Things are not aways what they appear to be.  This is a precautionary idiom to prevent us from over thinking ambiguous matters and assuming the worst.

But sometimes things are just what they appear to be. We are conditioned to take it in stride, brush it off, accept the narratives.   

There has been a quiet, but evolving, assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) since 2016. It metastasized to state legislatures. Bills were submitted and policies were crafted to limit DEI initiatives.

DEI programs are now prohibited by Executive Order from the President. It is bad for the country, it divides us. 

We have allowed the narrative on DEI policies, programs, and initiatives to be framed as racial preference. It was never about that. It was always about equity and inclusion; it is about the starting line, the level playing field for all qualified applicants.

The assaults have targeted colleges, universities, and the labor force. With executive order prohibiting any nod to DEI, the full throttle push has moved into the media, and network programming, for on camera personalities and support staff.

CNN and MSNBC cable news networks, recently shuffled program schedules and axed some primetime shows.  The programs canceled were primarily hosted by people of color (POC). 

Joy Reid, the voice behind ReidOut, and perhaps the most notable and outspoken, was canceled. Ayman Mohyeldin, Jonathan Capehart, Katie Phang, and Alex Wagner all were felled by the purging axe.

Leadership changes and declining ratings justify the changes. It’s plausible.

Changes at the top often signal a shift in network priorities. Rebecca Kutler is the new president of MSNBC. Some of the canceled programs had ratings challenges, however, some lower-performing shows with White hosts were retained.

The decline in viewership, i.e., ratings, is typical post-election disengagement. The progressive social and political left-leaning programs experienced a 46% decline in viewers compared to the first 10 months of 2024.

Ratings began to rebound after the inauguration. There was an 86% increase in primetime viewership.

Things are not always what they appear to be. Although the shakeup walks like a duck, let’s try to interpret what appears to be from multiple perspectives.

MSNBC leadership may have overreacted to temporary ratings declines. Their impulsive decision to cancel POC hosted programs failed to understand the cyclical nature of political news audiences.

Perhaps the network prioritized the refresh. It introduced a fresh lineup for the renewed audience engagement. Network leadership assessed that the underperforming shows were misaligned with their evolving brand. Restructuring was a calculated move to strengthen primetime programming.

But we cannot ignore that all the canceled programs were POC hosted. Is the network deliberately reducing its diversity footprint? News media is protected by the First Amendment.

We have entered a regressive milieu wherein the duck arrogantly walks. It’s acceptable to boast of being racist with peremptory disregard.

There is another social idiom that comes to mind and may be applicable to the audacity of our times. It was in the lyrics of a popular R&B song of the late 1960s. It was affirming as we mused about our times, and space, and the circumstances of our lives experienced within the social construct of America.

And we mused about it, whether on the dance floors of our favorite escapes, or in the pews of our places of worship. We wanted to believe that the rejection, the oppression, the devaluation of our contributions to the greatness of America, were waning.

Things are never as bad as they seem, it’s just thinking about it that makes it so mean, the song rhythmically chimed.

But we need to think about this!

The post If it walks like a duck: The perception of bias appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

It’s not going to be pretty. We will have to accept some inconveniences. Some privileges traditionally taken for granted will become appreciated, valued, missed.

The price of eggs will increase. The cost of housing will stretch beyond the reach of the lower rung of the middle-class social ladder and make an impossible dream for low wealth Americans.

There will be labor shortages, crops loss and many small farms will be pushed out of the market. Rural communities, predominantly agrarian, will experience economic decline, and loss of jobs and services.

The domino effect.

Diminished agricultural output will lead to supply chain disruptions. There will be a scarcity of certain foods, increased demand and increased prices.

Without immigrant workers to plant, cultivate and harvest crops, farmers may suffer significant crop loss, particularly for the labor-intensive production of fruits and vegetables. The fruit smoothie and the egg omelet may become occasional treats rather than a daily choice.

A shift to greater reliance on imports could also increase costs to consumers. Tariffs on imports and transportation, trade policies will add to the cost for consumers.

America without immigrant workers will suffer contractions in agriculture, the housing construction industry and a ripple effect throughout the economy.

But America is resilient and will take measures to counter contractions in these economic sectors.

The decrease in production, leading to a decline in agricultural exports, creates a trade imbalance. It puts America at a competitive disadvantage in global markets.

Pressures from the global trade imbalance may push agriculture toward greater technological investment. Automation and robotics can step up to fill the gap in some agricultural fields.

