​I have wonderful friends and family. They know I believe in them. How? I take them at their word, respect the boundaries they define, and trust the intent of their actions. When they tell me they’re going to do something, I believe them. When they step up to take responsibility for something, I trust they will follow through and no intervention is required from me. 
 
I wish Christian evangelicals had that same faith in their god. Despite the words of their sacred text, they seem to think it’s up to them to enforce their god’s rules. For example, there’s the whole sermon Jesus gave on the mount, including the “Judge not lest ye also be judged” portion of Matthew 7:1. Jesus is telling his followers to mind their own business. He explicitly lays out the parameters he wants his devotees to adopt for their own lives while telling them, just as explicitly, not to mind other people’s business. Wherever Jesus is quoted throughout the new testament he is telling people how they should behave, not how they should make others behave.
 
When it comes to proselytizing, Jesus’ final words in Matthew 28:19-20 tell his disciples to go out into the world and teach as they had been taught. How had they been taught? By example. He didn’t tell them to burn down society. At no time did Jesus demand everyone follow him or adopt his teachings. He simply lived his principles and those who noticed and were drawn became his followers. At no point, ever, did he force anyone to follow him or adopt his teachings. In fact, at the sermon he gave on the mount he told them to let their light shine (Matthew 5:14).
 
When it came to the separation of church and state, Jesus again was very explicit. Mark’s telling of the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees and Herodians makes it clear. “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to god those that are god’s” is pretty straightforward. 
 
All of it is distilled into one prime directive, laid out in Mark 12:29-31. Love god, love your neighbor as yourself (i.e. with empathy, as if your neighbor was you). 
 
These are the commands of the New Testament, yet Christian evangelicals continually retreat to the Old Testament, the old agreement, to justify their actions. The god of the burning bush made those old agreements with Abraham and his progeny. Because our species is apparently incapable of living without explicit rules, the old commandments were spelled out over time with law after law after law, until there were so many laws they were too burdensome for many to follow.
 
The whole point of Jesus’ life was to fulfill all those laws and provide a simple new covenant. In Jesus death, the old covenant was supposed to be completed; in his resurrection, a new covenant was supposed to be born. Neither the old nor new covenant was with non-believers. Neither the old or new covenant asked non-believers to adopt a particular lifestyle. The first was with the children of Abraham. The second was with those Jews who committed to follow Jesus’s teachings and, later, those non-Jews who made the same choice. 
 
In all the biblical stories of Jesus, he only gets angry once, and it isn’t with Romans or Pharisees. His rage was reserved for those who were bound by the Abrahamic covenant. John 2:14-15 tells how the retailers and money-changers were using the temple’s sacred space for commercial purposes. Jesus saw that as a defilement of the original covenant, a desecration of the holy by the profane. Jesus’s anger was reserved for those who entered into a covenant and broke it to enrich themselves: hypocrites. 
 
In our modern era, Christian evangelicals have taken it upon themselves to become the moral judges of the world, deciding who is or is not worthy of existence and humane respect, thinking they know who will or will not make it into a heavenly existence. Yet that mandate appears nowhere in their holy text. Rather, Jesus’s call is for them to teach, by example. To live their lives in ways that hold up the two most important commandments: love god, love your neighbor. 
 
The lifestyle Jesus expects of his followers is clearly defined in Matthew 4-5, commonly known as The Beatitudes. Nowhere does he worry about who they have sex with, or even if they have sex. Nowhere does he mention where they live or who their friends are. Nowhere does he demand financial tribute. Instead, he spells out priorities for believers’ lives. 
 
In I Corinthians 13, Jesus’s converted apostle Paul clarifies the pathway for implementing the new covenant. He redefines power as kindness, respect, and empathy. There is no place in this new definition for the meanness, humiliation, cruelty, and lies marking today’s evangelicals. 
 
