June 2020 - Page 4 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Facebook: “I don’t see color!”

#ProdigalSonsMatter

Though I was not looking for it, I came across messages of people trying to explain white privilege and why All Lives Matter sucks. One thread started with a friend of mine, a woman of color, reporting about a conversation she had.

My friend: “I don’t see color when I look at you, I don’t see color when I look at anyone.” An actual quote from someone I was speaking to yesterday. But I’ve heard this my entire life. As has every person of color. If you’re guilty of saying this to us – stop it.

Color is a part of an individual. Saying you don’t see it is to deny the beauty in which we are all made. Also – claiming to not see color serves as a justification for the stance that people of color aren’t mistreated. And further allows for the normalization of inequality. See where this is going?

Be educated about the experiences of people of color. Ask questions. See color. Embrace it. It’s beautiful.

Me: OMG, all my damn life. I’ve never done it, but I’ve been sorely tempted to walk up to a white person and say, “I don’t see color when I look at you.” And it’s almost always well-meaning people.

A friend of hers: Your friend is far from woke. But I also have heard people say it as a way to spiritually bypass racism. Including the statement, we are one… I don’t see color… the list goes on and on.

“Be color brave”

Another friend of hers: Growing up I was taught in school, society and my parents NOT to see color. To treat everyone equally. I don’t think it was malicious but what people thought was best at the time. Now being a teacher in the DOE they have made the conscious effort to train staff to SEE color, appreciate the difference and struggles that come with it. They say “be color brave, not color blind”. It will take time to ‘retrain’ but to me, it’s a start.

Some of the links that were shared included these:

How White Parents Can Talk To Their Kids About Race

Jimmy Kimmel Addresses His Own White Privilege: “To me, white privilege was what Donald Trump had – a wealthy father and a silver spoon in his mouth. It wasn’t what I grew up with. So, I rejected it because I didn’t understand what white privilege meant. But I think I do now. I think I at least understand some of it and here’s what I think it is. People who are white – we don’t have to deal with negative assumptions being made about us – based on the color of our skin. It rarely happens. If ever. Whereas black people experience that every day.”

In another conversation:

Imagine your house was on fire and when the fire truck came they began spraying water on each house on your street. Because all houses matter, right? But only one of them is on fire.

Scripture

Or the Jesus variation about having 100 sheep, one is lost, so he leaves the 99 to find it. Doesn’t he care about the 99? Of course, he does.

One of my pastors subsequently posted another great Biblical one:
The father was waiting there with a sign #ProdigalSonsMatter
When the older son saw it, he was angry, wouldn’t attend the party, and moped around with his own sign: #AllSonsMatter
Father: “Dude, It isn’t about you right now.”

Yet despite the efforts of a couple women, one guy kept insisting “ALL lives matter to me as a Christian.”

Shared links:

Not seeing race does little to dismantle racist structures or improve the lives of people of colour. In order to do so, we must see race. We must see who benefits from their race, who is affected by negative stereotyping of theirs, and on whom power and privilege is bestowed – not just because of their race, but also their class and gender. Seeing race is essential to changing the system.

Streaming Shows That Will Help You Examine White Privilege

James Corden: It’s Time for Change in the US. “How can the black community dismantle a problem that they didn’t create?”

Why I’ll never vote for the Donnybrook

A kakistocracy.

Trump endorsement There is a known problem with noting my disdain for Donald J. Trump every year. It will convince no one, I realize. Those who love the Donnybrook – which I find inexplicable – will still love him. Those who despise him will continue to so.

For the record, I write about it anyway. Every year he’s been President, on his birthday I write. It’s also Flag Day, of course, so it’s likewise a reflection of how the country is doing.

In this regime, the Justice Department doles out mercy and second chances to the undeserving, the rich, and the powerful, and his cronies. But this is seldom afforded to others. A study shows that the Department of Justice prosecutions of white-collar criminals is at an all-time low.

The tax law, passed in late 2017, provided more breaks to the wealthiest Americans while doing little or nothing for everyone else.

The turnover rate in his regime has been massive. The absence of expertise in top government jobs is especially dangerous during emergencies. Also, “when positions are filled they have not necessarily gone to the strongest candidates.”

I’ve long wondered whether this is a flaw or a feature in the process. Picking a known enemy of education to head education, of the environment to lead EPA, et al. was no accident. And by keeping the administrative plates always spinning, the chance for a Cabinet to toss him out using the 25th Amendment becomes less likely.

If he had released his taxes, perhaps there would be fewer questions about him enriching himself. Most of his controversies are vehicles for self-justification, self-preservation, and self-enrichment.

His actions have damaged U.S. credibility and influence abroad. “America first” has hurt America, except with fellow authoritarian leaders.

Corona catastrophe

But the single biggest disaster of his regime has been his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unsurprisingly, his response is like what he does a lot in other areas. He refuses to take responsibility for the surge of cases in March or people ingesting disinfectant. Even when he claims absolute authority, he dodges any culpability.

He had shut down the White House pandemic office back in 2018. And his team had been briefed before his inauguration about the threat posed by pandemics. Intelligence warnings in January and February from U.S. intelligence agencies were ignored. After the disease hit, the regime waited 2 months before bolstering medical supplies. This forced states and other entities to bid against each other to obtain them.

He picked the four men responsible For America’s COVID-19 test disaster. Among them, Mike Pence, a known science denier. The standard lie about the availability of testing became untenable.

But he always spread lies and disinformation. Early in the crisis, he said that the coronavirus would simply vanish. “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”

Exhausting

There are so many more examples of incompetence and/or greed, I have literally lost track. The purge of Inspectors General should be a national scandal. It’s always about him, as he threatens the press and his other so-called enemies.

The result of all of this is that the man is making us worse people. “He is draining the last reserves of decency among us at a time when we need it most.” From today’s Boston Globe: The nationalist president and the white supremacist. “In June 2015, Donald Trump and Dylann Roof ushered in a new era of racist violence and white resentment.”

In other words, Donald Trump Is the “Worst President Ever.” He has surpassed James Buchanan. And that is a low bar indeed.

Old Testament pop music mix

Judy Collins, Cat Stevens

Psalm 23
Back in 1996/1997, I was in a Bible study at the home of my then-former girlfriend. She’s now my wife, BTW.

That was the last time I read the Old Testament and New Testament, all sixty-six books in their entirety. As I perused them, I recognized that there were a number of pop songs in my collection that were based on the Scriptures.

I soon made a mixed tape of music I had on vinyl. Then I made another one of songs I had on CD. There’s some overlap.

What I am going to present here are the songs in order of their appearance in the Bible. Some of the references are more oblique. And the second song is all over the place.

Sanctuary – Beaver and Krause.
The First Baseball Game – Nat King Cole. Stories from the Garden of Eden to John the Baptist.
The Garden – Bobby McFerrin. Genesis 2.
Brother’s Keeper – the Neville Brothers. Reference to Cain and Abel in Genesis 4.

Rock Steady – Sting. Noah and the flood in Genesis 6:9-9:17.
The Story of Isaac – Leonard Cohen. Abraham must do what he was told, from Genesis 22. Judy Collins cover.
Wake Up Jacob – Harry Belafonte. Genesis 32.

Psalms

King David – Judy Collins. Music of 100 harps. Several historic books mention his talents.
The 23rd Psalm – Bobby McFerrin. Which I once sang, all in falsetto, with Tim and the late Bob.
Babylon – Don McLean. Psalm 137:1. My current church choir has sung this, the first time in February 2011.
Rivers Of Babylon – The Melodians. Psalm 137 also.

The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song) – Joni Mitchell. Job 10 and onward.
Turn! Turn! Turn! – the Byrds. Ecclesiastes 3.
Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens. Lamentations 3:22-23.

Ezekiel – Harry Belafonte. Ezekiel 37.
Dry Bones – Delta Rhythm Bones. Ezekiel 37. I heard this first on the soundtrack to the movie Rain Man.
Getting Nearer – The Rascals. Daniel 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Plymouth Rock landed on us

reflecting the zeitgeist

On YouTube, there is an 18-minute video by Candace something or other. She’s a pleasant young black woman who gave a very professional, very measured talk.

She explained that George Floyd, the black man who was killed by the Minneapolis police last month, was “neither a martyr or a hero.” She’s gotten nearly six million hits since June 4.

Candace tells us that Floyd has a criminal record with multiple convictions. Instead, we should be lifting up David Dorn, the 77-year-old unarmed black retired grandfather of 10. He was a retired “St. Louis Police captain killed after responding to a pawnshop alarm during looting.” And it is a terrible story.

I knew that when an electronic family gathering came up – one I frankly ducked after the previous one – Dorn’s name would come up. “It’s too bad [Dorn’s] death is not more prominent.” Instead, a guy who took drugs is the one we are asked to “say his name.”

So why does George Floyd reflect the zeitgeist, besides the fact that we saw him die by a callous cop? According to this article in Business Insider, it was a combination of “pent-up anxiety” and “the actions of the president and law enforcement across the country [that] have created an outrage multiplier that has mobilized participants.”

Viva la Resistance!

Shockingly, to my mind, this has been a “diversifying movement.” There are a whole lot more white people out there demonstrating, and not just in the United States but all over the world. OK, not in Antarctica, but everywhere else. The progressive movement is fired up, optimally in a supporting role.

People, a fair number of them, have checked in to see how I am. Some I know IRL. Others I’ve known for years from online contacts, such as Amy, Melanie and Greg, and Jaquandor, who quotes me in a post. Also one guy I barely know online, which kind of creeped me out.

