment was especially amusing to those of us who know what an Oreo is--a person who is black on the outside and white on the inside. I'm sure Carson was called that name by blacks even before he became the white supremacist's token dark-skinned Cabinet member. He's been an Oreo to black folks at least since he became racist conservatives' favorite black man by attacking Obama at a prayer breakfast. Unfortunately, as I learned when I signed up to buy Oreos (his favorite cookie) for a care package sent to a colleague who had been shipped to Afghanistan (he was in the reserves), and no one laughed, even well-educated white folks are often culturally illiterate when it comes to blacks and don't get the joke (or maybe the few who get it are scared to laugh).
It's not clear why some people believed that Carson, who is literally a brain surgeon, confused OREO and REO. Is it because they think all Trump cabinet members, no matter how well-educated and accomplished, are idiots and fools? Is it because he's black, and they think all black people, no matter how well-educated and accomplished, are idiots and fools? Or is it because he's said some foolish things in the past, and so they assume this specific black brain surgeon and Trump cabinet member must be a fool? I remember when Uncle Ben said something stupid about the origins of pyramids, and in trying to explain how such a well-educated man could be so foolish, I called him an idiot savant. When a scold on Google+ chastised me for ridiculing this accomplished black man, I pointed out that I am also a black idiot savant--really smart in some areas (anything involving reading, writing, and thinking) and really stupid in others--anything involving technology and common sense. I was actually complimenting Uncle Ben as well as making fun of him because idiot savants are as amusing as educated fools, but they're usually less obnoxious.
I never watched "The Big Bang Theory," but I assume it's about some amusing idiot savants. I assume the characters are brilliant in science, engineering, and technology, but they are socially awkward nerds. English and other humanities majors are less likely to be socially awkward and more likely to be technologically inept. I've also encountered four other English majors (a graduate school friend and three people I met in a literature forum on Linked/In) who have the same problems with spatial dimensions and geographical directions that I have. But I think I'm unique in having a problem determining left from right when I'm not in a car or not looking at pictures. For some reason, I have to fake writing (I'm right-handed) to figure out left from right if I'm not in a car. If I just guess, I'm wrong more than 50% of the time. At this point in my increasingly long life, I just let people know that I have this problem and tell them to point to where they want me to go. When a cheerful lab tech was conducting my mammogram recently, I told her to just move me to where she wanted me to be, and we both laughed.
My left-right problem is amusing, but I think Uncle Ben's idiot savant problem is more serious. He has a right-wrong problem, a problem with his moral compass. If he could distinguish between right and wrong, he would not have accepted a position as the head of an agency for which he has no experience. When he was offered the job, he reportedly laughed, thinking it was a joke. Then why did he take it? Why didn't he insist that he be appointed to the more appropriate positions of Surgeon General or Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services? Why would he work in an administration that has the stated aim (as expressed by Steve Bannon, probably another idiot savant) of deconstructing the government? And why would a black man work for and support a white supremacist?
Educated fools and idiot savants are usually harmless, even entertaining, as "The Big Bang Theory" has illustrated for many years. But when the idiot savant lacks moral intelligence, he's dangerous. I appreciated Carson's sarcastic response to the California Representative's condescension because it was an appropriate response to unintended and unrecognized racism, but I don't appreciate his immorality. There is nothing funny about a morally ignorant person with power.
The President's Character: What's Wrong With Donald Trump
In the November 22, 2015 post ("Ms. President: Should A Retired English Professor Be President?"), as I contemplated the possibility of the only Republican candidate who might be crazier than Donald Trump becoming President, I explained why my profession made me a better candidate for President than former brain surgeon Ben Carson. English professors, I argued, would be better at communicating, thinking, and dealing with people from different cultures than would brain surgeons. Of course, this specific English professor, while not a "stable genius," is also saner than the brain surgeon who somehow thought he should be President because some racist white folks liked his attack on the half-black President at a prayer breakfast. Current 2020 candidate Andrew Yang seemed to suggest in the last debate that anyone who runs for President is a little crazy. Certainly, presidential candidates must have outsize egos and suffer from at least a mild case of delusions of grandeur. Still, the President needs to be somewhat sane or stable, and the current one clearly isn't. The alleged senior White House advisor known as Anonymous claims that there are four other characteristics that a President needs that the current one lacks--wisdom, sense of justice, courage, and temperance or restraint (the ability to behave in an inoffensive manner). I agree with him or her and would add three more: 1) Confidence 2) Honesty 3) Maturity. Trump also lacks all three of those qualities.
