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As we prepare for Black History Month it is useful to note that, at very select times and under narrow circumstances, pervasive white racism actually worked to the perverse benefit of at least some African Americans. For example, a host of Black service businesses profited from the captive market provided them by Jim Crow – although the same cannot necessarily be said for their consumers.  However, since segregation also proscribed the possibilities of Black business growth, the net effect on Black enterprise was negative.

In hindsight, there was one stubborn legacy of white racism that redounded, ironically, to the general benefit of African Americans as a whole. During the 35-year interval between the signing of the Voting Rights Act and the dawning of the 21st Century, African Americans enjoyed a kind of grace period, during which the institutional Right largely abstained from interference in the internal workings of Black electoral politics.  This was fortunate. The rich dominate the political conversation of the nation through their think tanks and interlocking networks of propagandizing organizations, the structures through which they promote the public policies and political personalities that the corporate media ultimately present as the only “rational” choices for the electorate. During the post-civil rights period, Blacks were spared deep political penetration by the Hard Right. Bluntly put, the racist fat cats could not tolerate Black company long enough to create effective mechanisms of political subversion.

Until the mid to late Nineties, rich rightwing foundations spent relatively little time or money to exert influence among masses of African Americans.  They virtually ignored the Black electoral arena – a thoroughly Democratic landscape – largely confining their activities to ineffectual sponsorship of a few hand-picked Black academics such as Thomas Sowell and Glenn Loury.

In the middle of the last decade the Bradley Foundation, a hyper-aggressive den of rich conspirators based in Milwaukee, took the lead in creating Black front organizations whose mission is to endorse the public policy pronouncements of the foundations’ think tank networks.  A number of phony Black groups joined the likes of Ward Connerly and Robert Woodson in the parrots’ cage.

These token corporate forays into Black America allowed the Right to present its case in blackface at university forums and on TV talk shows. However, the right wing’s colored menagerie had little impact on the Black body politic, which has long been centered on indigenous personalities and organizations associated with the Democratic Party. Black Republicanism is moribund – the last time a Black Republican represented a majority Black district in Congress was 1935.  The Right found it extremely difficult to gain traction among African Americans. Some of their Black Frankensteins have turned out to be hugely unpopular.  Ward Connerly is second only to Clarence Thomas as the most hated Black man in American. A different approach was necessary: slick, clandestine, and definitely minus the GOP label.

For the Right to achieve effective penetration of Black America, it would have to take the Democratic Party route.  In 1992 Bill Clinton’s corporate Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) took firm hold of the national party machinery. Black Democrats were invited to plug into the DLC’s boardroom networks – connections that also led directly to the money men of the Republican Right. The stage was set for the emergence of the Black Democratic Trojan Horse politician.

Racing for dollars

The Trojan Horse offensive was launched in 2002. Backed by unlimited rightwing dollars and the massed power of the national corporate media, Denise Majette and Artur Davis defeated Representatives Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard in Georgia and Alabama, respectively. Both outcomes were heralded in advance as proof of the emergence of a new, conservative trend among young and “middle class” Black voters – precisely the impression the Right was spending tens of millions of dollars to create. The facts proved no such thing: Majette garnered only 16 percent of the Black vote in McKinney’s Atlanta-area district, and won by the same percentage. It cannot be assumed that even this fraction of Black Georgia voters was motivated by conservative ideology. Earl Hilliard was supported by more than two-thirds of African American voters in his 58 percent Black Alabama district, but lost to Artur Davis 54 to 46 percent. Both contests were open primaries in which white Republicans crossed over to join white Democrats in electing Black Trojan Horses. Yet corporate media framed both races as referendums in which Blacks rejected “outdated,” “civil rights style” politics – reasoning that is so transparently illogical, it can only be sustained by constant repetition.

That same year, the Right came close to putting its Black candidate in the mayor’s chair in Newark, New Jersey. Cory Booker, a one-term city councilman who tapped into the Bradley Foundation’s network of corporate wealth and media clout via the school vouchers racket, nearly unseated Mayor Sharpe James. is proud to have played a role in unmasking Booker, who tried mightily to conceal his Hard Right ties.

