Wednesday, February 7, 2024

A Bright Light

 


Blog Feb 6 2024--Look what I found on my desk this morning. A gift from my daughter. What a woman!

 Stumbled Upon: 

"My kids wanted to know what it was like for me growing up. So, I took their phone, shut off the internet, gave them a popsicle, and told them to go outside until the streetlights come on."

That description pretty much sums it up—if you live in town. Living in the country is another matter, and I experienced both, except I had a horse while on the farm, so I was a happy camper.

 

Studied:

Have you heard of "The Trail of Tears?" I had, but I didn't know what it was about until I was required to take a Rules and Laws Course as part of my continuing education for my Real Estate License.

One hundred thousand, that's 100,000 Native Americans, were forced to hike 4,000 miles—four thousand miles—to change their territory to Oklahoma. (1838-1839)                                                                                                                                       

About 15,000 died during the journey. A survivor said he watched his father die, then his mother, followed by his siblings, one a day.

 

 The survivors received one half of the State of Oklahoma. 

 For the past century, the fact that one-half of Oklahoma is tribal land has been largely ignored.

 "A Supreme Court Justice said that treaties were too expensive to honor."

 Finally, in 2020, Justice Neil Gorsad said, "The price of keeping them (the treaties) has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye? We reject that way of thinking."

 

Did I go to school on tribal land?

Neil and I attended Oklahoma State University for two years. They paid for his master's degree and gave him a job. For me, their excellent Liberal Arts Program was life-changing. Yes, at a "cow college." 

Calling state colleges "a cow college" is another use of Marginalization. Usually, that term applies to individuals, so I'm stretching it here. Marginalization is defined as an entity with no identity outside the stereotypes assigned to it.

After two years, Neil got a job in California, and I transferred to the University of California Riverside. However, my heart is still in Oklahoma. 

When I find that graft has been a part of Real Estate dealings, I understand that passing laws is the way to get people to behave themselves. Some say if it isn't on the book in Oregon, it will be soon.  However, I see that real estate is as powerful an influence in the economy as having shelter is to us.

 The Oregon Real Estate Agency is working diligently to enforce the Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968 by President Johnson.

  The act was to solve two objectives:

1.     Outlaw discrimination

2.     Foster Integration

 

President Nixon killed every initiative to facilitate integration. 

 

"In numerous studies 55 years after the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, numerous studies have concluded that housing in the US is nearly as segregated as it was when Pres. Johnson signed the legislation designed to eliminate it."

 

 Hark! I See a Bright Light:

I found a picture of two men climbing a telephone pole to bring electricity and broadband to a Native American village—their first time ever!

That led me to read President Biden's Infrastructure Deal, and I wondered why it wasn't popping up on my screen while Taylor Swift's picture was.

This package is a big deal. Remember, President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the country out of the Great Depression with his New Deal. Perhaps when the smoke clears, Biden will be honored for pumping new life into the American people after the long lingering effects of a pandemic.