Those who aren't clear thinkers might assume that anyone who has a big enough ego to run for President is confident. But there is a difference between being arrogant and/or narcissistic and being confident. Confidence is usually based on achievement while arrogance is based more on a sense of entitlement due to circumstances (race, class, gender) of birth. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, for instance, were confident because they were high achievers. In the current crop of 2020 candidates, Rhodes scholars (and b-boys) Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg are confident for the same reason. George W. Bush is arrogant because he is a white man born into a rich and powerful family while the also born-rich, white, and male Trump is both arrogant and pathologically narcissistic. He is also dangerously (especially for a President) insecure. The arrogant Bush had trouble admitting his mistakes as President, but he could at least admit that he was once an alcoholic, a necessary first step to curing that disease. Trump, who is temperate when it comes to alcohol, can't admit he did anything wrong ever. Compare Bill Clinton's reaction to impeachment, for instance, to Trump's. Clinton was able to admit his mistakes and even be friendly with some of the people who criticized and impeached him. Trump is forcing (apparently, it doesn't take courage to be a Republican Senator or Representative) the Republicans in Congress to defend his actions and demonize the Democrats who are trying to do a job that the cowardly Republicans should have done in 2017. While he tries to take credit for anything good that happens, Trump is incapable of taking responsibility for his mistakes. Unless it's a really good buck that will bring praise, the buck doesn't stop with this President. If something goes wrong, it's the Democrats' fault or the fault of a former close friend whom he now barely knows. The insecure President is also easily played by anyone willing to flatter him, and as he likes to say, "everyone knows it." Not only such allies as the leaders of France and Canada but such adversaries as the leaders of Russia and North Korea know that Trump will at least try to give them whatever they want if they just tell him he's the greatest U.S. President ever, a much better President than Obama. Thus, his insecurity is a threat to our national security.
While the President's dishonesty might not be as large a security threat as his insecurity, it undermines his moral authority at home and abroad and makes it impossible for our allies to trust him or us. We all lie, and most Presidents probably lie more than most brain surgeons and English teachers, but this President is a pathological liar who lies more than he tells the truth. He tells crazy lies and contradictory lies. Sometimes his lies are funny like when he says he's a stable genius or that he's taken pictures with everyone (if you see me in a picture with Trump, it's photo shopped; believe me). His braggadocio lies had the world leaders laughing at him (and us) at the UN in 2018. Ironically, one of the lies that the Liar-in-Chief has told is that the world was laughing at us before he became President. While it's true that the British thought we were foolish when we reelected the arrogantly incompetent George W in 2004, most of the world was impressed in 2008 when we became the first predominantly white country to elect a nonwhite President who happened to be intelligent (while not a genius), dignified, and extremely cool. Now they're laughing at us for electing through the undemocratic electoral college a lying fool.
The British ridicule Trump (and us) with their big baby Trump balloon. The Trump baby is the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with the electoral college President. He's dishonest, insecure, intemperate, cowardly, unwise, and unfair because his development arrested somewhere between the ages of two and seven. I'm sure the overrated founding fathers chose thirty-five as the minimum age for a President because they assumed most men (those bigots didn't plan for women to be President) would reach peak maturity around that age. (They didn't worry about the President being too old back then because most people died before the age of dementia.) As we grow older and learn to walk without holding Mommy's hand, learn to use our words instead of screaming and crying, and start to achieve our goals, whether earning all "A's" in school, winning tennis matches, and/or helping our teams win football, basketball, baseball, or soccer games, we gain confidence. We start to believe that we can. And as we learn from our mistakes (those of us who can), we gain wisdom. That's why maturity is the most important trait in a President.
