On July 20th I started to read Sarah Knight’s book, Get Your Shit Together. It is a bit profane, but we are adults and have heard shit and fuck several times before. It will show us how to de-clutter your mind, and I could use that. The introduction tells us we all have those “oh shit” moments. She says that there is so much more that we could be doing with our lives if we stopped worrying about what we should be doing with them. We can start with mental de-cluttering. We discard the things or people or obligations that annoy us and making room for those where you are delighted to spend your time with. Then we organize what is left (time, energy, and money) and use them wisely on things that you need to do and also want to do. Change starts with cleaning out your mind. And it’s a solo mission. Chapter 1 starts with telling us who needs to get it together and why. Sarah uses The Three Chipmunks as examples and what has to be done to correct it. For the Theodore's (who is always making life different for himself), we have to show up on time, follow directions, remembering where to put stuff, and keep our calendars up to date. The Alvin's can’t do big things on their own. They fake it. What Alvin's have to do is hit the deadline, stick to a budget and a diet, plan events and anything more than a week in advance. The Simon's appear have it together, but usually do not. They think that winning includes being in demand, booked up and under the gun. For them, they have to prioritize, set boundaries, send some relationships, switch careers and maintain their sanity. Doing things all day does not mean that you have your shit together. It does not mean packing your calendar and sucking it up and doing everything on your list and other’s lists too. And don’t sacrifice your mental and physical health. To win you just have to manage your calendar and to-do list so that when it needs to be done, it does not drive you crazy. Winning at life does not mean being a prick. You are competing against yourself and nobody else. It’s getting what you want out of your time on Earth – a house, car, partner for example. It’s living your best life and not denying others theirs. So to do that we have 3 steps:
· Strategize – set a goal and make a plan to achieve it;
· Focus – set aside time to complete each chunk;
· Commit – do what you need to do to check off the chunks.
Break off a task into manageable chunks and spread over time.
She also talks out three things that are important in your life: keys, your phone and your wallet and she linked them like this: keys & strategy, cell phone & focus, and wallet & commitment. Strategy is a plan of action to achieve a goal. Your own plan should be unique. Focus is putting work into small manageable chunks, one at a time. And give yourself time and space. And you are only as good as the last step that you took. Commit all of the way and go all out. There are degrees of difficulty along the continuum of goals. Goal setting is also working to put an end to what you don’t want to be. Channel your rage against things that annoy you. Sarah also say that we should harness the power of negative thinking and channel your feelings into action. Kill cockroaches instead of chasing butterflies. Ask yourself what is wrong with your life.
And why? And in setting goals, lower the bar a bit. Sarah says that managing time is one way to get it together. And know how long it will take to do something. The next points are prioritization versus procrastination. The three most important things needed to tame your to do list are health, finances and work since they are the 3 biggest problem areas. Giving too many fucks without time, energy and money to devote to them gets you overbooked and a Fuck Overload. The to-do list also has a must do priority. Those tasks must be done first. So we:
1. Make a to do list
2. Prioritize items base on urgency
3. Move what has to be done today to a must do list
4. Do that first and save the rest for tomorrow
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4.
A Fuck Overload can come from doing the low priority tasks and none of the high priority ones - things not on your list. Assign things a priority level – every single thing. Prioritize by setting a time frame, and what is in the to-do list. Each entry is its own hierarchy. Put a handle on your priorities and you can schedule them. We also have to worry about distraction, which is the opposite of focus. Focus is the cell phone, distraction is losing the phone. You have to distance yourself from distraction by taking evasive action. Distance yourself from the source of the distraction. A mental break can help. Impulse control is necessary to focusing and commitment and impulses are controlled by us alone. Get rid of the Wizard who is going willy-nilly on your brain. The Wizard gets the night off when you make sober decisions. Keeping our shit together also means managing social sites like e/mail, Facebook, Instagram and so on. Of course, we have too much e/mail because we don’t deal with it in a timely and efficient manner – like lowering the amount that you send. We can consolidate a set of messages into one – add to in in draft mode and send it once a week. Sometimes keep them short and simple. As for purging the inbox, strategize to get to zero items, then focus on the time to do it, and commit to it by hitting classifying them into delete, file or reply. It is time management and knowing what the inbox volume is. Sarah goes on to endorse the power of negative thinking to show that someone can stop having to work late, using the goals and strategizing. We need a must do list. Time management is needed to focus, and then we can single task. Then we make a commitment to do the must do tasks. She also talks about the power of money – the money shot. We don’t have to be money’s bitch. She then talks about how big spenders can control their spending habits (something I had learned to do years ago. Frugal is better). She talks about passing up on trips to Starbucks every day, saving $100 per month and $25 per week. And $3.57 per day. Don’t buy stuff on impulse. Think of spending habits as part of the whole. We pay money and wait for shit to happen – seasons tickets, Netflix or Hulu. The last component that she talks about in chapter 2 (called Little Shit) is willpower. This is up to us. If you are motivated by money, use the Scrooge McDuck strategy and envision yourself rolling in money that you are saving; if you are motivated by vanity, then use the photo finish and look at a photo of a thinner you; if you are motivated by adulation, use the ego boost and have your peers admire you; if you have getting pissed odd, use the power of negative thinking and light a fire and keep it hot; and accountability – use the ”who raised You” strategy, which is very powerful. You don’t have to give a fuck about what other people think of my life choices – I don’t someone’s approval if I am acting in my best interests. Who raised you? Works like this: if you wonder why I can’t score with a girl, ask why I still have a pile of dirty laundry near my bed. If you ask why is everyone getting promoted except me? Maybe you should spend less time on the Internet. Why can’t I afford nice things? Maybe you should stop spending most of your paycheck on pot and Visine. We start chapter 3 (Tough Shit) with 3 sets of life goals: responsibilities & relationships, work & finances, and health, home & lifestyle. Responsibilities & relationships involve adulting – being an adult. You have to be ready for any curve life throws at you, like an unusual expense or a serious illness. It also means sending out thank you notes, updating important documents, and doing the annoying chore. Adulting also means building relationships. And you have you maintain and improve them. You may also have to dissolve them. It takes effort and prioritizing to keep relationship going. Like single tasking to make yourself available. You have to keep in touch with your friends, and it is a challenge to maintain and improve relationships that matter. But are relationships worth it? Relatives are some people that you may not like but still have a relationship, like going to their weddings or their kids’ recitals. Your inner competitor can help a romantic relationship – and you can be the best partners that you can be. Healthy competition goes into other aspects of your life. The three main components come into play here. Strategizing is ow to make your better half feel good. Focusing is small kindnesses every day; and Commitment is doing it. Not giving a fuck goes a long way to eliminate people from your life (at least toxic people). You can dissolve a relationship and get it together to leave a toxic one, even if it is hard to do so. No matter how complex the relationship is you can break it down into small chunks. Then commit or do the opposite and de-commit. You can be not committed to a relationship. You can do hot shit by yourself. But don’t do things because they are expected of you (go to college, get married, have kids, et al). When it comes to work and finance, it turns out that we have to impress some people to work our way to the top. The best way is to have your shit together. You have to look confident (even if you are shitting bricks). Master confidence with certain phrases like “no problem” or “got you covered”. Check out your coworkers and see which ones have it together. Is it their demeanor? or that their clothes are clean? Sometimes you have to ask for what you want. Or ask the boss what you have to do to get what you want. Some ways to show that you have it together:
· Owing up to your mistakes
· Being proactive;
· Not being a prick.