Booker remains a darling of the DLC. Majette and Davis are newly-minted members. Tennessee Black Congressman Harold Ford sought but did not get the support of fellow DLCers in his bid to become Democratic Leader of the House, in November 2002.

Overall, however, 2002 was a good year for the Black Trojan Horses and their DLC and Republican paymasters. The historical respite from rightwing interference in Black electoral affairs was over.  Fat checkbooks and the lure of contracts and consultancies now threaten to overwhelm authentic Black political structures. Deep pockets buy a small army of Black sycophants and wannabes in politics and media, eagerly available to peddle the Right’s message that African Americans are becoming more conservative.

Which brings us to Jonetta Rose Barras, the subject of our January 8 Cover Story, “The Serpent in the Garden: Spreading Lies About Black Voters.

Click to view entire Serpent in the Garden cartoon

[T]he Sunday, January 4 edition of the Washington Post exhibited a political fantasy so bizarre and without foundation, that it carried a disclaimer in the title. “Black Votes – No GOP Fantasy,” announced the headline to Jonetta Rose Barras’ opinion piece, which attempted to lend credibility to “the GOP's announced goal of winning 25 percent of the African American vote in 2004.” Barras then strung together the same flimsy set of false assumptions and contorted logic employed by other corporate hirelings to prove the absurd proposition that in order to retain Black loyalties Democrats must turn to the right.

Barras is, to put it bluntly, a hack for the bipartisan businessmen’s project to create the impression that political conservatism is on the rise among a “new” and “emerging” class of educated, upwardly mobile African Americans. It does not matter to corporate media – and certainly not to hustlers like Barras – that there is no evidence of such a phenomenon among the Black voting public. Big media’s mission is to create their own set of facts, treat them as if they are true, and convince the rest of us to act accordingly….

If she is in her right mind, Barras doesn’t believe the GOP’s grand projections either. Her mission is to sow confusion among Blacks in order to create space for an alternative, corporate-friendly African American leadership within the Democratic Party. That’s where the action is. Barras invokes the Republican threat in order to portray Black Democratic conservatives as the wave of the future, as opposed to the ”outdated” voices of the “far left wing of the party.”

The heroes and heroines of Barras’ story are – no surprise – Representatives Artur Davis, Harold Ford, and the Bush-kissing, voucher-loving, Black DLC Mayor of Washington DC, Anthony Williams.

Ms. Barras asked to respond to our piece. Here’s what she wrote:

I recently read your article that attempts to analyze the op-ed I wrote in the Washington Post. First, thanks for reading the article. Initially I was excited when a friend told me you had published an opposing view. But while I had hoped for a debate, I was treated to a series of ad hominems. Further, you did not even provide a link for your readers so that they may judge for themselves the value of the piece I wrote.

I would like to respond specifically to a couple of charges you made:

1. The statistics I quote are not mine; they are not those of the Democratic Leadership Council; nor are they those of Republicans. Rather they are from the nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. You took exception to my statement that there has been a measurable rightward shift among black voters. But the Joint Center study notes that "There has been a noteworthy change in black partisan identification (away from the Democrats)."  Further, if you review the survey carefully yourself, you will discern that there is a direct correlation between the drop in those blacks not identifying themselves as Democrats and those identifying themselves as either independents or Republicans.  One last thing on the numbers: What is interesting about this movement away from Democrats is that it is charted in the two years after George W. Bush basically stole the presidency and thousands of voters, many of whom were black, were disenfranchised in the process. It is stunning (and maybe even scary) that the number of blacks who identify themselves as Democrats would drop between 2000 and 2002 and not increase, given the underhanded tactics used by the Republicans during the 2000 election in Florida.

2. I am not a member of the Democratic Leadership Council. Since the early 1990s, I have been tracking changes in the black electorate and have written extensively in several publications about this. I even wrote a book that includes an analysis of this trend.

3. If you admit that black political leadership is trending toward Rep. Artur Davis and Rep. Harold Ford as I suggest, then aren't you also agreeing that the black electorate is moving to the right of the far left wing of the Democratic Party. You can't have it both ways. You can't say African Americans are voting for candidates like Davis and Ford, who clearly are centrists, but assert that blacks are deep in the left, liberal pocket of the party.

