RACISM, RUSSIA, & THE POLITICS OF DIVISION

I am going to take a break from giving updates on Ukraine in this blog entry. I think many of us are waiting to see what happens when the ground freezes in Ukraine and Russia makes its move. I want to offer some rambling reflections from my personal past that will explain to some degree how I came to the perspectives I now have on American domestic and international relations. Some of these I have mentioned in previous blogs. I’m trying to keep my American readers in mind, but I also have picked up readers from several other countries. So some readers may not be familiar with the past events about which I write. I tried to give enough information to make it understandable.

RACISM. I was born in the segregated south of the United States. By segregated I mean there were schools for white kids and other schools for…