Vacations should be just that - vacations – in which you don’t take your work with you or keep in touch with the office. Also get you shit together and not worry about anybody else’s. Learn to delegate to make your job less stressful. Or ask for help or accept help when others offer it to you. Also, don’t ask for extra work. Remember to prepare for retirement, and you should start early. Compound interest on your 401 (k) account is like free money. Starting on page 185 Sarah talks about keeping your body in decent shape by fitness. It can be done if we reduce time spent on less important stuff, and some exercises will be more demanding. But you can prioritize it. If you have saddle bags on you (bulging waists) then maybe squat thrusts and other exercises many be doable. If you really hate exercising then try a different way, such as watching your diet more closely. And get enough sleep. A good diet is not complicated. Strategize by figuring out how much less to eat; focus on time necessary to shed pounds; make a commitment not to eat unhealthy food. You can also work on tidying up the house, if your goal is a clean house. Strategize with one step cleanups – do it in stages; focus on a mini goal; and commit to the mini goals. Make the work as easy as possible for yourself. Having your shit together is the only way to improve your living space. Break up a big deal into smaller ones. Getting it together for big stuff is just getting shit together for a lot of small stuff over time. Don’t try to do it all at once. Maybe delegate someone else, like a professional, to do some of the tasks. Maybe we have to admit that we don’t have it all together in some areas of expertise. If you don’t know what to do in a certain area, like electrical work, don’t waste time and money trying to do it yourself. It is easier to hire a professional if you can afford it. And if your plate is full, having someone else to do some of the tasks can help you get all of your other tasks accomplished. I should make time for myself in doing things like crossword puzzles. Fun stuff is as important as what you need to do. Hobbies are part of maintaining happiness and balance the annoyance of arduous tasks. Consider hobbies as a reward for doing annoying stuff. Let yourself spend time on a hobby to remind yourself how much joy it brings. When in doubt, don’t think, just do it. You have to have your shit together to be able to write a novel or play an instrument. We have scheduling to worry about and have to make up the time. We have to find out when the creative urge strikes. If it does strike, then we have to stop thinking that creative stuff has no value. It may result in a finished product or it may not. The best way is to find time and allowing yourself to use it. Making room for hobbies is an example of getting your shit together and practicing overlapping with a no-fucks-given philosophy. Being selfish in pursuit of your health and well-being can be a good thing for you and others. You cannot give of yourself if there is nothing left of you to give. Happiness is a goal in and of itself. The last part, called Deep Shit, starts by telling us that life’s deepest shit gets washed away in manageable chunks, one chunk at a time. Emotions and attitude are part of mental dust. Deep shit is what gets in your own way. Anxiety can go away if you stop worrying about what people think about your life choices. Without pharmaceutical assistance we can help ourselves to rip off the band aid and just do what you have to do and think that it may just go away. Anxiety may be in your head – conversations in your head instead of with the real person. Write it down on paper. Avoidance can cause more problems, like hating to do laundry will led to having no clean clothes. You may have to confront that other person to resolve an issue. Strategize, focus and commit to having the talk. The other F-words are fear and failure. Fear of failure can be worse than failure itself. Fear of having a possible bad outcome could cause more agony. Fear can cause people to lose sight of their goals and strategy to reach the goals. You’ll blame “them” instead of “me”. A remedy is to accept that failure is an option. So to get our shit together you will have to stop giving a fuck about failure. Say no to being perfect since it’s a self-defeating strategy. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the win. There are 12 steps to deal with perfectionism:
1. You are powerless to perfection;
2. A power greater than you can restore you to sanity;
3. Decide to turn your will over to a lady who curses a lot;
4. Reduce your to-do list to a must-do list;
5. Confess to the exact nature of your perfectionism;
6. Be ready to banish perfectionism from your life;
7. Ask someone if you are being ridiculous;
8. Make a list of people your perfectionism had harmed;
9. Make direct amends;
10. Take inventory of your actions and remember the world did not end due to your lack of perfection;
11. Improve your understanding of giving fewer fucks and getting your shit together;
12. Pass this on.
If no combination of strategy, focus, and commitment helps to keep the shitstorm at bay, call in reinforcements. We can identify pitfalls – from time management, fear of failure, distractions. Big life changes are made in small manageable chunks. Become less of a perfectionist and more confident. Don’t make big changes just for the hell of it. Big changes are there for the making, though. There is GYST Bingo which lists 10 things to do, like saving money, being on time, not being a prick, and prioritizing. Some people are too self-aware – they bemoan their state in life but have nor done anything about it. Sarah gives a list of faults and we could identify why we know does them. Such as being late, being disorganized, putting everything off. Out with annoyance and in comes joy. In the epilogue she says that life is messy. Get your shit together and start winning at life.
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On July 31st I started to read The Bright Lands by John Fram. The chapters are designated by people's names and days of the week. Joel Whitley has fled Bentley TX for New York City because he is gay and Bentley is ultra-conservative. His younger brother Dylan is in high school and is the star quarterback for the Bentley High School Bison. Dylan texted Joel one evening and asked him to come back to Bentley for a visit. Joel is soon back in Bentley and the Friday night football game he meets up with people he knew before he left. After the game, Dylan heads off with his girlfriend Bethany for a weekend trip to Galveston. Joel went home after the game and his brother Dylan left for Galveston. The next morning Dylan is not home yet and Joel, Paulette (the mother) and Darren (Paulette's boyfriend) were wondering where he is. Joel texted him and got a reply with poor punctuation. Someone else is typing on his phone. Joel then goes out for a jog. Later an Investigator and a deputy come by the house asking about Dylan. On that Saturday evening Deputy Starsha Clark goes to a bar and runs into Joel. They share a bottle of whisky and recant an incident from 10 years earlier in which naked pix of Joel were put into the Sunday Bentley Beacon. Clark then recants about how her brother Randy disappeared 10 years prior after leaving his house to go to a convenience store. On Sunday while Paulette and Darren went to church – the Methodist Church since the First Baptist Church had burned down, Joel goes into Dylan’s room and checked out the drawers and closets. In one drawer he finds a Movado watch (which nobody in the house could afford) and oxycodone. To find out more about Dylan, Joel visits Lott’s Hardware and talks with the owner’s daughter, Kimbra (KT Staler’s girlfriend). She can’t tell him anything. He then goes to the CVS store and learned that Dylan has no prescriptions of any kind there. Later he had breakfast at Hash & Brown’s Egg House and was reading the Beacon. The waitress remembered Joel from the nude photos scandal 10 years prior. Now Joel realizes her needs help from a Bentley friend, and there are not too many there. He does visit a man name Wesley at his home in a development owned by the Evers family (Luke is their son, and Dylan’s rival for Bethany Tanner). Joel tells Wesley about Jason Orvelle’s being arrested Friday evening at the game, and that he was Savannah Staler’s boyfriend. Savannah was a coke head. But is the sister of Dylan’s good friend KT. Later Joel checked out possible dates on Grindr.com – profiles with no photos. Joel also got a text from Dylan’s number: I LOVED U TOO. Deputy Clark has a dream about Dylan coming into her bedroom but when she wakes up she is called and told to meet another deputy and they drive about 30 miles from Bentley and meet up with Sheriff Lopez and a trucker named Jack Spearson. They get into an ATV and drive around some land owned by the Evers family and soon discover Dylan’s body laying at the edge of a creek. Back in Bentley the cheerleaders are talking about Dylan and Joel. Deputy Clark changes into regular clothes and visits the high school with Investigator Mayfield. They bring KT Staler and Jamal Reynolds into separate rooms and question them about the fishing weekend in Galveston. Dylan kept complaining about Bentley and how he want to get out. KT got tired of hearing about it and soon Dylan and Jamal leave Galveston and head back. Clark breaks the news about Dylan’s death to KT. KT and Jamal both said that they were home by nine PM on Sunday. Mayfield believes that Jamal may have had something to do with Dylan’s death because with Dylan gone, he would be first string quarterback. Later the principal cancelled class for the rest of the day. Joel had to go to the funeral home to view Dylan’s body, and checked out the wounds and the slashed throat. He learned that Darren had given Dylan $2,000 to start up a bank account. Clark and Mayfield headed to Galveston to visit KT’s half-brother. They also visited County Attorney Harlan Boone to discuss Dylan’s death and the manner in which he was found. It is not likely to have been a suicide. Bethany Tanner has her friend Jasmine Lopez at her house when her dad arrives home. When Clark and Mayfield arrive on the coast they inspect the house that supposedly the boys stayed at and since it was in bad condition, they conclude that the 3 of them did not stay over in Galveston. Kimbra was interviewed by Clark and Mayfield, and apparently lied through it all. Brittany and Kimbra talked in the ladies room about Dylan and KT and she tells Bethany that KT knows more about Dylan than Bethany realized. Benny Garcia talked to Deputy Clark about Jamal approaching him at the recent game during half time to ask for a condom. Then the deputy and the investigator interviewed Brittany Tanner. Brittany came across as a bit arrogant. They asked her about the recent trip that Dylan, Jamal and KT made to Galveston. And was Dylan’s cell phone locked, because if not, anyone can use it to e/mail or text. She tells then that Dylan headed north from Bentley, the opposite direction from Galveston. They discussed the fact that Dylan and KT had regularly drove to Galveston on the weekends, and they asked Bethany if she did not suspect maybe another girl in his life. On the last trip over the prior weekend they took KT’s and Dylan’s trucks. Bethany told Clark that Dylan wanted to get away from Bentley over the weekends to relieve stress from being a quarterback and an idol. Bethany told Clark that she and Dylan each had their own circles of friends. But she did not like KT’s family since she thought that they were trash. Clark then asked her what she did over the most recent weekend, and she said that she was home alone.*
*This reading stopped at page 138. Since I am in a book club, I will be reading a different book that they voted on. I will return to The Bright Lands when that reading and discussion are over.
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On August 6th I started to read Just Mercy and the introduction is titled Higher Ground (from the words of a hymn). Here Bryan introduces himself and describes his going to Harvard law School, and then going to Georgia to help death row inmates who have no access to lawyers. It was part of an internship and he would be working with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC). Bryan went to the Georgia prison and met the prisoner, Henry, who was on death row. He promised that he would get him a competent lawyer and have him released. Henry would not be executed. The guard was not too happy with the fact that he stayed with Henry for 3 hours instead of one, and he was a bit rough on him when cuffing him again. Bryan describes his growing up on the Delmarva Peninsula (Milton DE) and how his parents worked in chicken plants and at Dover AFB. Bryan also talks about how much the country spends on incarcerating people. And since the 1980’s how much it has become a punitive nation. People are incarcerated for non-violent offenses like drug charges. Minor theft can result in life imprisonment. And the for profit prisons who have so much to gain by having people sent to prison. In chapter 1, title Mockingbird, he relates how Judge Robert E. Lee Key called him about a prisoner on death row in Alabama named Walter McMillian. Judge Key told Bryan that he was wasting his time trying to help Walter. Bryan then talks about his going to the prison to meet with him. And that Walter is from Monroe County, the same county that Harper Lee was from.
In the Mockingbird Stories (chapter 2) Bryan describes Walter McMillian’s life as a sharecropper, limited education since he was more valuable in the fields than in school, and then his relative success as a lumber businessman. But he cannot get too successful because the white Alabamans would be quite angry. Walter had a wife and children but is also a womanizer. Walter was having a relationship with a young white woman named Karen Kelly, who was having trouble with her marriage. There would be a custody battle for the children. The chapter also talked about some white women who were murdered but they could never find the killers. It was the worst evil for a black man to have a relationship with a white woman. Then an inept sheriff from the neighboring county is starting to investigate the murders. In the Mockingbirds Stories chapter, Walter was accused of the murder of the Pittman girl because he was black and had a relationship with a white lady. Then in the Stand chapter (named for a Sly & the Family Stone song) in 1977 Bryan goes to Gadsden AL to see about a young black man who was incarcerated after a traffic violation and denied his medications, and then died in prison. He also investigated a young black man who was beaten and arrested and incarcerated after a minor traffic stop. He also talked about the places he lived in around Atlanta, and the final one where he has a roommate named Charlie. When he parked his car and waited until a Sly & the Family Stone finished playing on his radio, the SWAT team came by to check him out. It looked like he was going to be arrested on suspicious charges but he was able to prove that he lived there and was not doing anything wrong. It looks like neighbors called the police because they did not recognize his and he was black. He did try to get an apology from the police but no luck. But the deputy chief did promise that the officers would get extra homework on community relations. He went back to visit Gadsden and spoke at a church. An elderly man, a veteran of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, showed him scars from beatings and other attacks by anti-black people, told him to continue the fight for social justice.
In chapter 3 (Trials and Tribulation) Walter is arrested by Sheriff Tate, the incompetent sheriff, on false charges from Ralph Myers on sodomy. He is also framed for the murder of Ronda Morrison at a cleaners in Monroeville. Tate apprehended Walter and called him the “N” word. Walter could not have killed Ronda since he was 10 miles away at a fish fry held at his house and was also working on his truck – the one supposedly used to take Myers with him to the cleaners, the site of the murder. Tate pressured Myers to tell him more about the crime, but there was nothing more to say. In 1987 Myers and Walter were sent from the county jail to the prison in Holman and on to death row. Tate was pressured to make an arrest in the case, and despite Walter’s alibi, had him sent to Holman before a trial. In chapter 3 Bryan describes the murder of John Evans, where it took three shots of electricity to finally kill him after 14 minutes. While Walter and Myers are on death row, another prisoner, Jim Ritter, was scheduled to be executed soon. JL Chestnut, a black attorney from Selma, had represented Walter but had no luck reversing the charges. Tate arranged to have Myers taken off of death row and back to the county jail after Ritter was executed. Despite the fact that there were no court orders or filings. Myers then affirmed his accusations against Walter. District Attorney Ted Pearson was determined to have a victory in the case by having Walter convicted at a trial set for February 1988. The jury would be all white – ways to get around voting rights laws and Supreme Court decisions. The South had insisted on all white juries. But the Court only allows them to be selected for jury duty, not to serve on them. Some of the other death row inmates were sent there by all white juries after black jurors were struck out. There was the Supreme Court case Batson vs. Kentucky in while prosecutors could be challenged more directly about using peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner. The DA had to worry about the Batson decision and knew that lawyers like JL Chestnut and Bruce Boynton would object to racially discriminatory jury selection. But he was not too worried. The two lawyers requested that the trial be moved and it was, to Baldwin County – a mostly white county on the Gulf and not too removed from Jim Crow days. Myers, in the county jail, did not want to implicate himself in a murder he did not commit. He said he could not testify because what he had to say was not true. Myers went to a mental health facility in Tuscaloosa and that did not find him unfit to stand trial and was returned to death row. Before the trial held in August 1988 Walter was moved in tight handcuffs to Baldwin County and at the trial he was found guilty by an all-white jury and sent back to death row. Myers had told his absurd story that Walter forcing him to drive to the cleaners because his arm hurt. And that a mysterious white man had told Walter to kill Myers but he was out of bullets. But they believed Myers, despite Chestnut’s cross examination of him. The prosecutor called Myers back to repeat his testimony to convince the jury, despite the contradictions and the lack of logic. Another white man said that he had seen Walter’s truck – a low rider – at the cleaners, but the truck was not converted until months after the murder. Only 3 of the people at Walter’s house during the fish fry were called by his lawyers. Morrison’s uncle, Ernest Welch had been at Walter’s house to collect some money but it was a different day from the murder. Walter was pronounced guilty of murder.
Chapter 4 is titled The Old Rugged Cross, after a hymn that a condemned prisoner asked be played before his execution. In February 1989 Bryan and a friend Eva Ansley had tried to open a nonprofit law center in Tuscaloosa AL but soon there were obstacles to keeping it open. He then moved the office to Montgomery and was able to get federal dollars to keep open. There were several pending executions coming up. Two of them were Michael Lindsey and Horace Dunkins. Bryan tried to get appeals for both men. Michael had received a life without parole sentence from the jury but the judge overruled it with a death sentence. Alabama was one of the two states that allowed judges to do that (Florida was the other in 1989, but since ended the practice). His court appointed lawyer, David Bagwell, had worked on the unsuccessful trial of Wayne Ritter who was executed in 1988. Bagwell basically would not take death penalty cases again. Judges are elected in AL so there are campaign contributions from vested interested and the general public basically votes along the crime & punishment lines. Bryan and his staff wrote to the governor asking to stop Michael’s execution because the jury had voted against execution. He refused. Michael was executed in May 1989. Horace Dunkins was executed in July 1989. Horace was disabled intellectually and despite a Supreme Court ruling against executing the mentally deficient, the execution went on. The next prisoner slated for execution was Herbert Richardson, in August. Herbert was a Vietnam War veteran who suffered from PTSD. While in the Army he was denied psychiatric evaluations. He spent time after his discharge in veterans’ hospitals recovering from head pain, but he did recover from his head pain. A nurse from Dothan AL helped him during his recovery and Herbert followed her when she went back home. He was really hung up on her and tried to get her to like him in return. But he still had pre-service trauma (death of a parent, parental abuse) and also PTSD. To try and win the former nurse he concocted a plan to have a bomb go off on her porch and he would rescue her and be her hero. But one of her nieces picked it up and it exploded, killing her and injuring her friend. Herbert was arrested. Since this took place in a poor black neighborhood, normally it would not have been a capital case in AL. But Herbert was a transplanted Northerner so law enforcement had more contempt for him. The prosecutor said that Herbert was misguided and evil. The jury accused Herbert of being associated with Black Muslims in New York City. And Herbert was sentenced to death, despite the fact that the death was nonintentional. Herbert’s appointed lawyer at his trial told him that it was useless to appeal the conviction because the trial was deemed to be fair. Bryan filed numerous stay motions to no avail. The Supreme Court wanted to get on with the executions, according to Chief Justice Rehnquist. Bryan also appealed based on Herbert’s trauma and military service. Also because of an ineffective lawyer, racial bias, and comments from the prosecutor. Eventually Bryan filed a stay of execution with the Supreme Court with no luck. Herbert got married to a woman from Mobile a week before the execution so that she could get his American flag. Herbert had requested that a hymn titled “The Old Rugger Cross” be played at his execution. And it was. Herbert was executed on August 18, 1989.
Chapter 5 it titled On the Coming of John from the title of a short story by W.E.B. DuBois. While Walter McMillian is on death row, Bryan visits his family at their home and tries to confirm that Walter was nowhere near the cleaners. A white man named Sam Crook said that Walter was a decent man. Bryan got Darnell Houston released after being falsely jailed for perjury. But he could prove that Walter was innocent – the Hooks witness was lying . Darnell was with Hooks working on the morning that the Morrison girl was killed. Hooks, Hightower, and Myers were the state’s witnesses and were not believable. He also spoke with the new district attorney Tom Chapman in hopes of getting Walter a new trial. Chapman seemed a bit indifferent. He also filed an appeal to get Walter a new trial and then started to work on the brief that he had to present.
Chapter 6 of Just Mercy is titled Surely Doomed. Here Bryan goes back to Alabama after a grandmother calls him to say that her 14 year old grandson Charlie is in jail for murder. He had shot killed his mom’s boyfriend George who abused his mom and also mistreated him. George was a police officer and that did not sit well with the judge. Charlie was tried and convicted as an adult and sent to an adult jail where he was raped and beaten. He would not open up to Bryan due to PTSD from that experience. Later a white couple, Mr. & Mrs. Jennings from the Birmingham area. They took to Charlie and helped him and became his family. Mrs. Jennings said that we are “surely doomed” if we don’t help others.
