Rodney's Rambling's

Chapter 12: Conclusion – “We hold these truths to be self-evident”  When 56 men formally signed the Declaration of Independence, and 39 signed the United States Constitution, the Matrix of Race was ratified, codified, and enshrined in the very fabric of our Nation. Already, for over 2 hundred years, a genocidal war had been waged against the Native People; their rights to humanity, land, and life itself had been nullified. Slavery had become law, women had been excluded, and economic divisions had become established. These defined the intersectional identities that would be incorporated into every institution, practice, and policy that would come to define the United States. And for 250 years, a continuous struggle has endured as the great masses of people have worked to be included in the edict “that all (people) are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.   This s...

  Strength through Diversity African Americans in World War II Fully qualified African American nurses often found that racial segregation and discrimination hampered their entry into military service during World War II. And even those who made it in found Jim Crow discrimination waiting for them at the door. In 1945, thanks to pressure applied by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, 60 Black women were sent to Lovell Hospital at Fort Devens (outside Boston) to be trained as medical technicians. The commanding officer objected to Black medical technicians placing thermometers in the mouths of White servicemen, and he ordered these women to be reclassified from medical technicians to orderlies. A group of African American servicewomen met with the commanding officer, only to be insulted and dismissed. They walked out of the meeting and refused to report to work the next morning. After being threatened with charges of mutiny, most returned to work. Six did not. When these six were threaten...

   4 Concealed Stories -The Medals of Honor 1.       Why were the Irish awarded so many Medals of Honor As noted above, Irish-Americans have disproportionately received the highest percentage of Medal of Honor awards.  The Irish have a long history of military service in the U.S.  As far back as the American Revolution, the Irish played a significant role in the war.  During this war, Ireland was part of the British Empire, and therefore, many Irishmen served in the British Army in North America and also volunteered to fight on the side of the Americans.  As the war expanded, and after our alliance with France, Irishmen formed the Irish Volunteers, a militia formed to fight for Ireland’s independence.  At the time of the American Revolution, the Irish comprised an estimated quarter of America’s 2 million population.  But our stock stories about the Founding Fathers of this country and the Patriots feature only Angl...

  Chapter 10. The Military, War, and Terrorism Source: U.S. Navy/Flickr ( Iran war could cost US taxpayer $1 trillion, says Harvard academic ) The United States is among dozens of sovereign states that were directly shaped or created by war.  Since 1775, the United States has been involved in over 200 military conflicts, five of which were officially declared wars, and many more were military interventions that shaped our history and defined us globally.  Even before we became a nation, and for 300 years total, we were involved in hundreds of wars with the Indigenous tribes.  From 1775 to 2026, the United States has been at war for approximately 93% of its existence.  This means that for 229 of the 249 years we have existed, we have been involved in military engagements.  This translates to just 20 years of peace, and military conflicts happening approximately every 20 years.  Only one period, from 1891 to 1897, can we identify the longest time of peac...

Exclusive Inclusion and diversions from Diversity  rodney d. coates* President Trump, in spite of legal opinion, politically astute advice, and reality, continues to target Muslims and other immigrants from specific countries. Ironically, the election of Donald Trump has caused many to rethink what we mean by diversity and inclusion. Suddenly, diversity experts in corporate America, according to a recent Forbes article, are trying to incorporate white men into corporate spaces. It seems that they, not blacks or women, Hispanics or Muslims, gays or transsexuals are being excluded, it is white males. We are coming to understand, thanks to our President, that poverty too must be included in our standard definition. This is a very good step forward. But we must get past the binary, single dimensions of identity, and what we mean by diversity.      There are those who insist that they value diversity, yet demand that all conform to their definition of what that divers...

  Toxic Masculinity in anticipation of a Post-Patriarchal America.  Rodney D. Coates   Protesters outside the US embassy in London the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.  Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo source:   https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/22/the-age-of-patriarchy-how-an-unfashionable-idea-became-a-rallying-cry-for-feminism-today National news organizations, the U.S. intelligence organizations , civil society groups , political leaders , and scholars have declared, in a rare moment of concurrence ,  that we experienced in this election cycle one of highest levels of political violence in recent decades .  Even before the election, some 167 pre-election challenges have been filed across all 50 states by Trump’s legal teams.   But the violence that is being anticipated, experienced is neither novel nor restricted to the political realm.  Rather, it is part of the systemic violent reaction particularly of males...