Bystanders

 Bystanders is a story  by Tom Pizza, in  It Occurs To Me That I Am America. 

"When we bomb people and destroy their houses that's okay, but when the powerless fight back, that's terrorism." 

That reminds me of the big todo when Jeremiah Wright said "the chickens have come home to roost." 

"...we can choose to either have killing define our common humanity, or the refusal to kill can define our common humanity."

In electing Dump again, it appears humanity wants to be defined by hatred and killing. 

PS: I wonder what happened to ending the war in Ukraine in one day? I wonder if his faithful MAGAS wonder about the same thing. Um...

Up From Slavery

 "Today there are no organizations in the south, and the fact that they ever existed is almost forgotten by both races."  Booker T Washington in Up From Slavery

Hardly forgotten. The Ku Klux Klan, Neo Nazis elected the failed bizman, liar, crook in 2015 & again in 2024 to the highest office in the U.S. of A. Booker said he traveled a lot, spend nights in cabins of the poverty stricken "Negroes," and he thought the Klan no longer existed? WTH

It Occurs To Me That I am America

 It Occurs To Me That I am America, Edited by Jonathan Santlofer is an anthology of stories and art work published in 2018.

In the Introduction by Viet Thanh Nguyen, he writes: 

“It is hardly surprising that the population of much of the literary world is terrified by Mr. Trump’s vision of good versus evil, us against them.” <2016>

Horrifying that they put The Felon Dump back in the White House. The stories in the book brought back the horror from his first campaign and term in office. Then Jan 6th; then 4 more years of his lies, leading people to hate.  I wonder if these authors will write Part II of It Occurs To Me That I am America. 

After The Storm

 After The Storm is a short story by Walter Mosley published in The Awkward Black Man and also, in It Occurs To Me That I Am America.  In the first book, "President Obama took a train." In the second it said "the president took a train."

There may have been other differences, but I did not care to read the story again. When asked what he wanted, the character said

“I want people everywhere to stop for a minute and think about only the essential necessities of their lives. You know; air and water, food and friendship, shelter and laughing, disposal of waste, and the continual need for all these things through all the days of our lives.”

If everybody everywhere had those thoughts in their minds, then they would realize that it’s not individuality or identity but being human, being the same that makes us strong.”

Senator Obama pointed this out: we are more alike than we are different, during his campaign speeches. I often thought we all want the same things: to love, be loved, have work to do, food, clothing, shelter. Might add acceptance, to live and let live attitudes from others.

Or as Governor Walz said: "Mind your own business." I guess more people prefer Dump's Us vs. Them attitudes.