One good thing about my assignments is that I get to see different schools in our local districts from the inside. I know I’m not supposed to reveal their secrets; that’s the first part of my contract with them. But, due to President Trump outing our schools for their heinous acts, I feel compelled to confirm that I’ve seen with my very own eyes, to my extreme dismay, the presence of operating rooms in all the schools.

There is a very inconspicuous door, just around the corner in every school cafeteria, which leads students down a corridor right into a room full of overhead lights, an operating table, an anesthesia cart, a table full of surgical instruments, an oxygen tank, and additional tanks for some mysterious gases. There’s also a huge closet full of clothes of all sizes, for both boys and girls.

You could say that I’ve acted as a spy for Trump, and I’ve seen for myself how school kids are being led to that room by school officials, only to emerge as the opposite sex. Trump is right. It’s true that kids go to school as one gender, the school performs a gender-affirming surgery without the parents’ knowledge or consent, and then the kids go home as another gender. You should see the confused looks on the parents’ faces. In the morning, they say to their son, “Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,” only to find out in the afternoon that Jimmy is now Janine.

Now, I hope you all know I’m just being facetious. There are no special operating rooms in schools. You need surgeons, doctors, nurses, and the rest to “operate” an operating room. Trump is full of [S-word], mocking us, his loyal supporters, making goofy sounds and weird faces when he lies about something so absurd anyone can see through it. That’s the problem, though: not everyone sees through it. There are people who actually believe him.

Our schools exist to educate our kids. There are laws to protect them and the rights of their parents. We don’t live in Nazi Germany—though maybe we would if Trump had his way—where people were treated horribly. We live in California, where individual rights are paramount. You have to ask yourself why Trump would fabricate such an obvious lie. He’s not worried because he has such gullible followers who swallow these blatant falsehoods. I mean, look at his utterly absurd, preposterous lies about “Migrants Eating Dogs.”

Although, that might explain the “mystery meat” we used to find in school cafeterias during lunch. With the influx of migrant children into our local schools, maybe that mystery meat is no longer mysterious. Remember Trump’s words during the debate: “They are eating dogs!” Maybe they’re eating dogs, cats, and, as an amazing coincidence, I don’t see any squirrels around the school trees anymore. There used to be plenty of them, but now, I hardly see any. Go figure.

We should all call our senators, just like the residents of Springfield, Ohio, called their senator, J.D. Vance—so he says—to report the “Dog Eating Migrants” story. Why should that city get so much attention when we have the same issue here? Why isn’t someone here posting such a claim on Facebook, getting it amplified by the Republican Party, and endorsed by our past, present, and future president, Trump? Why aren’t our lunatic influencers and grifters trying to cash in on this fringe idea?

Many say that Trump and Vance are telling this “truth” about migrants eating pets as a dog whistle (no pun intended) to their base. Some argue that this political messaging is racist, meant to rile up white supremacists against these migrants, and, by extension, against Kamala Harris. But I disagree. We all know that Trump is not racist. He has told us that many times. He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. He did have racist bone spurs once, but that was a long time ago.

Politicians have used similar stories about migrants throughout history. It used to be Asians accused of eating dogs and cats. Now it’s the Haitians. Trump is using the same fear-mongering, but this time targeting migrants of color. It’s sheer coincidence (or is it?) that his opponent happens to be a woman of color, and he’s deliberately using this falsehood to achieve the same results as his predecessors.

I think Trump and Vance got the idea when Robert Kennedy Jr. joined their team. We all know that man loves to eat dogs and bears. They must have discussed his culinary tastes and decided to apply it to the migrants.

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In the Columbia Mailman Psychiatric Epidemiology Training (PET) Program, fellows receive five years of funding and an invitation to think slowly and deeply about high-stakes issues in the field. During the program’s weekly seminar, faculty offer further food for thought. “For the first three, sometimes four years, we encourage fellows to make a presentation that doesn’t include data—focus on what interests you, what bugs you; tell us what you care about,” says Professor of Epidemiology Katherine Keyes, who codirects the program. “The scholars we produce know how to generate important questions with high-quality study designs underlying them.”

When it comes to asking important questions and identifying data sets robust enough to answer them, PET faculty members lead by example. Consider their inquiries into racial disparities in mental health diagnoses in the United States. “At the end of the day, we know that Black folks and people of color have very different lived experiences in this country and that has affected their health outcomes,” says former PET fellow John R. Pamplin II, MPH ’14, PhD ’20, now a Columbia Mailman assistant professor of epidemiology. (Read a Q&A with Professor Pamplin.) Racial differences have been well documented in asthma rates, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, maternal and infant health outcomes, even overall lifespan—and perhaps nowhere so starkly underlined as in COVID-19–related disability and death. Pamplin’s own doctoral research investigated differences in depression and suicidality, topics Keyes, MPH’06, PhD’10, herself a former PET fellow, has also investigated for more than a decade.

