To Kill a Mockingbird

I came across the following passage while re-reading one of the great literary classic of our time.

Atticus Finch, while talking to his young son Jem, defends a neighbor who Jem believes is the worst person he knows.  He says the following;

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand (Atticus is talking about himself).  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.  Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her.  According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody.  She was the bravest person I ever knew"

My guess would be that Harper Lee was also foretelling a tribute to Atticus who takes on the defense of a black man accused of a sex crime he did not commit.  He knew the Alabama of the 1930's will find his client guilty simply because a white man accused him.  Hopefully today the verdict would be different.

Some Thoughts for Today

The 2016 fiscal year military budget has been approved by the US Senate by a vote of 91 to 3.  The total amount is $ 607 billion and makes provisions for a pay raise of 1.3 %, a 401(k) style retirement plan and a ban on the closure of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba (which come election time the GOP will blast Obama for not closing as he promised when elected).  There is $ 51 billion "for US combat operations abroad" and "$ 715 million to help Iraqi forces fight Islamic State and $ 406 million to boost Syrian opposition forces" (something we were told was a complete failure and going to be shut down).  Another $ 50 billion for active duty and retiree health care.  The issue that I have a problem with is that less than 10 % of this budget is for military activities in the field of combat.  So where does the rest of the money going?  Into someones pocket, I would guess.  (Info from "How they Voted" in The Virginian Pilot on 9/15/15).

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Racism in America.  An article in The Virginian Pilot on 11/22/15 reports on a World War II military unit of African American women from Virginia.  They were the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and were the "first and only all-black women's Army unit sent overseas".  Their job was to organize the mail delivery system to the troops in the field.  The article was about the families of two of the women who served in that unit and had died recently.  It was reported that in Virginia, educational opportunities for blacks was limited due to the fact that the state didn't offer high school classes for African Americans before 1934.  It is also noted that "Jim Crow" was present in Europe for these women.  When several of the women from the 6888th were selected for a WAC all-star basketball team went to London in 1945 to compete they were told "official policy forbade mixed race teams" so they could not compete.  At the same time the Red Cross wanted to but the black players in a segregated hotel; they refused to patronize.

(Source:  "Delivering Morale" by James F. Lee of the VP)

Slavery in the US

I am reading "The House Girl" by Tara Conklin about the life of a slave woman in Virginia in the 1840's.  I am struck by the level of fear that existed in our system of human bondage.  All those living in this system lived with a constant state of fear.  Of course, slaves feared the violence of whipping, death for the smallest of things and sexual assault by slave owners.  But white slave owners also lived in fear of a slave revolt or individual act of vengance by a slave wronged.  White non-slave owners also feared for their lives and property if they were known to speak out against the cruelty of the southern labor system.  Slave women feared the sexual assault that resulted in children of mixed race.  White women feared their philandering husbands loss of affection.

What a totally evil system and its damage to our society is ungoing.

Obama and Race

The election of Barack Obama has done nothing to resolve the racial problems of our country; on the contrary it may have made them worse.  Many whites can now say "enough"...that the black man has finally achieved equality in our society.  I am sure many whites felt that voting for him in 2008 was there way of showing that they were no longer racist.  His re-election in 2012 leaves me scratching my head; is my observation wrong or was Romney just the "right" opponent to insure another victory for racial justice?

It should also be noted that Obama is not our first "black" president; he is our first "brown" president. Remember his mother was white and he was raised in a white world by white grandparents.  To say other wise is discount the effect of our mothers on our upbringing and I don't know anyone who would claim that. I am also thinking about that Langston Hughes poem that in part said;  "if your white, you're alright.  If you are brown, hang around.  If you are black stay back".

In The Nation magazine from Sept 2/9, 2013 is the following statement.  "Black unemployment is almost double that of whites; the percentage of black children living in poverty is almost triple that of whites; black life expectancy in Washington DC is lower than in the Gaza Strip; one in three black boys born in 2001 stands a lifetime risk of going to prison; more black men  were disenfranchised in 2004 because they were felons than in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment ostensibly secured their right to vote".

The same source notes the following. "Yet the fact remains that African Americans are no better off materially as a result (of his election), even if they may have been worse off had he lost, and that the economic gap  between blacks and whites has grown under his presidency". 

Trayvon Martin killing

After reading an NPR article advising African-American mothers to make sure their male children are dressed "church-ready' before leaving the house, in the hope that they will not be targeted by the police or some Zimmerman vigilante, it occurred to me that the answer to racial violence in this country is not to ban guns but to ban hoodies.  Remember the gun-fanatics will tell you that guns don't kill people, hoodies do.