I recently read Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. It was an eye-opening read that made abundantly clear the link between housing and the downward spiral into lifelong poverty that is a reality for many Americans. Desmond's firsthand accounts shine a light on what poverty looks like, how easy it is to fall into, and how impossible it can be to extricate oneself from it. Most importantly, his writings reveal the central role of housi...
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Hall of Shame – July 22, 2020
The Howard County Republican Club recently took to Facebook to paint the youth-led HoCo For Justice group, who has recently organized rallies in support of Black Lives Matter and in protest of ICE, as “radical progressive extremists.”
Their choice of words - characterizing youths who support immigrants and Black lives as “lawlessness” and “racism” - makes you wonder what it is about a movement based on compassion, equality, and justice that gets under Republicans’ skin.
(The HoCo For Just...
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Screaming Into a Pillow
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks in Howard County. I’m starting to think I need to get a special pillow just for screaming. Does anyone else find themselves doing a lot of that lately?
We had County Council Chair Deb Jung muting Councilman Opel Jones in a council Zoom meeting, the technological equivalent of walking over and putting her hand over his mouth. I can’t say I’ve ever seen Board of Education Chair Mavis Ellis ever do that for one of Christina “DeVos” Small’s lengthy sighing di...
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Let’s Talk Redistricting (Part II)
This is a two-part series reflecting on the 2019 HCPSS redistricting process.
In Part I of my series on redistricting, I explained my position on the 2019 HCPSS redistricting process, and I stated that I while I supported the plan, I understood much of the opposition to it. Today, I’m going to discuss opposition that had a different, distinctly malignant flavor. This opposition was at best disingenuous and at worst covertly racist, characterized by vitriol filled with half-truths...
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Hall of Shame – July 10, 2020
Today, lame-duck Howard County Board of Education member Christina “DeVos” Small posted the following thoughts about the BOE’s struggle to decide on the best plan for public schooling in the fall, given the myriad of challenges involved.
Christina Delmont-Small pushes to reopen schools.
She’s not wrong that virtual learning models will negatively affect dual-income and single-parent families as well as students with disabilities. However, she seems to be ignoring the plight of teache...
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