HIDDEN FIGURES BARBIE DOLLS

Hidden Figures Barbie Dolls don't exist yet.
But they should.

An instagram account called "A DOLL'S WORLD AFTER ALL" re-creates pop culture moments with dolls that are barbie sized, from what I can tell. And the image below was created by this instagram account.  

The thing is, I'm thinking why don't we ask instead of wish. Why don't we ask Mattel to make these as part of their Barbie collection.

Can you imagine giving your daughter or your niece a doll based on a woman that's a math genius? Can you imagine having tiny little girls that are 5 or 6 years old thinking that want to be a computer genius, engineer, or rocket scientist when they grow up--before they even know what a computer genius, engineer, or rocket scientist really is? 

Whichever little girl you're thinking of right now? She's going to be needed in a STEM job 20 years from now, especially if she's black. 

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), African American women and girls comprise a little more than 6% (N=19,730,247) of the total U.S. population, 14% (N=861,642) of female students enrolled at four-year institutions, and 10.4% (N=19,160) of female graduate enrollment in STEM fields....

While the 10.7% figure for Bachelor’s degree and 13% for Master’s is encouraging, the percentages obscure some fields (such as mathematics), where African American female degree attainment is 800% less than degree-attainment levels for white females!   Similarly, graduate school (and the subsequent advanced degree) is critical in preparing scientists to engage in high-level research and development, but also in forming professional networks.  These networks may not only help to open doors for careers in industry (such as those in Silicon Valley), but for opening doors to careers across all sectors. 

http://www.scientistafoundation.com/scientista-spotlights/why-so-few-african-american-women-in-stem-part-ii-by-the-numbers

I just donated money to an outfit that encourages black teens to go to college for engineering. Apparently the numbers for black people in these fields are way down.

Despite having repeatedly read that a larger percentage of black women earn degrees than white women and black men, both sometimes, there are a lot more white women and black men in STEM jobs than black women. 

So we have to do something. That first thing we should probably do is inspire out little girls.

You have to dream it 

in order to achieve it, 

no matter what IT actually is.

And playing with dolls 

has always been

a large part of a girl's dream cycle.

Why not start her dreaming 

of being a genius that changes the world?

DebLynn

First step? Ask Mattel to make Hidden Figures Barbies. Since we're dreaming and inspiring dreams we should have the dolls look like the movie characters That means that Octavia Spencer doll is gonna have to a bit more curvy

I couldn't figure out who to write at Mattel. So I just wrote the people who handle the press. If you're feeling energetic and optimistic, why not write to Mattel yourself at  press@mattel.com.

The more people that lean on them to make the dolls the better. The more people that lean on them the more convinced Mattel will be that there's a market for these dolls.

Or is there a black barbie-type doll maker that you think can do it better? 


Dream it
Work at it
Achieve it

Write Mattel or call them.

Happy New Year!

HIDDEN FIGURES is due to come out to theaters in wide release on January 6th. Sometimes a movie is cheap and easy history. Go see it! Then try a find a book on the three black women that won the space race for The United States 

GONNA MISS HIM

I think a lot of his detractors will too before long.

And now that the President has expelled Russian intelligence operatives and and shut down a couple of Russian compounds. They have 72 hours to get out of dodge due to Russian cyber-hacking of the 2016 U.S. election. He's also declassified documents that speak to the Russian Cyber-hacking.

It's gonna be tough for the Orange Dragon to just continue to cozy up to Putin...without reversing all these actions. And in order to reverse all these actions he's going to have look less than faithful to the United States.

This is about to get interesting. Don't take your eye off the ball.

Other politicians might shut up, let things die down, then just sneakily change things when the public's attention is elsewhere. Mean Tangerine's not that bright. And his followers will follow him off a cliff. But it looks like his own party is not going for this -- trying to save their careers beyond the minuscule radar blip that Mean Tangerine will turn out to be 10 years from now -- I hope.

Well played, President Obama. Nice gambit. We'll see what happens.

See More Here:http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/29/politics/russia-sanctions-announced-by-white-house/

DENZEL MUST THINK WE'RE IN A POST-RACIAL COUNTRY BECAUSE OF ONE BLACK PRESIDENT

According to BOSSIP Denzel Washington said, 

Asked if colorism holds dark-skinned actors and actresses back in show business, Denzel replies, “One of the best roles for a woman of any color in the last, in a good while or at least any movie that I’ve been in, a dark-skinned woman has in this film. So as long as you’re being lead by outside forces or just being reactionary then you won’t move forward. You have to continue to get better.”