It’s not a one size fits all solution, and transition will be costly. Small farms, without financial resources, cannot afford mechanization or pay competitive domestic wages. The family farm may fold; depending on the geographic location, the acreage could be sold to real estate developers.

That sale passes the baton of mass deportation economic distress to an industry itself laden with labor shortages and increased material cost.

Immigrant labor makes a significant contribution to the housing construction industry. These unwelcome laborers play a critical role in the fields of roofing, drywall and framing. They often fill labor-intensive, skilled and in-demand positions.

Undocumented immigrants are a substantial portion of the construction workforce. Fifty percent of roofers are immigrants. Drywall labor is similarly dominant in the trade that requires precision and stamina.

Once mass deportation sweeps up the undocumented immigrants, construction delays, reduction in housing inventory and higher building cost will result.

The Feds could take measures to lower interest rates. With lower mortgage rates and a shortages of housing inventory, the resulting seller’s market would be optimum for homeowners and real estate professionals. Economics is a strange creature.

The emotional fervor for mass deportation of immigrants is a “cut off your nose to spite your face” approach. It pursues unsustainable political and emotional goals with the inevitable self-inflicted harm to the economy, society and consumers.

The emotions resulting from fear mongering do not allow room for critical thinking.

The short-term thinking to solve the immigration issue with mass deportation does not consider the long-term fallout on the economy, on consumers, on the small family farms of America.

The post A view of post mass deportation America appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

     The three-letter acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, conjures up a plethora of emotions, suspicions and reactive behaviors with the mere mention of it.

     These emotions and reactive behaviors are experienced by the political elites, social activist, and the common citizens, and are a mixture of fear, anger, distrust, and a lament for justice.

     The emotional and psychological reactions to the “mention” vary based on the tone and tenor, and the individual’s perception of authority.

     The authoritarian President-elect Donald Trump’s contentious relationship with the agency reflects a broader challenge with maintaining trust, loyalty, and aligning the independent law enforcement agency with his agenda.

     In an era of political polarization, a call for the overhaul or dismantling of the agency will be implemented by the appointed agency head. The FBI has come to be viewed of late as a tool of oppression.   Those harboring this view have the authority to minimize the influence welded by the agency.

     The “mention” to persons of African descent, the “mention” to Civil Rights activist and social justice organizations conjures up thoughts of suspicion, remembrance of intimidation, reflections of oppressive measures exacted by the agency of J. Edgar Hoover.

     The 48-year tyrannical leadership of Hoover was a reign of abuse of power that intimidated groups on the social, political, and individual levels. It became his personal tool of oppression, intimidation, and manipulation.

     His amassed power intimidated and frustrated Presidents Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.

     Hoover’s agency conflated social justice activism with communism, and Civil Rights leaders as threats to national security.

    We can empathize with Pres. Elect Trump. Since the Civil Rights era, the marginalized Americans of melanin rich skin have cast a suspicious eye of mistrust on the FBI.

     In 1956, Hoover launched COINTELPRO to monitor, infiltrate, and disrupt social and political activism. Specifically targeting Civil Rights groups in the 1960s. The goal was to sow discord, discredit leaders, and prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could bring unity to the Black Liberation Movement.

     The FBI, a government agency, positioned itself as an enemy of social justice, and the guardian of the status quo. They employed a range of unethical, controversial practices to subvert progress toward social equality.

     Dr. King’s was subjected to wiretapping, smear campaigns and propaganda to discredit his character and reputation. The agency infiltrated the ranks of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the Nation of Islam.

     The Agency played a significant role in the murder of Chicago Black Panther organizer, Fred Hampton. The FBI often failed to protect Civil Rights activists against violence, although often forewarned of potential violence erupting in opposition to the activist’s staged events.  

     We can empathize with the suspicion, the erosion of trust, and intimidation Pres. Elect Trump may be experiencing. The African American has been subjected to it for decades. We lacked authority to do anything about it. We were not positioned to fire the Director or restructure the agency to our advantage. We just wanted the right to vote.

     President Trump considers the FBI part of a “deep state” conspiracy that worked to undermine his presidency. There’s an irony embedded in his position.

     The Agency conspired to disrupt the efforts of Civil Rights organizations, discredit activist leaders, sow discord, and disrupt progress toward full participation in the dream American citizenship promised.  Only it wasn’t “deep state” conspiracy, it was agency policy.

     The irony of it all is that the marginalized, the people of melanin rich skin – Black and Brown, and Red, have historically maintained a tenor of suspicion of the FBI.

