BLACK LIVES MATTER

Why Lena Baker’s Story Still Echoes When we talk about the movement, we often talk about the future. We talk about the world we are building for our children. But to know where we are going, we have to look back at the women who had to stand alone so that we could one day stand together. Lena Baker was one of those women. In 1944, Lena wasn't a "case study" or a "statistic." She was a mother in Georgia trying to survive in a world that saw her as less than human. She was a woman trapped in a cycle of abuse and labor that looked a lot like the slavery her ancestors had fought to escape. When she finally reached for a weapon to save her own life, the system didn’t see a survivor. It saw a target. The Dignity in the Dark The most haunting part of Lena’s story isn't the four-hour "trial" or the all-white jury that decided her fate before they even sat down. It was her walk to that chair. In a room filled with people who refused to see her humanity, Len...

Remembering Alex Pretti  It is heartbreaking to discuss the loss of anyone to violence, especially when that person dedicated their life to healing others. Alex Pretti was by all accounts a remarkable person whose life was defined by service, compassion, and a deep commitment to his community. Remembering Alex Pretti (1988–2026) Alex was a 37-year-old ICU registered nurse at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, where he cared for our nation’s veterans. His colleagues and friends describe him as a "kindhearted soul" and the "gentlest person you’d ever meet." Beyond his professional life, he was an avid outdoors-man who loved mountain biking and was often seen with his beloved dog, Joule. Alex wasn't just a bystander in his community; he was an active participant in seeking justice. At the time of the incident on January 24, 2024, he was reportedly acting as a legal observer , a role dedicated to documenting interactions between law enforcement and the public ...

The Power of the Watch: Why We Won't Be Their Target There is a specific kind of strength in watching. Right now, across Georgia and the country, the air feels different. We are seeing a mandate that feels like an invitation to target the very people who built this state. We hear the rhetoric about "getting rid of" us, and we see the way hate has consumed t he common sense of our neighbors. It is heartbreaking to realize that so many felt their vote was a green light to attack others. The instinct—the one that keeps you up at night—is to run into the streets. To scream back. To meet that fire with an equal flame. But we have to be smarter than our anger. The Trap of the Target We have to understand the strategy being used against us. They want a spectacle. They want a reason to point the finger and say, "See? This is why we need to be 'tougher'." * Protest without a plan is just a target. If we rush out in pure reactivity, we give them exactly what the...

 We are entering a new era  Not because governments suddenly changed, but because illusion no longer survives scale. The internet collapsed distance, shattered gatekeeping, and made it impossible for any single media institution, political class, or authority to fully dictate reality. What once required decades to surface now appears instantly, publicly, and globally. This is why the noise feels so frantic. We are witnessing hypocrisy in real time. Narratives that once held unquestioned power now fracture under scrutiny. Authority that depended on distance, delay, and deference is exposed the moment it contradicts itself. The public is no longer waiting to be told what happened — it is watching it unfold. This is where Donald Trump becomes historically significant. Not because he is flawless, virtuous, or even consistent — but because he refused to preserve the illusion. He did not invent hypocrisy. He did not create institutional rot. He became the figure through which those ...

Why I Call It “The Sky Is Falling” Chicken Little saw something fall from the sky and sounded the alarm. Everyone laughed, called him crazy, told him to calm down. But the story was never about panic — it was about how truth-tellers get dismissed. I use it because that’s where we are now. The warnings are real, but the world is too busy mocking the messenger to see the cracks above its head. The Great Dismissal They told you not to believe your eyes. They told you that what you saw was just imagination, a glitch in your perception, a distortion of the truth. They told you that Chicken Little was crazy. That the sky could never fall. That panic was worse than awar eness, and silence was safer than standing alone. But look around you now. The sky is falling. The books are burning again—not in piles of flame and smoke, but in classrooms stripped of truth, in libraries emptied of history, in laws written to erase our collective memory. The lessons of oppression are being rewritten to flat...

The Economy of Control I. The Illusion: Power as Dependency Powerlessness is the cost of existence within another person's system. To become solution-oriented, we must first map the currency of this system and then learn the art of withholding payment. The path to freedom begins with a single, clarifying revelation : the person who controls you is not powerful.  They are profoundly, desperately dependent. The individual who wields control—the Dominant—generates nothing internally. Their sense of order, importance, and superiority is not self-sustaining; it is rented f rom the person they dominate, the Sovereign Self. Like any addict, the Dominant requires a constant supply. They are not addicted to control itself but to the reaction—the fear, the silence, the apology—that confirms their existence. Without your response, they vanish.  Every tyrant needs a stage. The audience is required to validate the performance of power. If the audience leaves—if they stop watching, stop re...