“You can say, ‘Oh I didn’t get the part because they gave it to the light-skinned girl, or you can work, and one day, it might take twenty years, and you can be Viola.” He continues, “The easiest thing to do is to blame someone else, the system. Yeah, well, there’s a possibility, maybe, that you’re not good enough, but it’s easy to say it’s someone else’s fault. But there’s a possibility that you’re not ready and you can still blame it on someone else instead of getting ready.”

https://bossip.com/1392220/denzel-washington-says-viola-davis-is-proof-colorism-doesnt-exist-in-hollywood/

In 2012, 9 out of 12 of the wealthiest black actresses (the ones that work the most) could pass a paperbag test in the dark. The only reason that may NOT be true right now is because of black women like Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay giving dark-skinned black actresses work -- not due to black male directors and producers.

If Viola hadn't been given high visibility, opportunity to win acting awards, Denzel would have wound up with Paula Patton cast as his love interest...again. 

DENZEL WASHINGTON IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN
A BLACK MAN BELIEVES THAT
EXAMINING WHAT IS  HAPPENING TO BLACK PEOPLE 

MEANS
EXAMINING AT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO BLACK MEN ONLY

Colorism's affect on black women is many multiples larger than it's affect on black men because a woman's worth is still connected to beauty in this society. And since white beauty aesthetic is the standard, light-skinned actresses get more work.

Viola Davis is probably 10x the actress Vanessa Williams is -- but Vanessa's networth is many multiples of Viola Davis's because she's light.  Angela Bassett's networth is much less than Halle Berry's and she's definitely the better actress.

If Washington had thought critically about how colorism affects black women just one time he wouldn't have essentially said,

"I'm not going to look around and see the pattern of what's happening to my sisters. The only black woman I care about is my wife. And when somebody questions me on colorism I'm going to think and talk like a white man who says racism is over because ONE black man got to be president."

He even added his OLD RICH-MAN-ITIS (MERITOCRACY BELIEF plus ARROGANCE) In a very Cosby-eske type manner he is saying,

"I made it, why can't you?"  

It is my firm belief that rocket scientists can brag about hard work paying off. But actors? Even without the racism and sexism, hard work and talent have to combine with luck at some point. I'm never going to find the words "I made it, why can't you?" between the lines and do anything but sneer. But a freaking actor? Come on! If there's another career more dependent on luck than actor, I can't think of it right now. There are people working in restaurants with more talent Meryl Streep who will simply never be in the right place at the right time.
And some of those more talented, harder working people are black women who are too dark.

Clearly, Washington does not understand just who it is that's been holding him up all these years. It's black women, by the way. And I think black women have been holding him high because he's one of the few black men in hollywood that has a black wife that looks black. I wouldn't have guessed that he would say something this ridiculous, but the handwriting was probably on the wall as far as him NOT-SEEING black women.

Reading between the lines of his entire career, you can see it. With the exception of maybe Jurnee Smollet as near as I can tell he did not use his power to advance one black woman in a 30 year career -- and I love her, but she's a paperbag passer.

Furthermore, the women's roles in most of the movies that he CHOOSES to be in as an actor OFTEN suck so bad I am usually glad black actresses weren't in them by the time I get to the end. I guess I don't have to wonder why anymore.

You know what's worse though? I think Spike Lee has advanced more white women's careers than he has light women's careers.

I was looking at all of Spike's movies, the first 3 or 4 actors billed in each of his movies (people with real speaking roles) and there were a lot more white women than I remember. Sometimes I went deeper than the top 3 or 4 actors to get to ANY woman at all. Other than his sister, the women were light and white a lot

You know why a lot of black men can't see colorism? It's just like white people who can't see their own white supremacy and white choices. It's just so normal to them. Despite being discriminated against based on race, black men willfully do not see their male supremacy and their male choices of lightness and whiteness both.

I just recently saw two photo collages online. One was of black actors and athletes married to white women. Another was of black actors married to black women. If you were to put both collages together I'm guessing 3/4s of the women were light or white. But I'm confused as to why young black girls are looking for long straight weaves and bleaching creams, aren't you? (Yeah. I'm being sarcastic) However, I'm not confused about Denzel's attitude. It's common as dirt among black men with power in Hollywood. We all know white racism informs colorism. Now you know sexism informs colorism too. There's no way Washington would have said this if he had the slightest notion of the problems that black women face. Again, it's particularly galling that the one dark-skinned black woman he named probably wouldn't have been on his radar at all if it hadn't been for another black woman, Rhimes, who appears to see colorism just fine--- which is why she works on dismantling it. Sexism - Colorism - Racism. Their enablers all think the same way.

