The Goddess Professor Speaks

We are all pretty familiar with Godwin’s Law by this point: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches. Well, I’m declaring a new law as a derivative of this one; I’m calling it the GP Law (GP for Goddess Professor, of course). It goes as such: As an online discussion that’s related to race (racism, race-based prejudices, or those perceived as such) grows longer, the likelihood of someone invoking a Dr. King quote from “I Have a Dream” speech increases. We see this shit all the time. I am SO tired of it. Annually, around Dr. King day, we see too many people trot out tired, trite quotes from that speech. Annually, just as many people ( myself included ), write about how ridiculous it is that Dr. King, his work, his legacy, his words are reduced and simplified down to a few quotes from one speech. These people are often, though not always, white. They are often, though not always, poorly educated on anything Dr. K

Bernie Sanders recently joined the 2020 Democratic Presidential race, and of course, that's damn near all folks want to talk about now. I did not want to start this post with him, but in reality, his entering the race was my impetus for a political post I've been sitting on for a minute. I'm over Bernie. He was a super progressive outlier in 2016, but that isn't the case anymore. He can't just spout off his same then -progressive ideas today when many of the candidates in 2020 support those same ideas AND have clear plans for how to accomplish them. Even before Bernie entered, the Democratic 2020 presidential primary field was crowded AF. Officially announced so far (in order of well-know to who?): Elizabeth Warren       Bernie Sanders       Cory Booker       Kamala Harris       Amy Klobuchar       Julián Castro       Tulsi Gabbard       John Delaney       Andrew Yang Has an "exploratory" committee (read: announcement likely coming soon): Kirst

Virginian politics has been imploding for about a week now due to blackface AND sexual assault allegations. Gov. Ralph Northam initially said "Sorry. That was wrong." Then , "nope, wasn't me." And lastly , "hell no, I won't go." Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has denied allegations of sexual assault made by two women, and has asked for a full investigation. AG Mark Herring pre -confessed to wearing blackface when he saw how hot the water was getting for Northam. So far, no one has resigned. The citizens are split on whether some, all, or none of them should resign. And all the damn chickens are in the yard roosting their asses off. Although controversial as hell at the time (and still is for some), Malcolm X's statement after JFK's assassination about chickens coming home to roost has plenty of relevancy here. His statement seemed callous at the time, but in a world where the U.S. supported and sanctioned violence, murders, coups, etc.

Generational names and classifications have always fascinated me. I guess they continue to fascinate others since every few months or so, the names or actions of a generation sparks a new crop of articles. Millennial bashing, and now Gen Z bashing, has become a monthly, sometimes even weekly occurrence. And then the requisite, Boomer bashing in retaliation for the previous Millennial bashing.  I get SO tired of millennial bashing. Not just because I get tired of "think pieces" ragging on an entire generation of people because often, it's misguided and seeks to lay blame on people rather than the systems that affected the people. And who can forget the interesting and dismissive (perhaps intentionally so) chart from CBS News that completely omitted Gen X. The ensuing tweets and memes were hilarious and spot on. Lots of people claimed that it's highly likely that a Gen Xer created the chart (because of course they did) and purposely omitted Gen X because that's