Op-Ed

White Racism Costs Whites, Too

Published

10 years ago

July 20, 2015

By Lee A. Daniels
NNPA Columnist

Although he forged a distinguished career as a 10-term Republican Congressman from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, and later as a judge on his state’s Supreme Court, Richard H. Poff is but a minor footnote in American history.

Coming across his name, many people would likely note his achievements with a mental salute, and then quickly move on.

Unless they happened to know that in October of 1971, Poff informed President Richard M. Nixon that he did not wish to be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States.

I wrote about why Richard H. Poff turned down the nomination many Washington insiders of the day expected to come his way – and fulfill his lifelong ambition – when he died four years ago. His story has stayed with me ever since because it illuminates a reality of American society that’s rarely discussed: the high cost of White racism as experienced from the White side of the Color Line.

I’ve been pondering that point since the murder of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church Nine drew an immediate outpouring of sympathy from many Whites in the South and elsewhere – and provoked the widespread public outrage against the display of the Confederate flag on public property. That interracial call for change has followed the interracial protests of the last two years against the police killings of Black and Hispanic Americans suggests that more and more Whites and other people of color understand the “cost” of White racism affects them, too.

It’s that development, amid the conservative movement’s continual race-mongering, the GOP’s reflexive opposition to every Obama proposal, and especially the sordid anti-Latino demagoguery of fake-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, that makes what Richard H. Poff did in 1971 and what he said about it worth considering.

Poff, a Republican who represented a district in western Virginia, had been a Congressional rarity — a Republican from a state of the Old Confederacy – when first elected in 1952. The decorated World War II bomber pilot had ridden the political coattails of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s landslide election to the presidency into office, and over time compiled a solid record as a moderate Republican conservative.

But, like nearly every other Southern Senator and Representative of the time, during the 1950s and 1960s, Poff had marched in lockstep with the White South’s campaign of “massive resistance” to the Civil Rights Movement. He wasn’t one of the demagogues who delighted in disparaging Black Americans and denouncing civil rights legislation. He just went quietly along with those who did. In 1971, six years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had changed the South’s and the nation’s political calculus, the civil rights groups (who in 1969 and 1970 had engineered the defeat of two other Nixon Supreme Court nominees from the South) declared the cost to him of that past: their unyielding opposition. Less than a fortnight later, Poff withdrew his name.

A deeply private man, Poff never directly stated why he had done so other than that it was to preserve his family’s privacy. But three months earlier, Poff had given a remarkable interview to a local Virginia newspaper in which he discussed his civil rights record with extraordinary candor.

Among the things he said was this: “I can only say that segregation is wrong today, it was wrong yesterday. Segregation was never right. But it is one of the most lamentable frailties of mankind that when one’s wrong is most grievous, his self-justification is most passionate, perhaps in the pitiful hope that the fervor of his self-defense will somehow prove him right. But this doesn’t make it so. And he doesn’t fool himself.”

One needn’t cry for Richard H. Poff. As already mentioned, the next year he took a seat on the Virginia State Supreme Court and served there with distinction until his retirement in 1988. Further, his personal setback pales into insignificance compared to what the inaction of the White Southern elite cost their fellow Southerners, Black and White, during those years. Nonetheless, if I’m correct in reading his incisive and poignant words as regret for his moral cowardice on the civil rights issues of the day, then let’s consider a what-if:

What if Poff, by all accounts an honorable, thoughtful man, had resisted the demagogues of the day in the 1950s and 1960s—and had been joined by some of the other Congressional Southerners? Would that have made a difference in that era’s fight for democracy in the South and across the country? Would America have seen then a visible cohort of White Southerners standing up against bigotry and for tolerance similar to what has occurred in the last six weeks in some areas of the South?

A final question: Is America still paying the cost of the inaction of too many White people like Richard H. Poff?

Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His essay, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Great Provocateur,” appears in Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent (2014), published by Zed Books. His new collection of columns, Race Forward: Facing America’s Racial Divide in 2014, is available at www.amazon.com.

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Activism

Essay: Intentional Self Care and Community Connections Can Improve Our Wellbeing

At the deepest and also most expansive level of reality, we are all part of the same being, our bodies made from the minerals of the earth, our spirits infused by the spiritual breath that animates the universe. Willingness to move more deeply into fear and pain is the first step toward moving into a larger consciousness. Willingness to move beyond the delusion of our separateness can show us new ways of working and living together.