PRESIDENT OBAMA DIDN'T FAIL ALEPPO ALONE

"With great power comes great responsibility"

I learned that concept from a Spiderman cartoon when I was 10 or 11 years old.  

In the original cartoon, Peter Parker (Spiderman's real identity) is told this by his Uncle Ben. But Spiderman doesn't act on this life lesson when a thief robs a man that has just cheated him. Instead of stopping the robber, which Spiderman had the power to do, he lets the robber go. Later his Uncle Ben is killed. When Spiderman catches the masked killer of his Uncle and wants to kill the robber in revenge, he pulls the robber's mask off and recognizes the thief he allowed to escape. 

Spiderman understands that he is partially responsible for his Uncle's death, takes the killer to prison (unlike the movie version) and resolves to be to use his powers responsibly. A superhero is born

The United States came into it's superpowers after WWII. But, I don't think world Superpowers like The United States and Russia got the Uncle Ben Memo.

When I think of Syria and other countries we've stomped into, I don't delude myself into thinking that the United States intervenes in civil wars because we're the good guys. Getting into a proxy war with Russia and Iran or Russia and Country X on one side with the United States and Western Europe on the other, is the way you get a whole bunch of people killed in some land, far, far away.  

If the side the United States backs wins, we call ourselves humanitarians. "So many more people would have died if we hadn't gone. If the side the U.S. back fails,  as happened in Aleppo, then we didn't do enough.

It seems to me the cleanest thing the United States could have done in Syria was to stay out of it. That's because part of me thinks, very simplistically, that a civil war ought to be a civil war. Whoever wins? They win. Proxy wars will just take longer.

A longer war means more dead bodies. A longer war means more desperation, more atrocities. Better for it to be over quickly. Whoever wins? They win. No matter which side wins, the ending of the war quickly preserves the most physical life -- even if it doesn't give everybody freedom. 

The other reality is our own and Russia's desires for empire or failing that allies. I know we can't just sit here watching Russia or China take prop up their favorite regime and do nothing. I know we can't just sit here and wait until another super power starts tromping across the planet like Hitler tried to. 

However, as already stated, proxy wars are evil all the way around.

Vietnam was really the U.S. fighting Russia. Syria was really the U.S. fighting Russia again. And if Russia sends bombs and bullets to one side of the NEXT CIVIL WAR in a new country we will feel like we must supply bombs and bullets to the other side.  We will prolong the next war in the next country.

If we wanted to let a civil war be a civil war and Russia decides to give aid to one side, the most honest thing we could do would be to attack Russian supply lines -- not give aid to one side in the civil war. The most directly honest thing we could do would be to stop other countries from intervening. 

But the U.S. and Russia don't attack each other for fear of provoking a nuclear war. So we stuck. So President Obama was stuck. Wasn't he?

Maybe I'm feeling defensive of President Obama as he leaves office --in a way I probably wouldn't be if the Orange Dragon wasn't waiting for us on the other side of New Years Day.  But I don't know what he could have done differently or better. He didn't have the people's support for a full scale war or even enough support to just match Russia plane for plane, bomb for bomb. 

We the people couldn't even agree that we should take a bunch of Syrian refugees here. And this indecision symbolizes the thing that bothers me most about us. We-The-People can b*tch on both sides of an argument at the very same time. 

In 2008 and 2009, We-The-People wanted the banksters to go to jail. I did too. But we also wanted the economy to recover as quickly as possible. 

Those two things couldn't happen at the same time. 

If you put the banksters in jail, the banksters (a.k.a the 1 %) that escaped justice by the skin of their teeth get scared. If the 1% gets scared, then the stock market tanks. If the stock market tanks, that means investments have stopped. If investments stop, businesses stop hiring. When people don't have jobs because the businesses stopped hiring, the people stop spending money. Then you have a depression instead of recession in 2008 and 2009.  

The next questions becomes: Could President Obama have kept the banksters dangling on a string, indicted sans trial or something, until the economy recovered? 

I don't know. With his black skin and ambient white supremacy being what it is, the main stream press didn't admit that President Obama completely turned the economy from what he inherited from Bush Jr until very recently.  Since, I don't think you can accuse a bankster of criminal activity then prosecute him when the economy is stable 7.5 years later, I think President Obama was stuck as far as never going-hard to put the banksters in jail 

As far as getting legislation passed to stop "too big to fail?" I think we need a whole new congress. We'd have to replace them all in order to get them to stop protecting the interests of the ones who donate to their election coffers.   