It's interesting (and scary) that the three top polling 2020 Democratic candidates are in their seventies. One reason for this odd phenomenon might be that the people who respond to the polls are older, but voters might also be looking for mature candidates. However, they should remember that the current President is the oldest ever and the least mature of the ones in my lifetime while the previous President was one of the youngest and most mature.
The French ambassador to the U.S. recently suggested another reason why I might have made a better President than Ben Carson. He complained that Trump doesn't read. Obviously, English teachers usually read more than brain surgeons and Presidents. But the primary reason I would make a better President than Carson or Trump is that I'm sane and wise enough to know that I am not qualified to be President. If I lost my mind, ran for President, and was elected just as I regained my sanity, I would be on the phone to Obama, Carter, Clinton, and even GW Bush before I entered the White House. In fact, I would have an ex-Presidents' office in the White House and try to keep one ex-President (preferably Obama or Clinton) in there every day that I was on the job. But one ex-President would be banned. I would not allow Donald Trump to enter the White House if I woke up from a period of madness and discovered I was President. I'd call my ten-year-old grand-nephew DJ or my seven-year-old grand-niece Kylah for advice before I would contact the most immature, insane, and incompetent President in my lifetime and probably in the history of our nation.
Those who aren't clear thinkers might assume that anyone who has a big enough ego to run for President is confident. But there is a difference between being arrogant and/or narcissistic and being confident. Confidence is usually based on achievement while arrogance is based more on a sense of entitlement due to circumstances (race, class, gender) of birth. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, for instance, were confident because they were high achievers. In the current crop of 2020 candidates, Rhodes scholars (and b-boys) Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg are confident for the same reason. George W. Bush is arrogant because he is a white man born into a rich and powerful family while the also born-rich, white, and male Trump is both arrogant and pathologically narcissistic. He is also dangerously (especially for a President) insecure. The arrogant Bush had trouble admitting his mistakes as President, but he could at least admit that he was once an alcoholic, a necessary first step to curing that disease. Trump, who is temperate when it comes to alcohol, can't admit he did anything wrong ever. Compare Bill Clinton's reaction to impeachment, for instance, to Trump's. Clinton was able to admit his mistakes and even be friendly with some of the people who criticized and impeached him. Trump is forcing (apparently, it doesn't take courage to be a Republican Senator or Representative) the Republicans in Congress to defend his actions and demonize the Democrats who are trying to do a job that the cowardly Republicans should have done in 2017. While he tries to take credit for anything good that happens, Trump is incapable of taking responsibility for his mistakes. Unless it's a really good buck that will bring praise, the buck doesn't stop with this President. If something goes wrong, it's the Democrats' fault or the fault of a former close friend whom he now barely knows. The insecure President is also easily played by anyone willing to flatter him, and as he likes to say, "everyone knows it." Not only such allies as the leaders of France and Canada but such adversaries as the leaders of Russia and North Korea know that Trump will at least try to give them whatever they want if they just tell him he's the greatest U.S. President ever, a much better President than Obama. Thus, his insecurity is a threat to our national security.
While the President's dishonesty might not be as large a security threat as his insecurity, it undermines his moral authority at home and abroad and makes it impossible for our allies to trust him or us. We all lie, and most Presidents probably lie more than most brain surgeons and English teachers, but this President is a pathological liar who lies more than he tells the truth. He tells crazy lies and contradictory lies. Sometimes his lies are funny like when he says he's a stable genius or that he's taken pictures with everyone (if you see me in a picture with Trump, it's photo shopped; believe me). His braggadocio lies had the world leaders laughing at him (and us) at the UN in 2018. Ironically, one of the lies that the Liar-in-Chief has told is that the world was laughing at us before he became President. While it's true that the British thought we were foolish when we reelected the arrogantly incompetent George W in 2004, most of the world was impressed in 2008 when we became the first predominantly white country to elect a nonwhite President who happened to be intelligent (while not a genius), dignified, and extremely cool. Now they're laughing at us for electing through the undemocratic electoral college a lying fool.
