Tuesday, July 15, 2025

THE CASH COMMENTARY FOR JULY 17, 2025

                                              

                                                                    CASH MICHAELS


                           TO ALL OF MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF

                                   THE CAUCASIAN PERSUASION 

                                          by Cash Michaels

                

        To all of my brothers and sisters of the Caucasian persuasion, you really have no idea what it feels like to live in a country where the elected president sees you, and citizens who look like you, as invaders and interlopers. 

A president who regularly issues executive orders to diminish your history, citizenship and opportunities, has government attorneys - paid with your tax dollars - working 24/7 to find ways to further legally cripple your right to have a voice. Sic federal law enforcement after you if you exercise your right to openly protest.

Inspire a nationwide MAGA movement with a lynch mob mentality to threaten you. And cajole the major political party in power to crush the social safety net that has undergirded the poor, weak and elderly among you.

Being the target of such inhumanity in your own country because of the color of your skin is an experience hopefully you will never have to go through, or wish on anybody else, and yet, it is happening everyday unabated.

Case in point - there are morons, like the Republican legislature and attorney general of the great state of Idaho, who are saying that it is against the law for anybody in a public school in that state to display posters welcoming people of different colors and ethnic backgrounds, because they’re expressing a “political point of view.”

Lord save us! It’s damn ignorance like this that makes me want to invent new cuss words!

At issue was a poster a white Idaho teacher reportedly displayed in her middle school classroom back in February showing the illustrated waving hands of different races of children with the words, “Everyone is welcome here.”

Now be honest. How many times, back in the day when your child was just a cute and innocent little spark of life on two legs with a giggle, did you go to his or her classroom, see similar posters hanging prominently and lovingly on the walls, over the blackboard, hell, even on the classroom door, letting you know not only that this was a place for learning, but a safe sanctuary for all children to come and share, play, be together and learn not only with each other, but from one another?

Posters like that one assured you that the teacher was committed to promoting the best kind of learning environment for ALL children possible.

And now, here’s comes this clown from white potato country, so anxious to impress his anti-woke boss in Washington, D.C. that he’s fighting the good fight, so he’s actually criminalizing a poster that promotes diversity and harmony among children.

According to the Idaho AG’s office:

“These signs are part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Since that time, the signs have been used by the Democratic party as a political statement. The Idaho Democratic Party even sells these signs as part of its fundraising efforts.” 

Never mind that these so-called “facts” here are way, way off , and deliberately so! But that’s not the point.

From The Idaho Statesman newspaper:

“The right-wing crusade against anything they think has a whiff of  “wokeness” has reached ridiculous levels…”

Ya think?

The school teacher who originally put the “illegal” poster up, took it down when first ordered, then thought about it, and put it back up in her classroom. The school district then jumped on her bones about it, saying the message on the poster was a problem because it “is not something that everybody believes.”

The Idaho Statesman obtained school district emails that documented what officials found objectionable on the “Everyone is welcome here” poster as the different colored hands, ranging from beige to dark brown, all with hearts in their palms, reaching out together.

Really? Have we become that sick as a nation to criminalize such a thing?

Are the MAGA white supremacists out in Idaho that bold where they feel they can pull such a stunt?

Is this what our country has come to?

        If this madness is allowed to continue, we might as well start dismantling the Statue of Liberty. Why waste the space when America no longer believes in Lady Liberty's inspired inscription, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”   

        If that's not a national "Everyone is welcome here" sign, I don't know what is.  

        We're a nation of immigrants, whose ancestors came here from everywhere. 

         For the record, that white teacher has resigned from the offending middle school (good for her), and will start work August 4th at a different junior high school in a different Idaho school district where, apparently, folks don’t feel so threatened by illustrations of GOD’s human family.

Again, good for her, and blessed people like her. It’s when we stand strong for what is right in this nation, either individually or collectively, that we get something positive done.

But the nonsense doesn’t stop in Idaho by any means, and the sickness isn’t all government-inspired.

The AP reported this week that the Sesame Workshop, producers of television’s beloved and legendary Sesame Street children’s show, is trying to regain control of its "Elmo X (formerly Twitter) account" after heartless hackers broke in and posted “a string of racist and antisemitic messages” there.

