Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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After decades of aggressive and strategic efforts from influential right-wing forces the Supreme Court outlawed race conscious admissions at universities throughout the nation. It dismantled decades of progress and crippled the potential of racial diversity and pluralism at our nation’s institutions of higher education. Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking for the majority, argued that “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on th...
Black Americans are a community of people that have endured abominable levels of trials, abuse and tribulations. Our experience in this country includes rivers of blood, mountains of sweat and countless numbers of anguished tears. As a Black American, I am descended from a people for whom the history of slavery, lynching, segregation, black codes, poll taxes, oppressive sharecropping systems and Jim Crow laws are historical facts deeply etched in the fabric of history. My...
As if his political career wasn’t perverse and horrid enough, Donald Trump now holds the distinction of being the first former president in U.S. history to face federal criminal charges. Trump was arraigned last week on 37 separate counts over his handling of classified information, including willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements. Predictable, some high-profile Republicans have...
Last month, the NAACP made waves for issuing a travel advisory for Florida in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ruthless efforts to whitewash Black history and severely curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. “Once again, hate-inspired state leaders have chosen to put politics over people. Governor Ron DeSantis and the state of Florida have engaged in a blatant war against principles of diversity and inclusion and rejected our shared identities to appeal to a dan...
Tina Turner, who died last month, was a pioneer and an artist who personified the word innovative. Like her contemporary, Little Richard, Tina Turner brought an uncompromised strand of Black Southern music, the sound of the Chitlin’ Circuit itself, into the lives of teenagers and adults around the globe. She garnered appeal across racial boundaries at a time when the nation was highly segregated, and she helped pave the way for future female artists including Gloria Gaynor, B...
The Jezebel of the Republican Party is at it again. Just when you thought she could not get any more disingenuous and despicable, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene engaged in some wild intellectual dishonesty by accusing New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of calling her the equivalent of the N-word. She also accused him of being “physically threatening” and deviously concocted an entire slew of falsehoods. For those of who are unaware, this month both Bowman and Greene eng...
In the campaign commercial President Joe Biden released to announce his re-election campaign, there was one individual who was prominently displayed – Kamala Harris. Since the moment Biden selected her as his running mate in July 2020, there has been no shortage of commentary about Harris and her role as vice president. No honest person can dismiss the fact that being a woman of color has been a political handicap for her. As a woman of color and a biracial one at that, Harris...
A spate of recent shootings serve as a depressing reminder that accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell, driving to an incorrect residence, or mistakenly getting into the incorrect vehicle can be deadly. In Kansas City, 16-year-old honors student Ralph Yarl mistakenly arrived at the wrong home while looking for his younger siblings. There he was shot and severely wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a chain of events that shocked residents and sent citizens and the country on...
Amen to Cornell University President Martha Pollack and Provost Michael Kotlikoff for rejecting a proposal introduced by the student senate to mandate trigger warnings into syllabi and course content. In a statement, Pollack and Kotlikoff said such a mandate “would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, and are at odds with the goals of a Cornell education.” Over the past decade, trigger warnings have been a topic that has dominated aca...
By now, most Americans have heard and seen the callous and malicious manner in which two Tennessee lawmakers were expelled from their house seats. The GOP-controlled Tennessee House voted to expel two of the “Tennessee 3.” That trio of Democratic lawmakers had committed the transgression of presiding over protests at the capital — with one wielding a bullhorn — demanding action on guns after the horrific mass shooting in a Nashville school that left six people dead, includi...
Now that Donald Trump has officially been indicted, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and others have been targeted by disturbed protestors threatening retribution and even death. Even Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” once he was charged in a probe of hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. “The political Rubicon has been crossed. There’s no going back from this,” Charlie Kirk, a right-wing talk show host, wrote on Truth Social, T...
What is going on with Tucker Carlson? In private messages unearthed by lawsuits against Fox News, the fiery host was a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, even as he continued to praise and defend him on television. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson wrote in one message, adding, “I truly can’t wait.” “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest....
It’s been a few weeks since Dilbert creator Scott Adams was canceled by hundreds of newspapers across the nation, as well as Canada, for racist tirades he unleashed on his own YouTube show. Adams, who is white, suggested that white people “get the hell away from Black people,” referring to Black Americans as a “hate group.” “It makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore,” Adams said. “White people trying to help black Amer...
