This week, the United States Senate voted once again on a law to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010.  However, this particular vote came the day following a deadly mass murder in San Bernandino, California, where 35 people were shot, of which 14 were killed by two assailants brandishing two variant models of an AR-15 assault rifle and two 9mm handguns.  These firearms were all bought legally.  In the wake of the massacre, California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein proposed an amendment to the ObamaCare repeal bill, tied to a separate bill itself, to block known and suspected terrorist from being able to buy firearms.  These amendments were resoundingly voted against by all but a single Republican Senator.  This was not Senator Feinstein’s first attempt to block such individuals from being able to purchase firearms.  Earlier this year, Senator Feinstein, a senator who is pretty far on the left of the political spectrum, teamed up with Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York who is definitely on the far right of the political spectrum.  They co-sponsored a bill to add “Known or Suspected” terrorist to a list of dangerous persons prohibited from purchasing firearms by federal law.  The two have tried similar bills in the past as well as others going back as far as former Attorney General under President George W. Bush Alberto Gonzalez.

Despite this being the deadliest massacre since 20 kids were shot to death in Newtown Connecticut in 2012, which was the deadliest massacre since 32 students were shot and killed on the campus of Virginia Tech in 2007 and well over a dozen high profile massacres in the years in between, the list of prohibited persons that Senator Feinstein wanted to update to add known and suspected terrorist has not been updated since the late Senator Frank Lautenberg sponsored and passed the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, which added those convicted domestic violence as an additional category of individuals prohibited from firearm ownership in 1997.

18 years ago was the last time our firearm laws have been updated, despite massacre after tragedy after massacre after tragedy.  However, this phenomenon of doing nothing after extremely grievous tragedies is only as old as these last few years.  The United States of America’s history with gun violence and laws enacted in response is well documented, extremely active and clearly defined.  This goes back as far as the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution itself.

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Now, despite the right’s repeated attempts to strike the first 13 words of the Amendment from memory, the framers did specific write the Amendment for very specific reasons.  The Amendment was created off the basis that the United States do not have a standing army, which is what the framers feared.  Instead of a solid standing army, the framers asked that our army, if needed, will be of the people.  Thomas Jefferson took heed from Greek and Roman civilizations before and wanted to take the power of an “engine of oppression” from the rulers and leave it among the people.  To this end, each state(not the combined United States as we were all individual entities then), was in charge of its own security, which the 2nd Amendment asked us to keep regulated(formed and trained).  That was the reason why individually we were given the right to keep and bear arms.  It was about the defense of the state.  Not about the defense against the state.

The prohibitions did not stop there.  In fact, the very year the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution was enacted, African slaves in Saint-Dominigue, the French colony on Hispanola, revolted against their masters leading to the establishment of Haiti.  This would frighten other French colonist in Louisiana to cause them to have free blacks disarmed in their territories.  Within the English Colonies and eventual American states themselves, such fears of slave revolts were as tangible and based in reality.  In 1831, after Virginia slave Nat Turner had his revolt ended, more laws were passed to prohibit free blacks “to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead…”  Other states would pass similar laws.  Naturally, slaves were not citizens to have their 2nd Amendment rights denied from them.  However, after the Civil War ended and slavery abolished, this did not end prohibitions on Black citizens from owning firearms.  Starting in 1865, facing shrinking majorities, many former Confederate states passed firearm laws included in the Black Codes, which qualified the right to keep and bear arms for certain individuals.

These such laws would last throughout the 19th Century and into the 20th Century when a new class of Americans began to threaten the sensibilities of Americans with the rise of gang violence.  In Chicago, February of 1929, four individuals dressed as police officers detained and brutally assassinated seven members of the North Side Gang, principle rivals of notorious mob boss, Al Capone.  Other Depression-era criminals like John Dillinger, Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, George “Baby Face” Nelson and Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd terrorized police, commerce and hundreds of others in the early 1930s.  On the heels of these high profile gangsters, congress passed the National Firearms Act of 1934, which required firearms to be registered and taxed.  This law effectively banned “burst fire” machine guns, short barreled rifles and shot guns and destructive devices such as bombs, grenades and explosives.  This is the reason why no one owns a missile silo in their backyard.

The National Firearms Act was very restrictive and was able to limit the widespread violence caused by these gangsters.  But this wasn’t the end of our nation’s troubles with gun violence.  Instead of targeting those on the lower end of law and government, assassins now targeted high profile leaders.  In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John Kennedy with a rifle purchased via mail.  This would prompt efforts to regulate interstate commerce to licensed manufacturers and dealers and require individuals to be licensed to buy firearms from firearm dealers.  It would take another five years with the assassination of his brother in June of 1968 and world leader, Martin Luther King in April, that congress would pass the Gun Control Act of 1968. 

It would take another 14 years for the United States to face another situation where gun violence became an all too immediate threat to our most notable citizens.  In 1981, John Hinckley Jr, known Presidential and Hollywood stalker, approached President ronald reagan and shot him and three others including White House Press Secretary, James Brady.  This would eventually lead to the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993, known as the Brady Bill which not only added a provision to the Gun Control Act of 1968, which began the aforementioned list of prohibited persons from purchasing firearms that Senator Lautenberg would amend four years later, but also established background checks of those seeking to purchase firearms.

However, in that same year, religious fundamentalist took up arms against the United States government and in a bold fashion that showed the world the damage extremism can cause when left unchecked.  No, I am not talking about the bombing of the Twin Towers in February of 1993.  I am talking about David Koresh and his shootout with modified assault rifles against federal agents two days later.  This was the one time, someone actually took a current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as a defense against the government and it did not end well for him or his radical views of religion.  With the siege of Waco, the rise in the crack-fueled gang violence of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and several spree killings, all with powerful weapons, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed the following year.  This law expanded the death penalty, funded construction of more prisons and more militarized police, but most notably was the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which took effect in September of 1994 with an expiration date built in, which also has since expired and has been in the center of political debate since.

But that was the end of it.  Again, the Lauterberg Amendment was passed soon after, but beyond that, our response to deadly high profile firearm massacres has stopped.  Firearm right have, however expanded, primarily by edict of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Though, it should be noted in the last case on gun rights before the Supreme Court in 2008, District of Columbia vs Heller, although written with the majority opinion, the extremely conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, noted that even though the right to own and carry handguns in the nation’s capital was expanded, he said “like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.”  Now, if Justice Scalia can recognize what you’ve just sufficiently read about yourself, then our current congress has no excuse.

Thomas Jefferson has a quote attributed to him where he states, “Law without order is as great of a danger to the people as order without law.”  We are a nation of laws.  These laws are implemented by our elected leaders.  They have the duty to protect each of us with these laws.  And over the last 220 years, we have had the law and the order it has given us.  Sadly, the last 20 years has shown that we are increasingly becoming a nation that has order without the law to protect it.  And without that, we won’t survive.

Today is Monday.  And we all know what happened on Thursday.  Another mass murderer killed nine people on a college campus in Roseburg, Oregon.  The reasons why this happened were as plentiful as the blame.  I, and most sensible people INCLUDING the murderer’s own father, think a share of the blame should be held by the proliferation of firearms that permeate our society.  However, the other side simply throw their hands up, shrug their shoulders and blame crazy people… as if we’re really the only country with crazy people. As if it’s only crazy people shooting people to death every night.  But outside of simply blaming crazy people(and not proposing to do a damn thing about it), over the weekend, I’ve remarkably seen a single visual element of all the blame that gun activist have now promoted as their Public Enemy #1.  This:

Gun activist have, almost immediately and effectively in unison, began to blame the fact that Umpqua Community College and most other locations where we see these high profile mass murders are “Gun Free Zones”, where most people, including your “Good guy with a gun”, are not allowed to bring guns and since criminals don’t obey laws, they are the only ones that bring guns in these location and have free reign to kill as many people possible with no one to stop them because apparently the only way these people are stopped is with a “good guy with a gun”.  That is the argument that gun activist have shoved my way throughout the weekend.  Well, as you can imagine, they’re absolutely wrong.  Again.

For instance, they’ve said that firearms are not allowed on Umpqua’s campus and there was no one there to stop the asshat shooting people.  Well, not only was Umpqua exempt from that law, but there’s this gem that they want to ignore:

Yeah.  This guy… who I’m almost positive would shoot anyone from the Obama Administration that tried to take his gun, he was armed.  Now, as I’m pretty sure he is fully versed on Oregon law, he’s also smart enough to know that a “good guy with a gun” are the ones we pay and give badges to.  So much for that logic there.