Is this country serving up so much deep dish hatred and anti-“wokeness” right now that even everybody’s favorite imaginary pal, the friendliest little red children’s puppet in the world, becomes a target? 

I mean, this is Elmo, for goodness sakes!

And then, of course, there’s always the destructive nonsense direct from Washington, D.C..

We have the National Institutes of Health, apparently on executive order from the Trump Administration, canceling biomedical research grants just because they involve DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). So a black researcher at Duke trying to discover the cure for sickle cell anemia, a painful blood disorder that primarily affects black people, is left high and dry with no funding now right in the middle of her research.  

Am I to assume that if the disease afflicted only white people, and a cure was being researched only by white people, that NIH wouldn’t have touched a dime in grant money?

But according to The NY Times, Trump’s executive order banning federally funded diversity, equity and inclusion programs, “…accused the programs of using race- and sex-based preferences that it said were “dangerous, demeaning and immoral” and “deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement.”

The Times continued, “But Mr. Trump’s push to end D.E.I. has been a blunt instrument, eliminating highly competitive grant programs that defined diversity well beyond race and gender. Those who have lost grants include not only Black and Latino scientists, but also many …who are white and from rural areas, which are solidly Trump country. The administration has denounced universities as hotbeds of liberal elitism, inhospitable to viewpoint diversity. The canceled diversity grant programs were intended to make science less elite, by developing a pipeline from poorer areas of the country that tend to be more conservative.”

“The sweeping cuts will make it even harder for the United States to develop the next generation of scientific talent.”

This crap is both diabolical AND racist!

And then, also according to The NY Times, we have this tech billionaire and friend of Trump’s, Marc Andreessen, who apparently is on the warpath against universities that promote DEI, promising that they will “pay a price.”

Andreessen apparently has an itch up his craw against Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, alleging that they “…discriminate against supporters of President Donald Trump.”

The Times quotes Andreessen from messages he reportedly sent to a group chat with White House officials as stating, “My people are furious.” 

Gee, what “my people” are these, Marc?

More from Mr. Andreessen:

“The combination of DEI and immigration is politically lethal,” Andreessen wrote. “When these two forms of discrimination combine, as they have for the last 60 years and on hyperdrive for the last decade, they systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America.”

Gee, it’s hard NOT to see the“whites only” sign as a middle moniker in Marc Andreessen’s name after those words of clear intolerance and hate.

As has been pointed out previously, it’s a real hoot that Trump justifies his war on DEI as a battle against attempts to discredit and “…undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement,” when he’s hiring spectacularly under-qualified clowns to run our government like Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and “Ice Barbie” Kristi Noem to serve in his White House Cabinet.

        "This attack on diversity, equity and inclusion is really an attempt to suppress, erase, and make some people invisible, while elevating others,"says Rep. Marilyn Strickland, Democrat from Washington state.

        Smarter words never spoken!

And finally we get to the kicker - Trump’s attempt to have the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution junked like cheap scrap metal.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in July 1868, originally granted U.S. citizenship to African-Americans after years of chattel slavery, and served as the basis for the legal framework of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It also has served to clarify that the children of undocumented immigrants born on these shores are, in fact, American citizens, the moment they enter our world. Trump doesn’t like that, and wants it stopped.

Again, if we were talking about undocumented immigrants from lily-white Sweden or Germany or Norway, I don’t think King TACO would find reason to stay up late at night about this. But since he has such high concern about dark and brown people from other places coming here “…eating the cats, eating the dogs…” and having babies, and now has his U.S. Supreme Court currently figuring out the legal nuts and bolts of a right-wing ruling that will justify what he wants done, he’s on the verge of hitting a major MAGA white supremacist home run.

Look, according to the researchers, the United States population will soon be majority of color in less than a few decades, which means in many places, the power dynamic will shift from white to black, brown or yellow.

That doesn’t mean America ceases to be America.

It probably would mean more interracial marriages. Hell, Madison Avenue is already trying to prep us for that with all of those television commercials showing salt-and-pepper couples living harmoniously together raising families of mixed children.

If the greedy advertising agencies see a dollar in diversity, then you know, like it or not, it’s truly part of the American human fabric. Can’t stop human beings from loving who they choose, even though there are those who sure would like to once more.