4. I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I am a registered Independent. I suggest you interview Dr. Lenora Fulani to ascertain the real independent movement that is sweeping through America, and how important this population has become in national elections.

Finally, what I found most troubling about your essay and analysis is that it did not critically examine the Democratic Party. What is it doing that is causing the disaffection among blacks, particularly young blacks? What should it do or what can it do to become more attractive to this segment of our community? Rather than stoop to a snake's level, you may have better served your reader by delving into the issues of why blacks would want to join the Republican Party or why they would want to opt out of partisan politics all together.

Maybe next time you won't be a victim of your emotions.

Barras must have herself been overcome by emotion (shame would be appropriate, but unlikely), since she failed to see that her Washington Post story was prominently displayed and linked on the 8th line of our piece. Having dedicated so much space to denouncing her, we are disappointed that she was incapable of the simple act of reading. We do not enjoy beating up on unconscious people, no matter how loathsome.

Barras says, “You took exception to my statement that there has been a measurable rightward shift among black voters.” Of course we did. The drop in African American personal identification with the Democratic Party, as recorded by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (JCPES) in 2002, does not translate into a “measurable rightward shift.” The JCPES makes no such claim. Instead, the Joint Center concludes, “Among African Americans over the past five years, there have been small shifts away from and back toward identifying with the Democratic Party. However, African Americans have been voting Democratic at their usual high levels.”

Barras fails or refuses to comprehend the difference between voter identification and behavior. For example, three out of ten self-identified Black Republicans fail to vote for the party. Whatever their subjective idea of what a Republican might be, these voters do not find actual GOP candidates to be a palatable on Election Day. The shift to the Republican identification column from 1999 to 2002 is simply a doubling of relatively small, extremely subjective numbers – from 5 to 10 percent, very close to what JCPES scholar David Bositis considers the statistical margin of error. The GOP identification phenomenon, if it exists, benefited the Republicans not one bit in November 2002, just weeks after the survey was completed. Indeed, as we reported, “The two party black vote for the House went from 89 percent Democrat/11 percent Republican in both 1998 and 2000 to a 91 percent/9 percent split in 2002” – a two percent net gain for Democrats among African American voters.

Repetitive illogic

There is nothing happening in Black America, or in the JCPES study, that bodes well for Republicans. The most significant subjective movement noted by the survey was from Democratic to Independent self-identification – the category that is least likely to vote, according to Dr. Bositis.  As any social science student could explain to Barras, the figures are telling us that Blacks are increasingly alienated from the Democratic Party, but the numbers do not indicate that this dissatisfaction is rooted in Black conservatism. Barras and her guiding lights on the Right eagerly jump to the conclusion that African Americans are dropping the Democratic ID because they perceive the party as too liberal or, as she puts it, “left-wing.” If that were true, then we should observe at least a modest upsurge in Republican voting behavior among African Americans – but we don’t; the movement at the polls is in the opposite direction. Viewed in the context of both the historical and most recent voting behavior of African Americans, it is far more likely that Black dissatisfaction comes from the Left; folks feel alienated from the Democratic Party because it is not sufficiently activist and “pro-Black.”

Barras is attempting to transform a negative for Democrats into a positive for the Right – somewhat like assuming that because a spouse has become weary of a marriage, he or she will automatically sleep with the neighbor next door. In this case, the spouse has shown repeatedly that he/she despises the neighbor. Barras and her mentors shamelessly disrespect the Joint Center by forming conclusions that are not justified by the numbers – and, by implication, ascribing those conclusions to the Center.

Barras’ colleagues on the Right perform the same exercise in purposeful illogic when citing the survey’s findings on Black support for vouchers. Although a majority of young voters responded positively to the JCPES question on vouchers – a question we believe was seriously flawed in its construction – Dr. Bositis concluded, "they don't feel that the Republican Party is an alternative." Thankfully, Barras did not revisit that canard.

