We can't fighting moderm terrorists, while we celebrate historical ones.

I must confess that I am somewhat ambivalent regarding whether statues of various Confederate political and military leaders should be removed from public places; however, I am absolute in my belief that the monument celebrating the supposed "Battle of Liberty Place" should not only be removed, it should be destroyed.

It is generally accepted fact that this impetus for erecting this monument was to honor of the Crescent City White League, the New Orleans "chapter" of a domestic terrorist organization that was founded with the intention of using violence to intimidate and disenfranchise US citizens who happened to be black. To add insult to injury, the actual "battle" it celebrates was a paramilitary assault on and temporary takeover of a number of government buildings, during which over a hundred people were murdered, including 11 police officers.

Although the battle occurred in 1874, the monument was erected in 1891, as an indelible symbol of white supremacy's foothold in the state. Soon after it was erected at the foot of the Canal Street, the monument's role as a symbol of hatred and bigotry was solidified when it became the gathering spot for another Crescent City White League-sponsored terrorism event—the lynchings and murders of over a dozen men of Italian descent who had been accused (and acquitted) of the murder of the city's police chief.

No amount of revisionist whitewashing can change the fact that the Liberty place cop-killings and the 1891 mass-murders supposedly committed to avenge a cop-killing, were the actions of thugs and terrorists—not heroes. As the global community unites in eradicating the hate-driven terrorism of ISIS, we are cannot afford to allow such an overt symbol of and monument to bigotry and hatred continue to occupy a place in our local community.

Just as we have demanded that our national leaders decisively act to prevent future terrorism events, we must demand that our local leaders decisively act to eliminate monuments that celebrate past events.

Lincoln, Jim Crow and the Southern Strategy

The advent of upcoming major elections always revives two race-based conversations:

So the debate alway goes like this:

Conservative: Blacks vote for Democrats because they are the party of handouts.

GOP Party Leaders: Blacks are stupid for supporting Democrats, because they are the "party of Jim Crow" while we are the "party of Lincoln"

Both of these theories about why blacks shouldn't support the Democratic Party, rely ignore two basics facts:

After the Civil War and Secession, the main reason white Southern voters were overwhelming initially attracted to the Democratic Party, for the same reason because it had the "Party of Jim Crow" 

Secession and allowed the proliferation of Jim Crow laws. Conversely, the GOP's status as the "Party of Lincoln," the man who ended slavery, made it attractive to the majority of  new black voters. 

Democratic blacks  GOP wa "Party of Lincoln" The people who made the Democratic the "Party of Jim Crow" When the Democrats effectively ended Jim Crows laws, the Southern Democrats felt bereft Dixiecrats left the "Party southerners who embraced The GOP Don't they know 

1) Conservatives justifying their disdain for blacks for being blindly loyal to the Democratic Party

1) Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, racist Southerners were aligned with that Democratic Party (mostly because it was/is the party most aligned with working class values). When Northern Democrats realized that protecting EVERYBODY's civil rights was compatible with the rest of there working class platform, racist white Southern Democrats did a Tea Party move and form the Southern couldn't  racism couldn't see beyond During the 1950s an

The Source of Self

While watching this video about a father's struggle to love and accept a son who's never going to be the son he imagined he would, I thought about the role parents play in arming us to weather assaults from a world that may not value us or cetains aspects of who we are.

http://www.upworthy.com/this-kids-dad-is-just-as-bad-as-the-bullies-at-school-until-he-makes-me-smile-at-the-end?c=upw1

More than being the source of the genetic coding that makes us individuals, parents help shape our overall sense of self, our confidence in and certainty about who we are.

As our first protectors and providers, they impart us with self-sufficiency. As our first mentors and benchmark setters, they instill us with self-motivation. And, as the first people to know our character, to acknowledge our importance and to accept and embrace our uniqueness, they are critical in shaping our self-awareness, self-esteem and self-worth.

By teaching us to love and accept ourselves, they also show us how to accept no less from everyone we let into our lives.

Buying Your Freedom

Too often we tell our children that their bodies are the most precious things they have and that they shouldn't just give them to anyone, but that advice is wrong. The most precious things we have are our integrity, values and character (ie, our soul), and once we sell those things we can never truly get them back.

Yet too many people wilingly trade their soul to gain things like status, popularity and wealth. In the process, they wind up selling off—little by little—the essence of who they are, eventually becoming people they don't even recognize.

Maximum:

You can buy your freedom or sell your soul, but you"ll sell for brass and pay with gold.

Suspects, First and Citizens, Second.

Whether or not people want to admit it, there is a DOUBLE-STANDARD with regard to how law enforcement officers (LEOs) generally treat "perceived" threats when the person is white versus black. From Oscar Grant to Tamir Rice to my old acquaintance Casper Banjo, a disabled septuagenarian who was gunned down in 2008 by a police rifleman who claimed he was pointing a "replica gun", black men and women—from adolescence through their senior years—are initially viewed by LEOs as threats and not citizens. On the contrary, white people, regardless of the situation or circumstance, are first treated like citizens—with all the associated rights, including the presumption of innocence—and only labeled suspects when it is either obvious or necessary to do so.