Category: View from the Battlefield

The NFL is na�ve to think that sending Black men to a locker room like they’re naughty boys is a solution. These men are of African descent before they are athletes. I can’t wait to see what acts of creative resistance will come from the brothas in the locker room

One thing we must stop these negroes from doing every time they get busted for sex crimes is to cry public lynching. Kelly mimics men such as Bill Cosby and Clarence Thomas in exploiting the word to get sympathy. Lynching has a unique place in this country’s ugly, racist history. It is not an image to conjure up to save one’s sorry soul.

Despite the preponderance of evidence, there are too many who believe in Cosby’s innocence. There is a deep divide in the African American community on the rape charges. That divide didn’t close with the recent guilty verdict. We often give these predators a pass because of who they are and because we love them as the characters they play in the entertainment-sports world.

Protests of the racist incidents by the boys in blue or the boys in the corporate board rooms are not enough. We need coordinated, strategic actions that cut through the policies, laws, attitudes and practices that thwart the full potential of Black males.

The new activists who mobilized the March for Our Lives don’t have a full strategy figured out yet, but I can tell they have been paying attention to the moments around them - like Black Lives Matter. They must be open to constructive criticism about how to move their agenda forward and build an inclusive leadership for their budding crusade.

It’s not just about the growing and more deadly massacres carried out by mainly white males with automatic weapons. I’m talking about police violence, military violence, state executions, domestic violence, sexual violence, gender violence, racial violence, religious violence, intra-race community violence. There’s bullying by all ages. There’s the mayhem and destruction caused by policy and legislation. Violence is most thought of in terms of physical violence, but it’s also verbal, psychological, cultural and social. We Are A Violent Nation.

I know we can find a just and humane resolution to the immigration concerns and to better spend our hard-earned tax dollars. The Mexican government is not going to pay for this wall and neither will there be any private dollars coming from big, greedy corporations. This trump pet project is about to blow a hole in taxpayers’ pockets!

For a while, there were almost announcements about powerful men being knocked off their proverbial thrones by accusations of sexual crimes. There may be some who think the snow-balling effect of women exposing the sexual aggression of men in the workplace is an overkill. The women who have suffered in pain and silence certainly don’t think so.

The progress of Black, Brown and poor people has been sporadic since 1968. The trump administration in its quest to Make America Great Again is trying to take us back 50 years. It’s appropriate that the concept of the Poor People’s Campaign be resurrected.

In the African American community, the silent nature of sexual violence is real. The stats are alarming yet Black women - even mothers of child victims - are less likely to report incidents than white women. Legitimate distrust of the system and fears of betrayal mute the voices of victims but not the trauma.