Source: NPR via Ars Technica

I spent five hours on the phone last night calling voters in Ohio to organize and work against the passage of SB 5 which would strip public service employees of their rights collective bargaining. Tucked into SB 5 is this language:

Sec. 3101.01 of S.B. 5: … A marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman. Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state. Any marriage between persons of the same sex shall have no legal force or effect in this state and, if attempted to be entered into in this state, is void ab initio and shall not be recognized by this state. The recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record or judicial proceeding of this state, as defined in section 9.82 of the Revised Code, that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to non-marital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void.

Inside Walker’s Wisconsin “Budget Repair Bill” is language that would, advocates say, “… hand Governor Walker and his administration broad powers to rewrite the state’s public health programs, including BadgerCare and even SeniorCare, with virtually no public input.

Under the bill, proposed changes to the programs would need to be reviewed only by the Legislature’s Republican-controlled budget committee, a significant shortcut compared to the normal legislative process and public vetting required.
Walker’s Department of Health Services could unilaterally change state laws dealing with the programs, which affect more than a million state residents from infants to the elderly and include a spectrum of BadgerCare plans, FamilyCare, and SeniorCare.

Last weekend several public health advocates were reeling at the magnitude and the speed of the proposed changes and at what they signify for the state’s BadgerCare system, which only a year ago was touted nationally as a model for how to increase health coverage for the poor and middle class.”

Read more at:   http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/vital_signs/article_979fd798-385c-11e0-b233-001cc4c03286.html

These budget battles being pushed by the GOP across the Mid-West are thinly veiled assaults on public sector unions, women, gays, and the poor. Get ready for the coming battles.

I knew the answer but I didn’t start this blog to be another partisan ranter, I started to help my writing chops as I entered grad school for Public Communication. I should have graduated by now but I still haven’t submitted a thesis for as I tell people, “life got in the way.” In September 2008, my mother-in-law’s health declined so rapidly we took her out of her assisted living facility. We thought it best she pass away among family. Her doctors told us she had at most three months so we gathered the children and grandchildren home to say good bye to grandma… she passed February 1, 2010.

But it was right about August ’09 that I truly began to feel totally burnt out. By that time the health care reform debate was in full froth and ugliness ruled the day. My thesis would not be ready by the end of my studies and I would not be able to submit it until December.

What got in my way wasn’t “life” so much as “lack of passion.” When I gave up my anger I believe I lost my passion for writing.

What was fueling my anger? The right-wing of the nation’s politics. Don’t get me wrong, the far-left fringe drive me nuts, too! The knuckleheads in Black Bloc always take the spotlight off the protest and turn it on to themselves.

What really irks me is the fact that the nation seems ot have lost sight of what all this is supposed to be mean. Listening to my Dad and his buds while I was growing up taught me a very valuable lesson. These men had actually lived the majority of their lives under the specter of racism and Jim Crow and nearly all were WWII veterans. To a man they were patriots. They had taken the worse this nation could dish out to them and in return they gave their blood and bodies to save the country and the world and to demonstrate their respect for self and love of country.

They voted in elections, paid their taxes and wondered what else white folks wanted from them. The answer to that question didn’t matter, these black, negro and colored men considered themselves above all to be Americans.

So where are the American patriots today? The Tea Party? Oh yeah, what do they stand for? Give me mine and the hell with everyone else. Forget racism that’s much too narrow a strait to sail through. No, today’s American doesn’t give a damn unless one question is answered first above all else; “What’s in it for me?”

“He promised us everything, saying he would turn the country around, and he did nothing the first year,” Peggy says. “He piddled around when he had 60 votes. He could have pushed through the health care bill but spent months haggling on it because he wanted to bring some Republicans on board. He was trying too hard to compromise when he didn’t need the Republicans and they were never going to like him. Any idiot could see that.”

Yep, that is some fantastic logic. Because he campaigned on changing the culture and getting elected representatives to work together, Independents are p.o.’d that he didn’t grind the GOP into the dust, the way the GOP would have done if roles were reversed. So because he tried to live up to his campaign ideals he must be neutered for not playing business as usual. Meanwhile the GOP are calling him the cruelest dictator since Pol Pot.

During the 2008 campaign, my Mom said to me, “If Obama walked on water they would accuse him of destroying the recreational boating industry!”

