America 250

 

Merriam-Webster defines independence as, “the state of being free from the control, influence, or support of others. It is the ability to make your own decisions, govern yourself, and take care of your own needs”. It encompasses personal independence, political independence, and independence of mind.

Independence Day, also known as the 4^th of July, is an American holiday commemorating America gaining independence from Great Britain in 1776. Today marks 250 years of that independence. Tones of freedom ring loudly in the celebration of the holiday.

Freedom is the foundation of The Declaration of Independence, the historic document commemorating the day asserting that all people have natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson writes this celebrated document as he enslaves Black people, impregnating a minor Sally Hemings. The hypocrisy…

Enter Frederick Douglass...  

On July 5, 1852, Mr. Douglass, a self-emancipated Black man through escape from slavery, is invited by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, to offer an address in honor of America’s Independence Day. Per usual, he rose to the occasion in grand style and delivered one of his most memorable and powerful speeches, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, wherein he challenged the hypocrisy of a nation espousing liberty and freedom as core values while enslaving Black people.

Although not aware of Mr. Douglass’ speech for most of my life, as it was not taught in American schools, the hypocrisy he so eloquently described has always been rooted in my soul. Always, I have felt conflicted about this holiday of “independence” that America goes all out for. It has simply always been paid time off to spend with family and friends. I, too, questioned what exactly we were celebrating? Freedom? Independence? Whose freedom and independence? Aren’t we still having the same conversations in 2026 that Mr. Douglass raised for debate in the 1800s, the humanity and citizenship of Black Americans? So, tell me again, what are we celebrating?

Celebrating Independence Day has always been a challenge for me and, I think, many Black Americans. The celebration this year, however, is heightened in that it marks 250 years of America’s freedom, the self-proclaimed global example and blueprint of democracy to be revered and modeled by all. I remember questioning all the hoopla even as teen in 1976, the exaggerated celebration felt hypocritical.

This milestone celebration of 250 years, however, is different.

 In 1976 all the stops were pulled out for the bicentennial. The nation excitedly prepared for this celebration, months, if not years, in advance of the actual day. There were military parades, profound speeches were prepared and delivered, a commemorative coin was coined, extraordinary fireworks and grand community celebrations were had, we were inundated with everything red, white, and blue.

This year, the mood is very different. I am even further removed from there being a holiday such that, when I walked into my gym last week, I asked, what’s up with the red, white, and blue? Seriously, I am totally checked out. The lack of national excitement or enthusiasm for celebration of the 250^th year of America’s independence allows one to be checked out.

Collectively, We The People are a functionally depressed nation, going through the motions, tolerating or managing what feels like the worst of times, certainly not a time of celebration. Each day we awake to another day of WTF did he do while we slept.  Many are fleeing the country or considering it. It’s exhausting…

Didn’t we resolve this in 2020? How did we get here again? America MUST examine herself and seriously ponder the vast answers to that question. I digress...

The nation is under siege from within. Instead of being internationally celebrated for 250 years of model democracy, freedom, and independence, the US is being ridiculed and shunned for slipping into a place of darkness in pursuit of recreating the gravest of her original sins. She wants her property back. You too, white women…

The white house, turned cheap, gawdy gold, has been turned into a circus and junk yard combined as one. The reflecting pool is now a cesspool filled with algae. Foreign leaders are being kidnapped and brought to the US to be tried for crimes against their nation as crimes and corruption is being actively and openly practiced by “leaders”, themselves convicted, at the very helm of this nation. The hypocrisy…

Innocent fisherman and children in school are being bombed just because…   

Americans are losing basic freedoms we have come to take for granted. While we were distracted with interpretation and adherence to the 2^nd Amendment right to bear arms, our 1^st Amendment rights to free speech, free press, right to assemble, right to privacy, and such, were being dismantled. Education, healthcare, and welfare systems are being demolished. People who failed to vote or who voted in the interest of harm to others, are finding out as harm knocks on their door…

We The People, are truly unrepresented. So, tell me again, what are we celebrating?   

A friend summed it up this morning with his Facebook post, “It feels weird to celebrate our independence, when it’s pretty clear we’re losing it”.  Some of us have never truly had it…      

Merriam-Webster defines subjugation as the act of bringing people, a territory, or a group under    complete control and forced submission. It involves one dominant party taking away the freedoms, sovereignty, or rights of another, often through conquest, oppressive rule, or systemic power imbalances.

We are at a crossroad folks. Which way will we turn? 