     More than likely, the level of suspicion will only grow more deeply ingrained, in perception and perspectives, with the new Director and the diminished independence of the restructured agency.

The post The irony of it all appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

This has been an erratic election cycle. At times insane. Other times nonsensical. The campaign rhetoric was ratchet. The platform ominous.

Yet here we are. The nation, saturated by four years of disinformation, has chosen a new direction. It is our hope that campaign rhetoric does not become the new administration’s policies.

The rhetoric was not only ratchet, but vicious, disrespectful, and non-Christian principled. But it captured the emotions of the people.

Although inflation was down, and job creation up, wages were stagnant, and we believed the hype that the nation is headed in the wrong direction.  The price of eggs was central to the people’s choice.

A sustained campaign of misinformation, fear and disinformation led to “self-interest” voting. It polarized the nation into camps of “what is good for me.”

The promise of a great America gripped our emotions and harnessed our hope. It was fueled by iterations of failed policies, socioeconomic principles, and hardhanded treatment of immigrants.

But emotions don’t allow for critical thinking. Emotions reign in the moment. Emotions reign at the gas pump and the checkout counter at the grocery store.

Critical thinking allows one to process data that looks at the layered influence of international policies, and decisions of past and present administrations. 

The state of the economy at any given time is a continuum of policies from past administrations. Fiscal policies, trade policies and regulatory/deregulatory policies have cumulative impact.

Messaging void of this recognition leads the electorate to assign credit or blame for conditions on the current administration. They are not solely culpable.

One promise of President-elect Trump is to implement mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Hispanics and the recently disparaged Haitians will be subject to dislocation and the trauma of abrupt family separation.

The Hispanic electorate, now 20% of total population, cast their ballots in support of harsher immigration policies.

American history curricula fall short. An authentic presentation of the contributions of its diverse complexion, and the injustice many suffered are excluded. It’s detrimental to building a vibrant social climate.

The lack of authentic history education has far-reaching consequences. It perpetuates social divisions, limits civic engagement, and discounts the need to address ongoing injustices.

In the 1930s Great Depression era, hundreds of thousands Hispanic Americans were deported.  Estimates range that, between 1929 and 1939, nearly two million Mexican Americans, and Mexican nationals were rounded up and deported. The Mexican Repatriation is an overlooked chapter in American history.

The scarcity of jobs, and the fear that Mexicans were taking jobs from American citizens led to the deportation of documented and undocumented Mexicans. The government and media promoted the division. Fear drives the act of self-preservation.

Emotion driven, self-interest voting has set the tone and direction for the country. In God we trust.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post The people have spoken, are we clear about the direction chosen? appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

We thought we had grown. We thought were becoming a nation, one nation under God; a nation of unity and respect for one another. Humanity was created to be relational. But we are tribal, conflicting, arrogant, and unaccommodating. 

Annually, on Jan. 15, communities across the nation come together in a facade of unity; we talk of tearing down invisible barriers — self-constructed barriers, and we celebrate the “Dreamer” the twentieth century Prophet of justice and unity in America. 

“I have a Dream!”

We echo the words of that unforgettable speech Dr. King gave before thousands on the Washington Mall. That was 1964. 

The Dream, in the context of a segregated society, was about the ludicrous practices of a color-based social system and its inclinations of superiority, inferiority and exclusion based on skin color. 

The Dream: a concise capture is, stop dismissing the accomplishments of the African American; see the legacy of value we bring. 

We have, as a nation, maintained a hypocritical facade of unity. We ignore the elephant in the room. We toss a white sheet over it. Once a year we pretend we want to overcome. 

The elephant, the deep-seated cultural biases indoctrinated over decades, over centuries of mythopoetic ideologies of color-based superiority, will not go away. 

Living in a system based on the delusions of superiority is deleterious to the oppressed and the oppressor. 

It compromises the intelligence of the privileged — most often the oppressors, it distorts their belief systems, and twists their Christian interpretations of what the Savior has commanded us to do: love one another as you love yourself.

The Bible tells us in the book of Romans, chapter 8, verse16, that we are of one family, brothers and sisters, if we are in Christ. 

1 John 4:19-20, then, should give us pause on the uncivil discourse, the sophomoric name calling, dismissive remarks and derogatory labels. 

A recalcitrant ideology forced legislative guarantees for full access to the promise of inalienable rights for Americans of African descent, for Native Americans, and for immigrants. 