I’ve been officially unemployed since 2006, when the company I worked for was bought out by another who promptly moved the HQ and operations to Texas. Since then I have cobbled together different free-lance gigs, utilized my tour guide license to put together a “transportainment” business, (limousine rides combined with capital city tours), provided end of days hospice care for my mother-in-law, rented out her house and I went to grad school. Unfortunately none of these endeavors yielded healthcare coverage.

My wife has multiple sclerosis. ‘Nuff said about my personal reasons for supporting Obama.

So yeah, I voted for Obama. Volunteered, raised money and went door to door to help get out the vote. I too was disappointed with the way the health-care reform action took place, but as a student of history I knew FDR had to scrap universal health-care in order to get the New Deal implemented. I also knew that one of the chief criticisms of FDR was that he tried to “pack the supreme court.” In mentioning that fact about FDR no one ever explains why. Every thing FDR rammed through Congress to help the American people was determined to be “unconstitutional” by the ideologically conservative SCOTUS of the time. FDR made the threat to fundamentally alter the court and they laid off killing his programs. However, those actions had the effect of “putting the brakes” on the economic recovery of the mid 1930s. Depending on one’s point of view, FDR’s programs were saved by the advent of WWII.

Last summer a GOP memo authored by Alex Castellanos and others declared the GOP’s strategy to combat Obama would be to “tap the breaks” to slow down his “socialist” agenda. In other words, every initiative no matter how big or small was to be met by the Republicans with a resounding “Hell no!”

How does one “change the culture” of Washington if the partners in that endeavor essentially stick their fingers in their ears and say, “Lalalalalalala!” to everything?

Many of us on the left wondered why he didn’t just use his majority to power through his agenda? Why waste so much time trying to get the GOP to come along and try and save the nation’s standing in the world?  My question was, “How would not seeking partnership to solve the country’s ills change the culture of DC?”

Simply put, the President was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

So he put the effort and energy into pushing the first major changes to the nation’s healthcare system since Medicare. Folks should remember that the effort to pass Medicare in the 60s was met with EXACTLY the same response from the GOP as the 2009 effort.

Screams of “socialism, socialized medicine, government takeover, creeping totalitarianism” met the Democrats. In 2009, Republican senators declared that stopping healthcare would be Obama’s “Waterloo.”  Where is the “bi-partisanship” in that?

The much vilified “stimulus bill” was fought tooth and nail and in an effort to accommodate the detractors on the right side of the aisle was watered-down. Now economists agree the stimulus wasn’t big enough. Ya think?

We now hear from the right that Obama “promised less than 8% unemployment” by now. So why is the entity that did everything it could to prevent an initiative in the first place now screaming that the President hasn’t done enough?

This nation is getting ready to reward the party that dug us into this hole and then resisted any and all efforts to get out of the hole with the opportunity to finish the job started by Ronald Reagan and nearly completed by President W. And that is the total inversion of the idea of American Exceptionalism, subversion of the American Dream and the total looting of the US Treasury. Over the last thirty years there has been a redistribution of the nation’s wealth UPWARD, and yet the Right continues to scream about Class Warfare. The Class War is over folks and the Ultra Rich have won.

These are the folks who constantly decry the role of government and insist that government is the problem and not the solution to anything as per the orthodoxy of Ronald Reagan. Yet it was the US Government that defeated the Axis in global conflict, re-built the economies of Europe and Japan and placed astronauts on the moon, so why is it that Government is the worst hobble to the US? Because the less government the less PROTECTION for the American people.

The nation knew in 2008 that we deserved better and voted accordingly and now thanks to superior PR tactics and corporate conglomerate media assistance, The GOP once again proves the old canard usually attributed to H.L. Mencken that Americans get the government they deserve. I don’t know if Mencken actually said that, I do know he said, “I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.” The GOP agrees.

They create a mess, the Dems clean it up and the country gives power back to the GOP and as Reagan famously said, “There you go again!”

I think Reagan’s buddy and one of my favorite song stylists ever, put it best. Click here to check out Sinatra.

Nearly one quarter of the American people believe President Obama is Muslim and the Main Stream Media are tearing the collective shirts and wondering how this could this happen? How could such an idea take root?