Published

2 weeks ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Lorraine Bonner is a retired physician. She is also a sculptor who works in clay, exploring issues of trust, trustworthiness and exploitation, as well as visions of a better world.

By Dr. Lorraine Bonner, Special to California Black Media Partners

I went to a medical school that was steeped in the principles of classical Western medicine. However, I also learned mindfulness meditation during that time, which opened me to the multifaceted relationship between illnesses and the interconnecting environmental, mental and emotional realities that can impact an individual’s health.

Therefore, when I began to practice medicine, I also pursued training in hypnosis, relaxation techniques, meditation, and guided imagery, to bring a mind-body focus to my work in medical care and prevention.

The people I saw in my practice had a mix of problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and a variety of pain issues. I taught almost everyone relaxation breathing and made some general relaxation tapes. To anyone willing, I offered guided imagery.

“My work embraced an approach to wellness I call “Liberatory Health” — one that not only addresses the treatment and management of disease symptoms but also seeks to dismantle the conditions that make people sick in the first place.”

From my perspective, illness is only the outermost manifestation of our efforts to cope, often fueled by addictions such as sugar, tobacco, or alcohol, shackled by an individualistic cult belief that we have only ourselves to blame for our suffering.

To put these ideas into practical form, I would quote the immortal Mr. Rogers: “Find the helpers.” There are already people in every community working for liberation. Some of them are running for office, others are giving food to those who need it. Some are volunteering in schools, libraries or hospitals. Some are studying liberation movements, or are working in urban or community gardens, or learning to practice restorative and transformative justice, or creating liberation art, music, dance, theater or writing. Some are mentoring high schoolers or apprenticing young people in a trade. There are many places where compassionate humans are finding other humans and working together for a better world.

A more compassionate world is possible, one in which we will all enjoy better health. Creating it will make us healthier, too.

In community, we are strong. Recognizing denial and overcoming the fragmenting effects of spiritual disorder offer us a path to liberation and true health.

Good health and well-being are the collective rights of all people!

About the Author

Dr. Lorraine Bonner is a retired physician. She is also a sculptor who works in clay, exploring issues of trust, trustworthiness and exploitation, as well as visions of a better world.

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Activism

Opinion: Can Donald Trump Pole Dance?

Given all that is happening, if the presidency was more like pole dancing, you know Trump would be flat on his butt.

Published

2 months ago

September 14, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Emil Guillermo

The news cycle has been buzzing the last few weeks. Xi, with Putin and Kim, the sweethearts of Trump carousing alone without him? The victims of the pedophile Epstein speaking out publicly in DC.

Then, there’s the release of that salacious letter Donald Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump said the letter didn’t exist. But it does.

Timing is everything.

Additionally, there are further concerns, such as the Supreme Court removing restrictions on ICE interactions. ICE Agents can stop anyone now. For any reason. And there’s the threat of the U.S. sending the military to fight crime in Chicago. Trump even posted a meme of himself as a character in “Apocalypse Now.”

All that with bad polls and bad economic numbers, and these topics are dominating the news cycle — Trump era chaos.

Given all that is happening, if the presidency was more like pole dancing, you know Trump would be flat on his butt.

The reality is the opposite. He keeps going strong like nothing’s happened. Inexplicably, Trump always seems to defy gravity.

That’s why to reassure myself with reality, I just think of Trump on a pole. Dancing. He was born on Flag Day, after all.

I’ve got pole dancing on my mind because I’m in Canada at the Vancouver Fringe Festival doing my show, “Emil Amok 69, Everything’s Flipped,” about how the current political situation gets very personal.

Get tickets here if you’re near:

I’ve performed at 16 fringe festivals, and I always look for unique performers. This year, in my same venue (the Revue Stage) I found her in a show, “The Pole Shebang.”

Andrea James Lui may look like a typical Asian American at first.

But she’s Asian Canadian, married to an Australian, who now lives down under.

At the Vancouver Fringe, she highlights her special identity.

Pole Dancer

Yes, pole dancing has come to the fringe. Leave your dollar bills at home, this is not that kind of pole dancing.

This is more Cirque Du Soleil-ish- acrobatic stuff, yet it’s hard to deny the sexiness when a woman flawlessly swings from a pole with her legs apart.