Miss Higgi Says, Happy Subjugation Day? 🤷🏾

A Serious Question

A serious question y'all, why the disparity in how we honor Black fathers as opposed to Black mothers? 🤷🏾

On Sunday I hosted a gathering to celebrate Black Fathers. It was the smallest crowd that I've ever had on any of my calls, less than 20 people showed up. ZERO Black men showed up. One did text a regret as he'd gotten a last minute birthday dinner invitation. Happy Birthday Friend!!! Otherwise, no men... 

It left me with so many questions.

Did people not show up because they don't feel Black fathers are worthy of celebration? Do bad daddy stories overshadow good daddy stories? 🤷🏾

Black men complain all the time that Black mothers are held in higher regard. Still, even they didn't show up to be celebrated or to celebrate themselves.

I would like to think that people were not available because they were spending quality time with dear old dad. Not so sure... 

In speaking with a friend yesterday morning, she shared that her pastor expressed from the pulpit his disappointment in the disparity of how we celebrate Mothers and Fathers on their special day. He noted that when he called XYZ restaurant expecting not to be able to get a reservation on Father's Day, given such short notice, he was told to come on down. He didn't need a reservation. There was plenty of room. On Mother's Day at XYZ restaurant, one had to have made the reservation at least a month in advance. He pondered why not the same for Father's Day.

Interesting, right? 

So why didn't Black folks show up on Sunday to celebrate Black fathers with When Black Women Gather? As on Mother's Day, I wasn't expecting a large turnout. But almost no turnout? I wasn't expecting that...

Thank you to those ladies who did show up. Your stories were inspiring. Keep telling them...

It's a serious question y'all. Something has gone awry in our community.  We see it, we know it all too well. More importantly,  however, we know that we MUST address it.

Concerned that some people might have felt conflicted about "celebrating Black Fathers" because they didn't have a positive story to tell, I expanded the celebration beyond fathers to include brothers, sons, mentors, even historic or public Black male figures they admire, any Black male who has inspired or encouraged them. Still, they didn't show up... 🤷🏾

Let me be clear that when I host gatherings in celebration of Black mothers, invariably there are daughters who tell me they did not have a positive experience with their mother. So, the hurt and disappointment goes both ways. Overwhelmingly, however, bad Mom or not, the celebration of Black mothers far exceeds that of Black fathers.

This year, almost without exception, I made a special effort to acknowledge all the men in my phone for Father's Day with a text message of the image below, even some with whom I no longer communicate. My wanting Black men in my life especially, to know they are seen, loved, and cared about, superseded personal differences. Most responded thanking me for thinking of them. Sadly, one friend responded that mine was the only greeting he received. He has children. 👀 Again, the hurt goes both ways...

I had gathered positive statistics to share during our gathering to celebrate Black fathers. Black fathers are much more involved and present in their children's lives than is acknowledged, even more than other men, but that's not the story we hear. Instead, we are overwhelmed with the negative. Gatherings such as mine, are essential for our collective soul. Itbis imperative that we tell our own stories. Black children must witness, hear, live, and experience our stories. Our children are our future and were welcome at this event...

I wanted to open with a poem, short story, or short video created by a Black contributor paying positive tribute to Black fathers. I must say finding such accolades was, sadly, quite the challenge. That's a problem y'all...

Years ago, in honor and respect of Black men who are holding it down, I stopped wishing Black women Happy Father's Day. I recognize that women, although sometimes forced to play both roles, cannot replace fathers in our lives. So, let us value and encourage them.

Please share, if you're open to it, what you think might have been the issue on Sunday. Maybe the sun was shining all around the United States, although my email list includes international participants, and people just had better things to do. I accept that too. I'm just curious...

Share too, if you don't mind, another topic you'd like to explore in gatherings of Black men and women. What do we want to know about one another and/or our experience of or relationships with the other?  

My Black male cousin shared the link below for a positive Black Father movie currently playing on Netflix, Color Book. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the trailer looks inspiring. Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPEmz5sBjwM

Thank you for indulging my question. Why the disparity and how do we overcome it? I love me some us and will always do my part to encourage that we heal, love, encourage, and honor one another.

FYI, I will not host a Gathering for the next two weeks as I will be away on a special journey of my own. I'll see you again on July 12th.

Take care of one another. We are all we've got and WE ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH! 

 In the Forever Spirit of Unity in Our Community, 

~ Miss Higgi 

Happy Father's Day!!!

 

Breaking Chains on Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth everyone! 

I think it so appropriate that the Obamas had their celebration yesterday, a day ahead of Juneteenth, and a few weeks before the hypocrisy we're supposed to celebrate in July marking America's 250th anniversary. No thank you, very much. Tell me again, what exactly are we celebrating?

