Reflections.

This Gleaner story of January 18, 2024, under the headline; “Football dream fading, Second denial of US visa puts Munro graduate’s scholarship goal in jeopardy,"  only caught my attention because it involved my ‘brother’ school.  ”

I am surprised how little comment this story has elicited though, since it depicts so vividly, the popular experience with bureaucracies can cause, summed up thus;  He /she who plays by the rules get, shafted.”

According to the report; The dream of 20-year-old Munro College graduate Oral Thompson to pursue football internationally appears to be fading after his efforts to pick up a university scholarship in the United States were halted with his second denial of a student visa four months apart. Thompson, who has been offered a partial scholarship to attend the University of Northwestern Ohio, has until the second week in March to settle and begin classes at the private institution in Lima, Ohio. Football dream fading."

Most of us appreciate that America is a country of immigrants, (the only non-immigrants being the Native Americans) so most residents there are not intolerant of others trying to gain better opportunities by traveling to that country.

However, the Republican Party tends to be outrightly anti-immigrant and their current leader never fails to denigrate us, to the point of saying immigrants contaminate their blood.

On the other hand, the current policy being pursued by the Democratic Party is one that encourages chaos and illegality.

Over the years, I have heard tragic stories about families being torn apart for years and sometimes even decades, because of the difficulty, the exasperating legal process and the long time it takes to obtain legal visas, whether to migrate or even just visit.

I am sure this tiresome experience has not just frustrated Jamaicans over the decades, but indeed people from all over the world, who are trying to get to the USA.

Now, under the present Biden administration however, all you have to be able to do is learn to climb a wall or squeeze through barbed wire, to enter the USA.

Don’t waste your time trying to enter through the legal process, as young Thompson is now learning!

To make it even better for those who favor illegality over going through legal processes, they can get numerous benefits that not even those who were born there are able to!

For example, California is giving the law-breakers free health care, while thousands of those persons born in the USA or who migrated there legally but don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, get left without health coverage, if they cannot afford a policy through Obama Care.

Recently too, children in New York were deprived of in-person education, because their classrooms were given to illegal immigrants. In cities like NY, LA, San Francisco, Chicago etc, while citizens live on the streets because they cannot afford the rent, illegals can get free accommodation!

Because it’s now a free for all too, terrorists, criminals and smugglers can enter, no problem while aspirants who play by the rules, can't.

No wonder Biden is seeing a massive fall-off in support from most categories of his voters in poll after poll, for most people are law-abiding and prefer due-process to a policy that victimizes the law-abiding people while rewarding law-breakers!

Biden’s immigration policy will go a far way in encouraging voters to turn away from the Democrats in the upcoming elections.  

His policies can only benefit Trump and his Maga supporters.

For no reasonable person supports policies that victimize honest people while rewarding law breakers.

 

Reparations

It is common for us to assume that all the descendants of the African slave trade have the same history.  However, I have only recently started to learn that as bad as the British were, the Americans were far more savage slavers and for a much longer period.

Slavery was abolished In the USA in 1865 but ours in Jamaica was abolished in 1834 but that’s only a tiny part of the story.

Because the descendants of slave masters have always been in the majority in the USA, they have continued to use legislative power to maintain near-slavish conditions up to, in some cases, recently.

The Gleaner should be highly commended for publishing on May 20, 2022, information re the 500-page document produced in California which outlines the tremendous harm suffered by descendants of enslaved people long after slavery was abolished. These were mainly manifested through discriminatory laws and actions in all facets of life, from housing and education to employment and the legal system.

This report resulted from measures developed at the behest of the slavery Reparations movement in the USA, which lobbied Governor Newsome of California. So, in 2020, he created a two-year task force to investigate and detail California's role in perpetuating discrimination against African Americans. 

California is home to approximately 2.8 million blacks and it has the fifth-largest Black population in the US after Texas, Florida, Georgia and New York, the report said. And while African Americans make up less than six per cent of their population, 28 percent of them are in jails, youth detention centers and prisons.

The report concluded that; “Four hundred years of discrimination has resulted in an enormous and persistent wealth gap between Black and white Americans. These effects of slavery continue to be embedded in American society today and have never been sufficiently remedied. The governments of the United States and the State of California have never apologized to or compensated African Americans for these harms.”

Newsom issued a statement praising California for leading the USA in the long overdue discussion of racial justice and equity. The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office is assisting the task force, said, “California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these harms.”

While the demand for reparations is increasing in the USA and indeed in many former slave societies, California the only place to move ahead with a study and plan. Without an in-depth study however, one city and a few universities in the USA had taken up the issue of their illegal enrichment from slavery. So far, the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to make reparations available to Black residents last year and Georgetown University in Washington is the first to have put measures in place to compensate descendants of the slaves they used.