More recently, a contingent of PET faculty that includes both Pamplin and Keyes has turned their attention to the role of structural racism in the incidence of schizophrenia. “When it comes to schizophrenia and psychosis, there’s evidence that folks from marginalized racial groups—in particular, folks with Black, African, or Caribbean racial/ethnic identity in Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have a higher prevalence of schizophrenia,” says Pamplin. “Those prevalences aren’t as elevated in places where those groups are dominant. It has to do with racial marginalization.”

Going back to the late ’80s and early ’90s, when he was a PET fellow, Ezra Susser, the Anna Cheskis Gelman and Murray Charles Gelman Professor of Epidemiology, investigated the role of maternal nutrition and famine in the etiology of schizophrenia. Over the last three decades, his work on schizophrenia has also delved into how paternal age and complications during pregnancy and birth affect adult-onset schizophrenia, as well as comparative analyses of international data. He sees structural racism in the U.S.—laws and systems of life that affect racial differences in such determinants of health as access to fresh vegetables and safe housing, even how healthcare is delivered and paid for—as a powerful theoretical framework for understanding disparities. “It’s not just for unpacking what’s going on,” he says. “It suggests that you also need changes to that system. Ideally, you would change the structures, and if you can’t change them, at least mitigate the effects.”

Prior work to untangle the causal components of disparities in psychiatric diagnoses—especially such multifactorial conditions as schizophrenia—has been suffused with bias and bad data. Consider the search for genetic explanations, says Pamplin. “The genetic variation among Black people is greater than that between Black and white folks,” he says. “That should give us pause as to whether genetic differences are the relevant factors to explain racial differences in health.” Susser—co-director of PET for 25 years, then director 2015–2020, and now again codirector with Keyes—urges humility in the quest for insights, particularly given the history of racism in psychiatry.  While diagnostic criteria—and treatment—for schizophrenia have come a long way in the last 50 years, race-based disparities persist in the rates at which people are diagnosed.

Susser and Pamplin began discussing the topic early in Pamplin’s doctoral studies—even after discounting for diagnostic bias, each had a hunch there was more to the story. At the time, however, solid epidemiological datasets weren’t available. In 2023, the American Journal of Psychiatry published Susser’s editorial(link is external and opens in a new window) with Els van der Ven, a clinical psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, on an analysis of ethnoracial differences in the incidence of treated psychotic disorders among nearly 6 million people insured by Kaiser Permanente Northern California.  “Despite the salience of Black-White disparities in schizophrenia,” they write, “the scarcity of high-quality population-based incidence data in the United States and the absence of measures of diagnostic bias (overdiagnosis of Black people) in incidence studies have limited our progress in understanding the underlying causes.”

PET scholars have a nearly 60-year legacy of responding to contemporary public health challenges, says Keyes, from HIV to young adult mental health and homelessness. “Structural racism is a huge determinant of population mental health, especially for racially minoritized populations,” she says. “We have a responsibility to develop measures, insights, into how these processes work.”

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LA hospital in hot water over Black maternity care

One of the nation’s top hospitals is undergoing a federal civil rights investigation stemming from the 2016 postpartum death of a Black woman in its care, report Deena Zaru and Brittany Gaddy at ABC News.

Kira Dixon Johnson, who delivered a son by Caesarian section at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, began bleeding postpartum, but was not taken for treatment until 10 hours later, said her husband, Charles Johnson. She died from internal bleeding.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had little to tell ABC about the investigation for now, other than the fact that the Biden-Harris administration considers maternal health a priority. 

“The U.S. is in the midst of a mounting maternal mortality crisis,” writes Annalisa Merelli at STAT. Data are spotty, but the risk of death for U.S. women is, on average, 10 times that in comparable nations — and that figure rises to 20 times higher for Black and Native moms.

Moreover, the situation is getting worse: maternal mortality more than doubled between 1999 and 2019, according to a recent JAMA paper. 

A new United Nation analysis blames racism and sexism for the high rates of pregnancy complications and death experienced by Black women across the Americas, report Emily Baumgaertner and Farnaz Fassihi at The New York Times. 

For example, Black women were more likely than white women to report being denied medication or being physically or verbally abused by health care providers.

Faulty medical school instruction about Black women contribute to the problem, according to the U.N. report. For example, incorrect information that Black women’s blood coagulates faster can lead to delayed treatment for bleeding, such as Kira Dixon Johnson experienced.

The state of Black maternal health in the Americas is “a human rights crisis that is largely ignored or overlooked by decision makers,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund.

The solution is to address the root causes of bias and health care access, Dr. Abdulla al-Khan told Steven Ross Johnson at U.S. News & World Report. 

“The tolerance for disparities should be zero in the health care profession,” said al-Khan, co-director of the Fetal Care Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.

Alzheimer’s drug may be out of reach for Black patients

The FDA has approved a new drug, lecanemab, to slow Alzheimer’s disease, but it may exacerbate a racial divide in care, reports Arthur Allen at KFF Health News.

Lecanemab, which goes by the brand name Leqembi, is for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and requires biweekly infusions as well as careful monitoring of patients to check for potential side effects of bleeding or swelling in the brain. Those requirements, plus the $26,500 annual price tag, would put Leqembi out of reach for lower-income patients, physicians told Allen.

“The most likely consequence of this medication is to take resources away from addressing basic supports for older adults with cognitive impairment,” said epidemiologist Maria Glymour of the Boston University School of Public Health. 

Another problem is that only 20 people out of 859 who received the drug in the clinical trial were Black — despite the fact that Alzheimer’s is up to twice as common in Black as white individuals. 

That lack of trial diversity means it’s not certain if lecanemab is even safe or effective in Black people, one of Allen’s sources suggested.

Racism linked to childhood obesity

Children who report experiencing racial discrimination are more likely to be obese, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open.

The work adds to research that links stress from racism to weight in adults.

Children of color are aware of unfair treatment, “and this has huge, huge implications for their life course trajectory when it comes to their health,” study co-author Adolfo Cuevas of the NYU School of Global Public Health told Karen Weintraub at USA Today.

The study, which included more than 6,000 children ages 9 through 11, found the highest rates of obesity in Black Americans and children whose parents were in the lowest income category. 

It’s not clear if racism, parental education, or family income is most influential for obesity, Cuevas said. 

But the link between racial discrimination and obesity, as measured by waist circumference and body mass index (BMI), held true even after the researchers accounted for other factors such as age, sex, and parental education.

Obesity was also higher in Hispanic children and Native American and Alaska Native children.

Since the study only observed children, it can’t directly confirm that experiences of racism cause obesity.

While the effects of discrimination on weight were small over the two-year period covered in the study, they could add up, the authors wrote: “Even repeated small experiences of discrimination could impact risk of obesity, especially for those who are already vulnerable.”

Black men most likely to die of melanoma

Racial disparities in cancer are well documented, and a new study adds further evidence of the persistent trend.

Men are more likely to die of melanoma than women, and Black men are the most vulnerable overall, according to the study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

The study emphasizes that even though melanoma is rare overall in Black people, it’s important to look out for it and train doctors to identify it on patients of color, reports Andrea Atkins at The Washington Post.

Men are more than twice as likely as women to die of melanoma — probably because women seek medical care earlier in the disease, giving them a better chance at beating it, said study co-author Ashley Wysong of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. 

But even after accounting for the difference in diagnosis time, men were still more likely to die, she added, suggesting there are other contributors, perhaps hormones. About one in 27 men will be affected by melanoma at some point in his lifetime, compared to one in 40 women, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. 

Among men, whites were most likely to survive the cancer, at a rate of 75%, while only 52% of Black men survived, reports Sara Moniuszko at CBS News. Survival rates for Hispanic, Asian and Native American men fell in between.

Part of the disparity may stem from where melanoma typically first appears: on the torso, head and neck in most white men, but on the hips or legs of many Black men. The spots on Black men may be less noticeable to them or their friends and family members, leading to later diagnoses.

The study of more than 200,000 men, based on 14 years of data from the National Cancer Database, is the largest to date to focus on race in men with melanoma, writes Moniuskzo.

Rural and Black reps missing from opioid settlement councils

The nation’s rural counties have the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths, as well as fewer doctors and clinics to treat addiction. But these areas are not getting ample representation on state committees that will distribute more than $50 billion in compensation from companies that made or sold opioid painkillers, reports Aneri Pattani at KFF Health News.

The decision-making councils have wide latitude in how the restitution money is used: it could fund relief programs such as addiction treatment or recovery houses, and could also be be used for law enforcement expenses such as narcotics detectives and prisons, Pattani reports.

And while the rate of overdose deaths is rising fast in Black Americans, who already have difficulty accessing the best treatments, they’re also being left off the councils, writes Pattani.

“There’s this perception that this money is not for people who look like me,” said Philip Rutherford, who is Black and the chief operating officer of the nonprofit Faces & Voices of Recovery.

There are also few council seats designated for people who have dealt with a substance use disorder personally or supported a family member through the problem.

