Here is a story that I heard on NPR this week. It is a tale of a remarkable little girl. A tale that deserves to be retold. It goes like this.
In a small town (Population 9,027) located in northwestern Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, about 16 miles (26 km) west of New York City and 6 miles (9.7 km) north-west of Newark, a little White girl aged nine went out to work on a science project and to help her community. She had learned that spotted lanternflies were a nuisance species and she decided to collect as many as she could and use them in a science exhibit to educate others about them. Until this week, the most noteworthy thing about Caldwell was that it was the birthplace of Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. He was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, was born in Caldwell on March 18, 1837.
As the little girl went from tree to tree collecting these bugs, a former council member and neighbor named Gordon Lawshe saw the little girl going from tree to tree and picking something off the trees. He was not sure what she was doing but he decided to help her. He put his jacket on and went out to see how he could assist her.
Wait a Minute! Hold on there Persico. You have got your facts all wrong. That is not how the story goes!
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. It was not a little White girl; it was a little Black girl. It was a former city council member named Gordon Lawshe. However, he did not go out to help her. Seeing a nine-year-old Black girl going from tree to tree terrified him. He wasted no time calling the police on our little budding scientist. You can probably guess Gordon’s skin color so I won’t bother telling you.
After the police came and traumatized little Bobbi Wilson, they realized that she posed no threat to the community. Fortunately, her mother had come out before they took Bobbi away in handcuffs.
Now there are many in America who say that racism is dead. They believe that Black people are always playing the “Race Card” when they talk about unfair treatment or systemic racism. Just the other day, the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction (Tom Horne) said in an interview that there is NO MORE systemic racism in the USA. This man is in charge of education in our state!
In 2008, the U.S. House of Representative issued a formal apology for slavery and Jim Crow laws. This was passed by a voice vote. A rather imprecise method of voting which shields anyone from being identified with a particular stance. A year later, the Senate advanced S. Con. Res. 26 of the 111th Congress, a concurrent resolution apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African Americans. Republicans now seem bent on reversing this apology by making it harder for Blacks, other minorities, and poor people to vote. While monetary reparations were given to Japanese Americans for their internment and mistreatment during WW II, any talk of reparations for slavery generates heated arguments.
Today, the country is seething over the idea of addressing racism in the public schools. It is feared that White Children will feel guilty. Mention Critical Race Theory and you will get shut down quick in school districts all over the country. Even worse is the onslaught on textbooks to sanitize them so that “negative” aspects of American history are omitted.
But all of the above is very academic. For little Black Bobbi Wilson, it probably will not mean much. She would just like to be treated like any nine-year-old White girl with a penchant for science would be treated. Fortunately, our story does not end with her near arrest. National Public Radio published the following article about Bobbi on their website. I have included some excerpts from the article as well as a link to the entire article. It is very heartwarming and worth reading. There are many good people in America and this helps us to remember that.
Nine-year-old Bobbi Wilson may be in the fourth grade, but last month the Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony honoring the budding scientist’s recent work.
The university entered Bobbi’s collection of 27 spotted lanternflies — an extremely invasive species that is harmful to trees and other plants — into the Peabody Museum of Natural History database. Bobbi was also presented with the title of “donor scientist” during the Jan. 20 ceremony.
“We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community,” Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor at the school, said in a statement.
Weeks Earlier:
Former City Council member, Gordon Lawshe calls the police department to report: “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees on Elizabeth and Florence,” Lawshe told the dispatcher, according to a call obtained by CNN.
“I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though,” Lawshe added.
Outside, Bobbi, a petite child who wears pink-framed glasses, was doing her bit to comply with the state’s Stomp it Out! campaign, which urges New Jersey residents to help eradicate the spotted lanternfly infestation. She’d learned about it at school and made her own version of an insect repellent she’d seen on TikTok. Making her way from tree to tree, Bobbi would spray the bugs, pluck them from the tree and drop them into a plastic bottle.
