May 16, 1954

On the eve of the 68th anniversary of the supposedly historic Brown vs. The Board Of Education, Topeka, Kansas, Supreme Court opinion that stuck down this nation’s mandate of “separate but equal” legislation. This nation is as separated  by race as ever. It’s like the ghosts of Nathan Bedford Forrest, James Eastland, John C. Calhoun, Lester Maddox, Jefferson Davis, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Johnson, Bull Connor, and those of that same racist ilk simply refuse let loose of this nation racist past and continue to spook racism and bigotry into America’s present and future time. I’m sure that Justice Warren’s court probably felt that at best America would eventually let loose of the ignorance of racism before the end of the 1950’s. But how wrong they were. Just how wrong was Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to truly believe that America would actually find peace with the concept of a colorblind society? Plenty wrong, because not only are the public schools more segregated now in 2022 as they were in 1964, but in actuality the hope of a fully racially tone deaf society more of an imaginary situation than the day our communities rejoiced on the May 17, 1954 ruling by the Supreme Court. The current besides the seating of 2 women, the 3rd coming shortly, 1 African American (questionable racial status), the 2nd coming shortly and 1 Hispanic is as conservative on the Republican appointee side as the Plessey Court was initially mandated “separate by equal” in 1898. The was a song sung by the musical group, War, whose lyrics are so profound that they must be sung today regarding America, those words, “slipping into darkness”. I believe that America is on a course of slipping into darkness because of the outright ignorance of so many of its citizens. Mass murders are so normal an experience in this nation that we move from one to another without hardly a blink of an eye. May 17 should be a day of exaltation in this nation, is it? No it isn’t. Why, because many in this nation never truly believed in the concept of one nation under a God. It was always going to be for many Americans then and now, one white nation under a God, a God who trampled on the rights of all those not white. So, on this May 16, 2022, I look back 68 years and wonder if this nation will ever live up to the decree set down on May 17, 1954, that color doesn’t manifest one’s character or content, it never did and it never will.