If evangelical Christians actually believed Jesus, they would trust he would take care of things as long as they lived the lives he set out for them. Their anger would be reserved for those in their midst who broke the new covenant, whose actions violated the principles of I Corinthians 13. They would actively pursue a separation of church and state so every faith, including theirs, could practice its precepts, as long as no one was being coerced or harmed. They wouldn’t have to proselytize because the beauty of their lives would serve as a beacon. 
 
But they don’t trust their god; don’t believe in him. They think they have to do all the work, clean up after him, make sure nothing gets missed. They negate John 3:16’s claim that god loved the world so much he gave his only son to teach them how to live. The louder evangelicals get, the more Christian worship has declined in our country. The more they try to manipulate politics to “do god’s work,” as if he is incapable of doing it himself, the less faith others have in their god.
 
It's a pity, really. Christianity, like most religions, is trying desperately to keep our species from self-destruction. As each generation learns the hard lessons about the long-range ineffectiveness of power forced at gunpoint, the pure guidelines of most faiths offer a redefinition of what it is to be powerful. Rather than power as an instrument of oppression, it can be an instrument of mutual affirmation and support. Rather than power as an axe to separate, it can be a thread to unite. That is what all the religions of the world teach. Too bad their followers don’t actually believe them.
 
Christians are now in a period of preparation leading to the celebration of their faith’s founding principles. Lent is of a period designated for deep spiritual self-reflection. Now would be a good time for evangelicals, individually and collectively, to examine how far away they’ve strayed from Jesus’s teachings. Returning to them might save this country. Continuing down their current path will destroy it.

Logged on to my credit union account this morning and was met with a banner announcing their branches would be closed on Juneteenth to “celebrate National Freedom.” Seriously? The first official Juneteenth holiday hasn’t even happened, and it’s already being rebranded to erase the reality of Black struggle against white supremacy. This is exactly why I was not in favor of making this a state or national holiday. 
 
Juneteenth is an African American tradition. It celebrates the day enslaved people of African descent in Texas learned they had been set free two and a half years earlier. They had been lied to for two and a half years by every white person, organization, newspaper, and business in the state. For us who descend from those people, it is a reminder of the additional years of wage theft and loss of economic, educational, physical and psychological self-determination our ancestors endured. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s also a reminder our fate cannot be entrusted to white people. My credit union confirmed the continued verity of that belief. 
 
The idea of white people celebrating Juneteenth offends me to my core. If anything, it should be a day when they contemplate the shame of their biological and social progenitors and learn how those dishonorable acts have reverberated in Black lives throughout the decades since. 
 
In my book, The Truth About White People, I offer an exercise for white people to do just that. I reproduce it here in hopes at least some white people with conscience will take the time and perhaps share it with their friends and family who believe racism has nothing to do with their current place in the world, especially those who believe they are successful based on their merits alone.
 
Step 1: Create a social history map of your family. Instead of the traditional family tree that tracks lineage via births and deaths, this map will identify significant events that impacted or reflected your family’s change in social status. These events may include significant births, deaths, residential moves, employment opportunities (promotions/demotions), purchase of a house, educational advancement, economic losses, etc. The resulting change in status might be in a positive or negative direction (e.g.: prolonged unemployment, stock market crash).
 
To give you some ideas, I’ve created an abbreviated social history of my family up to my graduation from high school. There are many significant events that didn’t make my map because they didn’t change the family’s social status. For example, I briefly attended a parochial school in Berkeley, CA. While that had significant impact on me individually, it didn’t change my family’s social status in any way, so it’s not on the map.
 
As you will see, this is quite different from a family tree. It does take a lot of time to do, maybe several sittings, so relax into it. If you know there was a general status shift, but don’t know specifically what caused it, give it a generally identifying name. For example, if you know that your great- grandmother “came into money” but don’t know whether the source was from an inheritance, sale of property, or backyard moonshine still, just use something generic like “Granny came into money.”
 
