America's Healthy Economy

Lately, Trump’s been bragging about how he is creating a great economy.  

For the record, America’s healthy economy derives from the Obama years.  After eight years of George Bush, the economy crashed in 2008 and the Great Recession began. 

Under Obama, the economy got back on its feet well before Trump moved into the White House; he’s avoided wrecking it so far but that remains a danger.  The huge tax cuts for the wealthy enriched the top one percent more than anyone else—they did not improve the financial status of the people as a whole.  

Meanwhile, he’s not done nearly enough to address the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure.  He’s done precious little to help minimum wage workers or to raise salaries in general; he fails to see the urgency of weaning the nation off fossil fuel and transitioning the country to a green economy.

He’s played a dangerous game of brinkmanship around sudden and draconian increases in tariffs; he’s added a trillion dollars to the national debt.  Per the GOP playbook, he’s pumped billions into defense industries while proposing deep cuts to social service programs. 

He’s ruling by Executive Order and a declaration of National Emergency rather than passing legislation through Congress, the people’s representatives. 

After promising to drain the swamp, he’s appointed billionaires with no experience to his cabinet, several of whom were immediately accused of financial abuses.  He and his (former) cronies are bogged down in a host of accusations and investigations; he himself has been named in a criminal indictment. 

He has a long history of bankruptcies going back years—the question has arisen why banks (particularly Deutsche Bank) chose to lend him money despite this history.  He doesn’t read; he ignores the advice of experts; he relies on slanted FOX news; and he indulges his petty temper tantrums at the drop of a hat.   

His narcissism is so outrageous there’s frequent worry that it affects his rational judgment.

If the economy is strong we should all be thankful but in all honesty its healthy nature traces back to President Obama’s policies and successes, not Trump’s.  We’ve seen this pattern before.  

The economy was strong in 2000 when George Bush became president; it took eight years before it tanked; housing mortgage scams and financial scandals exploded.    

When it comes to discussing Trump’s long-term influence on the economy, the night is young.  

TRUMP DENIES GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Even if the current president doesn’t “believe” in the tremendous preponderance of evidence being offered to describe the phenomenon of climate change, he should remain sensitive to certain traditional bits of folk wisdom such as: “Better safe than sorry!” 

You know, if you are walking on the beach and the forecast is for a king tide, you should take note and be on guard for danger.   I learned this lesson the hard way.  A friend and I decided to go for a walk on the beach; we were walking on firm sand near the water’s edge with the incoming tide sending small waves rippling over our barefoot feet. 

We were lost in conversation when suddenly we found ourselves standing waist deep in surging foaming water!   One giant wave went crashing past us, pulling and tugging at our legs as it surged forward and then fell back; even in retreat, it was surprisingly strong! 

We were able to stay on our feet (thankfully!) but we were both quite amazed at the size and power of this rogue waved that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.  I had never been quite sure before then what ocean-wise people meant when they said “beware rogue waves”.  After that frightening incident, I now listen attentively to all such warnings. 

If scientists tell us to “watch out for climate change” only fools would disregard such a warning. Stubbornness and ignorance make for a deadly pair; they never advance mankind’s achievements but rather dash hopes and dreams upon the rocks of calamity and disaster.

As president, Trump does not have to understand everything scientists and engineers are telling him, but only a fool would ignore them like he does.  A person doesn’t have to know all the technical details of everything modern science is capable of accomplishing in order to enjoy good health, a higher standard of living, and a beautiful world of technology.  The president, like ordinary Americans, can learn to appreciate, to collaborate, to trust.  

We know it’s hard for some people to give up or modify viewpoints with which they grew up.  In politics and religion, it’s especially hard.  There are people who can do it but it’s difficult; the religious root runs particularly deep.  Most people value their beliefs almost more than life itself; some may not have the requisite education or training to think matters through objectively or scientifically. 

In such instances, the earliest psychological commitment overwhelms nearly everything else.  They can’t readily change their beliefs even when a more accurate scientific explanation becomes available.  Consider this simple question: is the earth the center of the universe or is the sun the center of the solar system and the earth merely a planet in orbit around it? 

Just a few centuries ago (1600’s) we know that there were persons who had a hard time changing their views from the first geo-centric viewpoint to the second helio-centric viewpoint, although the latter theory is now universally accepted as incontrovertible. 

Indeed, we can predict with a fair degree of certainty--given the human personality’s penchant for stubborn oppositional willfulness--that with every new advance there will likely always be a few people who will be opposed to it, regardless of the degree of evidence.  No matter how thoroughly a new discovery is validated, somebody will prefer to cling madly to the soon-to-be-outdated view. 

When the airplane was invented, a popular saying was that if God intended man to fly he would have given him wings!  It’s a clever enough turn-of-the-phrase but it couldn’t hold out against the airplane’s usefulness; over the years airplanes became a popular way to travel great distances quickly—and whether or not man grew wings. 

Well, we know from the proverb that “it takes all kinds” so perhaps in the long run it’s a healthy thing for human beings to have such an amazing diversity of personality and opinion—including even those who will be proven wrong but are unable to admit it. 

The problem is, we expect far more from people in certain lines of work; we want our doctors up-to-date on the latest medical treatment; we certainly don’t want them resorting to attaching leeches or cupping to bleed their patients to make them well! 

We expect more from our political leaders, too; we insist that they stay informed on the latest developments around the world.  Our current president, however, chooses to behave like one of those superstitious peasants from the Middle Ages who can’t change his mind no matter what new discoveries and experiments occur.  

The great scientist Galileo nearly lost his life because pedantic ignoramuses were determined to preserve an unscientific view of the world for as long as possible, even though in the course of time they were proven to be absolutely wrong in their geocentric beliefs.

Most grown-ups, when they develop the requisite maturity expected of adults, at least know enough when to defer to the opinions of experts.  The intense exploitation of natural resources without thought of consequences is what got us in this mess in the first place. 

How can caring about the health of the environment ever be wrong?    All we are asking is that this president commits to listening to the scientific experts on the topic of global warming and climate change.  Is that too much to ask? 

Even if he is not educated enough to understand scientific thinking, he should realize there’s widespread pollution of air and water—can he understand THAT?

If the president has no other reason than “Better safe than sorry!” then let him adopt that mantra.  Let him move forward in step with the findings of Environmental Science. 

Let him address the changes that are occurring and work proactively with political leaders and scientists to address such issues as flooding, drought, and other extreme weather events.  Let him stop being an anchor dragging the world down toward a watery grave. 

Let him stop trying to prevent social and cultural change from occurring.  Let him stop being a front man for the dirty fossil-fuel industry because they place profits in the near-term over sensible policies for the long-term health of the world. 

Let him stop being a selfish, arrogant, ignorant, narcissistic bastard and for once in his life do something for the betterment of humanity. 

Let him listen to the growing chorus of voices telling him that climate change is real and urgent action must be taken now, not later. 

Mr. President, it is time to grow up!

Trump's War on Evidence

Do you ever wonder what constitutes “evidence” in the president’s mind?   For most people, evidence refers to the facts of forensic investigations and eyewitness testimony, at least in the legal system.  In the president’s mind, however, “evidence” seems to be whatever he wishes is true right at the moment. 

In science, evidence refers to established facts and data.  Scientific research includes carefully controlled experiments aimed at investigating various aspects of the material world, both biological and physical. 

In chemistry and physics, attention is paid to the composition and properties of elements, changes induced by chemical combinations, the laws of motion and theories of gravity, evolution, etc.  Among the luminaries are included Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and the late Stephen Hawking.      

The difference is striking between what constitutes evidence in law and science and what the president seems to think it means.   The president for years asserted President Obama was not born in America.  He insisted there was no birth certificate to prove otherwise when in fact there was. 