But, of course, gun activist talk about everywhere else where there’s a shooting is logically a “Gun Free Zone”, all 10,000 murders through the year naturally.  They point at Chicago and Washington D.C., cities with strict gun control laws that restrict ownership and say “See!  These places don’t allow guns and people still get killed!”  What they won’t tell you is not only are these city streets flooded with illegally gained firearms, but they won’t tell you they’re coming from surrounding states like Virginia and Indiana that don’t share their restrictions.  They should know that there aren’t no weapon factories in the Southside of Chicago or outside the Capitol Heights Metro.  Do any of these gun activist ever ask themselves where do these guns come from?  No, because if they did, they would stop the blind ignorance and realize these city streets are in fact not gun free zones at all.

But those aren’t the only areas where firearms are not only plentiful but armed resistance should be expected.  Of course they can say “Sandy Hook Elementary School: Gun Free Zone” or “Chattanooga Recruitment Center: Gun Free Zone” among others.  Okay.  Maybe they are Gun Free Zones.  But lets look at what they’re not talking about:

• June 1994, Fairchild Air Force Base, an airman shot 27 people, killing four.
• October 1995, Fort Bragg, a sergeant shot 19 people, killed one.
• November 2009, Fort Hood, 45 people shot, 13 killed.
• September 2013, Washington Naval Yard, 16 shot, killing 12.
• April 2014, Fort Hood, 19 shot, three killed.

These are just some of the locations where not only were there good guys with guns, but they were expected to be good guys with guns there.  If that weren’t enough, Columbine High School had armed security in the building when 34 were shot and 13 kids were killed.  Virginia Tech, like many 4-year colleges have their own police force when 49 were shot, 33 of which were killed in 2007.  Just like Northern Illinois did too when 22 were shot, with 5 killed a year later.  There are others, several others where a murder could not possibly have any idea who may or may not be armed when they decide to go kill a mass of people.

Fact of the matter is these mass murders don’t go research areas are “Gun Free Zones” and target areas they think won’t have anyone to shoot them.  Jared Loughner did not go to a Safeway in Tucson and say “Hey, I don’t think they’ll be anyone with guns here, oh wait a congresswoman is here!”  James Holmes didn’t go see “Magic Mike” and decide he hated it so much that he had to shoot 60 people and kill 12 of them.  Dylann Roof could have tripped outside of his door in Columbia, South Carolina to find a black church to go kill people.  That’s not how this worked.  Adam Lanza targeted the school his mother worked at, that he attended.  Nadal Hassan was stationed at Fort Hood.  James Huberty went to a crowded McDonald’s 200 feet from his front door when he shot 40 people, killing 21 of them.  Omar Thornton was just fired from his job when he took his gun and shot 10 people, killing eight.  And that’s just some of the more prolific shootings.  And even IF you assume the gun activist are completely right about these mass murderers targeting “Gun Free Zones” as the only places they’ll go shoot, that still don’t answer your everyday murder, in homes, in back alleys and street corners across America on a daily basis.  The laughable part of it all is that gun activist in one breath try to convince us that these are all just crazy people, then in another expect us to believe these same crazy people are rational enough to calculate the probability that they will not encounter anyone armed to get in their way.  In most cases, murderers target by connection and convenience.  Not by perceived ease of murder.  Because what makes it easy isn’t a supposed “Gun Free Zone”.  It’s made easy by the gun itself.

On Thursday, Chris Harper Mercer, a 26-year old overly sheltered scumbag from some decrepit corner of dirt gathered half the firearms he legally bought(six in total), along with several magazines and a flak jacket and walked on to the campus of Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon and would proceed to shoot 18 people, killing nine before being killed himself by law enforcement.  This is the latest mass shootings that has captured the nation’s attention, which occurs almost on a monthly basis.  Just over a month ago, Vester Lee Flanagan took a gun and shot three people, killing two near Roanoke, Virginia.  Just over a month before that, John Russell Houser pulled out a handgun in the middle of a theater in Lafayette, Louisiana and shot 11, killing two.  The month prior to that, Dylann Roof walked into a church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot and killed nine.  This list hardly stops here.  Isla Vista, California, 6 dead.  Fort Hood in 2014, 18 shot, 2 dead.  Fort Hood in 2009, 45 shot and 13 dead.  Washington, DC, 12 killed.  Newtown, Connecticut, 26 killed.  Aurora, Colorado, 12 killed, 58 wounded.  Tuscon, Arizona, 17 shot and 6 killed.  Each of these are for the most part in the last five years.  This list can go back decades.

These mass slaughters are not new.  Neither are the excuses given as to the lack of inaction by our elected leaders that refuse to do anything to stop them.  They look what happened in Oregon with a screwball like Chris Harper-Mercer, him obtaining his guns legally, bought or gifted, with mental health issues known but not treated and swear up and down that “there’s nothing we could have done to prevent this.”  They’re assuming since he was not a criminal(which pretty much negates the “criminals don’t obey laws” excuse) and that no one could have predicted that his mental issues would have lead to this(which makes me wonder why is his mother giving him guns knowing he is mentally unstable) so stopping this would have been a virtual impossibility.  This was also said about Vester Flanagan, Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Aaron Alexis, Dylann roof and most others who commit these mass shootings.  And you know what?  They’re right!  Well, I know it’s a load, but I’ll pretend they’re right anyway.  Because at the end of the day, these high profile mass murders represent less than ONE PERCENT of murders committed throughout the year.  That’s 1% of murders, according to this thought, that we were absolutely helpless from stopping.  But what are we doing about the other 99%?  Do any of these gun activist really expect me to believe there is nothing we could have done to prevent any of those?

There is a entire swath of thought in our modern political discourse, when debating gun politics, are absolutely resigned to a horrifically foul normal of mass murder without any sensible safety measures given to address such a disparity.  Instead of proposing or passing any legislation to make a 30,000 a year number to something like at least a 20,000 a year number and have tighter sale control on firearms or more exhaustive background checks, trafficking and straw purchasing, the other side idly points the finger at the mentally disabled as the problem with guns in America and then….  Nothing.  No new legislation.  No public awareness campaigns, no investment in mental health and social services.  Nothing.  You know what it’s called when you blame problems elsewhere without a workable solution?  It’s called a deflection.  It’s rather a deflection or they really don’t care about actually solving the problem.  And I have a hard time convincing myself that so many people are so apathetic to what’s happened to our society.

But going back to the premise that all mass shootings are done by those with mental disabilities.  And while we’re at it, let’s expand that to include all that commit suicide with a firearm, approximately 20,000 people a year.  This leaves THOUSANDS of murderers that kill others with firearms on a yearly basis.  To believe that, you would also have to believe that our population of mentally ill persons throughout the country is staggeringly higher than every other nation on earth.  Or we insist on not treating these individuals, which would explain why our mental health funding is as poor as it is.  Even still one thing that is not being addressed is how these people are getting guns, regardless of their mental health status.  And I’ve said before, which is often overlooked, if we found the source of these weapons we can do something about it.  This isn’t the Matrix.  These murderers do not just dial a number and WOOSH aisles and aisle of guns show up for a dirtbag criminal just to grab?  Is this a video game where they punch in a cheat code and CHA-CHING their inventory is loaded with any gun they want?  No, that’s not how any of this works.  Criminals get their guns from irresponsible gun owners and unethical gun dealers.  Chris Harper-Mercer was GIVEN some of his guns by his family.  Seriously, what kind of sense does that make?  How would you feel if it was your brother or sister, mother or father that was killed in Roseburg with a gun that was GIVEN to a killer by a family that KNEW he was struggling with mental issues?  They knew and still gave him MORE guns.  How can anyone be okay with letting THAT happen?

Ultimately though, they did.  And these guns, along with the ones he bought were used to shoot 18 people and kill nine of them.  Could there have been anything we could have done to prevented this from happening?  Maybe.  Maybe hold his family civilly and/or criminally liable for giving a mentally unstable son firearms.  Maybe have mental health screenings and evaluations for everyone seeking to buy a gun.  Increase background checks and restrict firearm licensing.  We’ve constantly updated the list of prohibited persons able to buy firearms, but for whatever reason stopped in the 1990s.  We can still do it now if we had the political will.  That said, if none of that actually worked and there was truly no way from preventing this massacre from happening, then perhaps we can take steps to prevent the 25 to 30 people that will be shot and killed across the nation today.  There’s no reason why we shouldn’t.  Chris Harper-Mercer is dead.  But American streets still have drug turf wars, domestic violence disputes, wanna be thugs trying to prove they’re hard men, desperate criminals carelessly taking advantage of others.  These are the people we need to prevent from obtaining and using guns in this nation.  And so far we’ve done an incredibly poor job of it.  These mass murders we see on the news every month are not the norm.  They are only one part of a multi-faceted problem.  They only highlight what is an out of control problem and how much we’re not doing to stem a tide of homicidal violence.  When someone is shot and killed on average, every hour of every day of every year, it illustrates a problem this country has that is not being addressed.  The fight for gun control isn’t to prevent the tragedy that already happened.  It’s to prevent the tragedy that will happen next.  And, as I live and breath, there will be a next one.  Everyone knows there will.

