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.

Why I No Longer Talk About Race With White People

After following the media coverage associated with a grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown, as well as the divergent responses from white and black Americans, I decided that I was no longer going to discuss any issues involving race in a mixed race setting—in particular, one that includes white people.

This is because no matter what a black person says about racism, discrimination or racial profiling, most white people always seem to believe that they are the final arbiters on black people's experiences in America; on whether our claims of racism and discrimination are valid; on whether we are entitled to feel aggrieved by the injustices we THINK we have faced; on whether we are competent; and on whether we are deserving of the same rights, protections and opportunities that they feel are their birthright as Americans.

After years of conversations—in college classes and cocktail parties—I have realized that white people subconsciously believe that their opinion on the black experience trumps my actual experience  as a black woman, and that no amount anecdotal or actual evidence will change what they have decided is the truth about black people's lives and experiences in this country.

More important, I am refusing to discuss racism with white people because they're generally uninvested in ending it, so these conversations are at best, feel good opportunities for those that think it's wrong and blame game sessions for those who believe it either doesn't exist or that what blacks perceive as racial bias against all of us is justified by the actions of some of us.

As I get older, I can no longer afford to frustrate myself by discussing issues that impact MY life with people who believe that they know more about me and my experiences than I know about myself; especially, when I know that my perspective only matters if it validates theirs. Moreover, I'm at a point in my life where I cannot afford to invest my limited free time in unproductive discourse that will lead to neither understanding nor resolution of a particular problem.

So instead of wasting my time on fruitless attempts to influence white America's opinions and attitudes regarding race and racial injustice, I plan to avoid such conversations, opting instead to talk about the Saints' dismal record, the merits of okra versus filé gumbo or any other topic about which I know my opinion will be accepted.

Why I Wasn't With Mary

When people ask why I refused to vote to re-elect Sen. Mary Landrieu and supported her GOP opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, I point to a meeting I attended in 2006 with her and a recently elected senator from Illinois, where she promised to provide resources for recovering minority and small businesses.

This promise was delivered in the form of  a $1 Billion in special GO Zone New Markets Tax Credits that were supposed to be used to finance business and real estate investment opportunities in "severely  distressed" neighborhoods like parts of the Ninth and Seventh Wards, but were primarily used to finance her brother's Broadway South fantasies (maybe he thought he'd get a chance to use his undergraduate drama training), "mixed-use" downtown buildings offering high-rent apartments that 80+% of the city's residents can't afford or hotels offering wages so low that most employees have to work two jobs just to afford rent in those STILL underserved neighborhoods. 

This was was delivered in the form of BILLIONS of dollars of Disaster Recovery Community Block Grant funds she lobbied for that were supposed to create thousands of "quality" construction and permanent jobs for local residents, along with sustainable business opportunities for local disadvantaged businesses, but came with a waiver of the local hiring and prevailing wage provisions typical for such funds, allowing contractors to hire out-state and even undocumented foreign workers, leaving blacks even more under- & unemployed than they were before Katrina.

On the other hand, made an effort to research and meet Bill Cassidy, and wound up impressed by his work creating community clinics, his commitment to providing educational opportunities and resources for children with learning challenges, and his belief in empowering people to help themselves through entrepreneurship versus empowering established businesses to maintain the economic status quo—it should be noted that the Small Business & Entrepreneurship gave him a 100% rating on supporting favorable legislation, while Mary Landrieu only received a 58% rating.

While Cassidy may not deliver anything to help the people Mary promised to help during that meeting, I already know that Mary hasn't done it so I'm willing to take my chances on someone else and vote against him, if he fails to deliver over the next six  years.