As we head further into the summer months, many will be looking to fill their calendars with fun activities and adventures. Here’s a fun, informative and family friendly idea: Egypt on the Potomac. It is an educational field trip across Washington, D.C. showing a direct architectural link to ancient Egypt or Kemet. Author and historian, Anthony Browder, created the program as part of the IKG Cultural Resource Center he founded in 1981.
Thanks to the incredible work of Browder, folks can sign up for a fun-filled, educational and empowering field trip across Chocolate City to learn all about the architecture, masonic history and the African inspired, (in some cases a complete copy) design of this great city.
Here’s a short clip of the educational field trip that will hopefully inspire you to grab your own boarding pass to journey across Washington, DC. Oh, the mindful and empowering places you’ll go, as you discover and clearly see all the contributions made to current civilization and humanity, thanks to those who gave both to the world; Africans.
As the world turns, communities from across our oceans are longing to connect with each other. This is especially true for many African Americans taking the leap to journey back to Africa. The back to Africa movement is not new. After emancipation Abraham Lincoln sought to relocate newly freed Black people back to Africa. Although the move was largely rejected by many Black leaders of that time, the honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey was instrumental in the push to make this a reality for Black people in the western hemisphere.
“Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), represent the largest mass movement in African-American history. Proclaiming a black nationalist “Back to Africa” message, Garvey and the UNIA established 700 branches in thirty-eight states by the early 1920s.”
Today, the best way to make this dream for some a reality is with sincere preparation. And thanks to Professor Joseph Mbele of Olaf College in Minnesota, who has amassed decades worth of knowledge on the subject, including being an expert on culture and folklore, created a study guide to help those journeying back to the Motherland.
After the recent ban of Affirmative Action by the current Supreme Court 6-3, when discussing the historical context of Supreme Court justices, it is important to acknowledge that some past justices owned slaves and played a role in supporting or upholding discriminatory laws. Here are just a few anti-Black Supreme Court justices:
1. John Rutledge (1739-1800) – Owned several slaves and participated in drafting the U.S. Constitution, which allowed for the continuation of slavery.
2. James Moore Wayne (1790-1867) – Supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed the capture and return of escaped slaves.
3. Roger B. Taney (1777-1864) – Authored the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford case (1857), which denied citizenship to African Americans and declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
4. Joseph P. Bradley (1813-1892) – Supported the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), which struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and perpetuated racial segregation.
5. Horace Gray (1828-1902) – Supported the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.
It is crucial to recognize the historical impact of these justices’ decisions, as they contributed to the maintenance of discriminatory laws and practices and biased anti-Black ideological agendas.
Note: authored by, Ken L. Harris, Ph.D., President/CEO The National Business League | Historian | Economist | Black Business Influencer
Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display inthe Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
On June 21, 2023, a group of academics from the University of California held a symposium in Washington, DC to call attention to some of the pressing issues facing society and the world. The professors, committed to enacting the change they strongly believe in and have backed-up with research, are calling for policy changes and taking a stand for humanity and the environment. The event was help at UCDC and organized by the University of California Washington Program.
“Why We Need Police Abolition”
Nikki Jones, H. Michael and Jeanne Williams Professor and Department Chair.
Nikki Jones is a Professor of African American Studies at UC Berkeley. Her work focuses on the experiences of Black women, men, and youth with the criminal legal system, policing, and violence. Professor Jones is the author of two books:Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence(2010) andThe Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption(2018), which received the Michael J. Hindelang Outstanding Book Award from the American Society of Criminology in 2020.
ePa Q & A with Professor Nikki Jones:
“Open Our Borders: America’s New Conversation about Immigration”
Grace Peña Delgado, Associate Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Professor Delgadois a historian of borderlands and migration in nineteenth and twentieth-century North American. She is the author of Making the Chinese American: Global Migration, Localism, and Exclusion in the US-Mexico Borderlands(Stanford: 2012), distinguished as a CHOICE Academic Title. Delgado is also co-author ofLatino Immigrants in the United States(Polity: 2011).
“Digital Chains: Unveiling the Inhumanity of ICE Electronic Monitoring on Immigrants”
Mirian Martinez-Aranda, Chancellor’s postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Davis.
She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA in 2021. Her research examines the social, material, and health consequences of immigration detention on immigrants, families, and communities. She is also a former National Science Foundation and Marvin Hoffenberg fellow with the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, and a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Her work has been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Law and Society Review.
Q & A with Professor Mirian Martinez-Aranda:
“African Kingdoms as Resourceful Corporations: The Story of South Africa’s Bafokeng”
Shingirai Taodzera, Assistant professor of African American and American Studiesat the University of California Davis.
