Social injustice from the left and right
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Read 1 day ago and current, but nothing has been published for 23 months.
It was a beautiful fall day, late afternoon, when I called on Candace Avalos, candidate for Portland City Council District 1. She was sitting on her front porch, looking at her phone and seemed surprised to see me. Out of 98 candidates for Portland’s new, expanded 12-seat city council, Avalos is one of the most […] The post When Candy Isn’t Dandy appeared first on Held to answer .
What kind of a man picks a fight with a woman old enough to be his mother? Daunte Wright. Just a poor black guy, with an arrest warrant and a previous firearms violation, trying to go about his business. And what kind of a woman apologizes profusely, sobbing uncontrollably, for trying to do her job […] The post Living in Joan Didion’s Culture Shock appeared first on Held to answer .
In her classic short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula K. Le Guin writes of a happy place known for a joyous Festival. A cheerful sweetness hovers in the air of the magical Omelas, and it is reflected in the citizens. “They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy…,” […] The post The Women Who Walk Away appeared first on Held to answer .
There are no statues of Todd Beamer in Newark, N.J., but there is one of George Floyd. For all of the extensive 20th anniversary coverage of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, this oversight seems to have escaped notice. On Sept. 11, 2001, Beamer, 32, boarded United Airlines Flight 93 in Newark and headed for a business […] The post ‘Tiny Grass is Dreaming’ appeared first on Held to answer .
How perfect that the first U.S. police department to study body-worn cameras on officers was in Rialto, Calif., where Rodney King met his Maker. Years before King died in 2012 of a drug overdose at his home in Rialto, he became famous when Los Angeles police officers beat him following a high-speed chase – an […] The post Body Cams: A ‘Neutral Third Eye’ appeared first on Held to answer .
With the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death behind us, will the nice white ladies return this summer with their protest signs honoring a man none of them would have wanted for a neighbor? “We can’t stop protesting,” the Wall of Moms tweeted over the weekend. “Like John Lewis said, ‘Find a way to get […] The post Moms Are Here, Nothing to Fear appeared first on Held to answer .
Hold the reparations. The debt America supposedly owes its black slave descendants will be paid for in kind – by destroying the criminal justice system. All black criminal suspects are hereby freed of all suspicion. You don’t have to pull over for any police officer. You don’t have to answer your door for any police […] The post America’s New N-Word is ‘Cops’ appeared first on Held to answer .
George Floyd didn’t change the world. He made a fool of it. The man who bought a pack of cigarettes with an allegedly counterfeit $20-bill, then refused to return the cigarettes, ended up leaving an estate worth $27 million. That’s the settlement his family received because Big Floyd didn’t want to give the cigarettes back […] The post Dollar Signs in Their Eyes appeared first on Held to answer .
How do you know you’ve finally arrived after being a member of a marginalized minority? You’re treated like a white guy. Welcome to the privileged world of white power, Rep. Diego Hernandez. How do you like it? Hernandez (D-East Portland) is facing expulsion from the Oregon House of Representatives after a Conduct Committee recommended he […] The post A New Face on the ‘Creep Sheet’ appeared first…
It’s hard to get excited over the insurrection in Washington D.C. after a year when rioting became acceptable in the U.S. If it’s OK to go on a rampage in service to Black Lives Matter, why can’t a QAnon freak like Jake Angeli roam the Senate floor showing off his bare chest, painted face and […] The post What Could Go Wrong? appeared first on Held to answer .