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Life and Times of Alex Esguerra — Martin Luther King

I have a dream for freedom and for Anarchy, reflecting on two persons on democracy.

Publicado por noreply@blogger.com (Alex Esguerra) en

As  we reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King's  message by revisiting his celebrated I Have a Dream speech in its entirety delivered on August 28, 1963, part if the speech says "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds". 

Another part of the speech continues, "This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring". 
 

 In October 30,2020 ALL NEWS from the White House articles quotes: 

Nearly 400 miles of new border wall system is now complete. Just as important, the Trump Administration is prosecuting and deporting violent criminals, stopping the flow of illegal drugs, and closing the loopholes that help human smugglers while hurting our own citizens, including legal immigrants". Illegal immigration hurts everyone. It empowers criminals, bankrolls human smugglers, and fuels transnational gangs. It costs both legal immigrants and U.S. citizens a shot at the American Dream. It endangers law enforcement officers, makes our communities less stable, and puts law-abiding workers and businesses at a disadvantage.

It is the same narrative, today we celebrate the heroism on Dr. King. He started the fight risking his own life for democracy. January 6, 2020 will be read by generations after our life time when the Supreme leader of White Supremacy led an unsuccessful insurrection to democracy and people of color in the United States of America. 

This hate extends to the undocumented immigrants mostly on the front lines of the dreaded pandemic a lot of which classified as essential workers. A lot of whom are hard working law abiding, tax paying members of the society who cannot even access unemployment or health care in this country. 

As the I have a dream speech mentioned I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. Martin Luther King continued. 

I believe that it is the right first direction to tackle an immigration reform in this country to show the insurrects that people of color are here to stay as part of the land of the free, the greatest democracy in the world and they have to accept we cannot be extinct. 

No one can compete with American workers when they’re given a fair and level playing field, which has not happened for decades.

President Donald J. Trump   Mr. Trump refers to American workers as White Americans. when he tighten the H1B visa limits and cited everyone else as foreign labor.. 


From the front line of healthcare doctors, nurses, first responders, essential workers to the technology fields, America's workforce comprises a lot of the so called foreign labor he undermines,  


It is imperative that an overhaul of the immigration system and racial justice reckoning be a prime focus of the incoming administration. 


I will end continuing on Dr. King's speech, " And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last". 



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Democracy in Black, A Look into Eddie S. Glaude's Jr.'s Book

Publicado por Alexander Esguerra en

Democracy in Black, A Look into Eddie S. Glaude's Jr.'s Book
Democracy in Black was a book I happened to read early this year just in time for the inauguration of 45th US President.
A book recommended for all ages for the Los Angeles Times, bestselling author Eddie S. Glaude Jr. continues the discussion on the promise of equality in America. He capitalized on history, memoir's, call to action as well the still existing gap on the issue. One would think that perhaps the election of Former President Barack Obama has ended or answered the subdivide. Unfortunately as the author wrote racial habits are a particular kind of social habit which I truly agree. I remember on my first tour of Europe backpacking starting from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France and the UK. When your young and travelling, the best gift about it is that experience of the different cultures, languages, lifestyles and way of life. Hence, in the process I sort of develop how I would later perceive someone from the countries I had been. I remember staying in a bread and breakfast inn in Tuscany which was owned and managed by a well educated affluent French Ethiopian couple. Then my recollection of a scene in Charing Cross on  street gang fighting right next to the hotel I was staying. In all those times looking at Caucasian Europeans to live normal lives with not much high and low memories during my trip.  
Today living in US metropolitan diverse cities, you get to experience the different paths and cultures when your a tourist to a particular city. There are the permanent communities like Chinatown for example as well as you would hear that a particular community resides in a certain demographic location. For example, the Latinos are concentrated this part of the city, the Chinese are on this part and so. It's not to state the racial subdivide it's just how were accustomed that people with racial origins have their own identified communities where a lot of the original cultures etc.., are concentrated.  
President Obama when elected was very promising to the African Americans as well the people of colors hope for equality. However, as President as much as he tried to open the discussions on equality he was only able to do as much as after all he represented all the cultures as President.
This was the disconnect as people thought of him as the black progressive  antidote but with the position of leader of the free world there was just too much risk if he indeed focus on pursuing inequalities faced by people of color.
Post Martin Luther King, the civil rights and now post Obama, the race inequality might have gain traction on getting the problem More discussed but the problem still persist. It is a discussion not just for the American Africans but also for any minority and people of color as after all we all live in this great country, we all work, and we all contribute to economy and society.
Kudos to Democracy in Black

Alex Esguerra
https://www.usedbookworld.com



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A Review on The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

Publicado por Alexander Esguerra en

A Review on The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein is a great read bestseller. Living between the Pacific Northwest and San Francisco, I can truly relate when the book started with the state of residential racial segregation in San Francisco, CA.
A good example is that San Francisco nowadays has outlived New York and any major metropolitan city as the highest cost of living as well as one of the highest in rent and home purchase. Thus a good example is the Ellis Act. 
The “Ellis Act” is a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to “go out of business.” For an Ellis eviction, the landlord must remove all of the units in the building from the rental market, i.e., the landlord must evict all the tenants and cannot single out one tenant (for example, with low rent) and/or remove just one unit out of several from the rental market In the Color of Law as mentioned in the book, it is concerned with consistent government policy that was employed in the mid-twentieth century to enforce residential racial segregation. Hence that was a time that African Americans and Whites cannot live in the same building. Thus San Francisco for example is where the Rev. Cecil Williams founded the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church coinciding with the  the Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks  era and revolution. 
 
From zoning ordinances to public housing as discussed in the book, there's still a huge segregation and thus the disconnect. The book has several number of pages solely on Frequently Asked Questions. From author, Ta-Nehisi Coates says he would pay reparations to African Americans to the author's notes citing his stint with the Economic Policy Institute in developing The Color of Law. This book is indeed a great read on the topic and from the last I've heard, the publisher is now printing additional copies due to demand.
 
I would end he topic again in an affordable housing program called Below Market Rate, In this program developers that build skyscrapers and multi development condominiums for example are required to dedicate and unit or building which can be sold a Below Market Rates. This is a great program to be able to purchase a property if your in the low to medium income bracket and do not have much cash to put in towards the purchase. The sad reality is that the lenders or banks in this program themselves sometimes get listed as accredited but when to contact them they will state they are not with the program. Worst scenario is that even with such programs, there's still no way to raise a 10-15% downpayment and closing cost just to get a home mortgage.
 
When you get to finally read this book, you'll better understand what the inequalities are specifically on housing.

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