Black History is American History

Celebrate Black History

It is part of America’s history

 

February was first marked as Black History Month in 1926 to recognize the accomplishments of African Americans. It continues to be celebrated nationwide. February was chosen because it is the birth month of Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing former slaves, and of Fredrick Douglas, an African American orator, social reformer, and abolitionist. It celebrates the central role played by Black Americans in our collective history. 

 

Many African Americans have made their mark in the arc of our history. Most notable is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the civil rights movement through non-violent direct action. 

 

Rosa Parks is remembered for refusing to move to the back of the bus in the segregated South and sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott which led to desegregation efforts across the region. 

 

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay, led many in the sports world and beyond to reject remnants of slaveholding and consider separatist movements tied to a Black identity. He became a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and raised the connection between race and other left-wing activism. 

 

Frederick Douglas was born a slave and lived during the Civil War. After escaping slavery, he went on to form the abolitionist movement which helped end the ownership of humans in America. 

 

W.E.B. Du Bois was an author, academic and activist in the time before Dr. King and Mrs. Parks and helped found the NAACP which remains a leading organization for African American rights and activism. 

 

Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball leading the way towards the integration of all professional sports in America. Major League Baseball retired his number 42 for all teams in 1997 in recognition of his contribution to sport. 

 

Harriet Tubman was also born a slave. She became famous for helping other escaped slaves make it to the North on the Underground Railroad which led many to freedom. 

 

Sojourner Truth, another woman born into slavery who later escaped and helped recruit escaped slaves for the Union Army during the Civil War. 

 

Langston Hughes was a poet and novelist during the cultural movement called the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. His work helped highlight the economic plight of impoverished African Americans in cities in the North. 

 

Maya Angelou is one our best known African American authors. Her autobiography, “I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings,” shows us how racism affected her as a young girl. She worked with Dr. King and others to put a permanent end to a segregated America. 

 

More recently, we saw Amanda Gordon, a young Black poet, read a memorable ode during President Biden’s inauguration that expressed her hopes for the future. 

 

Now we have a Black/Pacific Islander woman, Kamala Harris, serving as the Vice President of the United States of America making history herself rising from the many struggles of those who preceded her. 

 

There are many other notable Black Americans in our history who made significant contributions to the fabric of American life. 

 

President Gerald Ford, a Republican, elevated Black History Month, with his formal recognition of the effort in 1976. The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have created a website collecting and paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. It can be accessed at: https://blackhistorymonth.gov

 

Milwaukee’s Black Holocaust Museum opened in 2012. It was closed for financial reasons and during the pandemic but will re-open on February 25^th in its new home at 4^th St. and North Avenue. It chronicles the struggles of Black Americans here and across the nation and helps us to understand racism here still rears its ugly head. More can be found at: https://www.abhmuseum.org

 

Black History Month celebrations are planned across Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, the Fox Valley, Eau Claire and on many UW Campuses. Local Libraries across the state have put up special collections of materials recognizing Black achievers, authors, and activists to help us learn from their stories. 

 

We need to take the time and effort to study these unique Americans and their contributions to our society and culture. With a deeper understanding of their struggles for equality and civil rights, the controversy over Critical Race Theory will become clearer. 

 

After all, the struggle for equality and civil rights for African Americans is a critical part of America’s story. Until people of color enjoy the same rights and privileges as everyone else, none of us will be truly free and equal.

Democrats Unite

 Democrats need to Unite

 

One of the great things about the Democratic party is that it is a big tent organization which welcomes members who span the spectrum of ideas and voices on the left of the political divide. One of the bad things about the Democratic party is that it is a big tent organization that has difficulty uniting to achieve broad based political agendas which some view as too far left.  

 

The recent spectacle in the United States Senate demonstrates both aspects of our party.

 

While Senate Democrats all agreed that voting rights are critical to the continuation of our democracy, they could not agree on how to achieve greater protection of voting rights in the face of Republican efforts in many states to curtail the ability of citizens to cast their ballots. 

 

With a bare majority of Senators, all 50 Democrats needed to agree to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights bill already passed by the House of Representatives. Two Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona refused to follow the leaders in the Senate and amend the rules to by-pass the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to pass legislation. All the Republican members of the Senate refused to vote for the bill or the rule change that would allow passage of the bill with 51 votes. The 51^st vote would have come from Vice President Kamala Harris sitting as President Pro Tem of the Senate when there is a tie vote. 

