A Prayer: Radiate Kindness All Over the World

Photo by Molly

As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, 

her only child, even so should one cultivate 

a limitless heart with regard to all beings. 

So with a boundless heart should one cherish 

all living beings; radiating kindness 

over the entire world.

— The Buddha

African American History: Amelia Boynton Robinson’s Name Belongs In the Long Chorus of Those Who Walked — So the Rest of Us Could Stand

 

They left her bleeding on that bridge — and thought fear would finish what their clubs started.

But they misunderstood something about Black history.

We have never stopped walking.

On March 7, 1965, as tear gas burned the Alabama sky and billy clubs cracked against bone, the body of Amelia Boynton Robinson fell to the pavement of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The photograph traveled faster than the troopers who swung their batons.

A Black woman, unconscious.

A young man cradling her.

The American flag stitched on uniforms behind her.

That image split the conscience of a nation.

But Bloody Sunday was not a sudden explosion.

It was the culmination of centuries.

From the first enslaved Africans forced onto Southern soil…

To Reconstruction’s brief promise and violent betrayal…

To poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and lynch mobs…

The fight for the ballot was the fight for personhood.

After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment promised Black men the right to vote. But white supremacist regimes across the South built an intricate machinery to make that promise hollow. By the early 20th century, Black voter registration in many counties had been nearly erased.

In Selma, Alabama — a city that was roughly 50% Black — only about 300 African Americans were registered to vote by 1965.

That was not apathy.

That was intimidation.

Sheriff Jim Clark’s posse carried cattle prods. Employers fired Black workers who attempted to register. Banks denied loans. Homes were threatened. The message was clear: Stay in your place.

But Amelia Boynton Robinson had never stayed in hers.

Born in 1911 in Savannah, Georgia, she was educated, disciplined, and spiritually grounded. A graduate of Tuskegee University, she worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, traveling through rural Alabama teaching nutrition and self-sufficiency.

In 1934 — decades before Selma became a headline — she registered to vote.

That act alone required courage.

Alongside her husband, Samuel William Boynton, she spent years organizing voter registration drives in Dallas County. Their home became a strategic nerve center for the movement. Activists gathered there. Plans were drawn there. Freedom songs echoed there.

It was she who helped convince Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring national attention to Selma. She understood that the brutality of Alabama officials, if exposed, could force federal action.

And so on March 7, 1965, approximately 600 marchers stepped forward, headed 54 miles toward Montgomery.

They were teachers. Students. Farmers. Preachers. Mothers.

They carried no weapons.

Governor George Wallace had declared the march illegal.

They walked anyway.

Six blocks in, at the crest of the Edmund Pettus Bridge — named after a Confederate general and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan — state troopers advanced.

Clubs swung. Tear gas exploded. Horses charged.

Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten until she collapsed.

The bridge became an altar of sacrifice.

But something else happened that day.

The cameras were rolling.

Television carried the violence into living rooms across America. Families who had ignored the quiet terror of the South now saw it unfiltered. The myth of gradual progress shattered against the reality of blood on concrete.

Two weeks later, a third march set out — this time protected by federal troops ordered by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

They crossed the same bridge.

They finished the walk to Montgomery.

Five months after being beaten unconscious, Amelia Boynton Robinson stood as a guest of honor at the White House when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law.

Her bruises had not fully faded.

But the law had changed.

Within a year, more than 11,000 African Americans were registered to vote in Selma.

Understand what that means.

The same city that left her for dead became a city transformed by ballots cast in dignity.

And her story did not end there.

Fifty years later, in 2015, a 103-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson returned to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This time, she was pushed in a wheelchair, hand-in-hand with President Barack Obama.

The arc of that image cannot be overstated.

From billy clubs to the presidency.

From unconscious on pavement to honored elder of a nation.

She said:

“This is where I belong… in order that I might be able to reach out and pull people up.”

That is the through-line of Black movement history.

From Harriet Tubman leading enslaved people north…

To Ida B. Wells documenting lynching…

To Fannie Lou Hamer declaring she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired”…

The struggle has always been multigenerational. Strategic. Spiritual.

They tried to make the bridge a warning.

Instead, it became a witness.