And there is something we can do to prevent THAT.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to visit a part of the Commonwealth of Virginia that I hardly ever visit.  And by “hardly ever” I really mean never.  I traveled to the most southwestern part of Virginia.  To know what I’m talking about if you think of Virginia as one triangle with a smaller to it’s left, I spent the weekend in the top peak  and the bottom left of the smaller triangle.  This region is due south of Detroit, Michigan and is actually closer driving distance to SEVEN other state capitols than it is to our own in Richmond.  It’s a unique part of the state.  It’s has a completely different feel than every other part of Virginia. In comparison, Hampton Roads(despite the name), is defined by our waterways.  Northern Virginia is defined by it’s proximity to the nation’s capitol.  Richmond has a touch of history mixed with a lived-in urban sprawl.  The Southwest however, it almost seems like an entirely different state and in some respects, it is.  It’s proximity to West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina give definition to region in a way that is a demarcation from other regions in Virginia.  It’s mountainous, driven by factory work ethic and curiously, DEEP conservatism.

The 9th Congressional District of Virginia, which represents the entire whole of the small triangle of Virginia, had been represented by long time Congressman, Rich Boucher, who served until 2010 when he was defeated by current 9th District representative, Morgan Griffith.  And as much as a mainstay Congressman Boucher was since 1982, his representation in the Southwest was an anomaly.  While very few regional and statewide Democratic candidates have enjoyed sparse support, over the last few generations, Republicans have dominated area politics.  Since 2000, Mark Warner is the only statewide candidate to have any success in the region during his run for Governor and his first run for U.S. Senate.  Every other Democrat has lost and it has not been close.  Most recently, As of the 2013 state elections, only ONE Democrat currently serves in the General Assembly from the region.

It was over the weekend, I had the opportunity to speak with one such member of the General Assembly from the region.  He was invited to speak about the region, the people and his electoral history and time in politics.  However, the topic inevitably turned to his voting record and how he feels specifically about the idea of Medicaid Expansion and assisting the disadvantaged in the region.  He repeated his opposition to Medicaid Expansion, expressing that he felt, that in essence it might be a good idea, but he said the government could not afford to do everything that might be for the public good.  Which principally, is a sound argument, but he also noted that he did not believe in offering Medicaid to able-bodied working adults.  And this was the point I felt the need to address.

Southwest Virginia is very much unlike the rest of the state.  It’s Appalachia.  It’s coal-country.  It’s the birthplace of Country music, but it is also the place of heartache and human despair.  The high school dropout rate his higher than the state average.  The Southwest has the lowest rate of college graduates than any other region.  Worse than this, the rate of prescription drug overdose is twice as high as any other region in Virginia.  Those living in the Southwest are 23% more likely to die of heart disease, 44% more likely to die of COPD, 30% more likley to die of diabetes and 54% more likely to die of liver disease.  Moreover, the percentage of uninsured is higher than the state average.  Not to mention, the unemployment rate is the highest in the state.   On top of this, state and federal public assistance dollars are spent in the region at a higher rate than any other part of the Virginia.

When the delegate told me that he not only is opposed to the Medicaid Expansion, but also felt that able-bodied adults should not have access to Medicaid, I couldn’t help but to ask about the region’s high unemployment rate and chronic health problems.  I wondered how both are among the highest in the state and if he does oppose Medicaid Expansion, what does he propose to help those that do need care and are not offered or are able to afford healthcare, which comprises a sizable portion of the residents that put him and others like him in office.  Again, despite his resistance to this particular brand of public assistance, the region continues to demand and receive social assistance for those that need it the most.  That said, despite the persistence of these problems for decades defining the region, the delegate in question was re-elected for 11th term in 2013 and will be re-elected for his 12th term in a few months, each with over 98% of the vote.  Jobs are leaving the region.  Health disparities have wrecked the region.  The region is under-insured, under-educated and heavily reliant on federal government assistance.  Yet voters continue to support candidates that have been unable to address these basic needs.  The best explanation for this dynamic is that these voters are “value voters” or voters who vote based on social interest and a candidate’s views on social issues than economic protection or personal progression.  It is those elements that these “value voters” don’t particularly value(pun absolutely intended).

The Southwest isn’t alone in this rather strict voting record.  The Southside, Eastern Shore, Shenandoah Valley all share similar traits.  Which is also shared by many southern regions in America.  These areas are filled with rural voters that are strictly conservative when it comes to social values.  And as it relates to economic values, as conservative as they might want to be, the need is there.  But the need for social services does not overvalue the demand for social conservatism.  Which, I suppose is their choice, however I cannot understand the willingness to continue to support candidates who may share a public view at the expense of a personal need.  The Southwest is struggling to keep up.  They know this, but do not desire political change.  What they do desire are the same political allies that cannot or have been unwilling to break a truly wretched way of life.

What can I say.  I don’t get it.

Regards,

Your Confused Neighborhood Black Man

“WTC…
What’s the cause?
Work to change
Wish to connect
Want to cry
Watch them climb
Watch towers crash
Wishes turn cloudy
Wish time could
Wash this clean
Whisper to Christ:
Watch the children
Women try calming
Weakness to courage
Worthless to cooperate
Watching them corroborate
Wounds to clean
Working to counterbalance
Winding the clock
Wife tries cooking,
Washing the clothing,
Working the corner
Writing to courts
Wanting to create
Worlds to cradle
Wrong to cry
Well-wish the children
Wisdom takes crossroads
W. targets countries
War that conquers
White torn cloth
Wrist turn cold
Work towards charity
Wish time could
Wash this clean

But…
Warriors think consciously;
Waiting to contact
Witches turned counselors
WTC…”

-La Bruja

There is a popular internet meme/tweet going around in the gun rights/control debate.  It says

“The Sandy Hook Massacre was the end of the Gun Control Debate.  Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

This quote encapsulates how I feel.  It describes the resignation felt by those that support gun control and gun safety laws.  Naturally gun rights advocates express their outrage differently.  Laced with lamentations that they do care about the senseless loss of the lives of nearly two dozen children.  However, needless to say, they do not share my frustrations with the gross lack of reforms seen to prevent such mass massacres from occurring.  Their resignation lies elsewhere.  They’ve resigned to the new normal.  The new normal of mass shootings in Tuscon, Aurora, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., Fort Hood and now of course in Charleston, Chattanooga, Lafayette and Roanoke, Virginia.  Sadly this “new normal” is not exactly new.  Mass shootings have been happening since guns were invented really.  They have just been more pronounced since the Sandy Hook Massacre.  Moreover, murder and death by firearms are just as old.  And over the last 15 years, our gun death rate and homicide by firearm rate has been consistently high.  Higher than all other advanced nations.  Yet, we’ve done very little in terms of enacting more efficient gun control and gun safety measures over the last five years.  What we have done over that time is make a bunch of excuses as to WHY we haven’t done anything as a nation.

Over the last month we’ve had approximately three very high profile shootings and I’ve heard my fill of these excuses.  And since I’ve grown tired of hearing them, rejecting them and repudiating them, I’ve felt the need to present to you Your Friendly Neighborhood Arguments Against Gun Activists:

1.  “Criminals will get guns anyway.”
This is the excuse used when there is any sort of measures proposed to limit the proliferation of firearms in America.  Gun activists will immediately point out that even if you banned guns, increased background checks, pass gun storage laws, stopped straw purchases or any number of sensible measures, they will say criminals will get guns anyway.  As if their next statement is “so why even try stopping them?”  They just assume by the virtue of a criminal being a criminal that they can just get a gun… somehow.  Which is the fallacy of this argument.  They never think about HOW these criminals are getting their guns.  Their logic(or lack thereof) ends there.  I suppose they think this is The Matrix, where a criminal will just call a number and VOOOOSH!  Streams of guns just surround them for their choosing.  Or maybe this is Grand Theft Auto and all a criminal has to do is enter in a cheat code and BEEP BEEP BOOP, their inventory is just filled with any kind of gun they wanted.  The reality is, no matter how much they want to ignore it, these guns are coming from somewhere. More than likely, they’re coming from “responsible” gun owner via theft or irresponsible gun sellers via unlicensed and fairly unregulated sales. Fact is, there are no weapon factories in the south side of Chicago or wrecked inner cities of America. You know what is though? Pawn and gun shops. Lots of them.  You find out where guns are coming from, then have the will to do something about it will go a long way to solving our gun problem.

