Dennis Roberts is now buried next to his parents
Call it mission accomplished as Dennis was buried today at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Columbia Falls, Montana. A surprise awaited me because I didn't expect to find both his mother's and father's grave sites but there they were, side by side. Knowing that his father died in Snohomish County, I didn't know that his body was later transported to Montana, relieving any doubt I had that Ruth Roberts was indeed Dennis's mother. Tomorrow I will be taking a picture of the gravesite, and if I can figure out how to post it, it will be found on this specific posting. If anyone ever gets close to this part of Montana, you will find their graves in the NE corner of the cemetery. Once entering the cemetery, take your first right and drive forward to the end. Look to your left and you will find all three members of the Roberts family. The address is 2310 9th West, adjacent to the Super 1 supermarket. Easy to find.
America Not Always a Paradise, Especially If Your Skin Is Not White
Recently I saw a photograph of a very dark skinned Black African mother and her son slogging through the dense Panamanian jungle that is the Darien Gap. For all her efforts, I doubted if she truly knew much about the country she was trying to reach. Like too many, I am guessing that like millions before her, she had embraced the mythology of the USA as the beacon of light and liberty, a place friendly and welcoming. But mythology is one thing, reality quite another kind of question yet to be faced by anyone seeking entry into the United States. A brief historical accounting brings clarity to murky assumptions.
In 1882, in 1917, and in 1924, the American Congress passed bills signed into law by American presidents both denying and limiting entry to various ethic groups. In 1882, it was President Chester A. Arthur who signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson gave his signature to an immigration act containing the requirement that all immigrants over the age of 16 prove literacy in some language, failure usually resulting in exclusion and deportation. The bill also contained a provision increasing taxes on the head of each new immigrant. Calvin Coolidge (do yourself a big favor and read the Sinclair Lewis novel from 1928, "The Man Who Knew Coolidge") signed the Johnson-Read Act that not only banned Japanese immigration but greatly limited the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. I'm lucky to be here, as I think only one of grandparents could initially read; and since three were from Hungary and one from Sicily, fortunate they arrived in the late 19th Century. My father was born in 1917, my mother in 1919.
Most eastern seaboard emigration came thorough Ellis Island in New York City between the years 1892-1954, over 12 million immigrants arriving on its shore during that 64 year span. 2 percent were denied entry, with over 120,000 deported. One of the more horrific events involving migrants was the American refusal, at the port of Miami, Florida in 1939, to allow the entry of nearly 1000 mostly German Jews fleeing Hitler aboard the Steamship Saint Louis. Instead, the Saint Louis set sail back across the Atlantic Ocean, carrying its passengers back to an uncertain fate. 254 of those once hopeful migrants were later murdered by the Nazis.
Closer to home, even though the Black African immigrant has made it to the USA, even obtaining citizenship, it doesn't always translate into an ascension past America's heavenly gates. Too often, taxi and Uber friends of mine are subjected to threats and accusations simply because they are black. Male black African drivers are often being banned by both Uber and Lyft by unsubstantiated allegations made by female passengers. It is hard to fight hatred when you are black and your attackers are white. In the 19th and 20th centuries in the USA, at least 3,446 mostly black victims were lynched, hung from trees and light posts. Welcome to America, land of barely disguised discrimination.
A friend of mine is assisting a Somali woman (via Kenya) who is caught up in web of racist innuendo, falsely accused of illegally gaining COVID-19 pandemic funds for the unemployed. She caught the attention of Federal agents by her frequent journeys out of the country, including to her boyfriend in Turkey. Though having done nothing wrong, because she is black, because she is Muslim, because she is Somali, because she is unusually independent, she has been targeted and persecuted by the American government. It is costing her much money to defend herself while facing years of Federal imprisonment. If her skin was of a lighter shade, would anyone have noticed her?
Her biggest mistake? Thinking she was like every other American, having bought into the illusion that America is the "home of the brave, land of the free." Truer of course if you are white but even I, in 1972, faced conscription (the Vietnam-Era draft) and the reality of going to prison if I didn't cooperate. Welcome now to USA 2024 where tens of millions support an autocrat for president. As much as changed, little in reality has changed. As the rock & roll band Steppenwolf sang in 1969:
"Yeah, there's monster on the loose. Its got our heads in a noose. And it just sits there watching."
"America, where are you now? Don't you care about your sons and daughters. Don't you know we need you now. We can't fight alone against the monster!"
As you might imagine, it was not their most successful or popular record. America had just elected a monster for president, Richard Nixon. People like monsters, thinking they only exist in fairy tales. If only that fantasy was true.
Ottawa Cabbies Win 215 million Dollar Judgement
In a class-action law suit, the Ottawa taxi industry won a judgement against the City of Ottawa for allowing and not stopping Uber's entry into the taxi market. More on this in a later post. It is what we in Seattle should have done. All of us have lived that failure.
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