He appeared wholly ignorant of the fact that Congress has always had a committee that verified each candidate was qualified to run for office.  As early as 1789 there was a Committee on Elections organized by Congress after the first election. 

(This was split into three Election Committees in 1895.  The committees were later abolished in 1947 but their duties were taken over by the new House Administration Committee. ) 

If a candidate for president were younger than 35, for example, that would be red-flagged, as would the fact if he or she were born in another country.  

There was some discussion on this point concerning Ted Cruz and whether he qualified as a “natural-born citizen” who could become president because he was born in Canada; the answer was probably” yes” since his parents were Americans, although the need for final resolution of the issue never came to a head.

Years ago (1964) there was some minor issue raised about Senator Barry Goldwater—whether the fact that he was born in Arizona while it was yet a territory (and not a state) would create a problem.  He was born in 1909 and Arizona was not admitted to statehood until 1912. 

Was he a “Natural born Citizen”?  As the senator was not elected to the presidency, the issue was not further addressed at that time—the point being, there is a congressional committee that examines closely all such matters. 

President Obama could never have taken office had he not met all the qualifications for president, including his birthplace in Hawaii making him an American citizen. 

Obviously the current president does not care to read much history but such congressional procedures and safeguards are locked in place; they are there for him to consider should he ever wish to turn over a new leaf.  What kind of “evidence” did Trump have for making such a claim in the first place? 

He had none whatsoever other than right-wing sources who spread it as rumor and then repeated it as anti-Obama fuel to fan-the-flames of racism.   It was always a false assertion.  Apparently, Trump has a problem answering questions by relying on facts and evidence.

Even after President Obama released the short form of his birth certificate, Trump could not let the matter go and demanded to see the long form. 

Consider:  the short form was already recognized as a proper legal document and legitimate for passport acquisition and other purposes.

The author discovered this for himself when he needed to request a copy of his birth certificate in 2013 in order to renew his passport; the certified short form of my birth certificate was delivered along with a brief history of its official adoption (2011).  It was accepted as proof of citizenship by Passport Services, within the Bureau of Consular Affairs, under the U.S. Department of State.

It actually takes an extra step or two to re-acquire the earlier long form version which President Obama also did—and finally Trump kept quiet.  After years of Trump making totally false allegations on this matter, without the slightest shred of evidence, he was forced to keep quiet.

When the Central Park 5 went on trial for rape, Trump took out full page adds calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.  All five teenage defendants were convicted in 1989 but exonerated in 2002 when another man, already convicted or rape and murder, confessed to the crime. That man’s DNA proved a match to evidence left at the scene of the crime.    

After spending six to thirteen years in jail, the Central Park five were finally cleared and New York agreed to pay them $41 million.  Even then, Trump did not change his opinion. 

The renowned film-maker Ken Burns made a documentary on the case in 2012 and opined: “Apparently Mr. Trump is unfamiliar with the concept of wrongful conviction.”    

When a person throws out false accusations without evidence, it is shameful; when that same person refuses to change his opinion even after the legal system fully concedes a mistake was made, it is more than shameful; it is morally reprehensible.

And yet, all of this is only half the story.  The first part deals with a president who ignores facts not to his liking, such as Obama being an American citizen.  For the record, Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 (which is two years after Hawaii became the 50th American state on August 21, 1959.) 

The president likewise stubbornly refused to accept the exoneration of five falsely accused individuals, their wrongful convictions proven by the new science of DNA evidence and the confession of the actual perpetrator! 

Now let us examine what happens when it comes to highly credible allegations of Russia’s 2016 election meddling and the Saudi Arabian government’s role in the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Suddenly the president becomes an expert on the insufficiency of evidence, a piece of irony reaching a level of lunacy given his long history of falsehoods and uncontrolled hyperbole.

Even though all the top intelligence agencies concur that Russia meddled in American elections, Trump chooses to ignore their findings! 

The president’s response to the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Kashoggi was no less shocking and boggles the imagination.

In authoritarian regimes, everything is top-heavy and top-down; orders come from above.  People don’t risk taking controversial actions on their own with such potentially serious consequences waiting to ignite. 

For Trump to suggest that the “question” of whether the Crown Prince (next in line to be king) was involved--ranging from prior knowledge to actually authorizing the murder—is in itself disingenuous and superfluous. 

Once again, American intelligence agencies (with some access to Turkey’s key information) have already expressed a high degree of confidence that the answer is yes, the Crown Prince was involved—it could not be otherwise in such a society as Saudi Arabia now is.    

The head of the CIA, Gina Haspel, met with Senators (12/04/18) to brief them on the matter. A couple of the Senators came out fuming and furious from what they learned: 

Senator Lindsey Graham said of the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), there’s” zero chance” that the Saudi Prince wasn’t involved in the murder of Kashoggi. 

Senator Bob Corker thought that if the crown prince were put on trial a jury would find him guilty of murder in “about 30 minutes” and there was “zero question” in his mind that the crown prince ordered and monitored the killing of Jamal Kashoggi.

And what is Trump’s position on Russian meddling and the Crown Prince’s involvement in the murder of Kashoggi?  The president points out that Putin denies being involved in any meddling and the crown prince denies being involved in any murder. 

What does the president make of all the evidence to the contrary?  Apparently, he has made up his mind to ignore it for as long as he can.  He chooses to believe the two heads of foreign states over the opinion of his intelligence agencies, even though those nations have a long history of human rights abuses.

Trump thus reveals himself to be a practitioner of the double standard taken to a new height of chutzpah or, perhaps better stated, a new low of intellectual incompetence and moral depravity. 

While he himself is repeatedly guilty of making the wildest accusations against others without a shred of evidence, he turns right around and ignores mounds of real evidence not to his liking—even though such evidence points to a highly likely conclusion and at times rises to nearly irrefutable proof. 

Note well: He repudiates genuine evidence on the one hand and offers unwarranted claims and wild speculation on the other.  The president willingly spreads falsehoods while he dismisses bonafide evidence. 

He is becoming the poster boy for “double standard” thinking:  a “switch-hitter” who revels in ignorance, falsehoods, hysteria, fear, bluster, and close-mindedness. 

His reasoning, values, and opinions create an amazing mess of inept and inane contradictions. 

T

his would be true for any average citizen with a similar history of such strange and inexplicable utterances.  

Such a person would be recognized by the field of psychiatry as needing therapy. 

When such behavior is witnessed in the leader of a democratic nation, such psychological instability leads to grave concerns for the mental health of the president and the welfare of the nation. 

The president’s foibles and follies appear to reflect willful blindness, criminal deception, and the placing of smug egotism over constitutional duties; taken all together, they threaten to drag the president across the threshold of impeachable offenses. 

Any man who holds truth itself--and the evidence upon which it is based--in such contempt cannot be trusted to lead America.     

DISHONEST DONALD

Dishonest Donald denies that global warming is occurring.  He is hoisting the flag of anti-intellectualism in order to lead the reactionary charge against all things scientific.  His kind of medieval and muddled thinking should have died out long ago but atavistic “throw-backs” do occur and he is the living proof.   

A government report just came out (11.23.18) that concluded just the opposite of what the president tweeted.  Based on the collective scientific efforts of hundreds of scientists, the report concludes that the future will be extremely costly for the U.S. if more is not done to check global warming: 

“Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, hitting everything from health to infrastructure, according to a government report . . . .

“Global warming would disproportionately hurt the poor, broadly undermine human health, damage infrastructure, limit the availability of water, alter coastlines, and boost costs in industries from farming, to fisheries and energy production, the report said.”

(from cnbc.com “The Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II”, Nov. 23, 2018, Reuters.)