The idea has become so pervasive because the conservative noise machine is once again being aided and abetted by the so-called Main Stream Media. Fox News and the cadre of right wing bloggers and pundits report lies and rumors as if they are facts and then the “major” news organizations give credence to the lies and fabrications by simply repeating them as if they carry equal weight with the truth.

What makes this another “Batshit Crazy” moment for America is that just two years ago the same segment of the electorate that think Obama is Muslim were upset because they swore he was a disciple of a black Baptist preacher who was seen on a seemingly endless loop tape screaming, “God damn America!” So what is he?

A Christian follower of a preacher who teaches “Black Liberation theology,” or a Muslim sleeper terrorist raised in Indonesian madrassas?

If you can’t stand him or the fact that he’s the black man in the white house then he can be anything you want him to be… except the duly elected President of the United States.

All the folks who were screaming “I want my country back!” last August during the “Summer of Tea Party Madness” overlook the fact Obama defeated John McCain by nearly 9 million votes. These are also the same folks who jeered “Sore Loserman!” when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the contested recount in court. The Supreme Court, that is, who by the way, realized their decision in Bush v. Gore was so far out on a judicial limb, they declared the case could not be used for precedent in the future.

What this whole “Obama is a Muslim” thing is the continuing and effective effort to delegitimize the Obama presidency. The Right Wing blogosphere and the Conservative Talk Radio Corps., are constantly battering their followers with assertions that Obama is: racist, anti-American, inept, elitist, and my newest favorite, stupid.

What’s that, you say?  The guy graduates Columbia U and Harvard Law and yet he is stupid? He was President of the Harvard Law Review and he is stupid? You ask that question and the answer you get is he and his wife, Michelle, are the beneficiaries of affirmative action. They may have graduated from prestigious schools, rapidly found success in business, academia and politics… but not on their merits.

This is the America that will gather with Glenn Beck at the National Mall on August 28, 2010, (the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s seminal, “I Have a Dream” speech) to denounce and attempt to derail the agenda of the President of the United States whose very being is the essence of King’s sentiments from that day in 1963. They will protest a black man who is the embodiment of the “American Dream” touched on by Dr. King when said:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, is rightfully considered one of the watershed moments in American History… so how come black folks and others of good conscience aren’t calling on the “americans” who will descend on the mall to call off the event or “hold it someplace else?”

Because in spite of EVERYTHING, we believe in the social experiment that is the United States of America.

I just wish the folks who are protesting the construction of a community/worship center two city blocks away from the World Trade Center site would believe in the idea of America, too.

But then again, if these good, hardworking real Americans weren’t batshit crazy…

disclaimer: Normally I would post the links to my examples but the hell with that! Those guys have enough of an audience. I don’t have to introduce them to mine… even if it is only friends and family!

When WWII broke out in December 1941, FDR succumbed to “popular opinion”and Japanese residents of the west coast were rounded up and placed in internment camps for the duration of the war. Of the over 120,000 people of Japanese descent who were interred, more than two-thirds of them were Nisei or native born Americans.

Post-WWII Americans really lost their minds and fell prey to another Red Scare and no one in the nation was safe, except maybe J. Edgar Hoover. Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, led the charge to root out the communist evil-doers who had infiltrated and infected every segment of American society from Hollywood to the US military. After a while the nation realized the guy they were blindly following with their torches and pitchforks was lying out his ass and was most likely batshit crazy.

And so it went for the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty first… and we haven’t touched on Jim Crow, race riots, or Freedom Fries!

Have we forgotten how we lost our minds during the anthrax scare? The venerable socialite, Sally Quinn, wrote in the Washington Post of her efforts to secure gas masks for her family and servant staff. Then in February 2003, a government official counseled the nation to prepare an emergency home kit that would include materials to seal a room in your home and “shelter in place” in case of  biological, chemical or radiological attack. Once again, Americans went batshit crazy!

Later that week I decided I wanted to spruce up my office with framed covers of the magazine that employed me at the time. On my lunch break I went to the Dollar Store to pick up some picture frames. While I was there I saw a couple of older gents and their spouses in line at the check out. They had rolls of plastic sheeting and duct tape… along with cashews and beer nuts. I asked, “Homeland Security got you spooked?”

“No! It’s those Ay-rabs who are just determined to destroy our freedom!”

“Well,” I said, “be safe.” As I carted my picture frames out to my car I thought, “They’re afraid of terrorist attack so they’re buying duct tape and plastic in the Dollar Store.”