The British ridicule Trump (and us) with their big baby Trump balloon. The Trump baby is the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with the electoral college President. He's dishonest, insecure, intemperate, cowardly, unwise, and unfair because his development arrested somewhere between the ages of two and seven. I'm sure the overrated founding fathers chose thirty-five as the minimum age for a President because they assumed most men (those bigots didn't plan for women to be President) would reach peak maturity around that age. (They didn't worry about the President being too old back then because most people died before the age of dementia.) As we grow older and learn to walk without holding Mommy's hand, learn to use our words instead of screaming and crying, and start to achieve our goals, whether earning all "A's" in school, winning tennis matches, and/or helping our teams win football, basketball, baseball, or soccer games, we gain confidence. We start to believe that we can. And as we learn from our mistakes (those of us who can), we gain wisdom. That's why maturity is the most important trait in a President.
It's interesting (and scary) that the three top polling 2020 Democratic candidates are in their seventies. One reason for this odd phenomenon might be that the people who respond to the polls are older, but voters might also be looking for mature candidates. However, they should remember that the current President is the oldest ever and the least mature of the ones in my lifetime while the previous President was one of the youngest and most mature.
The French ambassador to the U.S. recently suggested another reason why I might have made a better President than Ben Carson. He complained that Trump doesn't read. Obviously, English teachers usually read more than brain surgeons and Presidents. But the primary reason I would make a better President than Carson or Trump is that I'm sane and wise enough to know that I am not qualified to be President. If I lost my mind, ran for President, and was elected just as I regained my sanity, I would be on the phone to Obama, Carter, Clinton, and even GW Bush before I entered the White House. In fact, I would have an ex-Presidents' office in the White House and try to keep one ex-President (preferably Obama or Clinton) in there every day that I was on the job. But one ex-President would be banned. I would not allow Donald Trump to enter the White House if I woke up from a period of madness and discovered I was President. I'd call my ten-year-old grand-nephew DJ or my seven-year-old grand-niece Kylah for advice before I would contact the most immature, insane, and incompetent President in my lifetime and probably in the history of our nation.
Ben, Candace, Tim, and Walter: Spare Me From Racism Apologists
We are what we read, I say. We’re also what we recommend that others, especially folks from a different race, read. When a born-rich, white male colleague at Cal Poly Pomona recommended that I read another black California professor Shelby Steele’s book, I knew after I read the book that my colleague was at best a racism denier and at worst an unrepentant racist (although not a white supremacist). Steele is what I call a racism apologist, a term I use for people of color like brown Dinesh D’Souza whose book ILLIBERAL EDUCATION I hate read and Richard Rodriguez whose memoir HUNGER OF MEMORY I hate taught. These public intellectuals of color make racist white folks feel better by assuring them that they’re right, and we liberals are wrong, that the real problem is not racism but affirmative action or political correctness. Walter Williams, an economics professor whose book on race one of my privileged white female students who has worked in the Peace Corps and unfortunately spent some time in Russia sent me in 2017, is a racism apologist. I found it interesting that my local paper, which I had already noticed had a more conservative opinion page than the LA TIMES, published articles by him on two consecutive Sundays and that just as I heard from my student for the first time in months (she’s a busy relatively new mother and a teacher) I was suddenly receiving negative feedback to my almost three-year-old one-star review of Williams’ book. Of course, the majority of racists and racism deniers probably don’t read, so they rely on politicians like Senator Tim Scott and Cabinet Secretary Ben Carson or media “influencers” like Candace Owens to comfort them during times like these when they’re being told that racism exists and colorblindness does not. Racism apologists are to racism deniers and racists what potato chips and chocolate are to me and wine and weed are to less sober Americans. I self-soothe with cc (chips and chocolate); racists self-soothe with ra (racism apologists).
