Forgotten Black Leaders of the Past--Edward David Bland, Virginia Legistlator, Jordan Point Lighthouse Keeper, Teacher...

Edward David Bland (1848–1927) 3 Terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, shoemaker, lighthouse keeper, teacher, minister. His serving as a lighthouse keeper is very unusual, because lighthouse keepers were almost always Caucasian.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Bland was born into slavery, probably in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to Frederick Bland and Nancy Yates Bland. After the Civil War, the family moved to Petersburg, Virginia, where Frederick Bland worked as a shoemaker and preacher. Bland learned the shoemaker's trade from his father, and attended a local night school organized by Northerners for African Americans. He married Nancy Jones of Petersburg on December 18, 1872; two years later, they moved to City Point, Virginia, where he worked as a shoemaker. The couple had nine children."

"Bland became involved in local politics in the 1870s. At a mass meeting of black Republicans in 1879, Bland gave a speech advocating an alliance with the Readjuster party led by William Mahone. With the support of the Readjusters, Bland was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates that year, defeating incumbent Robert E. Bland to represent Prince George and Surry Counties. He served on the Committee on Executive Expenditures and the Committee on Schools and Colleges, and was a delegate to the Virginia Republican Party convention in 1880.

"After being re-elected in 1881, he served on the Committee on Agriculture and Mining, the Committee on Claims, and the Committee on Retrenchment and Economy. During that session, black Republicans passed legislation to create a state college and an insane asylum for Virginia's African Americans and increase funding for black public schools. Their success was followed by white backlash; in 1883, Conservatives launched a white supremacy campaign which helped them regain a majority in the Virginia General Assembly.
Bland was nevertheless re-elected that year and served on the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, the Committee on Enrolled Bills, and the Committee on Officers and Offices at the Capitol. After serving his third term, he yielded his seat to Republican William Faulcon but remained active in local politics.

Later years "Bland spent the rest of his life in Prince George County. He worked as a teacher, minister, shoemaker, and keeper of the Jordan Point Lighthouse, near City Point, Virginia. Around 1900, he moved to a farm, where he died of nephritis on February 13, 1927. He was buried at Providence Cemetery (now People's Memorial Cemetery) in Petersburg, Virginia.

"In 2012, Virginia state senator Jennifer McClellan introduced a bill (VA HJR64) to "Recognize and celebrate the outstanding service of the African American men elected to the Virginia General Assembly during Reconstruction, on the occasion of the Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 2013." The bill recognized Bland along with Samuel P. Bolling, Daniel M. Norton, and other notable African-American legislators.

"In 1954, the Edward D. Bland Courts housing project in Hopewell, Virginia, was named in his honor."

-- from African-American Leaders during and following the Reconstruction era
Wikipedia

"More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy, disenfranchisement, and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states."
"Historian Canter Brown Jr. noted that in some states, such as Florida, the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after the end of Reconstruction in 1877...until before 1900."

"U.S. Senate
Blanche Bruce – Mississippi 1875–1881
P. B. S. Pinchback – Louisiana 1873, elected but the Senate refused to seat him (also Louisiana Lt. Governor, Louisiana Senate, acting Louisiana Governor, Louisiana Constitutional Convention)
Hiram Rhodes Revels – Mississippi 1870 (also Mississippi Secretary of State)

"U.S. House of Representatives
Main articles: First generation of African-American House members, 1870–1893 and List of African-American United States representatives
Richard H. Cain – South Carolina 1873–1875, 1877–1879 (also South Carolina Senate, House, Constitutional Congress)[2] Henry P. Cheatham – North Carolina 1889–1894
Robert C. De Large – South Carolina 1871–1873 (also South Carolina House, South Carolina Constitutional Convention, and State Land Commissioner)
Robert B. Elliott – South Carolina 1871–1874 (also South Carolina House, South Carolina Attorney General, South Carolina Constitutional Convention, South Carolina Senate, city council)
Jeremiah Haralson – Alabama 1875–1877 (also Alabama Senate and Alabama House)
John Adams Hyman – North Carolina 1875–1877 (also North Carolina Senate and North Carolina Constitutional Convention)[2] John Mercer Langston – Virginia 1890–1891 (also U.S. Minister to Haiti)
Jefferson F. Long – Georgia 1871
John R. Lynch – Mississippi 1873–1877, 1882–1883 (also speaker of the Mississippi House)
John Willis Menard – Louisiana, 1868 elected but not seated
Thomas E. Miller – South Carolina September 24, 1890 – March 3, 1891 (also South Carolina Senate, South Carolina House, and South Carolina Constitutional Convention)
George W. Murray – South Carolina 1893–1897
Charles E. Nash – Louisiana 1875 –1877
James E. O'Hara – North Carolina 1883–1887 (also North Carolina House)
....
Joseph H. Rainey – South Carolina 1870–1879 (also South Carolina Senate and South Carolina Constitutional Convention)
Alonzo J. Ransier – South Carolina 1873–1875 (also South Carolina Lt. Governor and Constitutional Convention)
James T. Rapier – Alabama 1873–1875 (also Alabama Constitutional Convention)
Robert Smalls – South Carolina 1875–1879, 1882–1887 (also South Carolina Senate, South Carolina House, and Constitutional Convention)
Benjamin Sterling Turner – Alabama 1871–1873
Josiah T. Walls – Florida 1871–1876 (also Florida House, Florida Senate, and Florida Constitutional Convention)
George Henry White – North Carolina 1897–1901 (also North Carolina House and North Carolina Senate)[2] Alabama
Between 1868 and 1878, more than 100 African Americans served in the Alabama Legislature.

Senate of Virginia
James W. D. Bland – Prince Edward County 1869 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)
Cephas L. Davis – Mecklenburg County 1879
John M. Dawson – Charles City, Elizabeth City, James City, Warwick, and York counties 1874–1877
Joseph P. Evans – Petersburg 1874
Nathaniel M. Griggs – Prince Edward County 1887–1890
James R. Jones Mecklenburg County – 1875–1877 and 1881–1883
Isaiah L. Lyons – Surry, York, Elizabeth City, and Warwick counties 1869–1871
William P. Moseley – Goochland County 1869–1871 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)
Francis "Frank" Moss – Buckingham County 1869–1871 (also Virginia House and Virginia Constitutional Convention)
Daniel M. Norton – James City and York counties 1871–1873 and 1877–1887 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)
Guy Powell – Nottoway, Lunenburg and Brunswick counties 1875–1878
John Robinson – Cumberland County 1869–1873 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)
William N. Stevens – Petersburg 1871–1878 and Sussex County 1881 (also Virginia House)
George Teamoh – Norfolk County 1869–1871 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)