Amelia Boynton Robinson’s body absorbed the blow — but her courage multiplied. The marchers did not retreat into silence. They marched again. And again. And again.

Because the Black freedom movement has never been about a single day.

It is about an unbroken line of people who, when told “No,” answer with footsteps.

They beat her.

They gassed her.

They left her lying still on that bridge.

But the movement kept moving.

And because it did — millions cast ballots today in a democracy reshaped by her sacrifice.

What Alabama called illegal, history calls sacred.

And her name belongs in the long, rising chorus of those who walked — so the rest of us could stand.

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Laura Kittel: The Horrifying Construction of a Mass Immigration Detention System

My heart aches for all impacted by this brutal madness. Heartbreaking, horrifying, infuriating! Imagine instead how the billions being spent on these immigrant detention prisons — and on ICE, the military industrial complex, and other systems embedded in the dehumanizing violence of imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy — could instead be spent on radical changes to our immigration policies and practices, actually creating a humane process rooted in justice and compassion and caring for all human beings. Just imagine how these billions of dollars could also be spent on healthcare, housing, mental health and addiction treatment, infrastructure, employment, a livable wage, and more available and affordable for everyone. Just imagine if our values reflected caring for life, truth and justice, grounding in the consciousness of our interconnections with all beings, and the commitment to protecting humans, nonhumans, and the Earth. Imagine ending this profound cruelty — and a humanity awakening to the power of truth, compassion, wisdom, and love. Just imagine. — Molly

People ARE coming here legally.

This has absolutely nothing to do with law and order. Under mass deportation, we’re seeing the construction of a mass immigration detention system on a scale the United States has never seen, in which people with no criminal record are routinely locked up with no clear path to release,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “Over the next three years, billions of more dollars will be poured into a detention system that is on track to rival the entire federal criminal prison system. The goal is not public safety, but to pressure people into giving up their rights and accepting deportation.”

According to the report, the number of people held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention rose nearly 75 percent in 2025, climbing from roughly 40,000 at the start of the year to 66,000 by the start of December, the highest level ever recorded. And with Congress authorizing $45 billion dollars in new detention funding, the report warns that the system could more than triple in size over the next four years.

Major findings:

There is a dramatic shift in who is being detained. Arrests of people with no criminal record surged by 2,450 percent in Trump’s first year, driven by increases in tactics like “at-large” arrests, roving patrols, worksite raids, and re-arrests of people attending immigration court hearings or ICE check-ins. The percent of people arrested by ICE and held in detention with no criminal record rose from 6 percent in January to 41 percent by December.

The detention system has expanded so rapidly that already deleterious conditions have worsened. Through the start of December, ICE was using over 100 more facilities to detain immigrants than at the start of the year. For the first time ever, thousands of immigrants arrested in the interior are being detained in hastily-constructed tent camps, where conditions are brutal. More people died in ICE detention in 2025 than in the last four years combined.

People are stripped of their chance to ask a judge for release. New policies have made prolonged, indefinite detention the norm. The Trump administration is pursuing policies that strip millions of people, if they are detained, of the right to have a bond hearing where they can make a case to be released into their community while their immigration case is under review, including for those with decades of life in the United States.

As the administration expands detention, it is simultaneously gutting oversight.

The rapid growth of detention has been paired with deep cuts to internal watchdogs and new restrictions on congressional inspections. This erosion of oversight has consequences that extend beyond detention facilities themselves: as ICE is operating with fewer checks on its authority, aggressive interior enforcement in cities has led to preventable harm and deaths, underscoring how a lack of accountability is putting lives at risk.

— Laura Kittel, PhD, Ethics & Human Rights Advocate

Cristina Breshears: What's Happening Right Now to Transgender Americans Should Matter to All Of Us

Well articulated, horrifying, and absolutely 100% spot on! Thank you, Cristina Breshears! It is my belief that there is a vital need to engage in shadow work, speak up, and shine bright light on dark places. This is how the power of truth and fierce love interrupts and stops the flow of dangerous disinformation, dehumanization, and that which divides rather than connects. Bless us all,  no exceptions. — Molly

What’s happening right now to transgender Americans should matter to all of us even if we don’t personally know or love someone who is trans because this isn’t only about gender, it’s about identity and who gets to define it.