Chapter 7 is titled Justice Denied. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals denied Walter’s appeal. Bryan argued that there was prosecutorial misconduct, racially discriminatory jury selection, and an improper change of venue. He also challenged the judge’s overruling of the jury’s life sentence ruling. The head of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals was John Patterson, an anti-civil rights former governor and a segregationist. Bryan was not hopeful. Patterson’s only question was “where are you from?” to Bryan. He still hoped that the state would overturn the capital punishment decision because of lack of supportable facts. Bryan visited Walter and told him that it could take years to get it overturned. Bryan got a new assistant, Michael O’Connor from Yale Law School. They soon learn that witness Bill Hooks was paid by Sheriff Tate to testify against Walter, and to travel out of the county during the trial. Hooks also said that he saw Walter’s “low rider” truck on the day of the murder but the truck was remodeled months after the murder. The court was supposed to say that Hooks had charges against him dismissed in exchange for cooperation with authorities was never mentioned. A white man running the store when Ralph Myers came in to give a note to Walter. But the store owner said Myers and Walter never met. The mechanic told them that they worked on Walter’s truck months after the Morrison murder so Hooks and Myers he could not have seen Walter in a low rider. Myers called Bryan and Mike and said that he wanted to speak to them from his prison. Myers testimony was riddled with credibility issues thanks to Darnell Houston, Walter’s truck and assistance Hooks gave to law enforcement. When Bryan and Mike meet Myers at the prison he tells them that he was pressured by the sheriff and the ABI to testify against Walter or else face the death penalty. He told Bryan that he knew Walter had nothing to do with the murder and Ralph knew nothing about what happened to Ronda Morrison. Myers did admit to the Vickie Pittman murder under the direction of another sheriff. Bryan and Mike followed up on the leads Myers gave them. They meet up with Karen Kelly at her prison where she tells them about how her life went out of control. Also that Sheriff Tate asked her why she slept with blacks. After the visit she wrote Bryan and said that Myers had never met Walter. Bryan and Mike then looked more into the Pittman murder. They reduced Kelly and Myers’ sentences in exchange for testimony against Walter. There were other people involved in the Pittman murder including the corrupt sheriff. They visit Vicki Pittman’s twin aunts, Mozell and Onzell in Escambria County who believe that Kelly and Myers did it. But in the 1980’s a new movement started in the justice system where the system started to personalize the victims as opposed to being the state or commonwealth. Victim impact statements were not to be heard by jurors. But in 1990 the Supreme Court upheld the rights of states for present evidence about the character of the victim in a capital sentencing trial. That meant more victim advocacy groups and victims’ advocates on the parole boards. But the race of perpetrators and victims had a greater effect on the sentence. The lack of concern and responsiveness on the part of police, prosecutors and victims’ advocates that devastated the Pittman ladies. Bryan and Mike filed Rue 32 petition which put them back into a trial court with the chance to present new evidence. They had to include claims that were not raised at trial or on appeal and could not have been raised. This one said that Walter was unfairly tried and convicted, and illegally sentenced. But most said his guilt was a settled matter. The case was transferred back to Baldwin County and the state Supreme Court said they could proceed. They met with DA Chapman, DA investigator Larry Ikner, ABI agent Simon Benson and Sheriff Tate. Tate did not the looks of Mike and said he was Yankee, The joke about Penn State did not go well and Tate said that Alabama beat them in 1978. Tate asked them how much Walter was paying them, and Bryan said nothing,. They asked Tate about the files on the case and they insisted that they handed everything over. Bit something could have been lost. Tate felt his integrity was being questioned. Bryan and Mike got the files and left Monroeville for Montgomery. The sheriff and the other men gave them files on the Pittman murder and also the Monroeville police files. They saw that some law enforcement officers (LEO’s) names were coming up frequently in the Pittman murder so the contacted the FBI.
Chapter 8 of Just Mercy istitled “All God’s Children”. It opens with a poem titled Uncried Tears by Ian Manuel. Then Bryan talks about three juveniles who were tried as adults and sentenced to life without parole. The first was Trina Garnett of Chester PA. Trina was the youngest of 12 children of a washed out alcoholic boxer and his sickly wife. The father beat Trina and her siblings, and also sexually abused them. Trina was also traumatized by the abuse and then her mother’s death so she ran away to live on the streets. In 1976 she and her friend went into a house to visit two young boys. There were no lights so she used matches, which started a fire in which the boys died. This traumatized her and her inept lawyer did nothing to help her, especially stopping Pennsylvania from trying her as an adult, and having her declared incompetent to stand trial. Her friend got off for testifying against her. The judge could not take Trina’s age, mental condition, poverty and abuse into account since it was considered second degree murder, despite the lack of intent to kill. Because of that, she was sentenced to life without parole. At 16 she was sent off to an adult prison for women. Where she was raped and impregnated by a guard. Over the years she became more mentally disabled and she summered spasms. Trina is one of several hundred people in Pennsylvania who were sentenced to life sentences when they were teens or adolescents when they did wrong. The next was Ian Manual of Tampa FL. In 1990 Ian attempted to rob a couple at a restaurant and fired a shot at Debbie Baigre and wounded her. She survived but Ian and his two friends with him were tried as adults for armed robbery and attempted homicide. Ian was encouraged to plead guilty but the lawyer did not realize that two charges were punishable by life without parole. That is what Ian got. He was sent to Apalachee Prison for adult men and soon was in solitary confinement for his own safety. In 1992 he reached out to Debbie who had forgiven him and even tried to have his sentence reduced, but to no avail. Florida in 2010 had over 100 people sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses committed as young teens. All of them are black or Latino. The third teen was Antonio Nuñez of Los Angeles CA. Antonio was beaten by his father regularly and his mother neglected him. In 1999 he was shot and wounded while riding his bicycle and his brother who came to his side was shot & killed. When he got out of the hospital he was sent to live with relatives in Las Vegas and tried to recover from his brother’s death. But California authorities ordered him back because he was on probation as a ward of the court for a prior offense. While back in Los Angeles he was got a gun for defense but was sent to a juvenile camp. When he got home he was at a party with some older guys who tried to fake a kidnapping to get ransom money. When they were heading to the Orange County pickup point an undercover police car followed them and Antonio fired at it. Their car crashed. Antonio was charged with attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping. He may have not been tried as an adult for the attempted murder, but kidnapping has no age minimum in California. He was sent to prison for life without parole. Bryan also talked about a child executed in South Carolina in 1945 for a murder, based on flimsy evidence and the fact that he was black and the victims were white. His name was George Stinney Jr. George and his sisters had seen the white victims earlier in the day and the authorities immediately said that he killed them. The sheriff said that George confessed (he did not). His family fled for their lives and at his trial, George was convicted on the sheriff’s testimony on an alleged confession. There was no appeal because his family could not afford a lawyer. Despite appeals, George was sentenced to death and executed in 1945. However by the 2010’s George was exonerated. Bryan goes on to say that the way that blacks were convicted in the South 50+ years ago to keep them in control has continued to the 1980’s against to children. Criminologists said that there was a wave of super predators with whom the justice would not be able to handle. Children have been transferred to the adult prison system. But by 2001 it was proven that the super predator theory was wrong and there was no evidence that by the 1990’s that there were more youthful offenders that in the 1970-‘s or earlier. But it was too late for Trina, Antonio and Ian, and certainly for George. Bryan did meet the three former teen offenders and were broken by years of confinement. Most youngsters were traumatized by the justice system. Bryan was going to try and get Trina’s sentence reduced, and also arranged to get her to see her son. He also went to Central California to see Antonio. He had a desire to learn and read. Bryan also went to Florida to visit Ian. He had managed to educate himself and wrote numerous poems. Bryan decided to publish a report to draw attention to the plight of children here in the US who were sentenced to die in prison. He tried to photograph them to give them human faces. Florida allowed him to do that and he got to photograph Ian, who later wrote him a letter thanking him for the photo session.
Chapter 9 is titled I’m Here from a quote that an elderly lady said to Bryan in the courthouse. She was a veteran of the 1965 Selma March. Bryan got the date for Walter’s hearing. The team got new evidence to exculpate Walter, and it was documentary. The DA got new assistant and the case got a new judge (Thomas Morton Jr.) who gave Bryan 3 days to make his case. They started with Ralph Myers, speaking to him first. At the courthouse Bryan told the judge that the verdict was based on Ralph’s testimony and that there was no evidence to convict Walter. Bryan questioned Ralph and he admitted that he did not see Walter on the day of the murder. He also admitted that his testimony was not true. Bryan then had to rebut the testimonies of Bill Hooks and Joe Hightower. He did that by calling Clay Kast and he said that he converted Walter’s truck to a low rider 6 months after the crime. Hooks & Hightower said they saw a low rider at the scene of the killing. Police Officer Woodrow Ikner was called and said that the murder victim (Ronda Morrison) was shot int eh back and moved. Ikner was asked by the prosecutor Pearson to testify that Morrison’s body was dragged. He knew that it was false and told the prosecutors that he would not lie (and was fired from the police force for that and that shook the judge). Bryan was able to lay out all of the evidence that Walter was innocent in this evidentiary hearing. The next day the team arrived at the courthouse to visit Walter, but the judge had the courthouse half packed with white viewers and Bryan had to argue his way in. He found a metal detector, an officer with a police dog, and the benches where Walter’s supporters sat were now occupied by white viewers. Soon the black ministers selected which black viewers can go inside, including Mrs. Williams, the lady who was at the 1965 Selma March. The police dog spooked her completely with bad flashbacks. Mental health specialists were called in to talk about Ralph. His confessions were bogus and forced by the police. In the evening Bryan spoke with Mrs. Williams and she told him about her experience at Selma in 1965. The next day Bryan arrived early. Mrs. Williams made up her mind not to be scared of the police dog. She told Bryan, “I’m here” when she arrived. On the last day of the hearings things went well. Witnesses said that Ralph was pressured to give false testimony against Walter. He had told the police that he did not know about the Morrison murder or about Walter. They also exposed the lies that Pearson told the court. Ralph gave 6 additional statements to the police that he had no information about Walter committing the Morrison murder. The statements were favorable to Walter. Bryan called on Walter’s original trial lawyers Boynton and Chestnut) to testify how much more they could have done if the state had turned over the evidence that it suppressed. After the team finished their presentation the state did not put on a rebuttal case. The judge told the parties to submit written briefs arguing what ruling he should make. The court gave them time to explain the significance of all the evidence. And the judge adjourned the proceedings. After that the team heads to the beach on the Gulf of Mexico.