Affirmative Action (AA) legislation and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies (DEI) were designed to pry loose that clinging dead, dry leaf of racism intrinsic in the soul of America.  

AA and DEI initiatives have been misrepresented and maligned. They have become dismissives, “dog whistles” that undermine the competence of people of color. Professional standards were lowered for them to qualify for the positions. 

African American doctors, engineers, scientist, CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations, mayors, governors, senators and POTUS prove the mindsets laughable. But the tentacles of racist dismissiveness are still tethered to some who fear equality, those who fear the challenges of a level field.  

The elephant trumpets every time the people with melanin-rich-skin, step out of the shadows of oppression and into leadership roles.   

It comes as no surprise that Tom Burchett, (R-Tenn), a cognitive challenged, alum of Neanderthal University, would label VP Kamala Harris a DEI hire. It resonated with the Fox Network jesters who immediately pushed it in their program broadcasts. 

It’s a reverse euphemism that reveals one whose mentality is trapped in the ignorance of supremest ideology. One who can’t see the beauty of the forest because his/her focus remains on one dying tree. 

VP. Harris graduated from Howard University in 1986, and from Hastings College in 1989. She earned a BA in Political Science and Economics from the HBCU and a law degree from Hastings. 

She is the daughter of immigrants. Her father is from Jamaica, her deceased mother from India. They came to America during the Civil Rights era. They met in 1962 while studying for their Ph. Ds. at UC Berkeley.

Donald Harris is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Standford University. Shyamala Gopalan was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Father, mother, and daughter Kamala all have impressive credentials, phenomenal accomplishments, but not enough to escape the dismissive label of “DEI hire.” 

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post Harris’ candidacy for President reminds America, the content of character still means little appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

By Rev. Norman Franklin

Herald Contributor

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) tracks the progress of gender equality in government services. Women are evolving as a new power dynamic. 

CAWP data reveals that women hold 30.5% of elected offices in municipal governments across the nation, 30.9% in state legislatures, and 26.5% in the U.S. Congress. 

Although this data reveals significant improvements when contrasted with late twentieth-century data, current state-by-state data reveals women are underrepresented in municipal government, and state and federal elected offices. 

Some forerunners cut swaths through Napier grass like isms impeding race and gender equality. Shirley Chisholm, an African American woman, resisted the status quo and sowed seeds of progress along the “Chisholm Trail.” 

She opened pathways for others to travel. 

Chisholm began her career in public service in 1960. She earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University and became a recognized expert in early education and child welfare. New York City would benefit; she served as a consultant to the Division of Day Care. 

Prolonged strivings in a milieu of injustice birth a desire for something better; desire cannot lay dormant, it fuels actions. 

Shirley Chisholm joined the NAACP, the Urban League, the League of Women Voters, and the Democratic Party Club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In 1964, she became the second African American in the New York Legislature. In 1968, she was elected to represent New York in Congress. A court-ordered redistricting created a new district in her neighborhood. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, and in, 1977, she became to first Black woman and second woman to serve on the House Rules Committee. 

The ambiance of 1972 America was race and gender biased; Chisholm bumped up against it in the Democratic primaries. She was excluded from participating in televised primary debates. The skilled debater graduated cum laude from Brooklyn College in 1946; she won prizes on the debate team.

Legal action was taken. Chisholm was allowed one speech. She entered 12 primaries and won 152 delegates. 

She exemplified the “Golden Rule.” George Wallace was an avowed racist. His platform, when he ran for Governor of Alabama, was “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”  He stood on the steps of the University of Alabama in 1963 to block Black students from attending.

Wallace met Rep. Shirley Chisholm on June 8, 1972. Both were running for president.  The Democratic party favored the Wallace candidacy; a gunman altered his trajectory.  Wallace was shot five times at a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland. He was permanently paralyzed. 

Chisholm paid Wallace a visit at Holy Cross Hospital. The fifteen-minute visit, his paralysis, and kind words from an African American woman had an impact on his stone racist heart. “I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone,” she told him. Profuse weeping followed, it may have endured through the night; his perspective changed. I’m not certain that it was by the next morning. 

Shirley Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1924. Her parents were immigrants. Her father, Charles St. Hill, was from Guyana; her mother, Ruby Seale, was from Barbados. They had four daughters; Shirley was the oldest. She married Conrad Chisholm in 1949. They later divorced. She married Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York State legislator, in 1977. 

Shirley Chisholm served seven terms in the House of Representatives. She died on January 1, 2005. 