Yesterday reminded me of the value of Black folks to this country. There is no America without Black people. We built this nation physically and otherwise, we are the moral compass of this nation, we are the fiber and the talent and the rhythm of this nation, we are the magnet bringing folks together. There is no America of worth without us. The Obama's reminded us of that yesterday in their own subtle way. 

Despite being preyed upon, dehumanized, and the object of monumental traumatizing challenges that most others could never have endured, we survived....

I am so proud of Black people. There is no other person that I would want to be in this whole wide world. Not ever. I want all Black people to share my pride, to feel that way. Break whatever chains that remain on your mind telling you that you're not good enough. We are more than good enough! Oh, yes we are!

What is it that they say, free your mind and your body will follow? Your body is free, allow your mind to follow. 

Anyway, have a great Juneteenth everyone! Do something special in honor of Black folks everywhere. If nothing more, be still and have an intentional talk with the Ancestors just to be reminded...

~ Miss Higgi Says, Break the Chains

Celebrate Back Women ~ Loretta June Ross

She was eleven years old when a stranger attacked her on her way home from a Girl Scout meeting.


She did not talk about it. There was no framework for talking about it — no language, no resources, no adult in her world who had been taught how to receive that kind of disclosure from a Black girl in Texas in the early 1960s. She buried it and kept moving, the way children taught to be strong learn to bury things, and for three years she carried it alone while the world she lived in continued to expect her to excel.

She excelled anyway.


Loretta June Ross was born on August 16, 1953, in Temple, Texas, the sixth of eight children in a blended family. Her father, Alexander, had immigrated from Jamaica as a boy and become an Army weapons specialist and drill sergeant — a man shaped by discipline and expectation. 

Her mother Lorene was a Texas native who managed a household that moved frequently, following military assignments, until the family settled in Texas permanently. Loretta grew up understanding that education was not a suggestion. It was the only reliable ladder out, and she intended to climb it.


She skipped grades. She joined the honors track. She was the kind of student who made counselors sit up and pay attention — and one counselor did more than pay attention. He identified a scholarship to the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and pursued it on her behalf. The scholarship was won. The future was mapped. Loretta Ross, a Black girl from Temple, Texas, was going to Harvard.


Then, at fourteen, a distant relative assaulted her.


The pregnancy it produced was not something Loretta could hide or defer or manage quietly. Abortion was illegal in Texas in 1969. She moved into a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers and gave birth to a son in April 1969. She named him Howard Michael Ross, borrowing the middle names of her two favorite brothers in a hurry, because she had never truly planned to keep him.


She kept him.


The scholarship evaporated the moment she chose her son over the conditions attached to it. The high school she had attended — the same school whose counselor had fought for her Harvard future — refused to readmit her. She was a mother now. Mothers did not belong in high school. She was fifteen years old and the system that had celebrated her intelligence had decided, in a single administrative ruling, that her circumstances had made her someone else's problem.


She was not someone else's problem.
She rebuilt. She found her way to Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1970 — a historically Black institution that admitted her when Radcliffe, upon learning about Howard's existence, quietly withdrew its welcome. At Howard, she declared majors in chemistry and physics and immediately found herself pulled toward something larger than the laboratory. She became the tenant association president in her building. She joined a Marxist-Leninist study group. She connected with the anti-apartheid movement, with Black nationalist politics, with the particular electricity of a campus full of young Black people who understood, in their bones, that the personal and the political were not separate categories.


She was tear-gassed at a demonstration at sixteen. She considered it an education.
At twenty-three, Howard University's health clinic gave her a Dalkon Shield — an intrauterine contraceptive device that had been marketed to doctors despite internal company knowledge that it was defective. The device caused a severe infection that went misdiagnosed. By the time it was correctly identified and treated, the damage was permanent. Loretta Ross was sterilized at twenty-three by a medical device that should never have been on the market.


She sued the manufacturer, A.H. Robins. She won. When a class-action lawsuit followed and her case drew wider attention, she recognized something that would shape the rest of her working life: that what had happened to her was not an isolated medical tragedy. It was a pattern. Black women, low-income women, women of color were having their reproductive choices made for them — by assault, by illegal abortion access, by defective medical devices, by laws that controlled their bodies without consulting their lives.


The framework she had been living inside all along finally had a name she was beginning to reach toward.


In 1979, she became director of the DC Rape Crisis Center — the only rape crisis center in the country run primarily by and for women of color. She was the first Black woman to hold that role. She ran it for years, building it into an institution, and in 1980 organized the first National Conference on Third World Women and Violence — the first time Black, Latina, Asian, and Native American women working in rape crisis centers across the country had ever convened in one room, collectively, to name what they were dealing with and demand that the movement start dealing with it too.


