As I said on the Tweet Machine, I wasn’t going to post this ‘On This Day’ photo because of the horror of Charleston, but then…. it’s imagery like this, of our wonderful *black* First Couple, that drives the bigots insane.
So, **** them:
Our President.
Our First Lady.
Endless love for them.
****
MUST READ: Remembering the #CharlestonShooting victims (fuller stories on each person) washingtonpost.com/graphics/natio…
—
deray mckesson (@deray) June 18, 2015Charleston
The faces
I weep
I cradle my wife
I cradle my kids
I have no words
I am lost
In an ocean of hate http://t.co/gh7qoEbQks
—
TheObamaCAT (@TheObamaCat) June 19, 2015****
No hoodies
No toy guns
No breathing
No listening to music at a gas station
No asking for help after a car accident
No praying at church
—
LEFT (@LeftSentThis) June 18, 2015A protective hand and a bulletproof vest for the mass murderer.
A murderous choke-hold for the cigarette seller. http://t.co/Lb8Ja4z5zZ
—
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 18, 2015****
America's "well-regulated militia" #DylannRoof #CharlestonShooting http://t.co/qcZBaovP8P
—
The Baxter Bean (@TheBaxterBean) June 18, 2015Susie Jackson, 87, oldest victim of #CharlestonShooting
She must surely have thought, in 2015, those days were gone http://t.co/Q3ZT6fDtRh
—
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 18, 2015****
Why when a White racist commits acts of hatred against Blacks, why is it the Black race is always asked to explain it?
—
Michael Hargrove (@MichaelHargrov1) June 18, 2015America
2015
And still we lose our brothers + sisters to hate
Tonight, I hug my black son + daughter even closer http://t.co/ANmJcMVAgC
—
TheObamaCAT (@TheObamaCat) June 18, 2015****
Cynthia
Susie
Ethel
DePayne
Clementa
Tywanza
Daniel
Sharonda
Myra
#CharlestonShooting
Rest in peace. http://t.co/2tqYE6rKev
—
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 18, 2015****
Tone deaf: Bernie Sanders holding loud pension rally yards away from #CharlestonShooting prayer circle that starts at noon
—
Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) June 18, 2015'Bernie Sanders has consistently voted against gun restrictions... opposed background checks'
mic.com/articles/12098… http://t.co/TEdrpU9rwa
—
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 19, 2015****
A rare honest voice:
As Americans we must stand together against domestic terrorism fueled by an ideology of hate.
—
Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) June 18, 2015****
She’s since deleted her account.
We’ll wait to see if the ever ethical Miami Herald …. 🙄 …. deletes her as a contributor:
Real tweet from @MiamiHerald columnist @AJDelgado13 http://t.co/TbJVJlS3g8
—
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 18, 2015****
The Obama Diary 
We are together. Prayers, blessing and unite against racism
Beautiful post, and you’re right, we need it now. Thank you.
They have to come back to get their Daddy outta here!
Just donate to Mother Emmanuel. Pleased to see diverse community of mourners at the church.
Further proof of GOP ODS:
Perhaps HRC will force MSM at least address the gun crisis in this country. Of course PBO opened the door (again) today, but the press as we know are pretty much all-Hillary-all-the-time.
their targets/hatred isn’t usually church going african-americans?
Talk about total white washing. ut is absolutely right. The fifth columnist fourth estate are the aiders and abettors of institutional racism.
Because our First Couple is Beloved worldwide – that is what the haters hate most. ❤
I wonder what they are thinking….”what if we just don’t go back there…”?
Wow, jojo, do you see where my comment to this landed? Way up above, completely out of context to anything and everything! I’d better sign off. Blessing and Light all around us all, in these dark days, may the Dawn be just ahead, around the next bend in the road. Chipsticks, I emailed you a pic of an incredible double rainbow in Sydney, maybe you would share it here. It may bring some small healing energy. Goodnight {{{{{ TOD }}}}}
{{{{{ Good Nite MP }}}}
Thank you for posting We Shall Overcome because I really really needed that song.
AND endless love to you, Chips. One of my favorite photos of POTUS and FLOTUS. XOXO
A message from the Pope: Hey you, stop ignoring climate change.
You could be forgiven for thinking the reason the world isn’t doing nearly enough to fight climate change is that the American Ostrich Politicians are holding us back.
You know these guys: Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush. These AOPs have their heads stuck so far in the sand that they aren’t willing to see that climate change is real, that we’re largely causing it — and that failing to act puts the entire world at serious risk.
But when I read Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment and climate change, I was struck by his mention of a more pernicious threat.
It’s not really the climate change deniers who are preventing action.
It’s the rest of us — those of us who are too oh-whatever to care.
“Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest,” the Pope wrote in the much-anticipated document. “Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.”
Think about that stinging critique.
“Indifference.”
“Nonchalant resignation.”
Those terms, at various points in time, easily could describe me.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/18/opinions/sutter-pope-climate/index.html
Thanks for that one, which I would have missed! Tomorrow I hope to read the fully encyclical, plus this story!
I know I refuse to give Walmart my business and buy from more employee friendly stores such as BiMart which is employee owned in Oregon. I would also boycott companies that add to the climate problem, but it seems impossible to figure out where to buy in that case. Even though I preach to others not to buy from Walmart those I know prefer the prices so keep buying from them. Seems it needs to be a very large swatch of the population participating to be able to get to change. Bless the Pope for his voice.
Report on the first fundraiser PBO attended:
Obama Addresses Gun Violence at Hollywood Fundraiser
http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/president-obama-chuck-lorre-tyler-perry-fundraisers-1201523360/
Nate Silver hasn’t always been popular here, but this is a very telling analysis.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/
Yet another dry statistics reinforcing what we all know already.
But dry statistics can be powerful. Looking at the bar graph of the rate at which black people are killed compared to the rest of the developed world is stunning, i think. One of the things people do to minimize these deaths is to regard each one as a separate incident. Dry statistics and powerful graphic representations can help to show the falsity of that argument.
These number games and ppt presentations have been done countless times before. They have achieved jacksquat.
Okay, fine.
You never know when seeing the facts will stir a response in some people who haven’t acknowledged “the problem” before. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/06/18/requiem-a-long-long-time-coming/
Thank you thank you thank you.
Hi TOD. Can I just say how very much I have missed you all? I have been unplugged since mid April, no tv, internet; I just got around to updating my 5 year old phone just so I could reconnect with MY Obama Diary! My network connection is hit and miss where I live but hopefully I can post this comment. Please know that I love you all and care what happens in TODland, with the Obamas of course, but I miss my Chips and Nerdy posts, and I really miss following the threads and keeping up with the flow of my peeps. 🙂
Welcome Home {{{ paulita }}}!
Glad you’re back!
Thank you for that beautiful picture of POTUS and FLOTUS. It is one of my favorites and I NEEDED it tonight.
Evening / morning, friends.
Signing off for tonight. Had a long, productive staycation day. Nephew of LL helped with the garage. He’s such a good guy.
All thoughts to all victims of hatred and racism. See everyone tomorrow.
http://africa.si.edu/2014/05/when-great-trees-fall%E2%80%A8%E2%80%A8-by-maya-angelou/
When Great Trees Fall
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
― Maya Angelou
Until tomorrow. Thoughts are with Charleston…and America.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/i-got-nothin-for-you-an-emotional-jon-stewart-puts-the-jokes-aside-to-discuss-racism-in-america/
Both hands raised to the sky! This right here is 100% Grade Choice BEEF! I say Bravo!
thank you for this lovely photo of pbo and flotus. it brings some peace to my heart– and if it reeeally pisses off some racists, well that’s also good.
like many of you, i suppose, i have ‘friends’ on facebook who are not able to see pbo’s greatness yet. extended family who vote republican. when i logged on today (always half a day behind here) there was not a single reference or link or rant about what had happened in charleston. nothing!! some recipes, some funny dogs, some motivational tripe, but not a thing about this shocking, horrifying, sickening destruction of good people whose color was not pleasing to a man with a gun.
all day, i’ve linked, i’ve ranted, i’ve referenced, and i’ve pushed to open a conversation there. the impression i get (from the fact that just one person ‘liked’ one link) is that it’s not polite to bring this to facebook. or maybe it’s too uncomfortable. my family is mixed race, so maybe (hopefully) the conversations are happening off line.
but why shy away from a more public statement? fear of seeming radical to work friends? or not wanting to get involved in something dangerous? i don’t know. but for what it’s worth, i didn’t ‘like’ anything today that wasn’t related to the president’s response, the history of racism in this country, or other items of related news (all from followed sources).
a very small, and probably unnoticed, protest. hopefully the stream of powerful images and links i put up all day has had an impact on someone. i want them to be uncomfortable. not one american should be comfortable today.
Small steps, susanne. Big change starts with small steps.
{{{ susanne }}}
mahalo nui dudette ❤
Thank you Dudette, you always bring the right music to fill my heart. You are so special. My heart aches.
Aw thank you dear {{{ mtmarilyn }}}
Fear is the root of it all
Chips – Just getting back here to see this, but thank you for all the love and care you put into this post … and every post. Brava for the first glorious photo. We’ve got to try to keep our “eye on the prize”; otherwise, we’ll be too saddened to support our President as much as we’d like, and need to, on a daily basis.
Didn’t have a chance to talk with my 46-y/o (white) son earlier in the day, but he came in this evening and saw I had the TV turned to the coverage from SC. He said he’d watched it late into the night, last night, and said to me with a stunned look on his face, “He sat there for an hour WHILE THEY WERE PRAYING before he killed them!” My son has a lot on his mind and has some current health issues but he still took the time to follow the coverage and didn’t just “go about his business” – I’m so proud that he still has his own moral compass intact. We just all need to keep talking about it, and not putting it aside because it’s too painful to think about.
You raised a good one, job!
Peace, love and blessings to you both.
Don’t make me tear up again, Dudette! Thanks – I appreciate that so much.
Nighty night to you!
More…
The “awakening” continues. Glad to see these tweets.
yes.
Tweetie of Hardball said he couldn’t get mad at the kid — just look at him. Why would he do something like that? Give me a break! He can’t be a hateful killer because he looks clean cut and middle class.
That’s it – I’m bombarding MSNBC – he should be taken off the air for that – what a disgrace.
As anyone frequenting TOD knows, I’m not a fan of Jon Stewart, however, tonight he did good, for real ….
Yes indeed.
thanks for the recommendation– safe to watch.
Spend lots of time viewing and thinking about what you see in that image ….
Can anyone even begin to comprehend the incessant fear that those three persons have and continue to experience about the person they love more than anyone else?
Unfathomable.
good night TOD ……….
“Unfathomable” So true Bob!
Goodnight and Thank You!
She has to know we know ……
now, good night
don’t know if all of you saw this, with everything else going on. an excellent reminder that the end of the civil war was not the end of slavery, much less the end of racial and oppression– in spite of the laws and efforts of the federal government. tomorrow is juneteenth, a good day to remember this history.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/hidden-history-of-juneteenth
Goodnight Family!
So this Roof guy was a evil crazy guy who decided to go kill some black folks, and part of that might be true. I talked about this early, but the blame doesn’t like with Roof alone. It lies with these politicians who are afraid of the NRA , who makes it so easy for a evil crazy guy to get a gun. These politicians who doesn’t stand up against racism, who condones racism through their silence or because they are racists too. And I am talking mostly about the Tea Party Republican Party. It lies with media folks like FOX so call news, it lies with right wing hate radio who sat on the airwaves and spread their racists hate for people like Roof to hear. People like Rush Limbaugh, who Republicans are afraid of. I do not believe that Dylann Roof did it by himself. He had plenty of help.
I love the photo of PBO and Michelle. If ever there was a photo that proved one picture can be worth a thousand words this one does prove that. When my late husband and I were marriage prep counsellors in our church I remember liking the saying that parents duty to their children was to love one another so they could see that love and learn from it. To me this photo is a testament to our First Couple living that advice for their daughters benefit.
Morning everyone
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/06/18/early-bird-rise-and-shine-72/