Once you’re satisfied all of the major status shifts in your family have been identified, continue to the next step.
 
Step 2: Identify those events in your family social history map  that required resources and identify those resources. Resources can be education, money or other economic assets, people, knowledge, political connections, etc.
 
I’ve done this with a segment of my family’s social history as a sample. The status changes that were dependent on resources are in the green boxes on the left. The resources they required are on the right.
 
After you’ve identified the resources, continue to Step 3.
 
Step 3: Review the resources you identified. Were they available to everybody, or were there people who were excluded by law, practice or custom? For example, if your great-grandmother started her own business, using funds borrowed from a bank or from other family members, was this possible for everyone? If not, who was excluded? If you don’t know, take time to research and find out.
 
I’ve done this with an abbreviated segment of my family’s social history as a sample.
 
So far you’ve (a) identified the key points of your family’s change in social status (b) recognized the resources it took to make those changes, and (c) determined who did or did not have access to those resources.
 
Now, at each step, imagine what would have happened to your family if they had not had access to those resources. Follow the cascade of events. For example, in my family’s scenario, if my parents didn’t have a relationship to the Ethiopian royal family, my father probably would have died in Ethiopia. We would have never moved to the United States. Like the rest of my mother’s family, we would have been displaced when the royal family was overthrown and probably have ended up in Greece.
 
If you are white, imagine what the impact would have been on your family if they had been of African, or Asian, Native American, or Latino descent. What if they hadn’t been able to get the bank loan to buy their first home? What if the community they actually moved into had restrictive covenants that didn’t allow anyone who wasn’t white… how would that have impacted the education of future generations? What if the jobs they had were not available to people of color, how would that impact the location of their home, their ability to pursue higher education, access to health care, and overall economic progress?
 
If you are a person of color, imagine the impact on your family if they had access to resources readily available to whites.
 
The gap between what was available to white families and was available to those who were in oppressed racial groups is the measure of racism and its outcome: privilege.
 
It’s obvious that my African American experience is vastly atypical. I confess to great class privilege before arriving in the U.S., and that has translated into much lifelong privilege and much responsibility. I have achieved many things in my life, but none of those would have been possible without the very privileged ladder that was built before my birth. However, much of that early class-based privilege evaporated the moment I set foot on U.S. soil. My African and African-American ancestry overrode my education and economic access. Over time, my light skin color opened doors to opportunities not afforded to people with more brown in their skin pigment. That door shut as soon as I revealed my ancestry, which I have learned to do early in every personal and professional setting.
 
The mythology of the self-made person is a lie. We make one another. There are people much smarter than I am and much more gifted who are invisible simply because we live in a society that doesn’t allow them to fully develop their gifts, that actively withholds resources from them. Recently I heard Rev. Jesse Jackson say this:
 
“We never knew how good baseball could be until everyone could play. We never knew how good basketball could be until everyone could play. We never knew how good football could be until everyone could play at every level.”
 
Millions of babies’ lives have been saved because of the breakthrough surgical techniques developed by African American Dr. Vivien Thomas. How many others could be contributing if only they had the opportunity? Is the cure to breast cancer secreted in the mind of a young African American boy or girl whose curiosity gets them sent to detention instead of college? Is the next breakthrough in environmental sustainability beating in the heart of a young Native American boy or girl who understands the movement of the stars in a way not considered before, but who has no one to mentor and guide them? How much do we lose as a society, and as a species, by putting all of our resources in the hands of one group of people?
 
If your racial identity has created opportunities for you that weren’t available to others, then you are a racist, a beneficiary of racism. You are the problem.
 
Now, this Juneteenth, what will you do about it? What will you do to bring this nation, this state, this society back in line with the aspirational vision statement of the preamble to the Constitution? What will you do create “a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity?”
 
