Author Archives: William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

About William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Award-winning poet, playwright, and essayist. Author of three books of poetry, "Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present"; "Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats"; "The Black Feminine Mystique," and a novel, "Streets of Rage," written under his pen name Easy Waters. All four books are available on Amazon.com. Waters has over 25 years of experience in the criminal legal system. He is a change agent for a just society and a catalyst for change.

Old Confederate Soldiers Never Die

Posted on July 27, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Old Confederate soldiers never die,Never die, never die,Old Confederate soldiers never die,They simply become memorialized.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "A, Confederacy, Confederate army, Confederate memorials, Confederate Monuments, Confederate statues, CSA | Leave a comment

The “Cancel-culture” Conundrum

Posted on July 24, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

If I hear one more white person say “Cancel-culture…” “Cancel-culture” is the latest buzz term being used by Trumpeteers, including Ivanka Trump, and as with almost everything that comes out of the Oval Office in these times, it’s a false … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Politics, race, Slavery | Tagged African Diaspora, Alexanderia Ocasio-Cortez, cancel-culture, Civil War, Confederacy, Goya, Ivanka Trump, little white lie, Ted Yoho, Trump University, white privilege, white supremacy | 1 Comment

A Comparison of New York State Laws and Regulations and Slave Codes

Posted on July 18, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In the mid-1980s, while doing research on an essay, which I would entitle, “From the Plantation to the Penitentiary,” I came across something startling. I had already seen the connection between slavery and imprisonment, from the very beginning of the … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, Lest We Forget, race, Slavery | Tagged 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, Alabama Slave Code of 1852, Andrew Hacker, Bill Clinton, Black Codes, chain gangs, Civil War, Confederate memorials, Confederate Monuments, Confederate statues, Convict Leasing, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, law and order, Louisiana Slave Code of 1824, NY Correction Law Sec. 170, penal slavery, peonage, private prisons, race card, Reconstruction, Slave Codes, South Carolina Slave Code of 1740, Two Nations: Black and Shite Separate Hostile Unequal | Leave a comment

Dear Daddy: A Love Letter to Your Beloved South

Posted on July 15, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

July 15, 2020 Dear Daddy, Last night I dreamt of you for the first time since your death. I woke up with tears in my eyes. Although you have been dead for a little more than 38 years, in the … Continue reading →

Posted in being a teenager, Education, Family, Fatherhood, Fathers, Growing Up, Lest We Forget | Tagged Benin & Togo, Cameroon, Civil War, Confederate memorials, Confederate monumnets, Confederate statues, Congo, discrimination, Ellis Island, Emmett Till, Four White Men Kidnap and Rape Black Girl in Tylertown MS, Ghana, NC, Nigeria, racial reckoning, Segregation, slave ships, Southern Bantu peoples, the South, Township of Bath, Virginia, white supremacy, WW I, WW II, Yeatesville | 1 Comment

On this day in American History – July 5, 1852 — Frederick Douglass gives his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

Posted on July 5, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

One hundred and sixty-eight years ago today Frederick Douglass gave his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass was born into slavery in 1818, the product of a white male raping a Black woman. White … Continue reading →

Posted in Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Lest We Forget, Patriotism, Politics, race, Slavery | Tagged "paradox of the positive", #FrederickDouglassLifeMatters, BlackLivesMatter, Christiaen van Couwenberg, D. Waymer, Frederick Douglass, R.L. Heath, Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, The Rape of a Negro Girl, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July | Leave a comment

On this Day in American History — June 24, 2015, Confederate Flag Flies at Alabama Capitol until this day in 2015; Monuments Remain (From the Equal Justice Initiative 2020 Calendar)

Posted on June 24, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On June 24, 2015, Alabama officials removed a Confederate flag flying on the grounds of the state capitol in Montgomery. The move came in response to national scrutiny of Confederate symbols on public property, triggered by a tragic shooting at … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Justice Chronicles, Politics, race, Slavery | Tagged Alabama, Brown v. Board of Education, Civil War, Confederate flag, Confederate iconography, Confederate Monuments, Confederate symbols, cultural genocide, desegregation, Equal Justice Initiative, Georgia, heritage, heritage laws, Mississippi, Montgomery Alabama, North Carolina, reestablishment of white supremacy, Robert E. Lee, Slavery, South Carolina, Southern Lives Matter, Tennessee, the knightliest of the knightly race, Virginia, white supremacist, white supremacy | 1 Comment

Talladega Knights: The Ballad of Bubba Wallace, “Sweet Home Alabama,” and the Day of the Noose

Posted on June 22, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Headline: Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black driver who races full-time in NASCAR’s top three series – a noose was found in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway, “the biggest and baddest track.” NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag from its … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, Justice Chronicles, Lest We Forget, Politics, race, Revolution, Slavery | Tagged "Sweet Home Alabama", Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Bubba Wallace, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Lynyard Skynyrd, NASCAR, Noose, Nooses, Talladega Alabama, Talladega Superspeedway, white supremacy | 1 Comment

Juneteenth!

Posted on June 19, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

From my award-winning epic poem, “Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present”: XXI The Emancipator, the Great Friend of the Negro, wanted to save the Union, at any cost. The South could have … Continue reading →

Posted in Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Justice Chronicles, Lest We Forget, Poetry, Politics, race, Revolution | Tagged 1st North Carolina Volunteers, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Abraham Lincoln, America's Civil War, Confederate States of America, Corps d' Afrique, Day of Jubilee, Emancipation Proclamation, Fort Sumter, Juneteenth, NYC Draft Riots, rebel states, Southern disunionists, Southern rebels, Southern Secessionists | 1 Comment

On this Day in American history – June 19, 1865 — Juneteenth (From the Equal Justice Initiative)

Posted on June 19, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Although President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved Black people in Confederate territories free, these locations were under Confederate control, which rejected the freedom of enslaved people on plantations throughout the South. The Proclamation did little to emancipate enslaved … Continue reading →

Posted in Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Lest We Forget, race, Revolution, Slavery | Tagged 13th Amendment, American Civil War, Confederacy, Emancipation Proclamation, Equal Justice Initiative, Juneteenth, Mass Incarceration, racial hierarchy, racial injustice, racial terror, racial terror lynchings, Reconstruction, Segregation, Slavery, white supremacy | Leave a comment

A Bibliography of Police Misconduct for Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats

Posted on June 18, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

As I have indicated elsewhere, when working on my collection of poetry about police misconduct, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, I drew on news reports and headlines. While doing a little Spring cleaning, I came across the original manuscript … Continue reading →

Posted in Amadou Diallo, being a teenager, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, Justice Chronicles, juveniles, Lest We Forget, Murder, NYPD, Poetry, police involved shooting, police-involved killing, Politics, race, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Streets of Rage, Urban Impact | Tagged "A Bit of Justice", "Black undercover cop is shot; a case of possibble 'friendly fire'", "City Hall rally rebukes Workfare, "Don't let it happen again", "Los Angeles Officer Is Held in Drug Theft in Unusual Graft Case", "Neighbors call shooting unjust", "No Way Out", "Police brutaliy protesters rally against 'Stolen Lives'", "Police kill suspect in domestic dispute", "Real reform can stop police brutality", "Settlement of $3 Million in Fatal Choking by Officer", "The War at Home", BlackLivesMatter, Charles Brooks, Daniel Wise, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Ed Morales, Gore Vidal, Herb Boyd, John Milgrim, Margaret Sena-Stahl, Michael Randall, New York Amsterdam News, Peter Richmond, police brutality, Suspect shot by cop still in ICU" | Leave a comment

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