Barras tears into George Bush for stealing the 2000 election and “disenfranchising” thousands of Blacks, then calls it “stunning” that the JCPES survey finds fewer African Americans identifying themselves as Democrats. The source of Barras’ confusion lies in her false premise that African Americans are moving to the Right. Black anti-Republicanism was confirmed in 2000 and expressed even more strongly in November 2002. Yes, it would be “stunning” if Blacks had become more conservative in the interim. But they didn’t. Instead, logic tells us that significant numbers of African Americans are profoundly disappointed with Democrats for failing to fight hard enough against Bush. Barras looks at reality upside-down all day and wonders why she gets dizzy. (For an in-depth examination of the JCPES study, see “Poll Shows Black Political Consensus Strong,” November 21, 2002.)

We don’t care about Barras’ nominal party affiliation, or whether she pays dues to the DLC. She serves their interests; that’s why they featured an article of hers in the March-April 2003 issue of Blueprint, the DLC house organ. It’s a PR piece for “new black leaders” Ford, Majette, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (who endorsed the Republican candidate for Louisiana governor, last year, but swayed very few Black voters), Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (DLC), and Cory Booker – who is still earning his money from the Right as a school vouchers activist while he prepares for another run for Mayor of Newark. (See "The Wal-Martization of Education,” in this issue.)

Barras is a freelance propagandist in the Right’s campaign to establish an “alternative,” corporate-friendly Black leadership. Whether she believes what she writes or not is of no concern to us, although readers may find it interesting that Barras is an acolyte of Lenora Fulani.

Finally, Barras challenges us to “critically examine the Democratic Party.” does that all the time – in fact, that’s we’re doing right now. The DLC is the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, created to diminish the influence of Blacks and labor. Through its “me too” Republicanism, the DLC discourages large numbers of African Americans from identifying with the party. Instead, it makes common cause with the GOP project to unseat authentic Black leadership by force of money and media.

Part of our job at is to expose the Trojan Horse politicians’ ties to the enemy. This is uncharted territory for Black America – after all, the Right’s surrogate electoral offensive in the Black political heartland is less than three years old. It took decades following the Civil Rights Movement before the racist rich could bring themselves to mingle with more than a few Blacks at a sitting. Now they are deploying puppets in our midst with a vengeance. But give us time. African Americans are the most sophisticated voters in the nation. We will not be fooled for long.

“Aunts” and “Uncles”

A reader named Phil regards Barras with contempt:

I read your article entitled "The Serpent in the Garden" and found myself filled with disdain and disgust for this "Jonetta Rose Barras" person.  Evidently, she and others of her ilk seem to think that the only way to fit into the political climate these days is to present a rosy picture to those of the Anglo persuasion, while portraying African Americans as not worth anything if they aren't believing in the lie that is the Republican/Conservative party.  I guess we must have the burgeoning Uncle Toms (and Tomissinas) to go along with whatever is most profitable and agreeable toward these racist beliefs.  She expounds on how the Democratic party is playing "plantation politics," that the new Black voter will need to forget the lessons learned from past struggles, that the present administrative climate is good for everyone, ad nauseam. In reality, it is nothing more than a attempt from the right of nullifying any possibility of cohesiveness and solidarity from the Black voter against the present political climate.  I find it extremely sad that there are young voters who don't understand that these individuals are more dangerous to them and their future than anything that has been in our history.

B. Gittens is in the business of creating fair and democratic elections – the one business that should not revolve around money.

My organization coordinates, manages, supervises and conducts elections for private organizations and hopefully, in the near future, for municipalities. We supply the machinery as well as the manpower and expertise to run a non-partisan, totally transparent election. We regularly deal with voting equipment, proxies, ballots, candidates and election rules and regulations as they pertain to federal law. As far as I know we are the only African-American company in New York that does this (there are only 2 other companies in this city that are in the same field). So I have a unique view of our electoral system and how it is failing the people and how it can be fixed. (We were not offered the contract for the overseas votes of our military personnel nor were we told that it existed. It was a no bid contract given to Halliburton – Dick Cheney’s old company).

I bring this up because of the recent article of yours that describes certain people and their paymasters (Barras). It seems that the majority of the problems we face from candidates or anyone in politics (pundits) usually involves money in some form or another.    

We have these problems because our politicians and other spokespeople are not obligated to the people of this country. If you can get anyone to say anything you want because you are paying them, then that is a problem.

