Our Ice Is Cold Enough

I asked Chat GPT who were the attorneys for young Karmelo Anthony. Then I asked who was white and who was Black. What do you think Chat said? 👀

Yes, this prominent Black family, reportedly of means, replaced Black attorneys with white attorneys, resulting in their young Black son being convicted and sentenced to 35 years in a matter of hours. Sounds like a classic case of the ice is colder syndrome. SMH...

When those white attorneys look at that dead white boy they see themselves, as does the judge, the prosecutor, and the all-white jury from which three potential Black jurors were stricken. 

When Black civil rights attorneys who know their history look at an innocent, well-to-do, well behaved, Black boy with a bright future, they see themselves and a shit-load of previous clients railroaded by an unjust legal system based on race. They are motivated to fight for the client who, but for the grace of God, there go they or their loved ones.

Black jurors are routinely rejected in favor of white jurors which says a lot about integrity. If the belief is that white jurors will rule in favor of the prosecution, no matter the evidence, the inference is that Black jurors will fairly weigh the evidence no matter the parties. Fair minded and thinking jurors do not guarantee the prosecution a victory starting on third base. They have to run the bases and prove their case to win. 

Black folks on juries increase the probability that fewer innocent people are incarcerated for something they didn't do or wasn't proven. Fewer field hands, Black bodies, are supplied to prison yards for free labor on the new plantation. 

Black folks please stop running from jury duty. They want to strike you from service. Don't help them. We have no control over who gets arrested, what they get charged with, if they get bail, and other pre-trial procedures, but we can have a role in determination of guilt or innocence. 

As a juror, we do have the ability to make the prosecution fight for a victory. It takes but one voice in that jury room to bring balance and truth to a system claiming to pursue liberty of justice for all. Be the voice. Consider jury duty your civic duty.

When you can afford to do so, hire your legal representation accordingly. You want to hire the person who has a track record and who is going to fight most zealously to prove your innocence. Hindsight is 20/20 but in this redneck, good ole' boys situation, this outcome, absent a zealous fight, seemed predictable.

My heart bleeds for young Karmelo. He just lost his life for defending himself against white bullies who, unlike him, did not have a promising future. But they were white, that's all that mattered. 

The more things changed the more they stay the same. 

Miss Higgi Asks, when will Black folks learn that our ice is cold enough? Our minds are warped such that we are conditioned to bet against one another, which is tragic, just tragic...

Prayers for Karmelo convicted for defending himself. May there be grounds for an appeal. 🙏🏿

 

Chat GPT said:

Dallas criminal defense attorney Mike Howard served as the lead defense counsel for Karmelo Anthony in his Collin County murder trial. He was assisted on the defense team by attorney Toby Shook.

Prior to retaining Mike Howard, Anthony was initially represented by attorneys Billy Clark and Kim T. Cole.

Billy Clark: The official State Bar of Texas profile for The Clark Law Firm, PLLC explicitly registers the practice as a Black-owned, veteran-owned, and disabled-owned business. He is also a member of ⁠Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African American men.

Kim T. Cole: She is a prominent Black female civil rights and criminal defense attorney in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who frequently handles high-profile discrimination, civil rights, and ⁠wrongful death cases impacting the Black community.

Mike Howard: He is a white criminal defense lawyer who operates the ⁠Law Office of Mike Howard, PLLC in Dallas. He began his legal career as a public defender before transitioning into private practice.

Toby Shook: He is a prominent white veteran trial attorney based in Dallas. He spent more than two decades as a high-profile prosecutor with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office before entering private practice, where he has defended several high-profile clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Our Sweet, Sweet Babies...

So, what is it they say about history repeating itself? How many of our babies must we lose? 

Yesterday an Asian shopkeeper in SC was found not guilty of murdering a Black boy. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in 1991 with a Korean shopkeeper. Same scenario. Same verdict, Not Guilty...

In Columbia, SC, Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a 15-year-old Black boy, was chased down and murdered in cold blood by an Asian merchant who claimed he thought the baby was stealing a bottle of water. His murderer walks...

Latasha Harlins, a 14-year-old Black girl, was murdered in cold blood in 1991 by a female Korean shopkeeper in Los Angeles who claimed she thought the little girl was stealing an orange juice. The baby had the money for the orange juice in her hand when she was murdered. The courts allowed her murderer to walk too...

