Author: Pius Kamau
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A season of drought for education | Pius Kamau
It is a season of drought for our children’s education, from which Trump’s cleavers lop off limbs and branches. And yet, in the arid season, visible are glimmers of good news for Colorado’s elementary and middle school students: CMAS test results show improvement to their pre-pandemic performance in mathematics and literacy. Mathematics results are a…
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COLUMN: Youth brings distinction; age brings wisdom | Pius Kamau
As senescence encroaches upon us, and the irrevocable beat of time marches on, many of us often look at the world we will soon depart from with trepidation. There is so much we could have done to leave behind a better world, we think, not because we didn’t know what needed doing, but because others…
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Science is ideologically neither left nor right | Pius Kamau
Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis couldn’t stand his colleagues’ filth; their putrid, bloody apparel and hands he reasoned, were the source of the puerperal fever, the deadly infection plaguing 19th century Europe’s maternity wards. His solution: a revolutionary idea. Wash hands and clean doctors’ and nurses’ filthy clothing while tending to pregnant mothers and their newborn…
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Liberia — land of freed Americans | Pius Kamau
“Thank you. And such good English,” the White man said to the Black man. “Such beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where?” the incredulous American President continued, smiling, looking at the Black man, the President of Liberia. President Joseph Boakai and four other West African presidents were discussing…
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Immigrants must respect their hosts | Pius Kamau
It was a hoax that Haitians in Ohio were eating dogs and other pets; an untruth repeated by our president in his 2024 election campaign. Our Venezuelan immigrants escaped such accusations. But they were accused of “occupying” the city of Aurora by Trump, who said he came to Aurora to figure out what “the hell…
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Trump’s missed opportunity on Africa | Pius Kamau
President Donald Trump in the presence of Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, claimed that South African Whites were being killed in a genocide. What a genocide is, and what it is not, came to mind because I belong to CoAGG — Coalition Against Global Genocide, and host the podcast: “Never Again,” in which we…
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In Leo, my papal wishes were granted | Pius Kamau
As the world watched the Vatican chimney hoping for white smoke, many prayed for someone to take Francis’ place. For some a degree of enthusiasm existed that election of an African pope was preferable. I would, from a purely ethnic point, have liked to see this happen. From a rational point, the three electable African…
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The foreign torturers among us | Pius Kamau
Many Americans see immigrants as a homogeneous mass of humanity; a group of people to be loved, welcomed, or looked at with jaundiced eyes. Though I see immigrant refugees differently, our American countrymen have the right to see immigrants in their own way. All the same, better would be an attempt to know a bit…
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Trump misses the point in banning ‘DEI’ | Pius Kamau
Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in the U.S. Armed Forces was abolished by Harry Truman’s 1948 Executive order 9981. Much happened to grant more rights to Black American citizens after 1948. In 1957 Lyndon Johnson — the Senate majority leader then — shepherded passage of the 1957 Civil Rights…
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In genocide’s wake, there’s much healing to do | Pius Kamau
I recently interviewed a woman who witnessed the Rwanda genocide for a podcast I host for CoAGG — Coalition Against Global Genocide, an organization I belong to. The interview served to correct my own erroneous impressions about the Rwanda genocide. I too was moved to learn of the deep psychological trauma many victims live with,…