"Virginia House of Delegates
William H. Andrews – Surry County 1869–1871 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention)[126] William H. Ash – Amelia and Nottoway counties 1887 Briton Baskerville, Jr. – Mecklenburg County 1887[126] Edward David Bland – Prince George and Surry counties 1879–1884 Phillip S. Bolling – Cumberland and Buckingham counties; elected in 1883 but was ruled ineligible[126] Samuel P. Bolling – Cumberland and Buckingham counties 1883–1887[126] Tazewell Branch – Prince Edward County 1874–1877 William H. Brisby – New Kent County 1869–1871[126] Goodman Brown – Prince George and Surry counties 1887[126] Peter J. Carter – Northampton County 1871–1878 Matt Clark – Halifax County 1874[126] George William Cole – Essex County 1879[126] Asa Coleman – Halifax County 1871–1873 Johnson Collins – Brunswick County 1879 Aaron Commodore – Essex County 1875–1877 Miles Connor – Norfolk County 1875–1877[126] Henry Cox – Chesterfield and Powhatan counties 1869–1877 Isaac Dabbs – Charlotte County 1875–1877 McDowell Delaney – Amelia County 1871–1873[126] Amos Andre Dodson – Mecklenburg County 1883 Shed Dungee – Cumberland and Buckingham counties 1879–1882[126] Jesse Dungey – King William County 1871–1873[126] Isaac Edmundson – Halifax County 1869–1871[126] Ballard T. Edwards – Chesterfield and Powhatan counties 1869–1871[126] Joseph P. Evans – Petersburg 1871–1873 (also Virginia Senate) William D. Evans – Prince Edward County 1877–1880[126] William W. Evans – Petersburg 1887[126] William Faulcon – Prince George and Surry counties 1885–1887[126] George Fayerman – Petersburg 1869–1871[126] James A. Fields – Elizabeth City and James City counties 1889 Alexander Q. Franklin – Charles City County 1889[126] John Freeman – Halifax County 1871[126] William Gilliam – Prince George County 1871–1875 James P. Goodwyn – Petersburg 1874[126] Armistead Green – Petersburg 1881–1884[126] Robert G. Griffin – James City and York counties 1883[126] Nathaniel M. Griggs – Prince Edward County 1883 (also Virginia Senate) Ross Hamilton – Mecklenburg County 1869–1882, 1889 Alfred W. Harris – Petersburg 1881–1888 H. Clay Harris – Halifax County 1874–1875[126] Henry C. Hill – Amelia County 1874–1875[126] Charles E. Hodges – Norfolk County 1869–1871[126] John Q. Hodges – Princess Anne County 1869–1871[126] Henry Johnson – Amelia and Nottoway counties 1889–1890[126] Benjamin Jones – Charles City County 1869–1871[126] James R. Jones – Mecklenburg County 1885–1887 (also Virginia Senate) Peter K. Jones – Greensville County 1869–1877 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention) Robert G. W. Jones – Charles City County 1869–1871[126] Rufus S. Jones – Elizabeth City and Warwick counties 1871–1875[127] William H. Jordan – Petersburg 1885–1887[126] Alexander G. Lee – Elizabeth City and Warwick 1877–1879[128] Neverson Lewis – Chesterfield and Powhatan counties 1879–1882[126] James F. Lipscomb – Cumberland County 1869–1877[126] William P. Lucas – Louisa County 1874–1875[126] John W. B. Matthews – Petersburg 1871–1873[126] J. B. Miller Jr. – Goochland County 1869–1871[126] Peter G. Morgan – Petersburg 1869–1871 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention and city council) Francis "Frank" Moss – Buckingham County 1874 (also Virginia Senate and Virginia Constitutional Convention) Armistead S. Nickens – Lancaster County 1871–1875 Frederick S. Norton – James City and Williamsburg counties 1869–1871[126] Robert Norton – Elizabeth City and York counties 1869–1872, 1881 Alexander Owen – Halifax County 1869–1871[126] Littleton Owens – Princess Anne County 1879–1882[126] Richard G. L. Paige – Norfolk County 1871–1875, 1879–1882 William H. Patterson – Charles City County 1871–1873 Caesar Perkins – Buckingham County 1869–1871, 1878–1888, 1887 Fountain M. Perkins – Louisa County 1869–1871[129] John W. Poindexter – Louisa County 1875–1877[126] Joseph B. Pope – Southampton County 1879[126] Guy Powell – Brunswick County 1881 (also Virginia Senate) William H. Ragsdale – Charlotte County 1869–1871[126] John H. Robinson – Elizabeth City and James City, and York counties 1887[126] R. D. Ruffin – Dinwiddie County 1875[126] Archer Scott – Amelia and Nottoway counties 1875–1877, 1879–1884[126] George L. Seaton – Alexandria County 1869–1871[126] Dabney Smith – Charlotte County 1881[126] Henry D. Smith – Greensville County 18790[126] Robert M. Smith – Elizabeth City and Warwick counties 1875–1877[126] William N. Stevens – Sussex County 1869–1879 (also Virginia Senate) John B. Syphax – Arlington County 1874 Henry Turpin – Goochland County 1871 John Watson – Mecklenburg County 1869 (also Virginia Constitutional Convention) Maclin C. Wheeler – Brunswick County 1883[130] Robert H. Whittaker – Brunswick County 1875–1877 Ellis Wilson – Dinwiddie County 1869–1871[126] Virginia Constitutional Convention William H. Andrews – Surry County 1867–1868 (also Virginia House)[127] James D. Barrett – Fluvanna County 1867–1868[127] Thomas Bayne – Norfolk 1867–1868 James W. D. Bland – Prince Edward County 1867–1868 (also Virginia Senate)[127] William Breedlove – Essex County 1867–1868[127] John Brown – Southampton County 1867–1868[127] David Canada – Halifax County 1867–1868[127] James B. Carter – Chesterfield and Powhatan counties 1867–1868[127] Joseph Cox – Richmond 1867–1868[127] John Wesley Cromwell – Clerk of the Virginia Constitutional Convention 1867 Willis Augustus Hodges – Princess Anne County 1867–1868 Joseph R. Holmes – Charlotte and Halifax counties 1867–1868 Peter K. Jones – Greensville and Sussex counties 1867–1868 (also Virginia House) Samuel F. Kelso – Campbell County 1867–1868[127] Lewis Lindsey – Richmond 1867–1868[127] Peter G. Morgan – Petersburg 1867–1868 (also Virginia House and city council) William P. Moseley – Goochland County 1867–1868 (also Virginia Senate) Francis "Frank" Moss – Buckingham County 1867–1868 (also Virginia House and Virginia Senate) Edward Nelson – Charlotte County 1867–1868[127] Daniel M. Norton – Yorktown 1867–1868 (also Virginia Senate) John Robinson – Cumberland County 1867–1868 (also Virginia Senate) James T. S. Taylor – Albemarle County 1867–1868[127] George Teamoh – Portsmouth 1867–1868 (also Virginia Senate) Burwell Toler – Hanover County 1867–1868 John Watson – Mecklenburg County 1867–1868 (also Virginia House)[127] Federal offices P. H. A. Braxton – collector at the United States Custom House in Westmoreland County (also constable) William Breedlow or Breedlove – postmaster of Tappahannock March 3, 1870 – March 13, 1871[11] Robert H. Cauthorn – postmaster of Dunnsville September 21, 1897 – October 24, 1901[11] James H. Cunningham – postmaster of Manchester September 20, 1869 – August 1, 1872[11] William Henry Hayes – postmaster of Boydton June 17, 1889 – March 25, 1893[11] John T. Jackson Sr. – postmaster of Alanthus March 23, 1891 – January 31, 1940[11] William H. Johnson – postmaster of Baynesville November 29, 1893 – October 23, 1897[11] Wade H. Mason – postmaster of Bluestone March 13, 1890 – November 14, 1902[11] Isaac Morton – postmaster of Port Royal March 2, 1870 – October 29, 1872[11] Daniel A. Twyman – postmaster of Junta August 12, 1898 – October 23, 1898
Local offices
P. H. A. Braxton – King William County constable 1872 (also U.S. Custom House collector)
Peter G. Morgan – Petersburg city council (also Virginia House and Virginia Constitutional Convention)
V. Cook Nickens – constable of Leesburg Magisterial District 1873

...........
"Further reading

Bailey, Richard. Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags: Black Officeholders During the Reconstruction of Alabama, 1867–1878.
Montgomery: Richard Bailey Publishers, 1995. ISBN 978-0962721809
Brown, Jr., Canter. Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867–1924. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998. ISBN 9780817309169 Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar. Shadow and Light: An Autobiography. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0-8032-7050-3 Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era. Howard N. Rabinowitz, editor. University of Illinois Press, 1982. ISBN 978-0252009723"

What Fiction books have you read more than once, novels that inspired, even changed you?

HERE’S my CURRENT LIST of
BEST NOVELS:
Ones I’ve read (most at least 3 times) that have incredibly real characters, suspense, setting, and theme—novels that take you into another life,
where for 2 hours or more,
you live a different life in a different time and place,
totally forget your own life!
Novels that have such deep meaning that you reflect on their themes repeatedly,
novels that inspire or warn,
that leave you changed!

THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells

EXODUS by Leon Uris

WATCHERS by Dean Koontz

ONE DAY AWAY FROM HEAVEN by Dean Koontz


THE PEACEABLE KINGDON by Jan De Hartog

THE HOST by Stephanie Meyer

THE ORIGIN by Irving Stone

THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER by Amy Tan

THE SHORT STORIES OF JACK LONDON

11/22/63 by Stephen King

THE COVENANT by James Michener

IN DUBIOUS BATTLE by John Steinbeck

FLOWERS FOR ALGERON by Daniel Keys

BIRTHRIGHT by Nora Roberts

JANE EYRE by Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte)

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)


In the LIGHT of Truth and Goodness,

Dan Wilcox

Instead of White Supremacy, CRT, intolerance, divisiveness, hatred---Choose Reconciliation and Beauty like Daybreak in Alabama by Hughes

Daybreak in Alabama

When I get to be a colored composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
Touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a colored composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.


Langston Hughes, "Daybreak in Alabama" from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

My Response to “Friends, Racial Justice, and Policing” by Cherice Bock

https://chericebock.com/2021/07/24/published-friends-racial-justice-policing-western-friend/

https://www.fcnl.org/sites/default/files/2020-12/Friends%2C%20Racial%20Justice%2C%20and%20Policing%20A%20Biblical%20Economy%20of%20Care-%20Annual%20Meeting%202020%20-%20final.pdf

First, let me give a few notes on my past that have to do with Cherice Bock and with Friends Committee on National Legislation.

#1 I’ve been a part of the Quaker movement since my first visit to a meeting in 1967 in Philadelphia, PA. That occurred when I was serving my conscientious objector service in a mental hospital for children and teens, after I was drafted.

#2 My wife and I have read information on racial reconciliation, justice, and peacemaking by FCNL for many years. We always found FCNL to be a voice for justice with a moderate tone, emphasizing compassionate listening and peace-making, unlike many groups which have sometimes been strident, ideological, and inaccurate in their writing.

#3 When Cherice Bock was part of Freedom Friends in Salem, Oregon. I regularly read her informative articles because of her emphasis upon spiritual reflection and her concern for the environment. Even though my wife and I were members of the Sierra Club for years, etc., Cherice Bock’s articles helped me to gain new understandings of ecology.

As I recall, her articles were warm-hearted, fair, and passioned. Kudos for her.

HOWEVER, she seems to have changed. At least her article for FCNL is disheartening, makes false ideological claims, and contradicts the many news sources I followed when studying the protests in Portland last year.

Side note: It is possible that all the news sources and news videos—including ones from the Portland TV station—that I watched are incorrect. Maybe, they were all wrong, and I failed to see news accounts that were more true to the actual crises there in Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis, etc. But I doubt it.

Please readers, if you have contrary video evidence of police in Portland or elsewhere attacking peaceful and civil protestors, please send me url and I will watch it.

PART #1: I am thankful that Cherice Bock started out by acknowledging/referencing the historical evils that were done to Indigenous people of Oregon.

Too, often very few Americans now living know anything about the immoral and unjust actions of early Oregonians toward people of color (including Native Americans, Asians, and Blacks).

From libraryguides.lanecc.edu/kalapuya: “The Kalapuyans are a Native American ethnic group. Many of their contemporary descendants are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. The Kalapuyan traditional homelands were in the Willamette, Elk Creek, and Calapooya Creek watersheds of Western Oregon. They hunted and gathered as far east and west as the Cascades and Coast ranges and traded with the Chinookans to the north and Coos peoples on the coast. Their major tribes were the Tualatin, Yamhill, and Ahantchuyuk at the north, the Santiam, Luckamiute, Tekopa, Chenapinefu in the central valley and the Chemapho, Chelamela, Chafin, Peyu (Mohawk), and Winefelly in the southern Willamette Valley. The most southern, Yoncalla, had a village on the Row River and villages in the Umpqua Valley and so lived in both valleys. The major tribal territories were divided by the Willamette River and its tributaries.” https://libraryguides.lanecc.edu/kalapuya

One needs to keep in mind however, that like ALL of us humans, indigenous natives of the America were immoral and unjust at times. Evil isn’t only lived out by only white Europeans. (Heck, over a million white Europeans were enslaved by North Africans and the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries!)

While the Kalapuyans were stolen from, oppressed, killed, and displaced by whites invading from the east coast of the U.S., the Kalapuyans also engaged in wrong actions before white Europeans ever showed up, including enslaving others:

“As was the case for many tribes of the Pacific Northwest, the Kalapuyans practiced slavery, with slaves generally obtained through trade or as gifts. Northern Kalapuyan groups, such as the Tualatin and Yamhill, would obtain slaves through trade with other tribes. Slaves would be obtained by raids on distant tribes or through servitude related to paying off debts. Slaves were considered a form of wealth and were used for the purchase of desired commodities, including beads, blankets, and canoes.”

https://libraryguides.lanecc.edu/kalapuya

#2 Charice Bock: “I think it is incredibly important for white people to tell these stories and do the emotional labor of trying to communicate about police brutality, its links to racism, and the bigger links to economic access and natural resources.”

In this short sentence, Charice Bock combines truth with inaccurate claims. First, I agree that European-Americans, including those who live now (such as myself, of Scottish, Scandinavian, German, and English ancestry*) ought to research history to understand what has been done wrong, (as well as right) and make diligent efforts to correct any evils of the past that still shadow the present.

Second, in contrast, her next phrase is an example of inaccuracy and ideological untruths that are contrary to the facts of this last year.

Related to these false statements, is her inaccurate claim that “Police forces emerged in this country as a way to return escaped slaves to their masters.”

Based upon my extensive reading of scholarly books and teaching American literature for many years, I think it is valid to state that some police forces in slave states did at least partially come from slave patrols.

But policing in the U.S. came because of many other reasons as well. It is a distortion of history to make the claim that American police came from slave patrols. Some of it did, but in many cases it didn’t.

Boston allegedly established the first city police force in 1751, in Boston in 1838, and New York in 1845. None of those were established as a slave patrol!

Boston’s police force was established to protect the harbor, etc. from criminals.

“…by the late 1880s, all major U.S. cities had police forces. Fears of labor-union organizers and of large waves of Catholic, Irish, Italian, German, and Eastern European immigrants, who looked and acted differently from the people who had dominated cities before, drove the call for the preservation of law and order, or at least the version of it promoted by dominant interests. For example, people who drank at taverns rather than at home were seen as “dangerous” people by others, but they might have pointed out other factors such as how living in a smaller home makes drinking in a tavern more appealing. (The irony of this logic, Potter points out, is that the businessmen who maintained this belief were often the ones who profited off of the commercial sale of alcohol in public places.)
Time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/

As for “police brutality,” some officers do fail their duty and engage in brutalty. All professions have those who do what is immoral and unjust. It happens with medical malpractice, biased court decisions, religious leaders' acts of molestation, unfair teachers, etc.
HOWEVER, it is not the present action of the vast majority of police in the U.S.

On the contrary, when many thousands of BLM demonstrators attacked police last year, including injuring about 50 Chicago police officers, the latter being greatly outnumbered by the violence of the protestors, most police actually were praiseworthy for their limited defensive actions.

In my own educated judgment, law enforcement oficers were way too lenient, letting violent demonstraters get away with assaults, destruction, and even arson!

IF in doubt, for instance, watch the YouTube video by the Black Chicago Police Chief who documents moment by moment the planned intentional violent attacks of the protestors against a few Chicago officers trying to do their duty.

Watch the news videos, again, of the many violent attacks by Portland protesters all last year!

Many of these demonstrators are NOTHING like the peaceful civil rights workers of the early 1960's and late 1950s such as at Birminghan where even when viciously attacked by police and their dogs and fire hoses, those prptesters continued to live by nonviolence.

Have you read the accounts from multiple sources of all the violence by demonstraters in various cities across the U.S., watched the tragic videos of them breaking laws and attacking police, etc.?

In Portland, repeatedly for over 100 days, violent protesters attacked police, committed vandalism, some even arson and did many thousands of dollars worth of damage to the Federal Court House in Portland.

It appears, based upon many news accounts of those horrific days that the violent protesters in Oregon misbehaved like the violent protesters who attacked police and broke into the Capitol on Jaunuary 6th.

The destruction of thousands of businesses in Minneapolis, and other cities, IS violence!

Haven’t you read about the many business owners who have lost everything?