“Having diverse representation in the room is going to make sure there is a balance on how the funds are spent,” said Kristen Pendergrass, vice president of state policy at the nonprofit Shatterproof, which worked with KFF Health News and Johns Hopkins University to gather data on the council members.

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Tesla may face a class-action lawsuit after 240 Black factory workers in California described rampant racism and discrimination at the electric automaker’s San Francisco Bay Area plant, including frequent use of racial slurs and references to the manufacturing site as a plantation or slave ship.

The testimonies filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court comes from contractors and employees who worked on the production floor of the factory in Fremont, roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. The vast majority worked at the site between 2016 to the present. Lawyers suing Tesla, Inc. estimate at least 6,000 workers could be part of the class.

The individual testimonies are part of a 2017 lawsuit brought by Marcus Vaughn, who complained in writing to human resources and to Tesla CEO Elon Musk of a hostile work environment in which he was called slurs by co-workers and supervisors. No investigation was conducted and he was fired for “not having a positive attitude,” according to his lawyers.

The lawsuit is just one of several lawsuits alleging racism, harassment and discrimination at the Fremont plant.

Last year, California regulators sued Tesla in state court, alleging the company turned “a blind eye” to abuses and that Musk told workers to be “thick-skinned” about racial harassment. In April, a federal jury awarded another former Tesla employee $3.2 million for racial abuse he suffered.

Bryan Schwartz, one of Vaughn’s lawyers, said the case has dragged on for years as Tesla sought to force the lawsuit into arbitration. Instead, the California Supreme Court in April allowed Black workers to seek a public injunction in court that would require Tesla to change its work environment.

“To have this scope of egregious harassment right here in Silicon Valley, it’s disgusting,” Schwartz said, adding that it’s shocking that “Tesla has allowed this kind of pervasive harassment to go on as long as it has.”

The lawsuit is just one of several lawsuits alleging racism, harassment and discrimination at the Fremont plant.

Last year, California regulators sued Tesla in state court, alleging the company turned “a blind eye” to abuses and that Musk told workers to be “thick-skinned” about racial harassment. In April, a federal jury awarded another former Tesla employee $3.2 million for racial abuse he suffered.

Bryan Schwartz, one of Vaughn’s lawyers, said the case has dragged on for years as Tesla sought to force the lawsuit into arbitration. Instead, the California Supreme Court in April allowed Black workers to seek a public injunction in court that would require Tesla to change its work environment.

“To have this scope of egregious harassment right here in Silicon Valley, it’s disgusting,” Schwartz said, adding that it’s shocking that “Tesla has allowed this kind of pervasive harassment to go on as long as it has.”

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When health journalists interview patients, they tend to seek verification and evidence of the source’s experience. In accounts of medical racism, though, simply asking those questions can reinforce the trauma patients have experienced.

“In many cases, that’s almost like gaslighting your sources,” said STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur, a reporter and host of the “Color Code” podcast.

That’s why St. Fleur emphasizes listening to patients when they voice their experiences of medical racism and health inequities, he said in a recent Center for Health Journalism Health Matters webinar. St. Fleur joined STAT multimedia producer Theresa Gaffney to share the eight-episode podcast’s patient-centered and often rather personal approach to documenting racism and inequities in the health care system.

Exploring inequities and racism 

The eight-episode “Color Code” series covers diverse topics ranging from diversity in clinical trials to bias in health care artificial intelligence. The team began their podcast journey with story ideas of health care inequities.

One episode investigated the historical roots of “excited delirium,” a controversial term often used to describe a state of “superhuman strength,” aggression and agitation. The team explored its origins in a medical examiner’s office in Miami during the 1970s and 80s drug crisis, Gaffney said. Even though the wider medical community now opposes the term as a medical diagnosis, it is still used in police encounters to justify the use of excessive force, disproportionately against Black men.

Another episode described the medical tragedy of Black children in an Indiana town in 1927. After a ringworm outbreak, these children received a radiation treatment. The parents reported being misled about the experience, St. Fleur said. The podcast focuses on a now deceased man who was left with a deeply scarred scalp for the rest of his life after receiving high-dose radiation at age 5. He was forced to hide the wound under a wig he wore the rest of his life.

“It’s horrific to see,” St. Fleur said. “Can you imagine just how visceral that was? How heartbreaking to have been the victim of this as a young kid?”

The episode poses the question of how to rectify the toll of medical tragedies like this in American history, St. Fleur said, and broaches the broader question of reparations: “What is owed?”

Focusing on patients’ feelings

The podcast highlights the validity of a patient’s feelings and emotions surrounding a particular health encounter or experience. The patient is seen as the expert on their own experience, and their stories are told in a firsthand way.

