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No
sooner had we put the November 13 issue of  to
bed last week, believing that our Female
Clarence Thomas cartoon roller coaster ride was behind
us, than reader Arthur Young wrote from Orlando to say that
the Republicans were at it, again.
"Congratulations
to your cartoonist for making the floor of the Senate. In their
marathon session, the Republicans are using a blow-up of your
Janice Rogers Brown cartoon. You can't buy that kind of publicity.”
Mr.
Young was right, of course – so we threw away our old audience projections and
prepared to accept the GOP’s latest free publicity gift. Clarence
Thomas was back on the Capitol circuit, playing the Senate
floor in his fright wig, signifying that he is Janice Brown – an
encore to the act’s October 22 debut at the Club Judiciary,
MC’d by Orrin “The Hatch,” the party-of-the-rich animal from
Utah.
For
props, the GOP troupe stacked cots in the Dead Dixiecrat
Room so that visiting
reviewers could imagine what a real counter-filibuster would
look like if anybody ever actually tried to match ol’ Strom
Thurmond in pure racist cussedness. (Strom won the coveted
Meanest Cracker Award for his standup performance back in 1957,
when he singled-mouthedly held back civil rights history for
24 hours, 18 minutes without a break. Unreconstructed fans
still visit to kiss the yellow stain that marks the spot.)
The
Republicans' November 13th all-nighter was designed to thrill
old-timers who still
hum Songs of the South, while simultaneously showcasing the
New Colored Judicial Players, featuring Janice Brown – known
for crying the Blues on camera at Hatch’s (or any rich white
director’s) command.
Reviewers
for the New York Times played the performance straight (see “Bitter
Senators Divided Anew on Judgeships”), thus missing the
whole point of the show. It takes a slick neo-liberal (that’s
the same as neo-con, only less honest) magazine to give Orrin’s
Outhouse Orators a proper write-up – a job for The New Republic’s Michael
Crowley, who called his review “Theater
of the Absurd.”
It's
nearly 1:30 in the morning, and a group of bleary-eyed
young boys and
girls – who by now should be asleep, dreaming of rocket ships
and ponies – have found themselves in the presumably baffling
circumstance of being lined up for a press conference in
the U.S. Capitol. They file into a rank-smelling meeting
room just a few yards from the Senate floor, where a classic
exercise in Washington Kabuki theatre is underway. Republicans
are staging a marathon 30-hour debate to protest Democratic
filibusters of four conservative judicial nominees. The meeting
room, normally reserved for private GOP strategy sessions,
has been transformed into a bustling propaganda center for
the pro-judge forces. Inside, activists wear dark blue "Justice
For Judges Marathon" T-shirts. The room stinks horribly of people, coffee, and decaying
munchies….
Then
things get sleazy. [South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey]
Graham pulls out a blown-up version of a cartoon that appeared
on an obscure black political website (www.blackcommentator.com). It depicts one of the stymied nominees,
Janice Rogers Brown, as an absurdly stereotyped housemaid with
a huge Afro. It's an offensive cartoon, no doubt about it.
But no mainstream Democrat had anything to do with it. That
hasn't stopped Republicans like Graham from repeatedly implying
otherwise. Graham now says the cartoon came from "a liberal
paper" – as if it had run in The New York Times – and
then smears Democrats with it. "The Senate is sick," he
says. "Our Democratic friends have gone too far." It's
a truly revolting performance.
The
New Republic knows what it’s talking about, specializing
as it does in all things revolting. Back at the cyber ranch,
the crew
marveled at how our deep obscurity has gained us such vast
attention from a loathsome audience comprised of people we
despise. As the King of Siam said on his own, ornate stage: “It’s
a wonderment!”
In
Berkeley, California, cartoonist Khalil Bendib fretted that,
despite his best and
consistent efforts, the judicial robes he picked out for Clarence-in-drag-as-Janice – along
with the scarf that exactly matches the one he hung around
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s neck in an earlier, full
portrait of the High Court – keep getting mistaken for
a housemaid’s outfit. “Those Republicans and neo-liberal-cons
have no sense of fashion,” Bendib groaned. The publishers assured
him that mammyness is in the eye of the beholder.
