Trump's Female Outreach & Tavern Caucus Results

Tavern regular "Mike" weighs in on Trump

You have to give Donald Trump credit for his ability to offend and alienate such wide demographic segments of the American populace with just one statement.

With his recent calls to arm Japan and South Korea with nuclear arms, he's evidently trying make enemies with foreign policy experts, the diplomatic community and Pacific Rim nations in one shot; the White House branded Tump's simplistic stab at nuclear strategy "catastrophic."

Despite his rather feeble effort to attempt to backtrack his comments made Tuesday on MSNBC that "there has to be some sort of punishment for women" who obtain an abortion procedure (in the event it's made illegal), he's already outraged both foes AND supporters of abortion.

The fact that he said it at all proves that being a billionaire doesn't automatically make you smart, especially given his remarkably low approval ratings with U.S. women.

Trump's thuggish, ill-tempered campaign manager Corey Lewandowski should've reminded his boss that women make up 52% of the U.S. population, but he's too busy defending himself against battery charges for grabbing reporter Michelle Fields.

Now the photo above (which I took with my iPhone) is not an actual Trump supporter, that's my friend "Mike" wearing a Trump hat pretending to be a Trump supporter the other night.

"Mike" is one of the regulars at my favorite local haunt, The Franklin Corner Tavern. There's nothing particularly special or fancy about The Tavern, in fact, it's just a relatively small U-shaped bar located inside Franklin Corner Liquors just off of Franklin Corner Road in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

I suppose it's biggest claim to fame is that comedian and former Daily Show host Jon Stewart used to work there when he was a student at nearby Princeton University.

The online review on Yelp! pretty much sums it up: "Nice little liquor store and bar. Bar seems to attract a local/older crowd, but still a nice place to relax and have a few."

But it attracts some interesting local characters and a good conversation can always be had; and I'm much more interested in substantive conversation than in making some "scene".

The other night another regular named Jeff brought in one of those red "Make America Great Again" hats that Trump wears like some kind of costume.

Jeff confided to me beforehand that he'd bought two of them off of E-Bay to give as a gag gift for a co-worker's retirement party, but he was curious to see if giving one to "Mike" to wear inside the bar would rile up some of the progressives like me who hang out there.

Now Jeff is a Republican and an Army veteran who now works in the pharmaceutical industry.

He likes to hunt, but he's not a "gun-nut" and he's a very responsible hunter who butchers and freezes any deer he kills to eat, and he only hunts with a proper license. We often talk politics and he's got some pretty progressive views on some things; but he's a card-carrying Republican through and through - and he loves mischief.

So I went along with Jeff's Tump-hat gag when we went back inside as I was curious to see what would happen. Within minutes of "Mike" putting the hat on (see photo at top), people started making comments.

There were murmurs, snickers and some finger-pointing, of course "Mike" was in on it and he decided to not say anything, simply wear the hat as if nothing was amiss.

Within ten minutes, everyone of the 12 people sitting at the bar was talking about Trump, there are some conservative folks in there but I can tell you the consensus was that Trump was an embarrassment to the nation, a liability to the Republican party, a bigot, a misogynist and an obnoxious, boorish loudmouth.

It started to get heated, like just the subject of Trump raised the tension in the room. So finally a woman I'll call "Sharon", got up on her knees on a bar stool and announced she wanted to say something about Trump and raised her arms authoritatively for quiet.

"Sharon" is a married (once-divorced) white, forty-something mother of two who is a professor at a local college who grew up in North Carolina. We often discuss issues related to college education and she's brought her father from NC to the bar for a drink on occasion during the holidays when he visits - she's cool people, well-mannered in the southern way and very smart.

I guess it's the mom in her, but she managed to get the people in the bar quieted down and proceeded to offer a lengthy, very rational and well-spoken critique of Trump, the core of which was her deep offense at the way that he talks about and treats women and what that says about his character and his capacity as a leader - "Sharon" is conservative but she's not a Republican and she found his comments about Fox host Megyn Kelly to be repugnant.

She never raised her voice, and as I listened, I felt like she was honestly reflecting the way the vast majority of women in the U.S (those that are registered to vote and care about politics anyway) view Trump as a person and as a candidate.

When she finished, she got down off the stool, paid her tab and left with her husband and as she walked by me I high-fived her and realized that Trump has already likely lost the general election, even if he does manage to get the GOP nomination.

My sense is that women's role as "influencers" within American families and society are often underestimated. As I've mentioned, I used to work in the ad-design department when I worked at the NFL in New York back in the late 90's.

One of the core principals and drivers of the massive "Feel the Power" advertising campaign was not just to make people in general feel better about the NFL brand, it was to attract and actively court women's involvement in the game - to embrace them as part of the brand.

The extensive research we conducted to develop the campaign revealed not just that women were NFL fans, but the sometimes subtle roles they played in how the game was watched in the home on Sundays or Monday nights had a big influence on NFL fans and the way the League is perceived.

Women are often the ones making food shopping choices for game day, or the ones taking responsibility for preparing meals in the home during the games, or inviting people over - and, perhaps most importantly for advertisers; holding a huge influence in the household purchasing decisions related to what people buy to wear, eat or drink on game day.

To come back to Trump, my point is that women like "Sharon" are going to wield enormous influence over the 2016 presidential election; and I don't just mean that in terms of their being measured as a large slice of the American demographic.

They're going to wield influence over sons, fathers, husbands, brothers, nephews, cousins, co-workers and friends.

I mean, I can't speak for every American man but as a rule we can be sort of hard-headed and childish in some ways well into adulthood; but we generally listen to the women in our life - be they mothers, sisters, grandmas, aunts etc.

Fivethirtyeight blog creator-writer Nate Silver

Now as a part-time blogger and amateur political observer, no one is ever going to confuse me with Nate Silver. 

He's the brilliant statistician and writer who correctly called 49 of 50 states in the 2008 presidential election and all 50 states in the 2012 presidential election.