 

The Senate filibuster rule is a holdover from the Civil War era. It was created to mollify Southern Senators who feared passage of civil rights legislation benefitting former slaves after the Union won the war. It has been modified or dispensed with periodically throughout its subsequent history when one party or the other has controlled the Senate. The most notable recent deviations occurred when Republicans controlled the Senate and Leader Mitch McConnell did away with it to deny the Supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland proposed by President Obama and then to approve Court appointments proposed by the former President after the election in 2016.

 

The filibuster can prevent passage of legislation opposed by the minority in an evenly divided chamber and is profoundly undemocratic in a society generally governed by simple majority rules. 

 

A similar fate apparently awaits passage of President Biden’s signature Build Back Better social agenda. Biden acknowledged as much in this week’s press conference when he indicated the large package of legislation would need to be broken up into small chunks of biils, each with its own topic. By doing that, there is a glimmer of hope that at least some of its provisions will find bipartisan support for passage. 

 

Progressive Democrats will most likely mount primary challenges to both Manchin and Sinema hoping to replace them with those more willing to support voting rights and other progressive legislation as well as doing away with the filibuster. We will also work diligently to replace some of those vulnerable Republican Senators, like our own Ron Johnson, in this year’s mid-term elections. By giving, Democrats a larger Senate majority the hope is that the filibuster can finally be consigned to the dust bin of history where it belongs and voting rights can be protected from the efforts of those who want to retain power by making much harder for poor people, those with disabilities and people of color to cast their ballots. 

 

Ron Johnson is vulnerable on a few fronts. When he ran initially, he promised to serve just two terms. He recently broke that promise and is running for a third term. While in office, Johnson promoted and voted for tax breaks that directly benefited some of his wealthiest donors and himself as he cashed out of his business. His net worth has increased significantly in the 12 years he has been in the Senate. He has been one of the former Presidents staunchest supporters and continues to support the Big Lie that the last election was stolen. Most concerning is Johnson’s continuing misinformation campaign about COVID-19. He has championed wacky cures, opposed common sense measures to combat its spread and opposed vaccine mandates. He is so far off the political spectrum to the right, that I am surprised that no one from the more sensible wing of his party has not stepped up to offer voters a choice. 

 

Democrats will choose among a strong field of candidates in the fall primary for Johnson’s challenger. It will be a hard-fought statewide campaign that Democrats are very likely to win.

January 6

 Don’t Let it Happen Again

 

On January 6, 2021, we witnessed, the world witnessed, a violent attempt to overthrow the hallmark of our democratic form of government, the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another after a full, fair, and fraud-free election. Through our televisions, computers, tablets, and phones we watched in horror as a violent mob stormed the halls of Congress searching for congressional leaders and chanting, “hang Mike Pence.” The attack was planned to stop the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote for President and Vice-President. It was encouraged at the highest levels of the outgoing administration and coordinated with alt-right groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and others. They erected gallows with a hanging noose outside the Capitol to prepare for a lynching. Some wore printed t-shirts proclaiming a new Civil War was starting that day.

 

On the one-year anniversary of the insurrection, President Joe Biden addressed the nation on television and finally took the former president and his supporters to task for their roles in fomenting the riot and then doing nothing for hours to stop it. 

 

President Biden’s remarks deconstructed the lies that are being continually circulated that the presidential election was really won by the former occupant of the White House. He noted that every challenge mounted in courts where oaths are taken to tell the truth and evidence required to prove one’s claims failed to carry the day. He noted that the only election claimed to be tainted was the one for the top of the ticket while Republicans did well in the other races that day for state governorships, Senate seats and House of Representative positions. He noted that we cannot unite until we stop those who would “put a knife to the throat of Democracy.”

 

Up to this point, President Biden has refrained from calling out the defeated former president for his role in starting the carnage, to “fight like hell,” then watching it from the White House on TV and not doing anything to stop it for hours.  Even after calls from GOP congressional leaders and Fox media pundits to speak out against the violence, the former president could only manage a weak call for the violence to stop while praising the rioters as “patriots.”

 

Biden is correct. We are still at war for the soul of our democratic form of government and must reject political violence and autocratic leaders who care more about their egos and the retention of power than they do about any of us or our institutions. We cannot move forward while trapped by a strongman cult.

 

At the heart of the call is the sacred right to vote and to have the might of government pass from one group to the next peacefully after fair and full elections. These are the same issues raised here and elsewhere about gerrymandered electoral districts and voter suppression measures being passed by Republican state governments. They are echoed in the failed electoral “investigations” championed by the likes of our own Assembly Majority Leader Robin Vos and his lacky, former short-term Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, Michael Gableman. 

