Before I address the substance of this article, allow me a minute to explain one of my idiosyncrasies. I never allowed my students to plagiarize when I taught college classes in the past quarter century. I wanted them to learn. I didn’t want them to learn to cheat and go out in the world and cheat by being dishonest. However, Trump was never one of my students.

I always cite something someone wrote while in college and grad schools. Beyond wanting to be honest, I knew that a professor could easily see that I was copying things that I didn’t write merely by my grammar, style, and level of understanding. On my website, I cited direct quotes in all my essays for over three decades. I do the same with photos.

There have been two times that I wanted to find the source for a saying. One saying was, “I love me. I think I’m grand. When I go to heaven, I’ll hold my hand.” My maternal grandmother said it while trying to teach her grandchildren how to behave. Nevertheless, where did she find that saying? I googled it and found two sites. Both were from my website: My Grandmother’s Words and A Story of Two Old Men. It was her saying. As for “...and a sickness too took root,” there were only two sites also on my website: And a Sickness Too Took Root and Trump is Correct...Partially. I conceived that saying.

In my last article, I talked about racism and sexism. While I am way left of center regarding those types of issues, I don’t think that if I had seen Hidden Figures in the early 60s while in college, I would have noticed what I saw a half-century later.

That was the backstory. This essay is based on what two women have said to America in their attempt to treat the cancer of racism and sexism. The first woman was Amanda Gorman. She read her poem, The Hill We Climb, at Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.

Gorman’s poem talked about dreaming of “a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.”

Then she added, “And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect, we are striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.”

Gorman believes in America despite the problems. “...the hill we climb if only we dare it because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.” Rereading her words, they are more critical today than four years ago. We must address the dream of inclusion, equity, and inclusion.

Gorman ends her words with a 21^st-century version of the Declaration of Independence. She says to America, “...our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful, when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”

Six months later, I wrote Ti Ti’s Sweet Seventeen and included Gorman’s poem. In my essay to Ti Ti, I mentioned some of my failures. I’m a dreamer, but dreaming dreams doesn’t make things happen. However, without dreaming, you won’t succeed at reaching some of your dreams. I went to Myanmar for the first time to try to interview Aung San Suu Kyi. I had wanted to be able to sit down with her and listen to her. I failed.

However, while in Myanmar, one of my tour guides, Moh Moh, had to stop to pick up my itinerary for the next place I’d visit, the name of the tour guide, and the hotel where I would be staying. And she added that I could meet Ti Ti, the oldest daughter, who was nine. We played Scrabble, laughed, and had fun for an hour. I left her home, realizing that I met my granddaughter.

The other woman’s words that I listened to were those of Rachel Maddow. Essentially, she wants us all to see the light amid racism and sexism.

Maddow criticized her MSNBC network restructuring, another way of addressing racism and sexism, by firing or shuffling their positions at MSNBC: Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, Katie Phang, José Díaz-Balart, Ayman Mohyeldin, Katie Phang, and Jonathan Capehart. Most of the above names, I watched their news programs all the time.

Lester Holt is supposedly leaving NBC’s Nightly News to spend his time on Dateline NBC. Perhaps. However, another person who was fired was Don Lemon from CNN two years ago.

When will America finally address the cancer of discrimination?

Watch Kristen Welker’s interview with Amanda Gorman.