“In many cases, we do take people at their word when it comes to how they felt or how they experienced moments of racism,” St. Fleur said. While his team’s reporting does seek the perspective of health systems when possible, he noted that medical providers are unlikely to attribute their own actions to racism when confronted with such instances.

In an episode featuring Black maternal mortality, the focus is on the mistrust that results when a patient feels ignored. Instead of interviewing other parties to get their impression of the events, the focus of the narrative is on the patients’ own experiences as they walk away.

The podcast sets these individual episodes in a broader context by speaking to experts such as doctors and other medical providers about the racism they witness. They link to other reporting in case readers want to follow up and learn more.  The team also fact checks coverage when appropriate. In the ringworm case, they contacted a local historian to ensure the documentary’s account didn’t raise any red flags, while the “excited delirium” episode involved a reporting trip to Miami that added important context.

A transparent, open and personal approach

St. Fleur describes his podcasting approach as being open and “super transparent” with sources. When appropriate, he’ll consider bringing his personal experience into stories, such as a 2021 piece he did for STAT documenting his own colonoscopy.

The podcast offers an avenue for St. Fleur to share firsthand experiences with racial bias in a narrative way and offer his impressions of the featured stories.

“It’s bringing my whole self, not hiding my emotions, realizing, Hey, this really affected me and I’m going to share with you why, and why I think it’s important for us to delve into this story,” he said.

For example, in one episode he shares how he might have responded in a similar fashion to Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after Colorado police restrained him. Experiences like this “emotionally wreck us,” St. Fleur said. It wouldn’t have felt right to cover this story in the podcast without discussing how he personally processed the events, he said.

“I try my best to bring my whole self to what I’m reporting … why should I hide my emotions or how these stories impact me?” he said. “It allowed me to be vulnerable and share a bit about what goes through my head when I see these things.”

Showing those emotions centered the episode and offered the authority of St. Fleur’s own lived experience, Gaffney said.

Throughout the discussion, St. Fleur returned to the importance of truly listening to one’s sources and their experiences, rather that challenging them on the details or their experience or narrative of events.

“I make sure the questions I’m asking are asked with compassion and empathy and that I don’t give off the notion I am particularly doubting their experience because, in so many of these cases, that’s where the problem comes from,” he said.

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To the Editor:

White historians once taught that Reconstruction and equal legal rights and voting rights for Black people corrupted democracy. Textbooks ignored the Tulsa race massacre and others like it. Few historians write like that anymore. We include all sides of the American story and examine racism and injustice as evolving systems of power as well as manifestations of individual prejudice.

The search to understand history is not an ideology, as Republicans claim. It is common sense. You can’t solve problems by pretending they don’t exist now or didn’t exist before. It is far too late for Republicans to impose willful ignorance on today’s students. They know that racism is a systemic problem for all of us to solve.

Michael Honey, Tacoma, Wash.

The writer teaches history at the University of Washington Tacoma and is a Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellow.

LETTER 2

To the Editor:

I am disheartened to read about the controversy over the teaching of “critical race theory,” as much of the discussion assumes that schools are indoctrination centers as opposed to institutions that develop critical thinking skills. Giving students the contemporary and historical facts would be the ideal, and let them develop their own theories based on the evidence.

However, in the post-Trump world there are no established facts upon which we agree. This is the real academic and political danger that we face. When we cannot agree on facts or evidence, then we cannot agree on solutions to problems. We cannot even discuss them!

Give students the relevant information and let them decide for themselves whether this country is infested with “systemic oppression and implicit bias.”

Larry Hoffner, New York

The writer is a retired public high school teacher.

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FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man has been charged with throwing rocks at an Asian woman and her 6-year-old son as they drove down the street last month, authorities said Monday.

It comes as violence against Asian Americans across the country has ramped up in the last year, including several high-profile attacks in California.

Roger Janke, 28, of Fullerton, told police that Koreans in the area were trying to control him, the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a news release.

Janke is accused of throwing two rocks at the woman’s vehicle on March 31, damaging her bumper and cracking her windshield in Fullerton, officials said. The 38-year-old woman drove to a park and called 911.

Janke faces felony charges of violation of civil rights and vandalism as well as a felony hate crime enhancement and a misdemeanor count of throwing a substance at a vehicle. He could serve up to six years in prison.

He is being held on $51,500 bail and has pleaded not guilty. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

“A woman and her child should be able to drive down the street without worrying about being attacked because of the color of their skin,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the news release. “Our commitment to continuing to prosecute hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law is sending a strong message to all the haters out there — there is no room for hate here — or anywhere.”

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LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace said Tuesday that allegations of racism made earlier this week by Prince Harry and Meghan were “concerning” and would be addressed privately by the royal family.