So, again, to all of my Caucasian brothers and sisters, give all of the above some thought. We all have to live on this rock together, and hopefully, with a little effort, we can do so in peace, justice and harmony and as GOD intended.

Our children, who I am convinced are born without an ounce of hatred in their hearts until we imbue them with it, are the best examples to follow when they play together, laugh together, and hold hands together, as Almighty GOD created them to do..

Who are we, just because we’re now grown, to screwup that ultimate natural design?

That clown in the White House cares nothing about GOD’s natural design, because he can’t claim credit for it. And that’s why he’s working so hard to destroy it.

DON’T LET HIM!!!

Let’s use our heads, and our hearts, to realize that we were all created in different hues and from different backgrounds for a reason - to grow in our understanding of He who created us, and of each other!

That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Making the effort to truly understand one another.

The day we all can reach that seemingly impossible goal, is the day we can hang our banner across this nation - EVERYONE IS WELCOME HERE!

In the face of undeniably divisive evil ruling our land, THAT should be the goal of every citizen who truly believes in the promise of America, and the beauty of GOD.

Amen!

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Saturday, July 12, 2025

THE CASH STUFF FOR JULY 17, 2025

NEW THIRD STORY

ST. AUG LOSES SECOND BID

TO SAVE ACCREDITATION

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer


In yet, maybe, another decisive blow to its future, St. Augustine’s University (SAU) announced Monday that it has lost its final appeal with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to retain its accreditation through the organization.

That accreditation is considered vital for schools to be formally recognized by the federal government to receive financial aid for attending students.

SAU leaders said that the private, Episcopalian HBCU in Raleigh will file a lawsuit against SACSCOC, and petition the court for an injunction, in hopes that it can maintain its temporary accreditation status during court proceedings if granted.

By doing so, SAU says it can hold classes for the fall semester virtually online. The school's last graduating class was in May, consisting of approximately 25 students. Enrollment for Fall 2024 classes was 200 students, down from a traditional high of 1500 per semester.

“We will stop at nothing to ensure that SAU maintains its accreditation and continues serving our students,” assured Brian Boulware, SAU chair of the Board of Trustees. 

This is the second time in a row that SAU has lost an accreditation appeal with SACSCOC, meaning that it can no longer any more. The academic designation was first stripped from SAU in December 2023, primarily because of allegations of fiscal mismanagement at the nonprofit institution.

In recent years, SAU has been plagued by lawsuits from vendors claiming that they have not been paid, former employees who cited allegations of mistreatment, and failure to pay back taxes to the federal government, all of which have amounted to tens of millions owed or will be owed.

SAU’s efforts to secure loans, using some, if not most of its 105-acre property, have fallen short, partly due to failure to pass muster with the state Attorney General’s Office.

Beyond litigation, one of the only accreditation cards left for SAU to play in order to stay in business “if necessary” according to the school, is to apply to the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, or TRACS.

TRACS was able to help rescue Bennett College for Women in 2018 in Greensboro when the HBCU lost its SACSCOC accreditation after a legal battle.

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RULING IN RACIAL BIAS

REDISTRICTING CASE

EXPECTED BY AUGUST

By Cash Michael


The six-day federal racial bias redistricting trial that ended July 9th in Winston-Salem is not expected to see a final decision until sometime in August, at the earliest.

In fact, attorneys for both sides in the legal dispute are expected to submit their concluding motions in the case to the three-judge federal judicial panel that heard the case by August 5th. 

Attorneys for a group of black voters, in addition to the NC NAACP and Common Cause NC who served as plaintiffs in the case, squared off against defendant attorneys for Republican legislative leaders.

A  key factor in arguments for both sides is that African-Americans overwhelmingly and traditionally vote fo Democrats. Plaintiffs used this fact to allege that blacks in what is known as the state’s “Black Belt” of majority-minority districts in the Piedmont were denied electing their choice of candidates.

Republicans countered that because blacks vote primarily Democratic, they were treated as political partisans, not racially, which is legal. 

At issue is whether race was a deciding factor in drawing six of 14 congressional districts, nine of 120 NC House districts, and five of 50 state Senate district voting maps for North Carolina in 2023 for the 2024 elections, constituting illegal racial gerrymandering. 

Claims against the state House districts were dismissed early in the trial. 

