Category: The Blog

The events of three momentous Wednesdays in January 2021 shook us to our core – the insurrection, the impeachment, and the inauguration. And now, in the painful aftermath, comes the important task of connection-making. What do these three events all have in common? The shared quality accompanying each of these three events is a deep political polarization. This divide has been developing ever since the 60s when the two parties split over segregation. The nearly 50/50 national divide we see today is anchored in this “othering” – political sectarianism, symbolic politics – rather than actual policy. My upcoming book DISPATCHES, From Racial Divide to a Road of Repair, is a collection of essays examining this dramatic polarization because we can’t fix what we don’t understand. And here we are in February – Black History Month – a timely and important opportunity to examine the narratives, the storylines, as we try to understand “who we are” for Black History is, after all, American History.

The 2021 theme of Black History Month is “Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity.” The theme of the family offers a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present. With this theme in mind, watching Black history films together as a family this month is one way to illuminate slavery’s troubled legacy. And if you have not yet watched “I Am Not Your Negro” and “Eyes on the Prize”, both are highly recommended, It was during “Eyes on the Prize” that I first learned about the story (at age 62) of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. And that is where my journey of exploring whiteness and my own racial identity began​.

Let us listen to the stories this month, from European Colonialism onward. Slavery and segregation are inscribed on the soul of our nation. Everything is interconnected.

#Polarization #Racism #DEI #BlackHistoryMonth #Whiteness @2LeafPress @IamCarolynBaker

As we seek to assign blame for the insurrection at our U.S. Capital yesterday, let us stop and really bear witness to the outcome of our mollycoddling White supremacy.

Implicit racial bias harms and debilitates the soul of the White community and flies against our deepest moral and civic traditions.

Let us reckon that White supremacy is the White community’s to dismantle, for the sake of its own liberation.

The responsibility for repairing the racial divide must shift out of the hands of “the system” and into the hands of the diverse community where many multi-cultural conversations and collaborations can occur to drive authentic social change.

#whitesupremacy #racism #whiteness #ImpeachTrumpNow #25thAmendmentNow

By Executive Order 13950, the Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, federal entities are now barred from using federal funds for workplace diversity trainings, anti-racism trainings, and scholarship. The irony within this Executive Order states, ”This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country, that people, simply on account of their sex or race are oppressors.”

The EO restricts what can be taught, even if it is the real and full story of our past history, and prohibits education on types of discrimination and institutional racism.

My DEI colleagues are already feeling the chilling effects of the order. They have until Nov. 21 to revise their DEI training contracts in which they agree to reassess their curriculum and make necessary changes. Their trainings are now federally regulated. Other are reporting canceled workshops, courses, and lectures.

A joint letter from the CEOs of the AMA, AHA, and ANA – organizations representing nearly 5,000 hospitals and health systems, more than 1 million physicians, and more than 4 million registered nurses, called on the current Administration to rescind Executive Order 13950. “Each of the actions outlined in EO 13950 would effectively reverse decades of progress in combating racial inequality.”

A coalition of attorneys general joined together to urge that the Executive Order be rescinded as it prohibits implicit bias trainings for federal contractors and federal grantees. Instead, the coalition wants to see the trainings aimed at understanding and combating racial injustice expanded.

I received an email from the African American Policy Forum, a coalition of critical race scholars and advocates of anti-racist work and free expression, taking the threat of suppression seriously and mounting a response. To better understand and broadly communicate the impact, they ask anyone affected by EO 13950 to please leave a brief testimony via the Google form linked here: nLINK TO FORM FOR RESPONSESnAll submissions will be kept confidential. You may also email them at ,info@aapf.org with any questions or to contribute further.

With court challenges already underway, and a House bill to rescind has 49 co-sponsors, Executive Order 13950 will likely be overturned by the new President. But much more public attention needs to be drawn to an Executive Order barring citizens from acknowledging the origins of racism in the history of their country.

#EO13950 #DEI #systemicracism #antiracism #whitesupremacy #implicitbias #criticalracetheory @AAPolicyForum @pattiev @culturgrit @2leafpress @gdavid01

I am the proud daughter of a 33-year career Navy veteran, Lt. Cmdr. Earl Ross Baker. The photo shows the cherished display case with his military medals. In my first book, An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility, I wrote about the pageantry of daily flag ceremonies for the children of the neighborhood led by my father. When I think back on those post-WWII days, I’m reminded of who I am and where I come from. I feel pride when I see the flag, and goosebumps when I hear the national anthem. These two important symbols signify respect and loyalty towards my country. But there is a grievous wrong that must be acknowledged and repaired.

I was shocked to learn that the VA-backed mortgages and the economic opportunities of homeownership my family enjoyed were not awarded to veterans of color. The VA backed the low-interest GI mortgages, but they did not administer them. The state and local white-run financial institutions, therefore, had free reign to refuse mortgages and loans to veterans of color. The result was the G.I. Bill of Rights did not apply equally to veterans of color who served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. This was, by definition, institutional racism.

These practices are today illegal, thanks to the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But look at this: when the Civil Liberties Act was signed in 1988, it was accompanied by a formal apology and $20K for Japanese internment camp survivors and their heirs; in 2004 the State of Virginia established the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Fund for GED classes, community college, four-year degrees, and master’s programs available to any Virginia residents who were locked out of public schools between 1954 and 1964 when the schools closed to avoid desegregation; in 2016, the Jesuit order of Georgetown University formally apologized to the descendants of 272 slaves sold in 1838 to pay the university’s debts, and preferential admissions are now given to the descendants of those slaves; and billionaire Robert Smith paid off all the students loans of the 2019 Morehouse graduating class. These are examples of completely feasible federal, state, and private reparations.

Veterans of color and their heirs are owned much more than a salute and a “thank you for your service” in 2020. It’s time for truth-telling and accountability for systemic racism once leveled against these servicemen and women of color. Similar to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, this accountability must include a formal apology and specific economic actions of repair. At a minimum, reparations should include cash to all veterans of color and their heirs who were denied property ownership, and free college preparatory tutoring and tuition for themselves and their heirs.

This Veteran’s Day, let our nation move forward to accountability for the dis-service done to the 1.2 million men and women of color who served in WWII, and in Korea, and Vietnam. Award these veterans their full GI Bill of Rights, as promised. True patriotism, respect, and loyalty require nothing less. With much love and respect.

#VeteransDay2020 #Reparations #ReparationsNow #Racism #RestorativeJustice #Reconciliation @2LeafPress #anunintentionalaccomplice

In this national election week, when patience is a virtue, we are witnessing both a societal transformation and a deeply divided country. The question on my heart and mind is, “How do I handle this?” Whatever one’s political party may be, we all are finding ourselves at the same juncture this week. What is the road to repair and restoration? For me, it is a commitment to holding myself, my leaders, my lawmakers, and my president accountable.

There is no way forward without dealing with our nation’s past history of slavery and genocide. Even the Electoral College itself is in part tied to America’s history of slavery.  In the October 30th NPR Throughline podcast, Carol Anderson, professor of African American studies at Emory University said, “The Electoral College is really about the fears of the Southern states at the founding of this nation that the larger Northern states would dominate. They wanted guardrails all the way through the Constitution that would protect slaveholder power.”

The last efforts to abolish the Electoral College were the Bayh-Cellers Amendment of 1969 and the Every Vote Counts Amendment of 2005, both of which failed. The Every Vote Counts Amendment was reintroduced in 2009, along with two similar resolutions, and all three died in committee.

With the first element of accountability being truth-telling, I’m reminded of a quote by James Baldwin that was the catalyst for my book, An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility. “This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.”

It starts with acknowledging that all have been harmed by this “innocence which constitutes the crime.” Then a repair is owed by anyone who participated in or benefited from this harm – as individuals, in private and public conversations; as leaders in business; as elected officials across all jurisdictions. Actions of accountability mean substantial resources allocated to communities harmed by violence, including mass incarceration. There are numerous world-wide, highly successful, restorative justice models we can follow to rise up via accountability such as Rwanda’s Truth Commission, or the National Unity and Reconciliation Committee.

This Thanksgiving season, let us commit to doing the individual and collective work of reckoning and seize the opportunity for all of us to reap the benefits of creating a nation better than it ever was.

#election2020 #slavery #electionresults #ElectoralCollege #reparations #unity #reckoning #accountability #racism #blacklivesmatter

You know who you are. Those of us of a certain age who at one time had such high hopes for a better world. Those of us who remember communes, love-in’s, “tuning in, turning on, and dropping out”. What happened to all that belief in peace, and our attempts to live it? nWhat the hippie generation saw so clearly back in the day was astonishingly real. Real also was the power of the old guard. The societal transformation that didn’t happen back in the day has caused some to feel disillusionment. But look around. The younger generations are emerging to fulfill what we only glimpsed. And they need the benefit of our learning and our mistakes. We are needed as Elders.

Here’s an example of how one of us just did this. In a recent LA Times article, “Advice from a 60s activist to Portland’s protesters”, journalist and veteran of the antiwar and civil rights movements, David Harris, urges a focus on changing minds not burning down buildings: n”Demonstrations are choreographed statements. The point is to change people’s minds. The goal of demonstrating is to reach people who otherwise would not take up the cause of racial justice. The message is most effective when it is accessible, compelling fellow citizens to rethink hidebound attitudes and prejudices. Threatening people and shouting them down will only sabotage this dynamic – as will burning buildings, wearing body armor, throwing projectiles, and picking fights. If it is to have any chance of advancing, the quest for racial justice needs to jettison threatening tactics. Frightening people is always counterproductive, even if it is sometimes emotionally satisfying. The objective should be to convert everyone with whom you have contact, whoever they may be, police included.”

Back in 1967, Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical proclaimed, “Then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Harmony and understanding. Sympathy and trust abounding. No more falsehoods or derisions. Golden living dreams of visions. Mystic crystal revelation. And the mind’s true liberation.” As the countercultural pioneers may recall, we were sure the Age of Aquarius would usher in a world of love and respect for all beings.

Well, the world has a second chance – the Age of Aquarius is officially back!  In December of 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will align in the sign of Aquarius. May we generously and wisely serve as Elders to a new generation who will build, as Charles Eisenstein suggests, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” ​

Dare to reignite your belief in possibility. The younger generation needs our shoulders upon which to stand.

#Hippies #protests #riots #peace #amorebeautifulworld #AgeofAquarius #racialjustice #civilrights #transformation #elders #anunintentionalaccomplice ​

In 2016, I was sitting on my couch watching a BLM documentary as the narrator began to unfold the story of the 1955 murder of Emmett Louis Till. I was stunned as the shocking photos of Till’s brutalized body crossed the screen, just as they did when his mother Mamie demanded the media show the graphic images because she “wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” I turned to my partner, barely able to speak, tears welling up in my eyes. “How could I have not known about this?” My heart was broken wide open. I experienced the immediate and universal horror and anguish any mother would feel at the sight of such cruelty to her child. The pictures of Till’s brutalized body did to me what the 1963 smiling school photos of the four black girls murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham had not. I looked directly, as a mother, into the face of a child brutalized beyond recognition. It could have been any mother’s child. It could have been my child. As my response moved from my head directly to my heart, I felt the reality and depth of my previous complacency.

At that moment, the realization began to dawn on me; the murder of Till is not an African American story, it is an American story that belongs to all of us. Way beyond the squeamish embarrassment of my ignorance of the event, I was sickened, horrified. The phrase “I’m free, white, and twenty-one” came back to me. The image of Emmett Till’s disfigured face showed me what this casually accepted white supremacy really meant. Participating in the extraordinary benefits of white privilege also means participating in the legacy of violence, theft, and oppression of others that created it. When Mamie Till-Mobley made me look directly at the face of race hate, I felt a loss within my humanity.

In my segregated white childhood, intellectual assent was given to the idea that racism existed in some places in America, and it was very wrong. In Sunday school, I sang the song, “Jesus loves the little children, all little children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” That I was unaware of the murder of Emmett Till showed me how the dominant white paradigm shaped brotherly love, mainly within its community.

Emmett Till is the representation of all that has not changed. He and his family still have not received justice for his murder. A bill to make lynching a federal hate crime is still stalled in the Senate. Take action and write your representatives demanding its passage. The Emmett Till Legacy Foundation is asking supporters to hold law enforcement accountable to move his reopened case forward and to demand justice for Emmett Till while the case is active with the Department of Justice. The last known accomplice is alive. Contact District Attorney DeWayne Richardson ,dewayne@msdeltada.com 662.378.2105 to demand #JusticeforEmmettTill. Sign the petition to demand long-overdue justice for Emmett Till 65 years after his brutal murder: ,tinyurl.com/y3v5dauk

@EmmettTill #EmmettTill #EmmettTillLegacyFoundation #BlackLivesMatter

Amendment XIX:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or any State, on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

One hundred years ago today, the Tennessee Legislature ratified the 19th Amendment, adding women’s right to vote to the U.S. Constitution. White women, that is. Women of color still had to fight for several more decades to advance policies and laws that would give them access to the ballot box. And even then the tools of intimidation, poll taxes, roll purges, cutting back on early voting, and unnecessarily restrictive voter registration requirements suppressed the votes of people of color.

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was enacted to help secure the right to vote for millions of Americans. And it was repeatedly renewed, by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, to make sure voting is fair especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent. Then in 2013, a Supreme Court decision struck down one of its core provisions – preclearance. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a wide-ranging dissent on behalf of herself and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, justifying the continued vitality of the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance provision. “The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the Voting Rights Amendment has proven effective,” Ginsburg wrote. “The Court appears to believe that the Voting Rights Amendment’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclear­ance is no longer needed.”