When the former student reached out to me (and to a black friend she made during her Peace Corps days) last month, I learned that she had read Shelby Steele and Candace Owens (I didn’t realize she had written a book) as well as Walter Williams. This white woman who claims to be Libertarian (are there any liberal Libertarians?) was not an English major but took two of my classes because she liked my tell it like it is, nonconformist personality. She probably assumed I would agree with Williams’ suggestion that liberal solutions like the minimum wage hurt more than helped blacks because I said in THE BRONZE RULE that I didn’t let black students get away with using their race to excuse bad writing. I would tell them my story, which included no Head Start since it didn’t exist, no kindergarten, and an illiterate maternal grandmother, and let them know that if I could become an English professor they could pass Freshman Composition with a “C.” But she missed or misread the earlier passage in that chapter where I discussed the self-fulfilling prophecy, now called confirmation bias, saying that too many black students lived down to racist white teachers‘ low expectations of them. I guess I should have made it clear for the self-soothing racism deniers reading my book that those students probably didn’t have the advantage, the privilege, of being taught by black females during their first six years of school that I had, and that ten weeks with me could not cure thirteen or more (including nursery school or Head Start) years of being told that they are intellectually and culturally deprived because of their race, that they shouldn’t expect to do as well as white students. I set Ms. Peace Corps Libertarian, who maybe should move to Russia, straight by letting her know that seeing black folks as dysfunctional and needing help was the wrong approach, that we are the exceptional race, and her folks are the ones who need even more help than they already have gotten since they’re the ones killing people and taking opioids while we have overcome barriers and succeeded without becoming spiteful and cruel.
As soon as I set Ms. Libertarian straight, I had to mean-tweet Mr. Williams and the paper that published his first article “Please Spare Black Americans From White Liberal Paternalism.” First, I had to let Mr. Williams know, since he’s apparently still living in the 20th Century, that the Speaker of the House is a woman, and the Majority Whip is a black man. I didn’t mention the last President and the last winner of the popular vote because I didn’t want to shock him with the news that women and people of color are running the “liberal” party. He obviously thinks Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are the “white paternal liberals.” Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro didn’t register with him. Then I addressed the following statement: “Nowhere else on Earth could such progress have been achieved except in the United States of America.” He was referring to how much black folks had overcome in the century and a half since slavery ended. I pointed out that we had a half-black, half-white President more than a century after slavery, but Nelson Mandela had become President of South Africa much sooner after apartheid ended. Of course, South Africa is predominantly black, but clearly the whites in South Africa didn’t pass voter suppression laws and do whatever else they had to do to prevent the majority of blacks from electing Mandela. They also didn’t exterminate so many blacks that they no longer outnumbered whites. When a Native American becomes President, then we can compare ourselves to South Africa on overcoming racism. After all, our first black President does not have any slave ancestors. His black ancestors are still in Africa. Next I addressed the following absurd statement: “The first step is to acknowledge that the civil rights struggle is over and won.” I wondered in my mean tweets if Williams missed the attacks on affirmative action in the eighties and the voter suppression that continues today. He also apparently knows nothing about the new Jim Crow, where black men and occasionally women are jailed for life for nonviolent crimes. Occasionally, they’re jailed for years without even being convicted of any crime because they can’t make bail. And he hasn’t noticed how many unarmed black people have been murdered, often by the police, without the murderer being tried, much less going to jail. The white folks who read and accept Williams’ nonsense are like the black folks on crack and the white folks on opioids. It’s not surprising that they’ve become unhinged by the BlackLivesMatter movement. They think the civil rights battle was won in the sixties or maybe in 2008 when a half-white man was elected President by a minority of white people and a large majority of people of color.
Although I don’t waste my time communicating with Ben Carson, who I suspect is as crazy as Donald Trump, I’ve also mean-tweeted and/or commented on the ridiculous statements of racism apologists Candace Owens and Senator Tim Scott. After saying that he had been racially profiled by police seven times, Scott claimed there was no racism. Actually, although he seems sensible, he may also be crazy, so I probably shouldn’t waste my time trying to school him. I haven’t heard his explanation of why cops would profile him if racism doesn’t exist because there is no logical explanation. Scott is racially profiled because he’s a dark-skinned black man, and what has happened to him proves that racism still exists in America. Scott’s allowing himself to be used to write a so-called police reform bill that included no significant reform is the kind of racism apologist act that gives bigots like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump cover.
