Bruce is recovering from the extreme cervical spine surgery he had two weeks ago. We were talking about the failing circus of U.S. politics and I said, “People do not want the current VP to have any official position. They don’t know how low she has gone, will go, or what a horrific individual she is.”
I’m starting to realize that I really have been, in my little way, someone who has been a bit of a “good guy.”
“When I went on TV to talk about Anthony’s death, the big bill I got, and ask for universal healthcare, and my story was featured by Bernie Sanders’ campaign, Harris operatives wrote fake emails to Saddleback College’s President saying” … I’m gonna quote …
She is a racist and you should fire her
The President called me into his office and questioned me. He showed me a couple of e-mails that accused me of making racist comments in the classroom.
“I don’t know who those students are,” I said. “I never said or did those things.”
The Harris-sponsored (#KHive) operatives were so lazy that the names they used weren’t Saddleback students at all.
The President already knew that. He laughed and tore up the papers he’d shown me. The Harris-sponsored (#KHive) operatives also were apparently unaware that even though I was a college teacher, this particular college wasn’t affiliated with Harris’ corrupt political organization. The entire trustee board at Saddleback was and I think, remains, very conservative.
But I still had to make my social media accounts private for a few weeks.
The motive? I was a volunteer for Bernie Sanders’ campaign, as were many on our campus. And as I said, I’d gotten a little bit of public attention by telling Anthony’s story on TV and saying we needed universal healthcare as Sanders was stating in 2016.
Bruce said, “You never told me that!”
It was one-and-done, and he was ill at the time with an infected kidney stone that took months to uncover and treat.
Isolated incident? Sure — just like my rape was isolated. I also had a 20-minute breast exam at our college health center when I went for my first appointment at age 17 to get birth control. I’m sure I “deserved that,” right? When I heard about the USC women’s health center predator, I wondered if it was the same guy. Nope: different predator — who knows how long that one went on and how many victims he had.
So, I was “Teacher of the Year” at Saddleback and my many former students will be glad to attest that not only were the made-up emails false, I would be one of the last instructors on campus to show any bias toward or against any student for any reason. My highest goals as an instructor were to a) do my job to help them to learn how to learn; b) treat all students fairly and equitably. That doesn’t mean “equally”. Equitable education means that I must do my job in the best way for each student. All are different. All have some similarities. Being able to serve each student properly takes years of experience, knowledge and training. Along with caring and sensitivity and commitment.
We just received so much help from Dr. John (Huan) Wang, Sarasota neurosurgeon. The way Dr. Wang treats patients is the way that in my small way, I always tried to work with students.
Isolated incident? HELL NO.
YER A DIRTY RACIST FOR HELPING HOMELESS FAMILIES
Back when I was Director of Family Service Assn. in Redlands, CA (1986–1996), we had begun to see homeless families living in cars or hopping from “No-Tell Motel” to “No-Tell Motel.”
Everyone was concerned. I won’t tell the whole story of that (have written before about it) but part of the venture to help homeless families went beyond our small town to the County level. I worked with another young professional, Jim Morris, whose father was Judge Pat Morris, later Mayor of San Bernardino. Jim and I got a county-wide committee together to form the San Bernardino County Homeless Coalition.
The goal of this committee, which had public hearings, was to institute programs and services to help homeless people. We were dealing with hundreds of people at that time. I’m sure you know what the numbers of homeless people are like now.
We had a public hearing in the big County building in San Bernardino.
A Black woman who was a San Bernardino city council member and board member of a local San Bernardino organization, the Frazee Community Center, stood and spoke angrily about the Coalition. She didn’t want it. She didn’t outright say that the money should go to the Frazee Center, but that was the gist of what she said.
The next week, my board President Ann McMahon, who was at Family Service most days, said, “We got a disturbing letter, Amy.”
She read me this anonymous letter that … can you guess what it accused me of? Racism.
The letter listed many completely fabricated racist incidents with clients at Family Service Assn.
The letter-writer didn’t know that there were no Black clients at Family Service for weeks on end. She didn’t know our staff was mostly bilingual and even I spoke Spanish and that was the “diverse” race our organization served due to our town’s demographics.
We even had a board meeting about it. I no longer remember how we found out that the anonymous letter writer was this San Bernardino City Council member/Frazee Community Center board member.
It was not long after this incident that the Frazee Community Center was rocked by a financial, staff, and program scandal. The agency never had enough money, had a poor reputation, and one day, this appeared on the front page of the newspaper:
I know about way worse than this — but yes, this lady apparently was using the homeless funds for herself.
It’s hard to see how the “advocate” for Black poor people who’d written those completely fabricated lies to try to get me fired from my job where we were actually honestly helping hundreds of families — was all that “clean and neat.” The City Councilmember did not win re-election.
In San Bernardino. I know you probably don’t know this city but that was almost like saying Marion Berry didn’t win re-election in Washington, D.C.