Yep, we know how to do crazy.

So let’s head down to lower Manhattan where if you listen to the loudest pundits and talking heads you would believe that “radical islam” was erecting a ten story Mega Mosque on Ground Zero, the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. Part of the reason for this craziness over a property owner deciding to build according to zoning regulations and approval from the city authorities is the GOP and the Right wing need a wedge issue for the upcoming mid-term elections and the so-called Main Stream Media happily obliges by repeating their talking points (no matter how stupid – “death panels” anyone?) lending legitimacy to their fear mongering. In today’s Washington Post Michelle Boorstein examines the growing influence of conservative pundits on this issue and by way of her headline tacitly endorses their position by referring to the structure in question as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

What the GOP has accomplished is something George W. Bush once decried, and that is the conflation of the 9/11 attackers, (predominantly Saudi arabs) and their radical form of Islam, with the totality of the Islamic world. Everyone who bows to the east at the appropriate intervals during the day is a potential suicide-bomber!

Naturally, Americans who tend to go totally batshit when faced with real or imagined threats are willing to go all in on the idea that building the house of worship two blocks away in a yet to be redeveloped area of lower Manhattan is somehow encroaching on the “hallowed ground” of the World Trade Center site. Some how I see the hallowed ground at the Ground Zero site to be  the boundaries of the great plaza itself, the immediate footprint of the World Trade Center. Otherwise is the strip joint across the street on “hallowed ground?”

Sarah Palin tweeted:    We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? This is not above your pay grade.7:04 PM Aug 14th via web

Once again conservatives and their familiars have shown themselves to be hypocrites of the first order. Where was this outrage when Ronald Reagan, (SFX: heavenly choir “AAAAHHHHH!”), opened his campaign for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the very town where three young civil rights workers were abducted, murdered and buried in an earthen dam by the local police and the Ku Klux Klan?

One hundred years from now Americans are going to look back at this time and I wonder if they will think, “Those folks upheld the Constitution and demonstrated the qualities that symbolize the very essence of the great American experiment!” More than likely the folks in the future will think, “Those people were batshit crazy!”

Yesterday I wrote an essay detailing my perspective on the situation and posted the opening paragraphs and a link to my website… what can I say? I’m an attention hound, it’s what I do and it’s why I am earning a Master degree in Public Communication. This website is a place where I can practice my craft and it is where I solicit feedback.

So I put links on Facebook, Twitter and other places.

I also posted on the following site, PoliticsDaily. I’ll share the least offensive response… notice, I have become an Insecure Dolt!

larrybellinger

11:10PM Jul 24th 2009

If you have ever been dealt with in a condescending way by an “authority figure” you can probably understand how Prof. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates felt when he was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass., last week.

President Obama, in response to a question from Chicago reporter Lynn Sweet, gave an honest answer as a black man born and raised in America. Once the cop knew Gates was in his own home, I don’t care if Gates was a total asshole about the situation; for the cop to arrest him for basically having an “attitude” in his own house sends a message to every black man in this country, and it isn’t a good one…

Charles Savilla

1:29PM Jul 25th 2009

For the one-millionth time! He was NOT in his house when he got arrested, you dolt! The officer was leaving the scene when Gates followed him outside while continuing his rant and protest!! After being warned by the officer to discontinue his loud and boisterous behavior out in public, OUTSIDE HIS HOUSE, Gates ignored the officers lawful order and was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct. The question as to whether Gates was the legal resident or not was resolved before the disorderly conduct incident. That’s why the officer was leaving. I suppose you already knew the whole story before you wrote your post but you took the parts that complimented your agenda and ignored the rest. How typical of an insecure person who doesn’t want to hear the truth. It’s pathetic.

Well, Yeah! The cop was leaving and Gates said that “One last thing” that pushed the cop’s sense of righteousness to the Tipping Point. The cop could have easily tossed, “Have a nice day! (asshole!)” over his shoulder and left. But he didn’t and that is why it was a problem.

Too often I have encountered Cops who espouse the “Judge Dredd“ theory of law enforcement, i.e. “I AM THE LAW!”

That’s why in the last 39 years I have NEVER stood up for my rights in ANY situation with a police officer, no matter how much I may have felt I was in the right.