I read chapter 10 titled Mitigations in which Bryan talks about the number of mentally ill people who are incarcerated and how that is causing problems for the prisoners as well as the prison staff. He described two mentally ill prisoners – George Daniel and Avery Jenkins who were sentenced to death but he worked to have them taken off death row and placed in mental institutions. Avery was orphaned at one and faced abuse in foster care. When Bryan goes to the prison where Avery is being held, he faces harassment from a neo-confederate prison guard, who eventually changes his attitude after he learned about Avery’s life in foster care, since he too was in foster care. Avery was also taken off of death row and put into a mental institution.
Chapter 11 is titled I’ll Fly Away. Bryan and his team were receiving bomb threats. In May 1992, the judge from Baldwin County (John Norton) said that Ralph Myers did not perjure himself in the Walter McMillian trial and would not accept any more evidence. There would be no relief. Bryan had to approach the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. He had been successful in reversing over a dozen death penalty cases between 1990 and 1992. Michael left to go to California and was replaced by Bernard Harcourt. The threats that Bryan received made him worry about what would happen to Walter if he were released. They had to prove that Walter did not do it. The media still insists that Walter is guilty and a dangerous man, even publishing false stories about him, including that he was a drug dealer. The chapter also says that the state of Alabama had used libel as a means to stop civil rights people and also the media, goes back to Governor Patterson, until the Sullivan vs. the New York Times Supreme Court case of the 1960’s. The South was still anti media even in the 1990’s. Bryan filed the appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeals. 60 Minutes also came to Monroeville, to the annoyance of the Monroe Journal. And local officials quickly tried to discredit the story. Chapman was worried that the evidence against Walter may not be reliable. Alabama Bureau of Investigations agents Tom Taylor and Greg Cole doubted that Walter was guilty. Why would a drug kingpin be working at logging and live in a trailer? They said that Hooks was lying. Ronda Morrison was receiving menacing calls before she was killed. A white man was seen by the cleaners. Ken Nunnelly took over the appeal. Bryan told the court that Walter’s rights had been violated. Bryan said that Walter’s family should hope. On February 23rd, the appeals court invalidated Walter’s conviction and death sentence. It did not conclude that he was innocent and must be released, though. He would get a new trial. Walter’s wife said that he should not come back to Monroeville if released after what he went through. There was a new judge, Pamela Baschab, who replaced Norton. At the new hearing Bryan gave a history of the case than told the court that the state and the defendant were moving to dismiss all charges. Walter was now a free man. After Walter went with Bryan to the prison to collect his possessions, when then got to the car to leave, Walter said, “I feel like a bird. I feel like a bird”. This would be the basis for the title.
The title of chapter 12 is Mother, Mother, as it is about women imprisoned for crimes against children. The chapter opens with the story of Marsha Colbey. After Hurricane Ivan devastated coastal Alabama. Marsha and her husband with their 6 children were placed into a FEMA trailer. Then Marsha became with baby #7. She and her husband were poor but gave their children everything from their hearts. One evening Marsha decided to take a bath in her old trailer and while in the tub she went into labor. She delivered a stillborn son she named Timothy. Since it was dead, she buried it on her property. A nosy neighbor, Debbie Cook, asked one of her coworkers to call the police and they came to Marsha’s home. Marsha showed the police officer her son’s grave. Soon law enforcement exhumed Timothy’s body and a state pathologist named Kathleen Enstice said that the baby was born alive and that Marsha murdered him. Marsha went to trial for murder and the false evidence was used against her. Two medical doctors said that Enstice’s testimony was not correct and that one of the doctors could not declare a live birth. Marsha insisted in numerous interrogations that the baby was stillborn. But the press called her a dangerous mother. The chapter also talked about the Yates and Smith child killings. There are distortions and bias. We have rather high infant mortality for a developed nation. There was another stillborn case in Alabama at the same time as Marsha’s, involving a woman named Bridget Lee. Pathologists examined this baby and said that neonatal pneumonia killed the baby. But the state pathologist said that Bridget killed the baby because it was conceived from an extra marital affair. But the pathologist was discredited and Bridget was exonerated. There were other infanticide cases in Alabama, one which involved a Black lady who was never even pregnant thanks to having her tubes tied. She was coerced into pleading guilty. Bryan and his staff had her released since they proved that the lady could not have been pregnant in the first place. Alabama also criminalized other bad parenting situations like dangerous environments. Since it was broadly defined, a home or community where drugs are common would qualify. The Alabama Supreme Court also extended it to the uterus and the fetus. If a woman used drugs while pregnant, she could be sent to prison. Naturally, the hysteria over the bad mothers made it difficult for Marsha to get a fair trial. There were many biases and presumptions in the trial. She was pronounced guilty and sent to the overcrowded women’s prison. Many of the women are there for non-violent crimes like drug or property offenses or passing a few bad checks. The majority have minor children. In 1996 Congress passe welfare legislation that authorized states to deny welfare and public housing to those convicted of drug crimes. And for the women at the Tutwiler Prison, they were often raped by the male guards, and spied on them in the showers and bathrooms. Before Bryan got Marsha released from Tutwiler, he managed to get another woman released from a life without parole sentence because of a drug charge. Bryan soon worked on Marsha’s appeal and won her release. In 2013 she was a guest at a benefit dinner in New York City.
Recovery is the title of chapter 13. Walter’s 1993 release was cover by The New York Times. Bryan wanted to get the people of Monroe County to realize that Walter was released because he was innocent. The two men went to several legal conferences to talk about Walter’s experience and about the death penalty. He moved to Florida for several months. He then resettled in Monroe County AL again, and went back to logging. He also planned to file a civil suit for a wrongful conviction. Bryan tried to get Walter compensation for his wrongful conviction and incarceration. But no go. Alabama was one of the states that did not compensate for that. But people thought that he did get money and tried to leech off of him. People who convicted Walter acknowledged that he was innocent but would not take any responsibility for his conviction. Walter’s case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Prosecutors were protected from liability by immunity Bryan took the case to the Supreme Court by Monroe County and Sherriff Tate’s misconduct. Tate was not an employee of the county even though he is paid by it. The Court ruled that Tate was a state employee. Walter then went back to logging until he was injured by a log and then started a junked car business. Bryan and Walter went to Chicago in 1998 for a conference where exonerated former death row inmates were to gather. It was energizing for Walter. He also came to New York City to talk to Bryan’s NYU Law School students. Walter was just happy to be free and not angry or bitter. He said his faith helped him through the ordeal. Meanwhile his junkyard business was not doing that well. In 1994 the conservative majority in Congress eliminated federal aid for death row inmates. Bryan was awarded the Olaf Plame International Human Rights Award by Sweden and went to Stockholm to receive it. Walter did not want to go too. A Swedish television crew went to Alabama to interview Walter. He broke down and cried when interviewed.
Chapter 14 is titled Cruel and Unusual. It tells about 13 year old Joe Sullivan was indicted for robbery and sexual assault in Pensacola. He was with two other boys who got off relatively easy. Joe was tired as an adult and sentenced to prison where he was raped and beaten. But there was no positive proof that he committed the sexual assault. Bryan later visited Joe at a new correction facility in the Florida Panhandle and saw that he was in a wheelchair that was stuck inside a cage. The guards got him out so he and Bryan could talk. Bryan was going to work to get Joe either released or have his sentenced reduced. But the victim and one of the accomplished had both died in the years since the crime was committed. Joe described how the number of prisons has increased since the 1990’s, partly due to the profit motive. Also, poorer people are sentenced to long prison terms for relatively minor offenses. Ned Miller was sentenced to life without parole as an adolescent after he and a friend got into a fight with an older man and burned his trailer down and he died. Bryan also worked on the adolescents that were mentioned in chapter 8 (Trina Garnett, Ian Manuel, and Antonio Nuñez) to get their sentences reduced or get them freed. Bryan also discussed how adolescents are still not developed mentally and are easily influenced. Joe’s case was reviewed by the U. S. Supreme Court in 2009. He hoped that the Court would provide to relief to children sentenced to die in prison especially for non-homicide offenses. The Court reviewed Joe’s case and another Florida case – Terrance Graham from Jacksonville FL who was arrested for trying to rob a store while on probation. Psychology organizations supported Bryan and cited former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson who was a juvenile delinquent before straightening out. Bryan also cited child soldiers from African nations who are released from the armies and come to the US and do quite well as university students. Briefs were soon filed for Joe and for Terrance. Bryan said that life sentenced for meant for adults and not adolescents. It was cruel and unusual.
Chapter 15 (Broken) opens with an Irish film crew coming to Alabama to make a documentary about the death penalty. The film featured Walter, a man named Bo Cochran who was released after 20 years on death row, and Robert Tarver who was executed because the defense made a poor objection – and the jury was racially biased. Walter was soon suffering from dementia and was no longer to run his business. He ended up in a nursing home in Montgomery Bryan talked about the rate of executions in the US during the 2000’s. The Equal Justice Initiative was working to stop the executions of several death row inmates around the country. He argued a case in 2004 before the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of certain methods of execution. He was walking about lethal injection. Inmate David Nelson had compromised veins due to drug addiction. The Court said he could and David was not executed. He did die of natural causes a few years later. Bryan also talked about Jimmy Dill who was executed in 2009 for the death of a man whom he wounded in a drug deal but died nine months later due to poor medical care. The state of Alabama would not let him appeal, nor grant a stay of execution. Poor legal help had basically screwed him over during his trial. Jimmy was mentally challenged but the state would not consider it. Bryan talked about we are hurt and how we hurt others. He cited Thomas Merton in that we are shattered by our choices or by things we never should have chosen. We have a choice to embrace our humaneness and embrace our broken natures and the compassion that remains or deny it and therefore our humanity. Bryan talks about how we have become so vengeful that we throw away the disabled and children and imprison thee the sick and weak. Throwing the broken away keeps them broken, and us as well, Embracing our brokenness creates a need for mercy and a desire to show mercy. And you learn that humanity resides in each of us. Bryan then talked about how he had the chance to meet Rosa Parks, Johnnie Carr (who worked with Martin Luther King on the Montgomery Bus Boycott) and Virginia Durr (the wife of a prominent attorney). He admitted that when he was invited to meet them, he mainly just listened to what they said and never really did speak. He ended the chapter by saying that while we are caught in a web of hurt and brokenness we are also in a web of healing and mercy. He said that the power of just mercy is that it belongs to the underserving. It is when it is least expected that it becomes the most potent. It can break the cycle of victimization, victimhood, retribution and suffering. It can heal psychic harm and injuries that lead to aggression and violence, abuse of power and incarceration.
Chapter 16 (The Stonecatcher’s Song of Sorrow) tells about Bryan’s attempts and successes to get life without parole sentences for teens and relates the four hurdles Black Americans had to overcome: slavery, Jim Crow, KKK type terror, and convict labor. Bryan talked about specific cases like Philip Shaw, Demarious Banyard and Dante Evans in states like Missouri and Mississippi. There were death row convicts whose convictions were overturned, and he got reduced sentences for Antonio Nuñez and Joe Sullivan. He also talked about getting two New Orleans men (Joshua Carter and Robert Caston) released from Angola for non-homicide crimes committed when they were teens. While at their hearings Bryan meets and elderly lady whose grandson was murdered and their killers sent away for life. She told him that you never fully recover but do carry on. During Walter’s hearings some African Americans’ support for him was muted because of his extra marital affairs and that he was not active in the church. Bryan went to the church meeting and the Gospel story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery came up. He told us that today self-righteous, fear and anger have caused us throw stones at others instead of forgiving or showing compassions. He said that we have to catch the stones (hence the chapter’s title).
The Epilogue tells us that Walter McMillian passed away on September 11, 2013, He had been further disabled in his last years but was glad to be able to die on God’s schedule and not the state’s. Bryan said that just (fair) mercy made it possible for Walter to forgive and move on. Walter taught Bryan that we have to reform a system of criminal justice that treats rich people better than those not as rich. And that fear an anger are a threat to justice. He told the congregation at Walter’s funeral that the question is do we deserve to kill. He also told the congregation that mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Walter did forgive the people who condemned him falsely. It was just mercy that allowed him to recover a life worth celebrating – a life that rediscovered love and freedom and able to die on God’s schedule.
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On October 1st I started to read How to be an Anti-Racist and I learned that the author Ibram Kendi’s parents met at the University of Illinois in 1970. And both are from Queens – did dad from Jamaica; his mom from Far Rockaway. In chapter 1 he defines what are racist, anti-racist, assimilationist, racial inequity, racist policy. He talks about preacher Tom Skinner who captivated his parents and others at the University of Illinois in 1970 with liberation theology. Tom said that Jesus was not an establishment type but told us to proclaim liberation to the captives and give sight to the blind. He talked about his mom growing up in Georgia on a farm and moving north. He says that we are now in 2020 surrounded by racial equity. Chapter 2 is Dueling Consciousness and he talks about white versus non-white incarceration rates, especially for drug crimes. Also how Reagan’s administrations further divided the races He also cited W.E.B. DuBois and dueling consciousness – American and Black. He talked about his mom’s being a missionary in Liberia and the two parents joining Floyd Flakes church. There is Black self-reliance and its consequences. He talked about the progress the Black race has made. In chapter 3 (titled Power) Ibram talks about Prince Henry and his starting the slave trade in the 15th century in Europe. He also mentions the 6 categories of races: Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, White, Black, Middle Eastern. He also talked about how Linnaeus classified the four races based on color (red, yellow, black, white) into a hierarchy. Naturally the white (Northern European, of course) were at the top and the blacks were at the bottom. In chapter 4 (titled Biology) he says that racist biology says that traits of races are genetic; anti-racists say it’s not genetic. He then talked about his 3rd grade class and the white teacher he had who played favorites with the 3 white kids in the class. Kendi talks about biology and how black women have bigger buttocks and black men have larger members and blacks are better at improvising. They said that black blood killed intellectualism in an individual (not true). He talked about creation and our First Parents, and then some believed in poly-creations or three races from Noah’s sons. And how writers said that blacks people were loathsome as far back as the 16th century. In the 1890’s they said that the weaker races –should either be extinct (Indigenous), be slaves (blacks), or assimilate with whites (Asians). There was the eugenics movement in the 20th century. By the start of the 21st century President Clinton said that we have a common humanity, and even Kenneth Ham said that the only race is the human race. Kendi says that we have to recognize the biological equality and that skin color is meaningless. He ends the chapter with his going to different schools near his home.
In chapter 5 (Ethnicity) Kendi talks about immigrants and how recent African immigrants are generally doing quite well, as are black Caribbean immigrants, often at the expense of African Americans. The chapter also described how during the slave trade days that West Africans were more highly prized than those from Angola since the West Africans had to work harder to tame a less bountiful land. He also talked about the immigration restrictions against non-whites and the wrong type of whites until 1965. He also spoke about his Haitian friends and Ghanaian classmates.
Chapter 6 (Body) says that racists believe that certain racialized bodies are more prone to violence and animal like behavior than others while the anti-racist individualizes violent and non-violent behavior. Kendi talked about high school days at John Bowne HS – his school mate Smurf who was prone to violence on the bus. The chapter cites where centuries ago people said that blacks were devilish and violent. Kendi also said that unarmed black bodies were more likely to be killed by police officers than the white counterparts. Kendi also noted that among employed young males, the rates of violence were the same. Poorer neighborhoods have more crime, regardless of race.
Chapter 7 (Culture) said that there is a racist tendency to impose a cultural hierarchy among racial groups, while the anti-racist rejects the cultural differences among groups. He talked about Ebonics and how it may have evolved from Africans in the American. Kendi described the new African American dress code of Timberland boots, baggy jeans, and t-shirts, as well as the black churches and their worship services. He said that African culture was overwhelmed by European culture. Then in 1997 the family moved to Manassas VA and Kendi enrolled at Stonewall Jackson HS. He did not make the basketball team there. He hated that racists belittled urban black culture. Then there was black Southerners versus just Southerners, and the same with whites. He noted that those who create the cultural standards put themselves on top in the hierarchy. He ended the chapter by cited Ashely Montague who said that cultures must be judged in relation to their history and individuals in relation to their cultural history. An anti-racist sees all cultures in the differences on the same level. It’s a difference nothing else.
Chapter 8 (Behavior) says that racists believe that an individual is responsible for the behavior of racial groups make for the behavior of an individual; anti-racists says that individual behavior is real and racial group behavior is false. Kendi talked about his behavior at John Bowne HS and his failure as a student – not as a Black student – and there were White students who also were failures as students. He said that Whites have always gotten second chance over Blacks. Behavioral racism makes individuals responsible for the behavior of racial groups and groups responsible for the behavior of individuals. One person’s success does not rebound to an entire group. Even in the 21st century people said that Blacks were lazy and criminally motivated. There are no Black or White genes or behavioral traits. Anti-racists separate culture from behavior. Kendi talked about the relation between slavery and Black behavior and intellect. Another author talked about post traumatic slave syndrome. In 1951 an author named Abram Kardiner said that the “Negro” suffered from difficult learning conditions and a wretched internal life that led to self-hatred. Kendi goes on to say that even in the 1990’s Blacks were judged more harshly than Whites for mistakes. He talked about the International Baccalaureate program that he enrolled in while at Jackson HS and he hated it. The other members were all White or Asian. He went on to talk about how Whites and Asians did better that Blacks and Latinx in standardized math tests. When he was a senior at Florida A & M he prepared for the GRE (Graduate Record Exams) and said that the tutor he had to help him prepare for the exam said that she was training them on how to take the test as opposed to making them smarter so they could ace the test. Standardized tests measured intellectual strength . He thinks that these tests to measure aptitude and intelligence are racist and degrade Black minds and exclude Black bodies from certain schools and prove Black intellectual inferiority. Disparities reflect disparities in racial groups. Racial hierarchies are racists and tests scores imply that the Blacks and Latinx are intellectually inferior. Kendi then talks about the eugenicists who in 1916 said that there are enormous differences in general intelligence among the races and cannot be cured by mental culture. The SAT was created in 1926 and said that aptitude means natural ability. Genetic explanations were discredited by the 1960’s and assimilationist say that environments play a part. The intellect of a poor Black in a ghetto may be equal to a White from a wealthy suburb. Maybe we can measure intellect by the decide to learn and know. Kendi then described his preparing for a speech contest at the end of 1999 at Jackson HS and when he gave his speech on Martin Luther King Day in 2000, he won. The winning helped to melt the shame for himself and his race for his academic struggles. He ended the chapter by his deciding to go to Florida A&M and how well the school was regarded.