I’m reasonably fine, though it’s really difficult to keep up with the changing landscape. I’ve never had to rewrite what I’ve prepared here in my life. NASCAR’s getting rid of the Confederate flag? That’s great, of course, but it’s like Oktoberfest without beer.

Still, there’s this line from the movie Malcolm X (1992) that keeps popping up in my head. “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us!” It’s not quite what Malcolm actually said, but the film dialogue is better, I think.

Naturally, IMPOTUS is restarting his rallies. His first one after the BLM demonstrations is on Juneteenth. In Tulsa. It sounds like Stephen Miller’s fingerprints are all over this.

I pointed out Candace earlier. Now here’s Kimberly, a black woman, whose video has lesser production values, and about 3000 hits. She’s also quite intelligent, but eventually loud, and vulgar. You might recognize her from the end of John Oliver’s piece on the police. If you want to hear more from her – and you should because it’s far more a reflection of my feelings – go HERE.

Embracing the technology, right?

Why did I NEED Venmo?

every-virtual-meeting — Every Virtual Meeting: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Unported License

When I was talking to a librarian friend of mine recently, it occurred to me that embracing the technology is often a cost/benefit analysis. So I’ve been pondering my adoption, re-adoption, or rejection of the same in the calendar year 2020.

Zoom/Skype/Google Hangouts: I had Skype over a decade ago. I didn’t use it much, didn’t like it. But since March 15, 2020, I must have used one of them at least four dozen times. BTW, EVERYTHING in the cartoon above I have witnessed.

Facebook: I have no idea how I receive the items I see first in my feed. Lately, I’ve found it necessary to delete people, almost always friends of friends. Actually, I like to keep people I know and disagree with so that I don’t get caught up with too much confirmation bias. I tend to retain the ones I know IRL. But stupid stuff, usually with misspelled graphics, not so much.

Twitter: I still don’t “get” Twitter. My blog posts go there daily, but that’s it.

Cellphone: I eschewed getting one at all for years. Then when I did, it was a dumb phone. I finally yielded and got a smartphone when I lost my flip phone a few years back. But because I often misplace it AND the battery drains too easily, it was often off. And I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

Necessity is a real mother

That changed, not because of the COVID-19 but because of my father-in-law’s illness. My brothers-in-law and their wives were discussing issues via text. I wasn’t on the chain, because they didn’t have my number. I learned to have the phone on, and charged, regularly. My wife had a phone from the Pleistocene period, so she traded in her phone this calendar year. The kicker is that while I would receive the group texts, my wife would not. She could get individual texts, though. We don’t understand the issue.

Here’s a problem with being behind the curve. When getting instructions from the manual, or from other people, they operate on the assumption you’re just upgrading. The truth is more prosaic. I HAVE NO IDEA how to fix these things. Fortunately, I have a teenager. Still, I’m going to get ANOTHER phone for me, because the memory is so poor, and because I can seldom see images people text to me.

What’s App?: When I went to a conference in Indiana with kids from my church and others from the presbytery last summer, it was decided that we’d use What’s App. to communicate on the huge Purdue campus. On my phone, at least, it operated slowly, and occasionally not at all. So…

Why do I need this?

Venmo: When I needed to download the Venmo app, I had to dump What’s App and two others. And why did I NEED Venmo? Because the teachers at her school use it. They collected money back in March because they thought a couple of non-teaching staff were going to get laid off. As it turns out, they weren’t. Meanwhile, a couple of teachers are retiring at the end of the semester.

So we (I) had to get the money from Vera, who had collected the first $30 and then transfer it to Chuck, who was collecting for the retirement gift. This took about three hours, my phone is so wonky. Now why Vera couldn’t have sent the money to Chuck, keeping us out of it, I don’t know. Venmo is a sister company to PayPal, which I’ve had for years.

eBay: I’ve had it for years, but seldom use it. I wanted to get cards for our SORRY game. I could have bought a new game, but the rules in Fire and Ice are very different. i figured out my password and got new cards for $5 plus nearly as much for postage. But it’s good. We use them.

Instagram: Even my daughter couldn’t help me with this.

When your blog provider says upgrade

I got this message recently: “Debian and Ubuntu are operating systems that power a huge chunk of DreamHost. And, like any operating systems, they receive regular updates to fix bugs, improve stability, and add features. We will be upgrading your Virtual Private Server from version 14.04 (also known as trusty) to Debian 9.12 (aka Stretch!)”

OK! I have no idea what that means.

Date of upgrade: Tuesday, June 9th
Maintenance Window: 8:00pm-10:00pm Pacific Time
Expected downtime: 5 minutes
You may notice that your sites become unreachable for about 5 minutes while we perform the upgrade. Don’t worry – this is normal!

And I was working on the blog RIGHT AT THAT TIME, losing a bit of work. But it’s all good now.