The comments, made in a statement issued on behalf Queen Elizabeth II, are the first from the palace since the two-hour television interview with Meghan and Harry rocked the royal family. Meghan, who is biracial, said the palace had failed to help her when she had suicidal thoughts and that an unidentified member of the royal family had raised “concerns” about the color of her baby’s skin when she was pregnant with her son, Archie.

“The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan,” the palace said. “The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.’’

The interview, conducted by Oprah Winfrey and which aired Sunday night in the U.S. and a day later in Britain, has divided people around the world. While many say the allegations demonstrate the need for change inside a palace that hasn’t kept pace with the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, others have criticized Harry and Meghan for dropping their bombshell while Harry’s 99-year-old grandfather, Prince Philip, remains hospitalized in London after a heart procedure.

Anna Whitelock, a professor of history and director of the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the palace’s brief message was an effort to quiet the controversy.

“It’s not very long, but it’s very precise and it has a clear intent — and that is to close this down as a family matter; to make clear that this is clearly a family in crisis, that there’s family issues to sort out, but to separate this very clearly from any criticism or discussion about the institution of monarchy itself,” she told The Associated Press. “And I think time will tell whether that’s a distinction that the public will accept.”

While the palace often tries to stay above controversy by remaining silent and riding out the storm, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s charges proved so damaging that the family was forced to respond.

The response was likely delayed by the queen’s struggle to balance her sometimes-conflicting roles as monarch and grandmother, said Angela Levin, author of “Harry, a Biography of a Prince,” before the statement was released. During past crises, the 94-year-old monarch has usually come down on the side of the 1,000-year-old institution she has led since 1952.

“The queen has a motto: Never complain, never explain,” Levin told the AP. “And she’s stuck with this for decades. But I think in this climate and 2021, everything goes everywhere. There’s so much social media that in this instance, she really can’t not say anything.”

Harry and Meghan married in May 2018 in a ceremony at Windsor Castle that ended with a ride around the town in a horse-drawn carriage. In the early days of their marriage, the couple were seen as the fresh young face of the monarchy for an increasingly multicultural nation.

But the story quickly turned sour. The couple stepped away from royal duties last year and moved to California, saying they wanted to escape racist coverage and unwanted intrusions on their privacy by the British media.

During the interview, Meghan described feeling so isolated and miserable inside the royal family that she had suicidal thoughts, yet when she asked for mental health assistance from the palace’s human resources staff, she was told they couldn’t help because she wasn’t a paid employee. She also said Harry told her there were “concerns and conversations” about how dark Archie’s skin would be.

Winfrey later said Harry told her off camera that the family member wasn’t Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Philip, sparking a flurry of speculation about who it could be.

Harry also revealed that the stresses the couple endured had ruptured relations with his father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his brother, Prince William, illuminating the depth of the family divisions that led the couple to step away from royal duties and move to California last year.

But the most explosive issue was race. The royal family has tried to address that head on, although the rest of the discussion is likely to take place in private, Whitelock said.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of soul searching within the royal family, but this is going to be very much behind closed doors and we’re not going to see dramatic statements, dramatic changes,” she said. “This is going to be about a family who are going to have to look at themselves and reflect on what’s happened and what needs to happen and what needs to change.”

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Her name was Angelo. She was the first recorded black slave name mention in the history of this country. It is now 2020, and we decided to travel from San Jacinto, CA to Washington, D.C., searching for racism. We decided to travel by car to cut the cost of a flight and to admire this country’s landscape truly. In the company for the trip, the mother of my children (we used to be married, that story for another day), our 7-year-old son Emmanuel, our 8-year-old daughter Narriah along with the Silva family. Our first night in D.C. was extremely remarkable. We arrived early Saturday morning after a 37-hour drive. We showered, changed, and headed to the White House. President Donald J. Trump had his first public appearance since announcing he and First Lady tested positive for Covid-19.

The event was special given the organization “BLEXIT,” which stands for Black Exit, a group formed by Candance Owens to encourage Black America to leave the plantation of the Democratic Party, was present. We did not attend because our arrival was a few hours later than the event had begun. When we pulled up to the front of the White House the first thing we noticed was a block-long Black Lives Matter mural painted directing you towards the White House lawn. Our nation divided and in search of some real healing. If you yell “All Lives Matter, “you’re automatically labeled a racist. When you scream “Black Lives Matter,” somehow you are more aware of social injustice in this country.

Both sides yelling, I have a right under the First Amendment, ironically offended at each other’s rights under the same protected law. It wasn’t until I walked to Sherman Park I completely understood my purpose for this trip. There on a bench was a copy of a children’s book titled “The Crayons’ Book of Colors,” which tells the story of colors in one box coming together to paint a beautiful picture. Could the answer to racism be this simple as reading a children’s book? The moment we arrived at Jamestown, I felt a sense of trepidation come over me. I can only attribute to the drive towards the location. My mind could not help but imagine the many Africans running through the thick of the trees searching for freedom.