She blazed the “Chisholm Trail.” She charted a path that many women have followed. 

An all-woman city council took the oath of office in St. Paul, Minnesota on January 1, 2024. It’s not an anomaly. Women are entering public service across the political spectrum. 

A record number of women were elected to federal and state office in the 2022 midterm elections. The 118^th Congress is the most gender diverse in U.S. history. 

But there is more work to be done. 

The U.S. was outranked by 25 other countries in the global parity index. This index benchmarks national gender gaps on political, economic, and social criteria. 

Gender equality owes a debt of gratitude to the “Fighting Shirley Chisholm – Unbought and Unbossed.”

The post Shirley Chisholm, paving the way to gender equality appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

By Rev. Norman Franklin

Herald Guest Columnist

Does America have a race problem? Is systemic racism permeating every fiber of the socioeconomic, sociopolitical institutions of America? Are race-based theories, particularly the Critical Race Theory, liberal extremism, or is it a reality that remains unacknowledged – the big grey elephant always in the room?

Answers trending from conservative Republican majorities grant us some perspective. Racism does not exist. And if history is properly presented, it never existed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.Fla.) signed into law a bill that bans initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion. He viewed them as discriminatory practices. This was in April 2023. In May, Gov. Greg Abbot (R.Tx.) followed suit with legislation that shuttered all DEI initiatives. A June 2023 SCOTUS decision gutted Affirmative Action.

A July Harvard Business Review article, “Why Companies Can – and Should- Recommit to DEI in the Wake of the SCOTUS Decision” debunks a myth.    African Americans have been the face of Affirmative Action. The article by Tina Ople and Ella F. Washington, reveals that White women benefited the greater from Affirmative Action policies.

America has a proclivity for scapegoating African Americans. Ronald Reagan’s fictitious Cadillac Welfare Queen pictured Blacks as milking the Welfare System. When in fact, Whites were the greater number on the welfare rolls.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is the latest boogeyman. DEI is about promoting awareness of our differences, addressing structural inequalities, and creating an environment of community and respect for human differences and social identities.

Opponents portray an ominous goal of DEI.

More than 20 states have a combined 50 bills pending or signed into law that restrict or eliminate DEI programs. They purport to protect First Amendment free speech and shield potential employees and students from coercive practices. They are forced to align with divisive, discriminatory policies of DEI initiatives, they assert.

Legislators take the floor and pontificate destruction to our democratic system of government. Some draw analogies to Marxism and Communism. There is no mention of the centuries long system of chattel slavery or the decades of codified discrimination that fostered the inequities that must be righted.

According to Acts 17:26, God made every nation and people from one bloodline. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth..”

But we are different. We were made that way. We process our experiences differently and come up with perspectives influenced by our experiences. In our nation of Christian leadership, this “great melting pot” of democracy, those differences should not erect invisible fences that keep us opposed to the goodwill of one another. The truth should tear down the fences and set us free.

We cannot deny the interconnectedness of the past and the present. We cannot deny America’s history and its imprint on the discord in our society, the imbalance in our economy, and the ambiance of conflicted dysfunction in government – state and federal.

Conservative legislatures move to prohibit the inclusion of African/African American history in academic curriculum. Native American history is equally shunned.

African American history and Native American history is American history; however, the amalgamated and comfortable version legislators prefer castrates our experiences and insults our heritage.

The genesis of the opposition is that Whites should not experience guilt when learning about history. That’s a misappropriation of guilt. Knowledge of the past bears no guilt; it could lead to shame, and shame spurs corrective action to ensure that mistakes are not repeated.

Erasure of African American and Native American history justifies the opposition to DEI initiatives. It denies the need to correct the imbalance resulting from generations of a privileged/marginalized social construct. If there is no cause, there is no effect, there is no need to take institutional corrective measures.

When the seats of government — the legislative and the executive branches – rests in the hands of one ideological movement, unrestrained by the weakness of opposition, legislative measures born out of the simmering angst of decades of feigned “go along” with social correctives, are pushed through that roll back the progress towards the more perfect union.

The legislative body is comfortable with the imbalance of power and inequalities of society. They wield the sphere of authority over the marginalized.

The African American could feel a sense of betrayal; but we felt the sting of ingratitude when we returned from the battlefields in Europe and the Pacific Theater. Our red blood soaked into foreign soils, but many were denied access to the GI benefits that fueled postwar prosperity.

Those who govern are the descendants of those who enslaved us; they deny the inhumanity of this immoral and unjust system.

