Rochester has a history of remarkable African Americans. While much of the focus of Black History Month is rightfully on Martin Luther, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, this focus comes at the cost of not remembering our own. This remarkable history should be remembered and celebrated, so let’s start with Father Thomas James.

As the NY Times reported on 7/25/1884 “The man was Rev. Father Thomas James of Rochester, one of the pioneers of the race against slavery in this country, and who now nearly 80 years old, is lecturing, that he may raise money to pay for an operation upon his eyes, by which he expects to make himself good for 15 years more of work. Father James was born a salve in Canajoharie, New-York, and when 18 years old escaped to Canada. He began preaching in 1829, organizing a colored church. Soon after he commenced to lecture against slavery, and was mobbed 16 times, as he said last night. He was first to stand up for his rights on railroad trains, and in 1841, which in Massachusetts, he refused to go into the “Jim Crow” car.  After a struggle, he was ejected from a first class coach, and on his taking the matter into court won his case, which led to the doing away of prescription in that State.  During the war (the Civil War) Father James did much service in relieving slaves, and was a member of the military police under Gen. Palmer in Kentucky.”

For more information, and there is much more read his wikipedia page.

© words and pictures Dan DeMarle 2020

Race, racism, privilege.  Why is there so much disinformation, lack of information, lack of even a common vocabulary that can be used to discuss it, let alone talk about what to do about it. So part of the reason why is that there are all sorts of levels of understanding of color, let alone of racism. Then there are huge questions of what to do about it. Most of us are not even aware of race until we are around Kindergarten age. Afterall to a two-year-old, people are just people. After all, isn’t the family dog a person when your two. Then we become socialized. But we are socialized differently. Just as men and women are socialized into specific roles. Meanwhile, you are socialized in a society that totally favors and empowers one group of whites over blacks, etc… men over women. If you are white or a man you probably don’t even realize it. So then maybe you pierce the vale and realize it. This can happen for all kinds of reasons, but for some white people, it never happens. Then there are huge questions what do you do? If my wealth comes from a corrupt system, do I give it away? If I find that my house was stolen from another family, do I give it back? If I have my job because other people, people of color, women, etc… were never even considered for it, do I quit? When I went to college and my college did not offer opportunities to people of color or women, do I stop working in my field?

© words by Dan DeMarle 2/2020

The snow falls outside the window.

The baby who has cried for the last two hours,

now sleeps in my arms.

His sister in the kitchen,

with grandma,

making pies.

Their mother is on her way back,

after some needed time away.

The dog sleeps next to us on her bed,

wondering about this infusion of life on a Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the snow,

oblivious to these little dramas – continues to fall,

blanketing the world outside.

as you are in my arms.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2/2/2020

© picture by Dan DeMarle 2020

Thursday 1/30/2020 – America is in the midst of the Senate Trial of President Donald J. Trumps’ impeachment and pretty much all of the news media is focused on that historic event. That is except for when they are pulled away to fixate on the death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter (there were also 3 other people on that helicopter, but who cares about them).

While you might think my list of the world’s top concerns would be that impeachment, it is not. Here is my actual list, and it should be yours as well.

1. Climate Change – on 3/28/19 at the UN General Assembly speakers said we only had 11 more years to act on Climate change. After that, we are past the tipping point.  Since it is now 1/2020, we essentially have 10 years left. The current crowd in Washington for the last little over 3 years has done everything they possibly could to make things worse, and not better. If nothing changes, that will continue for the next four years. Meaning we are all totally screwed, and so are all are progeny, and their progeny, etc….  Even if there is a political sea change in 11/2020, when the new crowd takes over, we will have only 9 years left.

2. China Quarantine – As of 1/27/2020, China has reportedly mass incarcerated (quarantined) an estimated 56 million people. Let me say that again, a nation on Planet Earth has locked away in a few short days 56 million people and everyone in America seems to be perfectly fine with that.  As every dictator on earth knows, add a little threat of apocalypse, and people will fall all over themselves to give away their civil liberties. Remember 9/11?

3. Global extermination – not directly related to climate change, but on 1/23/2020 the doomsday clock was reset to just 100 seconds before midnight. We are a minute and 40 seconds from doomsday. That is bad, I mean like crap your pants bad.

4. Coronavirus – as of 1/30/2020 “The United States set its advisory at Level 4, which represents the highest safety risk. The World Health Organization said the virus represents a risk outside of China. ” Now whether or not this little virus has the capacity to wipe out humanity remains to be seen, but as noted in number 2 above, it is proving extremely effective in messing up human societies and empowering dictators. My that little virus is powerful, just ask the 56 million people in China, oh you can’t all of their social media is monitored.

5. Artificial intelligence – Whether it’s killer military robots, machines taking over all of our jobs leading to massive unemployment, or AIs messing with our elections and ensuring bots make us all hate each other, AI is a huge risk for the entire human race.  When Elon Musk and other leaders start saying we are going to fast, we most likely are.

6. Behavioral Economics – every day Facebook runs experiments on us to see how we can be manipulated, without us ever knowing about it. They show you and 100,000 people one-word choice or option, and I and another 100,000 people another and learn how to manipulate all of us.  The truth is we all so easily manipulated.  Remember a few weeks ago, when we all got weather alerts on our phones. We all looked, we all thought.  We were all so easily manipulated and so easily controlled.

7. The impeachment – it is not the impeachment that bothers me. It is the fact that America’s most august body and mostly one political party (you can pick either one) is so partisan that it can’t get it’s shit together.  In fact, both parties are each using this as a way to get us even more polarized.  So if both parties can’t get it together to impeach or not impeach a President, how the holy hell will they get it together enough to work on the 6 much bigger dangers above them on this list.

and finally,

8. People are not wearing enough hats.  Ok, this is totally a nod to Monty Python. After the depressing bits above, a bit of satire. Watch it, and see one of my points mentioned in the first paragraph.

© words by Dan DeMarle 1/30/2020

© words and picture by Dan DeMarle 1/2020