ABC Changes the Channel on Roseanne

Roseanne Barr posing for the 2009 "German" issue
of the now-defunct satirical Jewish magazine Heeb

In some parts of America, there will inevitably be some individuals who view ABC's decision to cancel the successful reboot of Roseanne Barr's 1/2 hour sitcom this morning as an example of "the liberal media" trying to silence the voice of the pro-Trump conservative perspective.

I am not one of those people.

Roseanne's bizarre decision to wake up this morning and use Twitter to compare President Obama's former African-American senior advisor Valerie Jarret to an ape belongs to her, and her alone.

Roseanne is a big girl and while she's always taken a peculiar, juvenile pleasure in basking in the afterglow of the shock value of her frequently-controversial public opinions (like posing as Hitler taking people-shaped cookies out of an oven for a magazine article in 2009), she isn't stupid.

She understood exactly what the historical racial connotations of comparing an African-American to an ape were when she tweeted "Muslim brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby = VJ" earlier this morning.

While there's absolutely nothing about those words that strike me as even remotely funny, and it's her right to say or write that if she wants to, no one made Roseanne say it, and no one made her do it.

Like her now-cancelled sitcom, it's her show, she owns it.

And she's quickly reaped the harvest of the offensive seeds she's sewn by pandering to the lunatic fringe of American conservatives who idolize the incompetent con-man-slash-failed businessman-turned reality show star who now occupies the White House.

ABC Entertainment Group Pres. Channing Dungey

Disney, the family-themed media behemoth and parent company of ABC, dispatched newly-tapped ABC Entertainment Group President Channing Dungey (pictured left) to drop Roseanne's show like a bad habit within hours of the toxic tweet going public.

Her statement this morning left little confusion about what ABC brass thought about the face of one of the networks most-watched shows in 2018 using her platform to spout the kind of racist nonsense that 45 has used to try and divide the nation:

"Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."

Disney / ABC wasn't the only organization that scrambled to disassociate their brands with Roseanne either.

Her LA-based talent agency ICM quickly dropped her as a client.

On the same day that Starbucks closed 8,000 coffee shops across the U.S. in order to conduct racial sensitivity training for its 175,000 employees in response to a since-fired white manager who called the police to arrest two African-American customers waiting for a third person to arrive back in April, other media companies responded quickly to Roseanne's tweet as well.

As the Hollywood Reporter noted earlier this afternoon, Disney's content and programming rival Paramount announced that they will pull planned reruns of the Roseanne reboot from the schedules of three of its Viacom channels; TV Land, Paramount Network and CMT.

Streaming giant Hulu also announced reruns of the show will be pulled from their content list; so in terms of residual payments from the broadcasting of reruns, Roseanne cost herself and the leading members of her cast millions of dollars.

African-American comedienne Wanda Sykes, who served as a writer and consulting producer on the first season of the Roseanne reboot also announced she would not return.

Former Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett

Now at this point there's little need to tune in to watch the conservative talking heads on Fox News complain about whiny "snowflakes" or how political correctness is ruining America.

By now the usual suspects of extremist, right-wing media like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are likely raging to their audience that Roseanne being blacklisted by Hollywood within the space of a day is some kind of anti-Trump conspiracy theory.

After all, it was only two months ago back on March 29th that a gloating Trump told a live audience about the rebooted Roseanne show:

"Look at Roseanne's ratings they were unbelievable, over 18 million people and it was about us!"

Let's also just remember who the woman Roseanne Barr compared to an ape is.

Valerie Jarrett (pictured above) was born in Iran to an African-American father, James E. Bowman, who was a geneticist and pathologist who ran a hospital for Iranian children in 1956 during the reign of the former Shah of Iran.

Her mother (who is 1/4 African-American) Barbra T. Bowman was a prominent child education advocate, professor and author who co-founded the Erikson Institute.

Valerie Jarrett with the Obamas in happier times

Jarret spoke English, French and Farsi as a child, earned her B.A. from Stanford and her law degree from the University of Michigan.

She worked for former Chicago Mayors Harold Washington and Richard Daley, was chairwoman of the Chicago Transit Board and later served as the CEO of a real estate management company - she's also served on the board of trustees of several high-profile organizations including the University of Chicago Medial Center and the University of Chicago.   

That was before serving as a senior advisor to a sitting president of the United States.

So in this age of #MeToo and the repercussions of Harvey Weinstein's treatment of women, Roseanne's decision to compare Jarrett to an ape says less about Jarrett than it does about Roseanne's desire to pander to the base-level ignorance and bigotry of the same extremist right-wingers to whom she retweeted about the widely-discredited Pizzagate conspiracy.

In the past, when she was a media behemoth and one of the biggest stars on television, some of Roseanne's controversial public statements generated negative publicity that her fame, power and money insulated her against.

She's notorious (and on the record for saying) that she doesn't care what people think.

But in this age of social media and the 24/7 news cycle, Roseanne finally jumped the shark - and with midterm elections just six months away, brand-conscious major media organizations want nothing to do with that in the age of Trump.

ABC's decision to cancel her show is a reflection of how fed up most Americans are with the moronic bigotry, ignorant prejudice and baseless conspiracy theories that Trump just can't seem to shut up about.

It was Roseanne's decision to peddle that kind of nonsense, and pander to that kind of thinking; whether it's her promoting quack theories like calling 911 "an inside job", or calling Israel a "Nazi state", she's been spouting that quasi-delusional crap for years.

Today it caught up with her, people have had enough - and I'm hoping that's a reflection of how Americans will vote at the polls this November.

Unfortunately for the many hardworking people who work behind the scenes on Roseanne who will now lose their jobs, their boss' delight in appealing to the lowest common denominator has had consequences that extend far beyond Roseanne's now-deleted Twitter account.

Roseanne chose to use her lofty public platform to weigh in on politics (unfortunately it was the politics of the absurd) and within a day, the mainstream media changed the channel.

Manhandled In Milwaukee

Video stills of Sterling Brown being tasered and
handcuffed after parking in a handicap space

Granted, the cell phone video footage of a Wildwood, New Jersey police officer punching 20-year-old Emily Weinman in the head after a confrontation over underage drinking on Saturday is pretty messed up.

But have you seen the Milwaukee Police Department's body cam footage of police officers getting into an unnecessarily physical confrontation with 23-year-old African-American Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown over a simple parking violation back on January 26th?

If not, click the 'body cam footage' link directly above and listen to the tone and words of the officer's initial contact with the young man.

