NFL Protests

Donald Trump's attack on black athletes kneeling during the national anthem is red meat to a white base who are, not to put to fine a word on it, racist.

Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, say, ‘Get that son of a b---- off the field right now. Out, you’re fired!’ ”

The Republican voting base not only has a high level of animosity toward black people, just showing them a picture of a black man changes how they think on a variety of issues. This isn't news to anyone who bothers to read comments on stories in their local newspaper or heaven forbid, yahoo. But it's good to have data to back this up. Inevitably whenever a black athlete or other celebrity takes a political stand that questions the status quo around justice in America many non-black people question the black person's intelligence. Additionally they start to call the person "lazy", "spoiled", "ungrateful", "entitled", "pampered", "arrogant", or "overpaid" among other epithets. This language almost exactly tracks the language of white slave owners upset that their former slaves were leaving the plantation or the language of European colonialists bewildered and angered that they were being kicked out of Africa. 

This view of black progress, that achievement or success is only being allowed or tolerated because of white munificence, is a fundamental building block of white racism, regardless of whatever other politics the person displaying such racism might have. It's found among liberals as much as among conservatives. It's just expressed a little differently.

The Dog Was Here First: Southwest Airlines and Professor Daulatzai

We've seen people kicked off airplanes because they declined to purchase extra seats for children or because they refused to be bumped to a later flight or because they got into a dispute with the pilot or crew or because they refused to show proper id or because some bullying law enforcement or political official just wanted to flex his authority. I don't think I've ever seen someone kicked off a flight because they couldn't share the entire plane with a dog. This is not a brutal video all things considered but perhaps we have become so desensitized to anything involving police use of force that as long as there is no beating, shooting or tasing it's okay. Nobody of any gender, age or race likes having larger armed people touch their body without permission and force compliance. Is there a way to move a woman against her will without touching sensitive areas? Unlikely. I can't call it on this one. 

Fortunately I do not suffer from dog allergies. Occasionally people who do have such allergies will visit my home, which does have a dog present. Usually I will immediately put the dog in a separate area if the person has a serious problem and/or asks politely. But if the person tries to tell me what to do with my dog in my home my response might be a little different. Sometimes there is no way to square the circle and ensure that everyone has their rights respected. It's just a win-lose situation. Someone is going to lose. In the story below Maryland Institute College of Art and Harvard Professor Daulatzai lost her battle against the police and Southwest Airlines.

Book Reviews: Fortunate Son

The music business is a dirty corrupt place. Record company owners and executives, talent scouts, radio dj's, music publishers, managers, agents, promoters, lawyers, venue owners, producers, and several other business types have the means, motive and opportunity to exploit and cheat musicians. It's the rare musician who has avoided these problems over the course of his or her career. In the bad old days such exploitation was common. As frontman, lead guitarist, primary songwriter and singer for the California born Southern sounding roots-rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), John Fogerty is famous for his songs, his style and his distinctive almost prophetic voice. He is also famous for being ripped off by his record company owner and publisher, Saul Zaentz. John Fogerty is and was not a man to suffer quietly. John Fogerty apparently can hold a grudge like nobody's business. Fortunate Son is an autobiography and hopefully an act of catharsis. I can appreciate someone who is forthright. If you step on John Fogerty's foot, he is not going to be quiet. He will tell you to get the f*** off his freaking foot!  He will continually remind everyone of the time in 2017 when this moron (you) stepped on his foot. Your mileage may vary on this. If someone cheated you out of payment for and ultimately ownership of songs that you wrote, and then later had the audacity to sue you for plagiarism for sounding like yourself(!), you also might be a bit irritable. Would you let this disrupt a sibling relationship? Well maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say until you're in that situation.

This book is divided into three sections. This setup will be instantly familiar to anyone who has watched similar stories on VH1 or BET. First, Fortunate Son gives us the happy early days. John talks about his interest in black music, or what was called "Race" music in the forties and fifties. He was a big fan of people like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles and several other early rockers, country musicians and electric bluesmen, particularly Howling Wolf, whose phrasing and cadence John adored. John and his brother Tom were musically inclined youngsters.

The Mad Pooper of Pine Creek

I get upset when other people let their dogs do their business on my lawn without cleaning up after them. The dogs don't know any better. They are acting in accord with their nature. I can't get angry at the dog. But a human? I can't imagine a normal person doing this. If someone did this I think I would have to have a short and ugly "discussion" with them. But only after I put on some latex gloves.