Small stores operate on very thin margin. Vandalism against them by protesters harms the owners, some of whom are Blacks and other people of color.

Even IF, no humans suffered great loss, protesters using violence in the pursuit of justice is a severe violation of moral realism. The “end” never justifies the means.

Furthermore, violence of all sorts is immoral and unjust, like Martin Luther King emphasized.

As for the claim that U.S. police are guilty of racism, it’s partially true. In my own limited life, I’ve met racist cops. Their prejudice is appalling!

HOWEVER, most law enforcement officers aren’t racist. Heck, many of them are Black, Asian, and other minorities, and they are dedicated to fair treatment, equality, and justice.

During my teaching career, I taught at least 2 high schools that were mostly minorities. In our classes we had Black, Mexican-American, Filipino, Arab, Hmong, Vietnamese.

Tragically we also had gangs including at least one white gang.

When over 100 students of 2 different minorites started a horrific fight on the high school field in California, we had 11 squad cars on campus.

Those officers did an amazing job of protecting innocent students and stopping the violence!

And here is one powerful example: When my wife and I were members of a BIC church (part of Mennonite world) in Tulare, California, one of the elders was a Mexican-American police officer. He came from a poor family, his older brothers were in gangs, and when he got to his early teens, he broke the law.

HOWEVER, unlike so many tragic cases like this where teens have bad families including gang members, who themselves then go down that crooked path, a police officer, rather than only do his duty and arrest the teen, took a personal interest in him for himself. By that police officer’s interest, the teen left crime and gangs, and eventually became an officer himself. (It’s a wonderful testimony he shared one Sunday to the congregation.)

Of course, there are plenty of true stories of police officers being prejudiced.

But most police aren’t racist nor are they unfair.

That doesn’t take away from the facts that there are some racist officers who harm innocent individuals. Those officers need to be arrested and strongly opposed.

To be continued--

In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

WHY I USED TO FLY THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, but no longer do so.

Here’s an incredible irony: BLMer’s, Democrats, and others are up in arms demanding the banning of the Confederate battle flag. I’m certainly not a fan of that flag that glorified killing and that represented a nation whose leaders believed in the institution of slavery.

HOWEVER, HERE’S THE IRONY: NONE of these BLMer’s, Democrats, and most Americans plan to ban Old Glory, the U.S. flag even though it flew over the U.S. in defense of slavery, invasive wars, huge land thefts, etc. from 1776 to 1865, a total of 89 years!

Even after 1865, though slavery had become illegal, actual slavery, racism, and legal discrimination continued in many states until the 1960's and 70's!

In 1877, President Hayes made a deal with the racist Redeemers and removed all Federal troops from the South.
The Redeemers brought in Jim Crow, Negro Codes, and Segregation. There were "Sundown" towns in the north. President Woodrow Wilson segregated the U.S. government offices! All of these horrors lasted until the 1970's!

-- Even after the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln in 1863, slave owners in the Union were allowed to keep their slaves. The Union slaves weren’t freed until the end of the war in 1865.

Lincoln had meant the E.P. only for slaves not under his control in a separate nation, the Confederacy. So, he freed slaves he couldn’t, and kept slaves that he could have freed in the U.S., enslaved!

And Lincoln was still trying to convince all Negros to move from the U.S. back to Africa or go to Latin America in 1863. Lincoln didn’t think that Blacks could live with Whites because he believed Blacks were inferior. While he opposed slavery, he didn’t think Blacks were equal, nor that they should be allowed to vote or serve on juries, etc.

During the Revolutionary War, and especially the War of 1812 the British offered freedom to American slaves, BUT the Americans, supposedly for freedom and liberty, continued to support slavery!

And in the invasion of Mexico and the annexation of Texas, the U.S. supported slavery, while Mexico had banned slavery.

Over the years, in some cases, Old Glory has stood for freedom and genrosity, but in the last 247-years most of the time it has stood for invasions and the rejection of refugees such as when we rejected escaping Jews from Nazi Germany in the late 1930's!

And now in the last 4 years, we've again supported a harsh rejection of the "huddled" refugees, a denial of the Statue of Liberty.

STATUE of LIBERTY on the 4TH of July: "Give me your huddled masses, longing to be free..."


Dan Wilcox

In this time of protesters demeaning and harming police, here's a new song by Coffey Anderson - Back The Blue (Official Audio)

Book Review: STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING by Ibram X. Kendi

This non-fiction survey of racism in American history is well worth the read. It is a good introduction to racism in American history and the winner of the National Book Award. The explanations and descriptions of early 16th to 18th racist leaders are seldom written about, so few people know of that era other than brief descriptions of the murderous Middle Passage.

Kendi has a deep passion for what he writes, and he gives new readers a handy way to break down and to remember all of the complex events, leaders, and crises that took place over hundreds of years. His handy key history sheet reduces all humans into about 4 or 5 categories related to the topic of racism--there are racists, or assimilators, or accommodators (not his term, can’t remember, but something like it), and a small number are anti-racists.

So this popular book in a simple basic sense at first, is helpful, especially for those who don't know racism's history.

And, despite his skimming across the surface of most of American history, Kendi does go a bit more deeply into the horrific tragedy of Reconstruction and its racist aftermath when the racist Redeemers took over all Southern governments between 1865 and 1879 (and the U.S. government let them; indeed, the Hays government helped them!:-()

His book was a good review for me of that time period since I read Foner’s Reconstruction, a scholarly tome about 7-10 years ago.
HOWEVER by midpoint Kendi’s basic schematic for categorizing all of humankind begins to show signs of distortion, misleading claims, down-wrong falsehood, and confusion. He obsesses to make everyone fit into his ideological biases, into his few cookie-cutter stereotypical categories.

Cutting every human to fit into one of his 4 or 5 Procustrian beds. He, especially does this when he attempts to blame almost everyone for holding racist views, even calls nearly all abolitionists and Civil Rights workers “racist” including Garrison, Douglas, and Martin Luther King! And then his book gets worse.

#1 Kendi confuses inherent worth of all humans with thinking that all humans essentially have the same immediate achievement ability. He thinks American leaders who thought that illiterate, abused ex-slaves weren’t immediately ready for voting, leading, and achieving were racists because of that. Maybe some of them were.


Contrary to what Kendi asserts, American leaders seeking to help ex-slaves become literate before they were allowed to vote (and become full citizens) weren't "racist," weren't denying their inherent worth. Rather it was an acknowledgment that despite the Blacks' human inherent worth, enslavement had hindered them, had kept them from achievement in many areas, and that therefore, the ex-slaves needed to be given the means and finances and education to work toward achieving what had been previously denied them.

Most of ex-slaves, especially the field workers, weren’t as capable as educated Whites and free Negroes, just like at-risk teens raised in dysfunctional abusive families aren’t immediately capable of the same achievements as teens raised in high-achieving positive, loving families.

Kendi goes onto to claim that unless all Africans were immediately given total control of their nations in Africa in the post-colonial era, then the leaving European leaders were just as racist and oppressive as their forebears who had committed so much evil. Not so.

This shows a severe lack of historical understanding, anthropology, etc. OR more likely, since Kendi is a brilliant individual with a PhD., his claims show how ideological-driven his book is.

He repeatedly commits either/or fallacies, blames all human horrors on only whites, excuses all POC from any responsibilities, and so forth.

A quick cursory glance at African nations, as they are now, 50-100 years later shows that Kendi’s view is delusionary, confused, and wrong.

No African nations, not a single one—at least none that I can think of--have rational, civil, democratic, balanced leaders. YEt most of the the nations have amazing natural resources and great potential. And millions of worthy humans who could accomplish much if given the chance.

But instead these nations' resources have been squandered by a succession of corrupt, often brutal dictators, autocrats, even mass murderers!

Some of these immoral horrors can be blamed on the abuse, misuse, racism, and massive theft of colonialism, but not all, or even most. Think of Uganda under Idi Amin, the Rwanda genocide, the former Congo, Zimbabwe under Mugabe (who has turned the former bread-basket of Africa into a failed malnourished state), Mozambique, Egypt, Algeria, Somalia, etc.