The other two things you can't do at the same time is save each city in the world using our military AND not have some of our military get killed. You also can't break Iraq by killing Saddam Hussein, accidentally create ISIL, then watch ISIL flood into Syria and destabilize it under a dictator, then just sit there and do nothing. 

The civil war in Syria wasn't JUST a civil war, of course. But how do you attack cooperatively with a Syrian dictator you despise, but legally represents the country, in order to go in after ISIL? I don't think you can. We didn't. Not really.

Once Syria became but so unstable, Syria's government ceased to exist, which means Syria the nation-state didn't really exist anymore either. What does great power meaning great responsibility look like at that point?  

I know what great power meaning great responsibility didn't look like prior to Aleppo falling. 

It didn't look like We-The-People wanted President Obama to send as many troops as necessary to get the job done. 

It didn't look like We-The-People would take as many refugees as necessary while we helped clean up the mess we helped create. 

From where I sit, it doesn't look like President Obama made the mistake of not going in to rescue Aleppo alone. President Obama and We-The-People made this decision to not-commit together-- much like We-The-People made the decision that the reviving the economy, getting people back to work, and stopping foreclosures was more important than putting the banksters in jail.

You can't make a cake without breaking some eggs. Just like you can't keep the eggs intact and also make the cake, you can't go to war and not lose American lives. Just like you can't keep the eggs intact and also make the cake, you can't bomb the hell out of a country, make people homeless, then pretend you don't have to do something to help the people made homeless (a.k.a Syrian Refugees)

If the United States is guilty of letting Aleppo fall, President Obama isn't guilty of that alone. We-The-People were behind him all the way

* * * * *  
    
The VOX video below on how and why Aleppo fell is only 4 minutes long.  The break down of what happened in Syria is easily understandable even though it doesn't list even 1/10th of the players involved in the Syrian War. But you'll know which big players did what and why by the time you've finished.

The thing you probably won't understand is probably the same thing I don't understand.  And what I don't understand is how U.S. foreign policy will ever be anything but some sort of huge ugly compromise where our politicians, sans a lick of honor, will decide whether or not to throw OTHER PEOPLE's sons and daughters at a "humanitarian crisis" happening in a country halfway around the world. 








http://www.vox.com/world/2016/12/16/13974780/aleppo-explained-4-minutes

WHITE WOMEN TEARS AND THE MEN WHO LOVE THEM

From A Predominantly White Site Called
THE GOOD MEN PROJECT
A classic example occurred in a workshop I was co-leading. A black man who was struggling to express a point referred to himself as stupid. My co-facilitator, a black woman, gently countered that he was not stupid but that society would have him believe that he was. As she was explaining the power of internalized racism, a white woman interrupted with, “What he was trying to say was…” When my co-facilitator pointed out that the white woman had reinforced the racist idea that she could best speak for a black man, the woman erupted in tears. The training came to a complete halt as most of the room rushed to comfort her and angrily accuse the black facilitator of unfairness (even though participants were there to learn how racism works, how dare the facilitator point out an example of how racism works!) Meanwhile, the black man who was the victim of her micro-aggression was left alone to watch.

There's a really good list of the many ways white men display white fragility and derail in depth conversations on race sans tears at the link. 
Read More: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-womens-tears-and-the-men-who-love-them-twlm/


I'd love to see this same subject revisited by black men

JESUS CHRIST'S SELFIE

What did Jesus Christ look like? 

Well we know what he didn't look like. We know he wasn't European because he was born in the area known as the middle east, the part that's less than a hop, skip, and jump from the African border.

One of the other things we know is that Judas kissed Jesus to identify Him for those that wanted to arrest Him.  From Matthew 26: 47-56

While He was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived. A large mob, with swords and clubs, was with him from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48 His betrayer had given them a sign: “The One I kiss, He’s the One; arrest Him!” 49 So he went right up to Jesus and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed Him.

50 “Friend,” Jesus asked him, “why have you come?”[a]

Then they came up, took hold of Jesus, and arrested Him. 51 At that moment one of those with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword. He struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his ear.