Check out his thoughts on how Trump's overt sexism will impact the general election in the March 29th entry on his influential fivethirtyeight blog titled, "One Weird Trick to Loose the 2016 Election: Alienate Women"

But based on listening to "Sharon", and other female thinkers, my sense is if just 50% of American women think like "Sharon" does about Trump, the sometimes-difficult-to-measure influence they wield on our society is going to mean the GOP finds a way to block him from being the 2016 candidate, or if they're stupid enough to make him their candidate, he's going to take a beating in the general election - and he may put the GOP House majority in jeopardy too.  

I think Trump is less substance than an appealing lightening rod for the deep-seated anger and frustration coursing through the majority of the American populace who've been excluded from the economic recovery enjoyed by the top 10% of this nation.

Over the course of this 2016 race, Trump hasn't improved as a candidate; he's actually devolved like some political neanderthal in reverse-evolution.

In the March 24th issue of Rolling Stone, Mark Binelli wrote a sharp political analysis exploring the 2016 president race and why Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (unlike their Republican counterparts), have matured politically on the campaign trail and emerged as better candidates.

Candidates whose debates have revolved around substantive issues and actual policy proposals.

In his RS piece, Binelli interviewed Robert Reich, the amusingly quirky economist and former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. Since leaving the federal government, Reich as reemerged as a pretty interesting and outspoken progressive in the mold and style of Princeton economist and New York Times Paul Krugman.

Former labor secretary Robert Reich

If you've seen any of the insightful short videos Reich has hosted for MoveOn.org as part of their efforts to address wage inequality (like his two-minute fifteen second explanation of the Republican War on the Poor and Working Families), you've seen how he blends an academic mastery of economics to the issues impacting the poor, working-class and middle-class American families.

Reich offered a really sharp analysis of the grassroots anger that lies at the core of the wide popularity of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders; even though the two candidates are polar opposites in so many ways. As Reich observed in Binelli's RS piece:

"Trade policies have helped people at the top and taken out the middle rungs of the job ladder and pushed millions into the personal-service sector, where they're getting paid very little. When the median wage started to stagnate, the first thing a lot of families did is, the wives and mothers went into the workforce. 

When wages continued to decline , the second thing they did was work longer hours. Then, when that coping mechanism was exhausted, the third thing was to go deep into debt, many people using home loans as collateral. And when that bubble burst, people woke up to what was happening, and you begin to get, starting with the bank bailouts, a surge of anger, the Tea Party on one side and Occupy on the other. And it doesn't stop, because the political establishment doesn't recognize it for what it is. They think it's left versus right!"

I think Reich's comments reach to the heart of what's at stake in the 2016 presidential election.

His comments also help to bring a measure of understanding as to why Donald Trump holds such appeal to the throngs who pack his rallies and cheer his extremism, ignorance, xenophobia, racism and misogyny.

Trump has learned to tap that anger but the reality is he doesn't actually have any idea of what to actually do with it; which is why he has virtually no policy specifics beyond building a really big wall.

 In truth, the imaginary wall he dreams about has already been constructed.

Only it's a wall in people's minds, one he's built brick by brick with each insult, lie, arrogant smirk, baseless accusation, call for violence, violation of reporter's right to free speech and the undisguised contempt he demonstrates towards people of color and women.

So as we say farewell to March and head towards April, politically I'm feeling pretty energized about the fact that Donald Trump continues to wall himself off further from an ever-growing huge cross-section of the American electorate in part because of a relatively simple truth most young men are taught at an early age but that seems to elude him:

Treat women with respect.

Loss, Learning & Lawnside, NJ

Kaighn Avenue Baptist Church founded in 1856

It hasn't been easy getting my mind back into a creative state to try and write.

My thoughts as of late have been everywhere but on the written word, and my ability to translate abstract thoughts into coherent ideas in the past few days has been eclipsed by a need to process emotions and feelings associated with personal loss.

Last Friday I drove down to Camden, New Jersey with my mother and sister to attend the funeral of my Aunt Marion L. Baker, which was held at the historic Kaighn Avenue Baptist Church.

The various rituals of the funeral service cast that looming sense of sadness over the experience that one expects on such occasions as Aunt Lorraine, as I called her, was my father's oldest sister.

She was born on January 4, 1929 in the small rural farming community of Conway, North Carolina just as America was descending into the depths of the Great Depression - my father was born three years later on April 13, 1932 and, as was fairly typical of rural American farm families of the early 20th century, they were two of eight children.

While my father passed away from prostate cancer back in 1996, Aunt Lorraine's passing reminded me of him over the past week; even as I grieved for her, my grief for my long-deceased father  suddenly became fresh in my mind again with an intensity that took me by surprise.

But the opportunity to gather with members of my extended family to bid farewell to my aunt on Good Friday was also nurturing and uplifting - and for me the day was also a learning experience.

Camden High School - one of the schools where my aunt taught

During the remarks and eulogy I learned that my aunt influenced the lives of a number of young people from the Camden area in her role as a physical education and health teacher in the Camden City Public School District.

For example, a former student of hers posted a message of condolence online that noted that Aunt Lorraine had been one of her middle school teachers back in the 1960's.

She observed that even though my aunt had a stern, no-nonsense demeanor, she was also a gentle, loving person; to the degree that this former student remembered my aunt fondly over the years.

In fact, she was one of several former students who took time to leave messages of condolence even though my aunt taught them more than 40 years ago.

See, I never really knew the "professional side" of my aunt. Her outwardly no-nonsense demeanor as her former student noted, was familiar to me, but she also had wonderful laugh, was devoted to her family and loved working in her garden as well.

She selflessly devoted time and energy to her community as well, during the course of her life she served in a variety of civic organizations, including as the secretary of the local branch of the NAACP and on the Camden County Human Relations Committee.

Then-Senator Obama visiting Kaighn Ave Baptist Church in 2006

During the funeral service my mind kept wandering, trying to understand these aspects of my aunt's life I'd never known as I sat there in the pew of the Kaighn Avenue Baptist Church.

KABC is one of the oldest African-American churches in the state of New Jersey.

It was the first black Baptist church to be founded in the state when it was first organized back in 1856.

As I learned from a brass plaque proudly mounted on the wall in the foyer of the church, the church was formed as an extension of regular prayer meetings held in the homes of members of the local black community starting in 1838, until people began meeting in a blacksmith's shop until it burned down and the congregation then began the search for a building where services could be held.