And remember, it's because his vehicle was illegally parked in a handicap parking space in front of a Walgreen's at 2am in the morning.

Now obviously I can't speak to what everyone might think about a black guy getting thrown to the ground, tasered, handcuffed and taken to jail for a parking violation.

But I'm guessing that most people would agree that parking in a handicapped parking space when you're not legally handicapped is inconsiderate and warrants a ticket - or maybe just a verbal warning if the driver's record is otherwise clean.

After listening to how Milwaukee PD officer Joseph Grams consistently and intentionally attempted to provoke a confrontation with a young man who appears and sounds calm, respectful and remarkably patient throughout the encounter, I was really taken aback by the unprofessionalism and over-inflated ego demonstrated by the individual with the badge and gun.

The Milwaukee Walgreens where Sterling Brown
was tasered and handcuffed on January 26th 

Instead of simply writing the guy a ticket, Grams tries to engage in some kind of weird, openly-hostile mind-game with Brown, sounding less like a law enforcement professional addressing a parking violation than a cocky, sarcastic, hot-head aching for a chance to flex his authority and kick someone's ass.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Grams is a former Army Ranger with three years with the MPD, so one would assume he could handle writing a parking ticket on his own.

But no, he called for backup, prompting six (six!) other MPD vehicles to show up to confront one unarmed man in the parking lot of Walgreens in a downtown Milwaukee (pictured above).

Leaving Sterling Brown surrounded by eight MPD officers, two of whom curse at him even though he was never disrespectful to them or raised his voice.

The encounter really went south after one of the officers yelled at Brown to get his hands out of his pockets even though he'd been standing there fairly calmly on a January night.

As if someone keeping their hands inside their coat pockets on a January night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is "suspicious", "threatening" and made the officers "fear for their personal safety" - (we all know the magic words by now right?)

Part of what's troubling about the encounter is that despite the fact that Sterling Brown remains calm, still and respectful throughout the encounter, there's a disturbing sense that the MPD officers wanted the encounter to end with a physical confrontation.

When Grams' efforts to verbally provoke Brown into doing something that would warrant the use of excessive physical force fail, the officers throw Brown to the ground, shock him with a taser, handcuff him and take him to Milwaukee County Jail.

It's almost as if Grams was somehow less frustrated over the parking violation than over the fact that he wasn't able to get a rise out of Brown.

Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales

As if all that wasn't enough, after the encounter is over, Grams can then be heard in the body cam video footage flagrantly lying to what appears to be a more senior officer about Brown.

Grams complains about Brown "getting in my face", when the police body cam footage clearly shows that Brown did no such thing.

Now to be fair, there were at least some repercussions for the officers involved.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, on Thursday new MPD Police Chief Afonso Morales did suspend Grams for two days, and two MPD sergeants who later arrived at the scene, Jeffrey S. Kreuger, Sean A. Mahnke, were also suspended 10 and 15 days for their role in escalating the situation.

But while the suspensions do demonstrate that the MPD held the officers responsible for what Milwaukee Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton called "a very public and embarrassing incident", this incident happened back on January 26th - six days after Trump's inauguration. 

Given that the MPD and other city officials have known what was on that officer's body cam footage for three months, why weren't the officers suspended back in January or February?

It's also fair to ask whether the suspensions were simply a response to the growing public outrage over the video showing how Joseph Grams and the other MPD officers handled this incident and treated Sterling Brown.

What if the video had never been made public at all?

Derek Williams died handcuffed in the back
of a Milwaukee PD cruiser on July 6, 2011

What if the truth of what actually happened that night had remained concealed behind the Blue Wall of Silence?

Would any of the three officers faced disciplinary action for their conduct?

This incident sheds light on why the Milwaukee Police Department has had such a troubled relationship with the local African-American community since the 1950's.

It puts additional pressure on the MPD as well, as it's new Police Chief Alfonso Morales was sworn in just four months ago in part, to improve the condition of relations between the department and some members of the local community.

Former Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn resigned back in February, in part, over frustrations expressed by local politicians and members of the local community over his handling of a series of controversial killings of civilians by MPD officers.

Many recall Staten Island resident Eric Garner's desperate videotaped pleas of "I cant breathe!" as still-employed NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in an illegal choke hold before Garner died, shocking the world in 2014. 

But three years before that on July 6, 2011, a 22-year-old man named Derek Williams (pictured above) also complained to police that he couldn't breathe after being arrested by Milwaukee PD officers Richard Ticcioni and Patrick Coe on suspicion of robbery.

After a brief chase and a struggle, one of the two officers drove his knee into Williams back to subdue him, and he was handcuffed and placed in the back of an MPD cruiser - where he spent 10 minutes telling officers that he was having trouble breathing.

Former Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn

Footage from a camera inside the squad car where he was handcuffed showed Williams desperately telling an officer, "Sir, I can't breathe!" 

As the officers at the scene ignored him, he insisted, "Believe me!" and "I want an ambulance!" 

The MPD officer's response to Williams?

"You're just playing games." 

According to court records, officer Ticcioni kept his weight on Williams' back even after he'd been handcuffed.

Williams, who'd been found curled up in a ball hiding under a table in a backyard, had complained to officers Ticcioni and Coe that he was having difficulty breathing from the time he was handcuffed.

He also lost consciousness and his body went limp several times as the officers tried to drag him back to the squad car; sworn witnesses testified hearing Williams complaining about not being able to breathe and officers responding to him to "Shut up."

Williams eventually died inside the back of the squad car at 1:41am, and both the Milwaukee PD and District Attorney subsequently cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.

That was after an autopsy report listed the cause of Williams' death as a "sickle cell crisis" (really). 

As Steven Yaccino reported for the New York Times in October, 2012:

"While Mr. Williams carried the sickle cell trait, he did not have the disease. Dr. Lanetta B. Jordan of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America said people who were only carriers, like Mr. Williams, could not die from sickle cell crisis."   

MPD officers Jason Bleichwel, Richard Ticcioni and
Jeffrey Cline faced no discipline for Willams' death

The same autopsy showed that Willams had a fractured hyoid bone in his neck.

Which possibly resulted from one of the two MPD officers driving their knee into Williams' back during the arrest.

Regardless, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner Dr. Brian L. Peterson insisted that sickle cell crisis was the cause of death.

Though he later changed the manner of death to homicide.

The decision to label Williams death a homicide prompted a second internal investigation of the incident by the MPD, as well as an FBI investigation to determine whether a "pattern and practice" of abuse existed within the department.