You can feel it in the atmosphere, this land has a story, and it is not beautiful. The trees nourished with blood and sweat of many Africans and Native Americans. We arrived. The overcast brought a much-needed surreal ambiance. The water rushed towards the shores, and for a brief moment, it seemed as though a cargo ship carrying 20 Africans was soon to dock. It was my imagination; it is October 2020 and not 1619. My heart was slowly finding its rhythm. I could not help but wonder how it must have felt having your family snatched from one another, young children driven from their parents to be stood on the auctioning block never to be together again. Here I am standing in the same place 400 years later.

I gazed at my children, then quickly turned away to wipe the tears coming down my face. I admit it now; I cried a lot during this trip. No dogs were barking; no slave owner was coming to purchase our family. We left that place today as free men and women. It was after the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776; our country declared war. Imagine being in a place a few miles from the birthplace of slavery to the victory that birth the nation. The great battle of Yorktown was less than 20 minutes. Away from the place of the most significant theft in American history.

Few people have learned about the Black Patriots of the American Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, Crispus Attucks, according to president John Adams, was indeed an American hero. He was a man of African and Native American Descent and was killed during the Boston Massacre and considered the first to die during the war. Over the next 400 years, we have fought side by side for this country. Many are the trying moments this history has endured, from the emancipation of slaves to the unbending laws during reconstruction to the Jim Crow era. Our country has seen its ugliest years. My children asked me while looking in the casket of Emmitt till a 14-year-old back kid brutally killed for whistling at a white woman, “why would they do this to black children? I’m not ready to answer their innocent question; I want them to learn for themselves and see how far this country has come. My trip took us to some of America’s most rich history.

We stood in Independence Hall, where the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. We learned that the Liberty Bell would ring until America abolished slavery. We rode a ferry to Ellis Island and knew the story of 12 million immigrants that entered this country. We stopped by to wave at Lady Liberty, only to discover her image was a symbol against slavery. We walked the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and stood next to the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. This Country birth the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panther Party. We have witnessed groups of hate assassinate Democratic and Republican presidents on this soil for ending slavery and the right to vote. We can hate and love this country simply because of its history.

The moment we walked into the Twin Tower memorial area and stood over the waterfall of where the buildings once stood, we felt the pain of the brutal attack. Remember how united this country had become during the weeks following the planes crashing into those two-buildings, killing 2,996 Americans? Walking through the halls and reading the names of every person killed and seeing the country support for law enforcement and first responders reminded us of the possibility of unity in this land. We must have forgotten, even though we said we never would forget.

We headed home, and it seems our trip was more painful than memorable. How far have we come? Media has painted this dark message of systemic racism and that we have not reached equality for all people. So many friendships have ended in 2020. The block and unfriend/unfollow button has selected more than the “like” emoji. “Wear your mask and save lives.” “Don’t wear a mask and be free.” So many narratives in the year 2020. Are we still a racist country? We did not drive 7,633 miles and to not find an answer. The sound of a blown tire is the last thing I wanted to hear after driving back across the country to get back home. Here we are, 365 miles from home, and the tire blows out. It’s 4:30 in the morning. It’s dark in the town called Ash Fork in Arizona. It took a while with semi-trucks rolling downhill, but I changed the tire, and we drove to the first nearest exit. It’s now 6am, and nothing is open.

The local tire place doesn’t serve the customer until 7:30am. So we decided to get breakfast. The Ranch House Cafe seemed interesting so we drove over and parked and walked into the local establishment. The look on the four gentlemen’s face revealed what was in their minds. “Where did this black gentleman come from, and why is he here?” I wondered if they were racist. Could this be the defining moment of my trip? Did I drive past this place to only come back to learn what I was in search of was so close to home? Yes, one of the men was wearing a Trump hat. Being a Trump supporter myself, I thought I would break the ice, “Yes! Trump supporters!” I spoke, ‘I’m in the right place.” Looking back at the moment now, I wonder if they thought I was antagonistic. They didn’t know I was a patriot and I can understand why; the media has done a great job putting America against itself. It was a brief silence.

I asked, “Do you guys serve breakfast?” “Not until 7:30,” one of the men responded, “but we do have coffee.” That was it. It was a hot cup of coffee, and the atmosphere that seems hostile in my mind was comforted and subdued. We began to talk about my trip and what I was learning, crossing the Mississippi River to Washington, D.C…the time passed us by quickly and the tire place opened. Unfortunately, they did not have my tire size, and that’s where I learned how racist this country could be, according to social media reports. No way should we drive 365 miles on a spare. It’s Sunday, and Arizona had few tire places opened. That’s when one of the gentlemen asked the tire size. Can you believe it, he just happened to have the right size and rim? He drove home and brought back the tire. While the tire place changed our flat, we helped ourselves to some corn beef hash, biscuits and gravy. The food was delicious. They paid for our meal and thanked us for being real patriots in this country that was divided.