One can also check out NASA’s website for a concise explanation of global warming and the extensive science behind it.  You can find it at climate.nasa.gov which includes a page devoted to Global Climate Change with sections on “Images of Change” and “Climate Time Machine.” 

Dishonest Donald points to cold weather in New York and gets that smug look of stupefied mediocrity upon his face with which we’ve become all too familiar.  Seasons continue to exist as do vicissitudes of daily weather—as distinct from changes in long-term planetary climatic conditions.

He does not understand that the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that human-caused climate change is real and continuing.  If he knew how to read, he could have learned that no one ever said global warming meant that every spot on earth would be steadily warmer than the day before. 

That’s a figment of Dishonest Donald’s diseased imagination.  Egomania corrupts reason and narcissism corrupts comprehension.

Even if serious reading is a skill beyond his mastery, Dishonest Donald could check out from the public library a book like Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and look at the pictures: the disappearing glaciers at the top of mountains, for example, or what’s happening beyond the Arctic Circle. 

The fact is, Dishonest Donald never seems interested in educating himself where it involves any amount of effort or dispassionate reasoning based upon scientific evidence.  He appears to be wholly incapable of rational and objective thought under any and all such circumstances.

You know, deserts are places on the earth where very little rain falls.  If Dishonest Donald were standing in a desert on one of those rare days where rain occurs, do you care to guess what would he conclude?  He would announce that the definition of a desert as a place with little rain is all wrong!  This is a grown man acting like he has the mind of a six-year-old . . . and not a very bright six-year-old at that.

The warming pattern is derived from many scientific criteria and averages measured over years, decades, centuries, and millennia.  The conclusions are based on a massive amount of evidence collected by thousands of scientists around the world over the last half-century. 

The prediction was never for one single steadily increasingly, ever-worsening heat wave.  No, the prediction states that extremes of weather will worsen, including droughts, storms, floods, and yes, even cold snaps and blizzards.  Scientists understand and can explain the cause-and-effect between global warming and these extreme weather events, including cold weather.

The first time we heard the phrase “once-in-a-hundred year” event (gigantic floods, a storm like Sandy, etc.) it seemed pretty scary but perhaps an anomaly—only now we are hearing such statistical phrasing far more frequently.  The anomaly that was the exception is rapidly becoming the new norm.   

There are sound reasons, well understood by climatologists, why such extreme weather events are continuing to increase in frequency, duration, and severity due to global warming--as recent history amply demonstrates. 

Dishonest Donald’s poles are mixed up.  He has stupidity where intelligence should be, ignorance in place of knowledge, meanness in place of compassion. 

Dishonest Donald has been put together backwards.  He loves to contradict, bully, and bamboozle but nonsense repeated day after day doesn’t cease to be nonsense. 

There are ways to measure carbon dioxide emissions in the air and trace them to their human sources.  What the president suggests defies both logic and the laws of nature, of elemental physics. 

He prefers to indulge the desire to live in an imaginary fantasyland where whatever he says would be believed and no one would ever be allowed to disagree with any of his wretchedly foolish and idiotic pronouncements.  He doesn’t seem to get “Freedom of Speech”, Education, or Science in America.

There is a place called the Great Pacific garbage patch where thousands of tons of plastic are swirling together in an unholy mix: 

“The plastic concentration is estimated to be up to 100 kilograms her square kilometer in the center . . . An estimated 80,000 tons of plastic inhabit the patch, totaling 1.8 trillion pieces . . . Research indicates that the patch is rapidly accumulating.” (from Wikipedia, “Great Pacific garbage patch”.)

This is just one of five such patches or gyres in the Pacific Ocean; there’s another called the North Atlantic garbage patch as well.  Plastic is a human-made product.  Would Dishonest Donald have us believe that the plastic did not emanate from human sources?

Imagine filling a bathtub with water, adding food coloring, watching the color of the water change and then hear someone suggest that the colored water has no relationship to the added food coloring! 