Since she doesn’t hold a political office and only really foolish people would consider her an intellectual, Candace Owens is probably less dangerous than Carson, Scott, and Williams. However, she testified at a Congressional hearing on race, and several racism deniers, including Ms. Libertarian, have mentioned her to me. I had fun with Ms. Candace after watching part of a video where she declared that she could not support George Floyd because he’d been in jail and claimed that Shelby Steele had planted some ideas in her head. First, I let her know that Mr. Floyd doesn’t need her support because he’s dead. I told the clueless Ms. Candace that dead people don’t need our support; maybe their families and friends do, but they don’t. Then I told her how to read. She must read critically and not allow writers to “plant ideas” in her head. Finally, after teaching her a brief lesson on criminal justice and racism, I gave her a list of books to read, starting with THE NEW JIM CROW, which explains why so many black men are in jail.
White racists have always relied on “submissive” black folks to give them cover, to tell them that they’re good masters and that the other black folks are lazy, ungrateful criminals. These race traitors have at times, like during slavery, been spies who would inform on slaves planning to run away or revolt. The “real” Uncle Tom was not one of those race traitors. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s protagonist was a humble servant, but he actually died helping two black female slaves to escape. I should probably stop using his name in vain when I attack the racism apologist in the Supreme Court—Judge Thomas. I should call him Uncle Clarence instead of Uncle Thomas. He, Uncle Ben, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Candace will continue to soothe white folks who want to believe that the problem with black folks is they’ve been given too much free stuff, that white liberals are the real racists who have ruined black folks with their “paternal” socio-economic programs, and that black folks who are in jail or who are murdered by cops should be blamed for their fates.
I’ve said in the past that racism deniers are worse than white supremacists because the white supremacists are honest about their racism. But worse than white racism deniers are black (brown and yellow) racism apologists. These race traitors make money and gain power by telling the racist white folks what they want to hear, by denigrating their own people and giving cover to whites who are oppressing and even killing them. Because I’m not a race traitor, I usually try to avoid attacking my own people, but I make one major exception. I will attack racism apologists. I want to spare the world from them.
RIP, John Lewis. You were never a racism apologist!
When the former student reached out to me (and to a black friend she made during her Peace Corps days) last month, I learned that she had read Shelby Steele and Candace Owens (I didn’t realize she had written a book) as well as Walter Williams. This white woman who claims to be Libertarian (are there any liberal Libertarians?) was not an English major but took two of my classes because she liked my tell it like it is, nonconformist personality. She probably assumed I would agree with Williams’ suggestion that liberal solutions like the minimum wage hurt more than helped blacks because I said in THE BRONZE RULE that I didn’t let black students get away with using their race to excuse bad writing. I would tell them my story, which included no Head Start since it didn’t exist, no kindergarten, and an illiterate maternal grandmother, and let them know that if I could become an English professor they could pass Freshman Composition with a “C.” But she missed or misread the earlier passage in that chapter where I discussed the self-fulfilling prophecy, now called confirmation bias, saying that too many black students lived down to racist white teachers‘ low expectations of them. I guess I should have made it clear for the self-soothing racism deniers reading my book that those students probably didn’t have the advantage, the privilege, of being taught by black females during their first six years of school that I had, and that ten weeks with me could not cure thirteen or more (including nursery school or Head Start) years of being told that they are intellectually and culturally deprived because of their race, that they shouldn’t expect to do as well as white students. I set Ms. Peace Corps Libertarian, who maybe should move to Russia, straight by letting her know that seeing black folks as dysfunctional and needing help was the wrong approach, that we are the exceptional race, and her folks are the ones who need even more help than they already have gotten since they’re the ones killing people and taking opioids while we have overcome barriers and succeeded without becoming spiteful and cruel.
