POTUS Donny J gifts presidential pardon to Jack Johnson; could Leonard Peltier be next?

Everything old is news again!

Folks have been lobbying the Oval Office for well over half a century trying to get a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, with no results. You’d think the first black president might have had a soft spot in his heart for the first black heavyweight champ, but apparently not.

But today Donny J done the deed!

Is this because Mr. Trump likes black folks more than Obama did?

Of course not!

It’s because this particular black dude has a white A-list Hollywood star advocating for him. That’s something Trump understands.

That’s why I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Peltier’s pardon. Ever since Marlon Brando went to his reward, Native Americans haven’t had a white A-list Hollywood star in their corner.

Elsewhere in everything old is news again, I see where the Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning scandal is back from the grave. This was a major news story from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, when the government of the time negotiated a settlement between the owners of the offending paper mill and the First Nations people they were poisoning.

That was the end of that. For thirty years.

But now the story is back. Looks like just because the story disappeared, the mercury in the water didn’t. We “solved” the problem by ignoring it. Can’t imagine we’d ignore mercury in Toronto water that long. But Grassy Narrows?..

Systemic racism doesn’t get more systemic than that!