After the service and the trip out to see my aunt laid to rest, we gathered with other family members about 20 minutes away at my cousin Brenda's home in the historic suburban town of Lawnside, New Jersey.

Lawnside is a fascinating counterbalance to the frequently-negative media portrayals of Camden, New Jersey. It's a neighborhood of pleasant tree-lined suburban streets, green lawns, gardens and nice homes that sits about 25 minutes from downtown Camden.

Town seal of Lawnside, New Jersey

Lawnside is in Camden County, but it's light years from some of the more blighted and neglected impoverished areas of downtown Camden; some of which were a stones throw from KABC.

As a Wikipedia article notes, "Lawnside was developed and incorporated as the first independent, self-governing black municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1840."

A full 20 years before the start of the Civil War.


As noted on the town seal above, the town was officially incorporated in 1926, but according to Wikipedia, abolitionists began purchasing the land in 1840 as a place to build "a community for freed and escaped slaves, as well as other African-Americans."

My younger cousin who resides there told me the town is almost 90% African-American and just over 4% white; with the remaining 5 - 6% made up of Asians, Latinos and Native Americans.

It wasn't just the quiet suburban tranquility that impressed me, the historical significance of a quiet, prosperous community where people of color are the majority stands in such contrast to the mostly-white suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland and West Windsor, New Jersey where I was raised.

Family Properties 2010 paperback edition

For decades destructive myths about black people moving into neighborhoods leading to deteriorating conditions and lower home values have been carefully perpetuated by the real estate agents, banks and local officials seeking to profit financially off of the intentional segregation of neighborhoods by preying on racial prejudices to manipulate both white and black home owners.

Just about this time of year back in April of 2009, Leonard Lopate did a fascinating interview on the subject of intentional housing discrimination with Rutgers history professor Beryl E. Satter. 

She discussed her book "Family Properties: Race, Real Estate and the Exploitation of Black Urban America"- an in-depth analysis of the history, mechanisms and impact of housing discrimination in the United States; a few different editions have been published since 2009.

More recently, an interesting podcast called "There Goes The Neighborhood", a co-production between WNYC and PRI, has been taking a closer look at the issue of gentrification with an in-depth analysis of demographic changes taking place in Brooklyn neighborhoods.

It's a pretty interesting series if you get time to catch up on the podcasts.

In the case of the rapid gentrification taking place in Brooklyn, on one hand it's fascinating to see what is in many ways a "reverse white flight" taking place in neighborhoods like Fort Greene.

But from the standpoint of the working class people of color who stuck it out in these neighborhoods during decades of urban neglect on the part of municipal, state and federal governments (and businesses like grocery stores and banks...) to make a lasting community, only to be pushed out by waves of higher-earning singles and families priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods like Park Slope and Williamsburg - it's a sad testament to the often insidious ways that race, ethnicity and real estate are entwined in America.

As an African-American who works in the real estate industry, in the coming year I'll make a note to do a better job of devoting more space in this blog to housing issues.

The growing nationwide trend of younger Millennials turning their backs on the suburban lifestyle of their parent's generation in favor of urban communities with mass transit systems and a more dynamic social landscape means gentrification is only going to become a more prominent socio-economic issue in cities across the nation.

An issue linked to the same root causes that motivated abolitionists to purchase the land in Camden County, New Jersey that would become the community of Lawnside more than 176 years ago.

How far we've come as a nation, and yet real estate and housing shows us what a long way we still have to go.

Brussels and Beyond: American Frauke Petrys

CCTV image of Brussels airport attackers 

It's been hard not to feel personally affected by the events which unfolded in Brussels in the early morning hours yesterday as much of the east coast of the US slept.

On Tuesday morning I awoke to the news on BBC Radio about the 30 people killed in the two separate attacks on a subway car and in the airport terminal and the news has been replayed nearly nonstop ever since.

In my mind, on radio, Web and TV.

My mind was already occupied with the news that my eldest aunt passed away over the past weekend, then on Monday night one of my best friends from high school called me to tell me his mother was suffering advanced Alzheimer's disease and that his father was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

All of these events have conspired to remind me how easy it is to get caught up in the realities of more superficial things like politics, paying bills, or the unavoidable everyday dramas that accompany work and life.

It's not that such things aren't important, but how quickly they fade to the back of one's minds in the face of loss; which is so much more tangible and finite.

Brussels subway bomber Khalid el-Bakraoui & brother Brahim

As a fellow human being, my heart obviously goes out to the victims of the horrible attacks executed by terrorist bothers Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui with the help of other ISIS supporters.

My thoughts go out to their families, friends and the Brussels and European residents whose lives will forever be altered by these atrocities.


As one of the millions of people who lived in New York City during the attacks on September 11, 2001, I know the inescapable sense of numbness that lingers long after the dead have been buried, buildings reconstructed and the attackers brought to justice.

So I can say with some degree of authority that one of the darkest aspects of events like the attacks at the World Trade Center, Paris, or Brussels is the subsequent effect on human nature.

We've seen it in Europe as the devastating civil war unleashed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria has sent hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians fleeing for the stability and safety Europe in wave after wave of human migration.

And as our own 2016 presidential campaign has demonstrated, we see the effects of terrorism reflected in the resulting rise of extremism and intolerance that seeps into the political landscape.

Alternative for Germany (AfG) leader Frauke Petry

Take Germany for example.

It was only about two weeks ago when mainstream German parties like the Christian Democrats (CDU), the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, saw troubling political shifts in state parliamentary elections across the country when the far right-wing Alternative for Germany party or AfD came in third in local elections.


As a March 19th article in Der Spiegel on the fallout from the recent German elections observed, AfD party leader, businesswoman Frauke Petry (pictured above) generated quite a bit of controversy back in January when she openly espoused shooting at refugees lining up at German borders.

She and other AfD leaders have also questioned "whether Africans have genetically pre-programmed reproductive behaviors that are different than ours." 

Which, frankly, sounds like dusted-off Nazi eugenics theories of genetics and race - and we know too well what that kind of thinking led to.