The Colorado Springs family has spent weeks trying to get a mystery woman they've dubbed "The Mad Pooper" to stop defecating in their neighborhood, right outside their house.

Cathy Budde says her kids caught her first mid-squat, pants down and unashamed.

"They are like, 'There's a lady taking a poop!' So I come outside, and I'm like ... 'are you serious?'" Budde recalled. "'Are you really taking a poop right here in front of my kids!?' She's like, 'Yeah, sorry!'"

The family says it was just the first time it actually caught the runner doing it, but it wouldn't be the last. Budde estimates the runner leaves behind human waste at least once a week. She says "The Mad Pooper" has been at it for the last seven weeks.

She can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation.

The Root's Damon Young is Wrong: Straight Black Men are not oppressive patriarchs!

Damon Young, previously of Very Smart Brothas, now of The Root wrote a poorly argued, badly reasoned and completely fact free post which claimed, "Black straight men are the white people of the black community". By this strained metaphor, he apparently meant to say that black straight men are the evil patriarchs of the black community who are oppressing heterosexual black women and black gays of either gender. Young writes many posts like this. It is his calling card. This particular one stood out to me not just because of its usual simple mindededness and lack of empirical data but from the sheer bile towards black men shown by someone who is a black man himself. Progressive black people are often quick to see the self-hate when it is on display by someone who is on the right like Jason Riley or Sheriff Clarke. The left, particularly its feminist circles, can have just as much anti-black male animus. But assessing our privilege (or lack thereof) on these facts considers only our relationship with whiteness and with America. Intraracially, however, our relationship to and with black women is not unlike whiteness’s relationship to us. In fact, it’s eerily similar. We’re the ones for whom the first black president created an entire initiative to assist and uplift. We’re the ones whose beatings and deaths at the hands of the police galvanize the community in a way that the beatings and sexual assaults and deaths that those same police inflict upon black women do not. We’re the ones whose mistreatment inspired a boycott of the NFL despite the NFL’s long history of mishandling and outright ignoring far worse crimes against black women. 

We are the ones who get the biggest seat at the table and the biggest piece of chicken at the table despite making the smallest contribution to the meal. And nowhere is this more evident than when considering the collective danger we pose to black women and our collective lack of willingness to accept and make amends for that truth.

It gets worse after that.

Farmer Tennes, East Lansing and Gay Marriage

We previously have discussed many times that the First Amendment does not protect you from dealing with the consequences of your speech visited upon you by a private entity. If I shared derogatory, confidential, proprietary or private employer information in any of these blog posts, my company would immediately walk me out of the door. I would have no recourse. Many people have used Twitter, Facebook or other social media to share ideas or images that their employer and/or other people found hateful. Often, these people have been fired or have faced calls from the public to lose their job. For many of us I would bet it depends on just whose ox is being gored before we decide if we will join the latest digital mob howling for blood. That's just human nature. I am more sympathetic to some "victims" than I am to others. You probably are as well. There often is a First Amendment issue when the government attempts to punish you or harm your livelihood just because of your speech. That's usually not allowed. Although the Supreme Court has legalized same sex marriage throughout the land, it emphatically did not make anti-gay discrimination illegal to the same extent as racial or gender discrimination. 

The 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn't include gays. And Congress has until now resisted calls to change the law. Some states have made laws against gay discrimination; see the lawsuits over religious bakers refusing to cater gay weddings. But many others have refused to do so.

Worst Hack in History: Time to Get Rid of Equifax??

You probably heard that Equifax suffered the worst hack in its history. Hackers viewed or stole the private personally identifiable information of approximately 143 million adult Americans. I am talking about your name, your maiden name if applicable, your address, your date of birth, city and state of birth, your income, your previous addresses, and of course your social security number. Equifax not only failed to secure this critical information but also some Equifax big shots allegedly sold Equifax stock after they discovered the hack but before the news became public. And Equifax took its sweet time before informing the public. A few people have since lost their jobs but other than that Equifax or its principals haven't suffered any legal criminal or civil penalties. It's unclear as to exactly how much Equifax or its two other primary competitors, Experian and TransUnion CAN be regulated or fined. They theoretically fall under the bailiwick of the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but neither of those organizations have the power to impose harsh penalties. And the current Administration is not exactly known for its belief in keeping a short leash on corporate behavior.

In the online age some have become blase about sharing personal information but this incident could change that. Individual consumers never handed over their information to credit bureaus. It was their employers, insurance companies, banks and/or creditors who did that. This data could be a jackpot for criminals around the world. There is literally no end of mischief someone can get up to if they have all of your personal information.