5 Fun Facts about Christmas

Merry Christmas. Have a list full of fun “Did You Know?” type of stuff to share. Let’s get started.

1. Did you know Christmas wasn’t celebrated by Christians until the year 354? That’s right! A Greek saint named Saint Nicholas was known in modern-day Turkey as a jolly old fellow who delivered gifts to children on this special day. St. Nick’s tradition continued, and later evolved into who we now call “Santa Clause”. 

2. Jesus was not born in the winter time. If you believe in the Bible, and believe that Jesus walked the earth, then you should know what the genocidal/purely mythological and in no way should be taken literally good book says. “She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.” Shepherds working the fields, keeping watch of their flocks? Doesn’t sound like it was winter to me…

3. This was originally a pagan holiday that was “adopted” by the Christians. As it states on World Bulletin by ErtanKarpazli, “December 25 marked what was known as the Winter Solstice. Sol is the ancient Latin word for ‘Sun’, and Stice literally means ‘standing still’. It was celebrated by sun-worshippers as the day signaling the middle of winter, the shortest day of the solar calendar.” 

In addition to pagans, the Romans who were around before Christianity also celebrated December 25th as a special holiday. Karpazli says “ December 25 marked their most important holiday, Saturnalia. This was later renamed to ‘Sol Invicti’, which means ‘the unconquerable sun’, in honor of the Syrian sun-god Apollo. Ancient Egyptians also used to celebrate December 25 in worship of Ra, or Horus, the sun-god child of Isis and Orisis. In Mesopotamia, the mythical god Marduk, who was believed to fight against the cold and darkness, was also worshipped on this day. The Aztecs on this day would sacrifice children in worship of their sun-god, Huitzilopochli. North-western Europe hosted festivities for the Nordic god Balder, while the Ancient Greeks dedicated the day for Adonis and Dionysos. For the Ancient Persians, December 25 represented the birth of Mithra, the sun-god.” (Side note: Horus also basically shares ALL the same traits as Jesus Christ such as virgin birth, 12 disciples, performed miracles, was crucified, died, and rose from the dead 3 days later.)

4. Did you know that pagans worship nature, and create idols out of organisms found in nature? Hence, the Christmas tree. 

5. Read this article about 5 direct quotes from the Bible specifically said by Mr. Christ, and how literally EVERYONE who celebrates Christmas goes against most of these ideals, such as not making a show of your giving in Matthew 6:2, how worrying about money can strangle your spirituality in Matthew 13:3 and 7, and how wealth/materials security can blind us to our real needs in Revelations 3:17. 

So to wrap it up (pun intended), everyone enjoy your holiday, enjoy the time with your families, enjoy the presents, and enjoy the food. Don’t take any of the historical elements of Christmas too serious or you will upset yourself. Just take it for what it is. A capitalists dream, a consumers nightmare, and a child’s reason for getting good grades. Merry Christmas y’all.

Donald Trump is correct on Syria

So Donald Trump appears to be doing something that left wingers, progressives, liberals, and whatever other labels you want to use have been asking for going on roughly 17 years.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME.

So, while it somewhat pains me to give Trump credit on anything because he’s so trash, I must call it how I see it.

This is a great move.

Removing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan and removing all troops from Syria is fantastic news. Anyone who says otherwise is suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, meaning you hate him so much that even when he does things you agree with, you find a reason to disagree with it.

You have probably already heard the nonsense “This helps Russia” talk, which is basically just a way to spew propaganda. They say our withdrawal will help ISIS and somehow at the same time will help Asaad’s regime. Even though they are the two groups fighting each other. That should be a clear indicator of bullshit. 

And let’s get back to the Russia point for a second. My guy Kyle Kulinski over at Secular Talk on YouTube, brought up the best point. “So if Vladimir Putin was in favor of Medicare for Alland free college, and then Trump implemented it, would you all of a sudden be against it?” Excellent point.

I am an advocate for peace, for not spending money to try to “fix” other countries when Flint still has poison water, we have 50,000 homeless veterans, and student loan debt remains in the top 3 types of debt, which stops my generation from being able to participate in the economy in any serious way. 

So, in closing, good job Trump, you should do this in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Niger too. 

Also, I’ll believe it when I see it. Once the troops are actually on planes, I’ll give REAL credit. Right now, it’s just talk. We’ll see.

Capitalism Makes People Trash

been a while people, how are you? Me? I’m tired. Been working mad overtime, making sure this Christmas isn’t trash for my loved ones. But this whole month, I’ve been thinking about how much fun the month of December used to be as a child compared to how stressful it is as an adult. 

I work at a west coast delivery company, similar to Fed Ex (it’s not Fed Ex.) We’ll call it “Western Delivery”.  And let me just tell you…

People get really really angry when there are issues with package delivery. 

Nobody really thinks about the grand scale of things, so let yaboy put it in perspective.

We deliver in 8 states. Each of the larger states have more facilities, smaller states may only have one warehouse for the WHOLE state. Each warehouse may have anywhere from 50 to 200 drivers. 

We deliver somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000,000 (Dr. Evil voice) packages per day. 

So with that said, there are going to be delays, deliveries to incorrect addresses, packages that go missing, which sucks, but let’s face it. Shit happens. And boy oh boy, when the shit happens to YOU, all that other stuff goes out the window. Quickly.

All the anger stems typically from people who are anticipating gifts to give their kids for the holiday season, and they don’t want to disappoint anyone with a lack of presents under the tree/by the menorah. So the stress which comes from essentially trying to make sure that your loved ones have new shiny material things for this one particular day creates a hostile relationship between consumer and producer. 

People always forget what it’s like to have rules and restrictions as an employee as soon as they are the customer. So all chill goes out the window, and the aggressiveness begins towards people who truly weren’t involved with your issues with the delivery/product in the first place. Then people leave work stressed and have to participate in this whole debacle as well, and the stress cycle of the holidays continues. The only people who aren’t on the constant verge of a mental breakdown are the owner class. They don’t have to deal with the consequences decisions they make for everyone else when it comes to the anger and extreme disappointment that the consumer faces because “Western Delivery” took on too many contracts that we couldn’t fulfill with the amount of employees we currently have. 

So what is my point in all of this? There’s two.

1. Capitalism sucks.

2. Be nice to customer service employees, the person on the phone didn’t do anything wrong. 

Supporting the Troops

We are currently bombing 8 different countries.

Two of those countries we have been militarily involved with for almost 20 years, being Afghanistan and Iraq.

22 veterans per day commit suicide. About 20% of veterans have PTSD.

Minimum 200,000 civilians were killed in Iraq as of April 2017. About 31,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Then you have all the bodies in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. 

We are allies with Saudi Arabia, whose government has the exact same ideology as ISIS. They are currently committing genocide in Yemen with United States weapons, which has caused mass starvation, a cholera outbreak, and a blockade of humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food.

We spend almost 800 BILLION DOLLARS (Dr. Evil voice) on our military PER YEAR. Yet, Flint still has poison water, 50% of workers in America make less than $30,000, the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical bills, and we have 50,000 homeless veterans. What am I getting at?

Maybe, just MAYBE, supporting our military and supporting offensive wars is not one in the same. MAYBE if you support our troops, you support them NOT getting PTSD or committing suicide because of wars of aggression that we started for financial/territorial gain. MAYBE, we should stop acting like you have to support bullshit wars to support the troops. I want the troops to stay alive, be healthy, and spend as much time with their families as possible. Sending them to the Middle East to fight random brown people for “freedom” (still not sure what that means) isn’t how we should support the troops. 

But what do I know? I’m a libtard.

Americas Toxic Relationship with Guns

This is America, the home of mass shootings, the home of the most guns per capita, and the home of blaming these incidents on mental health issues. I have heard multiple arguments as to why gun regulation is not going to help reduce the amount of gun deaths, and why less regulation will ultimately lead to a safer America. 

Now while I realize that Americans LOVE their guns and we are more than likely FAR away from any sort of regulation, I will still try my best to get the facts out there so that people at least know the consequences of their love for firearms.

