(7-6-2023) Jeff Blog: PAINFUL BUT HONEST COMMENTS ABOUT AMERICA
By Paul Anger, 2nd vice chair, Jefferson Parish Democratic Executive Committee
Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics Women's National Basketball Association team recently posted about how our country is still falling short of its ideals, abusing so many of our citizens, taking steps backward with recent Supreme Court decisions.
You can search her full comments online. She used direct, inflammatory language. Conservative media went crazy in lambasting her. And some who agreed with her found her comments crude when she posted, "Our country is trash in so many ways and instead of using our resources to make it better, we continue to oppress marginalized groups that we have targeted since the beginning of times."
Yes, the comments are painful to absorb as we celebrate our nation's birthday, but for all who love America -- and the unrealized ideal of American democracy serving ALL of its citizens -- Natasha Cloud's comments should be a call to action. Excerpts:
"I'm blessed to travel the world for my career," she said. "I've been in plenty of countries that I would have my human rights, health care, free/assisted schooling, not have to fear mass shootings or white supremacists, not have to be concerned about the highest maternal mortality rates, less police murders, no mass incarceration based on race, adequate minimum wage, rights to my body as a woman, I MEAN I CAN KEEP GOING.
"These are things that America is capable of. And when I say trash this is what I'm referring to. We choose to allow politicians to line their pockets and spit false and hateful ideologies to pit us against each other.
"Religion in this country is political, it's weaponized, it's hypocritical, it's disappointing. It's not love. Because God is love. In the purest form."
Addressing her critics directly, Cloud said, "Y'all have to come up with something better than move to Russia or China."