The show is more intriguing than it is titillating.

Lui has created a behind-the-scenes look at the “polar” experience.

“She could have been a physicist,” says her big sister Christina, who despite saying that, supports her sister 100 percent.

Lui touches on some of the emotional depth in the poled subculture. But there’s plenty more to mine in the future. “Polar Bare,” the Musical? I’d see it.

Trump on a Pole

So that’s how I’ve come to the polar metaphor.

As Trump flails in the news, I picture him on a pole.

The letter to Epstein is further proof of the character of the man.

Will he stay afloat?

Not if the presidency were more like pole dancing.

You can’t lie on the pole.

That’s one way all of us in the Trump era can get to the truth.

About the Author

Emil Amok is a veteran journalist, commentator, and stage monologist. He has written a weekly column on Asian Americans for more than 30 years.

Contact: www.amok.com

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California Black Media

Opinion: Some Believe Trump’s Takeover of D.C. Police Is a Necessary Solution to an Unending Crime Epidemic

founding principles that establish congressional oversight over the nation’s capital. By mobilizing 800 members of the National Guard to rein in crime, he is not only prioritizing public safety but also challenging the status quo that has allowed D.C. to spiral into lawlessness.

Published

3 months ago

August 25, 2025

Oakland Post

Los Angeles, USA – June 8, 2025. National Guard troops on standby during a downtown demonstration against expanded ICE operations and in support of immigrant rights. Shutterstock.

By Craig J. DeLuz, Special to California Black Media Partners

President Trump’s recent announcement regarding federal control of the Washington, D.C. police force is a bold and necessary step toward confronting the rampant crime that has plagued our nation’s capital. This decision resonates strongly, especially in light of the ever-mounting statistics that tell a grim tale of safety in the District. The persistent narrative attempting to downplay the crime crisis in D.C. must be challenged, as doing so is irrelevant to pursuing real solutions.

President Trump acknowledged a longstanding problem and took action to address it.

For years, D.C. has wrestled with a heinous crime rate. In 2023 alone, the city recorded 200 homicides at its fastest pace ever, leading to an alarming murder rate that surpasses even that of cities like Bogotá, Colombia and Mexico City, Mexico – Latin American capitals notorious for their violence. The statistics are damning: the number of car thefts has doubled, while carjackings have more than tripled in just five years. These figures paint a plain picture of reality, contradicting claims from local officials who have, time and again, insisted that everything is “just fine.” This level of denial, akin to sticking one’s head in the sand, and it does not pave a path to real solutions. It only fosters a dangerous environment in which citizens feel less secure.

President Trump has invoked the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, asserting his constitutional authority — something very much in line with the founding principles that establish congressional oversight over the nation’s capital. By mobilizing 800 members of the National Guard to rein in crime, he is not only prioritizing public safety but also challenging the status quo that has allowed D.C. to spiral into lawlessness.

The President’s concern for safety is echoed in a recent Washington Post poll, which reveals that Black and low-income residents of D.C. are particularly alarmed about the rising crime rates, highlighting a troubling disconnect between prevailing political narratives and the lived experiences of vulnerable communities.

President Trump’s strategy — to increase police presence and reshape law enforcement authority — is reminiscent of practical measures that stemmed from the “Broken Windows Theory,” which posits that addressing small problems can prevent larger ones from manifesting. The idea is straightforward: if the community can see that law enforcement is actively engaged, the likelihood of crime decreases. This concept has been proven time and again in other cities, where policing strategies that insist on accountability and visible enforcement lead to substantial drops in criminal behavior.

President Trump’s decisive action to reclaim control over the policing of Washington, D.C. deserves acknowledgment and support. It is a response based on hard truths, action, and a clear message: safety and well-being cannot wait for the next convenient political cycle. As the President suggested, “we want our Capitol back.” That means stepping up and refusing to accept a narrative of complacency when real-world dangers lurk just outside our doors. Only through leadership that prioritizes immediate and tangible responses can we hope to see a decline in crime and a restoration of peace in our nation’s capital.

About the Author

Craig J. DeLuz has almost 30 years of experience in public policy and advocacy. He currently hosts a daily news and commentary show called “The RUNDOWN.” You can follow him on X at @CraigDeLuz.