While some will settle for pecuniary compensation, I will not. Juneteenth is not about individuals. It is about bringing healing to entire communities destroyed by white greed. Help us fix our schools. Train our healthcare professionals. Create workplaces where we can be ourselves and bring our highest skills. Stop interfering in our ability to be housed. Bring healthy drinking water to Flint (and the Navaho nation). Permanently guarantee our right to vote. STOP LETTING POLICE KILL US. Listen to Black organizers in your community and follow their lead. 
 
Otherwise, stop pretending Juneteenth matters to you and give us back our tradition.  

​If you believe homelessness is a problem in your city now, imagine what it will be like after the eviction moratorium ends. If you are someone who complains about how awful it is to have homeless people camping in your neighborhood or city, understand it is about to become much, much, much worse as landlords demand back rent from people made jobless by the pandemic for over a year, people who are barely able to feed and clothe themselves and their families. 
 
There is a simple, common sense solution. 
 
In 2008-2009, We the People of the United States of America bailed out all of the large banks and lenders in this country. We gave them… GAVE them… trillions of dollars so they wouldn’t go under. The money came from our hard-earned paychecks. Some banks and lenders used that money to pay their executives and shareholders, thus starting the spiraling disaster of homelessness by foreclosing on millions of homeowners the money was intended to protect. As we approach the end of the eviction moratoriums, it’s time for those banks to pay us back. 
 
Everyone with a mortgage must be given the option to skip up to one year of payments and extend their mortgage one year without penalty or interest. Any mortgagor who owns rental property and accepts this option must be required to completely forgive their renters rent payments for up to one year. 
 
This simple act would bring stability to the economy and allow millions of people to stay in their homes. Yes, it would negatively impact bank shareholders, but they have benefited the most over the past decade, fueled by the infusion from us, the taxpayers. By extending the mortgage, the banks still get their money, just a bit later, homeowners and landlords have time to re-establish their post-pandemic financial footing without pressuring renters, and renters have the opportunity to catch their financial breath without being pressured by homeowners. Most of all, the true economy, the one fueled by purchase of clothing, food and everyday necessities, the one keeping small businesses alive, will have time to stabilize. Otherwise our country’s economy will continue to drain resources from those at the bottom until the top-heavy weight becomes an inversion and causes it all to collapse.  
 
There is only one reason this process wouldn’t work: greed combined with political cowardice. Greed of bankers and anyone who believes the economy is only defined by corporate success; cowardice of politicians too lazy or feckless to understand how the economy actually works. 
 
No excuse is acceptable. The crisis can be averted. No, it isn’t easy, but it will save millions of lives. 
 
If you don’t like this solution, post a better one. We can, MUST, do better.

Love is not a precursor to justice or dignity. No matter how much you hate someone, in this country they are supposed to have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If everyone killed the people they dislike, even hate, there would be few of us left.

When you make these crimes about an emotion, you put the onus of changing that emotion on the victim. "If only they had been more lovable." You force the victimized to fight to be seen as worthy of life. But in a truly just society, people are treated with dignity whether or not they are lovable. Hated or loved, people have the right to live. We all have a right to justice. THAT'S THE ENTIRE ASPIRATIONAL PURPOSE OF THIS COUNTRY and what's supposed to make it great. It's also where it continues to fall short. 

These acts of violence are not fueled by hate. They are deeply seeded in a hunger for power. The conflation of hate and the lust for power robs our society of the ability to effectively deal with these crimes. The white boy/man who killed 8 people didn't do it because he had any feelings about them individually. He simply believed he had a right to take out his feeling of powerlessness on them, and gain power to bring the world gaze to his face. He didn't randomly seek out any woman who happened to be around. He specifically targeted Asian women he perceived had no power to defend themselves and he believed his white compatriots would not defend. His "hatred" is not toward the women and their characteristics. It is his sense of powerlessness he hates and power he is attempting to reclaim. 