 

As noted by our own County Board Chairman Don Kriefall, we must unite to do battle, not with an undefined amorphous “left,” but with those who would dismantle the great American Experiment in self-rule. It is time we had fair maps of our electoral districts and ensure that everyone born on these shores or naturalized to citizenship is able to cast their ballot for representatives to govern the body politic. 

 

It is only when we have a universal franchise that the goals of equality and inclusion will be realized. We need not fear the voices of the many or the views of the newly arrived, America was built on them and has thrived because of them. 

 

United, we will reject violence as a means to achieve and maintain the power to govern. United, we will once again embrace we are one people with a common goal to have a safe and prosperous place to live and raise our families. United, we will care for each other by following the science to cure disease and help us all live healthy lives. True Freedom comes from recognizing that we are all in this together and can only succeed if we all succeed. 

 

We must hold those who created, launched, and crashed through the gates of the Capitol a year ago responsible for their traitorous actions to make sure that those who might try to repeat that experience will rethink the wisdom of those plans. We must never forget what happened on January 6, 2021, if our democratic republic is to survive.

 

Religion

 Religious Beliefs All Share Common Themes

All are Important

 

Growing up in Southern California in the 1950s, my mother took me to her Episcopalian church for Sunday School and services. I was baptized in her church, served as an altar boy, and joined the youth group. I learned lessons from the Bible and participated in services without ever questioning any of it. I learned there were Jews in Palestine and some of the Old Testament tales of their travails. I suppose I knew there were other brands of Christianity, but I had little exposure to them or their followers.

 

At my progressive high school, I was exposed to many other religious beliefs. The kids in my school came from all over the world. Some were Jews, some Muslim, some Quaker, some atheist, some agnostic and some from a sprinkling of Christian denominations. Some of them went to Sunday services in nearby churches, but many of us went to a patch of woods by the Main House and had our own. Those services were less about God than about spirituality and the many ways that gets expressed. 

 

My post high school anti-poverty work in Southern African American communities exposed me to Gospel and other segments of Black churches. I saw emotional connections to religious beliefs for the first time in their services. I later learned of Kwanza and, Glen Grothman’s criticism notwithstanding, felt their unifying messages. 

 

Later in my professional career, I worked with Greens and Native American Tribes in Northern Wisconsin trying to protect the water and our treaty obligations. I attended many Anishinaabe pow wows with my family and experienced a nature-based spirituality unlike any of my other religious experiences. 

 

Older spiritual systems, Pagan and Druid, added their own elements. We still observe the Solstices and passage of the seasons.

 

My own spirituality combines elements from all of these. I still tear up at the Hallelujah Chorus or Ode to Joy. Other classical music of the season is as familiar as when I first heard it. I do know many of the traditional carols by heart and have been known to sing along. I rejoice in Gospel and the songs of the drum from Africa and Northern Wisconsin.  

 

All of these share, at this time of the year, a thankfulness for the bounty our Earth provides, the joys of family gatherings, and a reconnection with the core tenants of their belief systems. It is a time of giving and sharing that is all too fleeting. 

 

On this Christmas Eve, one of the holiest of the Christian faith, my family and I wish all of you, no matter how or what you believe, all the joys of the season and for a peaceful and healthy New Year.

 

Don Kriefall

 Don Kriefall, Seriously?

 

Washington County Board Chair Don Kriefall once again graced these pages with a fact free attack on public-school educators and Democrats. For a supposed non-partisan elected official, Kriefall showed his true colors as a partisan hack spewing nonsense. 

 

Kriefall’s column last week Friday was a thinly veiled call to arms for all those itching to dismantle public education. Perhaps his continued vitriol was stoked by the serial losses by those who challenged sitting school board members across Wisconsin in recent recall elections, most notably, the ones in the nearby Mequon-Thiensville School District. 

 

Without a shred of evidence to support his assertions, Kriefall claims that public school students forced into virtual learning during the pandemic allowed their parents to witness first-hand the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

No one has produced any evidence to show that our county’s K-12 schools teach Critical Race Theory. I seriously doubt that Kriefall even knows what that obscure law school course even contains. From his previous comments, it appears that he has bought into the unfounded conspiracy theory that conflates all teaching of truthful American History about slavery, native American genocide, and other not so nice actions of our Caucasian ancestors along with the teaching of concepts like empathy, kindness, respect and caring into the CRT cauldron. 