Bobbi was still at it when an officer arrived, curious about what she was doing. Body camera footage shows officer Kevin O’Neill approach the child before her mother, Monique Joseph, intervenes.
“You know, you hear about racism; you kind of experience it in your peripheral. If you’re lucky in your life. It doesn’t come knocking on your door. That morning when it happened, my world stopped,” Bobbi’s mother said, according to the university. She added: “The whole community, the science community, got together and said, ‘She’s one of us and we’re not going to let her lose her steam for STEM. We’re going to support the family, we’re going to support this girl.”
So all’s well that ends well right? Well, not exactly. There are thousands of little Black girls and little Black boys in America. When will this end for them? What will it take to end racism? When will we stop judging people by the color of their skins and instead judge them by their character and morality?
Brink: I might put it a little different way. I think those of us who are such strong supporters within the U.S. government, within the American population, for Ukraine, support Ukraine because we see, or we think we see, and understand the future that Ukrainians want. And that is a future where Ukraine is free, independent, prosperous, sovereign and gets to decide its own future. To us, as Americans, it really appeals to also who we are. So, what I would hope, what I plan to do and what we are doing is supporting Ukraine in this immediate task of prevailing in its effort to defend itself that is crucially important. I think everybody would agree. And I think the government here and the people here would agree that another important task is and will be and will remain the reform effort, which will secure Ukraine for a future for Ukrainian children and their children.
Integrity is everything to lose and nothing to gain, except your self-respect. Integrity is standing up for what you believe is right even when everyone is against you. Integrity is the ability to put compassion and kindness ahead of self-interest. Integrity cannot co-exist with greed. It cannot co-exist with lust. It cannot co-exist with a thirst for power. It cannot co-exist with a drive for money, fame, or fortune. All of these elements are like Kryptonite to Integrity. Kryptonite was the one thing that could rob Superman of his powers. Lust, greed, money, fame, and power all have the ability to rob one of his/her integrity.
Politics is a sham in America today. We have men and women who are elected for life and spend more time campaigning then they do in serving their constituents. Public servants who start collecting money to run their next campaigns within days of winning their present office. We have a system of government where money is the most important factor in who gets elected and who gets reelected. Our politicians are more worried about losing votes than they are in the constitution or in protecting our democracy. What Integrity is there in supporting a riot to overthrow a fair election that every court and every state in America found was fairly conducted? The media seized on the outrageousness of the Big Lie to sell news. The losing party seized on the credibility of millions of gullible supporters to buy the Big Lie and try to maintain their power.
The media in America has become another hallowed institution gutted by greed and a desire for more and more money. Reporters, writers, and journalists in America today are more interested in selling advertising than they are in balanced objective reporting. You can divide the news up by whether they lean Right or Left, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. Each side has a mirror image on the other side of the political spectrum. CNN is opposed by Fox News. The New York Times is opposed by The New York Post and the Washington Post is opposed by the Washington Times. One side supports the Right and the other side supports the left. This is not balanced reporting, and no truth comes out of the dynamic between the two sides. What both sides have in common are reporters who will report the most useless, tasteless, uninformative stories if they perceive that these stories will sell advertising or if they can figure out a clickbait title that will attract readers and thereby expose them to paid commercials.
f you want more of a description of each scale you can follow the hyperlink above. The USA ties for 10th place with Great Britain on this index. I can see some correlation with Integrity, but I can see many differences. I think honesty is one component of Integrity, but Integrity is more complex than being simply honest. An honest person can still lack integrity if they are unwilling to stand up for what they believe. Cowardice and Integrity are incompatible.
I am surrounded, inundated, besieged by cancel requests. The Republican lamebrains such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz repeatedly scream “cancel culture, cancel culture, cancel culture!” I have not witnessed as much animosity towards a phenomenon since the zeitgeist of Political Correctness (PC).