His sense of a right to feel superior and hunger for supremacy coupled with his inability to achieve it is the core of this horrible act; his need to bring these women into submission. It is the same fuel driving police murders of unarmed Black men and women. It is the inner drive telling a police officer he must prove his supremacy by kneeling on a man's neck. It is the arrogance enabling white women to publicly taunt Black and brown men and women without consequences (I'm looking at you Renton). 

Without dire, public consequences, these acts will continue. As long as the perceived benefits outweigh the risks, these acts will continue. Until people lose their jobs, are imprisoned, are shunned, they will continue. Most important of all: until power is redefined in this country and white people, especially white men, see themselves as part of the overall fabric rather than as the defining thread, these acts will continue.

Thanks for your patience while I took a couple of weeks off. January and early February were beyond challenging for us all. 
 
Now comes the hard part… the work. In the past week I’ve received five phone calls from people suddenly thrust into leadership by their peers. In each case, they were overwhelmed. Each one was balancing disparate needs, being asked to make Solomonic decisions; each standing in their personal Golgotha moment. Their choices would define pivot points in many lives. 
 
Leadership often comes to those who crave it least, especially in times of crisis. Why? Because they are usually the ones with sleeves rolled up, doing the work, quietly proving their skills, their empathy and, perhaps more important of all, their integrity. While those who self-style themselves as leaders of this and that are prancing their public personas and privately revealing their fakery, the real leaders, the ones everyone trusts to actually get things done, are slowly rising in everyone’s consciousness.
 
Suddenly the spotlight unexpectedly turns on them and the calls come. “Please help us.” “We’re not sure how to move forward.” “People trust you.” So they smile, say, “yes, of course,” and quietly panic. Here are the things I tell them. 
 
Leadership is inconvenient. It’s invasive. Set boundaries, by all means, but understand your wants and needs will come second to the community’s needs, especially during crisis. The true, long-standing standard of your success will become, "How did this empower community?" Make it the core of your decision-making.
 
It’s a calling in the most literal terms. People are calling on you to solve a problem, to be their voice, to show them a new way. How you respond defines their expectations. You can say, “Yes,” and do what you think is best, leaving them to second-guess your motivations and processes. You can say, “I will partner with you,” and create a collaboration. You can develop mutual language, identify shared values and set parameters of independence/collaboration. However you do it, you will make mistakes. Learn to truly apologize, make reparations and do better.
 
Your choices are nowhere near as important as understanding the reasons why you are making them. No matter what you choose, there will be consequences. Know which consequences you can live with or ameliorate. Understand the difference between short- and long-term consequences. Be clear how each choice will impact your constituents, collaborators, friends, family, and opponents.
 
You will never please everyone. It sounds so simple, but what happens when you stand between two vastly differing opinions each held by people with whom you have long-standing, mutually respectful, even loving, relationships? Know why your allies stand beside you. Their motivations will help define the parameters of your effectiveness. The moment of this tension is the moment your moral center is revealed. It will always be flawed because you are part of a flawed species.

Remember this one thing – only one person is guaranteed to be present at the end of your life: you. Do the thing that will make you proud to face yourself in that moment.

If businesses are willing to assume the burden and responsibility inherent in bringing people into their workplace during a pandemic, they should have the right to reopen. Currently, the burden and responsibility fall on our state and local governments and institutions. 
 
I have a proposal for the governor and legislature that will allow businesses to reopen immediately. They can do so provided they sign a legally binding document saying:

• If an outbreak of COVID-19 can be traced back to their place of business, they will reimburse the state, hospital, medical professionals, and all required staff for every, and all, costs associated with caring for those individuals who are infected, no exceptions.
• The business, or owner(s)/partners, in case of an LLC/P, will pay each survivor of COVID-19 infection traced back to their place of business $1,000/day for each day they are sick.
• If deaths result from exposures traced back to their place of business, the business or, in case of LLC/P, its owner(s)/partners will pay all death-related costs, as defined by the needs of the family of the deceased. They will also pay a fine of $1,000,000 per death directly to the family of the deceased. 
• Any and all legal costs associated with upholding this agreement must be paid by the company or, in case of LLC/P, its owner(s)/partners.

