TSJ, Author at The Truth Seekers Journal

Who and Where Will You Be When History Calls?

By Lola Renegade | June 9, 2026

“The ultimate measure of a man (woman) is not where he (she) stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he (she) stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I watched Trevor Noah Netflix special Joy in the Trenches over the weekend. He posed a question that refuses to vacate my thoughts: Who will you be when history calls? I added “where.”

It is a simple question, yet it may be one of the most important questions any generation can answer. History is not merely a record of people, places, events, presidents, wars, elections, and legislation. History is a record of who stood up, who sat down, who spoke out, and who remained silent. Every generation eventually arrives at a moment when saying and doing nothing becomes impossible.

For people of color in America and our allies, that moment has arrived once again. Under the Trump Administration, hard-fought gains in civil rights, voting rights, diversity initiatives, economic opportunity, and equal protection are under unprecedented attack. The stakes are high and the consequences will be felt for generations. It is long past the time that each of us must decide whether to stand idly by watching and benefitting while others do all the heavy lifting. Or it is time to step up to do your part to help shape history and to deal the final deathblow to injustice in a way that this part will never need to be revisited again.

In 1961, a group of extraordinarily brave Americans – both Black and white, the Freedom Riders, boarded buses bound for the Deep South to challenge segregation and force this nation to confront its lack of conscience. Many were barely out of their teens. Some were college students. Some were clergy. Before departing, many wrote their wills and letters to loved ones, fully aware they might never return home alive.

They faced firebombs, beatings, imprisonment, and the very real possibility of death, not for personal gain, but for the promise of a more just America. They challenged segregated seats on buses, at lunch counters, and helped change the course of history. More than six decades later, the buses are different, but the destination for full equality remains the same.

Many others before us made tremendous sacrifices and answered the call and because of them, many of our lives are better.

History called Harriet Tubman, and she answered by risking her freedom and her life to lead others out of bondage. History called Ida B. Wells, and she answered by exposing the horrors of lynching when much of America preferred ignorance over truth. History called Frederick Douglass, and he answered by standing before a nation celebrating liberty and asking what the Fourth of July meant to millions who remained enslaved. History called Fannie Lou Hamer, and she answered by exposing before the nation the violence and terror inflicted upon Black citizens who dared to exercise their constitutional right to vote. History called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he answered from a Birmingham jail cell, reminding America that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and warning that the silence of good people often proves more dangerous than the actions of the openly wicked.

Every generation inherits unfinished work. Today, history is calling once again. It is calling in an era marked by fierce debates over voting rights, education, immigration, access to medical care, judicial power, economic inequality, and the future of democratic institutions. It is calling as election deniers and fake electors continue to seek and win positions of influence. It is calling as public trust in elections has eroded and facts themselves are increasingly filtered through partisan loyalties. It is calling amid debates surrounding Project 2025, presidential immunity, executive power, and the return of Donald Trump to the presidency despite felony convictions that, in previous eras, might have ended a political career. It is calling as participants in the January 6 insurrection are viewed by some as criminals and by others as patriots. It is calling as America wrestles once again with old questions about race, power, citizenship, and whose voices matter in a democracy.

Your children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn will one day ask a question that no amount of wealth, status, influence, or self-justification will be able to avoid: Who were you, where were you, and what did you do when history called? They will not ask how many luxury vehicles, airplanes, and yachts you owned. They will not ask how many formerly colonized countries you visited, how many mansions you purchased, how many designer labels filled your closets, how many concerts or sporting events you attended, how many casinos you visited, how many strip clubs you visited, how many times you attended church as a false witness, how many violent and vulgar video games you played, how many degrading rap lyrics you wrote and produced, how many followers admired your social media accounts, or how many photographs documented your comfort and success. They will not care how much money you spent being entertained while the future of Black freedom and progress was on the line and being written around you.

They will ask where you stood. They will ask whether you defended democracy when democracy was being tested. They will ask whether you defended truth when lies became profitable. They will ask whether you defended the vulnerable when doing so was unpopular. They will ask whether you challenged injustice or accommodated it. They will ask whether you spent your resources merely pursuing comfort, consumption, and entertainment while future generations inherited the consequences of your indifference. They will ask whether you invested in education, justice, opportunity, and freedom or whether you invested only in yourself. They will ask whether your faith transformed communities or merely sustained institutions. They will ask whether you sought proximity to power or whether you spoke truth to power.

I am reminded of a simple truth: I eat fruit from trees I did not plant. I enjoy freedoms secured by sacrifices I did not make. I benefit from struggles, beatings, and deaths that I did not endure. The question before us is whether we will do the same. Will we plant trees from which we may never eat or enjoy their shade? Will we defend freedoms whose full benefits we may never see? Will we invest in a democracy that our children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn will inherit?

Remember, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglass

Who and where will you be when history calls?

Join Communities United for Justice in the fight for freedom and full equality!

Black Women Nannies and White Babies: Loving, Nurturing, and Caring for the Children Who May One Day Grow Up to Hate You Simply Because of the Color of Your Skin

By Lola Renegade | Atlanta, GA | May 30, 2026 |

A couple of days ago, while visiting the Atlanta History Center with my great niece and nephew – my proxy grandchildren – I noticed something that stayed with me long after I left.

Everywhere I turned, I saw several Black women caring for little white children.

Some carried babies on their hips. Others pushed strollers through the museum corridors and gardens. Some held tiny white hands as curious toddlers wandered through exhibits laughing, pointing, and exploring the world with complete innocence and trust.

At first, seeing one Black nanny seemed unremarkable.

But after witnessing it again and again, I felt history pressing against and piercing my spirit. I found myself thinking, “I know this story personally.”

I recall my mother, along with several of my aunts, and countless other Black women, worked as domestics in Mississippi during the brutal decades of Jim and Jane Crow throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. They cared for white children whose parents were often half their age or younger, and eventually the children themselves, called them by their first names, as though these grown Black women were perpetual children themselves, undeserving of the dignity and respect automatically granted to white adults.

In the South of that era, Black women and men were rarely addressed with basic respect. White children were taught early that Black adults – even elderly Black adults – did not deserve titles such as “Miss,” “Mrs.,” or “Mr.”

Imagine the psychological violence and trauma of that. Imagine helping to raise a child, pouring love, patience, and tenderness into their life, only to see many grow into adults who embraced the same prejudices, racial hatred, and moral corrosion that had been passed down to them for generations by grandparents, parents, institutions, and an America determined to preserve racial hierarchy.

What greater tragedy is there than witnessing a child’s humanity slowly poisoned by the very parents entrusted to nurture it?

We have Child Protective Services (CPS) to rescue children from physical abuse, neglect, and dangerous homes. But who rescues children from inherited hatred? Who intervenes when racism, bigotry, and dehumanization become family heirlooms passed from one generation to the next?

Where is CPS when a child’s conscience is being corrupted, their empathy diminished, and their humanity stolen by the very parents, grandparents, and trusted adults charged with shaping their moral character?

Shouldn’t society be equally concerned and ready to remove children from their homes when they are taught to hate, fear, and to devalue the humanity of others?

Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of racism is not only the damage it inflicts upon its victims, but the moral injury it inflicts upon the children taught to carry it forward. Teaching a child to hate another human being, not only diminishes the humanity of the hated, but also the humanity of the hater.

It was witnessing my mother and other Black women navigate those humiliations that shaped me in ways I did not fully understand at the time. Even as a child, I made a vow to myself: no matter how poor, hungry, or desperate I might ever become, I would never become a domestic worker for white America. In the words of singer Lou Rawls, “I’d rather drink muddy water and sleep out in a hollow log.”

The relationship between Black women and white children in America did not begin with modern-day nannies or domestic workers. Its roots stretch back into slavery itself, when kidnapped, enslaved Black women were often forced to nurse white babies from their breasts while their own children waited nearby, sometimes hungry, neglected, or handed off to others. Few images capture the emotional and moral contradictions of America more painfully than a Black mother coerced to using her body to nourish the child of those who claimed ownership over her body, her humanity.

That contradiction has echoed through generations of Black women in America. What struck me most at the museum was not simply the presence of Black nannies caring for white children. It was the realization that, despite all America’s claims about progress, its incestuous kinship to slavery still exists in painfully familiar ways.

At The Gathering Spot in Atlanta, I have met several young Black women – brilliant, highly educated, accomplished women with advanced degrees – who lost professional opportunities during the chaos, instability, and cruelty unleashed within the early months of President Donald Trump’s attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In fact, it is stated that more than 300,000 Black women lost their jobs within the first few months under this racist, tyrannical administration. One can safely bet that if America stated that number, double it. This nation has long suffered from a pathology of lies – sanitizing and erasing its history, minimizing its crimes, and demanding the oppressed to forget what these modern-day robber barons would rather not remember.

Some of these young women now work as nannies for affluent white families, not because they lack intelligence, ambition, or qualifications, but because survival leaves little room for pride. Mortgages and rents still have to be paid, car notes still arrive, and student loans still demand payment.

I understand that for many survival does not and cannot wait for justice. It never has and it never will. Especially, if you are waiting for justice to live in America with any chance of longevity. And so these women, extraordinarily gifted beyond measure, have found themselves stepping into one of the oldest labor roles historically assigned to Black women in America: caring for white children.

That reality forced me to think differently about one of Trump’s most infamous statements during the presidential campaign when he warned Black Americans about immigrants “taking your Black jobs.” At the time, many dismissed the statement as ignorance, racism, or political theater from the man who would soon become one of America’s most corrupt, greedy, heartless, stupid, ignorant, morally and intellectually bankrupt presidents. But perhaps there was an uncomfortable historical truth buried inside that language. Because throughout American history, some of the “Black jobs” this country has consistently reserved for Black women have involved caregiving, domestic labor, emotional labor, and service to white families.

America’s and Trump’s replacements for our best and brightest have been mediocre to less-than mediocre white men and women. Amazingly, it took Trump less than ten years to turn America into a truly “shithole country” – the very name he has given to countries of color who refuse to be exploited by him and will not bribe him, his family, colleagues, and administration.

Black women have long been expected to nurture America while America simultaneously withholds full dignity from us. And what makes this history even more painful is the emotional intimacy involved. These are not distant transactions. These women rock white babies to sleep, celebrate first words, first steps, prepare meals, read bedtime stories, soothe nightmares, wipe tears, snot, and asses.

They become trusted figures in the emotional development of children who oftentimes grow up absorbing the same racial animus and systemic biases that diminishes the very women caring for them. How do Black women continue loving the soon to be unlovable under those conditions? How do you pour tenderness into children who may, more than likely, eventually inherit a worldview that sees you as inferior, threatening, or invisible?

Perhaps the answer lies in something both heartbreaking and extraordinary about Black women in America: despite centuries of degradation, exploitation, exclusion, and disrespect, many have refused to surrender their humanity and capacity to love unconditionally.

We all know that babies are not born racist. No infant instinctively hates Black people. Hatred is learned carefully and intentionally over time. It comes through family attitudes, political rhetoric, segregated systems, coded language, media imagery, fear, silence, and societal conditioning.

For a brief and innocent season of life, many white children experience unconditional safety, affection, and nurturing through Black hands before the world begins teaching them racial hierarchy and hate.

That truth sat heavily with me as I walked through the museum with my late sister’s grandchildren, thinking about her boundless capacity to love. She was a hospital executive and registered nurse. She, too, belonged to a long line of Black women who gave of themselves freely to family, work, community, and often to a nation that rarely returned the favor. Her capacity to love the unlovable was so much greater than mine. I can count on one hand, with fingers remaining, the number of white people I can or have called “friend” in my sixty-nine years on the planet.

In the movie, The Help, I am constantly reminded of a nation that never grows tired of exploiting the labor of Black women who are still carrying America’s children and America itself on our hips and our backs.

And if this America truly is the greatest country in the world – the very best the planet has to offer – then Lord knows the world is in desperate need of a better alternative.

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Congressional Black Caucus Presses U.S. Companies To Oppose Republican Redistricting Push

The Congressional Black Caucus urges corporate America to oppose Republican redistricting that threatens Black representation, calling it a defining test of democracy and corporate integrity.

By Matt Brown | Washington, DC | May 26, 2026

Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice.”

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.

In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.

That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.

Tuesday’s letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.

Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday’s letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.

The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.

Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.

It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. The Associated Press was making efforts to contact them.

“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus’ letter states.

It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.

“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”

The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America’s role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.

President Donald Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year’s midterm elections.

The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.

Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”

“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”

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Louisiana Republicans Eliminate Elected Position Days Before Democrat was to Assume Office

Louisiana Republicans eliminate an elected clerk position days before Calvin Duncan takes office, raising concerns over voter disenfranchisement and judicial restructuring

By Sara Cline and Jack Brook | Baton Rouge, LA & New Orleans, LA | May 3, 2026

Louisiana Republicans eliminated an elected position days before an exonerated man who overwhelmingly won the New Orleans-based clerk seat was set to take office.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Thursday quietly signed into law legislation abolishing the long-standing Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court position, according to Louisiana Secretary of State spokesperson Trey Williams.

Republicans say wiping away the office is a consolidation effort meant to make the local judicial system more efficient and cut costs. But Democrats condemn the change as government overreach, arguing that it infringes on a predominantly Black parish’s decision at the polls.

Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly 30 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, easily won election to the criminal court clerk position in November, beating the incumbent and earning more than two-thirds of the vote. He had been set to take office Monday and has asked a federal judge to allow him to take office as scheduled.

“It’s a sad thing to see the state government repeating what happened to Black public officials during Reconstruction,” Duncan said. “They will do what they do, and I will do whatever I have to do to vindicate the voters of New Orleans and make sure that what happened to me never happens to anybody else.”

Landry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Duncan, a Democrat whose murder conviction was vacated in 2021 after evidence emerged that police officers lied in court, has vowed to help fix the system that once failed him.

Duncan, 63, and his supporters say he is being targeted by the most powerful Republicans in the state, including those who have denied his innocence, even though Duncan’s name is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

“We’re doing something because powerful people don’t like him,” Rep. Mandie Landry, a New Orleans Democrat, told lawmakers during a legislative committee hearing in April. Landry, who is not related to the governor, described the Republican efforts as “atrocious” and worries what they could mean for other elected positions in the state.

Law consolidates two court clerk positions

Republicans say the legislation consolidates the civil and criminal court clerks’ offices in Orleans Parish, putting it in line with all other parishes in the state, which have a single clerk’s office. The civil clerk position would remain and absorb the criminal clerk’s role.

Eliminating the clerk position saves the state about $27,000 and the city $233,000, according to the office of the legislative auditor, which added that the long-term costs of consolidation are “unknown.” The legislation also shifts about $1.17 million in state expenditures to the parish. The civil and criminal court clerks have separate physical offices and different case management systems.

The governor told the Associated Press that eliminating Duncan’s elected office was about improving government efficiency and “cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.”

The consolidation is part of a broader GOP effort during the ongoing legislative session to overhaul the judiciary in New Orleans — including bills that propose abolishing several other elected judicial positions in the parish. However, those jobs would be eliminated further down the line, allowing officials to serve out their terms.

The bill’s Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a district several hours from New Orleans, said the goal was to implement the clerk consolidation before Duncan takes office, preventing him from starting a four-year term. Morris acknowledged that he expects lawsuits to be filed because of this law but believes the change to be constitutional.

“It’s unfortunate for Mr. Duncan, I concede that,” Morris told lawmakers in April. “He seems very nice, but we don’t make policy around here for just one person.”

Key takeaways

Election Overturned: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law eliminating the Orleans Parish criminal court clerk position just days before Calvin Duncan, an exonerated Democrat, was set to assume office.
Consolidation & Cost: The law merges civil and criminal clerk offices, aiming to cut costs ($27,000 state, $233,000 city) and improve efficiency, though long-term savings are uncertain.
Voter Concerns: Critics argue the move disenfranchises voters, undermining the will of a predominantly Black electorate that elected Duncan with 68% of the vote.

Concerns of disenfranchisement

Although conversations have revolved around Duncan, many also raise concerns about how the change potentially could disenfranchise voters — a heightened worry in a deeply red state that has been central to efforts to weaken the Voting Rights Act, including the case at issue in a landmark Supreme Court ruling last week. Orleans Parish is a Democratic hub with a predominantly Black electorate.

“Mr. Duncan was elected by 68% of the vote in a city that’s majority African American. This is the will of the people, and what your bill attempts to do is usurp the will of the people,” Rep. Edmond Jordan, a Democrat, told Morris.

Well before the legislation reached the governor’s desk, Duncan said he could see the writing on the wall. Ahead of the outcome, Duncan’s advocates held a ceremonial swearing-in for him. Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the Orleans Parish criminal courthouse to support him.

Duncan told lawmakers that along the campaign trail last year, he spoke with many people who told him they typically abstain from voting in elections. “Now, this bill tells people exactly what they had believed — that their vote doesn’t count,” he said.

Cline and Brook write for the Associated Press and reported from Baton Rouge, La., and New Orleans, respectively.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Metro Leaders Urge Veto of HB 369, Call Bill “Targeted” and “Discriminatory”

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Wear Your Health on Your Sleeve

“Smart devices now track heart rate, sleep, and glucose, turning everyday wear into powerful tools for health awareness, prevention, and community wellness.”

You can track your heart rate, sleep, even glucose levels just by strapping on a device. Are these next-generation right for you?

By Jeanne Dorin McDowell | April 12, 2026

Wearable health monitors have come a long way since Fitbits and Apple Watches introduced the idea of digitally counting steps and calories burned.

Today’s wearables include a dizzying array of devices—armbands, smart rings, smart eyeglasses, chest-strap monitors, clothing embedded with sensors—to track physical activity, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen, glucose levels, stress, sleep patterns and movement.

And while it can be fun to track your biometrics on your own, wearables are having a big impact on doctor-patient relationships by giving health care providers real-time access to critical health data. Some can record and transmit electrocardiogram (ECG) readings; others can detect falls and epileptic seizures before they happen.

“I ask my patients to self-monitor to tell me what their heart rates are,” says Niraj Varma, M.D., a cardiac electrophysiologist and professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic who routinely recommends wearable monitors for patients diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (A-fib), a common heart disorder that can disrupt blood flow and lead to blood clots and an increased risk of stroke.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans use a wearable device, such as a smartwatch or band, to track their health and fitness. But not all remote monitors are created equal.

Consumer-grade wearables, such as smart-watches and rings, which you can buy online or at retail stores, may be fairly accurate but are not FDA-approved, which means they have not met stringent regulatory requirements.
Medical-grade wearables, such as most continuous glucose monitors, which measure sugar levels, usually require a doctor’s prescription and are FDA-approved. Health information is transmitted via an app or a receiver and can be shared remotely with a physician, so it can be interpreted and discussed with the patient.

While the accuracy of consumer devices varies across brands and the metrics that are being measured, they are not considered as accurate as medical-grade wearables.

But even if the accuracy falls short, one of the intrinsic values of consumer wearables is that they can signal that something is wrong.

“If you are tracking your activity and motion as well as heart rate, and suddenly there’s a change—not from yesterday to today but a definite trend of something happening—the wearable can be an alert system that tells you something is going on,” says Albert Titus, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University at Buffalo.

Here’s a rundown of widely used wearable tech devices and what doctors who work with them have to say.

SMARTWATCHES AND FITNESS TRACKERS

BEST FOR: Monitoring basic health metrics and exercise

If your idea of a fitness tracker dates back 15 years or so, you might want to see what the new models can do. Through a technique called photoplethysmography, which detects heart rate by measuring changes in the volume of blood flowing near the surface of the skin, sensors can measure heart rate and even stress levels.

They can also flag an irregular heartbeat, says Erica Schorr, associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota and a member of the American Heart Association’s Center for Healthy Technology and Innovation, Digital Science Working Group. That said, watches and trackers are not a replacement for regular checkups; they can’t diagnose a heart attack or other serious medical condition.

SMART RINGS

BEST FOR: Monitoring sleep

Smart rings emit light at specific wavelengths into the skin, then measure how much of that light is reflected back to the ring. Since blood absorbs more light than other tissue does, the ring can monitor the rhythmic ebbs and flows in blood volume to track your heart rate and sleep cycles. These devices typically connect to a phone app and may require a monthly subscription.

Smart rings may compile heart rate data more accurately than smartwatches and may produce more accurate measurements in people with darker skin tones than wrist-worn devices do. (Melanin, a dark pigment in the skin, can absorb some of the light emitted by optical sensors and distort heart rate measurements. But there is less melanin on the inside of the fingers than on the wrist.)

While sleep monitoring is a selling point of these devices, not everyone is sold on the value of this function. “It’s challenging for many wearables to accurately assess deep and REM sleep,” says Cheri Mah, M.D., a sleep physician and adjunct lecturer with the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. “People can get fixated on their daily sleep outcomes and on perfecting those numbers.” Instead, she recommends looking at your results in terms of trends rather than nightly performance.

SMART GLASSES AND SMART CLOTHING

BEST FOR: Serious fitness enthusiasts

Smart clothing refers to garments—usually shirts and leggings—with embedded sensors that monitor vital signs and track physical performance. Like other health wearables, smart clothing monitors heart rate, temperature, heart rhythm and physical movements; the data is transmitted via Bluetooth to an app in real time. Some smart clothes send alerts when the wearer experiences an irregularity or a health problem.

Even eyeglasses can come with health trackers nowadays. Smart eyewear is equipped with sensors and Bluetooth connectivity embedded in the frames, and some can monitor heart rate and calories burned. But, like wrist-based monitors, they’re not as accurate as some other products.

CHEST-STRAP HEART MONITORS

BEST FOR: Serious athletes, people with heart conditions While the heart rate monitors in your smartwatch or ring can provide useful data about your general fitness and exercise levels, a wearable that wraps around your chest to measure heart rate is considered the gold standard. Chest-strap monitors use electrocardiography to measure electrical signals from the heart, which makes them more precise than the sensors used in wrist- or finger-based devices. In April, researchers at the University of Missouri College of Engineering announced the development of a starfish-shaped wearable powered by Al technology that can detect heart problems with 90 percent accuracy.

Some of these devices connect with a cable or wirelessly to a device that you can tch to your clothing or carry in a pock-while many newer models use wireless nections to send data to your phone or another device.

If you have a heart condition, your doctor might prescribe a medical-grade heart monitor that records the heart’s rhythm, such as a Holter, which your physician reviews after return the device. These monitors are even more accurate than the retail versions.

CONTINOUS GLUCOSE MONITORS

BEST FOR: People with diabetes or prediabetes, biohackers

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), which are worn as a patch and use a sensor that’s inserted under the skin with a needle, continuously record glucose levels, sending an alert when they rise or fall too far.

“People who benefit most from CGMs are those with diabetes who require insulin therapy, because these monitors have been associated with reducing the risk of severe hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar,” one of the most feared complications of insulin use, says Aoife M. Egan, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic.

The American Diabetes Association advocates for CGM accessibility for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes who are required to take insulin. But CGMs have also become popular with people who just want to know more about the impact of food, stress and activity on their glucose levels. The emergence of several kinds of nonprescription CGMs have empowered the biohacking-curious to measure the sugar in their bloodstream, although over-the-counter CGMs give less-detailed feedback than prescription models.

An effective glucose monitor needs to pierce the skin, researchers say. Last year the FDA alerted consumers that using smartwatches or smart rings that claim to measure blood glucose levels without piercing the skin “can lead to errors in diabetes management.”

Is a Wearable Monitor Right for You?

Wearables continue to evolve: Scientists are working on a smart ring that can help detect hand tremors, a Parkinson’s disease symptom; wearables that will be able to detect neurodegenerative diseases, like multiple sclerosis and ALS, in the earliest stages; and even a wrist-worn device that tracks activity patterns, which may catch early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. But while wearables have myriad benefits, some people find that continuous monitoring of their health creates anxiety. Fluctuations in heart rhythms or blood sugar levels are normal and often insignificant, but if your device sends up an alarm, it can provoke unneeded stress. “Telling someone they’re experiencing a heart arrhythmia if they don’t feel it can create more anxiety,” says Lindsey Rosman, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Rosman says we need more studies both on the adverse effects of wearables and on who would actually benefit from these devices. —J.M.

Jeanne Dorin McDowell writes about health and wellness for national print and digital publications.

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Donald Trump’s America: Why Over 77 Million Americans Chose a Draft-Dodging, Racist, Misogynist, Convicted Felon, Conman, and Old Orange Demented Pimp to Become Their President

By Lola Renegade | March 17, 2026

“We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes.”

Bryan Stevenson, Esq. (Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL)

In this quote, attorney Bryan Stevenson should have included that white skin privilege also shapes outcomes. If life were fair and American democracy real for every citizen, PFC Robert Scott, and the sixty-two other soldiers who were killed in Vietnam on September 11, 1968, would be somewhere enjoying their families and racist, insurrectionist, misogynist, bully, conman, vote-stealing felon Donald Trump would be on his way either to prison or the pimps Players Ball Convention. He would not be residing in the White House! Perhaps that’s a major problem, calling it the White House and not the Peoples’ House.

In the picture next to the caricature of Trump in his grifting family is the picture of the gravestone of 19-Year-Old African American PFC Robert Lee Scott from Redwood, Mississippi. Robert began his tour of duty on August 28, 1968. Just fifteen days later, on September 11th, one day before his twentieth birthday – he was killed in Quang Tin Province, 9,133 miles from the Ballground Plantation in Redwood where he had grown up. Meanwhile, five-times draft-dodging Donald “Bone Spurs” Trump decades later ascends to the presidency – not once, but TWICE!

After fifty-eight years, I can still remember my daddy coming into the dilapidated shack we called home in Redwood, Mississippi, and delivering the heartbreaking news to Mama:

“Darlin’, Pat and Minnie’s boy got killed in ’Nam.”

I wrote another article about Robert in The Truth Seekers Journal on September 24, 2024, the link is below:

White Wealth and Privilege Unveiled: 19-Year-Old African American PFC Robert Lee Scott Was Killed in Vietnam While Draft-Dodging Donald “Bone Spurs” Trump Ascended to the U.S. Presidency

Former Georgia State Senator and Senate Majority Leader Charles W. Walker Sr. once stood as one of the most powerful Black political figures in Georgia. He was a trailblazer who rose from rural Georgia’s poverty and relocated to Augusta to become the first African American Senate Majority Leader since Reconstruction. He built influence not only in politics, but as a businessman and publisher of the Augusta Focus, a free newspaper serving the Black community.

Then came his orchestrated fall.

In 2005, Walker was indicted on federal charges including mail fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy. Prosecutors claimed he inflated circulation numbers in his FREE newspaper to increase advertising revenue. How can a guestimate of how many people read a free newspaper be criminal? Though notably, he was not convicted on the scholarship-related charges.

Charles Walker served eight years of a ten-year sentence in prison while the nation’s homemade virus, Donald Trump, is serving his second term as president of the United States of Ameri-KKK.

But even before the verdict of Walker, questions of justice were already hanging in the air.

During jury selection, Walker’s defense raised a challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, arguing that prosecutors were systematically striking Black jurors. In a case involving a high-profile Black leader in the Deep South, the racial makeup of the jury was no small matter. It was everything. The prosecution offered so-called “race-neutral” explanations, and the court allowed the jury to stand. But the deeper question lingered: was justice being administered or engineered?

The contradictions only deepen from there.

Richard S. Thompson – the republican U.S. Attorney who led aggressive investigations targeting Walker and other Democratic leaders was later convicted himself. He went to prison for stalking a former girlfriend and repeatedly violating restraining orders. The prosecutor became the criminal. Surprisingly, and unlike Trump and many of his government appointees, he did not get away with his abuse of women.

And then there is John Jay Fitzgerald Johnson, known as Grandmaster Jay. He was in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2020 as part of nationwide protests following the unlawful police killing of Breonna Taylor. Leading members of the Not Fucking Around Coalition (NFAC), he stood in armed protest exercising the same Second Amendment rights so often celebrated in other contexts. Yet, during a nighttime demonstration, he was accused of pointing a rifle toward federal agents. No shots were fired. No one was injured. Still, he was prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison for seven years.

His case underscores a troubling reality: protest in America is not experienced equally. When Black leadership shows up organized, armed, and unapologetic, the response is swift, severe, and unforgiving – raising profound questions about who is protected by the Constitution and who is punished under it.

Now place these realities alongside Donald J. Trump.

Trump – a twice-impeached president and convicted felon who faced multiple cases tied to his efforts of an insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. Yet case after case has been delayed, weakened, or dropped – including the case in Fulton County, Georgia, where evidence showed he pressured officials to “find votes” in an attempt to overturn the will of the people. Now, in a stunning display of audacity, he is seeking to have Fulton County reimburse him for his legal fees, despite the overwhelming evidence surrounding his conduct.

This is not just irony. It is the history of Ameri-KKK.

Walker was imprisoned for financial misconduct. Thompson, who prosecuted him, was later imprisoned for his own crimes. Grandmaster Jay was imprisoned in a case where no physical harm occurred. Yet Trump and the January 6^th insurrectionists, whose actions struck at the very foundation of American democracy, have evaded accountability and received pardons for their illegal actions. And, in Trump’s case, returned to power as president.

What emerges is not coincidence. It is a pattern. It is a pattern of who is pursued and who is punished and protected. And even before the verdicts are handed down and oftentimes before the trial even begins, the question is already in the room: Who gets to sit on the jury, who gets prosecuted, and who gets away even though there is a preponderance of evidence of their guilt? Because in today’s America, it is not just justice that is on trial – it is democracy itself. And the most dangerous force of all is not just the man at the center of it, but the legion of supporters who excuse it, defend it, and enable it.

Instead, a kakistocracy has emerged – led by a shameless, criminal “old orange demented pimp” and his dangerous sycophants, sustained by a movement that has become an infectious, exhaustive, and deadly virus on American democracy. If life were fair – it’s not – and justice truly applied to all – again, not – Trump would be in prison, sitting on the lap of P. Diddy, getting his hair braided by R. Kelly, and a pedicure from Ghislaine Maxwell.

In the words of famed artist, Kendrick Lamar, “They Not Like Us!”

America Needs an Intervention: A 12-Step Program for Its Addiction to Racism, Violence, Misogyny, Inequality, and Greed

America faces deep-rooted addictions to racism, violence, misogyny, inequality, and greed. True greatness demands an honest national intervention, structural reform, and a courageous commitment to truth and justice.

By Lola Renegade | March 10, 2026

America will never be great until (S)he checks itself into rehab.

For generations, this nation has wrapped itself in the language of exceptionalism—the land of opportunity, the beacon of freedom, the greatest country in the world, blah, blah, blah, etc. But myths are powerful narcotics. They dull the pain of truth. They allow a nation to avoid confronting the damage it has done and continues to do—to others and to itself.

Strip away the mythology and the reality becomes unavoidable: America is a nation struggling with longstanding addictions—racism, violence, misogyny, inequality, and greed. These are not temporary lapses in judgment. They are structural and systemic habits, embedded in institutions, culture, and political life since the country’s violent and genocidal birth.

Like every addiction, these habits have consequences. And like every addiction, they will persist until the addict admits there is a problem.

America has experienced moments of greatness but has never been genuinely great. There have been flashes of moral clarity—Reconstruction, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, notable first-time elections of President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and other people of color—periods when the country briefly attempted to live up to its highest ideals. But those moments have often been followed by backlash, denial, retreat, and violence.

The truth is uncomfortable but unavoidable: greatness has never been America’s permanent condition. At best, it has been an aspiration.

Now the country stands at another crossroads.

The rise of Trumpism and his cult of MAGA (Make America Great Again) did not invent America’s demons; it exposed them. It pulled the curtain back on forces that had always existed but were often somewhat politely ignored, especially by the so-called mainstream media. Racial resentment, authoritarian impulses, contempt for democratic norms, and an open hostility toward women, immigrants, countries of color, and marginalized communities were no longer whispered—they were amplified from podiums and television screens.

Trumpism became less a political movement than a mirror reflecting unresolved truths about the nation itself.

And the reflection is not flattering, it is downright ugly as homemade sin because that is what it is.

To understand the depth of America’s addiction, one must begin with its historical foundation. The nation was born through the displacement and destruction of Indigenous peoples and built in large part through the forced labor of enslaved Africans. The Confederacy—an armed rebellion fought to preserve slavery—lost the Civil War but never fully lost the violent cultural war that followed.

Its symbols remain scattered across the American landscape: statues, flags, and monuments that celebrate a rebellion against democracy itself. These artifacts are not simply relics of history. They are declarations of whose history matters and whose suffering can be ignored.

Trumpism breathed new life into these symbols. The refusal to unequivocally condemn white supremacists, the defense of Confederate monuments, and the rhetorical flirtation with authoritarian nationalism revealed how unfinished America’s reckoning with its past truly remains.

But acknowledging the past is only the first step. Recovery requires transformation. In the language of addiction recovery, healing begins with admission.

Step One: Admit the problem.
America must acknowledge that racism, misogyny, inequality, and greed are not isolated incidents—they are systemic and structural forces woven into the nation’s political and economic fabric. This is best explained by Professor Tricia Rose, Ph.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3KsVRkbnn4

Step Two: Educate honestly.

A nation cannot heal from a history it refuses to teach. Honest education about slavery, colonialism, and structural inequality is not divisive—it is necessary.

Step Three: Demand accountability.
Policies that target vulnerable populations—such as the so-called Muslim ban, family separations at the border, attacks on diversity initiatives, and efforts to erase the contributions of people of color from public narratives—illustrate how political power can be used to reinforce inequality.

Step Four: Confront the mythology.
Confederate symbols and historical distortions must be confronted, not romanticized. Nations mature when they confront their past honestly.

Step Five: Rebuild empathy.
Democracy cannot function without the ability to recognize one another’s humanity.

Step Six: Reform institutions.
Systems that perpetuate racial and gender inequality—from criminal justice to economic policy—must be fundamentally reexamined.

Step Seven: Address economic inequality.
Extreme disparities of wealth undermine democracy itself. When policy consistently favors the affluent, the social contract begins to collapse.

Step Eight: Restore public trust.
Trust cannot be demanded; it must be earned through transparency, fairness, and accountability.

Step Nine: Build coalitions for justice.
Progress has always required alliances across race, gender, and class.

Step Ten: Elevate art, culture, and truth.
Artistic expression and cultural dialogue help societies confront their deepest wounds.

Step Eleven: Reengage with the world responsibly.
Isolationism and militarized nationalism weaken moral leadership. Global cooperation strengthens it.

Step Twelve: Commit to vigilance.
Recovery is never permanent. It requires continuous effort and moral courage.

None of this will be easy. Addicts resist intervention. They deny the severity of their condition. They lash out at those who attempt to help them confront it. Nations behave no differently.

But the alternative to intervention is decline.

When societies refuse to confront injustice, inequality deepens. When greed overrides the common good, democracy erodes. When violence becomes normalized, the social fabric begins to rot.

America stands at a moment that demands honesty. The nation can continue clinging to comforting myths about its past, or it can finally confront the contradictions that have haunted it since its founding.

Rehabilitation is possible. But only if the country is willing to do the hardest thing of all: Tell the truth about itself. Until then, the slogan of greatness will remain just that—a slogan.

Because greatness is not something a nation proclaims. It is something a nation proves.

FBI Confirms Federal Judicial Authorization in Fulton Election Records Search

Atlanta, GA | January 30, 2026

Editor’s Note: This update follows The Truth Seekers Journal’s earlier reporting on the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center and reflects the agency’s first written response to TSJ’s request for clarification.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that Wednesday’s search and seizure at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center was authorized by a federal judge but says no additional details can be released as the investigation continues.

In a written response to The Truth Seekers Journal, FBI Atlanta Public Affairs stated that agents executed a “court authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s elections facility located at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road in Union City, Georgia.

The FBI further confirmed that authorization for the search was granted by a judge associated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. No further information was provided regarding the scope of the warrant, the materials sought or seized, or whether any individuals or entities have been identified as targets of the investigation.

“Our investigation into this matter is ongoing so there are no details that we can provide at the moment,” the FBI said.

The search, which involved records related to the 2020 election, has drawn public attention due to ongoing national scrutiny of election administration, record custody, and voter confidence.

The Truth Seekers Journal previously requested clarification on the legal basis and scope of the action. The FBI’s response confirms federal judicial oversight while underscoring that the matter remains active. No timeline was provided for the release of additional information.

FBI Executes Search Warrant at Fulton County Election Hub Seeking 2020 Ballots

Fulton County: An Economic, Cultural, and Educational Hub for Georgia

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Brett Kavanaugh raises impeachment question in Trump Federal Reserve case

Why It Matters

The justices are contemplating a case that deals with the president’s removal of an independent official and what counts as “for cause.” An attorney representing Cook, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, tells the court that impeachment, a form of removal of an official, is “the ultimate backup” in a hypothetical situation that Justice Samuel Alito presented to him.

During arguments, several justices questioned whether President Donald Trump has the authority to fire a sitting Fed governor over allegations of mortgage fraud that Cook denies. Earlier in the hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that allowing Cook’s dismissal could “weaken, if not shatter, the independence of the Federal Reserve.”

What To Know

Following Justice Samuel Alito’s hypothetical question, “how about if, after the person assumes office, videos are disclosed in which the officeholder is expressing deep admiration for Hitler or for the Klan?” Clement, responded “that’s an official that would be impeached in a heartbeat.”

Amid the back and forth among other justices as well, Clement reiterated that his “backup to the backup” is “impeachment.” Kavanaugh then jumped in stating, “We got an argument in the past that impeachment doesn’t cover private conduct. You obviously disagree with that then?”

Clement responded, “Well, I certainly see, but this actually kind of makes the point about judicial review, right?”

Kavanaugh said, “I’m not saying I agree with that, by the way. It’s been—it’s been argued.”

Cook’s attorney then said, “What I absolutely agree with is the Walter Nixon case says that there’s no judicial review of the impeachment determination in the end. So whatever the House and the Senate ultimately determine, I mean, they can make constitutional law, too and they can determine whether private conduct is or is not out.”

The back and forth continued with Clement bringing up “INM,” referring to inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance, which comes from the Federal Trade Commission Act. He told the Court, “the reason I want to spend at least a moment answering some of the hard hypos is not because I’m a masochist. It’s just because those are—have got to be the answers under INM.”

Kavanaugh responded, “your answer is that those are funneled to the impeachment process?” to which Clement responded “that’s right,” continuing on that “INM has worked for 150 years. And I think it would continue to work. It hasn’t proven a problem in practice.”

Why Did Trump Fire Lisa Cook From the Federal Reserve Board of Governors?

Trump moved to remove Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, citing allegations that she committed mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the central bank. The administration argues that Cook improperly claimed two properties as primary residences, potentially securing more favorable loan terms. Trump’s legal team has said the allegations amount to misconduct sufficient to justify her dismissal, though Cook has not been charged with any crime. Critics have questioned whether the effort reflects a broader attempt by Trump to exert greater control over the independent central bank and influence interest rate policy.

Key takeaways

Impeachment as Backstop: Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether impeachment is a realistic safeguard for removing independent officials, with attorney Paul Clement calling it the “ultimate backup” for misconduct or controversial behavior.
Trump vs. Lisa Cook: President Trump attempted to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook over alleged mortgage fraud, raising concerns about Federal Reserve independence and presidential authority to fire governors.
About Lisa Cook: Cook is the first Black woman on the Fed Board, an economist focused on labor markets, economic inequality, and innovation, helping set U.S. monetary policy insulated from political pressure.

Who Is Lisa Cook? What to Know

Cook is a Federal Reserve governor and the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s Board of Governors. An economist by training, she was confirmed to the board in 2022 after previously serving as a professor at Michigan State University and holding roles focused on economic research and policy.

Cook’s work has centered on labor markets, economic inequality and innovation. As one of seven governors, she helps set U.S. monetary policy, including interest rates, in a role designed to be insulated from political pressure.

What People Are Saying

The Supreme Court justices, writing in a separate case last year: “The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking Wednesday: “This whole case is irregular, starting with the Truth Social notice…But that’s where we are.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai previously told The Associated Press: “President Trump lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We look forward to ultimate victory after presenting our oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January.”

What Happens Next

The justices finished oral arguments on Wednesday and are expected to rule on the case at a later date.

This article was written by Mandy Taheri.

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The Tyranny of White Racism and Rage: Why America Will Never Be Great

America’s greatness is a myth built on racism, slavery, and genocide. From MAGA chants to Stone Mountain, white rage ensures the nation will never be truly great.

By Lola Renegade | September 24, 2025

“Make America Great Again” is not a mere slogan. It is an ancestral curse and love song to racism, a requiem to hate, a demon spirit disguised as patriotism, shouted by the faithful of racism, bankrolled by millionaires and billionaires, paraded by politicians, and stitched into the very skin of those who cannot imagine a world where whiteness does not reign supreme. It is a sales pitch—proof that in America, hate is not merely ideology, it is merchandise. It is a brand stamped on cheap red hats and t-shirts made in China, a bumper-sticker lie sold to the willfully ignorant, and the hateful alike.

But strip away the slogans and the pageantry, and the truth is unavoidable: America will never be great. It has entertained moments of unsustainable greatness. It was never designed to be fully great. Racists and misogynists will make certain it never will be.

Even before the moment America declared independence, it strangled its own promise. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison names are etched in marble, their faces carved into mountains. But their hands were never clean. They owned men, women, and children as property. Jefferson could pen the words “all men are created equal” with one hand while raping Sally Hemings with the other, keeping her and the children born of his rape enslaved. Washington could lead a revolution for liberty and then unleash dogs and bounty hunters to drag back those who sought their own freedom. Yet, he was marketed as never telling a lie. All of them were mythologized into saints and branded as paragons of virtue.

