This is well stated

“The more we develop a culture that penalizes imperfection, the more that culture will begin to attack the very foundations of art itself. It is one of my main tasks in life to fight this since I consider myself, above all other things, to be an artist.”

Chloe Valdary

We’ve become a society that demands perfection from others, penalizing at every opportunity, while simultaneously minimizing imperfection in our selves and our “tribe”.

Klan member love

“To me...for a lot of us, he was a mentor and a friend, and for a lot of us, he was a guide," 

Is anyone who says this sort of thing about someone who was a member of the KKK really POTUS material?

Good Question

“Dear Black Community,

What do we need to Make America Great?”

Asked by Angela Stanton King a candidate for Congress.     If you’re interested you’ll have to find the thread on Twitter.

I’ll point out that every quote is from a black voice, and I barely scratched the surface.

I guess these are folks you might want to listen to.  

I didn’t put the name of everyone quoted, because it’s all in the Twitter thread.  

Sports, kind of

I don't write about sports a lot, but in this case I think it's worthwhile.

The media blew up today with the heartwarming story that Makur Maker had committed to Howard University, an HBCU.   This sounds like great news.  A 5 star recruit forgoing the big name college basketball powers to give some love to an HBCU.   My initial reaction was that this is a great story.

Then I found out some more.    Maker is one of the top 15 HS players in the country and has been heavily recruited, where he ends up is big news and a huge boost for the program, which makes the choice of Howard noteworthy.   Except, Maker has declared for the NBA draft and will likely enter the draft if he's projected to be a first round pick.   Which means, he wouldn't actually attend Howard.   But even if Maker forgoes the draft, he's likely to be what they call a "one and done" player.  In other words a player who plays one year of college ball, only to kill time and to improve his draft position for the following year.   So, maybe this story isn't quite what the headlines portray.

Personally, as a CBB fan, I despise the "one and done" rule and believe that college players should play at least 3 years if they choose college.    I just want that bias out there.

I am all for athletes taking advantage of their talent and taking it where they can do the most good for themselves.  So, if he can get drafted I support his right to go that route fully.

If Maker does play any CBB, I am absolutely thrilled that he's going to avoid the usual suspects and give a program like Howard a huge boost in exposure, money, and hopefully recruiting.  

I even think that the publicity for Howard and the HBCU is, on the whole, a positive thing.

However, here's where I think that folks have gotten ahead of themselves.    The reality is that Maker has, at best, "committed" to play one year at Howard.  He isn't necessarily interested in the education he could get, and certainly isn't really "committed" to anything except his own self interest.   I think we have a situation where his choice fits in with a narrative and where the headlines are more important than the story details.

I truly wish Maker the best and truly hope that Howard University gets maximum benefits from this, but at this point it looks like more of a publicity stunt than actual news.

As a general rule

As a general rule, is it reasonable to conclude that the people you invite to significant family occasions are people you are either friends with, or have important relationships (business, political, etc) with?

Wisdom

“Whether it's from the pulpit or the platform of social media, people resent being lectured to. This dynamic creates an expanding and continual cultural war, contributing to greater social instability and cultural polarization.”

-Mark Sayers

Maybe more folks should pay attention to this.

Dan asked

Dan asked if I'd watch and whether I could acknowledge that the information in the Phil Vischer was a compelling case for systemic racism.

Unfortunately, since I'm not allowed to respond at his blog, I'll have to answer here.

I have no problem with the reality of his recitation of history. 

It's interesting that FDR isn't credited with redlining.

It's interesting that he uses MPLS so often given that it's one of the most liberal cities in the country and has been for decades.

I have some questions about his interpretation of some of the data, and his imputation of racism without actually demonstrating racism.

It's interesting that I've written things that agree with his opinions on FDR's redining, I've asked questions that remain unanswered regarding police stopping motorists for broken taillight types of things, yet the assumption in the post is that I am hostile to the positions expressed.   The further assumption regarding Vischer's theology certainly is not demonstrated to be true either. 

If Dan was reading my comments, and paying attention, he'd likely know the answer.