However, the giant step taken by the state of California is a watershed.

The fledgling reparations movement in Jamaica will no doubt be inspired by this bold move in California, although I doubt that our government will be willing to fund any move to study in-depth how slavery has affected our society.

For calls for such action have been made locally and ignored over many years.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the full report out of California which will play a great role in educating the public in general.

It is interesting though that this report has come out in the USA, at a time when several states under Republican control are trying to further hide America’s history of slavery and oppression from the people, with the Governor of Florida even signing legislation to remove information on the topic from text books. If a giant step is not therefore taken by the current US administration to deal speedily and effectively with the issue of reparations, despite the best efforts of people like Governor Newsome, the movement will surely be set back for another few decades if a new Republican administration takes over in 2024.

 

 

I got a damn ticket!

 

I have often boasted how I have never having gotten a ticket for a moving violation in the USA, since I got my license here some five years ago.

I am not at all saying I have not committed violations, but have just been lucky to never see a cop a around at such critical moments!

And I am not considering myself lucky simply because I have not had to waste money paying fines, for from seeing how dangerous it can be in the USA  to be  DWB (driving while black), I considered myself  extremely fortunate, for one never knows how these things will turn out.

You see, I drive mostly in Florida where according to recent news reports, the second highest number of hate groups in the USA are to be found!

I got that information from National Public Radio (NPR) which in a report published March 12, 2021, declared; “A recent study shows Florida has the second-highest number of known hate groups in the country. We put a spotlight on why the Sunshine State harbors so much hate. The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 68 known hate groups active in Florida. That's only four less than California, which has twice the population. Of them, 47 are White supremacy groups, like those involved in the insurrection at the U.S Capitol in January.”

Since many of these reports have indicated that numerous law enforcement officers belong to these white supremacy groups, when I saw the police patrol with its siren blaring behind me on I75, I thought maybe my time had come.

For the cop fit the profile (stocky, bearded, blond etc.) of those I see on tv abusing and killing black people.  Besides, on sections of that road, there were still “Trump/Pence” signs around, although the election has been over for almost a year!

This was on November 9^th, 2021 as I was returning from Sebring where I had dropped off a friend.

I knew I was speeding, about 15 mph over the speed limit, so hoped it was going to be run of the mill and non-violent.

Well, it was not run of the mill but thankfully, non-violent.

When the cop approached, he declared immediately that he stopped me for passing too close to an emergency vehicle. He claims I should have changed lane totally and gone over to the passing lane, when I saw him with a stopped vehicle some ways back. You could have killed me with shock, for I thought I had given him and the man he stopped a wide berth.

My grandson has he best suggestion though. He said, wherever you see a police, stay as far away from him as you can get!😇

I don’t recall seeing anything about getting out of my  lane in the test when I went for my license either, but he presented me with a brochure which outlined that totally.

So, I guess it is so.

On giving me the ticket for a whopping $165, I instinctively said to myself that I will surely go to court. For some time ago I got a non-moving violation ticket and on going to court, got it thrown out. But then I learnt from the brochure of a better option,….do remedial classes on line.

Well that  I will surely do as I am now convinced that there are lots of other technicalities  in the USA traffic laws that I am not aware of. So it can do no harm. Besides it saves me $165 and losing points.

Will keep you posted.

Racism Will Survive Forever in America

As one who lived for a while in the Untied States when racism was totally overt, dangerous and widely acceptable, I have never been overcome by the romantic notion that racism had ever died out there.
What I do know is that it has again become an overt topic since Obama was elected and more so since he was re-elected last week, since the confidence the racists had that they would  have rebounded,  received a serious blow on the 6th November 2012.

What had happened in the past four years was that to be considered polite, one had to do the "politically acceptable" thing and not admit, do or say anything  publicly to indicate that one was living in the past, except of course if one was a proud member of  fringe organisations like the Klu Klux  Klan.

So most white Americans had become  become experts at hiding it, especially the more educated ones. That excludes idiots like Denise Helms from Turlock, California, who posted on Facebook that "Another 4 years of this (N word) ... Maybe he will get assassinated this term,"


When interviewed by the Daily News, Helms said she was not racist!  I put her among the less educated
since not only is she not smart enough to camouflage her obvious racism but also she is an employee at an ice cream parlour, so I assume she is a high school dropout.


I also assme that it is mostly red neck dropouts who  have taken their cue from that idiot Donald Trump   (Trump declared on election night that the US was no longer a democracy!) and have been signing petitions for their states to withdraw from the federation of united states.