Here in the U.S., Frauke Petry and her AfG party might not be familiar to many Americans, but the divisive tone of her anti-immigrant rhetoric and embrace of intolerance and violence is all too familiar to those of us disturbed by the same kind of disturbing rise in right-wing fringe politics.

Just hours ago, President Obama took Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz to task for his bizarre reactionary calls for massive surveillance and "patrols" of Muslim neighborhoods in the wake of the attacks in Brussels.

Trump and Cruz; united on Islamophobia

Predictably, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump not only backed Cruz's calls for unprecedented profiling of American Muslims, as The Hill.com reported, he also used the media focus on the attacks in Brussels as an excuse to polish the dust off his oft-maligned calls to ban Muslims from traveling to America and for the torture of terrorist suspects.

I guess nothing brings Republicans together quite like hatred for people who don't look like them or worship as they do.

So clearly we've got our own Frauke Petry's here in America too, only they're not fringe political leaders; they're both leading presidential candidates in one of the two major political parties that make up America's two-party, representative Democracy.

The Alternative for Germany party and the Republican party may be separated by an ocean.

But as far as their scapegoating religious and racial minorities, and stirring up anger and violence amongst a frustrated populace that's been largely disenfranchised from fair-wage increases and a share of the economic recovery and prosperity enjoyed by the 1% over the past decade, they flow from the same sludge-filled sewer.

We may speak different languages in Germany and America, but channeling fear and anger onto "others" who struggle at the lower end of the economic spectrum is a language both countries can speak with remarkable ease.

Mac Sabbath's Strange Crusade Against Fast-Food & GMO's

Slayer MacCheez, Ronald Osbourne, Cat Burglar & Grimalice

Since today is the first full day of spring and it's beginning to snow here in New Jersey and a sitting U.S. president has landed in the nation of Cuba for the first time since Calvin Coolidge in 1928, I figured today's blog should be about something unusual.

One of the weirdest things I've heard about recently is a heavy metal parody band called Mac Sabbath that covers the pioneering and influential heavy metal band Black Sabbath fronted by lead singer Ozzy Osbourne.

The members of Mac Sabbath dress in costumes based on characters that once appeared in McDonald's television commercials and who are still seen on materials included with kid's Happy Meals, or on the playgrounds of some of those larger McDonald's restaurants with outdoor areas for kids to play in.

The lead singer "Ronald Osborne" dresses like a demented Ronald McDonald, the guitarist "Slayer MacCheez" plays with a large headpiece with silver tusks fashioned after Mayor McCheese, the bass player "Gimalice" wears a purple costume that looks like a leering Grimace from a bad acid trip and the drummer "Cat Burglar" dresses like the Hamburglar.

Now as far as actual musical ability is concerned, Mac Sabbath's guitarist, bassist and drummer can certainly play their instruments, and they're obviously familiar with (and fans of) Black Sabbath's music, but singer Ronald Osbourne growls and shouts more than he really sings.

Black Sabbath cover band Brown Sabbath

Talent-wise they're never going to be confused with the more well-known Black Sabbath cover band known as Brown Sabbath, an impressive Latin music-influenced jazz-funk collective from Austin, Texas that includes a talented lead singer, two percussionists, a horn section, a guitar player and bass player (who normally play together as the band Brownout) who do some amazing Latin-funk covers of Black Sabbath.

What's interesting about Mac Sabbath is that there is a serious purpose behind their bizarre look.

They play Black Sabbath's music, but they switch all the lyrics to rail against what they see as the evils of the fast-food industry in America and the dangers of GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms).

Their costumes parody McDonald's characters used to market fast-food to children.

In the fashion of a true showman, the band's manager Mike Odd, a member of the California hard-rock band Rosemary's Billygoat who dress in unusual stage costumes as well (see photo below), is intentionally mysterious and elusive about Mac Sabbath's origins.

He claims that the lead singer Ronald Osbourne contacted him over the phone to request a meeting a burger joint in Chatsworth, California and walked in dressed in his bizarre clown costume to pitch the band.

Musician and Mac Sabbath manager Mike Odd

As Odd told journalist Daniel Kohn in an interview for OC Weekly back in December:

"This clown has told me he's traveled here from a time space continuum from the 1970's to save us from our modern ways and to warn us about government control and how things have changed since the 1970's. That was the last time he says there was real food and music. He goes on and on about how the government uses caffeine and cable for mind control to poison and enslave us. People come to the shows and think it's funny and goofy but this guys has some intensity and a message behind it."

Osbourne later invited Odd to hear the band play and so he decided to manage them.

The band now plays shows all over the U.S. (they played Underground Arts in Philadelphia on Friday night) and the video of their live performance of "Frying Pan", a parody of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" has gotten almost a million hits on Youtube.

A time-traveling clown who uses costumes and the music of Black Sabbath to preach against the evils of corporate fast-food and genetically-modified fruits, vegetables and animals?

Sure it's a bit strange, but it's also an amusing reminder that one of the powers of art is its ability to use satire and parody to provoke, enlighten, engage and challenge conventional ideas of creative expression.

To me the band is a pretty fascinating and unusual merger of musical expression, live performance art, political expression and social activism.

But it's probably safe to assume the folks at McDonald's are not amused.

Disparities in School Discipline & Claudette Colvin's Legacy

Massachusetts student discipline by race 2014

On Wednesday, as American media headlines were abuzz with political analysis of the Super Tuesday presidential primary results, Motoko Rich published an interesting article in the New York Times about troubling findings from an analysis of wide disparities in school discipline in charter schools based on data collected by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

The report found that black charter school students are four times as likely to be disciplined as their white peers for the same offenses (disabled students are two to three times as likely to face discipline) and that these disparities begin as early as preschool.

The report offers insight not only into how student's race impacts the way teachers and administrators perceive, and interact with students of color, but how that perception can consciously or subconsciously skew the ways they decide to mete out disciplinary measures as well.

The OCR data reflects similar findings in American public schools as well, as reflected in a 2014 OCR analysis of the 97,000 public schools across the nation which showed disparities in school discipline based on race as well which, like the OCR data on charter schools shows, begin as early as preschool.

UCLA researchers from the Center for Civil Rights Remedies also analyzed federal data to do comparisons of out-of-school suspensions in elementary and secondary schools in districts across all 50 states in 2015 and found wide disparities based on student's race in states like Missouri, Florida and Wisconsin.