The allegations in two federal lawsuits, specifically that black voting power was diluted mostly in the Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point areas, where it is normally prominent, were merged into one case when the trial began on June 16th.

Republicans vigorously denied the allegations, charging, instead, that the maps they drew were examples of legal partisan gerrymandering that plaintiffs allege were “in racial garb.”

Republicans also maintain that they did not use racial data to draw the 2024 maps.

The 2024 GOP redistricting maps were used, but will have to be redrawn for 2026 if the federal judicial panel decides they are unconstitutional.

The three judge federal judicial panel - all appointed by Republican presidents - heard arguments in the case during the six-day trial.

On the first day of testimony, former NC state Rep. Earl Jones told the court that the congressional redistricting map for Greensboro looked like a “glass smashed against the pavement.”

“I’m concerned about the carving up and cutting up of my community, and I’m trying to get that changed somehow,” said Jones, noting that portions of nearby mostly white Republican areas were effectively combined with predominately black voting areas in Guilford County, for example, to dilute black voting strength there.

The result was that no Democrat chose to run in the newly constituted 6th Congressional District there, even though Democrat Kathy Manning had previous represented the area before it was redrawn.

The 2024 North Carolina congressional redrawn maps saw ten Republicans and four Democrats elected, as opposed to a 2022 court-ordered redistricting maps which saw seven Republicans and seven Democrats elected.  

Testimony was also heard about how redistricting negatively affected legislative Senate districts 1 and 2, and Senate District 8 which includes Columbus, Brunswick county, plus a part of inner city Wilmington.

Expert testimony from both sides concluded the trial on July 9th.

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NATIONAL NAACP CONFAB

IN CHARLOTTE TOUTS 

“FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW”

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer


The National Association or the Advancement of Colored People wrapped up its 116th four-day national convention in Charlotte on Wednesday, the first in the Queen City since 1996.

With thousands of delegates and attendees from across the country attending, the convention, which did not invite Republican President Donald Trump,  to speak, touted its theme, “The Fierce Urgency of Now.”

The theme was derived from a phrase used by civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his 1963 “I Have a Dream’ speech during the historic March on Washington.

According to the NAACP, the current political landscape under Trump is ‘hostile and divided’, and “Civil rights are in danger. Race is once again being used as a tool to deny promises this country made to all of its citizens. The NAACP was built for times such as this.”

There has never been a time in our generation where it is more important to take power back into our own hands and really see what we want to see in the world that we live in,” Vanessa Mbonu, vice president of marketing for the NAACP Convention, told Charlotte television station WSOC-TV. “So whether that be civic engagement, whether that be economic equity, whether that be social impact, we want people to understand that we are truly living in perilous times, and the fierce urgency of now is really the only way we can explain how important it is that we all get, you know, activated, and we all put power back into our own hands.”

Clearly some of that power is economic, as when all the tally sheets are completed, the city of Charlotte expects the convention to have generated over $16.7 million in economic impact, which would exceed what was generated in the last two convention sites - Las Vegas and Boston - respectively.

But still, beyond the dollars spent, the most important aspect of the NAACP Convention was the issues addressed by various speakers, like race and justice; advocacy and litigation; and next generation leadership, among others.

Among the attendees and noted speakers, there were black business entrepreneurs, black artists, black scholars and black activists, in addition to black entertainers.

Youth empowerment was clearly another call to action that was prevalent at the convention, as the importance of voter registration and voter mobilization, especially on black college campuses throughout the nation, was stressed.

Several policy enactments by the Trump Administration and the Republican-led Congress, like the recently ratified ‘One Big Beautiful” law that severely slashes the federal social safety net for poor people, in addition to policies that attack institutional diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government and the private sector (DEI), are seen as antithetical to the African-American community, and must be not only addressed, but actively respond to, several NAACP convention speakers said.

“It’s our job at the national level to ensure that people have the tools and the resources to be the best advocates that they can be in their communities,” Karen Boykin-Towns, vice chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors, told the Charlotte Observer.

“A lot of people are feeling powerless, “ she continued. “Once the people understand they have the power, then we can be even more engaged, involved and push back because we can’t be silenced.”

The 2026 NAACP convention will be held next year in Chicago, Ill. July 18 - 22nd.

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