“But
I put my soul into drawing Janice
Brown’s very own caricature, so that the press would stop
saying that I – an artist! – think that she looks like…like
Clarence,” Bendib replied, inconsolable. “My interpretation
of her captures the moral depravity that festers at her very
core. How could they be so blind?”
The publishers could
find no words to comfort their cartoonist, but instead plotted
how to become even more obscure in the future.
Slobbering,
sputtering Senators
Hard
Right racists, like Pavlov’s dogs, are easily conditioned. Their buttons can
be pushed to dramatic effect, by accident. Apparently, spending
one’s entire existence in a delusional bubble wherein moral
turpitude equals the highest state of civilization renders
the Bubblian susceptible to the slightest stimulus. has
managed to push these troglodytes’ buttons without even trying,
in that we want nothing from them except that they disappear
from the face of the Earth. Yet, they insist on including
us in their Golom-like conversations, while we carry on our
dialogue with our target audience with no regard for the enemy’s
presence, or non-presence, whatsoever.
So,
when we depict Clarence Thomas as a woman, it is not to bait
Orrin Hatch and
his fellows, but to communicate a political message about Janice
Brown to our core readership. “ didn’t ‘mammy-up’ Janice
Brown,” we wrote in our October
30 issue, “we inflicted Clarence on her, a social
death in Black America and a fate that she has earned. The
nightmare specter of another Clarence Thomas haunted every
member of the Congressional Black Caucus, causing them to demand
that their fellow Democrats in the Senate block Janice Brown
by every means at their disposal.”
The
Orrin Hatches explode in fury at Khalil Bendib’s cartoons because “the
white American rightist loves his handful of special
Blacks with the same intensity that he hates the great mass
of the
race.” However, for The Black Commentator, that is only a collateral
consequence of our efforts.
We
become concerned when politicians and activists in our own
broad ranks act the
fool, compelling us to write articles such as last week’s Cover
Story, “Al
Sharpton’s Political-Emotional Breakdown.” Maddened by
what he perceived as the Jesse Jackson (Senior and Junior)
camp’s “betrayal” of a pact, the Black presidential candidate
lashed out at Howard Dean, the recent beneficiary of Rep. Jackson’s
endorsement, on November 4. We concluded that Sharpton was
suffering from an acute case of “Jesse Jacksonophobia.”
The
diagnosis was confirmed the very next day, November 5.
As leaders of a
wide and deep spectrum of Black America prepared to urge
Senate Democrats to filibuster Janice Rogers Brown’s nomination
to the federal bench, Sharpton was busy spouting the Republican line
to the Sinclair chain of TV stations.
“I
don't agree with her politics,” said Sharpton of Janice
Brown. “I don't agree with some of her background. But
she should get an up-or-down vote.” Sharpton opposed the
filibuster, a last-ditch tactic designed to deny a legislative
majority – in this case, Republicans – an up-or-down vote
in the full Senate. Then Sharpton spoke words that could
have been scripted for Armstrong Williams or some other
Black GOP hireling."We've got to stop this monolith
in black America because it impedes the freedom of expression
for all of us. I don't think she should be opposed because
she doesn't come from some assumed club."
For ,
Sharpton’s bizarre, Hatch-like logic and suicidal trashing
of a great swath of Black leadership showed that he had lost
both his personal discipline and political equilibrium. The
attack on Dean, although disturbing for its incoherence,
timing and cynicism, paled in comparison to Sharpton’s November
5 mega-tantrum, which we believe endangered an extremely
important political project that heartily
endorsed. (See “What
the Black Presidential Candidate Must Do,” April 24.)
The
magnitude of Sharpton’s 24-hour disaster-nightmare (the next
day he reversed his position on the Brown nomination) lies
in the distance he put between himself and the Black consensus.
For example, the National
Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc., a fairly conservative
organization that has no problem cozying with Republicans,
could not abide the elevation of Janice Brown to the federal
bench:
We
strongly encourage each and every one to vote against Justice
Brown for the
sake of America….