According to UCLA's data, Wisconsin, the home state of former Republican Presidential candidate Governor Scott Walker, suspended 34% of its black students, even though blacks only make up about 6.3% of the overall state population and whites make up about 86.2%.

2013 NYC student rally against disparities in discipline 

Back in the fall of 2014 a non-profit based in Boston, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights School Discipline, issued a report based on data compiled by the Massachusetts Department of Education that found that black and Latino students were far more likely to face school discipline for non-criminal, non-violent and non-drug related offenses, and the discipline they received was more harsh than that meted out to their white classmates (see graphic above). 

The disparities in discipline were actually worse in Boston charter schools.

In an interview one of the authors of the LCCRSD report, Matt Cregor, told Boston public radio station WBUR:

"It could be disrespect, it could be dress code violations, it could be tardiness, whatever it is we know it's a harsh punishment that research has shown to predict school drop-out, grade retention and involvement in the juvenile justice system."

The last time I blogged about this issue was back in January in response to a reader named Katherine who sent me a link to a report entitled, "Separate and Unequal: School Funding in 'Post Racial' America" which examined how public school funding reinforces racial segregation in American schools - in the 21st century no less.

While I'm certainly not a qualified researcher, having blogged about this issue a few times in the past few years, I have to wonder if the gaps in discipline in U.S. public and charter schools are getting worse - or are researchers and institutions simply devoting more comprehensive analysis of the problem?

Civil rights icon Claudette Colvin

On Tuesday, Melinda Archer published a really insightful interview in The Atlantic with Monique W. Morris, author of "The Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools", an analysis of how long-festering stigmas based on race and sex have combined to disenfranchise, marginalize and exclude African-American girls in American schools.

A really interesting example of the impact of stereotypes on black American girls that Morris cites in her book is that of Claudette Colvin (pictured left), a black Montgomery, Alabama teenager who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus on March 2, 1955 - a full nine months before seamstress Rosa Parks did in December 1955.

Like Parks, Colvin, then 15-years-old, was sitting on a crowded bus after a long days work when the driver ordered her to give up a seat to one of the white passengers who boarded at a stop.


Colvin refused and she was arrested.

As the Website The Visibility Project notes in an article about Colvin's largely-unheralded contribution to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, local church and civil rights leaders at the time opted not to rally behind Colvin's arrest because they were concerned that because she was dark-skinned, several months pregnant and had been outwardly confrontational with with the policeman who arrested her, she was "not the right type" for mainstream civil rights leaders to get behind.

According to the Visibility project, Aurelia Browder was arrested in April, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, and Mary Louise Smith was arrested in October of the same year - so there were at least three other women arrested before Rosa Parks.

In fact it was actually Colvin, Browder, Smith and two other black Montgomery women who were the plaintiffs in the federal court case Browder v. Gayle that deemed the segregation on Montgomery buses a violation of the Constitution - a case which was later upheld by the Supreme Court.

As Morris noted in The Atlantic interview, Colvin was well-read, active in the civil rights movement and was a member of the local NAACP Youth Council, but her pregnancy and militant attitude left her largely forgotten in the history of the civil rights movement - but Rosa Parks is the one whose face is on a stamp.

Obviously that's not to minimize Park's courage or determination in any way, I just grew up with the knowledge that it was Park's refusal to give up her seat that sparked the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, when in fact Colvin, Browder and Smith all showed the same non-violent resistance months before Parks, yet I never heard their names before reading The Atlantic article  cited above.

But to come back to my original point and wrap up, it's been remarkable to see how little the disparities in the American education system have been covered by mainstream media over the course of the presidential campaign season.

Sure we've seen the occasional run-of-the-mill political analysis of Senator Bernie Sanders' call for free college tuition or Hillary Clinton's call to cap student loan interest rates by the usual assortment of talking heads on cable and network television.

But for the most part, the state of American schools has been relegated to the proverbial side burner of political discussion.

Over the course of 2015 - 2016, mainstream American media (online, television, print and radio) has devoted an alarmingly large percentage of it's presidential campaign coverage to Donald Trump to the exclusion of far more important stories and issues affecting the global population.

As essayist / journalist Matt Taibbi observed in a revealing look at the state of Trump's candidacy in the March 10th issue of Rolling Stone, many journalists seem at once revolted and consumed with the divisive, toxic nature of the Republican front-runner's campaign - expressing alarm that such a controversial candidate has won so many primaries, even as they continually devote front-page coverage to his predictable insults and slights.

To the point that the collective media coverage of Trump replaces any need for him to spend anywhere near the level of money on campaign commercials as his competitors do.

According to a Buzzfeed article, an assortment of American journalists have begun to express "concern" over what is being deemed "wall-to-wall" coverage of Trump - which frankly strikes me as coming more than just a little too late in the political game.

So while it's a positive sign to see more comprehensive analysis of disparities in school discipline being reported in the media, the issue is far more critical to the future of America than Trump's latest tirade or comment.

Maybe if the media saw it that way, the issue would attract the level of attention and visibility it deserves from politicians, school administrators, academics and parents alike.

In the meantime, millions of students of color in elementary and secondary public and charter schools around the nation must overcome yet another barrier to a fair and substantive education based not on their capacity to learn or absorb knowledge, but on the color of their skin or ethnicity - and the way teachers and administrators view them.

Moral Mondays, The Third Reconstruction & Act 192

North Carolina social activist Rev. Dr. William Barber

If politics is your thing, last night was your kind of night with big Tuesday primaries taking place in Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina; not so much for Marco Rubio.

A lot more than just delegates were at stake.

Are you the type who appreciates an excellent no-nonsense overview of the political landscape (and challenges) in both Missouri and North Carolina from a progressive point of view?

Then I'd highly recommend you take some time to listen to the two insightful interviews Brian Lehrer did back-to-back Tuesday morning with St. Louis Public Radio political reporter Jo Mannies and William Barber (pictured above), president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.