Those who govern are the generations of those who codified Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws into a social construct that devalued Black life and castrated their dignity.

These are the progeny, the sons and daughters of those who have benefited from systemic injustice, but deny that inequality permeates every fiber of the social construct of America. It’s all they have known; it feels so normal. They can feel justified in the unjust laws they legislate; they can feel comfortable in the rollback of corrective measures. They can see no wrong in ending DEI initiatives.

As the Ronald Reagan, the quintessential Republican, said during a presidential debate. “There you go again.”

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post There they go again – gut or shutdown DEI initiatives appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

By Rev. Norman Franklin

Herald Contributor

The presidential primaries are off to their usual start. The Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primaries, the first in the nation to cast their votes, purport to put their stamp of approval on the candidates. The rest of the nation takes note of the overrated results.

But neither are bellwethers of the political flavor of America. The demographics show that neither reflects the diversity that is authentic America. Iowa is 87.9% White. The remaining 12% is divvied up between Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. Only 32% of the 3.2 million state population hold college degrees or have completed some college courses.

New Hampshire is also one of the least diverse states in terms of race. Eighty-nine percent of the state’s population is White, 10.4% Black and indigenous persons of color. The demographics of these two early primary states make for safe campaigning. Candidates can parrot the mindset of the voters on the issues and avoid polarizing issues of race altogether.

To be the first in the nation to hold primaries means little if the demographics are not a diverse representation of the nation. The 14 states casting ballots on Super Tuesday will be a more accurate gauge of the nation’s political bend. Forty percent of the nation’s population is represented in the voting.

Iowa and New Hampshire only give us the political mindsets of White voters in those two small states.

It was a misspeak by Nikki Haley that thrust race into the conversations. At a townhall event, Haley was asked what was the cause of the Civil War? Her nuanced response was that it was about the right to govern, the right to set your own standards of living without government interference. She failed to acknowledge slavery as a contributing cause.

The unspokenness of the actual cause sparked the smoldering embers of racism and fanned ablaze the debate of race, systemic racism and its role in America. Haley asserts on Fox News, “America is not a racist country and has never been a racist country,”

In the vein of semantics, I can accept Haley’s assessment. We cannot personify America.

America may not be racist, America’s institutions of education, its city, county, state and federal governments may not be racist; America’s public, private and commercial businesses may not be considered racist. But the common factor in America, its institutions of government, education and business is that the people in positions of authority, often the beneficiaries of systemic filtering, ofttimes exhibit racist tendencies, attitudes and behaviors.

These institutions, these people who are in decision making positions of authority, represent America; their attitudes, their behavior, their proclivities for bias against people of color, makes America a racist country.

So, you may be right to say, Candidate Haley, that America itself is not a racist country, you overstepped when you claimed it never has been. Your miseducation of American, African, and African American history explains away your ignorance of the cause of the Civil War, but not the content of America’s social strata.

Here’s a brief history lesson on America’s racist past.

After the Civil War, Southern states codified Jim Crow laws that shackled the new liberties of Blacks and reigned with terror, sanctioned murders, lynchings, and denied access to the ballot. Jim Crow justice ruled the institutions of education, commerce and the criminal justice system. All white juries never convicted a White person of crimes committed against innocent Blacks. But according to you, “presidential wannabe,” it wasn’t racism.

America allowed 100 years of Black bodies swinging from trees, bridge girders, and poles. Some tarred, feathered and set on fire as they swung. No crimes, no charges were ever brought against the White lynch mobs. Low hanging fruit on America’s trees. 

Entire thriving African American communities were burned to the ground, and  its Black citizens ruthlessly murdered by raging White mobs; no Whites were ever convicted of crimes; Rosewood, Fla., Tulsa, Oka.

But it wasn’t racist, America has never been racist.

Murder by lynching was not a crime. America would not enact laws to make it a crime, Presidents failed to see the need. More than 100 years, and thousands of murders later, the Emmitt Till Antilynching Act was passed in 2022.

But America has never been a racist country.

Perhaps, Nikki Haley, your campaign trail should lead you by the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. If you cannot see racism after you stroll through, reading the panels of the innocent victims and their petty offenses, then you are without a hint of justice, and have no vision for America.

Presidential ‘wannabes’ campaigning in the safe environs of regions with a scintilla of diversity is safe. but the results send errant messaging to the rest of the nation.