In August, 2017, a federal judge ruled that officers Ticcioni, Coe, Jason Bleichwel, Jeffrey Cline and several other MPD officers who'd been at the scene of the arrest in 2011 and all were named in a lawsuit filed against the MPD by Williams' family, would have to face trial.

Williams' death was far from the only controversial killing of a civilian by the Milwaukee PD.

On April 30, 2015, three years after the death of Derek Williams in the back of an MPD squad car, two Milwaukee PD officers responded to a call at Red Arrow Park of a man sleeping.

Dontre Hamilton (left) was fatally shot fourteen times
by former MPD officer Christopher Manney in 2014

They found 31-year-old Dontre Hamilton (pictured left) sleeping in the park, because he was doing nothing wrong or illegal, they left him there after checking on him twice.

As a Wikipedia summary of the incident details, former MPD officer Christopher Manney (pictured left) later came upon Hamilton sleeping and without knowing that two of his fellow officers had already checked on him, began patting the man down.


Hamilton, who was a diagnosed schizophrenic but had no history of violence, awoke and became startled and a physical struggle ensued that ended with Manney firing fourteen shots at Hamilton, killing him.

The investigations that followed the incident had a ring that's now all-too-familiar in America.

As Wikipedia noted, a subsequent investigation of the incident conducted by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation - but it was lead by two former Milwaukee PD officers.

And a separate investigation conducted by the Milwaukee County DA's office determined that Christopher Manney had acted in self defense, so he was never prosecuted for firing the fourteen shots that killed Dontre Hamilton. 

An FBI investigation closed in 2014 after concluding that there was insufficient evidence for the Department of Justice to pursue federal charges against Manney.

Manney was fired from the MPD but was never held legally responsible for Hamilton's death.

Michael Bell, 21, shot and killed by police
in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2004 

Two years later, on August 23, 2016 protests and riots erupted in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee after as MPD officer shot and killed 23-year-old Sylvie Smith.

The shooting came after Smith fled on foot after a traffic stop.

The officer, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, had 16 separate "use of force" incidents on his record and was himself arrested and charged with sexual assault just two days after fatally shooting Smith.

Despite that, as CNN reported, Heaggan-Brown was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide on June 21, 2017.

That was just six days after former Minnesota PD officer Jeronimo Yanez was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter after he fatally shot elementary school cafeteria manger Philando Castile in 2016.

These kinds of blatant excessive use of force incidents against unarmed civilians aren't just limited to the Milwaukee PD either - in 2004, 21-year-old Michael Bell (pictured above) was unarmed when he was shot and killed in front of his own house in Kenosha, Wisconsin (about an hour outside Milwaukee) while his mother and sister watched in horror from inside.

As NPR reported back in 2014, Bell had been followed home by a Kenosha PD officer who confronted Bell on the lawn of his home after suspecting him of driving under the influence.

A confrontation ensued, and one of the officers mistakenly shouted out that Bell had grabbed his gun and one of the officers fired a fatal shot into Bell's head at point blank range - killing him.

It was later discovered that the officer had gotten his gun holster hooked on the mirror of his police vehicle, both Bell's mother and sister who witnessed the shooting claimed Bell had never attempted to grab the officer's weapon - and Bell's fingerprints were never found on the officer's gun or holster.

After Kenosha police cleared the officer after a 3-day internal investigation conducted without speaking with eyewitnesses, or before crime lab reports had even been completed, the state of Wisconsin changed the laws so that outside agencies must conduct investigations into fatal police shootings.

 One of the billboards Michael Bell's family has
put up in Wisconsin seeking justice for their son

Not that that has done the families of Derek Williams, Dontre Hamilton, Sylvie Smith or Michael Bell much good.

This was just a brief snapshot of a Milwaukee Police Department that has harbored a culture of racial bias, as well as a culture where the unjustified use of excessive or deadly force by MPD officers has been tolerated for years - as have racial disparities in traffic stops in Milwaukee.

So Sterling Brown's being thrown to the ground, tasered, handcuffed and taken to jail because he parked illegally in front of a Walgreens last January isn't some kind of anomaly or error in judgement. 

It's part of a pattern that has allowed MPD officers to take the dignity and lives of unarmed people without justification or reason - aided by a state and local judicial system that consistently fails to hold officers legally accountable for their actions, even when they're in the wrong.

So as disturbing as it is to watch the MPD body cam footage of officer Joseph Grams flagrant unprofessionalism, I hold him less accountable than I do the system that authorizes him to act that way with citizens in the first place.

Whatever he's doing on that tape, it's not serving or protecting.

And now that MPD officers have been caught on tape behaving that way towards an NBA player with the financial resources, name recognition and celebrity to sue the department for their actions, maybe it will serve as an impetus for new MPD Chief Alfonso Morales to fulfill his pledge to change the culture inside the department.

Changes that will come too late for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Derek Williams, Sylvie Smiths, Dontre Hamiltons, Michael Bells and Sterling Browns who've been unfairly and illegally manhandled by the Milwaukee PD over the decades.

People whose treatment was never caught on video.

American citizens without the name recognition, financial means, social status or education to have their stories come to light in a society with a two-tier justice system which only seems interested in their silence.

BBQ Becky: Trumpification Gone Loco

Jennifer Schulte AKA "BBQ Becky" calls police 
on two California men for "BBQing While Black"

To glimpse an example of defiant unity in the face of the toxic divisiveness of the Trump era, look no further than Oakland, California.

Arguably one of the more innovative and positive responses to the petty, garden-variety bigotry which has blossomed in different parts of America in this second spring of the Trump administration, the "BBQing While Black" picnic was held in Oakland, California on Sunday.

As Laura Holson reported on Monday for the New York Times, hundreds of people came out to a picturesque section of park next to Lake Merritt in support of two black men who were quietly minding their own business enjoying a modest cookout on a sunny Sunday in April when "BBQ Becky" showed up and totally freaked out. 

The hundreds of folks who showed up last Sunday had an old-school American-style cookout complete with food, drinks, music and dancing - and in doing so made the not-so-subtle point that all people, including people of color, have the right to be in the park in Oakland.

Now the person who sparked this business a month ago, Dr. Jennifer Schulte, is a bit of an enigma.

If you read her biography, she would seem to be a highly-educated individual steeped in science who specializes in "air quality and climate change" and has a Ph.D. in philosophy with a focus on chemical engineering from Stanford University.