In the interview on The Brian Lehrer Show, Barber offered insight into how the divisive rhetoric (which President Obama called "vulgar" earlier today) that has become the hallmark of Donald Trump's campaign rallies, are rooted in the same brand of racist populism trumpeted by George Wallace and other popular southern segregationists in the 20th century.

He argues that the toxic rhetoric which incites Trump supporters to physically assault protesters, is the same dangerous kind of inflammatory language that motivated four KKK terrorists to detonate 15 sticks of dynamite under the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four little girls on Sunday September 15, 1963.

NC Republican Senator Thom Tillis

Since 2013, Barber has been at the heart of North Carolina's Moral Mondays protest movement opposing the unprecedented takeover of the state by right-wing Republican extremists led by Governor Pat McCrory and current NC Republican Senator Thom Tillis (pictured left).

Before narrowly defeating Democrat Kay Hagan to win a hotly-contested Senate seat, Tillis was a key ally of Governor McCrory while he served as the Speaker of North Carolina state legislature at a time when 54 of the 170 members were members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (including Tillis himself) at a time when Republican voter suppression in the Tar Heel state was making national headlines.

Tillis is a textbook Koch brothers flunky. With the help of his Koch-funded ALEC puppeteers in North Carolina, he led the state legislatures efforts to (among other things) roll back voting rights, attack unions, make access to abortion more difficult and eliminate unemployment benefits.

His former crony Governor McCrory is up for re-election this year and you can be sure he'll be facing organized protests from Moral Mondays members around the state.

It's the efforts of people like Tillis and McCrory who've (in part) inspired Rev. Barber to emerge as a powerful voice in the grassroots movement for social justice in North Carolina.

2014 Moral Mondays protest in Raleigh, NC

Which he chronicles in his recently-released book "The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics and the Rise of  New Justice Movement". 

In it, Barber argues that the wave of right-wing extremism typified by voter suppression and astonishing government power grabs through gerrymandering by conservative state legislators, has sparked a growing counter-wave of progressive social activism in America which he calls "The Third Reconstruction".

And his message, like the movement itself, is growing nationwide.

Since the Moral Mondays movement was launched in 2013, it has since spread to other states including New York, Georgia, Ohio, New Mexico, South Carolina and Illinois.

Donald Trump's victory in the North Carolina and Florida primaries last night is a sobering reminder of what's at stake in the 2016 presidential elections - and for our nation as a whole.

In the same way the election of Republican-majority legislatures in North Carolina and Kansas have proved disastrous to the social fabric of those states, an article posted on Trace.org yesterday by Olivia Li offers a disturbing snapshot of what's at stake for national and state elections with regards to issues like gun control.

Act 192 sponsor Republican Mark Keller

As she reported, the Pennsylvania state legislature passed Act 192 back in 2014 which allows individual gun owners and any large organization like the NRA that they belong to, to jointly sue any township or small municipality that tries to pass gun control legislation to control gun violence.

Not long after it was passed, the NRA sued Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and other municipalities in Pennsylvania over restrictions that kept people from carrying concealed weapons in cars or on their person without a license, requiring people to report stolen weapons or bans on sales of certain kinds of ammunition.

Doesn't matter that the NRA doesn't live in the town in question.

Act 192 allows them to tap into the NRA's massive war chest to actually prevent local elected leaders from passing gun control legislation to keep their local communities safe.

If small municipalities that challenge the NRA lose their court fight, a bizarre provision in the law requires them to cover massive attorney's fees, court costs and expert witness costs that the NRA incurs in it's effort to sue these towns and cities for writing their own gun safety laws.

Make sense? Of course it doesn't, not in a civilized society anyway.

Act 192 only makes sense in the ideological mindset.

As Trace.org reported, to avoid potentially-crippling costs of being sued by the NRA, more than 20 Pennsylvania towns and cities began repealing their own gun safety ordinances; including a small suburb outside Pittsburgh known as Wilikinsburg.

Four of the victims of the mass shooting in Wilkinsburg

Last Wednesday March 9th, just hours after the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court began to hear arguments on the merits of Act 192, two unknown gunmen wielding a .40 caliber handgun and an assault rifle, opened fire at a backyard family cookout at a home in Wilkinsburg, shooting and killing five people, including a pregnant woman, and wounding 3 more.

According to the New York Times, police say the shooting was planned; all of the victims were shot in the head; they were all related. The gunmen fled from the scene and escaped.

Only in the mindset of state Republican lawmakers beholden to an entity like the NRA does Act 192 make sense.


It's interesting, Republicans constantly gripe about the horrors of Democrats using 'Big Government' to intrude in the lives of individuals and interfere with people's right to govern themselves.

Yet Pennsylvania Republican legislators pass a law designed to block local elected leaders from making decisions about laws for firearms safety in their own communities?

Obviously Republicans are fine with 'Big Government' when it comes to guns, abortion and fracking.

"Situational Republican outrage?"

Just imagine the kinds of laws a Republican-controlled House and Senate would pass with the cooperation of a Republican president.

Act 192 is just one example of what was at stake in Tuesday's primaries; a law that may have contributed to five innocent people (six if you count the unborn child of the pregnant victim) being shot at a backyard cookout.

Is it a stretch to say that people's lives are at stake with the upcoming fall elections this year? I don't think it is.

Nor is it a stretch to say the time for a Third Reconstruction is now.

Pfizer's Irish Tax Dodge & 21st Century Conservative Ethics

Trump supporter grappling with a protester in VA (AP)

The headline-grabbing violence erupting between rival protesters at recent Donald Trump rallies serves as a harsh reminder that the current state of divisive American politics, much like the one-hour "Spring Forward" earlier this morning marking daylight savings time, is an extremely sharp double-edged sword that cuts in different ways.

For those like me who are definitely not "morning people", there's an immediate lingering sense of unfairness from having a precious 60 minutes of sleep snatched away.


But on the other hand there's that revitalizing feeling that comes from the increased light stretching into the early evenings, heralding summer's approach.

While the temperatures hovered in the low 60's today, the gray overcast skies over Hamilton, New Jersey and lack of sunlight or breeze combined to create a sense of stillness that reflects the mild sense of disorientation I felt waking up into the one-hour shift forward into daylight savings time.

It's not unlike the sense of disorientation that 21st century conservative ethics, ideology and politics have cast over the American landscape.

