Wakanda Forever

The New York City Department of Education is involved in a controversy about the Wakanda salute.It draws attention to the character of the people running that department.

Unfortunately, it is necessary to explain that what is to follow is not satire.It is a recording of actual events reported in the “mainstream” media.It concerns two New York City school superintendents who claim they were fired for not giving the ‘Wakanda' salute.The“Wakanda” crossed arm salute originated from the comic book inspired movie Black Panther. In the 2018 movie, the cross-arm motion represented Black empowerment.

Karen Amesis suing the New York Department of Education for $150 million because she claims she was fired for age, sex and ethnic bias.Ames had been praised by the newly appointed New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza for her success in raising math scores.Carranza was appointed New York City Schools Chancellor by Mayor de Blasio in March 2018. She now claims she was fired after sharing a Holocaust story and refusing to perform the ‘Wakanda’ salute.

Ames claims she was forced to take a demotion in order to preserve her pension.She says she was targeted because she is over 40, and Jewish.Ames says she was grilled about her “ethnic background,” and criticized by a colleague for sharing her grandparents’ experience during the Holocaust in Poland. She claims she was “admonished” for declining a requests to take part in the comic book movie-inspired “Wakanda Forever” salute to “black power.”

In August 2018, Ames was summoned to DOE headquarters, where Cheryl Watson-Harris, Carranza’s top deputy, handed her a termination letter.Watson-Harris who told her that the department was “was moving in a new direction.” Watson-Harris has subsequently moved to DeKalb, Georgia where she was hired as superintendent with an annual salary of $325,000. That is $75,000 less than the President of the United States receives.In addition to being terminated, Ames’ colleagues were prohibited from communicating with her and staff were ordered to “eradicate” any reference to Ames.Ames was sent down the 1984 memory hole.Ames had attended an “implicit-bias workshop” where superintendents were asked to tell their personal stories.When she related a story about her Jewish grandparents’ situation during the Holocaust a colleague, Rasheda Amon, informed her, “That is not about being Jewish! It’s about black and brown boys of color only.”Apparently, her personal story did not include “black or brown boys of color.”

A second NYC superintendent was also terminated.Rafaela Espinal, former head of New York’s Community School District 12 was fired because “she declined to take part in a group ‘Wakanda Forever’ salute to black power.She was criticized by Bronx superintendent Meisha Ross Porter who frequently asked gatherings of DOE administrators to do the ‘Wakanda Forever’ salute.Porter allegedly referred to the 1960’s Black Panther Party when encouraging staff members to make the gesture.She told them about her father’s involvement in the Black Panthers.Ross Porter was later promoted to executive superintendent.Espinal who identifies as an Afro-Latin, claims a fellow DOE administrator told her she wasn’t “black enough” and she should "just learn to be quiet and look pretty."Obviously, she was not told that by a white male because that certainly would have made the front page.Espinal was fired in August 2018 because she did not fit into the department’s new agenda. She was one year short of earning a lifetime DOE pension and accepted a lower-level position in order to keep her benefits.She is also suing the New York City Department of Education for $40 million.

A DOE spokeswoman told the New York Post that the department is committed to a “safe, inclusive work environment” and denied any claims of discrimination. She asserted that the ‘Wakanda Forever’ salute is a symbol “used to represent the Bronx,” not black power.But is it possible that this gesture could be easily misinterpreted?Apparently, that was Espinal’s problem.People frequently misinterpret gestures.Some people have been fired for making the “OK” gesture or even cracking their knuckles.

How Your Government Works

The corruption in the higher reaches of government is widespread.  Some of the harshest critics of corruption are thoroughly corrupt.  Everyone in the upper reaches of government is

 complicit due to their silence. 

I spent over 40 years in government service.  I don't consider myself an expert on the subject but after 40 years you cannot avoid acquiring a more than basic knowledge of a subject.  One of the basic lessons I learned is that knowledge is power.  There are people in government who keep their ears to the ground in order to gain as much knowledge as possible.  I was not one of them, but I could not avoid learning who was sleeping with who and other supposedly private matters.  An example of this lesson: a coworker of mine walked into a chief's office while he was on the couch with a woman who was not his wife.  I should not have to clarify that they were in a horizontal position.  This coworker was shortly promoted to supervisor and transferred to what I suspect was an ideal location.  Ambitious people pay attention. 

The higher reaches of powerful organizations are composed of ambitious people who are not necessarily competent in the areas they are responsible for, but they are aware of the situations that will advance their careers.  The current situation with the Lincoln Project illustrates this point.  The Lincoln Project claims to be "holding accountable those who would violate their oaths to the Constitution and would put others before Americans."  That's a pretty noble endeavor.  One of the founders of this group, John Weaver, resigned after charges of sexual harassment which included a 14 year old boy.  