52 Then Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in its place because all who take up a sword will perish by a sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot call on My Father, and He will provide Me at once with more than 12 legions[b] of angels? 54 How, then, would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”

55 At that time Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out with swords and clubs, as if I were a criminal,[c] to capture Me? Every day I used to sit, teaching in the temple complex, and you didn’t arrest Me. 56 But all this has happened so that the prophetic Scriptures[d] would be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted Him and ran away.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26%3A47-56%2CMark+14%3A43-50%2CJohn+18%3A3-12&version=HCSB

If Jesus had looked different than his Galilean Semite disciples, He'd have been easy to pick out. There wouldn't have been a need for Judas to kiss him, as pre-arranged, so that the cops could pick him up.

If Jesus had a Facebook account, this could be his profile picture. 
So says Richard Neave,
a medical artist famed for reconstructing legendary faces from antiquit

If Jesus had been white and standing out from the disciples, He probably wouldn't have been able to move freely to talk to anybody, anywhere, at anytime.

The appearance of Jesus clearly isn't as important to his message. But the effort to whiten Jesus is important because it indicates a lot of white Christians haven't gotten his message and are willfully trying not to get it.

The resistance to Jesus' likely appearance is important because it's signifies an inability and/or unwillingness of white Christians to acknowledge Jesus as a middle eastern refugee while also loving Him and worshiping him. This unwillingness to acknowledge white supremacy where there is no active hate is why white racism is so prevalent in the white church and the United States today.  

White members of white churches may not understand that their voting for Trump has exposed their belief in white supremacy and their disregard of patriarchal white racism to the people of color and the rest of world. But some white Christian leaders are shocked by their white followers being able to vote for Donald Trump.

Headline

Trump Won. Here's How 20 Evangelical Leaders Feel.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/november-web-only/trump-won-how-evangelical-leaders-feel.html

Black and brown people, for the most part, are not likely shocked by election of an overt racist heavily supported by white Christians. Black and brown people remember the reason that Sunday Morning used to be the most segregated hour in the U.S. It's called "white racism" not "white working class pain"

Sunday morning would still be the most segregated hour in America if the majority of people attended some sort of religious service.

President Obama being in the white house has brought white racism roaring out from under the political correctness cover with its teeth bared. White people whining about political correctness since Reagan have been telling the rest of us that they believe that anything  not white and male or not white and married-to-a-white-male is to be ridiculed, humiliated, or destroyed. 

The only people shocked that white people voted for patriarchal white supremacy in the form of Donald Trump are white people. But I have to admit I'm rather horrified that white Christians can take their white racism straight no-chaser. I was sure they had to have it dog-whistle style to go for white racism so hard.
 
My mistake. 

THE PERCENTAGE OF WHITE EVANGELICAL /
WHITE BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS VOTED FOR TRUMP

But the thing that never, ever surprises me are posts like the one I saw posted by a white father a few months ago. The man said he was shocked when he showed his little boy this representation of what Jesus most likely looked like and the boy automatically assumed the man was a criminal. He said he and his fellow white Christians had to do better. But there's a 7 or 8 out of 10 chance he voted to keep on teaching his son the same old patriarchal white supremacy.

If Jesus was to come back to earth twenty years from now, looking anything like the image above, there's a 7 out 10 chance this white man's son would shoot Him if he moved his hands too fast during a traffic stop.

White people who can stand the fed-up-ness of black and brown people in the age of Trump are going to need to explain whiteness and white supremacy to white people. Black and brown people really aren't in the mood to patiently explain anything anymore.

We are especially not in any sort of mood to explain the patterns of whiteness to white people who are running around calling themselves a "Christian" in 2016 after they voted for someone who openly despises everyone who isn't white and male or white-and-married-to-a-white-male.  

More important than how people of color are feeling about the somewhat expected betrayal of white Christians as a reason for tossing patience out the window is the fact that hiding our true feelings about hating the sin of white racism hasn't done white Christians any good.

Philip Yancey wrote in one of his books, possibly "What's So Amazing About Grace," that he was raised in a white church at the leading edge of segregation. And, before the actual election, he expressed his shock at how white Christians were lining up behind Trump. What he hasn't expressed so far, and neither has any other white pastor except for Jim Wallis and a couple of others, is what they plan to do about the white supremacy being fed, watered, and nurtured in white churches.

I hope they're praying on that this Christmas. I hope they're praying that the next action that they choose to take is the right one instead praying for God to take away the responsibility of freedom of choice -- because their choice to pretend their all white audiences have been constructed out of happenstance instead of the defacto segregation they love has had ugly consequences.

Seven and eight year old white boys can take a likely image of Christ and mistake Him for a criminal based on his skin color and lack of white facial features.  


Read More On What Jesus Christ's Selfie Would Look Like
https://www.greenprophet.com/2014/02/this-is-what-jesus-christs-selfie-would-look-like/

ON MUSLIM AMERICANS CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS

But my family and other interfaith families aren’t alone ― many Muslim families also celebrate Christmas, complete with trees, presents and carols.

Come Dec. 25, many Muslims are going to be having themselves, “a merry little Christmas” ― myself included. I’m not saying all Muslims celebrate this joyous holiday, but in chatting via social media and email with a range of Muslim Americans who are friends or simply “Facebook friends”  ― including a longtime correspondent for “The Daily Show,” a Virginia state representative and even a Muslim family with a son named Jesus ― I found that many fellow Muslims this week are, “hanging their stockings by the chimney with care.”

Read More:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslim-americans-christmas_us_585aa7eee4b0eb586484bfe7

COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE

TO BELIEVE OR NOT TO BELIEVE
 IN CLIMATE CHANGE

 by ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER with an assist from T.A. 

Feeling Rebloggy 

I see your questions.

Each and every time I post on my Facebook page or tweet about my crusade for a clean energy future, I see them.

There are always a few of you, asking why we should care about the temperature rising, or questioning the science of climate change.

I want you to know that I hear you. Even those of you who say renewable energy is a conspiracy. Even those who say climate change is a hoax. Even those of you who use four letter words.

I've heard all of your questions, and now I have three questions for you. Let's put climate change aside for a minute. In fact, let's assume you're right.

First - do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution? That's more than murders, suicides, and car accidents - combined.

• Every day, 19,000 people die from pollution from fossil fuels. Do you accept those deaths? Do you accept that children all over the world have to grow up breathing with inhalers?

Now, my second question: do you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?

• Besides the fact that fossil fuels destroy our lungs, everyone agrees that eventually they will run out. What's your plan then?
• I, personally, want a plan. I don't want to be like the last horse and buggy salesman who was holding out as cars took over the roads. I don't want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged. That's exactly what is going to happen to fossil fuels.
• A clean energy future is a wise investment, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either wrong, or lying. Either way, I wouldn't take their investment advice.
• Renewable energy is great for the economy, and you don't have to take my word for it. California has some of the most revolutionary environmental laws in the United States, we get 40% of our power from renewables, and we are 40% more energy efficient than the rest of the country. We were an early-adopter of a clean energy future.
• Our economy has not suffered. In fact, our economy in California is growing faster than the U.S. economy. We lead the nation in manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, entertainment, high tech, biotech, and, of course, green tech.

I have a final question, and it will take some imagination.

• There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.
• I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I'm guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice - who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

This is the choice the world is making right now.



To use one of the four-letter words all of you commenters love, I don't give a damn if you believe in climate change. I couldn’t care less if you're concerned about temperatures rising or melting glaciers. It doesn't matter to me which of us is right about the science.

I just hope that you'll join me in opening Door Number Two, to a smarter, cleaner, healthier, more profitable energy future. [Come with me if you want to live.*]
*= Last sentence added courtesy of commenter T.A.  

Link to Original Post
https://www.facebook.com/notes/arnold-schwarzenegger/i-dont-give-a-if-we-agree-about-climate-change/10153855713574658

REAL WHITE ALLIES READ

People of color can't afford to be draggin' any pseudo-white-ally dead weight in the age of The Orange Dragon.

White folks don't have to go as far in allyship as actor Michael Shannon who said, "If you're voting for Trump, it's time for the Urn."    But better that than try to defend white Trump voters as this newly minted "White Working Class," these mythical white voters who voted for working classed-ness OR "White Christians" voting for Christianity when it's clear that all Trump voters voted for was WHITEness.

If that weren't true non-white working class and the non-white Christians would have voted their wallets too. Black and brown people always have some piece of ethnoracism to ignore inside every white candidate since this country was conceived as an idea. There's no reason to see 2016 election as different.

If 60% of black and brown folks had been worried their homes would be foreclosed on if they FAILED to vote for working class hero Trump, then Trump would have gotten a landslide's worth of black votes -- no matter what the heck he said or didn't say. 

For so long as Trump knows whiteness better than white allies do, white allies are kinda worthless. And for so long as white allies are kind of worthless, POCs know the wind may blow them the right way politically speaking or it might not 

And that's why the white woman vote going to Trump shouldn't have been THAT surprising.
 

Feeling Rebloggy 
from 2015

America loves teachable moments, those real-life Very Special Episodes of supposed cross-cultural exchange and transracial learning.

The problem with those teachable moments is that the same people always end up doing all the teaching.

 In matters of race (and sex, disability, gender and sexuality, but let’s stick to race right now), the marginalized are tasked with being educators. That is, people of color (POC), are expected to be patient and polite racial and cultural ambassadors who provide white people new to this whole “thinking critically about race” thing with a “way in.” The role entails charitably and unselfishly engaging questions, assertions and doubts from white people who’ve previously done precious little thinking about racism and privilege, but often have quite a bit to say on the topic.

When POC refuse to take on this dual role of spokesperson and resource library, they’re often accused of having shirked an assumed responsibility. The idea seems to be that we’ve missed an opportunity, that it’s our duty to hold white people’s hands and educate them, that we’re condemning some poor white person to a continued life of ignorance.

~SALON 

Read More:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/black_people_are_not_here_to_teach_you_what_so_many_white_americans_just_cant_grasp_partner/

Where Love Better Trump Hate

Yesterday's 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS WAS A JOKE.  One of the lines made sarcastic reference to "Love Trumps Hate"

All kidding aside now, I'll tell you where love BETTER trump hate.

Love better trump hate between the blacks, latinx, muslims, asians, POC-LBGTQ, middle-easterns and everybody else e-raced out of American life by patriarchal white males and the white female handmaidens they married/girlfriend-ed.

(63% White males voted for Trump.  53% white women voted for Trump) 

Actually love better do more than trump hate between people of color. Love better make People of Color want to learn one another's stories. 

Blacks need to want know some basic mexican history and basic mexican current-story. Latinx people need to know some basic indigenous people history and some basic indigenous people current story . Indigenous people need to know some basic chinese history and some basic chinese current story. Asians need to know.... 

People of color need to come together as more of a consolidated group if most of us want to move in a similar direction --away from white supremacy.   

The alternate path is paved with empathy.

And, empathy requires at least a little bit of knowledge at its base.

White people are not lesser human beings than the rest of us. They, as a group, have consistently behaved in a way that IS consistent with not knowing anybody's history or perspective but their own. And that has led to a dearth of empathy (not only hate and disdain) from white people for decades.

White people have been so consistent about not knowing other people's perspective, that they don't even realize they have white perspective, a raced-perspective, just like every-single-body else.

White people also don't realize that people of color have to study their habits and their beliefs about themselves just to survive, much less thrive.   

People of color who don't read white people and their beliefs about themselves well, do not do well in this country. This is why one people of color group winds seeking knowledge and wind up with empathy for another people of group.  We have the habit of acknowledging ethnic/racial differences just to survive not-being-white in the United States. 

People of color do not more habitually seek awareness of the other because we were born better human beings, somehow, as a result of our DNA.   

So, if people of color want to move through life in a different way than whites have as a group so far, and the goal is to end that standard quo of white supremacy, then we're going to have to choose a different path. 

Therefore, love for one another better trump hate. Love had better lead to empathy creating a desire for knowledge and knowledge creating more empathy.  It better.

If people of color lead in love, maybe more wise and even not-so-wise white people will get better and be able to follow. And we'd better hope that love reigns even where knowledge is weak among white people because pragmatically and politically speaking, we need at least 1/3 of white people with us to swing the country in a more ethical and inclusive direction.  

"Being interested in politics" is a way of saying "being interested in influencing our group values." If we want our slice of the American pie, we need to get on it.  

So may love beget a thirst for knowledge and that in turn beget empathy and lead the way for people of color and white people too in 2017.    

Be Blessed.  

Not to force my religion on anybody, but since this is my own personal Christmas message, I pray that each and every one of you find Middle Eastern Jesus in your heart one day. 

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS REVISITED

FOR WEAK and/or FAKE WHITE ALLIES
       (just before The Era Of The Orange Dragon)

by Naomi Munroe

SING IT WITH ME NOW

On the 12th day of Christmas my white ally gave to meee ...

12 wack excuses*

11 wrong pronouns

10 tone police-ings

9 "I got Black Friends"

8 white tears

7 MLK Quotes

6 [ "One race, human race" ]

5 KUMBAYAAAAAAAAAAHS

4 "Love Trumps Hate s" *

3 racist costumes

2 "Not All Whites!"

And a

Safety Pin on a N a z i !!!!!

If you're a white ally that reads extensively, this doesn't apply to you. If you aren't and you don't wanna be our favorite punching bag, then do some more reading on the history of white folks interaction with black and brown folk -- especially that history having to do with Nixon, Southern Strategy, and Ronald Reagan.