Kind of makes her sound like a progressive-leaning liberal on paper.

(FYI - Stanford was quick to distance themselves from her but acknowledged she is a graduate...)

But if you take a few minutes to watch some of the highlights of the video (caught on cell phone) of her strange and loopy public confrontation back on Sunday April 29th (which has been viewed millions of times on Youtube), she almost seems the polar opposite of highly-educated.

In fact, in the video she comes off as obstinate, ignorant, uninformed, remarkably self-righteous and unabashedly racist.

"BBQ Becky"in Ph.D. mode

Dr. Jennifer Schulte, or "BBQ Becky" - which is the real person? Or are they in fact, one in the same?

She approached two African-American men in a public park setting up for a BBQ in broad daylight and began confronting them about BBQing with a charcoal grill.

The afore-mentioned biography says that Dr. Schulte is "a recognized expert in the fields of air quality, emission estimation, air dispersion modeling" etc.

So was she viewing the use of a single charcoal grill in a public park from the perspective of a scientist concerned about the impact on air quality?

Or did she confront the two men about their cookout and call the police because of some kind of conscious or unconscious ethnic or racial bias on her part?

The woman in the video directly questions Schulte about why she's so concerned about two guys having a BBQ.

Schulte's answer is odd to say the least.

"Because it causes extra money from our city to do things when children get injured because of improperly disposable..." (that's what she said, watch the video.)

The clearly-flustered BBQ Becky kinda trails off after that completely nonsensical explanation, almost as if she knows it sounds like the total bullshit it is.

Becky is on her cell phone throughout the video and at some point as she's speaking with a police dispatcher (who must've been incredibly annoyed), she says's she's been waiting on the phone for two hours. Two hours.

Because two black guys are grilling food in a public park where it's permissible to do so.

So think about that, this woman confronted two men she doesn't know minding their own business, harasses them at some point, and then is on the phone with the police for over two hours trying to get an officer to drive out there and stop them from BBQing?

By the time Becky starts having a meltdown and whimpering like a traumatized child (falsely telling the police that she's being grabbed and followed even though SHE is wandering around the two men's BBQ area) and retreating into this weird kind of victim-act, it's pretty evident that something else is going on there.

Not something scientific, but something psychological.

My initial reaction seeing the video was (to borrow a phrase from writer Stephen King) to dismiss Becky as being "as crazy as a shit-house rat", but it's much more than that.

Many have characterized her actions as being a product of the white gentrification of the local Oakland community that has driven many long-time African-American residents out of the area due to skyrocketing rents in nearby San Francisco.

Personally I think Schulte's actions are rooted in something deeper, darker and much more sinister in the "primordial-American" sense.

Susan Smith's 1994 arrest photo

Remember Susan Smith?

She was the white mother from South Carolina who locked her two sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander inside her vehicle on October 25, 1994 then intentionally let it roll into John D. Long lake.

The vehicle was submerged under water 120-feet from the shore of the lake and both boys drowned inside as she watched.

Smith initially told police that a black man had carjacked the vehicle at an intersection and driven off  and abducted the two boys.

Her hysterical pleas for their safe return were all over national television news for over a week.

She later admitted drowning the two boys because of her desire to initiate a relationship with a wealthy local older man and she apparently didn't want her "fling" to be encumbered by the two lives she'd brought into the world.

One of the things that always fascinated me about this story was that Smith's very first instinct was to try and cover up her heinous crime by claiming that a black man did it.

While it was later revealed that local investigators were skeptical of her story from the start, for more than a week that racist narrative played out on national television.

For those who may be too young to remember, when Smith murdered her two sons in the fall of 1994, this was at a time when parts of urban inner cities had been decimated by a brutal combination of high unemployment, underfunded schools, the crack-cocaine epidemic, a flood of readily-available firearms and rising youth gang violence resulting (in part) by the lack of economic opportunities.

Ashley Williams confronting Hillary Clinton with her
own words during a 2016 campaign event 

In 1994 President Bill Clinton was working across the aisle with Congressional Republicans to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that incorporated "three strikes" laws which sparked a massive surge in mass incarceration in federal and state prisons across the country.

This was just two years before then-First Lady Hillary Clinton gave her infamous speech at Keene State College in New Hampshire when she used the term "Super Predators" for the first time.

Which was in essence, a code-word for young men of color.

At a private fund raising event in Charleston, South Carolina in February 2016, then-23-year-old activist Ashley Williams (pictured above) famously confronted then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with the cryptic words she used during that 1996 speech in New Hampshire.

So it shouldn't be surprising that Susan Smith understood how to leverage the vilification of African-American men propagated by the media, opportunistic politicians and advocates of the multi-billion dollar prison industry that channels profits from mass incarceration.

And for a short time in the fall of 1994, she bilked sympathetic people and wasted public resources using the police to chase a racist phantom she created to conceal her own crimes.

That's not new in America, and Susan Smith didn't invent it - nor did Jennifer Schulte.

One of the many hysterical photoshopped memes
of "BBQ Becky" circulating on social media

But in my view, that's what lies at the root of "BBQ Becky" standing by a small group of black folks grilling some food, harassing them and sitting on her cell phone for two hours trying to get the police to respond to her own racist phantom.

Conjured up from a place deep inside her own mind where two African-American men grilling some food in a public park becomes some kind of menace to public safety.

For those who view Donald Trump's election to the Oval Office as a titanic step backwards for the evolution of American society, it's hard to forget November 8, 2016.

It's almost as if a swath of the U.S. population suddenly felt empowered or liberated to openly express the most debased kinds of toxic hatred and bigotry against anyone they view as "other".

Sometimes for no reason at all.

16 months into Trump's tenure in office, the kind of divisive racism and irrational anti-immigrant hysteria and vilification that fueled his campaign has clearly manifested inside the minds of some Americans in some truly repugnant and ignorant ways.

Back on April 12th, a white female Starbucks manager called the police because two African-American men were "Waiting While Black" for a third man to join them for a business meeting before placing an order.

On the hallowed grounds of Yale University a white Ph.D. student named Sarah Braasch called campus police when she saw African-American female grad student Lolade Siyonbola "Napping While Black" in the common area of the dorm in which she lives on May 8th.

Back on May 5th, a white woman called police after real estate investor Michael Hayes showed up to inspect a house next door before renovation repairs were scheduled to begin in Memphis, Tennessee.