The current system is set up to allow candidates to accept money from big business so therefore they are obligated to big business. This process should be stopped. In every election that my organization supervises, whether it is for a union, cooperative apartment, condominium, college or corporate board of directors, each candidates' campaign is paid for by the sponsoring organization (the client) so each candidate has the same access to advertisement. In other words it does not depend on the amount of money the candidate has in their pocket or the amount they can raise (where is it stated in the constitution that only rich folks can run this country). Each candidate’s picture, biography and campaign message is distributed equally and it is not paid for by the candidate – it is paid for by the people that want this election to take place.

So with that in mind shouldn't the American people pay for American election campaigns?  This would eliminate big business from the equation, it would give each candidate the same amount of money to campaign and access to the same forms of advertisement for the same amount of time. If one candidate has a 30 minute spot on channel 2 all candidates should have a 30 minute spot on channel 2. 

It makes candidates obligated to no one person or organization (non-partisan). It makes them obligated to the people of this country.

Harder Times Coming

We began the New Year on a note that could be regarded as positive or negative, depending on how one feels about the decline of U.S. global power. Our Cover Story story was titled, “Black America Must Prepare for the Long, Deep Slide.

The world’s elites are seeking to position their institutions and nations as far from the American axis as is feasible, while carefully avoiding economic catastrophe in the process. It is like planning a divorce from an insane, violent spouse who also has a key to the safety deposit box. The divorce will unfold in stages – or, under further provocation from the U.S., in earth-shaking spasms. But there is now no doubt that the U.S. is fated to shrink as the world withdraws from successive layers of entanglements with the madman. Black America must therefore prepare to marshal its collective assets for a long period of retrenchment.

Gene Marner writes with recommendations for additional reading.

A powerful and insightful piece.  The news is bad enough but there's worse to come: the peak of oil and gas production.  The long, deep slide is longer and deeper than any of us can imagine.  Sometime this decade – sooner, rather than later, I believe – supplies of both natural gas and oil will reach their production peaks and start irrevocably and forever to decline.  That will put a permanent end to economic growth and a hundred thousand other things.  Please don't think that I'm trying to be the more dire Cassandra but I do think that those who face the future with neither optimism nor pessimism but with realism have the best chance to survive the new low-energy world. Anyway, Cassandra was right.

A new British website, Wolf at the Door, offers a good introduction to this grim but essential subject. An article of my own dealing with the subject is in the Online Journal Archive.

I hope this is useful.

Black Labor in a Wal-Mart world

Click to view entire Wal-Mart Monster cartoon

There are super-stores, and then there’s Wal-Mart, the Arkansas family business that has become “so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.” Wal-Mart’s presence was almost palpable as Black labor leaders gathered in Orlando, Florida earlier this month to map election strategies (“Black Labor Seeks ‘Game Plan’ for Victory,” January 22). Tens of thousands of southern California union workers are on strike against Safeway and Kroeger, but labor’s grievances lead directly to the Big Box:

Everybody knows where the anti-union pressures are coming from. “This strike is a Wal-Mart strike,” said Willie L. Baker, Jr., UFCW International Vice President and field operations chief, addressing fellow CBTU leaders in Orlando. “It’s really about how Americans finance health care. Will it be every man for himself…?

Wal-Mart is George Bush’s kind of company, the behemoth at the import end of the domestic disinvestment loop that begins with the export of U.S. jobs to the low wage world. From points south and west across the Pacific the retail monster sucks up merchandise for sale to families that formerly made such goods. Ultimately, the abominable engine wipes the landscape clean of all competitors and impoverishes its own customers. While Wal-Mart and its corporate protégés lock their employees (literally) into abject impotence, the Bush regime seals the door shut through its war on the public safety net. The Bush/Wal-Mart vision of America is labor locked in a box.

The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists has been on the scene since 1972, the year AFL-CIO President George Meany declared labor “neutral” in the race between Richard Nixon and George McGovern – without even consulting Black labor.

Peg Glasser writes:

Your commentary on the Black labor movement is breathtaking in its depth of information and willingness to draw a bright line in the sand. Black labor will play an important role in saving the nation.