2.  “More guns equal less crime.”/”Chicago has the strictest laws and the most murders in the country.”
A popular thought by gun activist is a believed correlation between the amount of crime in a particular area being endemically linked to the number of firearms in that area.  They believe(wrongly) that the more guns there are in a given area, they lower the crime rate.  Inversely they also believe(wrongly) that the tougher restrictions on firearm ownership in a given area will also make that area less safe.  Nevermind the logic leap of such an area being LESS safe because of the number of guns owned, they often point to the city of Chicago.  The reality is that Chicago is the exact opposite of “more guns means less crime.”  There are PLENTY of guns in Chicago.  More than most if not all American cities. By that virtue it isn’t surprising that their homicide rate is also the highest in the country as well.  And again, despite what is believed, more goes does not equal less crime.  In fact, sever studies have repeatedly shown it’s the exact opposite that is true.  More guns actually mean more murder.  Legal or otherwise.  It has been shown that states with higher rates of firearm ownership DO have higher homicide rates.  This is due in part to the ease for potential homicide perpetrators to obtain a gun in states were guns are more prevalent.  Coincidentally, this is very much the case in southern states.

3.  “More people die from car accidents/drunk drivers than are ever killed by guns.”
Another popular excuse given by gun activist.  To divert attention from the fact that firearms are made for the single purpose of killing by highlighting the idea that car accidents and drunk drivers kill much more people than guns ever do.  Sadly, this is becoming increasingly untrue.  In 2013, 10,076 people were killed by drunk drivers.  In that year, 11,208 were murdered by a firearm.  In all, there were 33,804 motor vehicle deaths from any method and 33,636 firearm deaths.  The two numbers are virtually identical.  Point of fact, gun deaths have eclipsed motor vehicle deaths for people aged 15-24.  What gun activist are focusing on is the fact that traditionally motor vehicle deaths have been one of the leading causes of deaths in America.  What they are ignoring is the fact that over the years effectively because of the rate of death, automobiles and the laws governing the use of automobiles have drastically improved to safeguard our society that depends on their use to get from one place to another.  They are not made to kill.  They’re made to drive.  Car technologies and road laws are constantly changing.  As far as drunk drivers are concerned, 40 or 50 years ago if a law enforcement officer pulled you over, he’d ask you to sleep it off on the side of the road or at worse, get driven home by the police or taken to jail(not arrested) until you sobered up.  Those laws changed.  Why?  Because people were dying and our society had the will to stop it.  Unfortunately we don’t when faced with firearms.

4.  “Only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Of all the excuses given by gun activist, this one, coincidentally enough just happens to be one of the more valid ones.  Unfortunately, this is a sad side effect of our overall problem with firearms.  Our society has had so many mass shootings over the last 50 years that law enforcement has had to become more proficient in stopping them from getting worse.  Sadly, this had hardly been a deterrent to bad guys who have guns.  They still kill masses of people with firearms before they’re stopped.  Coupled with the fact that Columbine High School had an armed guard in the facility and Virginia Tech had an entire police force at it’s disposal.  Granted, the United States is the exception when it comes to mass shootings, the occurrence on military installations is not an unknown phenomena.  In 1994, four killed and 23 wounded on Fairchild Air Force Base.  In 1995, on Fort Bragg, 1 killed, 18 wounded.  Fort Hood has had two shootings in the last six years, 13 killed in 2009 and three in 2014.  2013 saw 12 killed in Washington D.C.’s Naval Yard.  these are places with more than their share of good guys with guns.  At the end of the day, those are the ones trusted with the need to carry firearms.  If I’m in a dark and crowded theater where someone gets up and starts shooting indiscriminately, are you really going to trust some good guy with a gun to have the wherewithal to find and eliminate an active shooter in such conditions?  I certainly wouldn’t.  You are more likely to be shot by him than you are the shooter himself.  That said, the reality of what really stops a bad guy with a gun is the bad guy with a gun himself, when he commits suicide.  This brings me to the next excuse.

5.  “Let’s focus on mental health issues instead.”
The argument I’m hearing most recently from gun activist and conservatives, again as a diversion from the actual problem with firearms themselves is to point out that the true culprit in America’s gun problem is mental health issues.  Of course this would make more sense if the United States had MORE mentally unstable people than the rest of the world, but we have to face the fact that we do not.  Though, it could be argued that our American culture is more violent and has less value of life than others, however as overall focus on mental health, the proportion of those with mental health issues does not match the rate of firearm deaths(not homicides).  In comparison to other nations, our gun death rate is fifty times higher than some other advanced, first world nations.  If you really want to believe that mental health is the true problem, then you have to believe that we have fifty times as many mentally disturbed people.  More than that, it’s an odd reality that those who constantly point to mental health being a problem exclusively support politicians who do the same and then have the audacity to continously cut or oppose funding for mental health services and healthcare in genenal. That is like saying the dog afe your homework and not even owning a dog. However, all of this ignores the full number of homicides in America.  Mental health problems may explain the 15,000 to 20,000 suicides every year or some of the mass shootings that we see on the news every month now.  But mental health does not explain the other 10,000 deaths that occur every year in America.  Mental health does not explain gang violence and narcotic turf wars that wreck American cities for decades.  That is only explained by the over accessibility of firearms and the lack of focus on consequences of their usage.

6.  “Murderers would find another way to kill if they didn’t have guns.”
This is actually the lamest excuse gun advocates use.  It’s a complete discernment from facts and logic that to give it the time of day would waste my time and yours.  But since I like being thorough, let me put it in simple terms:  They are not finding any other way to kill.  They are killing because they have guns.  Duh.  It has made murderers way more effective killers than any other advance nation on earth.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s an example.  On December 14th of 2012, a mentally disturbed man walked into an elementary school and brutally attacked over 20 kids.  If you think I’m talking about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, you’re wrong.  I am talking about the Chenpeng Primary School knife attack on the same day.  Other than being on two complete opposite sides of the world, the two have two outstanding differences.  One, the Chenpeng attacker had a knife and the Sandy Hook shooter had a gun.  And secondly, 26 died in Sandy Hook while NONE died in Chenpeng.  23 sets of parents were able to hug their children at the end of the night on December 14 of that year.  Meanwhile in America, 20 sets of parents would never get that chance again.  Excusing gun crimes by supposing murderers will use other instruments to facilitate death is asinine and not serious.  If murderers could just as easy kill someone another way, they don’t do it.  By simple physics, math and construction, murderers are using guns for a specific reason.  They are more efficient.  There is a reason why you have NEVER heard of a “mass batting”.  You can’t fit a car in your bedroom.  A drug dealer protecting his corner with a pocket knife is going to get laughed at.  If someone has the intent to kill, they’re going to use the option that gives them the best result.  And we’re letting it happen.

7.  “My right to own whatever gun I want is Constitutionally protected.  You can’t infringe upon that.”
This is the one excuse that is the fall-back excuse given by gun activist, partly due to the fact that it is technically right.  However, what they have to realize is that right as defined in the Constitution is not what it’s been made to be.  In 2008, when the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban, one of the courts most conservative judges, Antonin Scalia stated “like most rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”  And though gun rights were further expanded with that decision, U.S. history is filled with laws that have restricted the proliferation of firearms and destructive devices from personal ownership and dictated who can own them and on what terms.  From the National Firearms Act in 1934 to the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994.  The idea that lawmakers cannot restrict access of any firearm because of the 2nd Amendment ignores those prior laws or any other regulations that have been in place such as licensure and permits, waiting periods, background checks and gun storage laws.  Then there’s also the actual interpretation of the 2nd Amendment:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

What’s often ignored when you’re told about the “right to bear arms” is the first part of the Amendment that specifically states “A well regulated militia” and “being necessary to the security of a free state”.  The Founding Fathers put those clauses in the Amendment because in order to arm our milita, individual citizens, who make up our militia, needed the right to bear arms and have them readily available.  But it was there for the security of a free state.  Though, gun rights have extended since then, the Founders knew exactly why we needed that right and the use as it is being used now was never their intent.  Their words say so themselves.