There
is a clique amongst our generation that says thanks to the
previous generation and then immediately turns to the next
generation and says "Too Late, it is time to close the
door once again". Justice Janice Rogers Brown along
with her crony Wardell Connerly is of that ilk. Her extremist
opinions approach those of the late Supreme Court Justice Taney
(Dred Scott decision). We find that unacceptable and
will fight it to the end. We have come too far to turn
back to Jim Crow by neutralizing the Civil Rights Act. How
on earth can we look our children in their eyes by returning
to the ugly?
Clearly,
Sharpton was not in his right mind when he urged an “up-or-down
vote” for Brown, misleadingly framing the issue as a matter
of fairness. As Ralph Neas, President of People
for the American Way, said, “Never in our history
as a nation have we authorized a simple majority to force
a vote in the Senate on a judicial nomination or any other
matter.”
This
is the kind of thing that one cannot just let “slide.”
Dean and the
flag
Sharpton’s
November 4 attack on Dean at the Rock
The Vote debate, in Boston, must be seen in the context
of his surging “Jacksonophobia.” It was certainly a disingenuous
assault, since Sharpton had not made an issue of the remarks
in question since Dean delivered them to thunderous applause
at a winter meeting of Democrats, in Washington. (Sharpton
had chastised Dean for other statements, such as the former
governor’s claim to be the only white candidate to speak
about race to white audiences.)
applauded
Dean last winter, and we were shocked that Sharpton chose
to mangle his opponent’s clear meaning in the wake of the
Jackson endorsement.
Dean's
February statement, later clumsily repeated although with
no discernible
shift in meaning, was: "White folks in the South who
drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the
back ought to be voting with us and not them, because their
kids don't have health insurance, either, and their kids
need better schools, too." This straightforward commentary
on white racism – the false consciousness that leads whites
to act against their own interests – earned Dean a standing
ovation from a progressive audience nine months ago.
We
have divided the Sharpton-issue letters into two general
groups – those that
address our stance on Sharpton’s characterization of Black
leadership as an “assumed club,” and the readers that want
to talk about Dean’s presidential merits. We emphasize that
the thrust of our story was about Sharpton’s “Political-Emotional
Breakdown,” although we were disappointed to learn that some
readers focus entirely on Dean, pro and con. Since we wrote
the piece, this must be our fault.
A
brother named Luther writes:
Sounds
more like a 'Meltdown' than a 'breakdown'!!
Lucius
Earles got energized by the article.
After
reading your commentary on Al Sharpton and his monumental faux
pas, I forwarded a note to everyone who looks like us to hook
themselves up.
Ms. Oddameeze Black
is concerned that we may have done unnecessary harm.
I am a frequent
reader of and
enjoy it very much. I usually agree with your opinions
and am very appreciative of a publication that I can identify
with that usually espouses my views. However, I have
to say that I think the above article was too harsh in
its evaluation of the damage done by Sharpton. Most
people that will vote (S. Carolina) probably either did
not hear of the "breakdown" or certainly did
not assign it the same significance as . Therefore,
I think that your focusing on the "breakdown" may
have been more harmful than the actual event (but is your
journalistic prerogative). I have great respect
for your work and the publication and want to keep it that
way.
Naturally,
we pondered
the impact that our commentary might have on Sharpton's
chances, especially in South Carolina, where African Americans
may comprise a majority of the primary vote, and where we hoped
that Sharpton would whip everybody. We decided that our
obligation was to the "influencers" that make up
our audience, people that do keep up with events and
expect us to offer analysis. Frankly, we don't believe we can
or should maintain credibility with the audience if we pretend
important events just didn't happen.
A reader named Kwabena
thinks Sharpton can turn it around.
I
appreciated the article on Sharpton and hope he recovers from
the political breakdown. I guess my question is why haven't
we focused more on the Rev's and Rep's erratic behavior?
Kwabena was referring
to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. More than 20 members of the Congressional
Black Caucus have endorsed presidential candidates; only New
York Rep. Edolphus Towns has come out for Sharpton. never
expected that Sharpton would garner significant backing from
any of the major players in the institutional Democratic Party.
We wrote:
Sharpton’s
job was to be available for the voters in the primaries, thus
allowing them to make a political statement that would be heard
clearly throughout the Democratic Party. His primary task is
not to win the nomination or trigger some flood of endorsements.