1. The United States of America Has The Most Guns per capita on Earth

At 112.6 guns per 100 people, we are far and away the country with the most guns. We also have mass shootings at least once a month. The theory that the more guns a society has, the safer said society is, is debunked just by the numbers. Out of 251,000 reported gun deaths in 2016, 37,200 of those were right here in Murica’. In fact, according to Vox:

“The top six’s gun death tolls for 2016: Brazil was 43,200, the US 37,200, Mexico 15,400, Colombia 13,300, Venezuela 12,800, and Guatemala 5,090. Collectively, these countries made up less than 10 percent of the global population but 50.5 percent of the world’s gun deaths.” 

2. More than one mass shooting occurs every day in the United States

      In this New York Times article, it shows that there is a mass shooting (four or more individuals being shot) everyday, and on average, at least two. Of course we don’t hear about all of them, due to the fact that anything less than 5 deaths is deemed “not newsworthy” because it is such a frequent occurrence.

    

3. “Gun laws won’t stop criminals from getting guns.”

I have several responses to this, and I don’t even have to use numbers or data. Just a little bit of common sense. For instance, with this logic, murder laws should be taken off the books because “Murders gonna murder anyway.” Apply this logic with any other crime and you’ll see why it’s a shitty argument. “Rapist’s gonna rape anyway so why even have laws against it?”

My second response would be “Not everyone has access to the black market. So by reducing the EASE in which people are able to buy guns legally, would also reduce the overall number of gun sales because not everyone has street connects to obtain weapons.” 

The other part about this that makes me laugh is they use the two opposite sides of the argument to make the same point. “Well what about Chicago (which is really just a metaphor for black people/the hood)?” According to your own philosophy, Chicago (the hood) should be the SAFEST place in America. Everyone’s packing their tools and according to the argument of “less regulation = more safety”, this should lead to a decline in gun deaths. But when you bring this up, then they will say “But those are illegal guns.” Ok, so let’s say the laws of Illinois weren’t strict on the right to carry or own a gun, but the economic situation was still the exact same. Do you REALLY think that because the guns were legally purchased, that all of a sudden the gun death total would shrink? In Ed Lover’s voice “C’mon son.”

I get everyone’s reasons for wanting to keep their heat. Protection of themselves and their families in the event a crisis happens. I get it. That’s a very reasonable stance to take. I get going to the range to relieve stress. I think there are better ways, but not everything works for everybody. So I’m not judging.

All I’m asking of people is to look at the data. If you still don’t want any sort of reasonable regulation, such as background checks, the bans of high-capacity magazines, and the ban of guns that can fire large numbers of rounds in a very short period of time, then maybe you just don’t care that much about America’s extremely high number of gun deaths per year. By the way, I have never once heard a progressive argue for banning all guns, which seems to be the take away whenever a left wing person mentions the word “regulation”. Regulation is just a set of rules to make sure things don’t get out of control. As we can see, the lack of regulation has led to hundreds of thousands of gun deaths in my lifetime, and as far as I can tell, isn’t changing any time soon.

Why Nancy Pelosi Must Go

Besides the fact that Donald Tiny Hands endorsed her, there are multiple reasons why we shouldn’t be supporting her as Speaker of the House.

She takes way too much money from corporations and Wall Street, and she is beholden to them. Why do you think she is pro deregulation of Wall Street? Why do you think she is still against Medicare for All? Why do you think she won’t support a bill for $15 minimum wage? Because she’s trash and a sellout.

Nancy has literally made tens of millions of dollars while in government. Pure insanity if you don’t see a problem with this. It’s called corruption everyone. It’s the same shit that prevented Hillary from winning, the same reason workers haven’t seen a raise in wages since it was decoupled from productivity in 1982. 38 years of stagnant wages.

Look at this video where she mentions everything around Healthcare except the one program that would accomplish everything people say they want to accomplish, Medicare for All.





https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TZo3bdJv00Y


And what’s up with all the “let’s work together with Republicans” bullshit? I thought Trump was
the most evil President ever? You guys know he’s the leader of the party, right?

This is the problem with the current Democratic Party. To fix our problems, the first step is getting rid of Nancy Pelosi as the leader.

#VoteBarbaraLeeforSpeaker

Biggest Lessons from the MidTerm Elections

Biggest take away from the MidTerms? Progressive policies win. The other biggest take away? People still don’t F with the Democrats.

Andrew Gillum lost (although there were shady circumstances), Stacey Abrams lost (similarly crooked politics were played, we’ll call it cheating). David Garcia out here in Arizona lost, Beto O’Rourke lost, and you get my drift. The Democrats did indeed win back the House of Representatives by a SLIMmargin, the major thing to learn from this is what happened on the ballot initiatives.

Michigan legalized marijuana.

Florida gave voting rights back to over 1,000,000 convicted felons.

Utah (We see you Mitt Romney), legalized medical marijuana.

Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah all expanded Medicaid.

Missouri and Arkansas raised the minimum wage.

Massachusetts defended the rights of Transgender Americans.

The major point is, the Democratic Party has lost so much faith with their pro-corporate, pro-war, milquetoast policies that President Obama himself said were “moderate republican” policies. Running Hillary was a mistake that they still won’t admit to, so therefore they blame Russians, James Comey, Bernie Sanders (what the eff?), Susan Sarandon, Jimmy Dore, progressives who wouldn’t “fall in line”, racists, sexists, basically anybody else other than Hillary herself. 

I think this could truly be a teachable moment for Democrats who want to win. This is how. Be actual progressives. Richard Ojeda ran as a populist left wing candidate and overcame majorly in a district that Trump won by 49 points. He didn’t win, but the point is that if he closed such a wide gap, in a pro-Trump district, that with equal resources, he would’ve wiped the floor with his opponent. Same with Bernie in the 2016 primaries, same with basically every truly left wing candidate that lost. 

Maybe Jimmy is right, we not only need to run populist left wing candidates in the democratic party, but we ALSO need to vote and support all progressive 3rd party candidates as well, because that is the only way we can put enough pressure on the Dems to represent our interests, instead of their donors. 

Donald Trump is the Most Childish President of All Time

So the President of the United States is a giant child. Seriously. He’s a toddler in a 70 something year old’s body. Sometimes it’s cringe worthy, and sometimes his stupidity baffles me so much that it actually is quite entertaining and makes me laugh. Hard. 

The latest example of his temper tantrums being hilarious but also embarrassing to the entrie country would have to be the most recent back and forth between Donald J. Trump (the J stands for Juvenile, and not the dope MC from New Orleans) and Jim Acosta of CNN was so ridiculous I felt so many different things at the same time.

He literally called him a “rude, terrible person” which made me double over in laughter as it caught me so off guard that he would actually say that to a news reporter for simply asking a tough question regarding his immigration stance and the recent commercials he’s been running. 

The video of the exchange truly is very similar to that of a younger brother getting caught taking his older, more mature brother’s clothes without permission when the older brother simply asks him “Hey, did you borrow my hoodie?”

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiT8tPi-8XeAhWOrFMKHSqCAvMQtwIIKDAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRa9zsPqrMJY&usg=AOvVaw1knfLHW9RHPOWif1RFM38J

Seriously, this is the President. He almost tried walking away from the podium before he realized “Wait, I’m the PRESIDENT. I can’t just leave the press conference and display the highest level of snowflakery imaginable. This was hilariously sad.

Famous Black Conservatives are Puppets

Candace Owens. Kanye West. Ben Carson. Colion Noir. Jim Brown. Alan Keyes. Stacey Dash. Herman Cain. What do all of these people have in common besides weak dap?

They are black/African-American/Melanated conservatives. And not just fiscally conservative (which we call ‘cheap’ in the regular black community) or socially conservative because of religion (like most black folks to be real). They are straight up right wingers who will beat the drum for war, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, removing social safety net programs, gun anarchy, anti-women’s health rights; you know, everything right wingers in the USA love. 

What confuses me about them, is even though they say things like “Black Lives Matter is not oppressed” but then claim they are victims of racism when ANTIFA protesters simply say things they don’t like at coffee shops. They always act as if racism is purely a thing of the past that black people hold onto because we’re just lazier than white people, until somebody does something they have an issue with, then they pull it out the bag. It’s almost like they know racism exists, but they don’t want to acknowledge it because it will push away the wypipo that support them.