52% of white women voted for Trump in 2016 so I guess this moronic hysteria shouldn't be a shocker, but now we have "BBQ Becky" freaking out in Oakland over two guys "Grilling While Black".

It's unsettling to watch this rise in incidents of white people calling the cops on black people for doing nothing, and at some point, members of law enforcement are going to have to step up and start enforcing some kind of legal ramifications for those who clog police dispatch lines with this kind of childish nonsense.

There are laws against pulling a fire alarm in a building when there's no fire or emergency - there ought to be laws against calling the police on people for doing nothing.

It's Trumpification gone loco - and it's definitely not Making America Great Again.

Self-Reflection & The Walk-Back

Brett Ratner, Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman

Back in November of 2017, as a growing number of well-known entertainment industry figures were publicly revealed to have engaged in serious acts of sexual harassment or worse, journalists Tatiana Siegel and Ashley Cullins wrote an article in The Hollywood Reporter about the slew of actors, directors, producers, agents and entertainment industry execs quietly contacting PR agencies and lawyers.

Not in reaction to having been publicly outed for inappropriate or illegal behavior.

But out of fear that a past incident, or some behavior that they engaged in back in the past might possibly expose them to the kind of legal action or unwanted negative media publicity that has torpedoed the careers and reputations of men like director / producer Brett Ratner, and actors Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman (pictured above).

In my view, justice for victims of sexual harassment or assault, discouraging / preventing such behavior from taking place, and holding perpetrators accountable for their actions lies at the heart of the #MeToo movement - as does the chance for victims to begin to heal from past emotional, psychological or physical trauma.

But one of the most fascinating aspects of this emerging era of #MeToo is the almost unprecedented amount of self-reflection that it has sparked on the part of perpetrators and victims alike.

As the well-known Los Angeles attorney and former LA County public defender Shawn Holley observed in the above-mentioned Hollywood Reporter article:

Hollywood attorney Shawn Holley (right) in court
with her former client, actress Lindsey Lohan  

"Almost all of the women I've spoken with are still trying to figure out what, if anything they want to do. 

The men have usually received some correspondence from someone with whom they haven't spoken in many, many, many, many years. The men maintain their innocence but are understandably fearful of what might happen in this charged climate."

Is it just the fear of being exposed that has driven some men to reflect back upon their behavior in the past?

Clearly some men in positions of power or influence are terrified of the loss of power, wealth and status that come with an irreparably-damaged public reputation.

Especially in this era of social media when stories or accusations can become fodder for the 24/7 global media news cycle in minutes.

Just look at the ex-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (pictured below).

Last week he literally resigned his office just hours after a New Yorker article was published that detailed disturbing accusations of his physical abuse of at least four women who went on record.

Ex-NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

And this closet misogynist had the gall to present himself publicly as staunch advocate for women who'd been sexually harassed, abused or assaulted.

If you haven't read the New Yorker article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, it contains some pretty horrifying accusations about repeated instances when he intentionally slapped women.

And it certainly didn't sound like Schneiderman's conscience was exactly troubled any more than Harvey Weinstein's was; and both men seemed more troubled about the damage to their careers than they were about the women they abused.

All these highly-publicized cases have made clear that this is (and has been) a problem that's far more extensive and pervasive throughout the layers of our society than has been commonly known or openly acknowledged.

As an African-American, I'm certainly familiar with the concept and reality of institutionalized racism.

But as a man, I confess that until the flood of revelations that came out in what's being called the "post-Harvey Weinstein era", I wasn't aware that institutionalized sexism existed as well.

I mean I understood the history of the struggle for American women to gain the vote, to achieve financial independence and the years-long efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment - the struggle for pay equity is still going on.

As a film buff, I certainly understood the kind of harassment (and worse) that's often reduced to the simplistic and sanitized term "the casting couch".

But I simply didn't fully comprehend the degree to which that kind of behavior extended to other industries and workplaces where women were subjected to that kind of degrading behavior.

MGM head Louis B. Mayer looms over actress
Judy Garland as actor Mickey Rooney looks on

If you're interested, check out Thelma Adams' Variety article about the troubling history of sexual harassment in Hollywood, including anecdotes about former MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer groping the teenaged Judy Garland and holding meetings while he had her sit on his lap.

Or director Alfred Hitchcock's notorious obsession with actress Tippi Hedren (the mother of actress Melanie Griffith), arguably as creepy as any of his films.

It's simply not enough for men or boys to say "I didn't know", or "I had no idea".

I think there's a broader need or mandate for all men to understand how deeply rooted this is in our culture - and to understand how it affected our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, cousins, nieces, co-workers, classmates and friends.

No matter how uncomfortable or awkward that conversation may be.

Like a lot of men I've found myself looking back on my life trying to reexamine incidents that I witnessed or things I heard or said that might be considered sexist or inappropriate to women.

To be clear, in no way am I personally concerned that "the past might catch up with me", my parents raised me to respect women and to treat them fairly and equally - and I always have.

I learned that from my father who went out of his way to promote qualified women in the 1970's and 1980's during his career with the Boy Scouts of America when other executives of his stature and level weren't doing that.

"Old Main" on the campus of Penn State University

One of the things I've come to understand is that sexual harassment isn't always the kind of extreme behavior typified by men like Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby.

It can also be things that might seem small or harmless on the surface, but are none-the-less offensive and possibly traumatizing to those who are subject to it.

The other day I found myself thinking back to my college years at Penn State University.

Specifically I remember when some of my friends (and at times, me) would call girls out publicly for what was often called the "walk of shame" - when we'd see girls walking back towards the dorms in the morning dressed up in evening clothes from the night before.

As football players, we were required to check in for breakfast at training table every morning, regardless of the time of year - so even after a long night out in the bars or at frats we still had to get out of bed and get over to training table and check in or we'd get ripped a new asshole by former head coach Joe Paterno.

The purpose of this essay is not to weigh and analyze the implications of the Jerry Sandusky abuse scandal - but suffice to say, if you were a football player, you did NOT miss breakfast.

So even if you just walked in the door, signed your name (and there was a guy sitting by the door with a clipboard who did that each morning) and walked right out, you had to get up and go.

Students walking across the PSU campus

A few of us would often drive over to breakfast together, so on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the off-season when we'd be driving around the campus of Penn State sometimes we'd spot a girl walking home from the direction of where a number of frat houses were located on the western side of campus, clearly wearing the clothes she'd worn the night before.

Like sometimes she'd be carrying her heels if the weather was warm, that kind of thing.