Sharpton is an intelligent man, who began his campaign journey
well aware of the possibilities and limitations of his candidacy.
In cautioning Sharpton that “Black voters are your only hope
of wielding clout as a leader of an effective Party bloc,” we
purposely did not give weight to endorsements from Black elected
officials, who must play the game on an already existing field.
Sharpton’s mission was to alter that field by the weight of
his Black tallies on primary days, especially the February
3 ballot in South Carolina, where Blacks should comprise a
majority of Democratic voters.
Janis McEvoy appears
curious as to what the smiling faces of TV news are making
of this.
Interesting
article about Al Sharpton. I was equally interested in
finding out that a "few" media personalities would
like to hear more of Sharpton in the debates, since he is so "funny." I
agree, but wonder if Al is playing the jester to a bunch of
white men. What do you think?
Corporate
media enjoy laughing at everybody except those in power.
It is one of their most repellant characteristics. But that’s
the subject of a future commentary.
In Chicago, Colette
D. Marine thinks Howard Dean is a straight talker on race.
I
want to offer my congratulations to you for your insightful
pieces dealing with Howard Dean's flag remarks. More
than that, however, I want to offer you my gratitude.
Back in August, I tuned into C-SPAN and watched as Howard
Dean told a crowd of thousands in Bryant Park (NYC) all about
such civil Republican tactics
as placing thugs outside polling places in black areas to physically intimidate
black voters. I moved to the edge of my seat and whispered two words: "get
kevlar."
Let's face it. We all know this stuff goes on. Independent media
covers it and, when we're lucky, and the stars are aligned, even big media
will hint at it. But candidates at the national level? If they
touch it at all, they euphemize it. Rare is the national candidate
who will come right out and say these things explicitly.
I was on the edge of that same seat recently,
head in my hands, tears in my eyes, watching
a field of candidates do their best to
destroy what could
have been a moment of greatness in Democratic politics, a moment when candidates
at the highest and most publicly visible level finally opened an honest dialogue
with Americans about what's been going on in racial and partisan politics
in the past few decades. I'm not naive. I know Howard Dean can't
single-handedly reverse Nixon's southern strategy. The idea is absurd. But
we did have the opportunity to take the first few steps down that path, at
long last. And that's not absurd.
Unfortunately, it meant more to the rest of the field (with the
blessed exception of Carol Moseley-Braun) to score short-term,
personal, political gains. These
guys knew what Dean was at, not just because they had heard him talking about
this issue for months, but because there's no such thing as a Democratic
politician at the national level who doesn't know what this is about.
So now what? How and when will we get our next moment? And will
we foolishly squander it again? Or might we yet turn this current fiasco
into a real dialogue?
Ms. Marine raises
a very important point. At the Boston debate, Rev. Sharpton
tag-teamed with North Carolina Senator John Edwards to make
it less likely that Dean or any candidate will again directly
address the racist insanity of southern white voting behavior
during this campaign. They will go back to tiptoeing around
the elephant in the room.
Barry
Frier is from Manhattan. He doesn’t tiptoe anywhere.
As
a (white) person who had taken a very active role in the '84 & '88
Jackson campaigns, I was very interested in and grateful for
your article on Rev. Sharpton. It clarified things that were
emotionally clouded, and helped to support my decision to back
a Democratic candidate with whose positions I don't agree down
the line. It encourages me to see that my certainty of the
necessity to remove the present junta from power, and in Howard
Dean's solid conviction in a coherent and integral set of beliefs
is shared so broadly. The American people can recover from
fear, and take their country back!
Gertrude F. Treadway
is a frequent correspondent.
Your lead article
on Sharpton vs. Dean was wonderful. I find myself always
having to read these lengthy articles in their entirety to
my husband who agrees with every word also. I happened to
watch the debate in question and was horrified by the sparring
among the candidates. They truly seem to have lost sight
of the prize which is to retake the presidency in 2004.
Anyone
with a modicum of intelligence could see where Dean was coming
from in his remark about "white guys in pick-up trucks
with Confederate flag decals." Racism is still the issue
which divides us more than any other in the South. Take it
from a Southerner who knows and has lived through it for 73
years!