 

Having whipped up the fears of his like-minded cohorts, he further fanned the flames by accusing the government of branding those who stand up to speak at school board meetings as “terrorists.” The Department of Justice was asked to investigate actual threats of violence and physical harm to public school board members from those who were unhappy about the blown- up version of CRT they were led to believe infested their public schools. 

 

No one has ever claimed that merely voicing an opinion about public school curriculum or policy at a school board meting is “terrorism.” Given the First Amendment’s right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, no government prosecutor or law enforcement agency would ever brand mere speech as “terroristic.” Civil discourse is critical to the continuation of our democracy.  Threats of violence against individual public servants not protected speech are quite another matter, clearly warranting governmental response. 

 

Finally, Kriefall lumps all Democrats into to group that must be eliminated from the public sector for their supposed support of “leftist” “Marxist” public education. Our Republic is not and never should be a one-party state. It’s improvement, growth and prosperity depend upon the multitude of voices in the body public. Democrats and Republicans, Independents and Greens, Socialists and Conservatives have and can work together to find solutions to our common problems in a civil and constructive manner. Our elected officials should welcome such constructive activity, not condemn it. 

 

Public education is supported by tax dollars and entrusted to locally elected school boards to spend those dollars wisely and in accordance with accepted educational policies and practices. Unlike private or charter schools, public schools must take on every child that walks through their front door. They are charged with teaching each child where they are on the education spectrum in a caring and nurturing environment. That is exactly what our schools try to do each day with dedicated and professional educators guiding students to become productive members of our society. 

 

Kriefall is correct in one part of his argument. If you don’t like what is going on in government or public education and want your voice to be heard, you should run for public office. If your campaign offers constructive ideas to fix a problem, sensible solutions to difficult issues, a positive view of what can and should be accomplished, you might be lucky enough to convince enough voters to rally to your banner. Don’t bother if your goal is just to dismantle what you do not like, most voters will see through the charade. 

 

We might dare to hope that our County Board Chairman one day might tell us what he is for and not just what he is against. We would do well with a Chair who offered a meaningful response to the low percentage of COVID vaccinations among Washington County residents when compared to our Ozaukee County neighbors and the rest of Wisconsin. We would prosper with a Chair who acknowledges that we need to learn from our history to avoid the mistakes of our ancestors.

 

Mr. Kriefall, the time of divide and conquer politics and the demonization of your opponents is coming to an end. We want solutions, not condemnation. We want constructive and civil dialog from our public officials. Elected officials are put in their offices to represent all their constituents, not just those who might agree with you. It is time to grow up.

Juries

 Juries Level the Field

 

As I read the many and conflicting opinions on the Rittenhouse verdicts, I think some historical perspective might be helpful.

 

Centuries ago in England, from where we derived our current legal system, guilt of criminal activity and punishment was decided by the monarch or local lord of the manor. Due to the whimsy of these proceedings and lack of community input, we developed a jury system where guilt is first decided by a jury of one’s peers. In criminal cases, the jury must be unanimous in its verdicts, both guilty or not guilty. The burden of proving guilt rests with the state. Later developments included the idea that guilt of a criminal offense had to be proved by the state beyond a reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence adds another layer of protection, as does the right to remain silent and not be compelled to incriminate oneself. Double jeopardy protections prohibit a second prosecution after a not guilty jury verdict. In assault and homicide cases, once a claim of self-defense, defense of others or defense of property is raised by the accused, the state must disprove the claim beyond a reasonable doubt. It is very hard to prove a negative, i.e., that the accused’s belief that deadly force was necessary is not reasonable. 

 

All these protections were put in place in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights found in the first ten amendments to that founding document to equalize the playing field between the individual accused and the power of the state.

 

Many of those offering their opinions as to Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence appear to have put themselves in the chairs of the monarchs and lords of old, thinking only they have the correct view of the law and evidence. Those banding together to usurp the jury’s role and supplant their verdicts with their own seek to impose mob rule to decide Rittenhouse’s fate. That is not how our system works or should work.

 

While not perfect, the jury system and constitutional protections afforded those accused of crime have served us well over time. Does the right to claim self defense need further definition in situations like those into which Rittenhouse inserted himself? It certainly does. That is the job of our lawmakers. Do laws regulating when and where people can carry firearms and what firearms can be legally carried need reform? Undoubtedly, they do. That too is the job of our lawmakers. Does systematic racism have an impact on our criminal justice system that needs to be rooted out? Yes, it does and again our lawmakers must act to make it so. We can accomplish those laudable goals by working to elect reasonable, educated, and intelligent people who do not jump to unwarranted conclusions. 