One afternoon, when I was in college, a friend and I were taken into custody for “suspicion.” We were, separated, processed and interrogated. They kept asking me questions about the “Black Liberation Army.” WTF?

The problem was I got pulled over and when the officer asked to search my car for drugs I was damned if I was gonna say no. I did tell him that when he opened the trunk he would find twelve ’03 Springfield rifles. The fact they were wrapped with blue and white tape, had no bolts, had lead-plugged barrels and were obviously Drill Team rifles, meant nothing.

I was transporting my fraternity’s (Pershing Rifles – Company U-4) drill weapons from a performance that afternoon over in Norfolk. Too bad for my buddy, Russell, because he wasn’t in the frat and just happened to be in my car before I had logged the weapons in at ROTC.  After several hours of serious questioning I was allowed the phone call that I consistently requested.

I didn’t call home. I called an Art professor and asked her to contact her boyfriend who was history professor and a lawyer. We were released before midnight.

After we were released I smacked my friend upside his head for getting us in that mess! We were going to Phillips Seafood Kitchen but I stopped for gas at a 76 station. Even though we were heading out to buy food, (after dropping off the weapons at ROTC), Russ had to get snacks! After purchasing $1.80 worth of soda and chips with $2.00; he cracked a joke at the girl behind the counter, “Keep the change, baby!”

When he came out I could hear the girl loudly exclaim, “HE CALLED ME BABY!”

Five minutes later we were face down in the street behind my car. Was there a connection? Who knows? Who cares?

But I wonder what would have happened if I had called my parents who were 8 hours away, instead of a lawyer on campus.

I really envy the person who has no “Cop Tales” to relate!

Crazy, possibly irrelevant observance: There are at least four police officers in my family; as a kid, my next door neighbor was one of the first black officers in Suffolk County; my wife was a former prosecutor in Brooklyn, NY and many of our friends where NYPD. I have no predetermined bias against police, but I do have my experiences.

If you have ever been dealt with in a condescending way by an “authority figure” you can probably understand how Prof. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates felt when he was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass., last week.

President Obama, in response to a question from Chicago reporter Lynn Sweet, gave an honest answer as a black man born and raised in America. Once the cop knew Gates was in his own home, I don’t care if Gates was a total asshole about the situation; for the cop to arrest him for basically having an “attitude” in his own house sends a message to every black man in this country, and it isn’t a good one.

For those who will say, “look how the black officers are backing up Sgt. Crowley”; the arresting officer in this matter, I say, “Big damn deal!” If you lived in New York City a few years back it was well understood that all black cops are “Blue.” But as a white cop said to my friend, the late Fordham Law Professor Abraham Abramovsky, while we were out on the town one night – we were stopped in Chinatown because Abe had a beer in his hand while I was driving – “The only thing worse than a skel is a Guardian!

I’m happy President Obama said what he said, for now the nation is talking about this in earnest. He is a really smart guy and he will take his remark (maybe saying stupid WAS a proper description of the officer’s action;, but it was like throwing red meat to the hungry media) and turn it into a positive.

I have had many interactions with police officers over my fifty-one years. Most were cordial and professional. Others? Not so much…

One particularly ugly experience took place in Amityville, NY in 1989. I was standing in a parking lot of a shopping center on Merrick Road talking with a blonde young woman named Debbie who was proudly showing me her boyfriend/fiancés new pick-up truck.

Out of the blue, what seemed like the entire Amityville Village PD rolled up at a high rate of speed from several directions and did a “jump-out.” Next thing I knew I was spread eagle on her truck. I was searched and questioned by four officers while two others questioned Debbie. I could hear what they were asking her, “What are doing here? Why are you with him? Why are you shaking? Why are you acting scared?”

They asked me why I was talking to this girl, why was I in the parking lot and what was I doing at this shopping center. I calmly replied, ”She’s a friend. We were just inside this salon where she works and where I just got a manicure. Her boss is a friend of mine. We came out to see her new truck.”

At that point their pressure began to subside and I was asked to produce ID. I gave them my driver’s license and my work ID that declared I was an Assistant to the Town Supervisor. The lead cop said to the rest, “There’s nothing here!” and without a word of explanation they got into their cars and left. Meanwhile, traffic on Merrick Rd, (a main thoroughfare in the village), had come to a halt and I was the center of attraction.

