SHORT TAKE #1

THEY were imported in chains, sold on the streets at auction blocks, forced to work from sunup to sundown, made to serve as breeders before being castrated or raped, hung from trees for sport, relegated to the most menial jobs, denied the opportunity to own homes or to receive a quality education, subjected to mass-incarceration and other manner of injustice--and yet, they slipped through the cracks, jumped the obstacles and barriers, succeeding along the way, building strong families, communities, schools universities, working their way inside corporate board rooms, shaping America's social, cultural and political infrastructure.

If I weren't one of them, I might be afraid of people like that, people with the intellectual capacity, the force of will, the resilience not just to withstand but to survive and thrive.

Given the demonstrated and sustained collected power of Black people, it is doubtful that any video prepared by a demented grifter and his unrepenting gang of sycophants can actually prevent African Americans from moving forward. Other white supremacists made that same mistake--yes, it was a mistake.