Every single one of us has an identity that shapes how we move through the world:

Our faith.

Our marriage.

Our political beliefs.

Our name.

Our clothing.

Our medical decisions.

Our geographical roots.

Our sports teams.

The way we raise our children.

The causes we support.

The language we speak.

The way we understand our own bodies.

.

.

These are all expressions of identity. And we all already have an identity that depends on freedom. Every single person’s life is shaped by choices and traits that form who they are and how they move through the world.

The question isn’t whether you understand someone else’s identity. The question is whether you want the government deciding whose identity is allowed to exist. Because once that power exists, it never stays contained to just one group.

Some identities feel “neutral” only because they’ve never been challenged. But imagine this: imagine being told your marriage certificate is no longer recognized; imagine being told your legal name no longer stands; imagine being told your medical decisions are invalid; imagine being told that how you understand yourself is now against the law. (Actually, some of these are under threat with the SAVE Act. I mean, what happens when the government becomes the final authority on whose identity documents are valid enough to vote and participate in public life?)

My point is, you don’t have to fully understand someone else’s experience to understand what it means to have your identity questioned or erased.

The current wave of policies targeting transgender people (from identity documents to healthcare access to participation in public life) may affect a relatively small percentage of Americans. But the principle underneath is not small at all. When the government claims authority to decide which identities are legitimate, freedom becomes conditional. And conditional freedom is fragile.

Policies that tie basic rights to perfectly matching documentation may sound administrative on the surface, but they raise a larger question: who gets recognized as legitimate by the state? History shows that when identity recognition becomes conditional, it rarely stays limited to one group. The line of exclusion has a way of moving.

So, the question isn’t whether you understand someone else’s identity. The question is whether you want the government deciding whose identity is allowed to exist. Because once that power exists, it never stays contained to just one group.

There are people fighting back. Courts are reviewing these laws. States are pushing back. Advocates are organizing. Families are standing up for their children. But beyond politics, this is about something simpler: do we believe people should have the dignity to live honestly and safely in the world? Even if their life doesn’t look like ours?

My answer is and always will be: I believe everyone should have the right to live safely and honestly as who they are; especially when their life is different from mine. Rights are safest when they are universal. The moment rights depend on whether a group is approved or acceptable, everyone’s freedom becomes conditional.

Mississippi-born activist, Fannie Lou Hamer (who became a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, testifying at the 1964 Democratic National Convention) said it best,

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Pay attention. Stay informed. Speak up. Stand beside.

— Cristina Breshears

EXCELLENT — Dr. Stacey Patton: The Most Pathetic Image of This State of the Union

Such an excellent, well articulated, and 100% spot on article by Dr. Stacey Patton. I've come to deeply respect and appreciate this courageous woman and the vital shadow work, insights, deeper truths. and wisdom she embodies. Blessed be the truth-tellers, the wisdom-keepers, the brave and brilliant journalists and historians, authors and artists, poets and professors, and activists and visionaries among us. May they inform and inspire us all. — Molly

By Dr Stacey Patton

There is something almost elegant about the absurdity of a Black congressman having to remind the President of the United States that his people are not primates.

The camera catches it before the speech even begins. Donald Trump moves down the aisle with his red tie blazing against navy. His face is set in that familiar granite scowl. The chamber glows under the chandelier light. The polished wood gleams. Pressed suits absorb the light. Flags fold into obedient symmetry. It is the annual ritual of American power, the State of the Union, where applause is choreographed and dissent is supposed to be tidy.

And then, rising above the rows of dark suits, a white placard cuts through the pageantry: BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!

The sign is not improvised. It is rigid. Clean-edged. Camera-ready. This is not a napkin scribble. Not a frantic hallway scrawl. The board is firm, rectangular, professionally cut. The lettering is printed, thick, uniform, and industrial black. There’s no bleed. No tremor. No hand shake.

Representative Al Green stands stiff-backed, jaw locked, holding the sign at chest level as Trump enters the chamber. Around him, lawmakers twist in their seats. Some smirk. Some freeze. Some lift their phones.

And then a white hand lunges into the frame. It reaches across Green’s body, fingers splayed, trying to cover the words. Trying to block the message. Trying to yank the sign downward, as if erasing the sentence could erase the reality that made it necessary.