I was frightened, humiliated and even though I was really pissed; I was sure to keep my emotions in check. That was something that had been drilled into me by my parents since I was old enough to leave the house alone.

I wanted to know what had just happened and why, so I got into my car and drove to Amityville PD headquarters. The desk sergeant, I forget who he was, but he knew my dad, explained there had been an anonymous phone call claiming there was drug deal in progress in that parking lot. I asked, “Do I look like a “drug dealer?” He shook his head.

In those days there was the stereotyped look folks associated with dealers and on that day, my look sure as hell didn’t match. I had on a grey chalk stripe suit, salmon shirt, (with white collar and cuffs), a red striped tie and red braces. He apologized by saying, “C’mon, Larry. You know how it is.”

Yeah, I knew how it was.

A few years earlier in the state of Texas a young man named Lennell Geter had been sentenced to life imprisonment in a chain of events that started with an anonymous tip.

Geter spent 16 months in jail and was eventually released in the wake of questions raised by friends and co-workers; which led to this 60 Minutes segment. 

I accepted the Sgt’s personal apology because it was sincere, he also made it clear the department would NEVER apologize and I also knew that to be true.

A couple years later a NY State trooper stopped my wife’s car in 1991 knowing full well she was a District Court Judge for he had just pulled us over the night before.

Someone had broken a headlight on my car during a campaign event in Babylon Village and a couple nights later, I was stopped on the Southern State Parkway.

I told the cop my registration and insurance info were in the trunk, (where my dad always carried his), and explained that I was going to reach down, unlatch the trunk, then get out of the car to retrieve the information. The cop wanted to know where we were coming from and I told him; “A Democratic party fundraiser for my wife at the LI Marriott. She’s a Judge for the Second District Court.” The cop was totally unimpressed and asked, “Did you drink tonight?” I replied, “No officer.”

“Not one drink?”

“Not one!”

By this time I had handed over the information and waited while the cop’s partner called in the information. Meanwhile, the judge committed a cardinal sin when it comes to traffic stops. She stepped out of the car and demanded to know what was the problem. The cop put his hand on his weapon and barked, “Get the hell back in the car!” To which she replied, “Excuse me?”

After a tense moment I said, “Babe! Get back in the car! I got this!”

She got back in the car. I looked at the angry cop, spread my hands  and gave him a ‘Whaddya gonna do?’ look and said, with a chuckle: “Women!” I told him my mechanic had ordered the parts for the repair and I would have the problem fixed by Saturday.

The next evening the same cop pulled us over in the same location. My wife had picked me up from Town hall, so she was driving. He called a back up patrol car to block our vehicle in on the shoulder. He then proceeded to explain in very condescending tone why he was giving her the ticket and how she should proceed to pay or dispute the same.

It would be an understatement to say that my wife was steamed. Part of her duties on the bench was to handle traffic court and there were many true tales of other judges (white males, since she was the first and – at the time only – black woman on the bench in all of Long Island), who had been stopped for driving erratically and when identified as drunk, they AND their cars were driven home.

I could probably spend close to an hour reciting tales of abuse at the hands of police officers where I had to “cheese” my way through the encounters, but I am sure every brother could do the same. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t relate an example of a totally unprofessional incident that took place back in 1990.

I was pulled over on Sunrise Highway in Lindenhurst, NY for exceeding the speed limit by a Suffolk County police officer.

My mother-in-law had just spent an entire meal at a restaurant expounding on what a good guy my wife’s ex-husband was and how I had done such a rotten thing by marrying my new bride. This conversation took place a week after the wedding and my wife’s mom was STILL at our house. I had finally had enough of the old bat and told her she was heading back to DC.

That brings us to the traffic stop. I had heard enough of her nonsense at breakfast and angrily said, “Let’s go!” I paid the tab and hustled my wife and her mom into my car and set off for the LIRR station in Amityville. There we would catch a train into Penn Station and place her mom on an Amtrak to DC. Driving at nearly 80 mph, I was pulled over near Bay Shore by a white Suffolk County cop.

I produced my license, registration and proof of insurance for the officer and when he asked if I knew how fast I had been going, I replied, “Close to 80!” The cop was taken aback but I continued.

“Officer, I have been married five days and I am taking my (I jerked my thumb toward the backseat where she was seated), mother-in-law to the Amityville train station so she can go home to Washington; and I don’t want to miss the next train!”

