We are in a time of huge leaps in industry in America, especially in the area of technology. We are back in the space race with the SpaceX launch of 60 Starlink satellites, and are anticipating a new moon landing in 2021. On the surface things look great for these United States, yet in one area we have been sliding backwards for decades. It is an area that has had band aids placed on the wound instead of the open heart surgery needed. The illness is race relations, and the area I will be talking about is the Temecula Valley, specifically Murrieta, in Southern California.
I am a firm believer in the adage that “you must know the past in order to understand the present.” To be ignorant of, or ignore the past leaves the door open to making the same mistakes over and over, while wondering why no progress is being made. Because the younger generations do not know history, particularly the history of where they live, bringing change can be difficult. My letter is to help bring a bit of history to the racial issues in the TVUSD.
Racism in the Temecula Valley is not new. It has always been overwhelmingly white in population and mindset. Riverside and San Bernardino counties aka the Inland Empire have their roots in white supremacy. Tom Metzger, the former Ku Klux Klan California grand dragon who, in the mid-1980s, founded the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) has been a longtime local presence. WAR has been one of the leading racist groups of the period. Metzger now leads the group from his home in Fallbrook. He has said that southwest Riverside County’s (Temecula Valley) chemistry is perfect for more racism.
In early to the mid-2000s there was an influx of white people to the Temecula Valley from Orange and Los Angeles Counties. They said they were “fleeing from crime.” Translation: they were fleeing nonwhite crime. According to Metzger, “The growing pains of throwing kids into forced integration causes a negative reaction in this burgeoning area that’s becoming more nonwhite.” The nickname for Orange County, or the OC, has always been “Only Caucasian.” And they brought that mentality to the Temecula Valley. The change in the character of the area was immediate, and not in a good way.
In 2002, assistant county district attorney, John Ruiz successfully prosecuted young alleged Hammerskins white supremacists for the attack of a black man with beer bottles, boots, and razors in the Temecula Valley wine country. Yet, the blame for the rising racial hostility got shifted. Experts and law enforcement instead pointed the finger at increasing racial diversity among newcomers. It has been said that any kind of major demographic change has the potential to spark racial turbulence and hate crimes. Although I can’t see how age, sex, income, education, etc., could spark racism. Only race would have that effect.
In 2004 a lawsuit was filed against the Temecula Valley Unified School District and several white students by three black Murrieta Valley High School students. The suit was for $2.8 million, alleging they were taunted and beaten in 2003. According to the Los Angeles Times, a black student was violently fouled by a white student during a basketball game, which prompted another white student to yell racial slurs. The suit also alleged that two of the white students confronted one of the black students outside of the principal’s office with more racial slurs. When the black student tried to walk away, he was knocked to the ground and severely beaten. The school district’s attorney did not return repeated phone calls to his office.
As a single mother to four children, I have had my share of mountains to climb. One of the most difficult was dealing with the racism in the TVUSD. I was constantly meeting with counselors and principals about racism involving teachers or other students. It was always the same scenario. First the feigned shock. Then the fake apology. Finally, the attempted brush-off. Then they realized they were dealing with an entirely different breed of an angry black mother. I didn’t yell, I didn’t cuss, I didn’t threaten. I came armed knowing my rights. Even though I was a mama bear who had been poked, I exercised restraint. I didn’t leave until I got the desired results.
In 2006 my youngest daughter was attending Warm Springs Middle School in Murrieta, California when an incident occurred. I did not find out about it until the next day, however. My daughter, evidently, was called a n****r in the classroom by another girl with the teacher present. Yet nothing was done the day it happened. The student was not reprimanded, or sent to the principal’s office. No note was sent home. I was not informed. My daughter told me that evening. The next day I went to the school. To say I was angry would be a gross understatement. I went to the principal’s office and requested to speak with him. The receptionist asked if I had an appointment. I told her I did not. She replied that I needed an appointment. When I refused to make an appointment, another woman came up to the desk. She was the principal’s secretary. She reiterated the need for me to make an appointment. I then said, “Tell the principal, that the mother of the girl who was called a n****r in the classroom with the teacher present is here to speak to him!” I watched the color drain from her face and I heard a simultaneous gasp from other parents in the office. She quickly told me that the principal wasn’t in but I could speak with a counselor. I agreed. I was sent to the counselor’s office. When he walked in, I just shook my head. Of course, I was sent to the one black counselor in the entire district. When I told him why I was there, instead of being sympathetic, or having my back, or at least being objective, he tried to make light of the incident. I advised him to call Bear Valley Unified District and tell them I was in his office. Immediately his whole attitude changed. I had a history with school districts and racism. The girl who had made the racial slur was suspended that day. To this day the teacher claims she didn’t hear her.
What is happening now in Murrieta should come as no surprise for it is Temecula Valley’s legacy. Like a boil, it has been allowed to grow and fester. Lies and secrets are deadly. No matter how long they are hidden, truth will always rise to the surface. Always. It’s time to expose the racism that has permeated the TVUSD since its inception. It’s time for accountability. It’s time for not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well. It’s time to replace the injustice with actual justice. It’s time to educate future generations, both white and black, because racism is a heart attitude issue. You have to be carefully taught to hate someone solely because of the color of their skin.
