For a while, I had been joking that there had to be a room, somewhere, where white men came together and tried to come up with every possible way to mess with people of color. Black people, more than anything, but let’s face it, anyone who isn’t white. Yeah, some white people will get lumped in, but “surely,” they said in my mythical room, “there will be collateral damage” — also now known as “temporary hardship.” Never mind that numerically, more white people live in poverty than any other ethnic group.

Imagine my surprise — Ha! — when I first heard of Project 2025. There they had been all along, sitting in some big fancy Heritage Foundation salon dreaming of…how to mess with people of color. Might I add “gleefully?”

Think about it: Who stands to lose the most under every single drastic (and at the same time terrifying) Trump “policy?” Forbidden abortions. Mass deportations. Health Care disaster — Hello RFK Jr? Dr. Oz? God help us! The slashed defense budget. No Social Security. The not-so-strange case of the disappearing SNAP benefits. Eliminating the rest of those government jobs? Holy cow! Let’s just look at postal workers alone. On second thought, let’s not. Just today, I met our new mail carrier: Alfred, nice guy, second day on the job. Did any of these nuts think about how the mail is going to be delivered without Black people? I could be wrong, but when was the last time most of you saw a white mailman? My uncle, a non-white WW2 veteran (another story for another day), was a dedicated mail carrier until the day he died. I have his 25th anniversary commemorative pin, complete with a ruby.

And then, beyond conditions resulting from centuries of institutionalized racism, there were once these things that came to be called Basic Civil Rights. Gone, at least in the vivid imaginations of those same conniving clowns. Once upon a time, yes, there was a Civil Rights movement…but hey, if we eliminate any trace of it in education or literature, it may all just be someone’s fading dream: as if it never happened. Let’s pretend…

Far be it for me to say, “I told you so;” still , again, there they were and there they continue to convene. As disturbed as I am about what they are doing to mess with people of color, I am deeply concerned about what happens with that collateral damage. Will enough of them figure it out? Or will we all just go down in the flaming tragic consequences of which we will all be victims?

Collateral damage…watch carefully…and beware.