We appreciate the
compliment from Martin Japtok, an associate professor of English
at West Virginia State College.
I
wanted to thank you for your cover story on Rev. Sharpton which
I found to be excellent both in terms of principles and strategy
(sometimes a difficult marriage).
From Santa Monica,
California, Jonathan Aurthur writes:
Your site is excellent.
I loved the piece on Dean and the Confederate flag decal
flap. I'm a white Marxist who doesn't believe the Democratic
Party is alive enough to do what Dean says needs to be done,
namely, unite blacks and poor whites in the South around
their common interests (without pandering to white bigotry),
but I certainly believe somebody will have to do that
if we're to have any hopes of a progressive movement in this
country. Thanks for your clear analysis.
What
is particularly interesting to me about the Dean flap is that
his only public defenders (at least that I've read) have been
black progressives – e.g., you and Constance Rice, who wrote
a very good piece in the LA Times saying essentially what you
said. In other words, the people who would in theory be the
most offended by what Dean said are the ones who got it! All
the attacks from white "liberals" and Dems fall into
the "methinks thou dost protest too much" category.
They're terrified of having to confront reality, which is that
U.S. society is a class society, under all the "class,
race and gender" generalities.
We also have no illusions
about overcoming white false consciousness. But, that's what white progressives
must try to do, if they are to be regarded as progressive. We
think Dean mouthed some of the right words. Clearly, such language
does not resonate well in the American political discourse.
Constance
L. Rice is Condoleezza’s very progressive, lawyer-activist
first cousin. Her November 6 Los Angeles Times commentary
was titled, “Confederate
Flap: Stand Firm, Howard Dean; Candidate's allusion to poor
Southern whites opens an important issue.”
Et tu, ?
Susan
Balmer is a longtime reader. She’s upset with us.
My
printer is broken so I'm forced to try to rely upon my memory
of the above article but I thought it was extremely harsh and
even the title of your article is very insulting – I'm "Shocked
and Awed." I'm especially shocked as well that your
organization appears to want to support Howard Dean as the
Democratic candidate for president? Have you really checked
his record? Unfortunately, I could only find 2 articles
right now: "Dean Not Progressive on Mideast" Ahmed
Nassef, AlterNet, June 30, 2003 and "Dean And The Union" Tom
Paine.common sense, July 21, 2003 and the one article I couldn't
find right now is one I think was written by "Veterans
for Peace.”
I regret that I
was unable to see
that CNN debate
(only caught glimpses
of it after the
fact) so I know
I shouldn't say
much but when I
learned that
J. Jackson, Jr. had endorsed Howard Dean I was horrified – I couldn't believe
it – I thought that if he endorsed anyone it would be a fellow congressman
(D. Kucinich). I e-mailed Rep. Jackson last night expressing my supreme disappointment
(I don't expect a reply).
Howard Dean and Bush were
classmates at Yale (they
have their pictures in
the year book) and his
record from previous statements
offers no genuine
chance for change in the direction our country is headed – no reduction in
the military budget, no peace between Israel/Palestine (he's an acknowledged "hawk"),
more destructive trade agreements resulting in more loss of American jobs
overseas, more troops being sent to Iraq - no hope of a single payer health
care plan (what a joke, he's a doctor as is his wife). While he pretends
to have been totally against the Iraq war, he was quoted many months ago
saying, "If I could have voted for it, I would have" (again, I'm
paraphrasing) but one has to wonder about his sincerity, thus, just more
enforcement of the Bush administration policies only he can pretend to be
a Democrat. No wonder Rev. Sharpton felt "betrayed" as well
as outraged. I feel the same way and if you choose to call it "self-pity," I
choose to call it despair – if Dean is the candidate against Bush, Bush is
going to /steal/buy/cheat (whatever it takes) to get re-elected. If Dean
is the candidate, I'll be forced to vote for him because I'd vote for a "rabid" dog
in order to get someone in the White House who is not overtly Republican,
but it will be with a very sad heart. Thank you for your time and I
think you kind of owe Rev. Sharpton a "little slack." I'm
sure your article has hurt him as much as the betrayal by the Jacksons – they
betrayed not only him but me as well.
replied:
We took no pleasure in describing Rev. Sharpton as having undergone
a "Political-Emotional Breakdown." But he did, as
his remarks on Janice Brown amply demonstrated. Our obligation
to our audience of "influencers" is to deliver an
honest analysis, not to please folks. We are not cheerleaders.