Sometimes one of us would roll down the window and yell "Walk of shame!" as we drove past the poor girl, sometimes we'd all chant it loudly and laugh.

At the time, it seemed innocent enough college-type buffoonery, but in retrospect I feel like it was unnecessarily cruel, judgmental and disrespectful.

We were making a completely arbitrary, superficial and unjustified assumption that because we saw a young woman walking home in clothes from the night before that she'd "hooked up" or had sex with someone.

We were judging her unfairly.

Maybe she'd stayed up late watching a movie, ate some late-night pizza with friends, or stayed up talking about life and just decided to crash because it was late.

Even if she had had sex, we had no right to act that way and reinforce antiquated ideas of needing to publicly "shame" women for expressing their sexuality in ways that are perfectly natural.

What business was it of ours?

A young woman reacts to guys yelling out
"Walk of shame" on a college campus

This kind of thing wasn't something that we did everyday, but it happened more than once and I'm guilty of taking part in it more than once and I feel ashamed of that now - my age was not an excuse.

When I try and put myself in the shoes of the girl who may have been simply walking home across campus in the morning from an evening formal, or spending the night with her boyfriend or girlfriend and to have a group of obnoxious guys drive by yelling or chanting "Walk of shame!" as they drove past in a car?

That's harassment plain and simple.

Even if there was no physical contact or anything, treating a stranger like that was boorish, bullying behavior and looking back and reflecting on all that's been revealed since the Harvey Weinstein story broke, I genuinely feel bad about taking part in that kind of thing.

To be clear, guys calling young women out for the "Walk of shame" isn't limited to the campus of Penn State University either - it's a global thing.

And seriously, if I knew a way to contact any of the women who were subjected to that, I would write and apologize - but as I've come to learn, you can't just walk that behavior back.

In recent weeks I've watched as Donald Trump went from denying having an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels, to admitting that he compensated his former "fixer" Michael Cohen $100,000 for the $130,00 payment Cohen made to her days before the November 2016 presidential elections in order to buy her silence about the affair - part of which took place while Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Baron.

You can't just walk that kind of behavior or those choices back - and those choices stay with you.

Not just for men in high profile positions, but for average guys whose names may never make the evening news because of choices they once made.

Like morally judging a young woman simply for walking back home on the campus of an institution of higher learning.

Self-reflection has helped me to understand why that was wrong, but it doesn't change how I or my friends made someone we didn't know feel - it's not something I'd contact a lawyer or PR firm about.

But it's something that I can never walk back.

For $30 Million Trump Exports Chaos To Gaza

One of over 2,700 Palestinian demonstrators injured
by Israeli Defense Forces on Monday

Divisive presidential campaign rhetoric, incessant childish name-calling of various world leaders and the abandonment of basic principles of diplomacy and traditional foreign policy objectives are all defining features of what has passed as Donald Trump's chaotic foreign policy approach.

A chaotic, patchwork philosophy that's alienated America's traditional allies around the globe and destabilized the Trans-Atlantic alliance with Western Europe.

On the rocky road of the presidential campaign trail two years ago, what Trump ironically flouted as his "America First" approach to international relations has steadily eroded the image of the U.S. as the unofficial leader of the Free World in the eyes of many.

So it's difficult to stomach the embattled POTUS' current attempts to portray himself as the clever worldly diplomat ready to pull America from hard-fought international agreements like the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Paris Climate Accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) simply so Trump can flaunt his inexperience and naivete by doing "deals" off the cuff.

In the wake of Israeli Defense Forces killing of at least 60 Palestinian demonstrators who attempted to cross sections of the volatile 32-mile border that separates the Gaza Strip and Israel during mass protests on Monday and Tuesday, Trump's foreign policy has proven to be an unqualified disaster.

It was Trump's widely-criticized decision to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the city of Jerusalem that aggravated the widespread Palestinian protests that have been taking place along various parts of the Gaza border for over a month.

Back on Friday April 6th, Israeli troops opened fire with live ammunition and rubber bullets on a mass demonstration by Palestinians in the city of Khuza'a in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, killing nine protesters and wounding hundreds.

Among those killed that day were 30-year-old Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja (pictured below), who was shot in the stomach despite wearing a blue flak jacket clearly marked "Press" - he later died in the hospital from his wounds.

Mourners carrying the body of Palestinian journalist
Yaser Murtaja, killed in Gaza by Israeli troops in April 

Those demonstrations were known as "The Greart March of Return", a series of planned demonstrations against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in 1948 and the U.S.-backed Israeli economic and political blockade of the Gaza Strip.

A land and naval blockade that has prevented Palestinians from entering or leaving since 2006 when the Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas won legislative elections and the right to govern the region.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.

To put it into perspective, more than 1.85 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, an area that's only about 21 miles long and between about 3.7 to 7.5 miles wide at various points.

The Gaza Strip is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on its western border, Egypt sits on it's southern border, and Israel surrounds the eastern and northern borders where most of the violence that has dominated media coverage for the past two days, has taken place.

Israeli ships, planes, tanks and soldiers enforce a blockade that's been in place since Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005 - the blockade ostensibly prevents Iran from sending military weaponry to Hamas.

But the blockade has also choked off shipments of critical supplies, foreign aid and investment, as well as the freedom to travel in and out of Gaza by the almost two million Palestinians who live in a region where there are almost no jobs or economic or educational opportunities to speak of.

Palestinians behind the Gaza Strip blockade wall 

For example, earlier this morning I listened to a BBC Radio interview with a young Palestinian grad student who said that he's been unable to leave Gaza to complete his graduate studies abroad in a foreign college that offered him a scholarship, because the Israeli blockade prevents him from leaving.

The frustration with Israel and the U.S. inside Gaza that has festered over the past decade was already a focal point for anti-American resentment.


To say nothing of a recruiting tool for radicalized Islamic groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

But Trump's decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem was like pouring gasoline on a fire that's been simmering for almost 70 years - it was a decision that previous U.S. presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, refused to make because of it's impact on the destabilization of the region.

Regional powers in the Mid-East including Saudi Arabia and Turkey also warned the Trump administration against making such a provocative and totally unnecessary move - even though he has no diplomatic experience and doesn't understand the complex history of the region he did it anyway.

Such ill-advised foreign policy decisions have become the hallmark of Trump's presidency, and the deadly results seen on the Gaza Strip border on Monday are hardly surprising given the current White House's attempts to remove scores of experienced, career foreign service officials from their positions.