Candidates can play the “America is not racist” card and the voters can nod their heads in agreement. We must not be misled by overrated early election results.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post Do Iowa & NH primaries mirror America accurately? appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

By the Rev. Norman Franklin,

Herald Contributor

I read a Time Magazine article recently by Dr. Robert Jones. He is the author of “White Too Long” and is a White southerner from Mississippi. His latest book is “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.” The Time article pulls from the content of the book.

I find the whole thing unsettling.

Two Papal Bulls were issued in the 15h century that unleashed atrocities against humanity in the immediate and for centuries beyond. That theological error undermines the hope of social equality and undergirds the social construct of race and race superiority. The crimes committed under the authority of these papal edits have not escaped the notice of the God we serve. The crimes committed by those with internalized racial superiority will likewise be held accountable.

The initial edit by Pope Nicholas in 1452, Dr. Jones notes, laid the theological and political foundation for the Doctrine of Discovery. The nefarious doctrine granted Portugal the unfettered right to invade, conquer and enslave any they encountered. The Portuguese were prominent in the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 15^th to the 17^th century. Pope Alexander, in 1493, issued his papal bull with the express purpose of validating Spain’s ownership rights of lands they stumbled upon.

It baffles the mind, it stretches the boundaries of spiritual credulity, how a man, the Pope, the Holy Father, who God talks to, could issue a Papal Bull, a theological doctrine, that is antithetical to the character and nature of the God he serves.

It makes Him a liar, the God who said He is impartial, the God who said through the apostle Paul, that there is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free for those in Christ, the God who said that His Word does not change and that He does not change, became the god of White Europeans rather than the God of all creation.

At that time there was no one to challenge the theological soundness of the doctrine. The bulls were not widely distributed. Only church leaders who held positions of authority and members of nobility and aristocracy, particularly those with church and political ties, had access to the documents.

The Bible wasn’t readily accessible to low-ranked clergy or the common man until after 1455. Then the Johannes Gutenberg invention of the printing press significantly reduced the cost of producing books. That made the Bible accessible to low-ranked clergy and the common man.

We can excuse the clergy of that day for their silence, we can excuse Portuguese King Alphonso, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Their concerns were with expansion and power, not the soundness of Papal Bulls. Christopher Columbus, even on his second voyage, still believed that he had reached Asian shores; we can excuse his silence. But we cannot excuse the churches, the theologians, the seminaries of the enlightened eras.

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal,” Martin Luther King Jr., said as he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. The same principle applies to sounding out the error of theological doctrine.

I can’t help reasoning that at some point religious leaders, particularly since America experienced three “Great Awakenings” of religious revival and spiritual renewal, would have spoken out against an ideology undergirded by false theology that was drenching the faith in sin.

The first awakening was 1730-1740, a period of colonialism and the grumblings of Christian nation building. The second was the 1790s-early 1800s, America was fully engaged in chattel slavery, land grabbing and genocide of Native Americans. The latest was in the late 19^th and early 20th century. There was a marked emphasis on social reform, abolishing slavery and women’s suffrage.

None of the awakenings put the axe to the root of our sin.

The Doctrine of Discovery escapes the scrutiny of most White scholars and theologians, Dr. Jones states.

Whites are unwilling to consider the illegitimacy of privilege and its damning effect on social equality, unwilling to acknowledge their internalized superiority beliefs and implicit bias, unwilling to point the finger of accountability at a pillar of their faith whose misstated doctrine unleashed a torrent of hatred, murder and sin that yet permeates every fiber of our world.

I find it disturbing that there is no moral outrage at the scriptural ignorance, the positional arrogance, the audacity of the content and context of the papacy’s statement that led many to commit sins. I’m disturbed that the average White person harbors internalized superiority. 

This ideology gave us years of genocide, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the torture and massacre of Emmitt Till, mass murders of Native Americans and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. 

The silence of the church and the silence of so-called progressive White America is a betrayal of biblical principles, Christ and of the Christian faith. I needed to find some understanding for why Pope Nicholas, a “man of God,” one believed to possess the power of papal infallibility, would misrepresent God with his 1452 edit. 

I reached out to my friend, former pastor, writer and Christian thinker, the Rev. Joel A. Bowman Sr., for some perspective. 

Bowman says, “This indicates that Western Christian theology was shaped by White supremacy. When one baptizes this pernicious ideology with the allusion of God’s sanction, it is especially dangerous.”

I pensively processed all this through the prism of the hope of justice, as I paced back and forth through the annals of my mind. The problem, the error, the false theology can never be resolved until it is confronted. 