According to "We the People" https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions , petitions have come in from Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Maine, California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington etc. 

No one needs to take these seriously however, since for example, the population of Maine is over 1.3 million whereas the red neck petitioners are a mere 1,585. 

Iowa  has a population of 3.06 million while petitioners are 1,483 and that is the general trend.

These red necks  therefore are a tiny, tiny minority and most likely aligned to the klu Klux klan or some other extremist group.

 It is however imperative that the US secret service ups its security, for all it takes is one mad man to change the face of history, but we have to accept that crazy, anti social elements will continue to exist throughout the world as long as this planet is inhabited by humans.

The Rockies and all that.

Whoopie...the sun is finally here and hopefully, winter, snow and the rains will stay away until I leave Colorado. It is not at all insignificant that the sunniest day I have enjoyed was on May 26th, my grandson Sharach's birthday.

Such a lovely day it was that I was ready to start exploring the Rockies, starting with Pikes Peak. Luckily for me, my son in law Devin is more conscious than I am and he had the presence of mind to call the park centre to enquire about the weather. Well it was not snowing we heard, but wind speed was 80 miles per hour. Brr, can you imagine me surviving that type of wind chill factor? 

Horrors.

Clear Creek Canyon

So off we went instead to explore the casinos at Black Hawk and Central City. I had been in the area before but it was still a pleasant drive through the huge gorge called Clear Creek Canyon. It makes poor little Bog Walk gorge appear insignificant. There can be no doubt why that area is part of the Rocky Mountain range for rocks there were of ever shape and size, jutting our of the beautiful hills. It is significant how they prevent disasters in the area for the rocks look like they could come rolling down at any time and smash the insignificant vehicles below. However the practice is to use steel mesh in vulnerable areas so when the rocks roll downwards they are caught in the mesh at the bottom and do not endanger road users. Those areas are popular with hikers, white river rafters and mountain climbers. The gorge has an elevation of over 8000 feet above sea level.

The Central City/Black Hawk area is quite a historical area having been from the 1800's rich mining areas. Central City became quite a prosperous town but when  mining died out, it became a casino town. Casinos sprung up left right and centre in the exotic and interesting buildings left behind by the miners. Then the newer and larger commercial casinos and hotels moved into Black Hawk, just a mile below and that effectively killed the economy of Central city.

As we strolled through the shops at Central city I couldn't help noticing that they were mostly manned by weary looking golden agers and every one had one thing in common, there were no customers..... as was the the casinos.

At Black Hawk below there was definitely more activity. After a short tour of the area, we decided to visit the casinos and lose a few dollars. I say lose a few dollars as this is something I do quite consciously...I never go to win. What I do is put a $10 or $20 in my pocket and leave only when it is finished. I love black jack and sometimes It takes me half an hour to contribute to the casinos' wealth, at other times it takes me hours.

Oh no I have not always been this conscious about gambling and learning how to save myself from bankruptcy was an expensive lesson. This happened many decades ago as we set out to explore North, Central and South America and unfortunately ended up in Las Vegas. Seeing the bright lights and hearing the jingle of money for the first time was just too much for us so into the casinos we went and as our money evaporated, we headed to our stash at our camp and emptied our entire savings in slot machines there. It  took us about six weeks of working at menial jobs and living hand to mouth in California before we earned enough to continue touring. So now I never put money in slot machines and never take to to the black jack table more than I plan to lose.

Unfortunately in Black Hawk, their 'no children under 21 ' policy was so severe that we were not even enter the casino with my one month old granddaughter. We were  even accompanied by security to and from the restaurant as we had to walk through the casino to get there. When I enquired why such a stringent policy, seeing she was only a baby, I learnt that the problem was not the baby but bad parents. For experience had shown that parents leave their babies in elevators, bathrooms, parking garages to fulfill their lust to gamble so now Colorado has a policy whereby security must see that the babies are not separated from their parents in casino areas.

So not being able to gamble after lunch we headed for a pleasant drive through Golden Gate National Park which ascends to 15,000 feet. You could actually see snow still unmelted on the ground in some areas but that did not stop some adventurous persons who were camping, fishing, riding and hiking there quite happily. We just drove through with windows tightly shut. It is an extraordinarily beautiful area and this has attracted some obvious billionaires who have constructed fabulous country homes with hundreds of acres of billowing ranges where cattle and horses roamed and where the barns could be mistaken for beautiful suburban homes.

Oh how I hated the rain, snow and cold as spring sprung its way though Colorado. Now (I am crossing my fingers) that summer is here, I am in my element as I prepare to explore the great outdoors.

For more photographs, see; http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150258447701823.368373.763366822