Last year, I had a conversation about forgiveness with a friend who grew up in Jim Crow Nashville. He opined that black people forgive white people too much and too soon. (I rather doubt he’s forgiven racist whites or their repressive Jim Crow system.)  As is often seen after an unspeakable tragedy afflicted on African Americans by whites, the former has routinely been quick to step forward and absolve the white community and the perpetrator with the healing balm of forgiveness. We should stop doing that, he said, because time and time again they have shown us that they are not deserving of it.

I grew up in the Black church–as did my friend–and I know that Black Christianity sees forgiveness as a commandment and something that helps bring us closer to salvation. It also seeks to ensure that blacks are not captives of or wiped out by white supremacy and terrorism; that we not only survive, but thrive in this racist country; that we are not defeated by anything whites inflict on us. Martin Luther King, Jr., frequently reminded us that suffering is redemptive.

Trump changed many things.

U.S. media outlets will now point out when a president is lying. If that policy holds consistently, we’ll never have a war again.

Congress will now vote to end a war (Yemen) and a president will veto it. If Congress can repeat that on a monthly basis, and the president not veto, we’ll end a lot of wars.

Top military officials will openly laugh about tricking a president into believing he’d withdrawn more troops than he really had from a war (Syria). If presidents or Congress or the public should develop any outrage over that, we might be in good shape. If not, we could be in trouble.

The world can no longer as easily deny the selfish, destructive motivations behind U.S. imperialistic behavior, even if a new president dresses it up more politely.

Saturday, November 21, 2020, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Be COVID-safe and arrive/participate in by car — lineup around Mayme Moore Park, 240 MLK Jr Blvd.
We will have invited speakers open the event, more info to come on how their speeches will be broadcast. After we read the names of the Black trans people we have lost this year, the caravan will start and we’ll drive around Columbus making noise! Route TBA very soon.

A new term has imposed itself on the conversation regarding the impending presidency of US President-elect, Joe Biden: “The Total Reset”. Many headlines have already promised that the Biden Presidency is ready to ‘reset’ US foreign policy across the globe, as if the matter is dependent solely on an American desire and decision.

While a ‘total reset’ is, perhaps, possible in some aspects of US policies - for example, a reversal of the Donald Trump Administration’s decision to abandon the Paris Agreement on climate change - it is highly unlikely that the US can simply reclaim its position in many other geopolitical battles around the globe. 

Thus far, people in 187 countries have signed this pledge: