Editorials

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing for five extraordinary women of color who have been nominated to federal judgeships by President Joe Biden. 

I began by noting that the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (TJ) located in Fairfax County, Virginia is a public institution that is funded by Virginia tax payers. Those tax papers include Black Virginians.

It is a tragedy when we lose a loved one. That tragedy is compounded when are unable to visit their final resting place to honor and remember them.

I was trained to fight by my grandmother, Mamie Bland Todd. She would often remind me, “Pessimists are right more often, but optimists win more often.”“In this life you have to decide what’s more important to you." Then she would add, "As for me, I’ll take winning.”My favorite optimist died recently at 105.For our family, she was the last living link to our story of origin in antebellum Southern Virginia.

 I don't know about you, but I am sometimes confused about circumstances which dictate our compliance and action, and what those appropriate actions must/should be.  COVID created that type of conundrum for me and millions of others.  The 81 million US COVID cases and the 990,000 American COVID related deaths suggest a breakdown in understanding the seriousness and avoidance of this dreaded disease.

A recent Washington Post article, “Surge of international applicants at elite white colleges,” reported that academic institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth, etc. have experienced a large increase in international applications to attend their institutions. Since 2020 applications have increased 34%. One factor of this is their dropping of SAT and ACT score requirements.

Throughout my life, I have been blessed with family and friends who have admonished me to be a critical thinker.  Not only was I challenged to think, but to think with clarity, appropriate urgency, and logic.  The old idea of being one who thought “while others were sleeping” was not lost on me.

It is not hard to forget that in 2011 when the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was authorized, Barack Obama was president, and Donald Trump was still a private citizen. Yet, during a recent Trump rally in Michigan, U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain falsely claimed that Donald Trump “caught” Osama bin Laden.

The last two years have underlined what we already knew: the digital divide in America is real and has consequences for millions of Americans.

I do this thing in my head with President Joe Biden. When he gets on my nerves, I often call him President.