The few somewhat better functioning nations such as Kenya still have much poverty, suffer many killings during violent elections, engage in plenty of irrational behaviors, and lots of unnecessary suffering.

Even mostly democratic South Africa (probably the best example of a modern state in Africa) has since the end of Apartheid, been poorly governed, and even worse run, by the corrupt leader, Jacob Zuma, a polygamist, who built a mansion while millions of citizens still live in shacks and poverty, etc.

Though S.A. has had about 30 years to start making huge changes, restructuring and opening up the nation to ALL of its citizens, Black leaders (with the exception of the elderly Mandela) have failed miserably.

It’s true that many years of racist ruling by the white supremacist Dutch Reformed leaders left behind many severe problems, but Black leaders for the most part haven’t solved those and, instead, have created more problems of their own.

Nor does Kendi deal with horrific African leaders of the historic past such as Shaka and the Zulu. Nor does he engage with the tribal slaughters by Blacks that occurred in Africa for centuries and that still happen.

Instead, Kendi acts like only white Europeans are racist and engage in all manners of evil.

It's tragically true that hundreds of years of oppression, persecution, abuse, enslavement, and slaughter were caused by white Europeans. Kendi is correct there.

Where he misleads is that he fails to identify and deal with the hundreds of years of Black and Brown people's evil actions.

Further, Kendi defends the horrific criminal riots of the late 1960’s in the U.S. calling them anti-racist “rebellions”!

Any quick overview of U.S. history shows this to be completely untrue. Arson-burnings of many blocks of businesses including Black ones, massive lootings, vandalism, killings, etc. aren’t anti-racist “rebellions”! They are criminal riots.

He goes onto support the criminal Black Panthers and other violent Black racists who committed crimes including many killings.

Kendi also seems to defend ‘gangsta rap with its endless obscenities, calls for lethal violence, injustice, and so forth. He defends such rappers as Tupac.

About the only Black leader for civil rights that Kendi thinks gets good marks for anti-racism is Angela Davis! Yet she is a doctrinaire communist! Davis, allegedly, refused to condemn the Soviet Union and other communist nations for their imprisonment of millions of innocent protesters, writers, and scientists, and for their state-murder of millions.

Good grief, Davis admires Lenin, one of the worst leaders of the 20th century, guilty for the death of millions of humans!

Davis even accepted the Lenin Prize. Etc.

While her direct involvement in the kidnapping and murders of people by the Jacksons, and the attempt to help George Jackson to break out of San Quentin was rejected by the jury in her trial, the fact that she allowed the younger Jackson to use her own guns shows negligence. Heck, allegedly, she employed Jonathan as her bodyguard.

What had happened to the Black nonviolence of great leaders like Bayard Rustin who convinced a wavering King to not even have a gun in his home?
Davis also supports South African Winnie Mandela as a woman of "courage"! Sick!..Read about that immoral, unjust leader who advocated murder of others by burning tires around their bodies!

Kendi appears to admire Chairman Mao, one of the worst mass murderers of human history!

Kendi speaks positively of W.E.B. Du Bois going to meet Mao in the late 1950’s. That’s about the time Mao caused the starvation deaths of millions of innocent Chinese. Then there are the millions Mao intentionally slaughtered.

Further, Kendi claims that even Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Dubois, King, Obama, etc. held racist views. I kid you not.

He doesn’t mention the great Civil Rights leader, Bayard Rustin, who began protesting back in the 1940’s! Then advised King and others in the 1950's Please read the powerful biography, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.

Nor in all of his over 500 pages does Kendi speak of the huge influence of heretical and liberal Christianity as the source and standard bearer of anti-racism, abolition, civil rights, etc, (except for a few comments on Woolman and Quakerism).

And the further the book goes, the more obsessed, Kendi becomes in his simplistic ideological claims. As Kendi says in a recent interview, he thinks all humans are either racist or anti-racist. Another case of the either/or fallacy.

Worst of all Kendi thinks that the solution for racism is power and self-interest, not altruism or spiritual elevation or moral realism. Forget about King, John Lewis, and so many others who emphasized that the answer to racism and all other evils is altruism.

The central basis of Kendi’s book appears to be Critical Race Theory, though I don’t remember him actually writing about that overtly.

In the 3rd section of the book (an era that I know well), I started skimming for key names and actions because his commentary is superficial and a distortion of 20th century history and leaders. I do agree with his condemnation of the unjust actions of the famous racist leaders.

In conclusion, I am glad I read Stamped, despite its distortions and failures and ideological fanaticism.

I do agree that racism is still with us, and that the long evil shadow of the enslavement past still distorts American culture and society, and that all of us need to work to alter all that is wrong, and that intensive help needs to be given to Blacks and others who have suffered from structural racism of the past.

But the HUGE glaring chasm in Kendi’s book is that he blames only Whites for racism.

He never deals with the fact that Blacks were the ones in Africa who sold millions of other Blacks into slavery, or that long before Europeans came down the coast and started the Middle Passage, Brown Muslims were enslaving millions of Blacks for centuries, etc.

And, most, negligently, Kendi dismisses any Black responsibility for immorality, injustice, and killings. He never deals with Black crime, including the horrific slaughter by Blacks in Chicago, including many children. Instead, he blames everything on white racism!

Kendi also denies that Blacks are responsible for vandalism, abuse, drug-use, prostitution, broken families, missing fathers, illegitimate children, promiscuity, etc. OR sometimes he does even worse, Kendi justifies immoral and the unjust actions by Blacks claiming that those wrong actions aren’t really wrong!

I was tempted to next write that Kendi has done a “white-wash” of American history, but, heck, he would no doubt accuse me of racist speech.

EVALUATION: D+ (B-F)
8/4/20

In the Light of Justice, Goodness, and Equality,

Dan Wilcox

How Black Lives Matter as a call for justice is different from some BLM's acts of vandalism and harm

In the news, Giants baseball player, Sam Coonrod, refuses to kneel for racial justice...

Coonrod ought to have separated Black Lives Matter as a very important call to justice and kindness and reconciliation and against racism, from the bad examples of some BLM leaders and protesters who by their calls for violence, and their vandalism, arson, and hitting 49 police officers in Chicago with heavy objects, etc. harm others and the movement.

Maybe, Coonrod had heard statements such as this by Hawk Newsome, a leader of BLM of New York:
"If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.
All right? And I could be speaking figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation...“I don’t condone nor do I condemn rioting,”...Hawk Newsome said during an interview Wednesday evening on “The Story” with Martha MacCallum.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-leader-if-change-doesnt-happen-we-will-burn-down-this-system/

We are living in tragic times now. Most humans are too ideological, too divisive and so many are turning to violence.

Thankfully, however, many are refusing to become ideological and divisive, but kneel, committed to the nonviolent ideals of Bayard Rustin, John Lewis, and other great Civil Rights workers.
--
FROM "...Coonrod becomes MLB’s Giant target for stance on Black Lives Matter movement"
https://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/article/Carrollton-8217-s-Coonrod-becomes-MLB-8217-s-15435047.php

"LOS ANGELES — Citing his faith as a Christian man and his desire to remain consistent in his beliefs, San Francisco Giants reliever Sam Coonrod explained why he didn’t kneel during a pregame moment of unity at Dodger Stadium Thursday.

“I meant no ill will by it,” the Carrollton native said. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian. I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”

"Prior to the playing of the national anthem on Opening Night, every player and coach from both the Dodgers and Giants held a long piece of black fabric, and all but Coonrad also took a knee. Coonrod held the fabric along with everyone else but remained standing.

"The moment of silence was intended to support the Black Lives Matter movement, which Coonrod said he has had difficulty embracing.

“I’m a Christian,” Coonrod said. “I can’t get on board on a couple of things I’ve read about Black Lives Matter, how they lean toward Marxism and said some negative things about the nuclear family.”
--

"Many are supporting Coonrod’s stance. Many are not."

Story by Kerry Crowley of the San Jose Mercury News
https://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/article/Carrollton-8217-s-Coonrod-becomes-MLB-8217-s-15435047.php
--

In the Light of equality, justice, and reconciliation,

Dan Wilcox

Guest post: CRISIS DIVIDE: The Righteous and the Woke--Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger...

Guest Post on current CRISIS DIVIDE IN THE U.S.
The Righteous and the Woke – Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger Me in the Same Way
by Valerie Tarico,
Seattle psychologist and writer.
FROM https://valerietarico.com/2019/01/24/the-righteousness-and-the-woke-why-evangelicals-and-social-justice-warriors-trigger-me-in-the-same-way/?fbclid=IwAR3yUudcjmlRlTroHNGxyAsUKGI8g4Bfr2ScHgDRMwGvDAhKEUDkPCrfJto

"I was Born Again until nearly the end of graduate school, a sincere Evangelical who went to church on Sunday and Wednesday with my family and to Thursday Bible study on my own. I dialed for converts during the “I Found It” evangelism campaign, served as a counselor at Camp Good News, and graduated from Wheaton College, Billy Graham’s alma mater. I know what it is to be an earnest believer among believers.

"I also know what it is to experience those same dynamics from the outside. Since my fall from grace, I’ve written a book, Trusting Doubt, and several hundred articles exposing harms from Evangelicalism—not just the content of beliefs but also how they spread and shape the psychology of individuals and behavior of communities, doing damage in particular to women, children, and religious minorities.

It occurred to me recently that my time in Evangelicalism and subsequent journey out have a lot to do with why I find myself reactive to the spread of Woke culture among colleagues, political soulmates, and friends. Christianity takes many forms, with Evangelicalism being one of the more single-minded, dogmatic, groupish and enthusiastic among them. The Woke—meaning progressives who have “awoken” to the idea that oppression is the key concept explaining the structure of society, the flow of history, and virtually all of humanity’s woes—share these qualities.

To a former Evangelical, something feels too familiar—or better said, a bunch of somethings feel too familiar.

Righteous and infidels—There are two kinds of people in the world: Saved and damned or Woke and bigots, and anyone who isn’t with you 100% is morally suspect*. Through the lens of dichotomizing ideologies, each of us is seen—first and foremost—not as a complicated individual, but as a member of a group, with moral weight attached to our status as an insider or outsider. (*exceptions made for potential converts)

Insider jargon—Like many other groups, the saved and the Woke signal insider status by using special language. An Evangelical immediately recognizes a fellow tribe-member when he or she hears phrases like Praise the Lord, born again, backsliding, stumbling block, give a testimony, a harvest of souls, or It’s not a religion; it’s a relationship. The Woke signal their wokeness with words like intersectionality, cultural appropriation, trigger warning, microaggression, privilege, fragility, problematic, or decolonization. The language of the Woke may have more meaningful real-world referents than that of Evangelicals, but in both cases, jargon isn’t merely a tool for efficient or precise communication as it is in many professions—it is a sign of belonging and moral virtue.

Born that way—Although theoretically anyone is welcome in either group, the social hierarchies in both Evangelical culture and Woke culture are defined largely by accidents of birth. The Bible lists privileged blood lines—the Chosen People—and teaches that men (more so than women) were made in the image of God. In Woke culture, hierarchy is determined by membership in traditionally oppressed tribes, again based largely on blood lines and chromosomes. Note that this is not about individual experience of oppression or privilege, hardship or ease. Rather, generic average oppression scores get assigned to each tribe and then to each person based on intersecting tribal identities. Thus, a queer female East Indian Harvard grad with a Ph.D. and E.D. position is considered more oppressed than the unemployed third son of a white Appalachian coal miner.

Original sin—In both systems, one consequence of birth is inherited guilt. People are guilty of the sins of their fathers. In the case of Evangelicalism, we all are born sinful, deserving of eternal torture because of Eve’s folly—eating from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. In Woke culture, white and male people are born with blood guilt, a product of how dominant white and male people have treated other people over the ages and in modern times, (which—it must be said—often has been unspeakably horrible). Again, though, individual guilt isn’t about individual behaviors. A person born with original sin or blood guilt can behave badly and make things worse, but they cannot erase the inborn stain. (Note that this contradicts core tenets of liberal, humanist, and traditional progressive thought.)

Orthodoxies—The Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Jesus died for your sins. Hell awaits sinners. Salvation comes through accepting Jesus as your savior. If you are an Evangelical, doctrines like these must not be questioned. Trust and obey for there’s no other way. Anyone who questions core dogmas commits heresy, and anyone who preaches against them should be de-platformed or silenced. The Woke also have tenets of faith that must not be questioned. Most if not all ills flow from racism or sexism. Only males can be sexist; only white people can be racist. Gender is culturally constructed and independent of sex. Immigration is an economic boon for everyone. Elevating the most oppressed person will solve problems all the way up. Did my challenging that list make you think you might be reading an article by a conservative? If so, that’s exactly what I’m trying to illustrate.

Denial as proof—In Evangelicalism, thinking you don’t need to accept Jesus as your savior is proof that you do. Your denial simply reveals the depth of your sin and hardness of heart. In Woke culture, any pushback is perceived as a sign of white fragility or worse, a sign that one is a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, xenophobe, or transphobe. You say that you voted for Barack Obama and your kids are biracial so your problem with BLM isn’t racism? LOL, that’s just what a racist would say. In both cultures, the most charitable interpretation that an insider can offer a skeptic is something along these lines, You seem like a decent, kind person. I’m sure that you just don’t understand. Since Evangelical and Woke dogmas don’t allow for honest, ethical disagreement, the only alternative hypothesis is that the skeptic must be an evildoer or bigot.

Black and white thinking—If you are not for us, you’re against us. In the Evangelical worldview we are all caught up in a spiritual war between the forces of God and Satan, which is playing out on the celestial plane. Who is on the Lord’s side? one hymn asks, because anyone else is on the other. Even mainline Christians—and especially Catholics—may be seen by Evangelicals as part of the enemy force. For many of the Woke, the equivalent of mainline Christians are old school social liberals, like women who wear pink pussy hats. Working toward colorblindness, for example, is not just considered a suboptimal way of addressing racism (which is a position that people can make arguments for). Rather, it is itself a symptom of racism. And there’s no such thing as a moderate conservative. Both Evangelicals and the Woke argue that tolerance is bad. One shouldn’t tolerate evil or fascism, they say, and most people would agree. The problem is that so many outsiders are considered either evil sinners or racist fascists. In this view, pragmatism and compromise are signs of moral taint.

Shaming and shunning—The Woke don’t tar, feather and banish sinners. Neither—mercifully—do Christian puritans anymore. But public shaming and trial by ordeal are used by both clans to keep people in line. Some Christian leaders pressure members into ritual public confession. After all, as theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin.” Shaming and shunning have ancient roots as tools of social control, and they elevate the status of the person or group doing the shaming. Maoist struggle sessions (forced public confessions) and Soviet self-criticism are examples of extreme shaming in social-critical movements seeking to upend traditional power structures. So, it should be no surprise that some of the Woke show little hesitation when call-out opportunities present themselves—nor that some remain unrelentingly righteous even when those call-outs leave a life or a family in ruins.

Selective science denial—Disinterest in inconvenient truths—or worse, denial of inconvenient truths, is generally a sign that ideology is at play. Most of us on the left can rattle off a list of truths that Evangelicals find inconvenient. The Bible is full of contradictions. Teens are going to keep having sex. Species evolve. The Earth is four and a half billion years old. Climate change is caused by humans (which suggests that God doesn’t have his hand on the wheel). Prayer works, at best, at the margins of statistical significance. But evidence and facts can be just as inconvenient for the Woke. Gender dimorphism affects how we think, not just how we look. Personal responsibility has real world benefits, even for people who have the odds stacked against them. Lived experience is simply anecdotal evidence. Skin color is often a poor proxy for privilege. Organic foods won’t feed 11 billion.

Evangelism—As infectious ideologies, Evangelicalism and Woke culture rely on both paid evangelists and enthusiastic converts to spread the word. Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) and related organizations spend tens of millions annually seeking converts on college campuses. But many outreach activities are led by earnest student believers. Critical Oppression Theory on campus has its epicenter in gender and race studies but has become a mainstay in schools of public health and law as well as the liberal arts. Once this becomes the dominant lens for human interactions, students police themselves—and each other. Nobody wants to be the ignoramus who deadnames a transgender peer or microaggresses against a foreign student by asking about their culture.