 

Will some take the not guilty verdicts and seek to subvert them into a license to kill peaceful protesters? Probably, but those taking this view mistake what the verdicts actually mean.

Not guilty verdicts in a criminal case do not mean the accused is wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. They merely mean that the state has failed to carry its burden of convincing all 12 jurors that he was guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

In our headlong rush to pronounce judgment on Rittenhouse, let us focus on what needs fixing and not demolish a system meant to protect us all from the power of the state.

A New Perspective

 A New Perspective

 

After some exhausting research on unimpeachable online sites and extrapolating from their assertions, I finally figured out the ultimate unifying theory of our present situation. Stick with me on this one and see where it ends.

 

COVID-19 was developed by the Chinese in a lab in WuHan with assistance from the Obama administration and released into the wild to kill conservatives.

 

Fearing the outcome of the 2020 election and the ascendancy of the ultra-conservative white 

nationalist movements that arose from the ashes of the Tea Party, liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist Democrats enlisted the support of major pharmaceutical companies to create and begin the manufacture of COVID vaccines to combat the newly released killer virus. 

 

When the election result became clear, holdovers from the Obama administration put their plan into action, releasing the vaccines amid confusion and opposition from the incoming president and suggesting mandatory vaccination, social distancing and the wearing of masks to combat the disease.

 

One goal was to enrich the pharmaceutical companies beyond their wildest dreams with billions of US taxpayer dollars as the government purchased millions of vaccine doses for worldwide distribution. Of course many, who knew of the plan in advance, quickly purchased stock in those companies and began to ride the wave.

 

By suggesting sweeping governmental mandates for their mitigation strategies, the planners successfully predicted swift and universal resistance from ultra-conservatives who saw their very way of life threatened by yet another massive governmental overreach. 

 

Socialist, Marxist, communist Democrat liberals rushed to get vaccinated, donned their obligatory masks and kept their distance while the conservative opposition resisted and lined up to go on ventilators in hospitals crowded with seriously sick fellow conservative resistors. As we learned to nobody’s surprise, most of those dying in those hospitals refused to get vaccinated. Those men who survived saw their ability to perform their husbandly duties significantly deflated.

 

Being too uninformed to know any better, many conservative pundits and even more of their elected chumps, continued to deny that COVID remains a danger or that vaccine boosters are needed. As a result, even more will die or be left unable to have sex while the liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist Democrats will live long and prosper.

 

To make sure that they kill as many as possible, the Marxist, socialist, communist liberal bureaucrats soft pedaled regulation of alternative treatments that don’t work on COVID like ivermectin and others championed by the likes of Joe Rogan.

 

Enriched by US taxpayer dollars, Big Pharma was able to not only buy all of the GOP members of the US Senate plus two Democratic senators not yet converted to socialist, Marxist, communist beliefs and convince them to put a stop to the ultra-Marxist wing of the Democratic party's effort to lift up working people and bring America into the 21st Century with big spending infrastructure legislation. After all, Big Pharma already got theirs and wants to prevent anyone else from dipping into their well.

 

Conservative leaders, still missing the big picture, were then distracted by fear of real American history being taught in public schools with teachers indoctrinating their children with concepts like kindness and empathy. Using their pentup rage at Marxist, Leninist public schools to sap their strengths, they unwittingly freed up the dark state Big Government and Big Pharma to continue killing conservatives as the new administration imposes even more mandates.

 

One remaining part of the plan came into play after the last presidential election. Not content to just steal the election from the former president, liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist deep state government bureaucrats planted evidence of minor election irregularities to stir conservatives into a frenzy thinking they could prove the theft. The Marxist, socialist communist liberal planners knew this effort would drive more conservatives to reject efforts to get them vaccinated and add to the death toll.

 

To add further fuel to the fire, social media continues to promote other factions of the ultra-conservative movement as they move from one date to the next for resurrection of the Kennedy Dynasty which will, in turn, bring back the former president to rule as the King of Kings.

 

It is all part of the Marxist, socialist, communist liberal Democrat grand plan to end the conservative movement and kill off most of their members. And Big Pharma gets to laugh all the way to the bank as their stock values soar after selling more shots as boosters and mini doses to kids.

 

If conservatives want to survive, guess what? Get vaccinated, wear your mask and keep your distance. And while you are at it, put Big Pharma in its place by passing legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices or, better yet, pass universal health care like the rest of the developed nations. And if you have not figured it out already, none of the conspiracy fueled assertions mentioned here are correct or accurate.