As soon as I set Ms. Libertarian straight, I had to mean-tweet Mr. Williams and the paper that published his first article “Please Spare Black Americans From White Liberal Paternalism.” First, I had to let Mr. Williams know, since he’s apparently still living in the 20th Century, that the Speaker of the House is a woman, and the Majority Whip is a black man. I didn’t mention the last President and the last winner of the popular vote because I didn’t want to shock him with the news that women and people of color are running the “liberal” party. He obviously thinks Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are the “white paternal liberals.” Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro didn’t register with him. Then I addressed the following statement: “Nowhere else on Earth could such progress have been achieved except in the United States of America.” He was referring to how much black folks had overcome in the century and a half since slavery ended. I pointed out that we had a half-black, half-white President more than a century after slavery, but Nelson Mandela had become President of South Africa much sooner after apartheid ended. Of course, South Africa is predominantly black, but clearly the whites in South Africa didn’t pass voter suppression laws and do whatever else they had to do to prevent the majority of blacks from electing Mandela. They also didn’t exterminate so many blacks that they no longer outnumbered whites. When a Native American becomes President, then we can compare ourselves to South Africa on overcoming racism. After all, our first black President does not have any slave ancestors. His black ancestors are still in Africa. Next I addressed the following absurd statement: “The first step is to acknowledge that the civil rights struggle is over and won.” I wondered in my mean tweets if Williams missed the attacks on affirmative action in the eighties and the voter suppression that continues today. He also apparently knows nothing about the new Jim Crow, where black men and occasionally women are jailed for life for nonviolent crimes. Occasionally, they’re jailed for years without even being convicted of any crime because they can’t make bail. And he hasn’t noticed how many unarmed black people have been murdered, often by the police, without the murderer being tried, much less going to jail. The white folks who read and accept Williams’ nonsense are like the black folks on crack and the white folks on opioids. It’s not surprising that they’ve become unhinged by the BlackLivesMatter movement. They think the civil rights battle was won in the sixties or maybe in 2008 when a half-white man was elected President by a minority of white people and a large majority of people of color.
Although I don’t waste my time communicating with Ben Carson, who I suspect is as crazy as Donald Trump, I’ve also mean-tweeted and/or commented on the ridiculous statements of racism apologists Candace Owens and Senator Tim Scott. After saying that he had been racially profiled by police seven times, Scott claimed there was no racism. Actually, although he seems sensible, he may also be crazy, so I probably shouldn’t waste my time trying to school him. I haven’t heard his explanation of why cops would profile him if racism doesn’t exist because there is no logical explanation. Scott is racially profiled because he’s a dark-skinned black man, and what has happened to him proves that racism still exists in America. Scott’s allowing himself to be used to write a so-called police reform bill that included no significant reform is the kind of racism apologist act that gives bigots like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump cover.
Since she doesn’t hold a political office and only really foolish people would consider her an intellectual, Candace Owens is probably less dangerous than Carson, Scott, and Williams. However, she testified at a Congressional hearing on race, and several racism deniers, including Ms. Libertarian, have mentioned her to me. I had fun with Ms. Candace after watching part of a video where she declared that she could not support George Floyd because he’d been in jail and claimed that Shelby Steele had planted some ideas in her head. First, I let her know that Mr. Floyd doesn’t need her support because he’s dead. I told the clueless Ms. Candace that dead people don’t need our support; maybe their families and friends do, but they don’t. Then I told her how to read. She must read critically and not allow writers to “plant ideas” in her head. Finally, after teaching her a brief lesson on criminal justice and racism, I gave her a list of books to read, starting with THE NEW JIM CROW, which explains why so many black men are in jail.
White racists have always relied on “submissive” black folks to give them cover, to tell them that they’re good masters and that the other black folks are lazy, ungrateful criminals. These race traitors have at times, like during slavery, been spies who would inform on slaves planning to run away or revolt. The “real” Uncle Tom was not one of those race traitors. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s protagonist was a humble servant, but he actually died helping two black female slaves to escape. I should probably stop using his name in vain when I attack the racism apologist in the Supreme Court—Judge Thomas. I should call him Uncle Clarence instead of Uncle Thomas. He, Uncle Ben, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Candace will continue to soothe white folks who want to believe that the problem with black folks is they’ve been given too much free stuff, that white liberals are the real racists who have ruined black folks with their “paternal” socio-economic programs, and that black folks who are in jail or who are murdered by cops should be blamed for their fates.
I’ve said in the past that racism deniers are worse than white supremacists because the white supremacists are honest about their racism. But worse than white racism deniers are black (brown and yellow) racism apologists. These race traitors make money and gain power by telling the racist white folks what they want to hear, by denigrating their own people and giving cover to whites who are oppressing and even killing them. Because I’m not a race traitor, I usually try to avoid attacking my own people, but I make one major exception. I will attack racism apologists. I want to spare the world from them.
RIP, John Lewis. You were never a racism apologist!