John Fetterman’s announcement that he has checked himself into a hospital was met with bipartisan praise. Far right politicians from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to fellow Pennsylvania centrist Rep. Susan Wild to New York left wing Congressmen Richie Torres lavished support on the senator for publicly disclosing and confronting his illness. Reaction to Fetterman’s predicament demonstrates the dramatic transformation of perception and attitudes toward public health and mental ill...
Here we are. Another year, another February and another Black History Month in the books. Every year, for 28 days (29 in leap years), we are rightly introduced to and reminded of the innumerable contributions Black people have made to this nation. Corporations make bold and brazen acknowledgments, educational institutions salute Black history, and churches sponsor dinners representing a culinary smorgasbord undeniably definitive of recipes that originated in the African diaspo...
Let’s face it, when Fox News gives Democrats a B+, you know they really delivered an exceptional performance. That was the grade the rabidly right-wing media network gave President Biden on his State of the Union address. As someone who usually doesn’t watch these annual speeches to the nation, I did buck my previous trend and decided to tune in for this one. Admittedly, I harbored some degree of apprehension wondering if Biden would be up to the task. If they were forced to...
Last month, the Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony to celebrate Bobbi Wilson, a 9-year-old Black kid from Caldwell, N.J., whose efforts to eradicate spotted lanternflies was seen as an environmentally progressive gesture. The ceremony also served as an opportunity to recognize Wilson’s donation of her personal spotted lanternfly collection to Yale’s Peabody museum, where she is now listed as the donor scientist on its official database. “Yale doesn’t normall...
The death of Black people at the hands of law enforcement has become so commonplace that it’s easy to feel both outraged and psychologically numb. Over the past few decades, from Rodney King to George Floyd, we have become front-row spectators to grainy and, in some cases, graphic footage of police officers engaged in horrific levels of violent behavior toward people of African descent. We can now add Tyre Nichols of Memphis, Tenn., to the growing number of victims, a list t...
In his ongoing attacks on what he describes as “woke politics,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has denied permission for an African American history course to be taught in Florida public high schools. NAACP Director Ivory Toldson condemned the course’s rejection, calling DeSantis’ decision a “dereliction of his duty to ensure equitable education for all Floridians.” “Dismissing this important subject as lacking ‘educational value’ defies centuries of evidence to the contrary,” To...
This month, as we celebrate Black history, millions of Americans will celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King was, without question, one of the greatest historical figures of the 20th century. He dedicated his life in an effort to ensure the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would be in reach for all those who were marginalized and had been denied access to full citizenship rights for far too long. Like many people, King was a complex man....
The drama surrounding Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid remains nothing short of surreal. It took 15 bids to secure the votes required to become speaker of the House. In his fatalistic desire to become speaker, McCarthy made numerous concessions to his opponents that have all but promised to nullify any real power or influence he will likely have. An interesting side story stemming from the drama was the effort by far-right House members to support Rep. Byron Donalds of Fl...
Last month, Grace Stanke, a 23-year-old nuclear engineering student from Wausau, Wis., was crowned Miss America 2023. Stanke is a beautiful, blond-hair'ed woman who is obviously gifted in math and science. She was crowned by her predecessor, Emma Broyles, Miss Alaska, who became the first woman from her state to win the title. But don’t be surprised if you missed it – for the second straight year, the pageant was streamed online and didn’t air on television. A scandal in 20...
It sure didn’t take long for right-wing media figures to criticize the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was released on Dec. 8 by the Russian government as part of a negotiated prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed “the merchant of death.” Since the deal was made by the Biden administration, the Right predictably launched a perverse and sinister attack, politically weaponizing her release by employing racist and homophobic langu...
Days away from the 2022 midterm election, a disturbing trend unfolded involving “poll watchers” positioning themselves at various voting locations across the nation. These poll watchers were armed men (mostly men) dressed in military attire outside polling places attempting to psychologically intimidate or use violence against certain voters by engaging in menacing antics. Such activity was commonplace in Maricopa County, Ariz., where these “self-selected vote watch...
Since the Reagan era of the 1980s, we have heard arguments from various quarters lamenting the supposed “fact” that studying liberal arts or the humanities in general was a colossal waste of time. As a Generation X teenager, this message was routinely fed to me and my peers. More than a decade later as a graduate student in the humanities, I harbored intense skepticism toward such dismissive rhetoric. Now, more decades later as a tenured professor deeply engaged in the hum...