Professor Taodzera’s scholarship focuses on the political economy of development in east and southern Africa, particularly the governance of high value extractive natural resources such as oil and minerals. He is currently working on turning his dissertation, entitled, “Nations within a state and the emerging hydrocarbons industry in Uganda” into his first monograph.
Q & A with Professor Shingirai Taodzera:
“Engineering our Way out of Environmental Harm”
Sabbie Miller, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineeringat the University of California Davis.
Dr. Miller is interested in improving the sustainability of the built environment. TheMiller groupfocuses on designing sustainable materials with an emphasis on assessing andimproving the performance of infrastructure materials while minimizing their associated environmental impacts. The laboratory is working to develop means to robustly assess local, regional, and global burdens from materials consumption, to make advancements in alternative material resources, and to pioneer methods to tailor desired material behavior. The team works primarily with cementitious materials, bio-derived materials, and polymeric materials.
“The Healing Power of Community: My Unexpected Journey as BTS ARMY”
Kate Ringland, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Kathryn (Kate) Ringland, PhD in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine, was previously a NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University and a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests include studying and designing playful and community-oriented technology for people with disabilities.
Rowena Gray, Associate Professor & Graduate Program Chair atthe University of CaliforniaMerced.
Rowena Gray is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Merced, and a Research Affiliate at Queen’s University Belfast’s Centre for Economic History. Dr. Gray received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Davis, in 2011. She is an American economic historian of the past two hundred years. Her research explores questions about the inequality effects of technological change and the impact of immigration on crime and housing markets.
The Restitution Study Group Files Lawsuit To Establish Ownership of Benin Bronzes
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, Executive Director Restitution Study Group, (RSG) a New York–based organization Restitution Study Group is spearheading a lawsuit against the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. to reverse the return of the museum’s 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria and establish ownership of the ancient and highly valuable artifacts. Farmer-Paellmann joined ePa Live to discuss the lawsuit and the importance of the bronzes.
What To Know
During a ceremony on October 11th, “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art transferred ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria. The bronzes, which were part of the museum’s collection, were stolen from Nigeria during the 1897 British raid on Benin City. The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents voted to officially remove the bronzes in June in keeping with the Smithsonian’s new ethical returns policy.”
The transfer project was led by Ngaire Blankenberg, former Director of the National Museum of African Art.
Blankenberg who left the Museum at the end of March 2023 after less than years leading the iconic museum says she led the museum with “nuance, transparency, and respect.” Reports and other sources, including Farmer-Paellmann says Blankenberg is being forced to resign partly due to her handling of the artifacts.
RSG won two awards for its short film on the Benin Bronzes, They Belong To All Of Us, at Cannes on May 25th.
Black folks are still dying at an alarming rate compared to other ethnic groups in America. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a new Yale studythat sheds more light on racial disparities in the U.S. regarding life expectancy for Black folks. The alarming new study shows Black people still suffer from illnesses at higher rates and die younger than white people. However, the study also revealed that the higher mortality rate for Black Americans translates to 1.63 million excess deaths compared to white people. This study is over the course of more than 20 years.
According to the report, the staggering higher mortality rate for Black folks from 1999 to 2020 led to the loss of more than 80 million years of life in comparison to white folks. Key points of the findings are below.
Original Investigation
May 16, 2023
Excess Mortality and Years of Potential Life Lost Among the Black Population in the US, 1999-2020
Key Points
Question: How many excess deaths and years of potential life lost for the Black population, compared with the White population, occurred in the United States from 1999 through 2020?
Findings: Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, excess deaths and years of potential life lost persisted throughout the period, with initial progress followed by stagnation of improvement and substantial worsening in 2020. The Black population had 1.63 million excess deaths, representing more than 80 million years of potential life lost over the study period.
Meaning: After initial progress, excess mortality and years of potential life lost among the US Black population stagnated and then worsened, indicating a need for new approaches.
Abstract
Importance: Amid efforts in the US to promote health equity, there is a need to assess recent progress in reducing excess deaths and years of potential life lost among the Black population compared with the White population.
Objective: To evaluate trends in excess mortality and years of potential life lost among the Black population compared with the White population.
Design, setting, and participants: Serial cross-sectional study using US national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1999 through 2020. We included data from non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black populations across all age groups.
Exposures: Race as documented in the death certificates.
Main outcomes and measures: Excess age-adjusted all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, age-specific mortality, and years of potential life lost rates (per 100 000 individuals) among the Black population compared with the White population.