Hypocrisy—Christianity bills itself as a religion centered in humility, but countervailing dogmas promote the opposite. It is hard to imagine a set of beliefs more arrogant than the following: The universe was designed for humans. We uniquely are made in the image of God. All other creatures are ours to consume. Among thousands of religions, I happened to be born into the one that’s correct. The creator of the universe wants a personal relationship with me. Where Evangelicalism traffics in hubris cloaked as humility, Woke culture traffics in discrimination cloaked as inclusion. The far left demands that hiring practices, organizational hierarchies, social affinity groups, political strategizing, and funding flow give primacy to race and gender. Some of the Woke measure people by these checkboxes to a degree matched in the West only by groups like MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) and white supremacists. The intent is to rectify old wrongs and current inequities–to literally solve discrimination with discrimination. One result is disinterest in suffering that doesn’t derive from traditional structural oppression of one tribe by another.

Gloating about the fate of the wicked—One of humanity’s uglier traits is that we like it when our enemies suffer. Some of the great Christian leaders and great justice warriors of history have inspired people to rise higher (think Desmond Tutu, Eli Wiesel, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela). But neither Evangelicalism nor Woke culture consistently inspires members to transcend tribal vindictiveness because neither, at heart, calls members into our shared humanity. Some Christian leaders have actually proclaimed that the suffering of the damned in hell heightens the joy of the saved in heaven. Some of the Woke curse those they see as fascists to burn in the very same Christian hell, metaphorically if not literally. They dream of restorative justice for criminal offenses but lifelong, ruinous retribution for political sinners: Those hateful Trump voters deserve whatever destitution or illness may come their way. Unemployed young men in rural middle America are turning to Heroin? Too bad. Nobody did anything about the crack epidemic. Oil town’s on fire? Burn baby burn.

I know how compelling those frustrated, vengeful thoughts can be, because I’ve had them. But I think that progressives can do better.

Ideology has an awe-inspiring power to forge identity and community, direct energy, channel rage and determination, love and hate. It has been one of the most transformative forces in human history. But too often ideology in the hands of a social movement simply rebrands and redirects old self-centering impulses while justifying the sense that this particular fight is uniquely holy.

Even so, social movements and religions—including those that are misguided—usually emerge from an impulse that is deeply good, the desire to foster wellbeing in world that is more kind and just, one that brings us closer to humanity’s multi-millennial dream of broad enduring peace and bounty. This, too, is something that the Righteous and the Woke have in common. Both genuinely aspire to societal justice—small s, small j—meaning not the brand but the real deal. Given that they often see themselves at opposite ends of the spectrum, perhaps that is grounds for a little hope.

—————–

Note: In this article I didn’t address why, despite these discouraging social and ideological dynamics, I continue to lean left. In the frustration raised by excesses of Woke culture it is easy to lose sight of more substantive issues. Here is some of my list: The best evidence available tells us climate change is human-caused and urgent. Market failures are real. Trickle-down economics has produced greater inequality, which has been growing for decades. Inequality is a factor in social instability. Social democracy (the combination of capitalist enterprise with a strong social safety net) appears to have produced greater average wellbeing than other economic systems. Investments in diplomacy reduce war. Reproductive empowerment is fundamental to individual political and economic participation. The Religious Right more so than classical liberals control social policy on the Right. Government, when functioning properly, is the way we do things that we can’t very well do alone.

I would like to thank Dan Fincke for his input on this article, and Marian Wiggins for her generous editorial time."

by VALERIE TARICO

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including The Huffington Post, Salon, The Independent, Free Inquiry, The Humanist, AlterNet, Raw Story, Grist, Jezebel, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

TEETER-TOTTER with supposed enemies of the U.S. Use the WALL of DIVISION as a way of sharing and fun!

Governments seek to divide, to separate, to propagandize, to lie, to harm...so tragic. EVERY SINGLE KID, EVERY SINGLE HUMAN IS EQUAL AND OF INHERENT WORTH!

Look at this creative overcoming of that disheartening wall of dividing. TEETER-TOTTERING
SHARING

SEESAWING, USING THE WALL OF DIVISION AS A FULCRUM OF SHARING AND FUN!

FROM http://www.ktvu.com/news/husband-and-wife-professors-dream-up-pink-seesaws-at-us-mexico-border-long-before-president-trump
"Regardless of which president is in power, San Fratello said that the pop-up "Teeter Totter Wall," was created to "expose the ridiculous-ness" of separating people.

"The artful play structure, which was set up temporarily for 30 minutes on Sunday at the border of Colonia Anapra, a community on the western side of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, was supposed to represent whimsy and joy...
--
"SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico (KTVU) - The unusual sight of children and families laughing and bouncing up and down on neon pink seesaws straddling a steel fence dividing the United States and Mexico appeared to be a direct visual and artistic attack on the Trump Administration's anti-immigration mandates and directives.

"But Virginia San Fratello, an assistant professor of art and design at San Jose State University who lives in Oakland, said the idea for the whimsical teeter-totter was born as a result of the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

"People near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico bounce on pink seesaws created by Ronald Rael and Viginia San Fratello. June 28, 2019 Photo: Rael San Fratello
People near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico bounce on pink seesaws created by Ronald Rael and Viginia San Fratello. June 28, 2019 Photo: Rael San Fratello
The act authorized and partially funded nearly 700 miles of fencing along the border. According to government figures, U.S. Customers and Border Protection has spent about $2.4 billion on fencing, gates, roads and infrastructure along the nearly 2,000-mile southwest border from 2007 to 2015.

"This idea came long before Trump," San Frateloo said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Mauricio Martínez
✔
@martinezmau
Artists installed seesaws at the border wall so that kids in the U.S. and Mexico could play together. It was designed by architect Ronald Rael. ⁣
⁣
"Beautiful reminder that we are connected: what happens on one side impacts the other.
🇲🇽 ❤️ 🇺🇸

"Regardless of which president is in power, San Fratello said that the pop-up "Teeter Totter Wall," was created to "expose the ridiculous-ness" of separating people.

"The artful play structure, which was set up temporarily for 30 minutes on Sunday at the border of Colonia Anapra, a community on the western side of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, was supposed to represent whimsy and joy, she said.

"But it also represented the ramifications of political yin and yang.

"What happens to someone on one side of the border, affects someone on the other," she said.

"The seesaws, which she co-designed with UC Berkeley architecture professor Ronald Rael -- who is also her husband -- were purposely painted hot pink. That's the color that represents the hundreds of women and girls who have been killed near Ciudad Juarez during a rash of robberies and gang wars since the 1990s.

"Pictures from the scene on Sunday show a girl in pigtails laughing while riding high on the seesaw, a mother smiling and taking selfies with her baby and crowds chatting along the sandy road to watch people from different homelands connect with each other through a fence, fashioned from steel and concrete.

"The teeter-totters were fabricated in Mexico by local craftspeople and installed by a collective called Colectivo Chopeke. On the Mexican side, the gathering of people was mostly spontaneous. A residential neighborhood is located a stone's throw from the fence and families simply walked up to it and started riding.
--

"Her husband wrote on Instagram: "The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S. - Mexico relations."

"She and Rael sent up a drone to take video of their efforts, which was tweeted by Mexican actor Mauricio Martinez, bringing international attention to their work. They each posted the video on their Instagram accounts and the story spread far and wide.
READ THE RES

"Martinez tweeted that the seesaws were a "beautiful reminder that we are connected."
In a Ted Talk that he gave, Rael, who teaches a class on "design and activism," described that the architecture as a political statement should be seen as both "satirical" and "serious."

"San Fratello and Rael conceived the idea for the seasaws as far back as 2009, which Rael documented in a book, "Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary." But the seesaw was just one of the many ideas they had. The pair pictured building swings on to the fence "so you could literally swing over it," San Fratello said.

"They pictured a library and a burrito shop, with a portion of each building on one side of each country so people could meet halfway inside. They also drew up plans of turning the fence into a massive xylophone, where people on both sides could take turns hitting the metal and making music.
READ the rest at:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/husband-and-wife-professors-dream-up-pink-seesaws-at-us-mexico-border-long-before-president-trump

Let us think creatively of ways to artistically use the immoral and unjust acts of government to create the opposite--sharing and connecting of ALL HUMANS WHO HAVE EQUAL WORTH AND VALUE.

In the Light,
Dan Wilcox

Human Rights Have NO Borders

Another massive ICE raid against hard-working undocumented immigrants:

"A family member of one of the arrested Corso's workers: "My soon to be brother-in-law was deported this morning...He was brought here as a young boy. He's worked at Corso's for many years. They paid him good money. By no means did they pay him what they think immigrants should be paid. They paid him good money.

"He did a good job and worked hard to provide for his family. He's got a six-month-old daughter," she added.

Allegedly, many children were left at day-care facilities because their parents couldn't pick them up.

This arresting of hardworking humans is so morally wrong! Arresting individuals who aren't criminals, and deporting people who were brought here as children is not only unfair, it's a violation of human rights:-((((.

If someone has crossed a political border without permission, he/she ought to get a ticket like a person who goes over the speed limit.

Instead of this persecution of so many immigrants, these millions of dollars ought to be spent on the pursuit violent criminals and money could be spent on more local interaction of police with their communities. What a tragic waste to have huge dollar amounts spent on over hundred police officers handcuffing diligent working individuals at their place of employment!

POLICE OUGHT to be arresting violent criminals, not hard-working individuals.

Everyone ought to be ashamed of this self-centered turn away from justice and equality by the United States.

ICE arrests 114 at Ohio garden center in major mass raid
Eric Levenson
By Carma Hassan and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN)US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 114 undocumented immigrants working at an Ohio gardening business in one of its largest workplace raids in recent years.

"It is the largest in our region in the last decade," said Khaalid Walls, spokesman for ICE's Northeastern region, which comprises Michigan, Ohio, and Upstate New York.
In April, ICE arrested nearly 100 people accused of being in the US illegally at a Tennessee meatpacking plant. At the time, immigration rights groups said that operation was ICE's largest workplace raid in a decade.
Tuesday's arrests targeted employees of Corso's Flower and Garden Center in Sandusky and Castalia, Ohio, Walls said.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/us/ice-undocumented-immigrants-arrests-garden-ohio/index.html

Work for justice, equality, and hope for ALL HUMANS. Human rights have NO BORDERS.

In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

"Strange...a God..."

"Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones;
who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;
mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness
multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell;
who mouths morals to other people
and has none himself;

who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all;
who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man,
instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself;
and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!"

— Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger*

1. This "a God" described by Samuel Clemens is horrific and alien to me--was so even back when I was a young Christian teen growing up in Bible-belt southern Nebraska. We certainly didn't believe in any such deity.

YET I do know--from my having read many tomes of history and theology, and from personally speaking with a few famous Christian leaders--that Mark Twain's "a God" is a fairly accurate view of creedal Christianity, especially of the Augustinian, Reformed, and Lutheran branches.**

2. Here is background for the assertions of Clemens' anti-creed:

A. "a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones;"

It is very baffling why an, allegedly, perfectly good God would intentionally foreordain, before the creation of the universe, that all the many billions of infants be conceived and born totally "sinful" and "in essence, evil."

But remember the famous Puritan, Michael Wigglesworth, in his poem "The Day of Doom" emphasized that infants will get the "easiest room in Hell." :-( Line 370-72, http://www.bartleby.com/400/poem/171.html

No wonder that Twain was so bitter about this ethical obscenity.

B. "who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;"

If you had a dollar for every Christian book which emphasizes that Christians ought to accept, even glory in their suffering because it brings glory to God, you would soon be rich.

Titles will be added here later.

Of course, think of the millions of young children and young adults who suffer and die terribly from cancer and other agonizing and death-dealing scourges which God pre-planned for his own glory and "good pleasure."

One of the last tragic cases that happened shortly before I finally realized that organized Christianity CAN'T be true was a young lady of about 32 in our church who suffered and died leaving her 3 pre-schoolers without a mom.

C. "mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness
multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell;"

Strange as it may seem to many, the sort of Christianity dominating the U.S. where Clemens grew up--and which still dominates some areas--does emphasize that even Hell was created for God's glory.

Heck, one famous Christian theologian said that even the Jewish Holocaust will bring what ever glory to God that he wills!

D. "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself;"
and
"who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all;"

This is called Divine Command Theory in the Christian religion, or God's total sovereignty. According to many Christian leaders, God has two separate contrary wills; in one he commands humans to obey certain laws, but in the other will, God's hidden will, God causes every evil including molestation, rape, murder, slaughter, natural disasters, diseases, plagues, famines, etc.

Not a molecule moves in the cosmos but that it is by this "a God's" will.

Because God's ultimate nature is his absolute sovereignty, then whatever God wills, then becomes "good." That is why God could order slaughter, slavery, abuse, lying, stealing, and so forth in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament.

If you question this, Christians will ask you, "Who do you think you are to question God?"
--

"That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence
slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven,

whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm,
and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't agoing
to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most
dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften
it up somehow for myself, by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame;
but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it;
and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you, there, that people that acts as I'd been acting
about that nigger goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray; and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie-and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie- I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter- and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville
and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell...

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again;
and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too;
because as long as I was in, and in for good,
I might as well go the whole hog."
--from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens on the theme of his book: "A book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience [because of Christian society and the Bible] come into collision, and conscience suffers defeat."

*As a literature teacher for many years, I used some of Clemens' bitter satire and deep ethical insights for a whole unit on the nature of ethics, and the dangers of conscience, duty, and honor.
But I've not written on Twain or his books for a long time.
Thanks to Bruce Gerencser and Infidel753
for bringing up Twain's keen ethical passage this week on their blogs.

**I won't bother with ranting and raving against the bad three, have done that enough in the past here on the blog. And, since encountering their theological and ethical horrors first 55 years ago have virtually driven all my close loved ones to drink;-), especially my patient wife. She, being non-theological and non-philosophical, doesn't worry about what famous leaders and famous Christian denominations teach. Maybe that is why we share a margarita or wine once in a while for dinner. Much better than the bad spirits.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"History...a Nightmare" vs. "History...to Hope"?

"History is a nightmare we are trying to wake up from."
-James Joyce
VS.
"It is history that teaches us to hope."
-Civil War Talk website
---

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-Winston Churchill

“If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.”
-British Prime Minister Lloyd George, on Great War

"“It is necessary to know how to conceal...and to be a great pretender and dissembler...those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning. In the end these princes have overcome those who have relied on keeping their word.” “Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it..."
-Machiavelli
VS.
"The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts, and insists that it acts in self-defense."
-American senator Hiram Johnson, on Great War

“.... more deliberate lies were told than in any other period of history, and the whole apparatus of the state went into action to suppress the truth”.
-War Journalist Phillip Knightley, on Great War

"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty."
-Member of Parliament Arthur Ponson, Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War

from Wikipedia:
Historian Anne Morelli's explanation of "Ponsonby's classic in "ten commandments of propaganda":

"We do not want war.

The opposite party alone is guilty of war.

The enemy is the face of the devil.

We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.

The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary.

The enemy uses forbidden weapons.

We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.

Artists and intellectuals back our cause.

Our cause is sacred.

All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors."

Notice how ALL--or at least most--of those characterize nearly all wars in history, and include present-day conflicts, especially the 7 ones that the U.S. and other countries are currently engaging in!

See also, Jesus Wars and The Great and Holy War by Historian Phillip Jenkins

At this juncture in my aged life--
after at least 57 years of reading history tomes--it would seem that history is
neither "a Nightmare"
nor a "Hope,
but
rather our past life, and so we ought to study it for dear life, hoping that we can ferret out what is true from all the myths, all the intentional lies and semi-lies, and all the misunderstandings, confusions, and distortions that comprise the FOG of HISTORY.

Seeking the Truth,

Daniel Wilcox