The cop looked into the backseat at my mother-in-law and then he looked back at me. His expression said it all. “You poor bastard!” was written across his face. He put his pad back on his hip and said, “Follow me” and headed back to his car.

He pulled out into traffic, flipped on his lights and siren and I followed him to the train station going about 80 mph.

The officer’s act was totally unprofessional; for I certainly deserved a big ticket for my violation. But, lord! Did he ever show compassion for a poor soul and for that, I have always been grateful.

Unfortunately, it seems that a major miscommunication took place concerning the number of campers slated to participate and remarks made by the club president , John Duesler, (what WAS he thinking?), were interpreted to be racist.

Duesler later told reporters that his remarks were poorly worded. When he made his first statement he was either being ridiculously honest, or incredibly stupid… more likely he was just tone deaf.

By the time I post this I’m willing to bet there will be a resolution and the kids will get swim time at the club. By making the arrangement in the first place, the Valley Club knew they were dealing with three summer camps altogether. Unfortunately, someone didn’t conduct “due diligence” on the logistics: How many campers would need instruction, how many lifeguards would be on duty during camp swim time, etc.

I’m also willing to bet that some of the remarks reported by the campers were authentic. It’s freaking human nature. Country Club members enjoying the pool with their kids were probably “surprised” to say the least, when 65 “minority” kids showed up that Monday morning. Let’s face it, some of those white folks probably felt intimidated and probably feared for their kid’s safety. So while the club may be “diverse” that usually means less than 10 percent of membership falls into the minority category. So you bet the “complexion” of the pool changed abruptly that morning.

Hopefully, this incident will lead to open and honest dialogue among the camper’s families and the club members.

There was no such luck for me one summer. Every summer my parents sent us to Amityville Beach for the Town of Babylon’s Red Cross swimming program.  

1968 was a traumatic year for the whole nation. That year did more to set my political identity than anything that had happened before or since. That Spring, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were murdered while trying to make this country a more perfect union and that Summer I got my first taste of overt racism… at Amityville Beach. 

One afternoon after swim lessons my brother, Bill, and I went into the snack bar for a couple of hot dogs and Pepsi-Colas. While standing in line I noticed a chant of some sort had started among some of the teenagers in the snack bar. The chant was led by a blond kid in yellow swim shorts sitting at a table with a bunch of his buddies. He would call out, “I SMELL A GAR!” and the response was, “A CEE-GAR?” to which he replied, “NO! A NEE-GAR!”

Roars of laughter came from the majority of the patrons in the snack bar as they repeated the “joke” over and over again. My brother and I were the only blacks in the room and we were also among the few who weren’t laughing.

I wasn’t laughing because I didn’t get it. Bill, however, was fuming. He said, “Let’s go!” “Don’t you want a soda?” He looked at me and there was a sad fury in his eyes. ” I SAID, Let’s go!”

We walked out to the bike rack and saddled up to go home. Bill was mad; so mad he was shaking.

 ”What was so funny back there?” I asked.

“Wasn’t nothing funny in there!” he replied.

“So what was everybody laughing about?”

Bill looked at me and said, “They were laughing at us. They were calling us niggers.”

I was devastated. All those folks didn’t like me and they didn’t even know me!

Bill said, “Forget them! We can get some grub on Sunrise Highway.”

When we got home we made it sound funny to our friends, “Yeah, they didn’t think we knew what they were saying!” But it wasn’t funny; not in the least. It was hurtful and it sure let you know where you stood in your own hometown.

When I told my Dad about the incident a few days later he gave me some of the best advice I ever received; “There will always be idiots and you are going to meet your fair share of them. But remember, everyone is different. You can’t judge everyone you meet by how someone else treated you. Take everyone you meet one at a time. If you let how one person treated you affect how you deal with everyone else, you are gonna miss out on some real good people.”

Great advice. I passed that on to my kids in my own fashion. “You’ll run into assholes and saints and everything in between. Just take people as they come.”

Point of information – my kids swam competitively while they attended their prep schools – so went to a lot of swim meets where we were either among the very few or we were the only black family in attendance. 

I called my brother to see what his recollection of the event was after 41 years. Like me, he remembered every little detail; it was if it took place yesterday.

I sincerely hope the kids from the Day Camp near Philly will have a better memory of their incident when all is said and done.