For example, a February 25th press release issued by the organization Americans For Tax Fairness detailed the efforts of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (maker of drugs like Viagra, Celebrex and Lipitor) to exploit gaping loopholes in the U.S. Tax Code by merging with a small pharmaceutical company based in Ireland called Allergan in a sketchy effort to avoid a staggering $35 billion in U.S. taxes by shifting it's base across the Atlantic to Ireland.

Please note that Americans For Tax Fairness is NOT to be confused with conservative anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist's Americans For Tax Reform; the organization that created the notorious and fiscally irresponsible "No New Taxes" pledge that has been signed by hundreds of Republican politicians across the country.

Pfizer's move, a practice known as corporate inversion that enables American companies like Apple to avoid paying billions in U.S. taxes, would shift it's taxable base to Ireland even though the global pharmaceutical giant would still be headquartered in New York.

As the executive director of Americans For Tax Fairness Frank Clemente observed in the AFTF press release:

"By dodging taxes while increasing prescription drug prices, Pfizer squeezes American families and communities from two sides at once. In the company's biggest insult to America yet, Pfizer's merger would allow it to go on enjoying all the benefits of being based here - everything from a publicly-educated workforce, to an excellent communications infrastructure, to a reliable patent system - without adequately paying to support them."

Pfizer certainly isn't the only U.S. company trying to use the avoidance of paying their fair share of taxes as a strategic move to increase profits.

But it's a reflection of the power lobbyists have to spend millions to influence the politicians who create these kinds of obscure tax loopholes for large corporations - the same politicians who view unemployment insurance, nutrition assistance programs, housing subsidies and even job training programs as "government waste".

Well over a 100,000 people have signed an online petition (you can too!) that will be delivered to the White House encouraging the President and Treasury Department to deny a massive pharmaceutical manufacturer like Pfizer the right to skip out on paying $35 billion in taxes by simply changing their address.

Tap water flows from tainted pipes in Flint, Michigan

Corporate tax inversion is just one troubling aspect of a Republican philosophy of further widening the wealth gap in this nation by shifting even more of the tax burden onto the middle-class and the working poor through the pursuit of destructive policies that place profits for corporations, big institutional investors, and wealthy individual investors over the collective interests of the nation and the average American.

The suppression of wage increases for average workers, or the reluctance of Republicans in Congress to authorize emergency funds for critical infrastructure repairs to the water system in Flint, Michigan are just two examples.

You can also see that divisive philosophy reflected in Republican efforts to manipulate energy policy in favor of fossil fuel producers by trying to suppress the ability of individual American home owners to have the right to choose to use solar power to save on energy costs.

Tim Dickinson's February 11th Rolling Stone article "The Dirty War On Solar Power"  chronicles the coordinated nation-wide effort of Republican lawmakers, extremist billionaire Republican rainmakers like the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - the activist conservative policy-making think tank they finance- to pressure state lawmakers in states like Nevada and Florida to re-write laws that impose steep rate hikes and unjustified fees on home owners who want to choose renewable energy sources like solar power.

Anti-solar Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott

Dickinson's article offers a glimpse into the power that investor-owned utilities wield over state politics and the Republican lawmakers who willingly write legislation (often drafted by ALEC) that puts up barriers to rooftop solar.

The very same politicians who rail about the excessive intrusion of state and federal government into commerce and private industry use government legislation on behalf of fossil fuel providers to stop average Americans from putting solar panels on their own roofs to draw power from the sun .

As Dickinson observes, Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott (pictured above) has personally accepted over $1 million of the $18 million in campaign contributions that the state's biggest power utilities have donated to state politicians in Florida since 2004.

Ironic that the biggest political donors in the Sunshine State are anti-solar power utilities that reap profits from the burning of fossil fuels.

There's something deeply troubling and distinctly un-American about Donald Trump encouraging riled-up supporters at his rallies to engage in outright thuggery against people protesting the hatred and bigotry he peddles; and his offering to pay the legal fees of those arrested for assault.

Just as the policies and ideology advocated by the 21st century Republican party are less about the common interests and "general welfare"of the American people than the enrichment of the privileged few.

A point that seems to elude the disenfranchised masses packing into arenas to listen to yet another billionaire who exploits their anger and frustration by telling them what's wrong with the country to obscure the fact that the Republican party and the unrestricted flow of Dark Money into the political system are the architects of the very circumstances that fuel their rage against those who actually have nothing to do with it.

We're So Not In Kansas Anymore

Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback

It's one thing to listen to the leading Republican candidates talk about abstract campaign promises to deploy tactical nuclear weapons against ISIS to see "if sand can glow in the dark" , make the U.S. military torture people, or construct a big wall along the southern border with Mexico.

But if you really want to get an idea of the kind of America that extremist Republicans have in mind should they win the White House and retain control of both houses of Congress, look no further than the great state of Kansas.

Hyper-conservative 2nd-term Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and his Republican-majority state legislature have come under fire in recent years for trying to create a bizarre "conservative utopia-slash Tea Party lab experiment" which has plunged the state economy to the brink of turmoil and adversely affected the lives of tens of thousands of Kansas citizens.

Brownback and his cronies have used their power to slash state spending on education, social programs (like their bizarre restrictions on how welfare recipients can spend their money) and basic government services to finance outrageous tax cuts for guess who?

The tiny fraction of the population made up by the wealthiest folks in the state.

Most recently the mad scientists running the state legislature were up in arms after the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that severe cuts to the education budget they'd inserted into the budget had disproportionately and unfairly affected schools in the state's poorest districts - leaving at-risk school districts underfunded in violation of state mandates on educational funding.

After lawyers filed suit on behalf of local school boards, the state Supreme Court told the legislature it has until June 30th to revise budget expenditures to restore millions in public school funding back to the poorest schools.

Republican Kansas State Senator Mitch Holmes

In response to that ruling, and other court rulings on hot-button conservative issues like abortion, Kansas Republican lawmakers are trying to pass Senate Bill 439, a law that would radically expand the ability of state legislators to impeach judges

As the editorial board of the Kansas City Star noted in an op-ed, on Tuesday, even though Kansas legislators already have the authority to impeach judges for improper behavior or conduct, Senate Bill 439 would authorize lawmakers to impeach judges for striking down legislation passed by the legislature.