The Asian community, which was used as plaintiffs in a legal matter dismantling hard won civil rights gains of the Black community affording equal access for everyone, including Asians, to institutions of higher education, got a bill of protection written in their interest based on a narrative of  fear of Black violence against them... 👀 Where's the body count?

Anti-Black racism is rampant, violence against the Black community is on the rise, to include missing persons and a renewed fascination with lynchings, one of America's favorite pastimes, and yet another Black child is murdered in cold blood with blessings from the court. Instead of a bill of protection or public outrage, the Black community loses another of our hard won civil rights, voter representation. There is rarely a peep and the beat goes on...

It's exhausting y'all. Just exhausting...

Condolences to the families of our slain children;

Cyrus Carmack-Belton🙏🏿

Latasha Harlins 🙏🏿

Miss Higgi Says, violence against children is never acceptable. May ALL of our dear sweet babies, too many to count, rest in eternal peace. 🙏🏿

 

Click here for the article.

June Is Gemini Month

 

First of all I can't believe it's June. Already, half the year is gone. I know I keep asking the same question, but where does the time go? Father Time please slow down the clock just a little bit. Please...

It's June y'all and June is Gemini Month!

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about how when we were young the zodiac was everything. We had stereotypes for each sign, Gemini's were smart, Scorpios were sex freaks, Leo's were conceited, Taurus was stubborn. All these things we believed. We were influenced about who we dated or who we were compatible with based on zodiac signs. LOL!!!

I don't think we knew much about astrology or the zodiac but we certainly projected our lives by it. Do you remember looking at the newspaper everyday to see what your horoscope was for the day? So, we were all having the same day just because we shared the same zodiac sign? Yeah, OK...

Some folks took it real serious and got their charts done, read the stars, followed the moon, and all that stuff. The rest of us I think it was just in fun. It faded over time. It was something to do. It was a conversation piece, an ice breaker, if you will. "What sign are you?", she asked, as she batted her big, flirtatious eyes and flashed a smiled at him. He smiled back, and they were dating! LOL!

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my fellow Gemini Twins. You are smart, you are friendly, you bore easily, and commitment? 👀, well that's a thing... (smile).

I will be 66 next week and I can't believe that either...

Happy Monday y'all!

Did You Know?

You know the orange braggard occupying what's left of the White House that he hasn't yet defaced or demolished, the guy who loves to talk about himself and how brilliant and superior he is in comparison to all "low IQ" others, people therefore inferior to him... Well, did you know that in 1968 he graduated from Wharton, one of the top business schools in the country? Yet, he doesn't talk about it and either do they... 👀

Tell me when has a school who produced an alumni of such prominence, stature, and leadership, not talked about it... When has that ever happened before? LOL!

Has anybody been on University of Pennsylvania campus lately? Is there even a picture of him in the bathroom, much less in the foyer, at the Wharton School of Business? That's what the other schools do.

If you visit Yale or Harvard, you're going to see portraits of presidents, supreme court justices, and other distinguished alumni hanging on the walls telling the story of that school. They are bragging! They are proud! So tell me, is there a picture of the orange guy anywhere at Penn, even on a crumpled flyer? LOL!

Not even the self-proclaimed braggadocious genius occupying the White House reminds us of his Ivy League brilliance.

Miss Higgi Says, Hmmmm, I wonder why... 🤔

So, What Are We Celebrating 250? 👀

 

Is anybody else struggling with this 250 celebration thing? Not only are the celebrities dropping out, they were never checking in, as are, I'm assuming, many of the rest of us. 

Celebrating the 4th of July has always been a struggle ideologically for many in the Black community, something to do with hypocrisy 👀...

I remember during the summer before my first year of law school, going through a program at a major law firm in Washington, DC. It was just before the holiday when a partner came in to address a group of mostly non-white students. He shared with us copies of the Declaration of Independence. With absolute glee and unmistakable pride, he explained that in his household, faithfully, every year on the 4th of July, they gather as a family to read that great document. Talk about not reading the room or knowing your audience. 🤦🏾 It was painful...

I'm sorry, I digress. That memory of July 4 is forever embedded in my recall...

