Obvious? Perhaps

But apt nonetheless.

H/t Theo Moudakis

Closer Than You Think

In his latest series of racist tweets, Donald Trump urged four congresswomen of colour, all but one born in the U.S. to go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places [a.k.a. s**t-hole countries] from which they came. In the same tweet, he described the United States as the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth.

Many, for whom cogitation is not such a chore, beg to differ with that assessment:

Re Trump digs in against Democratic congresswomen, July 16
Toronto Star17 Jul 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump is quoted as saying that if lawmakers “hate our country,” they can go back to their “broken and crimeinfested” countries. Doesn’t he realize they are already living in one?

Mike Forster, Toronto

Is Donald Trump finally right about something?

The four congresswomen of colour he attacks as coming from “broken and crime-infested” countries unfortunately do come from such a country: the United States of America.

Can Canadians learn lessons from that degraded nation’s decline about setting limits on our own populist demagogues?

Douglas Buck, Toronto

I choked back tears as I read this compelling story about Donald Trump’s overt sexism and racism. How is it possible that the U.S. president could be saying to the world that “four Democratic congresswomen of colour … need to get out of the U.S. “right now”?

Trump has no qualms about exploiting racial divisions once again, and continues to alienate people of colour. If this latest folly is not enough to rid the U.S. of such poisonous words and ways, I don’t know what is. I beg U.S. senators and representatives to end this madness and return civility and intelligence to the White House.

Susan Kohlhepp, Toronto

This Is What John Lewis Speaks So Feelingly Against

John Lewis spoke from the heart about this:



And John Conway 111, husband of chief Trump defender Kelly Ann Conway, has this to say about her boss:

Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president.

Telling four non-white members of Congress — American citizens all, three natural-born — to “go back” to the “countries” they “originally came from”? That’s racist to the core. It doesn’t matter what these representatives are for or against — and there’s plenty to criticize them for — it’s beyond the bounds of human decency. For anyone, not least a president.

One can only hope that America, despite all odds, finds its way to regurgitating up this president from the dark part of its psyche he has such a tenacious grip on.

From The Heart

In light of the rampant racism that seems to be engulfing Western nations, John Lewis utters words we all need to hear.

I know racism when I see it.

I know racism when I feel it.

And at the highest level of government there is no room for racism.

It sows the seeds of violence and destroys the hopes and dreams of people.

--@repjohnlewis pic.twitter.com/916pUv8pgx

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 16, 2019

Two Faces Of Appeasement

The first picture you will recognize as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minster sufficiently deluded to believe that he had a deal with Adolph Hitler that could keep his country out of the war. The claim that the pact meant "Peace in our time" is consigned to the annals of history as highly ironic.

The second picture, of course, is that of Justin Trudeau who, you may think, has nothing in common with Chamberlain. In that assumption you would be quite wrong.

The rest of the world has issued condemnation of Donald Trump's most recent demonstration of his racism:




However, instead of taking the principled stand required, our prime minster, Justin the Gormless or, if you prefer, Justin the Lesser, had this to say:



Some would laud this as diplomatic.

I call it moral cowardice.

Lest We Forget

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz reminds us of some unpleasant truths:

San Juan mayor responds to Trump's Puerto Rico tweets: "This isn't politics. This is about saving lives." https://t.co/9CA3Ips4Aq

— CNN (@CNN) October 13, 2017

Suppressing Dissent

Like countless others, I support those protesting both the wicked legacy and current practice of North American racism. While more egregious perhaps in the United States, Canada's own shameful racist history and practices leave little to be proud of either. For that reason and others, I cannot support the decision of Sidney Crosby and his fellow Canadians to visit the Trump White House as the Stanley Cup champions.

Consider the following:

Sidney Crosby and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins view their trip to the White House on Tuesday as the final moment of celebration for a championship season, not some sort of statement about where they stand on President Donald Trump.

"From my side of things, there's absolutely no politics involved," Crosby said Monday. "Hopefully it stays that way. It's a visit we've done in the past. It's been a good experience. It's not about politics, that's for sure."

Perhaps the concussion-prone lad is not thinking straight or is unspeakably naive in thinking that interacting with Donald Trump is like past visits to the White House; in that he is sorely mistaken, as the following clip makes abundantly clear:



And let's face it. Crosby and the others are filtering an increasingly fraught reality through the prism of white privilege, something The Star's Emma Teitel takes him to task for:

Like any white person who shares Crosby’s “side of things” and whose government does not devalue his life on account of the colour of his skin, he has the luxury of regarding politics as a force too far away to complicate his day to day.

It was this luxury that enabled him to smile and shake hands with a U.S. president who recently asserted that “very fine people” existed on both sides of the summertime march in Charlottesville, Va., where neo-Nazis walked unmasked and triumphant down a city street and a 32-year-old woman died at the hands of one of them. (Very fine people indeed.)

Having been born and raised in Nova Scotia compounds the grievousness of Crosby's moral blindness:

Being Black was tough too for the more than 400 hockey players who comprised the Coloured Hockey League in Crosby’s home province of Nova Scotia from 1895 to 1930. CHL players did not have the privilege of political indifference when their league disbanded due to a number of factors, racism included. Later the government would demolish Africville, the African-Canadian village in Halifax, in which many of the league’s members lived and played.

Penguin coach Mike Sullivan is also complicit in this misdeed, despite his stout denials:


Sorry, Mike. You just can't have it both ways.

I shall leave you with a reminder of who ultimately has the real power and now seems intent on abusing it to suppress dissent, and this should come as no surprise to anyone: it is the predominantly white 1% who are committed to maintaining the status quo.



Both Mike Sullivan and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell can talk all they want about respecting their players, but in the end, as always, actions speak far, far louder than words.

Amen

H/t Theo Moudakis

Meanwhile, sportscaster Dale Hansen offers this powerful meditation on protests:

UPDATED: No, Mr. Trump, There Aren't Two Sides

Although issues of justice and equity have concerned me throughout most of my life, as I move through my final decades I find matters becoming more, not less, pressing. Clearly, history is not on an upward trajectory, and as the saying goes, we can rest when we are dead.

Like most, I suppose, I can only bear witness to the suffering that injustice, prejudice and hatred impose and, when opportunities and venues materialize, speak out and write about them and personally intervene if witnessing untoward acts. We all have a deep moral and social obligation not to turn away from but to confront evil in its many forms. Silences gives consent.

One of the most accessible venues for speaking out is a blog, although I am under no illusions about the efficacy of such methodology. However, if it serves to convey information that a reader might not otherwise have, I feel it at least accomplishes something, however little that might be in the larger scheme of things.

In that spirit I offer a clip from NBC News that includes an excerpt from a Vice News documentary exposing what went on behind the scenes in Charlottesville last weekend; it is a clip that puts to the lie everything the diseased leader of the 'free world', Donald Trump, had to say yesterday about some of the fine people who were marching with the white supremacists there. After watching the clip, you can follow this link to Mother Jones, where you can view the entire 22-minutes of the piece.



UPDATE: There is nothing more pathetic than a whining Nazi. Watch below as Christopher Cantwell, the white bare-shirt supremacist who so proudly extolled violence in the Vice clip, now sings a different turn: