Truth Matters

We need gatekeepers now more than ever

by Stacey Warde

I spent the bulk of my career in the days prior to the internet working as a gatekeeper. I managed the flow of information. 

As an editor, aka “gatekeeper,” I took great pride in making sure that what passed through my hands and landed in the news pages could be trusted, based on verifiable facts.

I picked through press releases, advertisements disguised as “news,” and avoided ploys by politicians and other charlatans to grab the limelight that wasn’t theirs to own. I looked for hard, usable data and read all the local and metropolitan rags. Mostly, I sought a good story, which was compelling, dramatic, and filled with solid, robust information, and backed with reliable, trustworthy  sources. I liked to tease my brain with information I could trust; I still do.

I spent the better part of 25 years deciding for various small communities, for religious as well as secular audiences, what they would get to read as “news.” I decided what, in the flood of data then in circulation, would get a share of the precious, and limited, “news hole” that was my job as editor to fill. 

Gatekeeping is an art that requires tested skills, an analytical mind, a few logs, and an effective way to screen truth from fiction.

I treated  limited space in the newspaper as if it were high-end real estate. The closer to the front of the book, as far as I was concerned, the more value it held. The cover story, for example, belonged to me, and to our readers. I protected that space through heated discussions and a passion for truth. It received the greatest play and attention, occupying pages that advertisers would pay thousands for.

My primary task was to make sure that information could hold up to the scrutiny of informed readers, have something of value, something of vital significance, for the whole community, and could be established, as much as was possible, in fact. The risk, otherwise, was to suffer the consequences of libel, which could ruin a publication, or at the very least destroy its credibility, which ultimately meant certain death, a severe drop in faithful readership, which advertisers seek to influence with their dollars.

Mostly, libel suits, in my experience, failed because they were issued more as threats rather than as actual attempts to reclaim verifiable truth and to protect one’s character from real defamation. The two or three libel threats sent my way during those 25 years came to nothing. 

On one occasion, for example, I ran a story about a local video producer of a series that featured bar room fights while women, strategically placed for the big event, would flash their breasts. In one of the videos, a patron of the bar got plunked on the head for no apparent reason and soon he was in the midst of a fight. The police came and cleaned the place out.

The unsuspecting patron had no idea that the melee was staged or being videotaped, at least not until a friend who had seen the video called to say, “Hey, dude, I was just watching this video with all these babes flashing their titties and  you were in it, fighting. What’s up with that?”

The victim researched the matter and found that the whole thing had been staged. He made a big stink about it, contacted the authorities and gave us a heads up, wondering if we would be interested in telling his story. We were and we did.

The producer, outed for the phony setup and for putting unsuspecting patrons at risk of injury or arrest, threatened to sue for libel. Our attorney sent a one-paragraph letter back, explaining the basics of libel law, indicating they had no basis for a suit because there was nothing actionable, meaning “false, misleading, or malicious.”

Truth is the best defense against libel. A person might feel defamed but if the facts can be established–through the court systems, government agencies, or through other incriminating evidence–there’s no libel, there’s no slander, and no risk of going to court.

Today, however, in the war zones of social media and platforms that claim no responsibility for what gets posted or published, libels and slanders flourish, the truth be damned. Facts don’t matter. Instead, malicious individuals with an agenda fabricate half-truths to look like facts, which they then publish and use to mislead and hurt others. Few are held accountable.

Consequently, in the midst of this insane free-for-all, there’s little to no consensus on important issues such as how to govern, how to proceed toward a healthier, more vibrant democracy, where people are held accountable for what they proclaim and publish, where truth matters.

In the best circumstances, citizens can discern fact from fiction, and can think critically about what they consume in today’s world of information overload. This will only happen with media, especially with social media, that can be trusted, that can take responsibility for ensuring the robust solidity of their content.

Gatekeepers, the idea went before the web spread its tentacles across the planet, gleaned reliable data from false and misleading information. They vetted everything that went into publication to inform rather than confuse, mislead, or hurt readers, to give them a solid footing in the workings of their community. An informed readership, I was taught, would make better decisions–for themselves and their community. They would, ultimately, be less divided.

Fights and heated disagreements might break out over an unpopular story or idea but seldom, as far as I can remember, did a mob of malicious malcontents descend upon school boards to harass, intimidate or outright terrorize the opposition, forcing others, not negotiating with them, to see things their way. There were no insurrections, or misinformed and pathetically misled mobs storming the nation’s Capitol, all for the sake of promulgating The Big Lie.

This, by the way, is how fascists operate. And fascists don’t like truth. Fascists are fabricators that have no respect for dialog and established facts. They make up their own “facts.” 

They cherry pick their data to boastfully make their false claims, they bully and harass those who disagree with them, even when those who disagree have a better grasp of reality, and they refuse to listen to sound reason, primarily, I believe, because gatekeepers no longer play a key role where truth and sound reason are factors, at least in social media, in the dissemination of trustworthy information. It’s a giant free-for-all of fools tearing at one another’s eyeballs. 

Often, the bloviators who organize around or through social media don’t know what they actually stand for because they don’t possess any reliable data to back their claims. Their bag of goodies is full of holes. Mostly, all they can offer are random bits of insider jargon, a fist-full of fake “facts” and a failure to glean truth from a lie. This is what happens when gatekeepers no longer have a role in what gets played in the media, when social media platforms refuse to take responsibility for what they feature on their sites.

I took some hard knocks for not getting things right. Readers who knew the truth, I learned, spoke loudly when falsehoods or misleading data got published in the local paper or magazine. They called, and let me know: Truth matters, get it right!

That lesson came home to me again and again but especially as my responsibilities began to increase, including editorial decisions that could very well, and sometimes did, send someone to jail, or cause disruption in the community. Truth matters, and not everyone likes the truth. But it’s better than a lie, and a more reliable indicator of a healthy democracy, and trained, knowledgeable gatekeepers can help to make that happen.  

Stacey Warde is editor of The Rogue Voice. Please feel free to add your comments.

The new Cayucos Supermarket

Enter the Cayucos Supermarket these days and customers will note major changes from the way it was just one year ago.

For starters, they’ll find more product on the shelves, clean floors, and the place looks and smells nice. 

That’s because new owners have taken over and, as co-owner and storekeeper Yamen “Allen” Tanous points out, this is only the beginning of major changes to come, such as new cooling units for meat and other products, a newly re-vamped produce section with fare from local farmers, and a deli with healthy options. 

“Things have been good for us so far,” says Tanous, “the only thing we’re waiting for to make real change is approval from the planning department.” He’s waited 11 months so far but Tanous expects approval to come from the county any day and then, he says, “We can start to make this the best market we can with good prices and healthy choices.” 

New storekeeper Yamen “Allen” Tanous looks forward to creating a better grocery shopping experience for Cayucos shoppers.

While Tanous claims there’s little that has really changed, at least not yet, not until he can begin work on improvements with the planning department’s blessing, longtime customers will note right away the floors are clean and dry, the old familiar foul odors are gone, and the shelves are sparkly and full. 

“From day one,” he says, “I started cleaning, cleaning, cleaning–and I’m still cleaning–and I work very hard to make this a good place, sometimes working late into the morning, but I’m very happy. This is what I like to do.” 

When the remodel is completed, he says, “the store will be 100 percent different. I want everything to be clean and fresh with really good, healthy food on the shelves.” 

Already, customers can find organic selections that were not previously available as well as more food choices from local producers, including fresh baked bread from Pagnol in Baywood Park, and farm fresh eggs, as well as a wide selection of local beer and wine, even greeting cards and clothing. 

It’s taken some time to get things rolling; the first challenge was to get a reliable supplier with enough selection of healthy options. That took a few months but Tanous hooked up with Unified Foods.

Tanous says he and his family love to cook and eat nutritious food so he understands the importance of providing healthy choices to the local community. Having a local market is more than just a convenience for residents and tourists visiting Cayucos, he says. During the coronavirus pandemic, for example, he’s done his best to make sure customers can find everything they need right here at home. 

Additionally, he makes a point to deliver groceries to residents who are unable to get to the market. “I make a local delivery to older folks” who can’t get around, he says. “You help me, and I help you. We help a lot of people.”

God loves pagans

But Christians hate them

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Any religious or spiritual practice outside the church’s seal of approval can be attributed to only one source–Satan, another church contrivance created by religious ignoramuses and bigots. And Satan, we all know, must be destroyed.

Editor’s note: In  the face of the more recent rise of right-wing, Christian bigotry, it’s worthwhile to revisit church bias and its influence on culture.

By Stacey Warde

The church’s myopic vision of itself often leaves believers thinking history started with Jesus. Christians forget the tens of thousands of years of human history that predate Jesus, or they write them off as irrelevant.

Or worse, they’re entirely ignorant of the way the world was before the time of Christ. They haven’t any clue about how people lived, or what they believed, unless it’s in the context of biblical archeology, or viewed through the theologically “superior” filters of the church doctors.

Thus, Christianity’s take on history is rife with prejudice and ignorance, strengthened by the supposed enlightened, God-inspired, doctrinaire twists and turns of yarns spun from the Bible. Christians wrap an entire history, no matter how inconvenient, in a fabric of their own making–”the world as it was,” as seen through the cloak of church dogma.

Of course, history viewed in this fashion makes it easier for Christians to discard as morally and spiritually inferior any and all other religious practices and faiths that don’t have the biblical and patriarchal colored thread running through them. Especially marked for scorn, if not outright hatred, by good Christians intent on spreading God’s love, are pagans and other nature lovers who lived and worshiped in the countryside, and who mostly resisted early Christianity’s claim to preeminence in all things spiritual. Pagans, by most accounts, were good people but the church has never viewed them that way.

This unfortunate myopia has led to needless persecution and suffering for those who have refused to acknowledge the church’s declarations of primacy, power and truth. The history of the church is replete with cruelty toward people who draw their spiritual nourishment from other sources, whether from trees, oracles, yoga, crystal balls or a stack of cards. Christians typically ascribe the source of these peculiar practices to the devil. Any religious or spiritual practice outside the church’s seal of approval can be attributed to only one source–Satan, another church contrivance created by religious ignoramuses and bigots. And Satan, we all know, must be destroyed.

***

In 1999, I attended a spring conference of Episcopal Communicators at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The aged and hallowed place of learning was the perfect setting for the annual gathering of intelligent, liberally minded editorial professionals, whose job is to offer clear-headed perspective and keep Episcopalians informed about the world around them, and on events affecting the modern American church.

While sitting at lunch one afternoon, I overheard at my table two women, both leaders in their respective dioceses, confide that they had examined and studied Wicca, a modern and, in some cases, formalized remake of ancient pagan rituals, derogatorily known as witchcraft. I respected these women because they had been doing their jobs for a long time, had advanced in their careers, kept a good humor about themselves and their work in the church, and were well-known and liked by their peers at the conference.

“You guys have looked into Wicca?” I queried, astounded at their admission of going outside church boundaries for spiritual nourishment. I’d never heard anyone in the church say one nice thing about pagans or witches. It’s more rare than a female Catholic priest, rarer still that highly esteemed women in the church would confide their own respectable interest in pagan practices. Coincidentally, I had also recently found a similar interest in nature religions and in people who had practiced pagan rituals long before Christians decided it was a good thing to burn them at the stake.

“Yes!” they responded in hushed tones. “We’ve even participated in some of their gatherings.”

“Why? What do you get out of it?”

For women, they said, Wicca offered empowering alternatives to the wooden assurances from an institution still essentially run and governed by men. Sure, women were being ordained, finally, after nearly 2,000 years of church history, and yes, the Episcopal Church was first among mainstream Christian institutions to ordain women, but they were basically still second-class citizens whose rise to prominence in church power circles was then being stifled by what was known as the “stained glass ceiling.”

Women aren’t likely to find stained-glass ceilings under a canopy of trees in the forest or in nature where feminine principles of birthing, nurture and sensuality abound and receive their due respect. I had also begun to look into the history of religious practices that predated the church and found that nature religions, which observed the seasons and the elements and respected the body as much as the spirit, were as sophisticated and intelligent as any. In fact, pagans appeared to be more at ease with themselves and natural systems, and better at understanding their environment than “subdue-and-dominate-the-earth” Christians.

In their discomfort with nature, and the formalized pagan observances associated with her, churchgoers will be quick to note that paganism–especially the Wiccan variety–offers devil-inspired, and ignorant, forms of worship. The church views paganism as aberrant spiritual practices that put destructive forces into play, where men and women perform rituals to invoke magick and demonic power, and engage in a tantalizing dance with the devil that leads to darkness and death. Sadly, Christian contempt for pagans is based as much on superstition and bugaboos as it is on practical experience or reasonable theological explanations.

Further investigation shows, however, that pagan rituals most likely originated from primitive, earth-based experiences in which devotees lived in closer contact with plants, animals and soil. Their knowledge of herbs and natural medicines, and their acute awareness of the seasons and how these played a vital role in the survival of the community or tribe, led to observances and practices that were often ritualized and celebrated.

Primitive cultures incorporated ritual to note the change of seasons, the passage of the sun and moon, the shortening and lengthening of days, and these helped to guide them in their seasonal rhythms for planting, tending, harvesting and storing food. These rituals played a vital role in the community’s survival. They weren’t merely window dressing, as some rituals in the church, for the emotionally distraught, or for casting spells on their enemies.

Along the way, Christian orthodoxy demonized even the simplest and most basic of these rituals, which were birthed from the natural order of things. And where these rituals weren’t demonized or outlawed upon penalty of death, or where indigenous people refused to let go of them, they were co-opted by the church and turned into “Christian” observations. Most notable, of course, are Christmas and Easter, originally pagan observances noting the cycles of life, and respectively, the return of the sun and rebirth.

Unfortunately, so many of today’s Christians fail to understand where their own rituals and observations originated. Consequently, they tend to view their sacred traditions as unique, original, and the only “true” forms of religious practice for understanding the spiritual and material worlds. It’s easy, therefore, to demonize any religious form that doesn’t conform to their models, and to ostracize or condemn anyone who participates in unorthodox or non-Christian religious observances.

***

The women at the conference agreed that earth-based religions offered another viable option for understanding the world, for gaining self-knowledge, enlightenment, personal power and spiritual renewal–albeit in a context viewed unfavorably by the church. The church claims its right as the only institution in which these qualities can be properly exercised, under the watchful care and eye of the priesthood, which in turn performs the task of submitting everything to the scrutiny of church doctrine.

Ideally, the hierarchy works best under the compassionate embrace of Jesus. The benefits of self-knowledge and the wielding of personal power, especially, ought to always be engaged with the same measure of humility as Christ, which you seldom see in church circles where women do not share seats of power.

I understood the women’s curiosity about paganism and spiritual sources outside the church that promise renewed energy, power, or even love. The church, try as it might, seemed often to fail individual believers, as well as the larger Christian community, in giving them the necessary tools to grow and rely less on authority, to find personal strength through love and through a healthful, life-affirming connection with nature. It had generally failed, as it does today, to challenge power structures that have destroyed communities through graft, greed, corruption, and environmental decimation. It had failed to appreciate the wisdom of ancient nature religions, pointing instead to their aberrations, rather than acknowledging their reverence for natural processes upon which all life depends. Finally, it had failed in myriad other ways and it was no wonder why Christians would then seek hope or empowerment outside the church.

The conversation struck a chord and I couldn’t shake it from my mind. Weary of the hypocrisy, the false enthusiasms and ennui hobbling church gatherings, weary in fact of its authoritarian governance and crippling oversight, and outraged at the ongoing intolerance for and prejudice against other religious groups and practices, I wrote an account of my encounter with these daring women, defending pagans and encouraging a dialog with them in the diocesan newspaper that I was then editing. (Friends later observed that I had written my own termination piece.)

The piece lobbied readers to consider the benefits of an interfaith dialog with pagans in a similar vein to the church’s attempts to converse with other denominations. Clearly, an earth-based connection to the numinous might give Christians new insight into their religious experiences, might even lead to new sources of inspiration, and a more complete understanding of the world in which we live.

“The revival of ancient pre-Christian religious practices,” I wrote, “including shamanism, suggests to me that the Living Water we seek might also be found in sources other than in official church doctrines, fables and rituals, which remain in desperate need of renewal.”

I threw open the possibility of finding spiritual truth and renewal in sources beyond the confines of church dogma and hierarchy and ritual. I never suggested Christians join their pagan brothers and sisters, also children of God whom God loves, to worship the forces of darkness. I asked only that Christians try to open their minds and look at history with a different, less biased filter, one not so densely opaque with prejudice against non-Christians. I had hoped, rather naively it turns out, that Christians might find at least an objective interest in and curiosity about the way people lived and worshiped during the tens of thousands of years prior to the birth of Christ, especially since so many of their own traditions were established long before the various church councils wrote them into law.

The commentary, titled “Neopaganism: Revival of nature religions could be instructive for Christians languishing from church torpor,” resulted in numerous letters, most notable of which were those sent by church leaders. One, from an abbot in a Midwest monastery, suggested I quit the church immediately and go work for Satan. Another letter writer, pretending to agree with the commentary, suggested that we go on a church outing, climb a mountain and “throw human sacrifices into a volcano.”

Reactions like these, I thought, proved my point. Dogmatized Christians live in fear of and cannot fathom holding an intelligent or rational conversation with people who would rather spend a day in the forest than sit in a musty church and listen to diatribes against gays, pagans, and women priests. That’s less of an issue for Episcopalians but it’s easy to find members who’ll squawk just the same, as they did in response to my commentary about the possibility of pagans in their midst.

In the end, I got fired for it. The bishop’s secretary called within days of publication and said the good bishop was eager to meet with me to talk about my article. She made it sound like fun and games and I expressed my concern that the bishop was going to fire me. “Oh, he wouldn’t fire you,” she assured me. “He just wants to meet with you.” I knew better and on a warm afternoon at Keefer’s Restaurant in King City, over tea and tapioca pudding, the bishop informed me that my services were no longer needed. I reminded him that four months and nearly $18,000 of income remained in our contract.

“Well, we’ve got a problem,” he said.

“You should honor our contract and let me go after it’s completed,” I urged.

He refused and cut me off, effective immediately. Suddenly, I had no job and no means to support myself, and in the end I had to hire an attorney and threaten a lawsuit before I received compensation for the four months remaining in the breached contract. Meanwhile, I incurred debts and was forced to move out of my home. The bishop’s vindictiveness spoke volumes about his commitment to God’s love for sinners and of his willingness to honor his word. But most of all it reconfirmed for me the terrible meanness and ignorance that arise when Christians choose to demonize the things they don’t understand.

***

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice.

Fernando’s grief

The lack of money was starting to get to Fernando. He’d asked me several times when he was going to get paid. He seemed worried, agitated.
Photos by Stacey Warde

By Stacey Warde

Fernando came out to the field and asked if there was any work. I told him to take it easy. Nothing to do today, I said. Mañana!

He left, appearing content, though his money and food were in low supply and his mother was sick in a hospital in Mexico. He returned less than an hour later.

“Mi Madre!” he began, wailing, letting loose the saddest string of Spanish words I’d ever heard, though technically I didn’t understand them.

The message, however, was clear: His mother was dead.

He’d received the message on his cell phone minutes earlier. He began to sob, I put my arm around his neck, and he embraced me. Tears fell for a moment. Then he told me he still wanted to work the next day, and sadly turned away to walk back to his humble trailer beside the packing house.

Fernando lived on the farm where we leased acreage to grow blueberries. He kept his little trailer neat and tidy and grew beautiful roses and kept a vegetable garden with peppers, corn and tomatillos. He was friendly and occasionally we’d drink a beer together after work.

He told me that roses were grown and harvested in his hometown where he’d grown up. He hadn’t been back home in years.

He kept his little trailer neat and tidy and grew beautiful roses and kept a vegetable garden with peppers, corn and tomatillos.

He was a seasonal worker who had come out to ask if we had any labor as we were setting up the field the year before. We put him to work whenever we could. He was a steady, even worker, although sometimes he’d get it wrong and have to do it over again.

As we worked in the field the following morning, Fernando’s cell phone rang and he began an animated conversation in Spanish. I can’t be sure but I think he was trying to explain to a sibling why he couldn’t attend his mother’s funeral.

With no green card or car, he could not risk leaving the U.S. for fear that he might never be allowed to come back. Unable to travel, he is the only child who won’t be at his mother’s memorial. He’s stuck with me working on the farm.

“Maybe Decembré,” he said when I asked him later if he planned to go home.

“December!” That’s almost a year from now, I told him.

“No denaro.” With no money or car or legal papers, he’s isolated, unable to travel or go places. His sister lives a few strides up the dirt road in a home with a family of her own. They haven’t been around the last few days, on an out-of-town venture.

I’m guessing she’s with other family—in L.A. or Mexico, I’m not sure. Her husband, who was already in Mexico and about to return home, is staying on a few days to assist the in-laws, according to Fernando, who has borne his grief mostly alone.

I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m beginning to understand him more as we both use signs, signals and spanglish to converse.

The lack of money was starting to get to Fernando. He’d asked me several times when he was going to get paid. He seemed worried, agitated.

“No denaro, no comida!” he exclaimed.

“You’ve got no food, Fernando?”

“No!”

I’ll do what I can, I responded. I don’t make the payments. I’ll let the boss know right away, I told him, which I did.

I brought him some comida, tamales and pintos the next day. I bought them with my last bit of denaro, about $10 in cash, which I had until my own payday. I understood his frustration and hoped he wasn’t making a fool of me. How could he not have any food?

I’m a sucker for hard cases. I figured it was better to err on the side of foolishness than see a grown man go hungry. So I brought him food.

He watches me as I explain how to move the bags so we don’t trip over the spaghetti tubing that feeds the plants.

When his phone rang, we were moving about 500 heavy, water-laden, soil-filled, 5-gallon grow bags into place, a task that wouldn’t have been necessary had Fernando set them up the way I had shown him from the start.

This has happened before, where I’ve demonstrated how to perform a task, explaining verbally and showing physically how to do it, and he continues to do it another way.

He watched me as I explained how to move the bags so we don’t trip over the spaghetti tubing that feeds the plants.

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t understand me. “Fernando,” I said, “move the bags closer to where the tubes come out of the drip line so people and dogs won’t trip over them and break them. OK?”

I pretended to catch my foot on the loop to demonstrate accidental tripping. “OK?” I asked. “No tripping.”

I moved the heavy bag so that it protected the connectors, preventing the loops from catching people’s legs and feet. He nodded OK, indicating he understood. He went after it, slowly moving the bags into place.

He missed a bag. I didn’t get on him about it. I could move it later. But I’m amazed at how quickly he lets one go. Maybe it’s sloppiness, a failure to notice, a failure to care—or grief. I can’t be sure.

I had broken two connections the day before. Working alone, I tripped over the tubing and broke the connectors, which snapped right off.

I held a can of spray paint under my arm; I was marking the broken connections. When I bent over to pick up the loose spaghetti tubing I’d just broken, I managed to blast the paint into my face and eye.

My head already hurt and my eyes felt sore in the light, like a hangover, from the moment I’d awakened that morning. A friend told me it was a reaction to the radical pressure changes in advance of several storm systems about to slam into California’s southern coastline.

Each time I bent over, my head would ache and pound. I’d already adjusted 200 plants and felt terrible. The paint blast to the face put me over the top and I threw the can as far as I could in a fit of anger.

I was mad at Fernando for not doing what I’d asked him to do in the first place, and mad at myself for not watching him more closely. I was mad for not paying attention to how I was holding the spray can, and mad for doing work that wasn’t necessary, for picking up after Fernando with a splitting headache.

“It’s like watching a child,” the boss said once.

My newest neighbor, recently relocated to California and had at one time managed his father’s vineyards, said: “I hate to sound prejudiced or anything but sometimes I think they do it because it’s job security.”

You mean the workers purposely do things the wrong way so they’ll have work?

“Yeah,” he said, without hesitating, “I think they’re a lot smarter than we give them credit. They pretend not to understand and that way they can keep working.”

If that’s true, I said, they should be laughing at us stupid gringos.

“They are,” he said.

Fernando wasn’t laughing. When he hung up the phone, I heard a loud snapping sound, as though one of the bags had been suddenly pulled apart.

I turned and saw the top half of the heavy bag torn in two places where his hands had just tried to pick it up. He stood over the bag, back hunched over, arms hanging at his sides. He seemed frustrated, angry, defeated.

Until that point there hadn’t been any mishaps moving the bags, even though Fernando had continued to try lifting them instead of sliding them over the way I had shown him.

I stood up and walked over to him. “Are you OK, Fernando?”

He nodded his head, “Yes.” His eyes were red with grief and fury.

I watched as he continued to move the bags, he was listless and unhappy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him to go home. He needed the work as much—maybe more—than I did. §

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice.

Black women should rule

Stacey Abrams, a Democrat from Georgia, is the first black female nominee in U.S. history to run for governor for a major party. She lost the 2018 midterm election amid claims of voter suppression.

by Dell Franklin

Nobody has had it tougher than black women in this country, and nobody is tougher.

In 1969, in New Orleans, as a 25-year-old, I got hired off the street as ship’s storekeeper on the Delta Queen Riverboat—the last sternwheeler to ply the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers as a passenger-carrying vessel. I was the only white face to hold a job other than the officers and two engineers. Porters, deck hands, bartenders, waiters, the kitchen crew and maids were all black, and were the backbone of the majestic Queen of the river.

The maids all seemed in their forties, and when I ran into any of them in my comings and goings they always smiled and said, “Hi, mistah sto’keepah, how y’all doing today?” And I always answered, “Just fine, ma’am. How are you?” As time went on, they seemed to find humor in my bearded sloppy appearance, and giggled in a fond motherly way, nodding, making eye contact, and I found them sensuous and earthy and felt a natural nurturing from them, a comfort that put me at ease and allowed me to actually like myself at such a discontented time in my life. They looked at me like I was somebody of value, and counted.

There were five of them, all from Memphis, and when we docked in Memphis for a layover their grown sons and daughters picked them up and toted their suitcases; and the ship’s chef, who was also from Memphis, told me about all the maids who came onto the Queen had grown up down in Mississippi sharecropping cotton and later moved to Memphis to do domestic work while at the same time raising their children. Some times as single mothers.

At night the crew dining room became the place to listen to music and visit, and the maids always sat at a table together and endured the wise cracks from cocky porters, and once, a lady named Dolores slapped one in the face so hard the sound reverberated throughout the cramped dining room. And that was that. These same churchgoing ladies, who sent most of their paychecks home but dressed up to go to lunch when we hit New Orleans, were nobody to mess with.

A waiter named Davis, a former Pullman porter in his fifties who’d played baseball in the Negro Leagues and was still as spry as a 25-year-old, and knew how to dress, put me under his wing as a sort of mentor, properly dressed me, and took me to a blues club in Memphis where he promised to show me the “real blues,” something I knew nothing about, being the typical whitey raised on pablum rock ‘n roll in Los Angeles.

Black women have emerged as the bedrock of the Democratic Party, and the single last hope for this country

Three of the maids and three of the waiters came along and we brought in our own bottles and sat at a long table in a dim, packed blues club and listened to the grating shiver of guitars, the groaning of a harmonica, the constant beat of drums, the deep rasp of a singer, the melding of down-home blues from the Delta, the saddest music I’ve ever listened to, and I’d never seen people so happy partying to it. Dolores forced me to get out on the floor and dance with all these black folks who made me feel lame and awkward as they moved about so easily to the music.

“Don’t y’all be shy now, mistah sto’keepah, jes’ follow mah lead, chile.”

She got me to dance. She got me moving and into the swing of things, forgetting my self-consciousness, without saying a word, but merely nodding and smiling and encouraging me, and at one point I said, “Dolores, I’ve never seen people have so much fun dancing to such sad music, it’s all about heartbreak and betrayal and suffering and misery….” She lifted her face and looked me in the eye and said, “Baby, us black folks jes’ got to celebrate our bad times or they kill us.”

This statement could be an anthem to most black women in this country, and now, in the year 2019, they have emerged, to me, as the bedrock of the Democratic Party, and the single last hope for this country. The bad times that have nearly killed all of them have also made them ten times tougher than the old pasty-faced, saggy jowled white Republicans disgracing themselves and the country in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Bad times that nearly killed them have made them ten times tougher than a droopy billionaire like the vacant cipher who owns Starbucks, or the young techie nerds and super macho blowhards coming up out of the white suburbs and those icky prep schools and Ivy League colleges that have produced smug stooges like our latest entry onto the Supreme Court.

Out of this ongoing morass came the likes of Oprah, Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama, Stacey Abrams, Maxine Waters, to name a few; and only a fool would want to tangle with any of them on an intellectual level, or a common sense level. These spirited women are spawn of a world where black mothers, in many cases, were saddled with men humiliated by the system that offered them little compared to the white man and beat them down further when they were rejected for the color of their skin and only the color of their skin. Crappy schools that offered them little but crappy jobs, crappy wages, or no jobs, especially during the worst of times.

In most cases, the women held everything together. They raised their children in blighted projects and gave them the only thing that enabled them to survive—food, clothing, love, warmth, encouragement, and hope. They were treated as chattel, destined to drudge work for the lowest wages, and as distilleries of reproduction. In movies, they were doting nannies or servile maids humored by wealthy white people. They were seen as background objects, never in the forefront, always in support, and surely never groomed for greatness, unless they were entertainers or athletes.

Not now. Now there is burgeoning pride among these gals, led by the likes of powerful black women who have been through it all, are tougher than anybody in this country, know how to talk to people eloquently on a human level, literally shimmer with pride at who they are and what they’ve accomplished; and behind them, in a massive show of genuine black pride are all the black women in this country who have come so far and have these dynamic leaders to look up to and follow.

Give me Kamala Harris on this ticket any day, and she’ll carry whomever else is on it. It’s time.

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif. Visit his website: dellfranklin.com

Trump’s appalling policy

Separating children from asylum-seeking parents

by Stacey Warde

When news first broke about the U.S. government losing 1,475 immigrant children, I made a cursory search to determine the story’s veracity.

Satisfied that initial reports were true, I fired off an angry letter to Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein.

“Please do the right thing…and pressure those who are responsible to reunite the missing children with their parents immediately.”

Then, Dave Congalton, host of KVEC’s Hometown Radio Show, asked me to come on the air to discuss the issue (to listen, click on this KVEC link).

After looking more thoroughly into the matter, I realized that my letter and response, a hazard in today’s volatile news environment, were not quite fully informed.

Turns out, more worry and focused attention would be better spent on the children our government is separating from their parents on the grounds that they’re trying to enter the U.S. illegally.

It’s an appalling fact, even if the children and their parents are illegal. But the truth of the matter is that most of the immigrants crossing the border are fleeing widespread violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They’re seeking asylum not a cover for illegal entry, as claimed by the Trump Administration.

In April, a government official told Congress that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a wing of the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for underaged undocumented immigrants (mostly seeking asylum), had “lost track” of 1,500 children.

The ensuing uproar (including my letter) demanded that the responsible government officials find them and ensure their well being by reuniting them with family.

Since 2014, when there was an unusual influx of these undocumented minors without parents or guardians, the government, under recent legislation, began classifying them as “unaccompanied,” placing them into the care of ORR.

Under federal law, these children must be placed into the care of a parent or guardian as quickly as possible, or kept in a detention center.

Apparently, the government’s failure to reach these caregivers made it seem the children had slipped through the system. Also, some advocates argue parents and family of these children don’t want the government to know their whereabouts.

Compounding the issue, on May 7, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in an attempt to discourage illegal border crossings, also took aim at those seeking asylum: “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”

White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly then told NPR’s John Burnett that “the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long. “

Since, there have been troubling reports of parents being separated from their children, who are then reclassified as “unaccompanied,” and placed into detention centers, where there have been numerous complaints of child abuse, including rape and beatings.

Additionally, the ORR’s Scott Lloyd, a pro-life attorney, appears to be flaunting federal law, reportedly refusing medical care to minors seeking abortion after being raped, and holding detainees longer than is legal.

The Trump Administration argues that these minors are the children of “criminals,” and therefore should be separated, placed in confinement while their parents are sent to  detention facilities or prisons, where they will eventually be deported.

During my conversation with Congalton, a listener asked why I wasn’t petitioning the Mexican government for all this illegal immigration. Mexico was coddling the immigrants, encouraging more criminals to enter the U.S. illegally.

“I’m not a citizen of Mexico,” I told him, and my complaint has more to do with how the U.S. is treating children looking for a safe place to go. Mexico has shown more humanity than the U.S. in the matter.

Advocates say these refugees are not criminals, they’re not breaking the law, but are seeking asylum from gang and street violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The Trump Administration claims it’s separating children from their parents to discourage this flood of immigrants seeking safe haven in the U.S.

Meanwhile, child advocates like attorney Megan Stuart, writing in Rewire.News, argues: “We need to think twice about asking any government, especially one that proudly equates immigrants with gang members and calls them “animals,” for more scrutiny, more monitoring, and more targeting of kids and their communities.”

Also, “We don’t expect or want local jails or prisons to track folks once they are released to loved ones.”

The Trump Administration, she says, is turning this into an immigration crisis, claiming that these children are being placed with families to escape scrutiny, thus enter illegally.

Finally, false reports, as expected in a Trumpian world, will continue to circulate the interweb regarding the status of these children, their reason for coming here and the so-called criminality of their parents. §

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice. He can be reached by email: roguewarde@gmail.com Twitter: @roguewarde.