I imagine that this year, 2026, many others in the nation are feeling conflicted about celebrating what should be a commemorative and historic event. Given the nation's current state of affairs, the notion of celebrating Independence and Freedom likely presents a hell of a struggle for many "good Americans" across the nation...

Tell me again, what are we celebrating? 

A celebration of what? For what? Of whom? 🤷🏾

We are in the midst of witnessing whatever was created in those 250 years, good, bad, ugly, and indifferent, being intentionally destroyed by an anti-American regime, posturing as government, hellbent on an obvious mission to destroy the country as we sit by doing mostly nothing to stop it, but are somehow expected to show up and join in celebration. Again, celebration of what? 

In the spirit of the great Frederick Douglas who posed the question, What to the Slave, which has expanded to include the rest of y'all, is the 4th of July? The holiday, especially in 2026, has no meaning...

Miss Higgi Says, Happy Juneteenth! Stay Home on The 4th of July and celebrate real heroes and martyrs, visit www.martyrsday.us to see how. 

Boycott 250!

A Necessary Inconvenience

I remember when flying was something to look forward to. You could get on the airplane, have a nice meal, eat, read, or fall asleep in a comfortable seat and get to your destination full of excitement and anticipation, free of hassle or inconvenience. Those days are gone. Flying has become a necessary inconvenience...

There were no crazy fees, no long lines, no taking off your shoes and throwing away your water bottles and expensive toiletries that exceeded some nebulous 4 ounce quantity. None of that! We could get on the plane and just go! People used to actually go to the airport without a flight to just sit and watch the planes take off. Remember that? It was all rather simple...

And then 9/11 happened. The airlines had sympathy galore from the public and they took full advantage of it. They reduced staff, raised fares, and implemented fees for everything that you can imagine starting with ridiculous baggage fees that have since brought them billions upon billions of dollars. 

Bag fees began with just domestic flights because somehow you only needed a change of clothes if you were flying international. 👀 Initially, international flights did not have bag fees. Now all flights have fees, first bag, second bag even more, a third bag will cost you your children. 

Remember the standby flight? It was a convenience offered for free because it was a win-win for both parties, the airline and the customer. It is still a convenience for the airline but one for which the customer must pay. Need to change your flight? It's going to cost you - Dearly!

From there it went to seats for sale! Want leg room or a seat wide enough to not share with a neighbor you've never met or that comfortably fits even modest hips for your five hour flight? Its gonna' cost you... 

Wanna' sit in that emergency aisle and promise to help in the event of an unscheduled landing between runways? To be of that service, to help save fellow passenger lives, will cost you too. 

Love that window seat? I love the aisle. Wanna' choose your seat of preference at time of purchase to avoid the airline assigning you to the dreadful middle seat as punishment for not taking the bribe up front? Pay up!!! 

Remember when if you had a seat at the back of the plane once everybody was on board if there were vacancies in the front of the plane, notwithstanding first class of course, you could move to that empty seat for free? Not anymore. You want to move? That's gonna cost you too...

Hungry? So sad, to bad... Meals are no longer included. First they removed the hot meals and all steel cutlery from the flights and served instead some prefab sandwich that tasted prefab, now with plastic utensils only. Unless of course, you were in first class, then you still got a hot with your temporary airline cot. 

Eventually they started charging for that not so good sandwich. Ultimately, the sandwich was reduced to a snack of cookies or chips and a drink. The major airlines used to laugh at Southwest and other no frill airlines for exactly the service they now provide.

Note that all of this is happening in the face of ever escalating ticket fares. Fewer services, higher prices. Capitalism at its best!

Recently, Delta announced that it will no longer serve snacks. In the spirit of follow the leader, the other airlines will surely follow suit. 

Post 9-11, we got something called TSA checkpoints, which entail physical groping of our bodies, searches of our hair, stripping of shoes, belts, and all things metal. Our luggage is being exrayed or physically searched, as we are forced to walk through expensive body scan equipment that fails even its own tests. Don't want to go through all of that? You don't have to! Pay a modest price for prepaid TSA clearance, and voila!, you can avoid the inconvenience of having your dignity violated... 

I have said nothing about how many steps you're going to get in walking from the check in ticket counter to your gate of departure. At least one mile in many airports. Whose bright idea was it to include inclines in that mile? Thank God for bags with wheels. My heart bleeds, however, for the mostly frail people pushing all those soon to be very able big bodies in those handicap assist chairs. The immediate cures at curbside is nothing short of miraculous! 