Results: From 1999 to 2011, the age-adjusted excess mortality rate declined from 404 to 211 excess deaths per 100 000 individuals among Black males (P for trend <.001). However, the rate plateaued from 2011 through 2019 (P for trend = .98) and increased in 2020 to 395—rates not seen since 2000. Among Black females, the rate declined from 224 excess deaths per 100 000 individuals in 1999 to 87 in 2015 (P for trend <.001). There was no significant change between 2016 and 2019 (P for trend = .71) and in 2020 rates increased to 192—levels not seen since 2005. The trends in rates of excess years of potential life lost followed a similar pattern. From 1999 to 2020, the disproportionately higher mortality rates in Black males and females resulted in 997 623 and 628 464 excess deaths, respectively, representing a loss of more than 80 million years of life. Heart disease had the highest excess mortality rates, and the excess years of potential life lost rates were largest among infants and middle-aged adults.
Conclusions and relevance: Over a recent 22-year period, the Black population in the US experienced more than 1.63 million excess deaths and more than 80 million excess years of life lost when compared with the White population. After a period of progress in reducing disparities, improvements stalled, and differences between the Black population and the White population worsened in 2020.
On May 14, 2022, a gunman carried out a horrific, racist attack on the Black community, killing 10 people and wounding three others at a Tops Friendly Markets grocery store in east Buffalo, New York. The gunman left behind an online screed suggesting the attack was motivated by a racist conspiracy theory that has previously inspired other white supremacist acts of terror.
On the anniversary of the atrocity in Buffalo, we remember and mourn those lost in the attack and those whose lives have forever been altered. To honor them, we call for urgency and vigilance in preventing and countering extremist violence and the white supremacy behind it. While testifying before the House Oversight Committee in June 2022, Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire was wounded in the shooting, spoke candidly about the nation’s problems stemming from white supremacy and gun violence.
“Domestic terrorism exists in this country for three reasons,” Everhart said. “America is inherently violent. This is who we are as a nation. The very existence of this country was founded on violence, hate and racism.” A lengthy digital footprint said to be associated with the shooter shows false conspiracy theories about a “great replacement” spurred him to drive more than 200 miles to a predominantly Black neighborhood to carry out the massacre.
The “great replacement” theory is acentral tenetof white nationalism. Steeped in racist and antisemitic narratives, it falsely asserts there is a concerted and covert effort to replace white populations in white-majority countries with immigrants of color. The conspiracy theory has inspired many other attacks carried out by white extremists against people of color, immigrants, Jewish people and Muslims. Once a fringe idea propagated by hate groups and other extremists – frequently in online message boards – the “great replacement” theory and ideas akin to it have been normalized and dragged into the mainstream, in part, with the help of conservative political figures, media personalities, lawmakers and lobbying groups.
MAINSTREAMING HATE
Tucker Carlson, the now-former Fox News commentator, was one of the biggest media purveyors of “great replacement” ideas. He used his prime-time spot to stoke fear about immigration at the southern border and falling birthrates as existential threats to white people. While Carlson was careful to avoid using the more overt terms favored by avowed white nationalists, these extremists have praised him for mainstreaming their ideas.
These ideas have had a far-reaching effect. In asurveyby the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tulchin Research, nearly seven in 10 Republicans agreed to at least some extent with the notion that demographic changes in the U.S. are deliberately driven by liberal and progressive politicians attempting to gain political power by “replacing more conservative white voters.”
A year after the Buffalo massacre, this type of rhetoric is still prevalent. This year, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has held multiple committee hearings on immigration featuring extremist voices and giving a platform to xenophobic rhetoric about a migrant “invasion” happening at the southern border.
On March 6, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee,sent a lettersigned by all committee Democrats to Rep. James Comer, the committee chairman, asking him and his Republican colleagues to denounce the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory. The letter said that during one hearing on Feb. 7, Republicans “invoked dangerous and conspiratorial rhetoric echoing the racist and nativist tropes peddled by white supremacists and right-wing extremists.” This included warnings about “invasion” and accusing the Biden administration of implementing a plan “to deliberately open our border” for purposes of “changing our culture.” Comer and all the other Republicans refused to sign, calling it an attempt to “distract” from issues about the border.
This rhetoric has had deadly consequences. Aside from the Buffalo massacre, “great replacement,” antisemitic and invasion-style rhetoric has inspired numerous domestic terror attacks and other acts of violence – in places like Christchurch, New Zealand; El Paso, Texas; and Poway, California. The Buffalo anniversary this year comes during the trial ofa man accused of killing11 Jewish worshippers in a 2018 antisemitic mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The Black community of Buffalo was already dealing with the daily impacts of racism, false conspiracy theories and violence before the shooting.