We may be a nation torn at the moment but I see healing on the horizon. Your vote for Trump or Biden matters to you. Amid the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln argued and had the emancipation signed. During the bombing of Churches that killed four little girls and watched many Americans snatched from the counters of J.W. Woolworth, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. When George Wallace yelled Segregation today, tomorrow and forever, we saw this country rise and sign the Voter Rights Act. The blood spilled in the soil of this nation could never be forgotten.

The Native Americans explored before the European attacked on this soil can never be overlooked. When you look at the past, you can be both ashamed and proud of this nation. When I arrived home, I realized we are far from where we started. It’s time we stop fighting the ghost of this past. It’s time to come together, so we will no longer repeat its history. It’s time we bring our difference together to make a difference. The way God intended us to live. It’s time we paint that beautiful picture from “The Crayons’ Book of Colors.” – @sirblackpatriot

Brian E. Hawkins

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NEW YORK (AP) — Amy Cooper, the white woman charged with filing a false police report for calling 911 during a dispute with a Black man in New York’s Central Park in May, made a second, previously unreported call in which she falsely claimed the man had “tried to assault her,” a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon described the second call as Cooper was being arraigned by video in a case that had garnered worldwide attention but was put on hold for months because of the coronavirus pandemic. Cooper did not enter a plea to the misdemeanor charge.

In the first 911 call, which was captured on a widely seen video of the confrontation, Cooper told a dispatcher only that the man, a birdwatcher named Christian Cooper, was threatening her. The second call was not recorded on video, but a 911 dispatcher provided prosecutors with a sworn affidavit regarding the calls, Illuzzi said.

“Using the police in a way that is was both racially offensive and designed to intimidate is something that can’t be ignored. Therefore we charged her,” said Illuzzi, whose last high-profile prosecution sent Harvey Weinstein to prison in March for rape.

The case was adjourned until Nov. 17 to allow prosecutors and her lawyer to work on a possible resolution that Illuzzi said could see Cooper participating in a program to educate her and the community “on the harm caused by such actions.”

Illuzzi didn’t get into details on what actions Cooper might be required to take, but said the 40-year-old former investment portfolio manager would have to take responsibility for her actions. The criminal process “can be an opportunity for introspection and education,” Illuzzi said. The range of options could include some type of racial sensitivity training or a public awareness campaign.

In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said his office “will pursue a resolution of this case which holds Ms. Cooper accountable while healing our community, restoring justice, and deterring others from perpetuating this racist practice.”

Cooper drew widespread condemnation and was fired from her job at investment firm Franklin Templeton after frantically calling 911 to claim she was being threatened by “an African American man,” Christian Cooper, who had confronted her for walking her dog without a leash. On the video Christian Cooper recorded of Amy Cooper, he sounded calm and appeared to keep a safe distance from her.

There is no relation between Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper.

In the video posted on social media, Christian Cooper claimed her cocker spaniel was “tearing through the plantings” in the Ramble, a secluded section of Central Park popular with birdwatchers, and told her she should go to another part of the park. When she refused, he pulled out dog treats, causing her to scream at him to not come near her dog.

Amy Cooper also warned him she would summon police unless he stopped recording.

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” Amy Cooper is heard saying in the video as she pulls down her face mask and struggles to control her dog.

“Please call the cops,” said Christian Cooper.

“There’s an African American man, I’m in Central Park, he is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. … Please send the cops immediately!” she said during the 911 call before the recording stops.

Police said that by the time officers responded, Amy and Christian Cooper were both gone.

After the backlash, Amy Cooper released an apology through a public relations service, saying she “reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions.”

“He had every right to request that I leash my dog in an area where it was required,” she said in the written statement. “I am well aware of the pain that misassumptions and insensitive statements about race cause and would never have imagined that I would be involved in the type of incident that occurred with Chris.”

Amy Cooper’s 911 calls, which happened the same day that Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, was seen by many as a stark example of everyday racism and fueled outrage in the period leading up to street protests sparked by Floyd’s death.

It also inspired New York state lawmakers in June to pass a law that makes it easier under civil rights law to sue an individual who calls a police officer on someone “without reason” because of their background, including race and national origin.

Cooper was charged under an existing false-report law that’s been long on the books and doesn’t reference race.

“Fortunately, no one was injured or killed in the police response to Ms. Cooper’s hoax,” said Vance.

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