Freedom Rider vs. Wal-Mart

Margaret Kimberley’s January 8 Freedom Rider column, “Wal-Mart and the Economic Destruction of Black Communities” was republished at sites all across the Internet. The Walton family business is now the largest corporation in the world, accounting for 10 percent of China’s total apparel production. The mega-company’s virulent anti-union policies depress employment standards throughout the United States. Yet some Black “leaders” insist that Wal-Mart is “better than nothing,” writes Ms. Kimberley. Folks need to look at the big picture.

Unfortunately, even some of Wal-Mart’s detractors miss the significance of its growth and paint it as some sort of aberration in the history of American capitalism. In fact Wal-Mart has perfected this system and the result is the logical conclusion of capitalism unrestrained. One can argue that it all works out. The Wal-Martization of America provides us with the lower cost goods we will all need when our wages are lowered by the Wal-Marts of the world.

Black leadership should not give into the argument that our communities are in such need that Wal-Mart and its acts of harassment can be considered an asset. Wal-Mart employees are punished for involvement in union activity and are encouraged to spy on one another. Is it asking too much for these leaders to think of other ways to bring new employment opportunities or respond to redlining and other factors that keep businesses out of our neighborhoods? Apparently it is, and not just in Crenshaw.

It appears that Ken Huston never saw a job he didn’t like – for someone else to do, that is. He wrote Ms. Kimberley a nasty little note:

I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart but I am a big advocate for needed jobs in our black communities. Additionally, I'm very familiar with the Wal-Mart dispute in the City of Oakland because I have lived and worked there for many years. I can tell you without equivocation that the City leaders in Oakland have come under great criticism for their foolish decision aimed at Wal-Mart to prevent competition with other large grocery store chains. Oakland, as you may know, does not have the most intellectually enlightened leadership. Remember, Ebonics was the language of choice of its teachers a short while ago. Moreover, the City just approved a new Wal-Mart that does not include the selling of groceries. Apparently, Wal-Mart is okay but not discounted cans of pork and beans. I mention that fact just to illustrate the hypocrisy of elected officials in the City of Oakland. You might want to do a bit more research before badmouthing a corporation that provides jobs, albeit low paid, to minorities, teenagers and seniors who the city has ignored for years.    

Ms. Kimberley replied:

It is difficult to vouch for the people who gave us Ebonics, but I stand by my assessment of Wal-Mart. According to the New York Times, a Wal-Mart internal audit showed 1,371 child labor law violations, 15,705 instances of employees working through meals and over 60,767 instances of workers not taking breaks. Wal-Mart workers on night shifts are literally locked inside the stores. They are allowed to exit via fire doors, but only in case of fire. Workers have been ill, injured, and on the verge of giving birth but if they leave before a manager arrives to unlock the jail, I mean store, they risk being terminated. Oakland and other cities are making a grave mistake if they accept the twenty-first century version of a plantation in exchange for a few low wage jobs.

Wal-Mart management insists on calling the people who work for the them “associates” rather than employees. These “associates” earn less than $10 an hour, with few benefits. The company encourages its workers to seek public assistance, while the Walton family’s foundation rants relentlessly against “welfare dependence.” It’s crazy in The Box.

Organizer Al Norman, author of "Slam Dunking Wal-Mart," writes:

Thanks for your piece on Wal-Mart in the black community. I have been working with grassroots citizens groups against Wal-Mart for the past ten years, and I can tell you many blacks think wonderful things about the company that feeds them slave-labor jobs. In my own community, a black woman is leading the effort to bring in more and more big box retailers, arguing that poor people need the jobs.

Al Norman operates the anti-Big Box website, Sprawl-Busters.

Wal-Mart’s propaganda is as pervasive as it’s stores: it’s a sponsor of Tavis Smiley’s public broadcasting programs.

Evelyn Robinson spends a chunk of each week inside the Big Box.

I am a part-time employees at Wal-Mart and I agree with the article. I chose to be part-time because I would like to run my own nonprofit. Working there in the evenings I see most of the slave mentality going on. Just last night I had to work the whole softlines department alone due to lack of staffing. Their response was, when we can we will try to send someone over to help you. I live a small town Rhode Island town called Woonsocket and Wal-Mart just bought out the land of a roller skating ring to add a superstore. The local supermarkets like Shaws or Price Rite were not pleased because this will hurt local union stores.