So here we are now in the midst of another crisis, this one created by the trump administration resulting in ridiculously high oil prices. Once again, the airline is not going to miss an opportunity to gouge the public. Have you bought an airplane ticket recently? Sticker shock is an understatement. As we know, once the fees go up and services are further reduced, fares will never come down and services will never be restored.

Highway robbery has nothing on skyway robbery. 

Flying is not only a necessary inconvenience, it is now a very costly, tiring, and mostly unpleasant necessary inconvenience. Safe travels...

Miss Higgi Says, friendly are the skies no more...

Happy Decoration Day!

Here's the history of how Decoration Day, a commemoration created by formerly enslaved Africans, became Memorial Day, now a national holiday. 

The transition of Decoration Day into what we now know as Memorial Day is a profound piece of American history, deeply rooted in the aftermath of the Civil War. While several towns claim to be the birthplace of the holiday, historians have uncovered that the earliest, largest recorded precursor was organized by newly freed African Americans.  

sdarj.org

Here is a brief history of how Decoration Day originated and evolved:

1. The True Roots: Charleston, SC (May 1, 1865)

In the final months of the Civil War, the Confederate military turned the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club in Charleston into an outdoor prison camp. More than 250 Union soldiers died there from disease and exposure and were buried in a chaotic mass grave behind the grandstands.  

chicagocrusader.com

When the city fell and white residents fled, a group of about 28 formerly enslaved Black workmen went to the site, exhumed the bodies, and gave them proper, individual burials. They built a tall fence around the new cemetery and erected an archway at the entrance inscribed with the words: "Martyrs of the Race Course."  

chsasalh.com

On May 1, 1865, a crowd of nearly 10,000 people—mostly freed slaves, alongside Black Union regiments and white missionaries—gathered to dedicate the cemetery.  

science.nasa.gov

The Parade: The procession was led by 3,000 Black schoolchildren carrying armloads of fresh flowers and singing "John Brown’s Body."  www.zinnedproject.org

The Honor: They were followed by Black women with baskets of wreaths, Black men marching in cadence, and Union infantry units (including the famous 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment).

The Meaning: The crowd decorated the graves with flowers, listened to scripture, and held picnics. As historian David Blight notes, this was the very first informal "Decoration Day"—an act by newly freed people to declare exactly what the war had been fought for.  

www.zinnedproject.org

2. The Official Declaration (May 1868)

As informal springtime "decoration days" continued to pop up in both Northern and Southern communities to honor the staggering 700,000 Civil War dead, a formal movement took shape.  

science.nasa.gov

In May 1868, Major General John A. Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Northern Union veterans), issued General Order No. 11. This order officially designated May 30, 1868, as "Decoration Day"—a national day specifically set aside for "strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country." May 30th was chosen carefully because it was a time when flowers would be in full bloom across the entire nation.  

www.cem.va.gov

3. Keeping the Tradition Alive

Throughout the Reconstruction era and into the early 20th century, African Americans and Black veteran posts remained the primary caretakers and celebrants of Decoration Day in the South, keeping the memory of the Union sacrifice alive even as white Southern communities heavily policed or ignored it. Concurrently, Southern white communities practiced their own distinct "Confederate Memorial Days" on separate spring dates.  

www.nps.gov

4. Evolution into Memorial Day

chicagocrusader.com

Over the decades, the name "Memorial Day" gradually became more common than "Decoration Day".  

www.cem.va.gov

Post-World War I: The scope of the holiday expanded. It was no longer just about the Civil War; it was broadened to honor all American soldiers who had died in any military conflict.  

www.cem.va.gov

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act (1968/1971): To create a convenient three-day weekend for federal employees, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968. When it officially took effect in 1971, it legally changed the name to Memorial Day and moved its observation from the traditional May 30th to the last Monday in May.  

science.nasa.gov

What started as a localized, deeply emotional tribute by newly freed citizens to honor the soldiers who died for their emancipation ultimately transformed into the national day of remembrance observed today.  

science.nasa.gov

Source: Gemini AI

Miss Higgi Says, Happy Decoration Day!

Celebrate Black History 365!!!