Sharpton has gotten a great deal of "good ink" in
these pages. He brought the bad ink on himself.
Thaddeus
Delay at first seems to travels in several directions – or
more likely he is carefully circling the issue to see all
the sides of
it.
I
listened to Tavis Smiley this morning on Tom Joyner's show
and he spoke of
some flap concerning Janice Brown gaining the support of
Al Sharpton. Much to my dismay I vowed to find out for myself
whether or not this had actually been a true statement or
had his words been misinterpreted. Upon investigating it
seems Rev. Al was simply placing his faith and beliefs in
the system allowing everyone the opportunity to be voted
upon, whether they support our (black folk's) agenda. He
even stated as much, that we have to stop disqualifying someone
solely because their political and sociological insights
don't agree with our agenda. I can honestly say I understand
where Al is coming from – we don't have to agree totally
with everyone we support for politics or any facet of American
life.
The
problem begins when the views are so extremely opposite
of what the national
agenda has become for colored folks, the reconciliation of
the two platforms is near impossible and very improbable.
The Rev. disappointed me by quickly issuing a retraction,
advocating an end to the comfirmation hearings and routinely
denouncing Brown as a judge and dismissing any representation through
her of anything resembling a black folk's agenda. Disappointment
because a retraction that comes so quickly is either from
a misinformed candidate or from someone who 'let the heat
get to him'. I don't want a candidate who is going
to support someone like Janice Brown. Al Sharpton is NOT
that candidate, I believe, yet I also don't want someone
who is going to buckle under the pressure of opinion and
dissenting viewpoints. Before all of this we knew what Al
Sharpton stands for and what he believes in and while times
change and so do opinions, it is absolutely necessary for
a Leader to believe and convince his people to have those
same discussions. Rev. Al has not lost a vote but that oh
so familiar 'political buckling' is akin to the 'voting with
your wallet' that has infected our politics for years. I
have not always agreed with Rev. Al on all the issues he
has championed but he always left the impression of a strong
man and leader who stood steadfast to his principles. I hope
politics hasn't caused his convictions to waver, in hopes
of residing on Pennsylvania Avenue, in that WHITE HOUSE.
Keep
fighting the fight.
Spook Who
Sat By the Door
Last
week, we characterized a letter from Jasamin Smith as reflective
of the “Spook Who
Sat by the Door” school of Black politics – the expectation
that aspiring Black officeholders that side with The Man are
likely to return to the fold once they are established in positions
of power. Ms. Smith said we distorted her message – so she
gets another shot.
In
viewing the letter to the publisher posted about Janice
Brown, for clarity sake
let me say I make no intentional or unconscious reference
to the "Spook at the door" ideology at all. For
clarity sake, my contention that Janice, Clarence, Colin,
and now even Al, will come back "Home" is grounded
more in Truth of the Original intent, a mandate that
moves beyond the Hollywood dramatization of ideas presented
in the movie. Laughingly, the movie may have some merit from
a sterile intellectual point of view.
The
plug
for
the
movie,
however
deserves
merit – fine
film.
More
correctly,
my jesting comment about Janice Brown's "nigga getting trigga-ed" was
to show that the Republicans are simply using her to truly expose her ideology
at this time. They would never truly support her because she inherently
can decipher the truth, that does not always exist in their own law structure.
Whether she can live up to her personal inherent nature remains to be seen.
She follows past law meticulously, as they have argued,
but later, immediately renders an opinion that shows how the
law may need to be rectified because of the Bias existing in
many of the old law structures.
They claim, She argues, that following case law may be the
way the government is structured and she has stated she has
no problem following those laws, even though she may disagree
with it.
That she is caught in the Quagmire about her opinions, when she professes
the real Truth about Government and the law in her personal opinions, is
simply to expose her as I have postulated earlier.