Imagine building mills, mines, and factories near streams, creeks, and rivers and dumping all sorts of horrific waste byproducts into the water and then claiming human activity has nothing to do with the toxicity of the water!  Historically, this is exactly what took place during the Industrial Revolution.

Imagine the millions of pounds of greenhouse gases being poured constantly into the atmosphere and thinking that it has no effect on anything!  This defies both the laws of physics and common sense. 

At a time when America needs an educated, intelligent, and far-seeing visionary in the White House to recognize and address these urgent crises, we get instead a reincarnated wreck from the superstitious past, a man incapable of comprehending even the simplest examples of scientific inquiry and fact-based conclusions. 

He is evolving backwards, it appears.  Next stop, The Twilight Zone.

PRESIDENT EXCUSES SAUDI ARABIA'S MURDER

The president does not think there is enough evidence connecting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia  to the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi.  This from a man who has constantly engaged in the wildest exaggerations imaginable of any president in our nation’s history! 

His double-standard hypocrisy boggles the mind.  Never has an adherence to the search for truth been so stretched out of shape and malformed as we now see daily. 

The president refuses to acknowledge that Russia interfered in our elections in 2016. 

He refuses to believe that Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian regime would have a critic murdered when the whole world knows it would--and did.  

The president persists in this willful blindness despite the fact America’s own intelligence agencies told him that it was so! 

A man so ignorant and so disrespectful of the truth has neither the character nor mettle to lead the nation.  He has become increasingly a danger to our democratic beliefs, procedures, and traditions. 

Such dishonesty and hypocrisy will never do—it is time for him to go.

TRUMP ATTACKS FREE PRESS

Maybe it’s just me but does anyone else see a parallel between these two events?
Compare Oct. 2 and Nov. 7 of this year:

1. Oct. 2, 2018: A journalist named Jamal Kashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a critic of the Saudi Arabian government because he advocated that freedom of expression be allowed.  It is reasonable to presume that the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was involved in approving Kashoggi’s murder.
2. Nov. 7, 2018: The president bans CNN news reporter Jim Acosta from attending future news conferences and later strips him of his press pass, the suspension to last “until further notice”.

[A slightly doctored video was released to try and justify this action even though it was plain to everyone that Trump was angered by Acosta’s questions; a quite transparent phony excuse was only added later.  Dictators lie and manipulate evidence--not the president of a democracy.]

These two events may not seem equal in scope and magnitude; indeed they are not.  Jamal Kashoggi was murdered while Jim Acosta was merely denied entry to White House press conferences.

The parallel is far more subtle.  In both instances, rulers who dislike being questioned or criticized took action to curtail freedom of the press.  Trump has made “fake news” one of his mindless slogans to heap scorn upon the media he doesn’t like.

He has also engaged in vitriolic attacks on honest hard-working, fact-checking journalists who represent our nation’s constitutional commitment to freedom of the press.  He does not limit his acidic remarks to some shady gossip sheet, either, but vilifies the best of the best: our most honored and acclaimed media-based journalists.

It is obvious from history that autocrats, demagogues, and dictators of every ilk hate criticism of their actions, whether personal or political.  These two rulers fit the pattern all too well.  They know their actions do not fare well when placed under media scrutiny to be openly and thoroughly debated.

Granted, Acosta’s banishment is far less drastic than the Kashoggi’s murder but then, America has a long history of respecting democratic institutions and freedom of the press: we should know better.

Any occupant of the White House should know better than to engage in incessant attacks upon professional journalists doing their jobs, especially since the facts are often correctly reported by the press and more accurately than anywhere else.  Meanwhile, the president’s tweets and outbursts are sloppily and inaccurately “rationalized” by the White House.

Trump’s reliance on exaggeration and falsehood is too well known to occasion further comment here.  In part his reliance on lies speaks to the narcissistic nature of his personality.  Beyond that, however, his contempt for the truth is part of the same vile pattern that all would-be dictators find useful: squelch criticism and dissent by all means available, fair or foul.