Imagine a situation where a thoroughly reprehensible individual is an essential member of a team.  The team is working to prevent a disaster that will possibly result in death of millions..  Without this individual the team will fail.  However, this individual is a monster, a pedophile, and a possible murderer.  What do you do?  Some people will ignore his behavior.  Others will denounce him and accept the damage this will cause.  It should also be noted that the prospects of whistleblowers are not very good.  By exposing this individual, you are alienating a large number of powerful people who may share his vices.  The Lincoln Project issued a severe condemnation of Weaver, denouncing his "deplorable and predatory behavior."    But this was only after a New York Times report detailed his history of predatory behavior.  Perhaps his coworkers were unaware of his activities.  I find that unlikely though.  So, their self-righteous condemnations of President Trump ring hollow.

It is almost impossible for prominent people to conceal their behavior.  The late Senator John McCain's wife Cindy claimed, “Epstein was hiding in plain sight. We all knew about him. We all knew what he was doing, but we had no one that was – no legal aspect that would go after him. They were afraid of him. For whatever reason, they were afraid of him.”  The important part of this statement is: "We all knew about him."  Jeffrey Epstein was prostituting young girls and Cindy McCain knew about it. She did not report it.  What was she afraid of?  Vladimir Bukovsky pointed out one of the problems with exposing people: "The movers and shakers of today have little interest in digging for the truth. Who knows what one may come up with? You may start out with the communists and end up with yourself."

It is not surprising that men behave badly.  Every profession has members exposed as predators.  Entertainment has Harvey Weinstein.  The news media has Matt Lauer.  The government has the Congressional Office of Compliance (COC) which supposedly disbursed the ridiculously low sum of $17 million over a twenty-year period to cover sex-related incidents.  Senator Ted Kennedy’s activities included public sex in 1985 and 1987 at La Brasserie restaurant.  Kennedy reportedly had a high-ranking aide who served as "a pimp…whose real position was to procure women for Kennedy."  The late NPR reporter Cokie Roberts claimed, "(Rep. John) Conyers’ predatory behavior was an open secret among the press corps."  She stated, “Don’t get in the elevator with him, you know, and the whole every female in the press corps knew that."  She also stated, "You know they are so used to it.  I mean, the culture of Capitol Hill for so many decades was men being bad.”  

Predatory behavior should be exposed, and the perpetrators should be punished.  However, this has to be done with discretion.  Some charges are fabricated or exaggerated.  There are often attempts to discredit the victims.  Paula Jones was described by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas as "some sleazy woman with big hair coming out of the trailer parks."  Leslie Stahl reported on CBS that John Tower danced naked on a grand piano with his mistress, a Russian ballerina.  Reporters had to go back 30 years in order to find questionable evidence that Judge Roy Moore was a pedophile.  You might have noticed that the individuals with bogus or questionable charges are conservatives.  That may be the case, but all members of the elite are complicit.  When Utah Senator Orrin Hatch—a conservative Republican—was asked if he thought Sen. Kennedy had a drinking problem, he responded, "I wouldn't comment on that."  Hatch knew all about Kennedy's behavior but would not even comment on his drinking.

A New Orientation Toward China

 In 2019 Anita Dunn was hired by the Biden campaign as a senior advisor on communications strategy.  In September 2020 Dunn was made co-chair of the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team.  She had been a top advisor in the Obama administration when she was forced to resign after comments she made about Mao Tse-tung.  In 2009 speaking to high school students in Maryland she remarked that Mao was one of her two favorite political philosophers.  She commented, "In 1947, when Mao Tse-tung was being challenged within his own party, on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side and people said how can you win, how can you do this, how can you do this against all odds against you, and Mao Tse-tung said 'You fight your war and I’ll fight mine.' Think about that for a second, you don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices in the past."

 

Linda Thomas-Greenfield served as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the United States Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs from 2013 to 2017 has been nominated by President Biden to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She has been criticized for praising Communist China during a 2019 speech at the CCP-funded Confucius Institute in Savannah, Georgia.  She praised China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI) for the “rollout of critical projects in Africa,” including ports in Djibouti and major railways in Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.  She also criticized the Trump administration’s approach to Chinese investment in Africa, which she described as a “…battleground for great power competition rather than engagement with African leaders.”  She believes that a “win-win situation” is possible if China and the U.S. can come together over “shared values of peace, prosperity, sustained economic growth and development, and a firm commitment to good governance, gender equity.”  She added, “In fact, China is in a unique position to spread these ideals given its strong footprint on the continent.” Perhaps she had not heard what former president of Zambia Michael Sata said in a rare moment of honesty,  “We want the Chinese to leave and the old colonial rulers to return.  They exploited our natural resources too, but at least they took good care of us. They built schools, taught us their language and brought us the British civilisation…at least Western capitalism has a human face; the Chinese are only out to exploit us.”

Thomas-Greenfield reportedly received a $1,500 honorarium from Savannah State University for her speech. The following year Savannah State closed its Confucius Institute chapter after the State Department labeled the organization a “foreign mission” operating on behalf of the Chinese government.  Congress had passed bipartisan legislation claiming the CCP used Confucius Institutes for propaganda & espionage. During her confirmation hearing Thomas-Greenfield expressed regret over her speech and stated, "I am not at all naïve about what the Chinese are doing."

Anita Dunn and Linda Thomas-Greenfield are just two of the many Biden administration officials who have a sympathetic view of Communist China.  It is not an uncommon view.  It inspired the officials responsible for the Empire State Building to honor the Mao regime with a lighting ceremony.  To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China under Communist rule and Mao’s 1949 revolution the Empire State Building illumined its familiar spire with red and yellow lights in honor of the event. The Western media and prominent Americans have done their best to promote the Communist regime.  The Washington Post reported, "Mao the warrior, philosopher and ruler was the closest the modern world has been to the god-heroes of antiquity."  Senator Charles Percy asserted, "Mao is the George Washington of his country."  David Rockefeller wrote "the social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history."

A review of “Art and China’s Revolution” at the Asia Society Museum by Li Onesto reveals some of the reasoning behind the pro-Communist stance.  He begins by describing the big banner with a drawing of Mao Tse tung surrounded by images of workers, soldiers and youth on the outside of the building.   He claims that in the ’60s "millions of people around the world, including here in the United States, looked to socialist China as a truly liberating society."  He admits that he was "one of those youth in the United States who, inspired by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, carried a Red Book in my back pocket and put posters of Red Guards on my bedroom wall."  He states that, "this art is a powerful chapter in the history of the Cultural Revolution. It sheds real light on the overwhelmingly positive achievements of socialist China."  He claims, "I heard one woman declare, looking at a wall of art, “this was all destroyed by Mao.” On one level, this is just ridiculous."

Onesto writes as though she was unaware of the "Four Olds"  The Four Olds was a term used during the Cultural Revolution by the student-led Red Guards in the People's Republic of China in reference to the pre-communist elements of Chinese culture they attempted to destroy.  Examples of Chinese architecture were destroyed, classical literature and Chinese paintings were torn apart, and Chinese temples were desecrated.  The burial place of Confucius was attacked.  According to U.S. News and World Report Mao Tse tung was responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin combined.  How would people react to an art exhibit "Art and the Nazi Revolution?"  We frequently see videos of the Nazi book burning event.  How often do we see comparable Chinese event?  This is all a consequence of media misinformation.

Biden Signs Executive Order Protecting "Transgenders"

 

President Biden, signed an executive order aimed at "preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.”  He is calling on schools across the country to allow transgender athletes to participate in the sport of their gender identity.  This order deals with more than participation in sports.  The new order reads, "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.” 

This is part of the homosexual agenda that is being promoted in the schools.  Dr. Micelle Cretella claims, "Children are steeped in this culture, at least through the developed western world, that is basically marketing this transgender identity to them."  A study published by American Academy of Pediatrics, looked at approximately 81,000 ninth and 11th grade students in Minnesota.  It revealed that nearly three percent of 13-to 17-year-olds identify as transgender as compared to less than one percent just a year ago.

Sen. Rand Paul recently questioned Miguel Cardona, President Biden’s nominee for Education Secretary, about boys competing with girls in sports.  Cardona stated he had no objection although he obscured his answer with a lot of bloviation.  When someone is asked a question that required a simple yes or no answer and they respond with a speech, they are trying to confuse the issue.

What Sen. Paul failed to mention is that schools would be required to allow "transgenders" to use restrooms, locker rooms and even showers.  Progressives see no problem with this except perhaps the reaction of narrow minded parents.  In an exchange with CNN "television journalist" Chris Cuomo a commenter asked, “What do you tell a 12-year-old girl who doesn’t want to see a penis in the locker room?”  Cuomo responsed: “I wonder if she is the problem or her overprotective and intolerant dad? Teach tolerance.”  Perhaps Cuomo may be excused due to his lack of intellectual aptitude.  However, many people of average and even above average intelligence hold the same beliefs.

There is no limit to progressive ideas on sexuality.   Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer  writes that the human taboo on bestiality stems from strong genital similarities between humans and animals, mammals especially, leading to “our desire to differentiate ourselves, erotically and in every other way, from animals.” “Who has not,” he writes, “been at a social occasion disrupted by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing penis against them? The host usually discourages such activities, but in private not everyone objects to being used by her or his dog in this way, and occasionally mutually satisfying activities may develop.”  Can necrophilia be far behind?

Police - Demonization and Defunding

A serious problem for the Deep State is that its enforcement arm contains a large number of "deplorables."  The FBI has been pointing this out for decades.  A 2006 FBI intelligence assessment, "White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement", alerted agents to “both strategic infiltration by organized groups and self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes.”  Former FBI agent Mike German contends that, "Too many local police don’t take the far right seriously — or they actively sympathize with them." The Daily Beast asserts, "For years, local police and the FBI just couldn’t recognize crazy-talking, highly armed white men as a systematic, potential terrorism threat."  A recently retired FBI special agent, Frank Montoya, Jr., claimed the Capitol siege indicates far-right extremism is a "fundamental" threat to national security, even more so than foreign terror groups."

Montoya believes, "The threat we're facing right now is not only real but deeply embedded - and cult-like - in our society.  Look at how many military and law enforcement types were involved in the Capitol assault and how many people in Congress supported the effort to overturn a free and fair election on January 6."  DJ Peterson, the president of Longview Global Advisors, claims "If you look at law enforcement in the US, there's generally a high risk of these organizations being permeated by white, right-wing extremists."  John Cohen, who oversaw DHS’s counterterrorism portfolio from 2011 to 2014, claims "the most significant terror-related threat facing the US today comes from violent extremists who are motivated by white supremacy and other far-right ideological causes.”

The belief that law-enforcement is a threat to national security is rife throughout the federal government.  The State Department’s newly installed deputy spokesperson, Jalina Porter claimed, the "largest threat to U.S. national security are (sic) cops.  Not ISIS, not Russian hackers, not anyone or anything else.  If y’all don’t wake up and rise up to this truth, the genocide against Blacks in America will continue until we are near extinct."  Despite her language skills Porter is something of a Renaissance woman.  She was a congressional aid, a communications official for a think tank and a dancer for the NFL's Oakland Raiders and the NBA's Washington Wizards.

Of course, the Deep State media has joined the fray.  The Los Angeles Times reporting that "White supremacist extremists are the nation’s deadliest terror threat."  The Times claims that many of the over 70 million Trump voters suffer from a "a mass delusion that government is run by Satan-worshiping child-sex traffickers, or an odd alliance between those misguided souls and violent racists, all cheered on by the president of the United States in service of the lie that his phantom reelection was stolen from him."  The New York Times published an op-ed by anti-criminalization activist Mariame Kaba where she declared, "Yes, we mean literally abolish the police."  Kaba suggests directing funds to "health care, housing, education and good jobs."  This would lead to a lesser "need for the police in the first place" and that “community care workers” can "do mental-health checks" for people who need help.

Kaba's vision appears to be shared by Biden's new head the Domestic Policy Council, Susan Rice.  She believes that to end America's “long history of inequality, of oppression,” we should be “re-imagining the role of the police.”  The Biden/Harris administration will bring this "re-imagining" of police forces to a national level.  

The defund or "re-imagining" movement is based on the demonization of the police.  Police are frequently portrayed as white supremacists.  "White supremacy", however is a very subjective term.  Activist Shaun King believes statues of Jesus Christ are a "form of white supremacy," and should be torn down.  The New York City Department of Education has instructed its teachers that concepts like “perfectionism,” “paternalism,” and “objectivity” are part of “white supremacy culture.” At the same time there is a virtual deification of criminals like George Floyd.  Floyd was a felon who broke into a home with a gang and pointed a gun at a pregnant woman's stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer.  His gold coffin sat upon a horse drawn bier. His death is universally described as a murder.  The word allegedly is never used, and it is never pointed out that officer Derek Chauvin is innocent until he is proven guilty.

Nationally police are “standing down” to avoid violent confrontations.  It will not be necessary to defund them.  Many may be unwilling to enforce the law where there is a chance they might be injured, their careers ended, or their actions result in possible jail time.  There will be incidents in the future involving police and black males.  Also, trials of officers involved in previous incidents may result in acquittals.  This will lead to future riots.  How will depleted police forces deal with these situations?  It will be necessary for the federal government to step it.  The government has a history of jumping in.  They sent 15 FBI agents to Teladega to investigate a fake noose in Bubba Wallace's Nascar garage.  It spent untold man hours investigating Jussie Smollett's allegations.