8.  “Criminals commit crime.  That’s why they’re criminals.”
On August 26, Vester Lee Flanagan, Jr., who was recently fired from his job as a WDBJ reporter, took a gun that he had purchased a few months prior and approached former coworkers, reporter Allison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, and shot them to death before leaving the scene and later shooting himself.  Prior to that act, Flanagan was a reporter, some described as angry and standoffish.  He might have also been described as ornery or rude.  What you could not describe as was criminal.  March 10, 2009, Michael Kenneth McLendon was a factory worker and laborer before he made the decision to shoot to death his family and bystanders.  He might have been called a loner or anti-social or even well-liked.  What he was not known as was criminal.  Adam Lanza was not a criminal.  Nidal Hassan was a decorated veteran.  He was not a criminal.  In 1984 James Huberty was a self-described survivalist and a security guard before he shot and killed 21 people in a San Diego McDonalds.  Then he was a criminal.  George Hennard was a honorably discharged sailor when he shot and killed 23 people in a Texas cafeteria and then became a criminal.  Seung-Hui Choi was student prior to shooting and killing 32 people in Virginia Tech.  Then he became a criminal. Fact of the matter is most murderers are not criminals prior to their actions.  They might be mentally ill.  They might be under threat or feel they’re threatened.  But they are not criminals.  So to assume that someone is a criminal and they’re just going to commit a crime anyway ignores a multitude of reasons why crimes and murders are committed and by who.  Often is the case that criminals are not the ones committing crime.  They just become criminals after their crime is committed.

9.  “Why take away my right to defend my home or my family?”
This sounds like a simplistic and defensive excuse of persecution.  Gun activist, first build the straw man that there’s any sort of grand-scale movement of absolute disarmament.  There isn’t.  That alone should dissuade any fears that someone is trying to take away a right of self-defense by killing, which unfortunately is perfectly legal and has been for over 200 years.  But for the sake of argument, let’s stretch the inability of our civil society to the land of hypotheticals and assume that we were actually able to ban firearms from public ownership.  The gun activist assumes that now that firearms are banned that they are no long able to protect their home and family, because they’re thinking killing someone to death is the only way of doing that.  That might have been so in 1815 or even 1915, but it’s definitely not the case in 2015.  To put it succinctly, you do not need a firearm to protect yourself.  Inevitably the gun activist would automatically assume I’m suggesting that their next best option is fist-fighting, which it isn’t.  Again, that might have been the case 200 years ago, but in 2015, there are better and safer ways to protect yourself.  Non-lethal or less-than-lethal weaponry have been proven as effective in self defense as firearms.  They do not kill.  There’s less force and better to control.  They can still be used over clothing and at distance and against multiple targets.  Targets have a nervous reaction, which cannot be helped and it can last several minutes, which allows you ample time to get away or deal more damage as you see fit.  Our basic human nature should be to not kill.  And more importantly when optioned with firearms, you also have to consider the danger it increases in the home.  Several studies have shown that guns in the home are more likely to be involved in more accidental shootings, domestic assaults and suicides than used to injure or kill in self defense.  It’s a fact of actual numbers.  There are 30,000 gun deaths in America every year and only 10,000 are typically homicides.  With numbers like this, I’m convinced if someone really wanted to defend their family, they’d keep guns out of their homes.

10. “Guns are protecting against a tyrannical government.”/”Hitler and Stalin banned guns first.”
The argument that the 2nd Amendment was put in place, not to arm our army, but to take arms against our government, though inherently wrong to begin with, doesn’t take into account that the most destructive devices then were dynamite and cannonballs.  Those and a couple of muskets might have been able to repel British invaders 200 years ago, but in any modern society, you will definitely need much more than that to match the might of what any government is packing.  Just ask David Koresh.  On top of that, you know what the U.S. government has?  Tanks.  Missile silos and launchers, stealth bombs, fighter jets, naval destroyers, C4, chemical and biological weapons.  None of which are practically available to your typical gun activist.  So expecting you and your Saturday Night Special is going to sufficiently able you to stop government from doing what they want is absolutely laughable.  Their next logical extension is to then claim that a dictatorship and a tyrannical government like Nazi Germany prevented their populace from owning firearm in order to disarm them from an eventual takeover.  This however is also factually incorrect as well.  Hitler didn’t specifically ban guns.  They were effectively banned after World War I.  Hitler did in fact relax laws regulating gun ownership.  He did restrict the right of Jews from owning guns, but he also restricted the right of Jews from living in his society in any form.  Actually, allowing Jews or any other group a tyrannical government targets as bad to own guns would have provided such a dictator even MORE reason to hasten their restriction and persecution. And again, there’s not institutional armed structure to adequately defend against a militarized complex that most advanced nations have. Even still Nazi Concentration Camps initially appeared in 1933, five whole years before the gun ownership laws in 1938.  At the end of the day, they like any other society has the means of arming itself against a government that’s tyrannical.  However, history shows us that this would only be a viable option if power was taken by force and often it is swept into power.

So there you have it.  All the excuses given by gun activist to side step the issue of gun violence.  They like to claim this is a new normal that we can do nothing about or there is nothing that can be done about an out of control murder rate.  Ultimately, there will be others like claims like “only bad guys will have guns” assuming there’s a real movement for absolute disarmament again and assuming there’s absolutely no movement from getting illgeal guns out of the hand of criminals.  They say that no amount of laws can prevent something like what happened this week in Roanoke.  Fact is, there are plenty of regulations that we could pass tomorrow that would not only reduce the number of illegal guns in circulation but protect our society and we’ve effectively ignored it all.  Increased gun storage laws is a good start.  We could actually have the firearms made with better technology.  Increase liability laws and insurance laws when firearms are used in commission of a felony. Here in Virginia and along with several other states in the nation allow private sale of firearms without background check.  The bottom line is, it’s past time we stop making excuses for gun violence.  Especially when those excuses come up empty when faced with the facts of what we need to do.

Dear Republican Friends,

We need to have a talk about Donald Trump and his 2016 candidacy for President.  I hear what many of you are saying and how you feel about the multitude of candidates you have running for your Party’s nomination.  But your actions speak louder than words and your words betray your thoughts.  We are coming up on two months since Trump has officially announced that he’s a candidate for our nation’s highest office back in June.  And those two months have been wrought with badgering, insults, brutish and boastful behavior that he has yet to back down from or apologize for.

To quickly rundown the list of statements and behaviors made by Trump, starting with his announcement on June 16th, he claimed that Mexico is sending rapist, among other criminals, bringing illegal drugs among many other problems.  In the same kick-off speech, he goes on to say how he would beat China, complain about Obamacare, ISIS and our steadily declining unemployment rate, which he seem to not know has dropped by any reasonable metric.  By the end of that same day however, he reiterated his unrealistic demand to force Mexico to build a wall on the border, forcing them to pay for it and “behave”.  By the following month, at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, he told a crowd that John McCain is not a war hero or only became a war hero because he got captured, which he did not think was worth admiration.  A few days later he would blame Senator McCain for the deplorable state of veteran care in America.  Prior to the first Republican debate, he defended a claim he made last year about Americans not willing to elect another African-American President because of Barack Obama(because we’re all the same, of course), by saying President Obama has done nothing for African-Americans and our income levels, unemployment levels are the worst ever.  All of which is absolutely untrue, but he says it unchecked and unsourced.  And then, at the Republican debate last week, when confronted with his disgusting and hurtful language degrading women and his stated positions supporting abortion, Hillary Clinton and universal health care, he defends his actions and by the next day blaming moderator and question-asker Megyn Kelly insisting that she had blood coming out of her eyes and out her “wherever”, claming she was emotionally unstable.  All of this comes on top of his typical behaviors of bullying and insulting reporters and other candidates alike and after years of not simply being critical of President Obama but continually doubting his validity to even been President or EVEN an American citizen.

To succinctly put it:  Donald Trump is an asshole.  You know this.  He is definitely not Your Friendly Neighborhood Presidential Candidate.  However, with all that said, I continually hear from my conservative friends that you not only agree that Trump is all I say he is but claim to not be supporting him for President.  And with that said, Donald Trump is still leading in nearly every poll in the Republican Primaries.  Trump is solidly in lead even after all of the insults and taunts that most sane people would shun immediately.  He still leads in New Hampshire.  He’s taken the lead in Iowa.  He has lead every national poll since the beginning of July.  I’ve heard Republican friends tell me you’re supporting Marco Rubio.  I’ve heard you tell me you’re supporting Carly Fiorina.  I’ve heard you tell me you’re supporting Rand Paul or Ben Carson or Scott Walker… yet Donald Trump is STILL in the lead.