Detoxifying
Dayton
Maddi
Breslin, who readers of this column know as “Maddi Bee,” one
of our wittiest correspondents, showed her serious, get-down-to-business
activist
side in her November 13 Guest Commentary, “How
a Neighborhood Defeated the U.S. Army: People Power Rolls Back
Environmental Racism.” The tale of successful resistance
to Pentagon plans to place a VX “disposal” plant in her Dayton,
Ohio neighborhood was picked up by several environmental publications.
We’re proud she told it here, first.
People
told us: “You
can’t beat the Army. They have their ways. They’ll
brush you aside. We don’t think you can win against
them. They have the power.” We didn’t believe
that for a hot second. Once we educated ourselves and
knew about the destructive nature and history of this VX substance and the unsuccessful experiments to get rid
of it, we knew in our hearts we’d never quit. We were
determined and we worked daily, weekly, monthly for 11 months. Among
other things we demonstrated, petitioned, educated, leafleted,
orated, conducted large community meetings with almost no
money….
We
beat the Army! They tried to shuck and jive, push us
aside, give non-answers to our many questions. Yet and
still, their best was not good enough.
In
Whitakers, North Carolina, Judye Thomas reminds readers that
getting the stuff
out of your own back yard isn’t the end of the story.
Congratulations
to the folk in Dayton for their diligence in fighting to keep
the toxic soup out of their neighborhood. However, I
want to remind all of us who work to rid our communities of
toxins – that it will go somewhere – and we need to find out
where it is going if we say no and partner with those communities
to keep it out, as well. We will win this war only when
all of us partner to find better solutions than dumping it
in our back yards!
King
on Vietnam – and
Iraq
Freedom
Rider columnist Margaret Kimberley felt it was necessary
to bring King Day
to the fore early, so that we can get it right, in January. Last
week’s piece was titled, “A
Time to Break Silence: Reclaiming Dr. King.”
As
we prepare to honor Dr. King in 2004 we must remember his
words about the war in Vietnam. Iraq is the Vietnam of
our era. I have often said that when reading the Riverside
speech the word Vietnam should be replaced by Iraq and
the statements made at that time applied to our situation
today. Because people in power didn’t listen to King in
any serious way we have repeated all that he warned us
about 36 years ago….
“We
are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must
know after a short period there that none of the things
we claim to be fighting for are really involved.”
Ms.
Kimberley’s words touched John Rabun, in Huntsville, Alabama.
I
was attending a "separate but equal" high school in Fayetteville
NC when he was shot. Because Ft. Bragg was there, the school
was forced to let black students from the army families attend. My
dad was in the army and we were always arguing about the
war, civil rights, etc. I had been anti-war since I visited
the Hiroshima Museum when we were stationed in Japan. That's
where we were when JFK was assassinated, and when the Gulf
of Tonkin incident occurred.
I
had known that King was anti-war, but I had never seen excerpts
from that speech before. I will try to find the whole speech
now. The excerpts were moving, poignant, and depressingly
still true.
Joseph
Osorio also checked in with Kimberley.
I
just wrote to Freedom Rider to say I enjoyed the site, referencing
a link from your article. I guess you ARE Freedom Rider. I'm
very impressed. I enjoy .
You write some great stuff, keep it up. I agree with everything
I've read in your archives so far, particularly the references
to the stupidity in this country.
The Fruits
of Opportunism
Former
Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney wowed the folks in
Philadelphia, earlier this month. The crowd was already warmed
up, in celebration of Mayor John Street’s reelection victory.
In her speech, titled “We
Demand Reparations,” McKinney cautioned against the scavenging
class that walks and talks among us. A case in point: Denise
Majette defeated McKinney's reelection bid, last year - with
lots of white Republican help.
Now,
no one in Georgia had seen a crossover vote of such magnitude. Many people thought
no way would I have any trouble at all against a no name
candidate who was being funded by the Israel Lobby and
Republicans. In fact, many blacks in Atlanta knew
that she only had her heralded judgeship because I had
filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia protesting
the dearth of black judges elected from the highly gerrymandered
to keep us out – judicial circuits – of that day.
So,
you could say, I shook the tree and she picked up the
fruit.
And
so today I'm supposed to talk about reparations and politics
in the black community and my experience just about says
where we are in a nutshell.