I look around me today and I do not understand the world. I do not understand the decisions that our leaders make. It seems we have a moral disease. The symptoms of this disease are short-term thinking and greed. Arizona is suffering from an unprecedented drought and heat wave. The water levels in both the Central Arizona Project and aquifers are dangerously low. Yet when asked to cut back water usage by 3.8 percent, the golf course owners in Phoenix created an association to oppose such a “drastic” cut. Their counter proposal was for a 1.6 percent cut in water usage. The Governor of Arizona was the keynote speaker for the associations kick off meeting. Am I crazy? Do you believe this? Are golf courses more important than drinking water and water for farm crops?
A Rabbi, Iman, Pastor and Buddhist Priest were all discussing the issue of peace in the world and in particular peace in the Mideast. The Rabbi said there could only be peace in the Mideast if all the Muslims left. The Iman said that there could only be peace if all the Jews left. The Pastor jumped into the argument and said there would only be peace if all the non-Christians left. The Buddhist cleared his throat to interrupt the argument and said, “There will never be peace anywhere as long as there are Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics and even Buddhists in the world.” 
The peaceful person does not use violence against others. The peaceful person is a diplomat who solves problems with his/her brain and not with tools of aggression. The peaceful person is confident because they have integrity. The peaceful person has serenity because they have no fear. Fear is the enemy of peace. When the world is on red-alert, people live in fear. People become fearful of others and fearful of living. Racism, sexism, discrimination, greed, and militarism create fear. With fear, no one can be at peace. 
We should all be grateful for peace. This means we need to appreciate peace and understand that it cannot be taken for granted. Peace is up to us to create. It is too important to leave to religious leaders and politicians. If we want peace in our lives and peace in the world, we must create it. There can never be peace for anyone if there is not peace for everyone. 
Ladies and Gentlemen. How can you have a government of the people, by the people and for the people when it is a government of the rich by the rich and for the rich? A government of lawyers, political science majors and corporate people. An interlocking network of proponents who have a self-interest that nowhere matches the nature and interests of the general public of America. 
Many of the board members in the rural counties are farmers or laborers or educators who have little or no training in the laws that they are sworn to protect. Thus, they rely heavily on the lawyers that they hire to provide advice and perceived protection from lawsuits. This renders the board members subject to the legal opinion of the lawyer which is quite often at odds to what the public wants. The boards are frequently fearful of a lawsuit (often offered by the lawyer as a possibility) and will forego making an informed decision based on evidence that is presented at the hearings. 
We need less lawyers. Lawyers and lawsuits are destroying America and Democracy. We need leaders with more diversity in education. We need leaders with more ethnic diversity. We need leaders with more gender diversity. We need greater representation that reflects the demographics of America. We need less lawyers. We need more justice and we need more fairness. 
Twenty-three years later, when Douglass gave his speech, the turmoil in the United States over the issue of slavery was growing. It had always been a major source of dissension in the United States, but things were coming to a boiling point. The Dred Scott decision had recently been rendered by the US Supreme Court. This decision held that black people were not citizens and that slaves could not sue for freedom. In March of 1857, James Buchanan was sworn in as the 15th President of the USA. Buchanan was no friend of the abolitionists and he joined the Southern leaders in attempting to admit Kansas as a slave state. He strongly supported the Dred Scott decision and today he would be considered an ardent racist. The contrast between Lincoln who was elected four years later and Buchanan in terms of their policies towards slavery was the final straw that led to the Civil War.
Today we are witnessing a descent into tyranny and demagoguery the likes of which have never before been seen in America. We have a President who lies whenever he speaks. We have a Republican party that abhors social justice and will do everything they can to suppress the rights of Americans to vote. We have a base of supporters for Trump that are racist, fascist, and anti-democratic. Lured by whatever sirens they listen to; they support the right of Trump to do whatever he wants to do. They call him their Messiah and voice unconditional support for his attacks on the press, minorities, immigrants, women, blacks, Latinos, disabled, foreign countries and even the disabled. A President who is willing to sacrifice thousands of lives to support his quest for a second term.
Aging Capriciously 