I’m thinking of publishing a new Scripture translation. I’m going to call it The Meme Bible.
Meme – a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.
Bible – a collection of texts sacred in Judaism and Christianity.
Spend any time on social media and you’ll see memes. Spend time on social media where Christians post their thoughts and you’ll see Bible memes, complete with chapter and verse, offered to inspire and encourage people through the word of God.
Yet I’ve never seen a meme for Job 2:9b. Instead, I see memes like this one on the blessing of abiding in Christ:
And one on the love of God and loving one another:
Notice the pleasant typeface and compelling images. This is typical of Bible memes. They feature rainbows, running horses, storm-tossed seas, and more…
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Get Out – I’d heard good things about this movie, but really knew nothing about it other than that it was a horror film (or at least horror-adjacent) and that it dealt with racism. I can’t say I know much about Key and Peele, either. Beth and I finally watched this last night, and I found it effective. There are definitely going to be some significant SPOILERS in here, so proceed with caution.
After an opening scene of a black man being abducted in an affluent suburb, we shift to a white girl named Rose taking her black boyfriend Chris home to meet her family. They turn out to be the sort of people who try to overcompensate for racism by obsessing over how cool black people are. Not only is this uncomfortable for Chris, but he also suspects something sinister is going on when he discovers that the only…
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The world is stunned by the deaths of Carrie Fisher at 60 and her mother Debbie Reynolds just one day later.
And it should be.
Carrie’s death was undoubtedly hastened by a combination of mental illness that led to addictive behavior that led to physical damage that made her a likely candidate for the early heart attack that took her life.
Each of those contributory factors run amok in our society-often undiagnosed or untreated because of the stigma attached to them. She was rich, famous and had lots of resources available to her yet was still unable to escape the clutches of addiction until late in life.
Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart. The cause of death may be declared “stroke” but any mama who has buried a child knows full well that the moment they told her about Carrie, her heart gave up.
Mine did when…
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Why is it all these best seller guys like Beck, O’Reilly and others talk about their team of people who helped them ghost write their books? Why are they even touting that they have these best sellers by their own names? Well, I wrote four books and had no ghost writers, no one to blame for anything I said or did not say….on my own merit. So did the authors of old. I say, what is wrong with this picture? You either authored something on your own or you did not. Geeze…where has the literary world gone? In the trash or the can of everyone’s opinion approved by the author? Get real people….why are you reading ghost written garbage?
Dianne Marshall, Real Author
UN transforming our world by 2030 with new sustainable development goals.
The establishment elite are working in hyper speed to bring about radical changes nationally and internationally. At the recent U.N. meeting, the establishment announced their new sustainable development goals to be achieved in less than 15 years from now. Are you all ready for these radical changes?
These elitists have their agenda all figured out and they need their political puppets in place to carry out their wishes. When you decode the agenda you see it is very dark and very evil.
Pope Francis is the new point man for the agenda for sustainable development. At the Recent U.N. talks, the Pope gave his blessing on their new global movement for the benefit of all mankind and encouraged the world to participate in the new U.N. goals to rid poverty. Millions of people are now thinking this is a great thing to do to…
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“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:1-5
If you tune into enough Christian TV these days, you might be led to believe that we can buy our way to health, wealth, happiness, and success. When you listen to many of the televangelists, it would appear that Jesus is the key to being set free from all that is difficult and hard about life.
Word of Faith, Health and Wealth and Name It and Claim It are just some of the names the prosperity gospel goes by. These “gospels” teach that God provides rewards, including personal happiness, financial wealth and physical health for believers who have sufficient faith. Sufficient faith – who or what determines that? Why your level of success of course! The greater your success, the greater your faith must be, or so they say. And for them, your faith is on a sliding scale – the bigger your “faith” the larger your expected monetary gift should be. The “prosperity theology” in America grew in the last century and has been called a “baptized form of capitalism.”
The doctrines of the Word of Faith are typically acquired by either taking biblical passages out of context or appealing to a “new revelation” from God that “clarifies” or expands what the Bible says. Preachers associated with the movement are some of the most popular with some of the largest mega-churches, best-selling books and television programs. They include Kenneth Copeland, T.D.Jakes, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyer, Frederick K. C. Price, Jesse Duplantis, Marilyn Hickey, Robert Tilton and the list goes on.
So tell me, exactly which verses grant hope for new cars, job promotions and good health? I know there are a staggering number of Bible translations out there (which may be part of the confusion), but my Bible tells me that as followers of Christ, we are assured persecution (2 Tim. 3:12) and suffering (Acts 9:16) and are admonished toward self-denial (Mark 8:34).
According to the Obama administration, more than 94 million working age Americans are “not in the labor force”, and so they don’t count as being unemployed…
That people actually believe this crap is alarming.
The Writer In Me 