Chapter 9 (Color) starts with Kendi at a FAMU football game during freshman year and the marching band. Then he talks about wearing different colored contact lens to change his eye irises – he made his hazel but did not want to appear look black but still be black. Blacks had done things like straightening out their hair, thinning their lips, and other things to look more white. Also lightening skin.. Light and dark blacks are two distinct groups. Light can often pass for white and the darker are black. Skin tone influences perceptions of attractiveness and often sentences for crimes. The drop rules of racial purity were mirages. Kendi talked about the different in color among blacks because of more white genes – lighter skinned blacks in greater favor than darker skinned blacks, going back as far as the 17th century when slavery was in force, into the 20th century after it was abolished in the Western World. After 1865 lighter blacks separated themselves from the darker ones. Biracial blacks were responsible for all of the black race’s achievements to some. Kendi talked about various items to lighten skin, and are sold in Africa, and also in Asia to make the darker residents look more light skinned. Even William DuBois said biracial blacks were more talented.
Chapter 10 (White) starts with Kendi’s freshman year at FAMU in 2000 and the presidential election. He was very upset that the voting in Florida was tampered with by using confusing ballots, moving voting venues, disenfranchising former felons, and in the end George W. Bush won the state by 537 votes and therefore the presidency. He said that a lot of his school mates at FAMU did not bother to vote. Kendi also talked about Elijah Muhammad and his Message to the Blackman in America and the founding of the Nation of Islam and how the sect taught that after the Creation 6000 years before and at first it was all black until an evil scientist was exiled with his followers to an island in the Aegean Sea, and his followers soon used breeding to create the white race and then they migrated to the European mainland from the Aegean island. Kendi then talked about how whites took blacks out of Africa and civilized them in the New World and then lynched, segregated and incarcerated them. He also related about Malcolm Little who was in prison in 1948 and after he release embraced the Nation of Islam and called himself Malcolm X. In 1964 he left the Nation of Islam and converted to conventional Islam and even made the pilgrimage to Mecca and returned to the United States without a hatred of the white race. Kendi says that the only thing wrong with White people is when they embrace racist ideas and then deny that the policies are racist. Don’t ignore that white people massacred and enslaved millions of indigenous and African peoples and also impoverished them. But it’s not in their genes because there is no such thing as white genes.
Kendi tries to discern between white racism’s march and the march of white people. He also elaborated on how whites benefited from racist policies He said that racist power has the most to lose from an equitable society. And anti-racist means anti-white (not true) as some believe. He pointed out how white supremacists refuse to acknowledge climate change, which affects white regions, are against affirmative action which benefits white women the most, admire the Nazis whose war killed over 40 million white people, wave Confederate flags when the Confederacy launched a war that killed over 500,000 white people. They blame nonwhites for their problems but the rich whites are the ones screwing them over. He cited a Senegalese author (C. A. Diop) who wrote about two cradles (northern European and African) and how their behaviors turned out, as well as M. Bradley’s The Iceman Inheritance (surviving the Ice Age) and Frances Welsing’s The Isis Papers. He then said that whites are only 10% of the world’s population but fear about genocide. In 1920 an white author wrote The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy.
Chapter 11 (Black) begins with Kendi going into the office of Mizell Stewart, the editor of the Tallahassee Democrat to explain his anti-white essay. Then Stewart uses the n-word and racialized the bad blacks (the n’s). Kendi then describes Chris Rock’s descriptions of the n’s and that they are not equal to the black people.. Kendi points out that racism seemed to increase during the Obama administrations, and 59% of the blacks say that racism is the reason for their lagging the other groups. He thought that since Asians, Latinx and blacks did not have power they could not be racist. He realized that this is not true. The powerless idea overestimates whites and underestimates blacks. It does not consider people at all levels of power. It strips black policy makers and managers of their power, ignoring black congress people, Supreme Court justices, millionaires and billionaires, CEO’s, and President Obama. But white power still controls the USA, but not absolutely. Racists ideas make people believe that whites have all the power. Kendi mentioned that Justice Clarence Thomas made anti-black judgments over the years and then described the 2004 presidential election where the black Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, used some GOP dirty tricks to keep nonwhites from voting, helping to secure the Buckeye State for Bush, and therefore the election. Blackwell joined trump’s election integrity commission to keep up the dirty tricks. The “blacks can’t be racists” idea produces the false duality of racist and non-racists promoted by whites to deny their own racism. It merges blacks with angry trump voters who are angry about being called racist and still want to express their racist policies but not be called racist. The first recorded history of black racists dated from 1526 with Description of Africa by a Moroccan Moor who converted to Christianity. It was the most anti back book of the 16th century and influenced the slavers of the 16th century in their racists views. There was a 17th century plot for slaves to revolt but was foiled, and Kendi said that blacks could be slaves thanks to the story of Noah & Ham – Ham being cured by Noah. Kendi also described a 19th century slave revolt that was foiled by a traitor slave. The traitor was rewarded by being freed and somehow turned into a black with white racist views. Once police departments started to hire black officers in the last half of the 20th century, black officers got to be almost as racist as white officers. Black residents began to fear the black criminals in their neighborhoods Then in the 1980’s the reagan administration Department of Housing and Urban Development started to redirect funds for housing in poorer neighborhoods to corporate interests and republican donors. Kendi ends the chapter by having to end his column in the FAMU school newspaper or lose his internship at the Tallahassee Democrat. He opted to end his column. Kendi picked up a second major, African Studies, at FAMU. He had seen a battle between “them n’s” and whites versus black folks. Now he will see it as racists versus anti racists.
Chapter 12 (Class) starts with telling us that a class racist racializes the classes and supports policies of racial capitalism, against those races classes and justifies them by racist ideas about the race classes, and an antiracist anti-capitalism is one who oppose racial capitalism. Kendi then talks more about North Philadelphia where he moved to. He talked about Dark Ghetto, a book by Kenneth Clark about institutionalized pathology and deviating from the norm. Policies that exploit poor people are elitist and when they exploit black people they are racist. There is class racism among whites – white trash and blacks denigrate poor blacks as “them n’s”. An antiracist would say that the political and economic conditions are pathological and not the people in the poor black neighborhoods. A man named Oscar Lewis said in the 1960’s that children of poor backgrounds, names nonwhites, were raised on behaviors that prevented their escape from poverty – a culture of poverty and a cycle of poverty. The culture of poverty is still used by white racists. Kenneth Clark said there was a hidden had of racism activating the culture of poverty and an oppression/inferiority thesis – slavery, segregation, and poverty & ghetto life make blacks inferior. Welfare made them more dependent on the government, per Barry Goldwater. But the white middle class depended on the government in cases like the New Deal, GI Bill, suburbs, and other welfare for middle and upper class people. Clark also reinforced a racial class hierarchy. Black poor were inferior to black elites like Clark, and black poor are less stable than white poor. But poor blacks are more optimistic about the future than poor whites. The poor whites enriched themselves on the stepladder of racist ideas – I am not reach but at least I am not a “N”. Wealthy blacks look at low income blacks the way non-black people thought about blacks. Clark said that the “Negro race …is going to be saved by its exceptional men”. Kendi then said that he wanted to see the effects of racism firsthand in his new neighborhood. The poor blacks were the product of racism and not really capitalism. He then gave a brief recap of capitalism’s history – from the 15th century with the start of the slave trade through the colonial era – capitalism and racism were like conjoined twins. The 20th century wars weakened the conjoined twins but they are still struggling to stay alive through inequality, war and climate change. Black unemployment is much higher than white unemployment, as is the poverty rate. Median net worth is much higher among whites than blacks and Latinx. Africa’s capitalist growth in the 21st century enriched foreign investors and a few Africans. Poverty is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa and people of African origin are the poorest group in Latin America. A non-White middle class has grown since the 1960’s but the gap between the rich (white) regions and poor (black) has grown. Black poor families are likely to live in poor black neighborhoods. The equalities are not the fault of only racism or only capitalism. Eliminating these will not eliminate inequality. Rolling back racism in a capitalism nation can eliminate inequalities between the different poor groups as well as the middle class and rich. Antiracist policies cannot do it alone, or between the race classes. The antiracist policies cannot eliminate class racism without anti-capitalist policies. Socialism and communism are not necessarily antiracist: look at Cuba, and our Socialist Party in 1901 did not want to condemn lynching. William DuBois saw the New Deal as racism for black workers. He conceived an antiracist anti-capitalism. He said that white labor denies the Negro of his right to vote, to decent housing & neighborhoods and subjects him to open discrimination. In the 21st century the link between capitalism and racism still exists. Conservatives are against safety nets and taxing the rich more than the middle class is anti-capitalist. But the conservatives are free to destroy inions, prey on unprotected consumers, destroy the environment, eliminate competition, pay no taxes. Basically increase the income equality gap. Elizabeth Warren says she is a capitalist but wants markets with decent rules that are enforced. Her new system would be very different from the capitalist system we have now. It would be free of imperialism, seism, and racism. Kendi said that capitalism added global theft and racially uneven playing fields to the marker system. He concludes that to love capitalism is to love racism and to love one you love the other. Kendi’s parents were worried about his living in North Philadelphia but he wanted to be around poor blacks since they are the race’s best representatives. He said that his identifying of poverty, hustling, and sex in the urban world reminded the editor of Ebony (Lerone Bennett Jr) of the blaxploitation films like Shaft and Super Fly. Kendi said that he wanted to experience un-pandered black life. He also said that Bennett blasted the producers of the two films for showing poverty as an incubator of wisdom and soul. But Kendi admitted that choosing the North Philadelphia apartment was racist because he was playing blacks as cheap human beings. He was a black gentrified – moving in to be developed and not to develop. He ends the chapter by saying that to be antiracist is to recognize that neither poor blacks nor elite blacks are the true representatives of the race. Kendi agrees with E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie (1957) where white elites are the norm and black elites were inferior to them. They were sellouts and quick consumers. Daniel Moynihan & Nathan Glazer’s Beyond the Melting Pot said that “the Negro middle class contributes little to the solution of Negro social programs”. But numerous black youngsters like martin Luther King Jr. began the struggle for civil rights and social justice.