We
shake the tree – the activists in our community – and then
the opportunists come along and pick up the fruit.
“I
heard that,” writes
C. Lee:
The
speech is excellent. When reading her words you can understand
why they wanted to remove her from her seat in the House. She
is a strong and beautiful Black woman; you can feel the hurt
and pain from the unjust treatment of our people by this racist
system .
The cities will be
transformed, of that there is no doubt. But unless Black
political institutions transform themselves more rapidly
than Big Capital’s rush through the urban core, there will
be no base for collective African American action, no harbor
for the dreams of a people. The nation itself will lose its
soul to the disconnecting, atomizing fury of organized greed….
Labor
must take the lead in nurturing Plans, tailored to every targeted
locality. In the process of formulating plans for the cities,
people’s dreams become tangible – and as Dr. Martin Luther
King understood, dreams are the real stuff of movements. It
is the stuff that is lacking in far too many Black-led urban
political groupings, circles that care more about a piece of
the next corporate contract that floats their way than the
stability, prosperity and dignity of African Americans as a
whole.
Arnold O. Walker is
a realtor, originally from Chicago, now happy in Texas.
I
don't doubt what you say about big business & inner city Blacks, however,
there are two ominous clouds on the horizon that
threaten both big business and Blacks, as well as the entire
country. These clouds are called Asia and
more specifically, China. The second cloud is called "currency collapse.''
China
and its huge population, as it matures into a world producer
of cheap
goods, will undercut the world in prices for years to
come. Secondly, as our currency cheapens and it
ceases to be the world reserve money, our indebted society
will simply collapse.
Let
the White Boy have the cities as they become Humpty Dumpties. The
smart Blacks are moving back to the South and small communities
where they can better organize their talents and build better
communities.
replied
that the coming currency collapse (which we believe will be
accelerated by global recoil from entanglements with the U.S.)
will be merciless on the small communities that Mr. Walker
imagines as a haven. A closer look at the demographics shows
that when urban Black northerners move South, they tend to
gravitate to urban areas - including those who grew up in smaller
communities. Mr. Walker was not dismayed.
As
I'm sure you know statistics and demographics can be misleading
depending on how they are used. Most Blacks relocating
to the South still have family and friends in the smaller communities
who own property free and clear of debt. When the
coming crash takes place those Blacks in the metropolitan
areas will be able to retreat to their families only minutes
away and live out the economic storm in relative quiet. These
Blacks will be able to grow their own food and live off the
land while many Blacks in the Northern cities will be
trapped in poverty with nowhere to hide from the storm. Example:
I live in Kilgore, Texas, a small rural city with about 13K
population. We are 90 miles east of Dallas and 90 miles
west of Shreveport, LA. I am seeing this trend already
as a real estate broker.
Good news
We never met Marilyn
Monteiro, but we know she’s good people.
I
am an African American women – a veteran of the struggle
against racism in this country.
I
have only recently discovered your e-journal. Let me say
in the strongest of
words – I love your work! Keep on keepin' on! I was
interested in finding out more about Janice Rodgers Brown
and read your brilliant article "Testi-Lying to the
Senate and the People…" After finishing that article
I was sooo very proud of you. Your tone, language, insight,
analysis are all masterful. And your uncompromising
stand against the reprehensible ploy and forces of racist
Hatch and his Hatchlings is much appreciated and very much
needed.
As
you steadfastly assert and act upon – "Sometimes you just have to call
a Tom a Tom, and a Janice a Clarence!" Bravo to
you all and long live your courage, clarity, uncompromising
honesty and journalist skill. Thank you for being there
for the millions of us who need your voice.
I
fully support your work and will continue to follow your pages. I
have sent your web site address to as many of my friends as
possible.
Similarly, George W. Sherrell III is a man of erudition and depth.
After being an avid supporter of George Curry and his EMERGE magazine,
it made me feel real good seeing that other editorialists
have the fortitude to use their creativity in a positive
fashion.
Keep up the good work. You are doing a good job.
Finally,
we’re glad
to meet Francine Oputa, currently at California State University,
in Fresno.
I
just discovered you and I am impressed. You have gained a consistent
reader. Good job.
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