 
Any business willing to make itself accountable to the community as a whole by signing this agreement should be allowed to open. Don't you agree?

​There is a great deal of speculation these days about what will become of QAnon and its adherents. Having once voluntarily joined a cult and let it rule my life for seven years I’d like to offer some thoughts on the subject.
 
What if they’re not completely wrong? What if there really is a vast conspiracy stealing children off the streets of our cities and using them as sacrifices? What if the only thing QAnon got wrong is the understanding of the word “aliens?”  What if our national obsession with immigration led them to erroneously believe the “aliens” who were invading our shores were those coming over the border from South or Central America when, in fact, the “aliens” are those coming from Vega. 
 
According to Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, we now have proof objects from the stars have come into our solar system. The item doing a flyby of our planet in 2017, detected by Loeb and his colleagues around the world, is described as oval, about 100-yards long, just millimeters thin, and shiny like metal. It’s compared to satellites we earthlings have been flinging into the galaxy for several years. What if this item was a satellite from another solar system checking on progress by extraterrestrials already on our planet? 
 
In 1992 the Rev. George Coyne, then head of the Vatican Observatory, explained the church’s participation in building a telescope atop Arizona’s Mount Graham by saying ''The church would be obliged to address the question of whether extraterrestrials might be brought within the fold and baptized.'' Were they aware of activity never revealed to the general public?
 
What if, on this most recent flyby, the truly alien object sprinkled a bit of coronavirus into our atmosphere? Wouldn’t that explain the sudden blossoming of variations all over the globe? What if this is their way of taking over our planet? And what if it’s an inside job? What if there is a Vegan who made it far enough into power to ensure the virus was spreading without resistance? What if the children who have been disappearing were actually being used as test subjects to ensure the universal effectiveness of the virus?
 
So how we would we recognize members of the early Vegan strike force? If I was their leader, I would disarm humans by telling them the virus wasn’t such a big deal. Next I would make sure the tools they needed to fight the virus were in short supply and, in a brilliant stroke of genius, sow chaos by forcing them to compete with each other for the meager resources available. All the while, I would tell them how well things were going, how minor the virus was and how I had things under control. I would tout as many supposed cures as possible, whether or not they had merit. The more the virus spread, the more false information I would circulate. I would minimize and verbally attack anyone who defied me. All the while, they would die. I could genuinely say the mission was going well since my real mission would be to decimate their population.
 
Of course, to throw off suspicion I would have to come down with the virus, too, but my real species would be smart enough to build immunity into my system. Of course my miraculous recovery would bolster claims the virus wasn’t a big deal.
 
The alien would have to be careful of one thing, though. Having come from a planet with a very different atmosphere, (s)he would have developed an adaptation that might give away their secret identity. Knowing hiding in plain sight is sometimes the best strategy, they might focus all attention on skin color; just not theirs. Maybe this is why black and brown skin, found all over the planet and acknowledged as the first skin color of our species, has been demonized; a distraction from the real aliens. 
 
What if the alien’s very visible adaptation is the one skin color NOT naturally found on our planet: orange?
 
Think about it, former QAnonies. Based on facts and makes so much more sense than your original theory. This, perhaps, is the truth you’ve been searching for. 
 
You decide.

We are so deeply indebted to Stacey Abrams for her leadership and commitment to community. She and her team, like so many Black women in our country over the ages, saved us from ourselves. They carry the flame of liberation that inspired the Statue of Liberty. They are the manifested dreams of Sojourner Truth, Madame C.J. Walker, Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Maxine Waters, Ella Baker and so many others throughout the country and its history who held a vision of our community's greatness and brought it to fruition. It is on their wings the future will rise.

It is for them Paul McCartney and John Lennon penned these words: