Arming Our Minds


ARMING OUR MINDS: a special message to the VICs (very important citizens) of New Orleans, Louisiana

Representative Cedric Richmond is scheduled to have a conversation with Senator Elizabeth Warren at Dillard University on August 3, 2018.  That conversation may produce some insights we can use in deciding how to vote on November 6.



In addition to listening to that conversation, a few of us might want to study the recent in-depth analysis "America the Trumped: 10 Ways the Administration Attacked Civil Rights in Year One" (2018) from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  In the Age of Trump, Terror,  and Treason, critical thinking about politics is not a luxury.  It is as necessary as water.



The SPLC report addresses ten topics ----

1.       promoting white nationalism

2.       slashing civil rights enforcement

3.       revving up the deportation machine

4.       banning Muslims

5.       attacking voting rights

6.       shredding LGBT protections

7.       encouraging police abuses

8.       reviving debtors' prisons

9.       undermining public education

10.   eroding the right of students with disabilities

All these topics are important, but topics 7 and 9 may be of greater importance than the others for VICs in NOLA.



Consider the love/hate relationship we have with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office (OPSO) and the consent decrees they are obligated to honor. Consider the shameless, strategic firing of experienced, dedicated public school teachers and their being replaced with green, charter school instructors who may or may not have had a clue about how to educate the students traumatized by Katrina and flooding in 2005.  We can and must discourage police (and prison) abuses by holding NOPD and OPSO accountable.  We can and should use the ballot to elect people to the Orleans Parish School Board who are earnestly dedicated to restoring public confidence in public education rather than selling the opiates of privatized education in charter schools.



Please do not be one of "the poorly educated" voters then Candidate Trump proclaimed he loved in Las Vegas on February 23, 2016.  It may be in the best interests of certain American billionaires to enlarge the population of the poorly educated.  It is doubtful that our best interests are identical with theirs.  Maximize your uncommon common sense.  Listen well.  Address tough, brutal, reason-based questions to all candidates for office before November.  Scrutinize the answers you receive. Vote intelligently.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                                            July 23, 2018

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