Notice the instinct. It does not point at the sign. It does not argue with the statement. It does not debate the premise. It covers. The reflex is concealment, not persuasion. The gesture is intimate in its entitlement. To reach across another man’s chest in a formal chamber, to physically attempt to blot out the words, is visceral.

That reach tells you something older than policy. It is the muscle memory of managing the frame. For a split second, the image crystallizes: a Black congressman holding a declaration of humanity, and a white hand scrambling to suppress it. Umph. You could not script a cleaner metaphor for American politics in 2026.

Weeks after racist AI monkey imagery circulated online, weeks after the same dehumanizing trope that fueled lynch mobs and minstrel shows found new life in digital code, this sign is the counterpunch inside the most powerful legislative chamber in the country.

In the age of artificial intelligence, biometric tracking, militarized borders, and executive power games, we are still arguing about whether Black people belong to the human family. Not on some fringe message board. In the Capitol. During Black History Month.

There is something almost surreal about the layering of it. And in the middle of that institutional grandeur, we are locked in a debate that should have died with phrenology.

Black. People. Aren’t. Apes.

The fact that those words need to be written, in 2026, tells you everything about where we are. And the fact that a white hand instinctively reaches to smother them tells you even more.

Now watch Trump move through the frame.

He doesn’t hurry. He never hurries. He glides down the aisle as if the room belongs to him. His chin is tucked. Hands reach toward him. Lawmakers lean in. He absorbs it all without appearing to absorb anything.

The sign is technically behind him. That spatial detail matters. The accusation exists at his back. The moral correction is not even in his line of sight. He does not have to acknowledge it to dominate the frame. He advances. The sign remains stationary. One body in motion. One body fixed. Green stands still, holding a declaration that should not need to exist. Trump moves forward untouched by it.

There is no flinch when the sign rises behind him. No flicker of embarrassment. No visible irritation. Because why would there be?

This is a man who launched his political ascent by questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship. A man who called immigrants “animals” and warned that they were “poisoning the blood” of the country. A man who told congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from. A man who, just weeks ago, said he didn’t make a mistake when he amplified that racist AI monkey video.

He has shown us who he is. Over and over again. Age has not softened Trump’s racism. Power has only clarified it. There is no late conversion coming. This is not a phase. He will not evolve. He will fossilize like this.

As Trump reaches the podium, the tone of the speech follows the same architecture. “Law and order.” Border rhetoric framed as invasion. Federal institutions described as infiltrated and corrupted. Strength. Control. Reclamation.

The “American people” he invokes is selective. The threats he names are deliberate. The applause lines land exactly where they are meant to. He is not confused about the accusations. He is not wrestling with introspection.

He is resolute.

And that’s what makes this scene feel so small. You cannot shame somebody who has monetized shamelessness. You cannot embarrass someone who has built an empire on defiance of embarrassment and white grievance. You cannot remind someone of humanity when their political power thrives on selectively denying it.

So when Al Green lifts that sign, the message exists in a different universe from the man walking toward the podium. Green is speaking in the language of moral correction. Trump is operating in the language of power consolidation. Those are not the same battlefield.

And that’s the mismatch burned into this moment: a chamber glowing under television lights, a Black congressman defending baseline humanity, a white hand trying to suppress it, and an aging racist president moving forward untouched.

And then Al Green is escorted out. Again.

There’s a brief shuffle. The murmur in the chamber swells and then smooths itself flat. The chandeliers don’t flicker. The flags don’t shift. The polished wood keeps gleaming. The applause resumes, bright, obedient, and well-timed.

Hundreds of years after our forced arrival on this soil, a Black man stands in the Capitol defending our humanity, and he is removed for disrupting decorum. Trump reaches the podium untouched. The red tie settles against his shirt. The speech rolls forward. The cameras glide.

Power keeps congratulating itself. Keeps on applauding itself. Keeps swallowing the interruption whole. And we are still here in 2026, during Black History Month, arguing that we are not animals to people who feel no shame about believing it, and who are hardened beyond repair.

America. A nation that still requires proof of Black humanity, and then applauds when the proof is escorted out the room.

Please go here for the original article: https://drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/the-most-pathetic-image-of-this-state