The mainstream women's movement of the 1980s was, by and large, a movement run by and for white women of relative economic means. Its central preoccupation was abortion rights — specifically, the right to not have a child. The framework was narrow in ways that Loretta and her colleagues could not ignore: it said nothing about the right to have a child, which was being systematically denied to poor women and women of color through forced sterilization and coercive medical practice. It said nothing about the right to parent children in safe conditions — in housing that wasn't condemned, in neighborhoods that weren't poisoned, in a country that provided health care and education.

The pro-choice framework protected one choice. The women Loretta worked with needed all of them.


In July 1994, Loretta Ross sat in a hotel room in Chicago with eleven other Black women during a break from a conference on welfare reform. They had been watching a debate about abortion rights that felt, to all of them, like a conversation happening in another language — a language that acknowledged women's bodies but not women's lives. They pulled out a legal pad. They began writing.


The phrase they arrived at was two words: reproductive justice.


It was not a slogan. It was a framework — a complete reconception of what reproductive rights meant when you centered the women the mainstream movement had left out. The right to have a child. The right to not have a child. The right to parent children in safe and healthy environments. These three principles, together, constituted the framework — rooted in human rights language rather than the narrower legal vocabulary of choice, and explicitly connected to the economic, racial, and environmental conditions that determined whether those rights were real or theoretical for any particular woman.


The framework spread. It became foundational to an entire movement. It shaped legislation, academic programs, legal arguments, and the work of organizations across the country that had been waiting, without knowing it, for exactly this language.


In 1997, Loretta co-founded SisterSong — the Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective — a national network connecting Native American, Latina, African American, and Asian American women's organizations around the shared framework she had helped build. She served as its national coordinator from 2005 to 2012.


On April 25, 2004, she co-directed the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C. — 1.15 million people in the streets of the capital, the largest protest march in American history at that time. She had organized delegations from across the country, built coalitions across racial and ideological lines, and turned out more bodies than any march before it.


She kept teaching, kept writing, kept showing up. Three books on reproductive justice. A course on white supremacy and human rights. A practice she developed and named "calling in" — the idea that lasting change required bringing people into conversation rather than simply shutting them out, that accountability and compassion were not opposites.


In 2022, the MacArthur Foundation awarded her a "Genius" Fellowship — one of the most prestigious recognitions in American intellectual and creative life. She was sixty-nine years old. She had been doing this work for fifty years.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that same summer.

Her phone started buzzing the moment the decision came down. Friends, colleagues, journalists, people who needed to know how she was holding up — how a woman who had built her life around this fight was receiving its apparent defeat.


She picked up the phone. She kept talking.
She had been eleven years old on a sidewalk in Texas when the world first demonstrated what it intended to do with her body. She had been fifteen when a system designed to reward her excellence decided her circumstances disqualified her instead. She had been twenty-three when a defective medical device made the choice for her that no one should ever have made without her consent.


She had spent fifty years making sure no woman faced those moments alone — and making sure that the movement fighting back was big enough, honest enough, and complete enough to actually win.


She is still making sure.


Source: Armed Stories, Facebook (Story & Photo)

80 Years Wasted...

 

What a Waste...

Today marks 80 years of breathing for the guy occupying the White House. What a wasted 80 years of good breath and life better deserved by someone else.

What a waste...

He symbolizes all that is bad. He is evil, vile, criminal, corrupt, void of humanity, morally bankrupt, filled with hate, anger, insecurities, and rage and sadly, more breaths to take.

He lives to harm others. He thrives on the pain and suffering he creates. He is fueled by the disdain and ill regard held for him. It empowers him.

What a waste.... 

He represents nothing good. He has never known love, given love, nor received love. His "L" word is loyalty and that is one-sided. He demands much and gives nothing in return. 

What a waste...

I look at him and I think of all the good people who have gone before him whose loved ones would do anything to have them back. For whatever reason he has known longevity. His life has been spared. He still walks amongst us and seems to think his mission in life, especially as POTUS, is to inflict pain and do harm to others. 

What a waste...

There is not one good thing to say about his 80 years of breathing. Not one. Do tell if I am mistaken.

Miss Higgi Says, What a waste...

FN: Dear God, please hear us. Let not our prayers be wasted today. All heads bowed. Repeat after me. May there be tumultuous lightening and torrential rain contained to a certain address in DC just in time for a circus event scheduled to cheapen the nation and further humiliate its citizens today.

Please Lord, answer this and our many other prayers. In God's name we pray. Inshallah. 🙏🏿

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.