Why undermine the basic system of checks and balances between the legislative and judicial branches in Kansas?

As the author of the bill, Kansas state senator Mitch Holmes (pictured above) told the Associated Press, "I believe the court has a tremendous problem with overreach."

Now let me just repeat that because I'm still trying to wrap my head around it myself after reading about this on DailyKos - Republican legislators in Kansas want to be able to impeach state Supreme Court justices who rule against legislation they pass; even if it violates the state constitution.

It's the kind of reprehensible abuse of political power concocted by the right-wing brain trust at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that Tea Partiers like Senator Ted Cruz salivate over - remember his efforts to single-handedly shut down the federal government?

Like voter repression and illegal redistricting, Kansas Senate Bill 439 is part of the Republican party's vast efforts to allow a numerical (and shrinking) political minority to maintain control of state and national government - even if it means tramping on ethics, decency and the basic foundations of Democracy.

Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was right a few weeks ago when he said that the GOP has gone "bat shit crazy".

Nowhere more so than Kansas.

Time And Time Again

Baltimore cop William Porter must testify 

It was a mixed day for the growing nationwide grassroots movement to curb the systematic excessive use of force against unarmed African-American citizens by members of law enforcement.

Trials for the six Baltimore Police Department officers charged in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray last April had been held up over the second court case involving William Porter.

The 26-year-old BPD officer was the first of the six cops to be tried in Baltimore back in December over his failure to properly secure the unarmed Gray into the back of a police transport van with a seat belt according to police training and guidelines.

Porter faced charges of second-degree assault, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office, but after two weeks a divided jury failed to reach a decision and Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams declared a mistrial on December 16th; he'll be retried in June.

Prosecutors had sought to compel Porter to testify against the other five BPD officers charged in Gray's death and the case went to the Maryland Appeals Court - today they ruled he must testify, opening the door for the other five trials to begin.

BPD officer Caesar Goodson, top right, on trial next

With the court's ruling today, first up will be the trial of 45-year-old BPD officer Caesar Goodson, as the driver of the van most directly responsible for the "rough ride" that caused Freddie Gray's spine to be almost severed, he'll face the most serious charges including second degree depraved heart murder and two different charges of manslaughter by vehicle.

If not for Porter's attempt to avoid testifying in court against the other five officers, Goodson would have faced trial in January.

There's no question that, like anyone else in this nation charged with a crime (or crimes), each of these officers deserves their right to a fair trial by jury; but the city of Baltimore needs some kind of closure in this case in order for the rebuilding of trust between the police, city government and the community to begin.

It's not just Baltimore either, the country needs closure in this case too.

Remember, Freddie Gray was an unarmed citizen who was never actually charged with any kind of legal infraction or crime.

Plus the attorneys for the six BPD officers had already delayed these trials with frivolous efforts to move the trials out of Baltimore based on the shaky claim that their defendants couldn't receive a fair trial in Baltimore due to the publicity generated by the actions of the defendants themselves.

LAPD's finest 

An absurd legal assertion, one based in large part on race, that's often been used by police officers facing trials or charges in order to lessen the likelihood of their being found guilty by trying the case in front of a "more sympathetic jury."

The change of venue was successfully used back in 1992 in Los Angles to move the trials of LAPD officers Laurence Powell, Stacy Koon, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind (pictured left), who were charged with the severe beating of motorist Rodney King, from LA where the beating occurred, to the predominantly white community of Ventura County; where their acquittal set off some of the most horrific riots in U.S. history.

Powell and Koon later faced trial in federal court on charges that they violated Rodney King's civil rights and we found guilty in a trial that was held in the city of Los Angeles.

But at least they actually faced a trial.

As was widely reported earlier today, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara issued a statement that federal prosecutors would not seek criminal charges against NYPD officer Richard Haste in the 2012 shooting death of  unarmed black teenager Ramarley Graham.

According to Bharara's statement as reported in the New York Times, NYPD officers from the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit of the 47th Precinct became suspicious of the 18-year-old Graham as he was walking near a bodega in the Bronx because of the way he adjusted his pants.

They followed the teen to his home in the Bronx, and pulled up to the door as he was going inside; he saw the cops and slammed the door.

NYPD officer Richard Haste

The officers forced their way inside and officer Haste confronted Graham in the hallway of the house with his gun drawn and demanded the teen put his hands up.

The scared teen ran into a bathroom and Haste, claiming he felt fear that the teen had a gun, fired a single shot into the bathroom killing Graham.

Graham didn't have a gun, but there was a bag of weed in the toilet he'd desperately tried to flush.

The teenager's grandmother and six-year-old brother were both inside the house when the shooting occurred.

Today on NPR I listened to an interview with Ramarley Graham's mother Constance Malcom as she reacted to the news that no charges would be filed against the police officer who killed her unarmed son.

It wasn't easy to listen to.

She understands that her son died not because her son had a gun, he died because a police officer says he thought her son had a gun - and that thought, that erroneous belief based on fear, is enough for him not to face any legal consequences for taking the life of a teenager who was running from the cops because he had a bag of weed on him.

As far too many cases have taught us, that's a scenario that's played out far too often in this country; the things an officer fears, be it true or not, grants an almost limitless legal discrepancy for violent, even deadly behavior.

This decision not to file charges against Richard Haste illustrates the importance of the decision of the Maryland Appeals Court today to compel William Porter to testify in the trials of the officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray.

It's an important legal point sure, but the larger point, and more importantly the message it sends, is a judicial system saying that legal technicalities, or comparatively obscure points of law cannot be more important than members of law enforcement taking responsibility for taking the life of a person who was unarmed and not committing a crime.

During the interview earlier, Ms. Malcom had some pretty choice words for the NYPD Police Commissioner and the NYPD's police culture - she called the decision not to file charges against her son "a slap in the face".

Her words were a haunting echo felt by many around the nation and the world:

"Time and time again, you see it over and over, this officer walks free, they get a pay raise, they get a promotion and nothing has been done to them. This is sending the wrong message. Even in your own home you're not safe anymore."