Of course that accuser was corrupt and evil. Hardly anyone ever got help at Frazee Center. The poor people were just farmed, harmed, and exploited. That was why the United Way froze their funds and they got less money than other organizations. I understand this organization may be different today.
But it’s San Bernardino. I doubt it.
Jim and I were in our 20s and we were pretty innocent. We did get that Coalition off the ground and I hope that at least some good came of it.
What “Critical Race Theory” has become
I wrote this because I saw a social media post saying “Critical Race Theory” was a crock.
There are many facts about racism in the U.S. that most children do not learn in school. Especially in my generation, none of these facts were taught, from the Tuskeegee Experiment, which was paid for and conducted by white scientists from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) where over 100 Black men were purposely infected with syphilis and “studied” without treatment for 40 years (1932–1972) — so this thing ended when I was 10 years old — to the USDA rulings throughout the U.S. South that purposely took working, profitable, good farms from Black families and gave them to people like the Purdues (chicken) and Smithfields (pork) and others —
Racism is still very real — and yelling about “CRT!” doesn’t make it — or the yellers, any more moral, ethical, or decent.
When I was growing up, a “coconut” was brown on the outside and white on the inside: a Chicano who acted “white.” Most people are familiar with the term “Uncle Tom” for a Black person who affiliates and acts like “white” people.
This San Bernardino City Council member who wrote the anonymous, false letter accusing me of being racist to needy clients wasn’t an “Uncle Tom” on the outside. But she was emulating behavior of corrupt “white” politicians.
Her motive was to stop the Homeless Coalition and continue to receive money for her organization, where she and the disappeared Director (a “white” woman — all staff at the organization were “white”) were stealing the cash.
You may recall the politician who instigated her adherents or followers to write that letter to the President of Saddleback College. She’s got a pretty advanced role and job right now. She does have dark skin though many have pointed out that her family background and upbringing differs from that of American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS).
This behavior hasn’t just occurred to me in the context of race. When I first started publishing fiction and blogging in the late 1990s, I wrote a humorous rant on my blog about having to row the Tom Sawyer Island canoe at Disneyland while the rest of the 12-seat canoe sat. Only I and the guide were doing anything physical and it’s not a mechanical ride. I referred to one boy as a “Pugsley Kid.”
The next morning I woke to a social media post from a total stranger: “Writer Hates Fat People!”
This woman, too, fabricated anti-fat-people emails I’d supposedly written to or about her.
There is a woman who worked for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Her name is Bianca Delarosa and she goes online under the name “Wonderbitch” and also used names affiliated with Game of Thrones (naturally!). This woman is probably the one that wrote the letter to Saddleback College stating I was a racist. This woman was well-known for disrupting Democratic or “liberal” websites dating back into the early 2000s. I found paystubs for her from the North Carolina Democratic Party (not generous ones, but paystubs all the same).
I believe that “Critical Race Theory” began as a serious academic effort. I think it still has serious, legitimate academic components.
But by now? It is easily used in the same way as the false “RACIST!” accusations to stop any forward movement or work between anyone of any different race or socioeconomic background. Every time someone who actually does the right thing gets stopped by these lies, the cause of actual decent, honest, healthy and positive equity (look up the word) is set back.
It’s interesting that accusations of racism still fuel people losing their jobs or losing their opportunities.
Yet we see that the Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in higher education. We see many signs that work undertaken during the Civil Rights movement is being dismantled.
People that I consider normal — are now hardened against any type of work or change regarding Black (not “dark colored”) American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS). They won’t listen to any education. They disregard any true information regarding how hard it is for Black Americans to do anything to advance themselves and their families. Of course many who feel this way are willfully ignorant.
There is a connection between the way that “Critical Race Theory” has been taught and the corrupt, false letter-writers.
All of it maintains the corruption and evil. It hurts every honest person regardless of their heritage, family background, or place of residence.
It’s a tool that helps evil survive and thrive. It’s been effective.
I hope that time is coming to an end.
Everyone has some degree of prejudice or racism but that’s not the issue, my conservative friends. The issue is honor, honesty, and decency.
Only by treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves will all of us grow healthier, happier, and better.
It’s the GOLDEN RULE and it’s good for everyone.
As others have observed, when conservatives are involved, any accusation is often an admission.
CRT was, and I suppose still is, a valid examination of the specific mechanisms of how racism functions in America. Valuable stuff, which like you I didn't begin to learn until college. Certainly curious and convenient that you'd want to not teach the historical context and current effects of racism to high school students, if your goal is to just prepare the kids for the mines.
Kamala Harris represents the old school crooked machine Democratic party that doesn't care about democracy. Her list of actions, which would be crimes if done by you or me, is long.
Some of my stories involve anthropomorphic female dogs, Amy, so "bitch" in that sense is a literal descriptor. The use of it to describe female dogs goes back to Anglo-Saxon England and far precedes its metaphorical use as a slur.