If power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  We half-expect the worse authoritarian rulers in the world to make an effort to stamp out freedom of the press in order to keep their corrupt ways hidden from view.

We don’t expect the president of the United States to indulge his own private temper tantrum against a respectable member of the press corps simply because he became irritated.  At least, we didn’t use to expect such a result but who knows where the “new normal” (however mangled) may lead us?

To all those who say it can’t happen here, I say look again.  We see that movement toward the fascist right can occur in a series of small incremental steps just as readily as through an outright coup.

Trump’s mishandling of his news conference, his savage verbal attack upon Jim Acosta, is a small but significant step in the erosion of America’s freedom of the press.  The president is attempting to silence his critics by putting a muzzle on them and, through them, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

How much longer will it be before we read of the death of an American journalist?

Is There Really a Black Santa Claus?

IS THERE REALLY A BLACK SANTA CLAUS?

                                      (Yes, Virginia, there is)

            Mom was talking.  “Yes, chile, you see you don’t know nuthin’.  You see a Black Santa Claus over there in the department store and you don’t think nuthin’ of it which shows me how ignorant you is.  Get that piece of candy out of your mouth ‘fore I slap your face good and hard, you hear me?

            “But it wasn’t always like that ‘cause there was a time when I was a girl, there wuz no Black Santa Claus.  Each and every one of them Santa Clauses was white, especially the beard, just as white as the finest cotton you’ve ever seen!  That’s ‘cause the white folk, they created Santa Claus and they controlled his color and where he could work, too. 

            “The white folk says Santa wuz always white ‘cause he came from the North Pole with all that snow.  Now ain’t that some lyin’!  But that’s what they said and every Santa Claus was always a white man when I was growin’ up.  I know because my mommy and daddy didn’t let me sit on no white man’s knee, uh-uh no way!

            “Then, after the longest time—I wuz already growed up—things finally changed.  First there was a Black Santa Claus downtown and then there was one over here in the shopping mall.  By and by there was a few more of them until it was no longer such a big deal.  Kids wanting presents didn’t seem to care, they just wanted Santa to remember which presents they were asking for!

            “Some of the Black Santas were really good with kids because they had all that love and kindness stored up in them through all those hard lean bitter years and naturally it just had to come out.  There was only one Black Santa Claus I ever met remember meeting who wasn’t exactly up to the job.  What I mean to say is he wuz a little bit crazy.  The job got the better of him and after a while he couldn’t do it no more but when he first started he was the best Black Santa Claus anybody had ever seen!

            “He was good with all the kids, not just the Black kids the way that was true for some other Black Santa Clauses.  This one could make any kid laugh and talk.  He could tickle them with his whiskers and get the children to reveal their best secret wish for Christmas.  He was very clever with the kids’ parents too and they went away feeling like they had seen the real Santa Claus, the same as the kids.

            “He had a long white beard which was truly his own and not a fake glue-it-on kind.  He seemed to feel winter in his bones and knew what Christmas Day meant to everybody and he gave off warmth and light to every child who came near. 

“I knew the man myself and know he was a good man but I gotta be truthful and admit that he had a bit of a temper.  When you come right down to it he had one of the meanest mean streaks of any man I ever knew!  And that was his undoing of course, chile.

            “You see, as he got older, he started getting a little bit cranky and a little outspoken, what rednecks used to call “an uppity nigger” where I grew up.  I guess all those years of being Black and pretending to be the one and only true Santa Claus must have softened up his brain a little.  As he got older, Christmas by Christmas, he got meaner and that’s when all the trouble started.   He just didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

            “He moved from city to city because no department store would keep him on for two seasons in a row: once was enough.  He began moving northward until he finally reached the land of Canada.  He would offer to play Santa Claus somewhere and the townspeople would take him up on his offer because they didn’t know what they wuz getting themselves into.  He’d do good for a while but then he began to say nasty things he shouldn’t have been saying.