Bizarre actions typified by Trump's attempts to gut the State Department's budget by a staggering 25% ($13.1 billion) for the fiscal year 2018 after appointing former-Exxon-Mobil executive Rex Tillerson, a man with no political or diplomatic experience, to head up the agency at a critical time for America' standing in an increasingly complex global landscape.

Tillerson (who privately called Trump "a fucking moron") has since become one the 37 former Trump administration officials and employees who've been fired or resigned since their erratic ex-boss took office in January of 2017.

Exporting Nepotism: Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump
at the U.S. embassy opening in Jerusalem on Monday

The "brain trust" that Trump sent to Jerusalem for the ceremony opening the U.S. embassy is a sad reflection of his erratic clown-car approach to foreign relations.

Front and center were Trump's daughter-wife Ivanka and her embattled husband Jared Kushner.

The son-in-law Trump touted as some kind of boy-wonder who's actually accomplished little during his tenure as a "senior White House adviser" aside from accepting almost $500 million in loans from AGM and Citigroup for his family's real estate company.


Loans which were secured only AFTER Kushner met inside the White House with reps from both companies - sparking a federal ethics investigation that is ongoing.

And remember, Kushner is the guy who lied so many times on his federal disclosure forms about meetings he held with foreigners while he was acting as a member of the Trump campaign that his security clearance was revoked - essentially neutering him in terms of the White House power structure.

Look at the picture above.

The fact that Kushner is sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the embassy ceremony would almost be laughable, save for the fact that as the photo was being taken, hundreds of Palestinian protesters were being wounded and over 58 killed less than a hundred miles away.

Given the media reports back in February that a 12-month investigation by Israeli police revealed that Netanyahu had accepted hundreds of thousands in bribes and recommended that he be charged with breach of trust and fraud, in the world of "Trump logic" it's actually not surprising that a right-wing war-hawk with questionable personal finances is sitting next to Jared and Ivanka.

Ivanka takes a selfie as Palestinians
are shot at the Gaza border

Trump himself knew the decision to open the embassy would result in violence that would be widely condemned by the international community (which it was) so he was too chickenshit to bother to show up for the ceremony himself.

Instead he dispatched his disgraced son-in-law and ethically-challenged daughter for a photo op with a corrupt Israeli prime minister who praised IDF forces for gunning down unarmed Palestinian protesters.

And what was Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin doing there anyway? Did Trump just throw him in there to lend the whole affair some credibility?

Check out this People.com article about how Jared and Ivanka are getting ripped on social media for attending the ceremony and celebrating in front of cameras while Palestinians were being slaughtered.

Like Trump's foreign policy, it makes very little sense, but that's of little consequence to a man who continues to foist his unqualified relatives upon the American public in an effort to use the presidency to enrich the finances and influence of his own family.

With the Syrian conflict getting trickier and more violent, about the last thing Palestinians stuck in limbo in the Gaza Strip needed was Trump's chaotic leadership style or the destabilization of the already-fragile Palestinian - Israeli regional conflict by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

But for the $30 million donated by casino magnate and Republican rainmaker Sheldon Adelson to the GOP for the upcoming midterm elections, Trump was willing to do just about anything.

Even if dozens of Palestinians were killed and more than 2,700 wounded.

So much for draining that swamp.

Scouts BSA: It's About Evolution, Not PC

One of Norman Rockwell's many
iconic illustrations of Boy Scouts 

Last week's announcement that the Boy Scouts of America will change their name to Scouts BSA in February of 2019 in accordance with its decision to admit girls as Scouts caught me by surprise.

As a former Boy Scout whose father had a successful 25-plus year career as a BSA executive and rose to the upper echelon of the organization, I experienced some mixed emotions at first.

Growing up in a "Scouting family", I was surrounded by the imagery, symbolism, values, accoutrements and traditions that are so deeply embedded into the Boy Scouts' DNA.

From an early age, the latest issues of Boy's Life, the colorful official magazine for Boy Scouts, were always scattered about the house courtesy of my dad.

More than 110 million Americans have participated in various Scouting programs over the years, so it's a good bet that Boy's Life was the first real magazine experience for many boys.

First published in 1911, Boy's Life has featured the work of a number of iconic artists over the years, including illustrator Norman Rockwell (pictured above), surrealist painter Salvador Dali, photographer Ansel Adams and cartoonist Dik Browne (Hagar the Horrible and Hi and Lois).

Boy's Life has also featured a number of well-known writers over the years including  sci-fi writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Issac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury - and "Roots" and "The Autobiography of Malcom X" author Alex Haley.   

The excitement of coming home from school and seeing the latest issue of Boy's Life in the mail with my name on the address label on the cover had a formative impact on my love of reading, desire to learn and love of magazines - if you could see my kitchen table and living room you'd understand that love of printed magazines has never left me.

Since the BSA was founded one hundred and eight years ago back in 1910, as the name implies, it's core mission has been focused on the development of character through the learning and mastery of a wide range of skills related to nature and the outdoors ("scoutcraft").

Women have served in the Cub Scouts
as Den Mothers since the 1930's

Instilling citizenship, a core of positive values and a sense of community service are also integral parts of the BSA's mission, up until recently that mission focused upon boys and young men.

But women have been integral parts of the BSA for years, and not just as "Scouting Moms" whose role as the crucial support system behind Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop meetings and activities too-often goes unheralded.

In the 20th century, women like LaVern Watts Parmley, Ann W. Nally and Eleanor Parsons Pratt also served integral roles in the expansion of community scouting - which in turn raised the BSA's profile on the national level.

As I learned first-hand when I joined Cub Scouts back in the 3rd grade, women served in volunteer leadership positions as Den Mothers for Cub Scouts, which serves boys (and now girls) ages 6 to 11.

Women also serve as leaders for Boy Scouts which serves boys ages 11 to 18 and also serve as leaders and members of other BSA programs like Explorers (a more career-focused program which was merged into the Venturers program starting in 2001) and Sea Scouts - programs which have allowed co-ed participation for years.

So while it was surprising for me to hear that the BSA would change it's name to Scouts BSA in 2019 and welcome girls as scouts, looking back upon the role women have played as both local volunteers and as executives in the organization, my sense is that the move is a logical one.

A necessary 21st century move whose time was clearly past given that the BSA opened it's ranks to welcome openly gay and transgender scouts in 2015 - and two years later announced that girls would be able to participate in Cub Scouts starting this year.