James Baldwin, renowned African American writer who challenged the social order, said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

It’s past time for us to face this. 

The post Commentary: The silence that betrayed Christianity appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .

By the Rev. Norman Franklin

In a democracy governed by the will of the people, the ballot gives tremendous power to organized and centralized voters. A coordinated turnout of likeminded voters can determine the outcome of elections and set the sociopolitical identity of the nation.

America was comfortable with its identity forged in the chattel slave system, power forged in the sting of the whip that maintained the order of society. With the end of slavery through the devastation of the Civil War and the adoption of the 14^th and 15^th Amendments that followed, a new social reality was center stage. The once enslaved Africans were now citizens with rights to the ballot.

The social structure and the economy of the South was in peril. Its economic power was vested in the free labor of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It was greed that fueled the colonial’s fervidness in the transatlantic slave trade. The plantation system required thousands of Africans to harvest the cotton, rice and tobacco crops that built the South into a commercial powerhouse.

The South never conceived that these slaves, now numbering in the millions, would one day be free citizens of this country and empowered with the right to vote. They found this unacceptable and immediately moved with circumvention tactics.  The salamandrine character of White privilege adapts to what is necessary to maintain the power structure.

Blacks outnumbered Whites in the southern states, giving Blacks the right to the ballot was guaranteed to dismantle the White power structure. The sovereignty of Southern state rights effectively negated the amendment’s inclusionary provisions; Black codes and Jim Crow laws were the only authority that reigned. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 dethroned the system that ruled with violence and intimidation with impunity.

I’m reminded of a scene in the movie, “Gettysburg” produced by the Turner Network. The Union Army withstood the offensive of the Confederate Army on the first day of the battle. The scene opens in the Union camp. It’s quiet, reflective, the soldiers are connecting with those who survived, sipping coffee, thinking it may be over. Then suddenly shells exploded, and every soldier is scrambling to position himself for the ensuing assault. The battle is not over.

We hoped the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had capped the struggle, the battles won, the nation can now move on to living out its creed of one nation under God, freedom and justice for all. But hatred has the survival skills of the cockroach – cockroaches have survived  attempts to exterminate it and thrived through millennials – and hatred is equally vile and disgusting.

The courts were the channels through which civil rights/voting rights victories were won. The courts are the channels through which those victories will be gutted.  It is unconstitutional, the Robert’s court ruled,  for race to be considered in hiring and college admission policies. Section 2 is all that remains of the Voting Rights Act.

Race is the dynamic concept, the social construct that has been central to accessing the rewards of Americanism. We always played by those rules.  

It has always been a broad definition that set the boundaries of what it meant to be Black. Homer Plessy, a Louisiana Creaole, established the legal color-line in 1890. He could ‘pass’ but chose to identify as Black. He was kicked out of the Whites-only railroad passenger car. His initiative became the test case for separate but equal: Plessy v. Ferguson.

The new battlelines still pivot on race, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. Louisianna Republicans are testing the courts, to muddy the waters. They are seeking to narrow the definition of what is considered Black. It’s a power grab, a narrow, scaled-down definition directly relates to redistricting.

The 2000 census was the first to allow citizens of mixed ethnicity to select all that applied. People were enthused that they could finally embrace their whole identity.  Southern Republicans want the Supreme Courts to rule that only those who checked off the single census box for Black will be considered in the mix when it comes to redrawing congressional districts. A favorable ruling from the conservative court could open the gateway for dismantling the Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Acts.

Another subversive tactic that is practiced openly is felony disenfranchisement. An estimated 5.1 million voting age citizens are denied the ballot because of felony convictions. In some states, disenfranchisement is permanent. In others, voting rights are restored after parole or probation is completed. In a couple states, Vermont and Maine, felons are permitted to vote even while incarcerated. These latter two states have less than 2% Black population and a very low prison population: 1,229 in Vermont, 1,714 in Maine. Thirty-five percent of the prison population in both states are Black.

Felony disenfranchisement has been an effective tactic for diluting the power of the Black voters. Supporters of felony disenfranchisement argue that convicted felons have broken the social contract and have forfeited their rights to participate in a civil society. Advocates against argue that such practices pose political incentives to use the criminal justice system to disproportionally target minority groups.

The United States maintains the highest prison population than most developed countries. Nearly two million people are incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. Nearly 70% of the prisoners are people of color. The Criminal Justice System is a weapon of injustice that benefits those who hold authority in America.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

The post The power of the ballot, White fear of the Black vote appeared first on The Cincinnati Herald .