Twelve U.S. presidents owned slaves at some point in their lives, with eight of them being slave owners while in office. Some had children by their enslaves and became the first absentee “fathers” of Black children.

The idea of America’s exceptionalism and the phrase “shining city on a hill” was drenched in murders, sweat, blood, and the cries of enslaved Africans. The greatness they preached was always greatness and wealth for the few, built upon the backs of the many. Before slavery’s chains, there was another crime written in rivers of blood: the genocide of Native peoples. The continent’s first nations were starved, massacred, and driven onto barren reservations. Andrew Jackson—the man Donald Trump idolizes—did not merely sign the Indian Removal Act; he enforced it with satanic smiles, watching families stagger down the Trail of Tears. Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, broken treaties, poisoned water. It is today’s caging of “immigrant” families and separating children from their parents.

The list of America’s atrocities is endless. Its landscape has been ruined and littered from its inception until now with racist, narcissistic, power-drunk psychopathic and sociopathic white men, the women who support them, and their colored allies.

This is never any great nation’s destiny. It was the extermination of anyone not like them, waged with rifles in one hand and the Bible in the other, baptized in the counterfeit holiness of patriotic Christianity. The soil beneath our feet is still stolen, crying out with the blood of those who first walked it. And yet, the very thieves who built their empire on genocide and chains dare to demonically sneer, “Go back to your country.” What arrogance! The irony rolls across centuries, and we must never be lulled into silence, never forget the truth written in the earth itself: the trespassers are the ones shouting at others to leave.

Fast-forward to January 6, 2021, when the Confederate flag once again marched proudly into battle—this time through the U.S. Capitol. Donald Trump, the barely literate reality-TV demagogue turned tyrant-in-chief, summoned his followers to overthrow democracy. He told them to fight like hell, and they obeyed. Windows shattered, police were beaten and killed, and elected officials fled for their lives. The Republican Party—the self-proclaimed party of law and order—stood by in silent complicity.

That day did not just globally disgrace America—it unmasked and revealed it. A felon, a twice-impeached president, a self-professed sexual predator, a tax cheat, a fraud who built his empire on lies, bankruptcies, and racism—Donald Trump carried every scandal like badges of honor. And still, racist white America crowned him president not once, but twice. Twice, they chose corruption over character. Twice, they elevated a man who bragged about assaulting women, who caged children, who mocked the disabled, who praised dictators, who desecrated democracy itself.

The insurrection was not an aberration. It was not a crack in the system. It was the system laid bare. The Confederate flag flying through the Capitol was not a symbol of the past—it was the present, a banner of white rage and entitlement, carried by racists who refuse to loosen their grip on power. The mob was not a departure from the American project; it was the American project in its purest form: whiteness armed, enraged, and unwilling to yield.

And now we witness the grotesque theater of the absurd, the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. Kirk, a man who spewed venom about immigrants, women, and Black people, was gunned down by another white man. Yet his death is being blamed on “the left,” polished into sainthood, marketed as if he were some fallen soldier fighting for freedom. America loves nothing more than to crown its hatemongers with halos once they are gone. A racist in life becomes a “patriot” in death, his ideology sanitized and packaged for sale.

Here’s Kirk, the community college dropout in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative (aka racists) media.

On race, he said:

If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024

If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022

Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023

If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024

Kirk truly believed that his whiteness alone placed him on the same level as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—a Harvard University and Harvard Law School graduate—and Michelle Obama, who excelled and graduated from both Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Joy Reid was also a Harvard graduate. Sheila Jackson Lee was a graduate of Yale University and University of Virginia School of Law. In his twisted worldview, their brilliance could only be explained away as “DEI hires,” stealing opportunities that rightfully belonged to mediocre white men like him.

His rise had nothing to do with either education or merit; it was bankrolled by racist millionaires and billionaires eager to underwrite his racism, misogyny, and hate. Strip away their money and his privilege, and Kirk was exposed for what he was—so shallow in intellect that even college freshmen routinely outmatched him in debates. Now the U.S. ( p)Resident felon-in-thief, Donald Trump, squatting at the white house, will posthumously bestow the presidential medal of freedom on Kirk (yes, I am aware some words are not capitalized, both the office and medal are so degraded, elevation is not deserved). Trump also gave another devout racist, Rush Limbaugh, the same medal. Hate speech is lauded as courage, ignorance is achievement, and bigotry is given a standing ovation.

What is America’s true genius? It is not freedom, nor democracy, nor justice. It is advertising. America knows how to brand lies so well that even those poor whites crushed beneath its boot have decided they are better than all people of color. It sells genocide as destiny. It sells slavery as heritage. It sells Trump as a savior. It sells Charlie Kirk as a martyr. It sells racism as conservative. And it sells “greatness” as though it were ever more than a fairy tale written by white supremacists. In a land ruled by lies, hatred is dressed as virtue, and racist traitors are crowned with medals of freedom they never earned.

Greatness requires truth, but America thrives on delusion. Greatness requires justice, but America builds prisons instead and populates them with people of color while white insurrectionists go free. Greatness requires healing, but America only knows how to wound. From plantations to reservations, from lynching trees to prison cells, from drowning and destroying Black thriving cities, from the Oval Office to the riot on the Capitol steps, America has chosen violence as its signature and hypocrisy as its creed.

If you need proof that America prefers its lies monumental, look to Georgia’s Stone Mountain. There, blasted into granite, loom the figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson—Confederate traitors carved larger than life. It is not history. It is propaganda. Built during Jim Crow and unveiled during the Civil Rights Movement, Stone Mountain is a permanent sneer, a towering reminder to Black America that white supremacy still writes the story.

And so the monument stands: a mountain of lies, visible from miles away, impossible to ignore. America carries that mountain on its back every day, dragging it forward, whistling the song, Dixie, while insisting it is free.

“I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times they are not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.”

Until this wretched country tears down not only the stone but the systems of structural racism it symbolizes, America will remain what it has always been—powerful, yes. Ruthless, yes. But great? Nah. Never.