Sydney Ireland with her older brother Bryan at a
2016 National Organization for Women conference

Since the 1970's a number of different people have lobbied the BSA to allow women to join its ranks.

In 1995 Katrina Yeaw and three other girls attempted to join a Cub Scout pack in California and when their membership application was denied, she took her fight to the California Supreme Court in 1997.

She lost when the justices upheld the BSA's right to establish their own membership criteria, but the proverbial glass was cracked.

Since the age of four, Sydney Ireland (pictured left) has been lobbying to follow her older brother Bryan, an Eagle Scout, to officially join his Manhattan, New York Boy Scout troop.


She's garnered national media attention since 2015 when her Change.org petition began focusing press attention on her campaign - and putting pressure on the BSA to revise it's policy towards allowing girls to be Scouts. 

In August, 2017, Ireland had her op-ed published in the Washington Post, and for anyone who reads her Change.org petition, or her WaPo ope-ed, it's hard to argue against her logic.

She's already been taking part in her brother's BSA Scout troop activities for over a decade, has done the work to earn some tough merit badges (you try doing the Mile Swim, she's done it twice) and wants to pursue her dream of being an Eagle Scout.

Regardless of where you fall on girls being allowed to join the Boy Scouts, you have to admire Sydney Ireland's determination - which helped influence the BSA's decision to begin admitting girls into the Cub Scouts in 2017.

Sadly though, as Camila Domonoske reported for NPR last Wednesday, Ireland will be too old to enter the Scouts program next year when the BSA begins admitting girls.

Scouts BSA: a glimpse of scouting's 2nd century

As someone who participated in Cub Scouts, Webelos and Boy Scouts and had the chance to go spelunking in caves deep under the hills of West Virginia, spend autumn days canoeing rivers in Virginia, or winter camping in snow along the shoreline of eastern Maryland, there's nothing "easy" about being a Scout.

It's an experience that will test you and force you to reach within yourself.

There's something rewarding about that, not just the skills that will last a lifetime.

It's also the internal development of core values and ideals about community, cooperation, citizenship and challenging yourself - things that can't be learned from books.

So if a young person wants to learn those things and have those experiences, by all rights they should have the chance to do so - Sydney Ireland included.

Given the divisive nature of the current occupant of the Oval Office, and his politics of exclusion, discrimination and incessant cultural warfare, there's little doubt that some on the conservative side of the spectrum will view the BSA's decision exclusively as some kind of victory for what some view as the forces of "political correctness."

Unfortunately, in recent years the Boy Scouts have served as something of an ideological battleground for the rightwing conservatives who ignore Trump's myriad flaws because (to them) he represents someone willing to fight the existential threats that unsettle and alarm them.

Ex-Cub Scout Ames Mayfield and his dog

So the average Fox News watcher will view the BSA's decision as further evidence of the collapse of civilized society - and get even angrier than they've been since Obama was elected back in 2008.

The last time I blogged about the Boy Scouts was back in October of 2017 when 11-year-old Cub Scout Ames Mayfield was kicked out of his pack by his den leader.

Why did he get kicked out?

Because he publicly (and politely) confronted conservative Colorado Republican state lawmaker Vicki Marble about her co-sponsoring a bill that would allow domestic violence offenders to own a gun.

Ames' question came about 23 days after the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas so it was entirely justified, but gun lobby supporters in Colorado and other parts of the country were feeling particularly defensive - no doubt they cheered an 11-year-old kid getting booted out of his Cub Scout pack for asking a Republican politician a question.

In July of last year I blogged about the media flap that arose after Trump used an appearance at the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia to repeat more lies about President Obama, and vilify his political enemies while he told a rambling story about being at a party.

The resulting dust-up fired up conservatives who felt Trump had every right to ramble on like a drunken buffoon in front of a crowd of thousands of Boy Scouts - even long-time scouters were divided on the issue.

BSA Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh

I directed some criticism at BSA Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh for what I felt was a rather tepid apology for Trump's reprehensible comments in front of an audience of scouts and scout leaders.

Looking at the decision last week to open the Scouts up to girls, my sense is that Surbaugh and other members of the BSA hierarchy were trying to carefully reaffirm the values of the one hundred and eight-year-old organization - because there's little question their brand (and membership) took a hit after Trump's comments at the Jamboree last summer.

In this age of social media, OTT streaming devices, video games, smart phones and year-round sports for kids ages 6 to 18, the one thing the BSA can scant afford to do is to alienate anyone.

My sense is that the decision to rebrand itself Scouts BSA (kind of a clever take on Scouts USA right?) served a couple purposes.

First, in the age of #MeToo, it affirmed the BSA as an organization that wants to be relevant in the 21st century while still upholding the values at it's core.

Allowing young women to join as scouts shows that the BSA recognizes the importance of the role it can play in ensuring that women have equal access in American society, at a time when that's not always the case in Hollywood and other industries.

In short, the decision shows that the BSA can lead - with some encouragement and nudging from girls like Katrina Yeaw and Sydney Ireland of course.

Second, it opens the gates to increased membership within its ranks by showing the 50% of the U.S. population who do not have a penis that they are wanted, and they are welcomed in the scouting community - at all levels.

Ex-New York AG Eric Schneiderman

That in itself, effectively creates a space between the nonsensical drivel that came out of Trump's mouth at the Boy Scout Jamboree last summer, and the values that have defined the BSA for over a century.

And to the credit of Michel Surbaugh, other BSA executives and the BSA board, the organization has strategically placed itself on the correct side of the road in terms of the #MeToo movement - recognizing that this is a pivotal time in terms of the history of gender equity in America.

A point driven home by the sudden resignation of Eric Schneiderman in the wake of the publishing of the shocking allegations of physical abuse leveled against him in the bombshell New Yorker article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow that was published Tuesday evening.

So there will be those who will criticize the BSA for changing it's name and welcoming girls; and that's their right.

But what some of those inclined to be angered over the BSA brand change fail to understand in my opinion, is that the decision to break down a final barrier and welcome girls isn't about "Political Correctness" as some on Fox and Friends might grumble.

It's about evolution.

And as Darwin observed, better to be on the right side of that particular part of the process of natural order - especially when viewed from the vantage point of future generations.

After all, these days the dinosaur is just a fossil in the ground - the birds are still flying.

By putting the word Scouts in front of BSA, the organization isn't just redefining it's membership - they're demonstrating a desire to adapt and survive well into the 21st century.

And I'm betting there are a lot of boys and girls who'll be the better for it.