“This attack compounded the preexisting generational and ancestral trauma that plagued this targeted Buffalo neighborhood and its Black residents,” wrote Thomas Beauford, president of the Buffalo chapter of the National Urban League, in the organization’s 2023State of Black Americareport.
‘HELP US TO CREATE THE CHANGE’
Too often, following white supremacist acts of terror, politicians and others who refuse to take real action offer their “thoughts and prayers.”
But thoughts and prayers for the victims of extremist violence are not enough, says Zeneta Everhart. She told lawmakers, “We need you to stand with us in the days, weeks, months and years to come, and be ready to go to work and help us to create the change that this country so desperately needs.”
In fact, there are a number of policy actions that can be taken to mitigate the impact of far-right extremism. They include:
Improving the collection of hate crime data.The most recentFBI hate crime reportdocumented the highest number of hate crimes ever reported, including the highest number of race-based crimes – mostly directed against Black people. After 30 years of incomplete data and underreporting from the FBI, Congress should enact legislation to require credible hate crime reporting by local and state law enforcement as a condition of receiving federal funds.
Expanding upstream prevention initiatives to build community resilience.The FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice have all confirmed that the primary domestic terrorism threat comes from racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race. To bolster community well-being and ensure that everyone is prepared to inoculate young people against radicalization, federal and state governments should provide funding for long-term prevention and education initiatives. The SPLC has partnered with American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab to produceresourcesfor parents and caregivers to assist them in helping to steer young people away from extremist propaganda. And the White House must follow through on the wide array of government initiatives and public-private partnerships against hate and extremism announced last September at theUnited We Stand Summit.
Defending and promoting inclusive, truthful education.As many states push new laws to restrict inclusive education and restrictteaching about difficult historyin the U.S., more needs to be done to ensure young people are presented the unvarnished facts about this country’s history – both good and bad – to shape a better future. In her testimony, Everhart stated, “We cannot continue to whitewash education, creating generations of children to believe that one race of people are better than the other. Our differences should make us curious, not angry. … That awful day that will now be a part of the history books … let us not forget to add that horrific day to the curriculum that we teach our children.”
Promoting online safety and holding tech and social media companies accountable.Tech companies must be held accountable for their role in spreading extremist disinformation and indoctrinating young people into racist and other hateful ideologies. These companies should create and enforce policies and terms of service to ensure that social media networks, payment service providers and other internet-based services do not provide platforms where hateful activities and extremism can thrive.
Finally, elected officials, civic leaders, law enforcement and business leaders must repudiate dangerous and false ideas like the “great replacement” theory. A year after the Tops supermarket shooting, far too many political figures and pundits continue to perpetuate this dangerous rhetoric.
As we remember those who were killed and those whose lives were permanently changed because of the hate-based violence in Buffalo, we must come together to challenge white supremacy in all its forms and strive for a world free of it.
Caleb Kieffer is a senior research analyst for the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.
Lying New York Congressman, George Santos has been charged with federal crimes and could be hauled in front of a judge at Brooklyn’s Eastern District court as soon as Wednesday, according to multiple reports Tuesday afternoon. He is expected to turn himself in. The indictment are sealed and the exact nature of the charges are not immediately clear. However, Santos had been under scrutiny for lying about his life and professional background, including fundraising practices during his 2022 House campaign.
Santos, 34, made national headline news late last year when it was uncovered that he lied to secure a House seat to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District. The embattled congressman confessed to a series of spectacular fabrications about his background and work experience, including lying about being Jewish and being related to Holocaust survivors.
A troubled man was choked to death on a New York train in Lower Manhattan this week and the city didn’t even skip a beat as District Attorney Alvin Bragg hastily decided the snuffing out of a sick, hungry and tired Black man was justified, if not welcome. After first deciding not to file charges against the wannabe white savior, Bragg hit reverse when the public cried foul after video of the horrific incident made its way to the internet for the world to bear witness, once again, to the callous killing of a Black man.
“If folks can’t imagine you as human, all the policy in the world is irrelevant.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Adding to this normal tragic occurrence in the American Black experience, Neely’s own mother, 36-year-old Christie Neely, was choked to death by her boyfriend in 2007 when he was only 14-years-old, according to a 2012 report by the Star-Ledger.
His mother’s body was stuffed in a suitcase and dumped on Henry Hudson Parkway. Imagine a young boy, just 14, having to live with this trauma, facing societal rejection, pressure and historical disadvantages simply because he was born a Black boy in America.
At this trajectory in our human experience as Black people, the only thing left is to ask: Which one of our Black souls is next?
