Dear Congress: Pass police reform or prepare to be voted out
We can’t wait anymore. That’s what I thought about when I learned that there would be no deal on police reform between Democrats and Republicans. The two sides had been talking for months about doing something to reign in the unchecked power of police. Something that would deal with the racism that makes Blacks…
Read More The focus on Gabby Petito highlights the silence on missing Black people
I haven’t talked much about Gabby Petito, a young woman whose story has dominated the news cycle for days. Petito went missing during a trip with her fiancé, who returned home without her, and claimed he didn’t know what happened. Eventually the fiancé stopped talking to police, and then he went missing himself, and now…
Read More A rally for injustice to take place in DC
The shadows of January 6th still linger. We see them on right wing news shows as commentators repeat the lies of Donald Trump. We hear them from state officials who want to run a phony election audit. And on Saturday, we’ll see it as thousands of people go to Washington to try to start more trouble.…
Read More If PA prison guards refuse to get vaccinated, they should find employment somewhere else
Last week, the union representing correctional officers in Pennsylvania’s state prisons became one of the latest groups to officially oppose a vaccine or testing mandate. On Friday, they filed a complaint in Commonwealth Court seeking a preliminary injunction to stop an order put in place by Gov. Tom Wolf — a Democrat — requiring prison…
Read More New Philly police contract brings more of the same and little reform
The new police contract is done. It was written by a panel of arbitrators, not by the city, which is strange, since the people who pay contracts are usually the ones who write them. But that’s not the way it works with police. In truth, nothing works normally with police. The city wanted all…
Read More The attempt to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsome is another GOP attack on Democracy
Tomorrow voters in California will decide whether to recall Governor Gavin Newsome. And it might seem like it’s just about California, but it’s really about all of us. That’s because recalls are about removing people from office after they’ve been elected. Sometimes there’s good reason to do it if the politician is a thief or…
Read More This September 11th, let’s look to a future of hope, not the tragedy of the past
Tomorrow will be twenty years since the attack on America that killed nearly 3,000 people. September 11, 2001 changed this country in ways that still resonate today. The attack by terrorists armed with carpet cutters made airport security a different experience. The freedom we’d enjoyed was exposed as a liability, because only in a free…
Read More Blacks should not cheer trillions in infrastructure spending if we don’t get our fair share of the money
What is the Black agenda? Is it a drive for economic freedom? Is it a quest for social justice? Or is it the push for racial equality? If the Black agenda is any of these things, it must be all of them. Because all Black people are not alike. We don’t think the same things.…
Read More Hurricane Ida sweeps through East Coast, results in record breaking damage.
The remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through Philly, Jersey and Delaware, killing five people, creating seven tornadoes, and leaving behind record flooding that turned parts of the Schuylkill expressway and other roadways into rivers. I’ve never seen anything like it, because nothing like this has ever happened here. But it’s only going to get…
Read More 20 year Afghan War has ended– Domestic Terror still poses a threat
The 20-year war in Afghanistan is over, but in America, where brutality is the stuff of primetime television, where music is filled with the language of murder, we’ll be in another war soon enough. I know this because the hearts of our leaders are bound by greed. That’s why we had no problem spending…
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