In Chapter 13 (Space) Kendi spoke about Afro-American studies starting to be taught on campuses, like his grad school – Temple University. There was the ghetto and the campus. There is the inner city and 3rd world (black space) and the white space suburbs. Kendi also described the historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) versus the HWCU (historically white colleges & universities). Kendi’s uncle said that maybe it’s better that blacks go to HWCU’s since the real world is a white majority here and they will be exposed to reality sooner. But most blacks here live in black majority neighborhoods, work in black majority businesses, attend black majority schools and churches, and socialize in black majority places. It's the white view that says that black spaces do not represent reality. Others say that HBCU’s are lower in standards & quality from the HWCU’s. HBCU’s have lower endowments that most HWCU’s. We should also compare poor black neighborhoods to poor white neighborhoods and the same goes for businesses. Kendi also said graduates from HBCU’s tend to do better than the blacks who graduated from HWCU’s. Kendi also talked about a fellow black grad student who was angry at her undergrad HBCU because someone lost her transcript but did not get angry at an HWCU that ripped off thousands from in in financial aid. She condemned the HBCU for a botched transcript but did not say a word about the HWCU robbing her of thousands in aid. Kendi goes on to describe the plans by prominent whites in the early 19th century to arrange to have freed blacks emigrate to Africa. But most blacks did not want to go to the “wilds of Africa”. During the Civil War freed blacks were given 40 acres and a mile by the Union Army. Horace Greeley suggested integrating blacks and whites so that the barbarism of colored people would be cultivated away. At the end of the chapter Kendi talked about separate but equal when it came to black and white spaces, based on the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court decision and also when it was reversed in 1954.
In chapter 14 (Gender) Kendi talked about roles of women and men, and the number of black single family households. Most of the time the head of the household is a woman. He said that it is better if there are two parents unless the other parent is violent or abusive. He also talked about sexism and its being intertwined with race. He also talked about the number of black children born to unwed mothers as well as about feminism and its rise. He also said that people believe that the black male is more dangerous the white man, black woman and white woman.
In chapter 15 (Sexuality) Kendi talks about his new friends at Temple University – and his new male friend is gay. He does say that homophobes are usually also racists. He also talked about two female friends from Temple, Yaba and Kaila. Kendi also elaborated about gender and heterosexual and homosexual tendencies. He was raised to be a black patriarch and not a black feminist. He said that in 1965 the problem was “keeping the Negro ‘in his place’” meant only the male as the black woman was not seen as a threat. That led to submission of black women in most cases. During the 20th century married black women were having fewer babies but unmarried ladies were having more. Black feminism started to increase in the 1970’s. He mentioned the Clarence Thomas hearings and the defense of Anita Hill by feminists. He also talked about the gender racism and that black women make less than their white counterparts but is more likely to be incarcerated. Gender racism may be responsible for trump winning in 2016. Black men reinforce the “real men” notions. Whites produced gender racism of dangerous black men, less dangerous white men, then black women and the frail white woman.
I also started chapter 16 (Failure). Kendi says that almost all attempts to end racism have failed. He then talks about racist policymakers and what drives them to do what they do. A white writer named Gunnar Mydral wrote in An American Dilemma in 1944 that it is in the country’s best interest to give black Americans a better deal. That would happen with desegregation ruling, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. He said racist policymakers drum up fear pf antiracist policies through racist ideas even though the fears never come to pass. We have to fight for moral and mental change as a prerequisite for policy change to fight against growing fears and apathy. Kendi then started to talk about the Jena 6 in Louisiana, who were tried and sentenced to prison for assaulting white kids at the local high school. He participated in a demonstration in Washington DC and was disappointed that more of the Temple University Black Student Union did not join him. You don’t have to be super brave to be antiracist. Courage is the strength to do what is right in the face of fear. Kendi is fearful of cowardice, which is the inability to amass the strength to do what is right in the face of fear. And racist power has been terrorizing cowardice into us for generations. He cited racist Ben Tillman who had a fit when Booker T, Washington had dinner at the White house with TR and threatened to lynch more blacks. When we fail to open the minds of purveyors of racist ideas we blame their close mindedness instead of our dumb decision to waste our time trying to change them. When our attacks on them does not change them we blame their hate instead of our impatient and alienating hatred of them. We blame their stupidity instead of our lack of clarity if these don’t come over to our antiracist ideas. So it looks like we have been doing it wrong for a while. The failure doctrine avoids self-blame. Changing shows flexibility. He compared protests to demonstrations. A demonstration is mobilizing people momentarily to publicize a problem; a protest is organizing people for a prolonged campaign that forces racist power to change a policy. The most effective help people find the antiracist power within. They provide methods for people to give their antiracist power, resources and channeling attendees and funds into organizations and protests and power-seizing campaigns. (He used that with the Jena 6). Kendi also cited the demonstrations in Montgomery in 1956 and how they were effective. The most effective protests create an environment whereby changing the racist policy is in one’s best self-interest. Kendi then said that demonstrations alone could not free the Jena 6, and the judge denied bail for 1 of the 6.
Chapter 17 is titled Success. Kendi said that an antiracist must be a tireless and durable fighter to succeed. Success is the dark road that we fear. Antiracists cannot ask racists to open their minds and change when the antiracists are also unwilling to change. Kendi says that he derived his perspective on racism from a book he read in grad school. It said that racism is both overt and covert. Overt could be a church bombing, covert could be the lack of decent health care to nonwhites that in Birmingham AL allows 500 black babies a year to die. And racism pollutes whites too. Racist policies cause racist inequity. Implicit bias allows post racialism. Respectable people would never bomb a church but would support political officials and institutions that perpetuate racist policies, and these are institutional. Policy makers and policies make societies and institutions, and that has caused the USA to be racist. Racism is both terminal and curable. Kendi talked about the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2011 and that George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder by a self-defense plea in 2013. Black lives matter started not long after that. Kendi started to tag every racist idea that he could find from history. Toxic views of blacks have been going strong for 500 years. He had been labelling others all his life too. He began a mission to uncover and critique his life of racist ideas and it turned into a lifelong mission to be antiracist. It was done in steps:
- Stop using “I/m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” slogans;
- Admit the definition of racist (supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas);
- Confess the racist policies he supports and ideas he expresses;
- Accept the source of his having racist ideas;
- Struggle for antiracist policy and power;
- Acknowledge the definition of antiracist – someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas;
- Eliminate racial distinctions in biology and behavior and equalize racial distinctions;
- Struggle to think antiracist ideas.
The last chapter (#18) is titled Survival. Kendi’s wife Sadiqa learned that she had breast cancer, but thanks to treatment she was cured. Kendi became a college professor to educate away racist ideas since ignorance could be a source of racist ideas. But self interest could also be a source. Policymakers erect racist policies out of self interest and produce racist ideas that others consume and which spark ignorance and hate. Education and moral suasion will not work. He wrote a book in 2016 titled Stamped from the Beginning that said that to eliminate ideas we have to first eliminate racist policies. He was hired at American University in 2017 and founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center and his research showed that scholars and experts have succeeded in replacing racist policy with antiracist policy. He wanted teams to do what it takes to eliminate racial inequity.
- Admit that racial inequity is bad policy and not bad people;
- Investigate and uncover racist policies;
- Look for antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity and work with a group can institute antiracist policy;
- Educate about the uncovered racist policy;
- Work to drive out the unsympathetic racist policymakers;
- Monitor to be certain that the policy reduces & eliminates racial inequity;
- When policies, do not blame the people, but start over;
- Monitor closely to prevent new racist policies from popping up.
Soon Kendi learned that he had stage 4 colon cancer. He compared stage 4 cancer to stage 4 racism that is spreading all over the world. But most deny it. But he has seen antiracist progress during his lifetime. He said that id we launched a war against cancer so many people would not die from it. We could divert money from tax cuts for the rich, prisons, and military. Could we treat racism the way we treat cancer? What we did for racism is analogous to what we did with racism. There are treatments that give people a chance at life. We can saturate the body politic with a chemotherapy of antiracist policies and maybe it would kill the tumors of racism. We can remove racist policies. But before we can treat we must believe. Believe that we can strive to be antiracist going forward. Racist policy is ungodly. These policies are not indestructible. Racist inequities are not inevitable. Race and racism are part of the modern world. Until the 15th century, humans saw color but did not group them to continents, give them ranks, or show positive and negative characteristics. But racism is a deadly cancer and it’s multiply all over. Kendi says that there is nothing that he sees in our world that gives him hope that the antiracists will win the fight. One truism gives him hope – once we lose hope then we are guaranteed to lose. If we ignore the odds and fight to create an antiracist world then we give humanity a chance to one day survive and to live in communion and forever free.