            “Now that I think about it, chances are he was beginning to go crazy but nobody knew it.  You know, like dementia or something.  The last I heard of him he was in Canada somewhere up around Hudson Bay and still headed northward.  Oh chile, you should have heard him when he was talking like he was clean out of his head!  I heard him many times and I still remember a lot of what he said.  He’d see some white ladies passing all dressed up and he’d start in on them:

            ‘Good morning, ladies, how are y’all today?  My my, aren’t those some fine-lookin’ furs.  I wonder just how many of them tiny mink animals do you think they had to kill to make your fine fur coat?  I heard somewhere it was about 20 but as big and fat as you is, I bet it was 50!’ 

            “I had to chuckle at that and how them ladies hurried off because he done insulted their feelings.  And that was his good side when he used humor like that, not his mean side.  When this Black Santa Claus I’m tellin’ you about really got wound up, then watch out!

            “Here, let me read you something.  I wrote him a letter once and he wrote back:

            ‘Dear Big Nose, it ain’t none of your damn business why I talk to myself or why I say mean things to passers-by.  You see me doing my job and you see I can do it as well as anybody else; better, I reckon, because I’m the real true Santa Claus!  That’s what drives me crazy and makes me mean-spirited.  Everyone assumes because I was born with black skin that I couldn’t possibly be the real Santa Claus.  That’s why I am so angry.  I can pretend to be Santa Claus in a store but I can never be the real Santa Claus, right?

            ‘Why, these dumb jackasses know so little of their own planet.  They’ve never been to my home at the North Pole but they think they can tell me what’s there!  They’ve never seen me doing my work up there when I make toys for children!  Who do you think was the very first person who stood at the North Pole?  A Black man, just like me!  And if that don’t answer your busy big nose, maybe this will: I ain’t saying mean things to nobody, I just am telling the truth. 

‘What’s mean about the truth?  That’s what Santa Claus is supposed to do, ain’t it?  Who ever heard of a Santa Claus who tells children lies?  You want me to say: “Yes child, I promise to bring you that new red sled on Christmas morning—ha ha, kid, I’m lying to you!”  Or maybe you want me to say “As poor as you folks is you’ll be lucky to get anything in your sock—don’t even bother to hang one up!”

            ‘Them ladies in the mink fur coats were fat and I said they was!  Where do you think they get mink coats from?  They kill them beautiful little mink animals just so those lazy overstuffed big-ass hippopotamuses can come in here and slap down their money and buy things!  That’s a disgrace and I said so.  How is that crazy talk?  Instead of you scolding me for talkin’ mean to them ladies you should be thankin’ me for talkin’ as kindly as I did ‘cause I could have said a whole lot worse.    I didn’t say the half of what I was thinking!’

“Well chile, the letter goes on like that but that’s the better part of it . . . before this here Black Santa Claus starts in with some obscenities and profanities which your ears don’t need to hear.  It got me to thinking, after I done growed up some more, that maybe he wasn’t so bananas after all but it just sort of looked that way.  Of course a lot of us felt like that.  I wasn’t the only one who secretly admired his honesty and laughed at his jokes.

“We remember his good years and how he was the best Santa Claus the children ever seen and that’s why they loved him but he didn’t make it easy for us because he started getting worse and ever meaner.  I heard reports of him from time to time as he traveled and some of the things he said and done.  And chile, that mouth of his just kept getting’ worse and worse!

“Now it’s time for you to go to bed.  That’s the story of your daddy and why I married and divorced him and why he won’t be coming ‘round here no more.  Tomorrow is Christmas Day and I want you to go to sleep and dream of what you may find in your sock tomorrow morning.  Now you get along to bed and I’ll be in shortly to wish you nighty-night.”

            “Good night, mom.”     “Good night, chile.”