So knowing all that I have just explained, I am convinced that rather I am being lied to or you are lying to yourselves.  But the worse part about this all isn’t simply Donald Trump being an asshole while still being the most favored Republican candidate(not saying the two are linked(no seriously(but you gotta admit it’s a pretty amazing coincidence(that the favorite candidate among Republicans is an asshole)))), but the worst part is that he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about!  He’s too wrong on issues, offering harmfully little depth in any of his claims.  It’s not just a disagreement on principle.  He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about overall.  Just yesterday he claimed that he could simplify the tax code to put H&R Block out of business?  Well, how?  How in the world does he think he can possibly do that?  Going back to his bogus claim that he’s going to force Mexico to build a wall on the border. It would be hard enough to explain how he’s going to get that done himself, but what in God’s name makes him think he can force another country to do something they don’t want to do?  Sanctions?  Make the Mexican government struggle even harder to provide for their people, which will inevitable make more want to come here for better opportunities?  That would exacerbate an immigration problem he think he’s solving.

Trump has said a lot while saying nothing at all.  Yet, he finds a level of support that’s hardly ever seen for anyone with such a woeful lack of experience and dearth of any civility and accountability that we demand from our leaders.  But all I hear from those that DO support him is “he speaks his mind” and “tells the truth”.  Even though he’s not.  But that doesn’t stop anyone from supporting him.  He might speak his mind, but why is this a good thing?  In Trump’s case, it’s better to remain silent and thought to be a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.  His supporters are under the impression that because he’s not a career politician that he’s not corrupt and can say or do whatever it takes to “get the job done”.  The problem with this perception is a false narrative on the premise that he’s not an elected official and has his hands clean of the politics as usual.  On the contrary, Donald Trump has been involved in politics longer than many of the current candidates for president.  Since 1990 he’s given to a variety of candidates, many of whom some VERY prominent Democrats(Charles Rangel, Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid to name a few).  In fact, during the course of his financial support to Democrats, he’s also supported them ideologically as well, in regards to abortion, healthcare and gun control.  Hell, on many of these issues, Trump was more liberal than I was up until a month ago.  Some may think he’s not the type of career politician that’s beholden to special interest and owes no favors, but the reality is he IS the special interest our politicians are beholden to.  Donald Trump is the very type that creates the narrative which we constantly blame political leaders for.  It’s donors like Trump that involves themselves in the political process and force their agenda on the rest of us with higher and higher dollar amounts.  And Trump has made no secret of his wealth and influence on politicians.  But he’s so unsoiled.  Or we’re lead to believe.

Donald Trump and his supporters are under some impression that once he’s able to become president he will save America.  Never mind the fact that he has no serious path to get there, but unless he crowns himself king or expect the nation to forget about the gaping asshole he’s been for the last five years, he’s going find out exactly what keeping it real really means in politics.  You don’t win without the support of those in the middle and you can’t govern without any support from those that oppose you.  That’s not how this works.  Ask our last two presidents.  And they, for the most part, weren’t gaping assholes that went out their way to insult anyone that would think a negative thought of them.  Trump believes that his will is enough to convince people to ignore his less than stellar demeanor that has turned off even the most staunchest of conservatives.  In two short months Donald Trump has made a mockery of the Republican Party and of the process itself.  We’ve often boosted celebrity candidates that are the flavor of the month like a Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, but they ultimately fizzle out.  Donald Trump shouldn’t be any different.  Fact of the matter is, his vulgarity and flimsy grasp on technicalities should hasten his decline.  However, there has been nothing he has said or done to have yet caused this to happen.  It has possibly strengthened it unfortunately.  And my conservative friends, you have to come to grips with the monster you’ve created and the beast you keep on feeding.  No matter how much you pretend to ignore him or to detest him.  Contrary to what many Democrats may believe, you actually do have a number of candidates that can when a general election.  Donald Trump is not one of them.  I know that.  You know that.  But he still there.  You have to take responsbility for this.  Or at least explain why your party so strongly supports a deplorable human being like Donald Trump.  Yeah he speaks plainly and taps into anger of the electorate.  So does that guy from high school that still think’s Obama is the communist, muslim anti-christ that decorates your Facebook feed with outlandish articles every other day.  That don’t mean you take those jokers seriously.  So why is Donald Trump any different?  He’s the Emperor with no clothes.  He’s the wizard behind the curtain.  He’s the iceberg in front of the Titanic.  Except he’s just the tip of an iceberg with nothing beneath the surface of the ocean.  Now, I understand you must me feeling a certain way about all this.  But Trump is your front-runner.  You have to take responsibility for that.  If he wins your nomination, he will eat your party alive.  If he loses the nomination, he won’t go away, but he’ll stick around to take the air out of the room.  We all know he can’t win against a Democratic nominee, like Hillary Clinton.  But he can cause the Republican Party to lose.  Is that really what you want?  If so, by all means, keep doing what you’re doing.  Democrats are fine with it.  If not, stop pretending Donald Trump and all his ignorance is that marginalized protest candidate that can’t win and realize what he’s doing to your party.

If you really want to win the 2016 Presidential Election, you must stop Donald Trump.  Or the Democrats will do both.

Truly,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Black Man

Last week, 21 year old Dylann Roof left his home near Columbia, South Carolina and drove to Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.  When he arrived, he entered and sat along with State Senator, Rev. Clementa Pinckney for their Wednesday Night Bible Study.  When the Bible Study had ended and as the group began to disband, Roof pulled out a .45 caliber firearm and shot to death Rev. Pinckney along with eight other individuals before departing the church and fleeing the state.  Within the next 14 hours, Dylann Roof was found just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina and arrested for the murder of Sharonda Collins-Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lee Lance, Daniel L. Simmons, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson and Clementa Pinckney.

In the days since, there has been a great deal of conversation about Dylann Roof’s motivations and reasonings, mainly of which made clear by Dylann Roof himself on his car in his home and through his social media.  Dylann was an unapologetic racist and like most racist brandished a symbol that was in line with his beliefs.  That symbol, known as the “Confederate Flag” is the same flag being flown in front of the South Carolina Capitol building.  Calls to have it removed from the premises, which has been going on for decades have intensified for those that oppose, while others have simply dodged the question, ignored it’s power and symbolism by saying it’s removal won’t fix anything or have even taken a tact as many Republican candidates for President have taken and ironically claimed it to be a “state’s rights” issue saying it has no bearing on their running for President.(I mean of course it doesn’t.  It isn’t like they’re looking for African-American support afterall, right?)  Mainly however, the resistance against the flag’s removal comes from those who insist on it being a symbol of their heritage and those who oppose it need to be educated about it’s history.

Well, courtesy of Your Friendly Neighborhood Black Man, allow me to educate you about this particular flag’s history.

154 years ago, after the election of Abraham Lincoln won the November 1860 on a campaign that opposed the expansion of slavery, the seven states in the lower south of the United States voted for succession and entered into an unrecognized confederation adopted in February of 1861.  A month later, German/Prussian artist Nicola Marschall created a flag for this Confederacy known as the “Stars and Bars”.  The flag he created was the first flag recognized by the Confederate States of America.  The flag he created bared a striking resemblance to the original flag of the United States created some 90 years prior.

The picture above is the ACTUAL Confederate Flag, also known as the “Stars and Bars”.  The representation that most now associate with the Confederate flag is something else.  It’s genesis is in the Confederacy army of Northern Virginia.  Army divisions typically have their own flags to signify the specific unit apart from others.  General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia brandished a square(not rectangular) flag, which was never the official flag of the Confederacy.

As the Civil War commenced and the Army of Northern Virginia had some early successes, many southerns began to adopt their flag for other purposes.  One of those purposes was for a redesign of the Confederacy’s new flag designed by WIlliam Thompson, known as the “Stainless Banner”.  This new flag took use of the Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag and placed it in the corner of a all white flag.  Purposely made that way, Thompson referred to his flag as the “White Man’s Flag” because it was to symbolize the “supremacy of the white man.”

This flag would last until a month prior to the end of the Civil War where it was replaced by a variant that included a single solid vertical bar on the far right side.

Naturally when the war was ended, use of these three flags ended as did the rebellion that officially used them.  However within the years following and the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, resistance to the Union continued, this time without the sanction of law with the exclusive intent to maintain the way of life prior to the end of war.  This meant a lower class of citizenry of Black Americans in the southern United States.  Terrorism was often employed by those who resisted which used tools such as the white mask and sheets of the Ku Klux Klan and a rectangular version of the Northern Virginia battle flag rejected from use prior to the Civil War.  These tools were used specifically to terrorize Black Americans from voting, running for office, buying property and several other aspects of life in the American south.  Over the next 100 years, the Virginia battle flag became a symbol that carried a singular meaning to Black Americans, which had nothing to do with heritage, but everything to do with hate.  The ONLY heritage it has been used to represent was with the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council and others resisting racial equality and carrying out violence in the name of fear, hate and terror.  In fact, in April of 1961, in commemoration of the Centennial of the first shots fired of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to place the flag on top of it’s state capitol building where it stayed for the next 40 years.

in 2000, lead by the efforts of Governor Jim Hodges, the South Carolina Senate and House of Representatives compromised on a deal to remove the flag from on top the State Capitol.  Retiring the rectangular version of the flag, the original Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag was placed at a monument to Confederate Fallen in front of the Capitol building.