 

MY HUSBAND USED RELIGION TO ABUSE ME

Feeling Rebloggy

My ex’s family was dysfunctional, and that’s my kindest description. His father was cruel and openly resentful of his children. When angry, he reminded them how much he had sacrificed to give them a “good” life.

His mother was close-minded, manipulative and greedy. She never worked outside the home, married an older man, and had children right out of high school. Her world was very small, and her examples of marriage were sadly limited. She took control by micro-managing the family’s finances, and judging the hell out of anyone who didn’t live life “the right way” – their way....

They honestly believed they were the ultimate Good Christian Family. They checked all the right boxes: Strong father provides, mother stays home. A homemade sit-down dinner together every night (never mind that the meal was silent and loaded with tension).

They blamed their children’s issues on the “outside world” corrupting their perfectly-reared boys. Self-righteousness clouded their perception.

Most importantly of all: They’d been married for 20 years. 

~Everyday Feminism 

Read More: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/12/husband-used-religion-to-abuse-me/

IT'S TIME FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO ACT LIKE THEY ARE IN A STREET FIGHT

...CAUSE THEY'RE IN ONE ALREADY. THE CHOICE NOW IS TO FIGHT BACK OR STAND THERE AND GET BEAT UP.
But democrats don't know how battle like they are in a street fight. The republicans do. They've been doing it for a few decades now. The culmination is alt-Right or "alt-Reich" as some are now calling it.

Did you know that the RepubliKKKlansmen stopped seating President Obama's federal judges in early 2015? Maybe a year before they refused to staff the Supreme Court with Merrick in early 2016? Check the link below.

Republicans have been refusing to seat judges nominated by President Obama.
We the people haven't done a thing to make sure nobody should be able to do this again.

Dozens of federal judge jobs are just sitting empty because the republicans just stopped doing the basics like staff federal judge positions with the selections chosen by this first black president.

At this link is a  List of Judges Appointed and List of Judges Republicans refused to even consider FOR TWO YEARS.  

• The republicans have been holding up some of nominations for the U.S.Court Of Appeals since January 2016 in addition to refusing to interview President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick. But republicans have also been holding up nominations for the U.S District Court since THE BEGINNING OF 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Barack_Obama

The lack of cooperation is at historic levels. Still, some say Obama lost battles, but won most of the judicial-nominee war.

"Obama has already appointed 329 judges to lifetime jobs, more than one third of the judiciary, and they’re already moving American jurisprudence in Obama’s direction...

Ultimately, most of those battles over judges have really been about Obama, a nasty front in the larger partisan war that has raged throughout his presidency. 

And as with most of the foreign and domestic policy battles of the Obama era, the result, after a lot of bellicose rhetoric and political brinksmanship, has been a lot of change. Obama has already appointed 329 judges to lifetime jobs, more than one third of the judiciary, and they’re already moving American jurisprudence in Obama’s direction. 

He got two left-leaning women onto the Court: Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice, and Elena Kagan, his former solicitor general. He also flipped the partisan balance of the nation’s 13 courts of appeals; when he took office, only one had a majority of Democratic appointees, and now nine do. Just last week, two Obama appointees to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down some of North Carolina’s strict new election law, calling it a discriminatory effort to stop blacks from voting."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-courts-judicial-legacy-226741

For me, it's time to filibuster the republikkklansmen into submission, filibuster the cows come home. Once the Orange Dragon is in place, it becomes time to hold the line until the whole thing breaks. If white racism is a reason to stop seating judges then anti-racist push back is a good enough reason too.

Now, Kasich in Ohio has signed a clearly unconstitutional bill to ban abortion completely for 20 weeks. He's probably thinking the courts are about to go his alt-Right way anyway, yes? More than this 20 week ban making any real impact, I think Kasich is trying to announce to alt-Right he's their heir apparent to the brainless one. Like I said before, the white supremacists have had a road map handed to them by Trump. They know exactly how far they can go with overt and dog whistle racism. And they also know that most of the left will relabel those who voted for a patriarchal white supremacist as misguided "white working class" when most everybody who is not white knows the "working class" had jack to do with how 57% of white people voted in 2016. It's way beyond gloves off time. But I don't think the Democrats know how to brawl. Headline

Kasich Signs 20-Week Ohio Abortion Ban but Vetoes 'Heartbeat' Bill Read More: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kasich-signs-20-week-ohio-abortion-ban-vetoes-heartbeat-bill-n695586

When a republican governor starts playing these kinds of games, it's way past time to get your claws out and use them.