The Friday Link for 10/13/17

You might think I'm going to put something scary up for a Friday the 13th Friday Link, and you're right!  Racial injustice is the theme this week.

As Trump ties to stop professional athletes from engaging in their Freedom of Speech and Freedom to Protest by insisting kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial injustice in America is anti-America and/or anti-Veteran, let me point out two problems with his red herring argument.  One, Trump himself has been incredibly disrespectful to the troops.  In the last 48 hours alone, he talked over the bugle call "Retreat," took health insurance away from millions of veterans, and is threatening to get current soldiers killed in a new war.  Plus his bloviated jackassery is ONLY about appealing to his white racist followers, attempting to show them he can even make the popular, successful and well paid African Americans bow to his will.  He's a disgusting racist pig.

Two, the African Americans in this country have a VERY legitimate point about racial inequity.  If I may, here are a few video clips which might help non-African Americans understand the current situation better.

Let's start with Adam Ruins Everything and an incredibly thorough breakdown of how Jim Crow policies and racist standards led to a segregated suburban world, and still today has dramatically hurt the purchase power and housing standards of the African American community.  Like Adam says, you might not be racist, but you can't deny racism had dramatically helped the US's white population maintain a higher quality of life, when compared to minorities.



There are even many suburbs in the Twin Cities who, up until little more than a half a century ago, had obscene racial standards in place to keep their cities as lily white as possible.  I'm looking at you Edina!

The other video clips are from the show black-ish.

Anthony Anderson is one of my favorite actors; in my opinion one of the top detectives they ever had on Law & Order.  His show black-ish is a great show, where he struggles to maintain his family's cultural identity living in an upper middle class suburb.  This season, there have been a few exceptional scenes talking about African American History, and slavery in particular.  Here's the musical number "We Built This."



And here is a song in the style of Schoolhouse Rock, with some help from The Roots, "I'm Just a Slave."



And finally a quick clip from their show which does put Columbus Day in a little better perspective.



Have a great weekend everyone.