I just want everyone above named to know that you are being used as a puppet. Faux Fox News loves bringing these people on so they can say “See? We aren’t racist. Even the blacks say it!” It’s basically when they have Milo Snuffleupagus spew anti-gay rhetoric so they can say “See? We don’t hate the gays, even the gay dude says it!”

This is a trick the right wing has been using forever. Take a person from whatever group you don’t like (for Hispanics we have Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, for women just pick any Fox News host, you get where I’m going) to spew hateful rhetoric about said group to absolve themselves from all scrutiny.  Here’s the thing about it though.

It has never worked, nor will it.

What the majority of us (black people) do is just stop inviting them to the barbeque. We write them off and just assume they are now with the otha side. So when you hear these people say “The problem isn’t black people being disproportionately murdered by police, the problem is black on black crime!”, ignoring the fact that black people go to jail and face actual punishment for our killings, whereas police RARELY do or “Black people vote democrat because of welfare”, which was a talking point created by Ronald Raegan which was based on lies, just remember that they are either purposely ignoring reality, or at best, extremely ignorant of the facts. Either way, you aren’t doing any damage to anyone other than yourselves when you are inevitably cast aside when they are done using you (I see you Stacey Dash).

Black people don’t need to be loyal to the Democratic Party considering they have been failing us for the past 30 years, but that DOES NOT MEAN we should vote republican. It means we need to vote based on the candidate and their policies, rather than party affiliation.  

Young Buck and LGBTQ+ Bigotry

Alright y’all, we gotta talk about this Young Buck situation.

First and foremost, this entire situation shows how much more progress we still need to make in the area of LGBTQ+ bigotry. It also shows that protecting people’s privacy is very important, and any acts to “expose” others typically have a pretty negative backlash. So where do we start?

The first audio leaked is Young Buck on the phone with Glamour Mizz, a transgender woman who put out footage on her Instagram page performing a sexual act on a man, who was later identified as Buck Marely AKA Buck Shots AKA Young Buck of GGGG-Unit. At no point in this clip do you see Buck’s face or any other identifying physical characteristics. It’s just a dude wearing a coat who looks as if he is about to receive some oral pleasure. The reason we know this is actually Mr. Buck is because the audio leak of a phone call, where you can hear Young Buck and Glamour Mizz discussing taking the video down. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzdE8R1h8xs

As you can hear from this first call, Buck is almost threatening Glamour and saying that people are getting shot, people are getting hurt, and it’s all because she leaked this phone call and now he has to essentially fix the damage. At this point, another Tennessee dude named “Cookup Boss” began capitalizing off of the controversy. He began releasing many Instagram videos clowning Buck for being with what they call “a punk.” Apparently this is a slur for transgendered folks that I never heard before this past month. I digress…

Young Buck then challenged Cookup to a “fade” (a scrap, a fistfight, a beatdown) for making comments on the situation. In this video, he also adamantly denies being with Ms. Mizz or even knowing her.

http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.48297/title.young-buck-on-transgender-viral-video-rumors-aint-shit-gay-about-me

There is a second phone call that leaked, and this is the one that actually made me sad for everyone involved. You can hear Buck CRYING as he is begging and pleading with Glamour to take the video down. He even offers to pay her $2000 in exchange for a statement in which she would tell the world her page got hacked, she doesn’t know Buck, and that it is NOT him in the video. They are both yelling at each other throughout the call, and for so many reasons I feel terrible for everyone involved, except Cookup. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xNW0vCC7q0

Now that you have the backstory, I have questions for Glamour and Young Buck, as well as some general points I feel need to be made.

1. Glamour, why would you put a video of yourself doing anything sexual with anybody on Instagram? What ever happened to keeping your private lives private? Too many people in your business and things always get messy.

2. Young Buck, if it’s not true, which you repeatedly went on Instagram proclaiming, why are you offering to pay her to take the video down?

3. Glamour, you recently stated that you plan on “exposing” more rappers/entertainers. What is there to expose if you don’t think there is anything wrong with being trans (which there isn’t for the record)? Why do you continue to threaten to expose people if there is nothing wrong with what you’re doing?

4. Buck, you’re in a gang. For anyone who understands gang culture, it is a sad reality that the majority of gang affiliates are bigoted AF when it comes to the GBTQ+ community (I left the L off on purpose because most hood dudes/street guys are cool with Lesbians.) You should either drop your flag or not participate in ANYTHING that you will have to ask people to lie and cover up later. 

5. The YouTube comments are outrageous. It is extremely clear to me that so many people still don’t understand what it means to be transgender, and as a result are calling Young Buck gay. Trans people are not “tricking” people for fun, they actually identify with the opposite gender as their biological sex. It would almost be as if I, as a straight male who identifies as a man, was forced to wear a dress, lipstick and heels every day. I would be so out of my element and incredibly uncomfortable, I would be miserable.  Same with trans people who aren’t able to live as the gender they truly feel they are.

6. Glamour, you aren’t helping the cause. By feeding into the “I’m gonna expose these rappers” narrative, you actually take away from the fight that trans people, such as my friend Brianna Westbrook are partaking in. If at some point we want the world to acknowledge trans women = women and trans men = men, then “exposing” rappers as “gay” when they engage sexually with you hurts the cause. 

There is still a lot of progress which needs to be made, and unfortunately, people continue to feed into a narrative that is not only incorrect, but dangerous when trans people are already targets for violence.

Trump Sucks, But Bush Was Worse (So Far)

Democrats. Stop acting like George W. Bush was a good President. STOP. IT. NOW.

I’ve been seeing way too many prominent Democrats who are essentially white-washing Dubya’s history. Michelle Obama said they are best friends. Obama has said that he and George BitchBush are brothers. Cenk from TYT even said in an off handed comment that he misses the 43rd President.

JUST BECAUSE DONALD TRUMP IS AN EVIL BIGOT, A TERRIBLE BUSINESS MAN, A LYING ASS LIAR, A CON MAN, AND GENERALLY DANGEROUS FOR THE WORLD, DOES NOT MEAN THAT GEORGE BUSH IS GOOD BY COMPARISON.

As of 10/29/2018, Donald Trump has not started any wars. George Bush started two of them (which we are still actively engaged in in 2018). Donald Trump has not crashed the economy (yet). George Bush (along with the help of his previous white house partner Bill Clinton) crashed the economywith massive deregulation and caused The Great Recession. 

George Bush’s white house created a narrative in the media that called torture “enhanced interrogation.” Remember Gitmo(which is still open right now)? That was Bush.

Any international terrorist attacks happening under Trump’s watch? Not yet. The biggest one in the history of our nation, that of course being 9/11, happened under the democrat’s favorite republican, Gee Dub. 

He was against signing the Death with Dignity Act, meaning terminally ill individuals were not allowed to leave this life on their own terms. They had to suffer until the day they died.

He vetoed a bill that would allow for stem-cell research, which potentially could assist those individuals who are paralyzed with walking again.

He signed the Patriot Act, which effectively destroyed the 4thamendment, due to the fact it allows for warrantless spying on all Americans, regardless if they are suspected of a crime or not.

Remember how awesome he handled Hurricane Katrina? 

LOTS of so-called “Free Trade” agreements which ultimately result in jobs being outsourced to less economically prosperous countries. 

This is a very condensed list, but I think the point has been made. George W. Bush was a Christian theocrat who implemented policy based on his religious feelings rather than what the public wanted (abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, etc.) He was a war-mongering hawk who invaded two countries offensively. He was an advocate for trickle-down economics, which even his own father said was “voodoo economics”, meaning not real. He was incredibly ill-equipped to handle any crisis, 3 giant ones of which come to mind. He was just a dumb guy.

And on top of all that, he doesn’t care about black people (word to 2005 Kanye “I haven’t completely lost my mind yet” West.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W._Bush

White Americans are Racists and All Men are Sexists (UPDATED)

All white Americans are racists. All cis-gendered heterosexual men are sexists.

Sounds messed up right? It’s true. 

However, there’s levels to this shit, and before you think I’m calling you out, give me a second to get my Kevin Hart on andLet Me Explain.

What I’m NOT saying is all white people hate everyone who isn’t white. I’m not saying all men have an irrational distain for women. I’m not telling my brothers, sisters and others of color to be on alert every time you see any white person because they hate you. I’m not saying anything of the sort.

What I AM saying, is that people tend to look at things from their perspective. The way you grow up, the people you grow up around, exposure (or lack thereof) of different ethnicities, nationalities and cultures all shape our world view. This doesn’t make anyone bad or good, it just is what it is.

Now, as a straight black male, I have come to realize that I have certain privileges that my LGBTQ+ comrades do not. In the state of Arizona where I live, it is still legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation, as gender identity and sexual orientation are not protected classes. I understand that since I present myself in a masculine way and identify as the gender/sexI was born (man/male), that I am not going to be treated negatively or looked at as strange by the non-LGBTQ+ community like people who live outside the hetero-normative spectrum are. 

https://www.fastcompany.com/40456937/heres-everywhere-in-the-u-s-you-can-still-get-fired-for-being-gay-or-trans

https://www.hrc.org/resources/hate-crimes-and-violence-against-lgbt-people

Also as a man, taking ethnicity out of the equation, I also have certain perspectives that aren’t necessarily fair to women. For example, I think all straight men sexually objectify women. We don’t do it to be monsters or to make women feel uncomfortable, the problem is we don’t see a lot of what we do as wrong. We think it’s normal to walk up on a random women at the club and start grinding behind her without so much as a hello. We think it’s cool to tap our homie when we’re walking through the mall and point at the woman with the fat ass and make loud comments about it. I’ve seen men get upset at women who don’t want to have sex and never speak to them again, completely shunning them, and even sometimes going as far as to tell other men “Hey don’t even waste your time with her, she ain’t talkin’ about nothin”, which basically means “She isn’t down for sex, so there is no other reason to treat her like a human being.”

I ask my homies of the Caucasian persuasion to examine your own perspective as well.  Just because something doesn’t happen directly to you or you’ve never seen it in person, doesn’t mean that an entire community is making it up. People of color are not creating a false narrative, but sometimes it’s hard to except that you are a part of the group that is responsible for most of the evil against the group making the complaint. 

Has every white person participated in slavery/Jim Crow/extra judicial police killing of unarmed people of color? Of course not, but it is an institution run by white people. So yes, you are a part of the group that is causing the problem. In fact, we have several statistics to back our claims up. Here’s a few articles for you if you want the information.

https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/war-marijuana-black-and-white

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

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/police-killings-hit-people-color-hardest-study-finds-n872086

So, all I’m asking is for people to check their perspective. If we immediately think of things from our own perspective rather than that of the person telling the story, we will never develop the empathy needed as a nation to finally get along.


UPDATE: The following link is a perfect example of a lack of understand/empathy leading to racism. A lawyer who was scared to send his 14 year old son to his neighbors with a misdelivered package because his neighborhood is predominantly white and there have been numerous stories of black kids being shot as a result of knocking on doors, asking for directions, etc. Just look at the comments. His own fear for his safety somehow makes him the real racist, an asshole and a punk. SMH.

https://www.facebook.com/lawhumorist/posts/10212273273932624

The Democrats Still Don’t Get It - Thoughts on Politicon

Politcon happened this weekend, and I got a chance to watch some of the debates and panels from it. I have reach one very sad conclusion.

We’re going to have another 4 years of President Tiny Hands.

Why do I say this? Because the Democrats STILL DON’T GET IT.

I got to watch one of my favorite political commentators, Kyle Kulinski basically demolished everybody that had any opposition to his viewpoints, which are correct by the way. Here’s the problem…

He was the only person on the majority of the footage I’ve seen making the arguments that we KNOW will work. When he brings up Medicare for All, they would rebut with “Yeah that sounds good but we have to be realistic.” When he says “Stop saying ‘white’ working class, and just say working class because it excludes people of color”, they said “The democrats need to be focused on getting the white working class.” When he says “Bernie would be a good candidate for 2020”, a few of the panelists literally laughed at him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAZ7_UNwtnE – What Now Liberals? 

What I did see however, were plenty of the same old repeated things that democrats who aren’t REALLY progressive say stuff that makes them sounds like they are. 

“We need to stand up for marginalized groups such as people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and women.” DUH.

“Donald Trump is evil.” DUH.

“We can’t be liberal if we aren’t nice to other liberals.” GTFOH.

These are the same people who think voting for the lesser of two evils gets good results. The same people that ignore the fact the DNC rigged the election and tell us “We shouldn’t rehash this old news” are the ones who will allow future election riggingand then blame the voters when their candidate is hot garbage (I see you Hillary Clinton.) 

What these folks don’t realize is constantly playing the identity politics game is a losing strategy, because the average person might be sympathetic to others, but ultimately are going to vote in their own interests (or so they think, I see you poor Trump voters). So constantly focusing on how bad racial minorities have it and blaming Trump is not a way to get people to vote for you. Instead of offering policy ideas that will help the American people, they simply say “The other guy is bad, so vote for me instead.” It didn’t work in 2016, it for damn sure won’t work in 2020. 

So in conclusion, every day I believe more and more that my dude Jimmy Dore is absolutely right when he says the Democrats cannot be saved. All of the rhetoric that Kyle had to fight off during Politcon from other so-called progressives shows exactly that.

A List of Countries with Universal Healthcare and/or College

Free college? Universal Healthcare? How on earth can we afford that?”

Is this really an impossible feat? Is it actually unrealistic to assume that tax dollars can be used to cover peoples’ medical expenses and education? 

Well, lucky for you, I’m here to provide a list of countries that provide free college and universal healthcare, and see if this is really an “impossible” standard, or if it is something that can be accomplished with relative ease.

List of Countries with Universal Healthcare

1. Norway

2. New Zealand

3. Japan

4. Germany

5. Belgium

6. United Kingdom

7. Kuwait

8. Sweden

9. Bahrain

10. Brunei

11. Canada

12. Netherlands

13. Austria

14. United Arab Emirates

15. Finland

16. Slovenia

17. Denmark

18. Luxembourg

19. France

20. Australia

21. Ireland

22. Italy

23. Portugal

24. Cyprus

25. Greece

26. Spain

27. South Korea

28. Iceland

29. Hong Kong

30. Singapore

31. Switzerland

32. Israel (Who we give $60 Billion to annually)

List of Countries with Free College Tuition

1. Argentina

2. Austria

3. Brazil

4. Czech Republic

5. Denmark

6. Egypt

7. Finland

8. France

9. Germany

10. Greece

11. Iceland

12. Kenya

13. Luxembourg

14. Malaysia

15. Morocco

16. Norway

17. Panama

18. Poland

19. Scotland

20. Slovenia

21. Spain

22. Sweden

23. Turkey

24. Uruguay

And just to throw in a little bit of extra evidence that this will work, let’s look at the economic situations of the countries that have both Universal Healthcare and College.  

According to the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, Austria is ranked 17th among 44 countries in Europe, and it’s overall score is ABOVE regional and world averages. Denmark is ranked 6th, Finland is ranked 15th, France receives a slightly lower rank at 34th. Germany brings it back to a strong rank of 14th, while Greece has the 17th largest economy in the European Union (out of 28) according to Wikipedia. Norway is ranked 12thaccording to the Heritage Foundation, Spain is ranked 30th out of 44, and lastly Sweden ranks at 8th.

Again, every country mentioned in the above paragraph has both Universal Healthcare and Universal College. Notice how only TWO of those countries are in the bottom 50% of economic prosperity, with the rest being in the top 62%. Now, with that being said, here’s a study with some good ole’ fashioned charts to show how much money the United States spends on the military in comparison to the top 10 other countries with the biggest military budgets. Go ahead and read that and then start to ask yourself some questions about what we can and can’t afford as a nation. 

So, if anyone every says “We can’t afford it/You run out of other peoples’ money/Single payer will NEVER COME TO PASS (I see you Hillary Clinton)”, just send them to this article I wrote, and if they STILL deny these facts, then feel free to ask them how much glue they ate as a child or how much Tekashi 6ix9ine they listen to. The answer to both questions is most likely “A LOT.”