“The Supreme Court has effectively gutted one of the nation’s most important and effective civil rights laws,” Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. “Minority voters in places with a record of discrimination are now at greater risk of being disenfranchised than they have been in decades. Today’s decision is a blow to democracy. Jurisdictions will be able to enact policies that prevent minorities from voting, and the only recourse these citizens will have will be expensive and time-consuming litigation.”

“Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision erases fundamental protections against racial discrimination in voting that have been effective for more than 40 years,” Elisabeth MacNamara, president of the League of Women Voters of the United States, said in a statement. “Congress must act quickly to restore the Voting Rights Act.”

“Today will be remembered as a step backward in the march towards equal rights,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “We must ensure that this day is just a page in our nation’s history, rather than the return to a dark chapter.”

“The Roberts Court proved again that it will not be deterred by Supreme Court precedent, the realities on the ground in our nation; nor will it defer to Congress even when the legislative branch is granted clear authority by the Constitution to remedy our nation’s long history of discrimination against racial and language minorities,” said J. Gerald Hebert of the Campaign Legal Center. “The Court today declared racism dead in this country despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.”

So a century after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, let’s talk about the unfinished business behind the anniversary. “What we are seeing is systematic voter suppression around the country,” says Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action, the Georgia organization building on former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ work mobilizing and protecting the rights of voters. In announcing the initiative aimed at mobilizing voters and countering voter suppression in 2020 Abrams said, “We’re going to have a fair fight in 2020 because my mission is to make certain that no one has to go through in 2020 what we went through in 2018.”

Concerns about voting accessibility ahead of the November election, are concerns for all citizens, regardless of party affiliation. Guaranteeing fair, free, and secure elections is about doing what’s right for every citizen, as human beings. Here are important actions to take between now and Nov 3rd to ensure democracy for all:

Check your voter registration early and often to make sure it’s up to date https://mvp.sos.ga.gov and make sure family and friends also check;

Volunteer to be a poll worker;

Counter misinformation and disinformation by knowing getting credible sources for voting information such as https://fairfight.com, https://NBCNews.com/PlanYourVote and https://19thnews.org; and

Share these tips!

#VoterSuppression #voters #Allinforvoting #vote #fairfight #UnintentionalAccomplice #19thnews #PlanYourVote

Back in early May, the LA Times Opinion section asked readers to envision life in California after the pandemic and share their thoughts on what COVID-19 health and economic crisis reveals about us as a society, and what transformations may be necessary to the heal the trauma. More than 3700 readers responded, myself included. My response was included in the July 26, 2020, LA Times Sunday Edition:

“Carolyn L. Baker was among a handful of readers who wrote before George Floyd died to identify racism as causing many of the problems exacerbated by COVID-19:

Back in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson envisioned a “Great Society” and declared a “War on Poverty”, the centerpiece of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based anti-poverty programs. Yet at the same time, the regulatory practices, labor and wage policies, and tax structure ensured the distinct winners and losers would remain perpetually the same.

The irony of this was best described by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said ‘Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.’

Policy changes over the past 50-plus years have continually whittled away the social safety net. Racism and classism have broken the country’s social compact and stunted the development of nearly every institution crucial for a healthy society. This includes organized labor, public education, wage and hour standards, job-based health and retirement security. Racist power and racist policies must be confronted, named, and dismantled.”

#reimaginecalifornia #LATimesOpinion #COVID19 #GeorgeFloyd #Racism #Classism #Philanthropy #LATimes #AnUnintentionalAccomplice #CarolynLBaker

Black August is a call for reflection, study, and action to promote Black liberation. Its roots go back to California prisons in the 1970s, during a period of sustained struggle and resistance against racialized violence against Black imprisoned people, especially those calling for Black liberation and challenging state power. Ignited by the deaths of Jonathan and George Jackson in August 1970 and August 1971, and honoring others who gave their lives including Khatari Gualden, William Christmas, and James McClain, a group of imprisoned people came together to develop a means of honoring that sacrifice and promoting Black liberation.

While August is significant because of the deaths of the Jackson brothers, it is also a month with many other significant moments in Black history in the United States including the formation of the Underground Railroad, Nat Turner’s rebellion, the March on Washington, the Haitian Revolution, the Fugitive Slave Law Convention, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the births of Marcus Garvey, Russell Maroon Shoatz, and Fred Hampton to the death of W.E.B du Bois.

So there was an idea that this could be a time that imprisoned people in the California prison system could use for reflection, study, and to think about how to strengthen their struggles. During the month, people wouldn’t use radios or television, would fast between sun up and sundown, and practice other measures of self-discipline.

Excerpt from

Black Liberation and the Abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex: An Interview with Rachel Herzing

#BlackAugust #prisonindustrialcomplex #blacklivesmatter #Abolishprisons #10daysofabolition #abolishyouthprisons #defundthepolice #whitesupremacy #massincarceration