That is the official history of the “Confederate Flag”.  Now, apart from the paradox of South Carolina’s willfully displaying a Northern Virginia flag, opinions of the flag have remained strong.  A Pew Research Poll conducted in 2011 found that while 9% had a positive reaction to the flag, a more overwhelming 30% had a “negative reaction” and since the African American population is only 13%, it can be surmised that more white Americans have a “negative reaction” to the flag than those that have a “positive reaction”.  Meanwhile, the flag is nearly universally offensive to Black America.  With this being the case, for individuals to take a ambivalent stance or at best, hands-off approach at it’s display, particularly of those seeking to represent the vast majority of Americans that care not for it, is at best a cop-out and at worse a gross negligence of tacit acceptance for something that shouldn’t be displayed in any sort of official capacity.

Will removing the flag from it’s place in front of the State Capitol solve the racist attitudes held by the likes of Dylann Roof or others that reject racial equality?  No, but neither did the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, the Brown vs Topeka Decision, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or anything else since.  Yet there are those that insist racism is in its last throws.  The defeat of Nazi Germany and the removal of their swastika did not end anti-semitism.  However, the flag was removed.  Now the only place you’ll see it is coindidently flying beside the Virginia battle flag flown by those like Dylann Roof.  Realize this, he is 21 years old.  He was born in 1994.  Not 1894.  He waved the flag of hate and racism proudly.  The same flag flown in front of South Carolina’s State Capitol.  The same flag many claim it’s for their heritage.  That heritage has been hijacked and it is now a symbol for hate.  Why anyone would willfully want that symbol to continue to represent them and their heritage knowing the message it sends is beyond my abilities to understand.  Residents of states like South Carolina and Mississippi have a long conversation ahead of them.  Removing the flag will not end the conversation of racism.  However, the conversation can hardly begin until it is.

It is past time for serious people to stop with the tacit acceptance of a racist flag being waved and raise the white flag instead.

Anyone remember that book “Black Like Me”?  How about the movie starring lengendary actor James Whitmore of the same name?  Of course, those of us from the 1980s generation will undoubtedly remember C. Thomas Howell’s “Soul Man”, which was about a white student pretending to be black to qualify for a black only Harvard scholarship.  Well from the makers of those zany stories comes The Curious Case of Rachel Dolezal!  If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that last week, the parents of the Spokane Washington NAACP President, Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal told a reporter that their daughter, Rachel is not black as she is believed, but is white.  Today, it was announced that Rachel Dolezal has resigned her position with the NAACP Chapter in Spokane.  Since then, the internet has gone afire over her apparent transgressions.  From absolute shock to utter disdain, disgust and hatred for who she is and what she’s done.  My initial reactions were lukewarm at best.  I read it and said “Oh, a white girl is the president of a NAACP branch(that’s nice)…  So, what’s going on with Caitlin Jenner? And did she help those two (actual) criminals escape up in New York?”  Clearly, there are more pressing matters in the world.  However, the more I looked into the story, the more I looked into who Rachel Dolezal is, the more I became fascinated with her history, what she did and has done and ultimately, I’ve become frustrated with the reactions of those who shame her.

So who is Rachel Dolezal?  Naturally if you ask Facebook or Twitter it will tell you “Liar”, “Bitch”, “Fraud”, “Mentally Ill”… let’s see… “Delusional”, “Con” and “Criminal”, among select other descriptors.  However, when I actually looked at this and thought about it, I had to look it up myself.  So, without further adieu, feel free to read who she actually is:

Professor Rachel Doelzal is a professor of African Studies at Eastern Washington University.  She has a Master’s Degree from Howard University and has taught African and African-American Art History, African History, African-American Culture, as well as “The Black Woman’s Struggle” at EWU as well as North Idaho College.  Her passion for civil and human rights has lead her to work in rural Mississippi advocating for equal rights and community development, coordinating cultural events, panel discussions and trainings on Human Rights as well.  She is the former Director of Education at the Human Rights Education Institute and is a licensed Diversity Trainer and Human Rights Consultant working with businesses and organizations on inclusivity, diversity and fair practices.  Most recently, she has been appointed by the Mayor of Spokane, Washington to serve as a police commissioner for the Office of the Police Ombudsman, to oversee fairness and equity in law enforcement.

Clearly, Rachel Dolezal is educated, accomplished and has not knee-deep, not waist-deep, but literally so deeply involved, invested and ingrained into the African-American community, she is hair-deep(see what I did there… pun) in the African-American Community.  Her work and advocacy in helping and advancing the goals and desires of the black community is quite extensive.  That is no way fraudulent.  To be perfectly honest, she has done more to promote our issues, agenda and experiences than a multitude of others IN the black Community alone.  As compared to others outside of our race, she is a needle in a haystack.  Too frequently, when discussing issues of the black experience in America, mainstream(white) audiences are ambivalent at best.  Over the last few years, I have used Your Friendly Neighborhood Black Man, as well as Facebook and other forms of media to tell the story of the effects of what happens in Ferguson, Missouri, Long Island, Stamford, Florida and now Baltimore, Maryland, McKinney, Texas and Fredricksburg, Virginia and what black folks have been experiencing for years.  Sometimes people listen, most times they don’t.  But we share outrages on social media of these happenings because we want a blind world to wake up and look what’s happening and has been happening to us in our lives.  Most mainstream(white) audiences don’t know.  But then again, there are those that not only do know, but work as much as I do to open up eyes, minds and hearts of the world around us.  Rachel Dolezal has done just that.

Yet, there is the idea and belief by many of her blatant and perceived deception of lying to the NAACP, Eastern Washington staff, and city of Spokane about her ethnicity.  Her parents identify as white(Czech, German and Native American at least).  Rachel Herself, according to her Twitter account, identifies herself as “Transracial” or at the very least multi-ethnic.  However, as uncovered by the fraudulently named “The Smoking Gun”(no one named Gunn works there), she had a suit opened against Howard University, a historically Black College, of “discriminating against her as a white woman”.  The suit was dismissed, however with the suit she contended that Howard was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult.”  That’s how she felt… being judged as a white woman.  However over the last decade plus she has been living her life as not a white woman.  Why?  Why would someone consciously elect to forfeit their identity as a white woman and the perceived or apparent advantaged it may have to be someone who is often discriminated against themselves?  So the question remains, did she lie about who she is?  Did she lie about being black or lie about being white?

First of all, it should be stated that most are confused on the matter.  The NAACP, in a letter of support stated that “one’s racial identity is NOT a qualifying criteria OR disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership.  Moreover, anyone remember what Equal Opportunity Laws are?  Affirmative Action?  Anyone?  Contrary to what people believe it to be, what it actually says is that hiring, accepting or otherwise judging one’s quality based on race, class gender or religion is illegal.  That goes BOTH ways.  Discrimination is illegal.  Anyway you slice it.  That said, did she misrepresent herself as a black woman?  Well, according to her application with the city of Spokane, it isn’t that simple.  Take a look:

Apparently, she did admit to being white.  That wasn’t an omission.  However, she did also check black, American Indian and Two or More Races.  While I can’t qualify this for every single time she’s been formally asked the question, it goes to show her motives, just as much as her experiences at Howard.  To better qualify this, you would best look at her history, education and worldview.  While her parents clearly identify themselves as white, growing up with Rachel as their biological daughter, the Dolezal’s adopted African-American children and according to Ruthanne Dolezal, that was the genesis of Rachel’s racial identification.  Some want to claim Rachel to be “fake” or “acting black”, but if she grew up with her actual brothers and sisters who identify themselves as black, how do we not know that her identity is shared with her family?  Moreover, she has an extensive history of work and education in African AND African American studies and Cultural studies on top of that.  Additionally, if you’re familiar with me, you know there’s a piece recited by the great Smokey Robinson I’m often found quoting about being a Black America and what that means.  He talks about the perceptions of what makes someone black and what is believed to be black.  In it he explains:  “So if we’re going to go back, let’s go all the way back, and if Adam was black and Eve was black, then that kind of makes it a natural fact that everybody in America is a African American.”  He goes on to say “And if one drop of black blood makes you black like they say, then everybody’s black anyway.”  We know that such strata was used to judge who is or who is not black in American history.  If you were half black or a quarter black or such, you were black.  Whether by choice or by actual genetics, society judged you as black.  At this point and reading her background and experiences, agree or disagree, I’m pretty sure Rachel Dolezal adheres to that belief.  As familiar as she is with African culture and history and how much it has influenced American culture and history, I think she really believe her race is at best cannot be singularly confined to just being white.

So did she lie about being black?  Maybe.  According to your or I she might have.  According to her own belief, I’m not so sure.  Racial identities are not always as they are.  I hear a lot of people always question President Obama’s racial identity, why would he consider himself to be black when his mother is white?  Well, if we saw some random light-skinned skinny harvard professor walking down the streets of Chicago in the early 1990s, would anyone identify him as white?  No.  Just the same, if we saw that lady from the pic above walking down the streets of Spokane would anyone see her as white?  Doubtful.  Even if they did, that would still be our society’s labeling of what race she is, not hers.  If that makes her a liar, then so be it.  But to be honest, I’ll freely admit that more times can I count have I wished to change the name on my resume from “Jamal D. Gunn” to “J. Derrick Gunn”.  I’m sure others have felt similarly.  Is that a lie?  Would I be doing that to gain some sort of personal advantage?  Is it possible that her experiences extending from her youth growing up in a household that was at least 50% black to her negative experiences of discrimination at Howard colored(no pun intended) her perceptions and made her feel the best way she can contribute to the education and progression of the black Community is by BEING in the black Community and living that way.  While we all would like to pretend that the Black Community itself is the beacon of racial progression and acceptance, I know better than most that white allies and progressives can be overlooked, looked at pejoratively and their efforts marginalized when helping advance our experiences and story.  I can’t even count how many times I’ve had black friends tell my white friends “What can that white girl/man tell me about being black” and they’re easily and often dismissed.  Scratch that.  I can actually, but I’m not about to pretend like it doesn’t happen.  Even on a more personal level, those of us who have dated outside of our race will find a trepidly icy reception from our family of those we want to be with.  Why is this?  Because there is still the fear that those outside of our race cannot understand, accept or otherwise relate to our lives and our story.  Maybe Rachel Dolezal lives with that fear as well.  That she won’t be accepted because she can’t possibly understand our experience or adequately relate it to others just because she’s white.  It happens.

Ultimately, the life of Rachel Dolezal is her own.  What she does to live it is her decision and her’s alone.  Not any of ours.  Can we be offended?  I suppose so.  Don’t count me among those that are.  I thought if anything we’ve learned over the last few weeks through social media, when dealing with someone’s own personal identity is to not judged who they are.  I’m not going to judge, nor can I be offended by something that doesn’t affect my life one bit.  What does offend me is the lack of attention paid and given to what many Black men and women experience day after day, life after life.  That’s real.  If Rachel Dolezal wants to share in this experience that, is quite literally, HER problem.  Her problem too maybe?  What we cannot overlook is all she has done to not just help black folks understand and accept black culture, but also a mainstream(yes, white) community that has largely paid little attention to us.  And as much as we decry and complain all the time about the ignorance of white folks, oblvious to the black experience, Rachel Dolezal is going beyond the pale(pun intended this time) to call attention to it… and I’m supposed to shame her for this?  No.  I’m sorry, I can’t do that.  She is doing something that I actually wished MORE people did, white or black.  This is a case of someone who not only is well aware of the black experience and agenda, but has supported it, taught it and has gone far(probably too far) out her way to progress it.  I’m sorry, I’m not about to shame her for it.  To be perfectly honest, there are those more likely to thank her for helping, among which you could include…

You’re Friendly Neighborhood Black Man.

In January, Hollywood released a movie about the life and times of a true American hero.  This movie vividly showed his struggle with securing the blessings of liberty and democracy at the expense of a life at home with his wife and children.  It displayed for all Great Americans to see in its full splendor of how this Legendary American lead an army of true Americans to fight against tyranny and to teach us all that this country has so much to be thankful for to those that fought for our freedom.  It shined a bright light on how we think about true American heroes and how this country has treated them.  When we think about American heroes and all they have done for this country, it is movies like this that comes to the forefront of our consciousness and I for one am truly grateful that this man has served our nation.

I am not talking about American Sniper.  This is not about Chris Kyle.

This week, Fifty years ago, after being invited to lead the Voting Rights Campaign in Dallas County, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy stepped up their campaign to end unjust discriminatory actions that denied Black residents of Alabama the right to vote.  This would precipitate one of the most historic showdowns in American history at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.  After millions of Americans watched in horror as protesters attempting to cross the bridge were met with violence in what is known as “Bloody Sunday”, Dr. King would eventually lead another successful march across that very bridge to reach the state capitol in Montgomery.  In the interim, a protest that was lead by and involved only several hundred Black Americans shifted to a rally of thousands across several races, religions, cultures and ideologies.  By the end of the summer, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law and the fruits of Dr. King’s efforts, along with the struggles the dozens of Civil Rights activist with him had finally found success.  Ava DuVernay’s Selma is as great of a film about true American heroics and the fight for freedom as we’ll ever see.  And in the grand scheme of things, it is aggressively more American than the story of a single American soldier.  What Martin Luther King accomplished, no single soldier or even an army of soldiers could ever accomplish alone.  Dr. King was able to help bring rights to thousands.  He was able to give dignity to millions.  And he commanded the respect of billions.

From an early age, through school, family or society, we are taught about the arch-types that we ascribe to those that fought for our freedom, those that we call “American heroes”.  Whether it’s the “Founding Fathers” or the “Greatest Generation” or the aforementioned “American Sniper”, Chris Kyle, these are the people that most Americans would typically ascribe as heroic and the ones we thank for our freedom and security.  As a Black man in America, when I think of the men that I feel most thankful for giving me my rights and freedoms, the names that come to mind are Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Medgar Evers and Booker T. Washington.  If it weren’t for these men, I would NOT have the freedoms and rights I’m thankful to have today.  Those are my heroes.  They actually are every bit of the hero that a Chris Kyle, Louie Zamperini or Samuel Adams are.  But that’s not the lens most Americans see them through.

Americans are conditioned early to recognize the heroics of a soldier and identify with those actions.  Not nearly as quick they are to recognize the actions of Social and Civil rights leaders and the heroism it takes to do what what needed to be done in this country.  Yes, we are taught about who these people are, but do our children really internalize why these people are?  I watched Selma and saw a story, a universal message that should be taught to all.  I saw a man, that in his time, was seen as controversial as he was heroic.  With one trying to change the order of things, and the way traditional America looked, those in power wanted to do all they could to prevent this from happening.  And as was the case, the counter intelligence programs run by the FBI tried to undermine the Dr. King, the leader of the movement, and with it de-legitimize the entire movement itself.  This is something America has done to many.  And often has been the case, an effort to kill the message by killing the messenger has worked.  But as much as it has worked against leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and the most vocal supporters of social progression even today, to question Chris Kyle calling those he killed “savages” or to criticize Omar Bradley’s legacy due to crass treatment of soldiers suffering from PTSD, one would be seen as unpatriotic.  Yet today, we denigrate modern visages of progress and fairness as “race hustlers” and “race-baitors” that “play the race card” for their own personal gain.  Given our current culture of social relativism, I am thoroughly convinced if Martin Luther King were alive today he would be afforded the same such courtesy.   Oddly enough, if Chris Kyle served during Dr. King’s life, he would be treated as every other soldier was at the time, which is quite less heroic than he’s portrayed as in American Sniper.

26 years ago the Hip-Hop group Public Enemy released a song, Fight The Power, where the lead artist, Chuck D, mentioned his distaste for, Elvis Presley and John Wayne, those we typically ascribe heroic status to in America saying “Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps.”  This was a notable reaction to lack of black faces revered by mainstream America in the way they hold typical American heroes in high regard.  It is in this light that I feel the American public saw in American Sniper that they did not see in Selma.  These two competing movies that were release in as many weeks apart, were as different as the two men’s lives they portrayed.  Chris Kyle was one soldier of thousands that served in Iraq.  Martin Luther King Jr. lead millions that could as easily gain the audience of the President of the United States of America.  Chris Kyle claimed he killed hundreds. Martin Luther King taught peaceful co-existence to thousands.  Chris Kyle’s weapon of choice was a rifle.  Martin Luther King’s weapon of choice was love and non-violence.  Chris Kyle fought for freedom and democracy thousands of miles away.  Martin Luther King fought for our freedom and democracy right in our own backyard.  American Sniper has received a lot of attention and awards.  It should, I take nothing away from the movie.  However, make no mistake, Selma and the portrayal of Dr. King’s struggle to bring equality to this country is as American as cherry pie.  He, and others like him, fought and died to make this country a better place not just for some of us, but for ALL Americans.  You don’t get anymore heroic than that.