I am also one who is on Public Assistance and Section-8 and making only $138 a week at Wal-Mart, so I really understand. My goal is to continue to build my nonprofit called The Extra Mile which is an information referral service for low and moderate income working individuals offering case management and life assessment skills. We also have a program on low self-esteem called Sister2Sister for women and teen girls and our final program RI Double Dutch league just began to teach the young kids double Dutch. So thru the grace of God my eye is on God's prize.  But I really agree with your article. People in this town are believing in the mentality that something is better than nothing. 

Men and boys in the choir

Freedom Rider’s January 22 exploration of “Sex Abuse, Corruption, and the Boys Choir of Harlem” struck deep moral chords among the readership. Ms. Kimberley denounced choir founder and executive director Dr. Walter Turnbull for suppressing complaints of sexual abuse, and castigated community leaders who failed to hold Turnbull to account. Ms. Kimberley sees a pattern:

I give Turnbull credit for confessing, albeit lamely. Another revered Harlem institution, Hale House, was not so lucky. In 2001 it was revealed that its president, Dr. Lorraine Hale, had charged market rents in an apartment building given to her by the City of New York to house low-income residents. As the charges of malfeasance multiplied prominent leaders such as Rev. Al Sharpton and Congressman Charles Rangel very publicly leapt to Dr. Hale’s defense. Of course, every day another sordid shoe dropped. It turned out that the person listed as the Hale House Treasurer was deceased, and had been deceased for several years. Dr. Hale had borrowed money from the organization both to renovate her suburban home and to finance her husband’s theatrical production. I often wanted to be a fly on Sharpton’s and Rangel’s walls when those stories broke….

Once again we see the Black community beset by a lack of imagination when faced with a crisis that should be confronted. There is little doubt that the Choir would suffer a difficult transition with new leadership, but it could survive if those who circle the wagons were instead motivated to bring new ideas to a challenging situation. Turnbull is obviously a very gifted man, but he can’t be the only Black person in America who can teach children to sing. Instead of defending the disgraced Director, the Board should have begun searching for a replacement to undo the damage that has been done.

B.J. White wrote Ms. Kimberley, worried that her contributions to Hale House might be misused. Kimberley replied that the New York Attorney General ended his investigation two years ago when Dr. Hale and the old board resigned.

Gwen Barbour thanks Freedom Rider for taking on the “icons” of Black society.

Once again Margaret Kimberly shows the integrity and hard hitting reporting that is missing far too often when the focus is on those in positions of prestige. These "icons" are routinely pampered, protected and pardoned for behavior that would result in serious repercussions for us ordinary folk.

Ms. Kimberly lets the chips fall where they may in calling Turnbull to task for his willingness to do that which was self-serving and expedient rather than that which was right.  Black leaders need to know that they carry a heavy burden of trust placed in them by the communities/constituencies they serve.  Fairly or not, they are also subject to more intense scrutiny than others.  When they fail to live up to expectations for honor, decency and ethical  behavior  it is good to know that Ms. Kimberly  or someone like her will be there to  speak with clarity  and truth about it.

Problems in the pulpit

As a religious person, Margaret Kimberley holds ministers to high standards. In her December 25 column,  she questioned whether disgraced former National Baptist Convention USA president Rev. Henry Lyons is “Repentant or Still Scheming?” Kimberley has no vendetta for Lyons – she’s concerned about the “calling” in general:

Until very recently the clergy was one of the few avenues to civic and political authority open to black Americans. As a result some of the greatest minds in our community became religious leaders. Unfortunately it also meant that some of the less gifted among us also heard the call to preach. The time has long passed when the pulpit should be the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Kimberly Jones writes:

Excellent article!! Remember the membership is either uncomfortable having this type of frank conversation with preachers or has the mindset of "it's a sin to confront the Preacher no matter what."  Leadership and lay people alike should read this article.

Reverend Jeanette Pollard is a newcomer to and Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column. She welcomes scrutiny of the ministry.

I should be out trying to clear the snow that fell last night from my front porch. Instead, I am reading (for the first time), the articles on your web site.  I just learned of it a couple of days ago from a friend. I am so glad there is a place for true defenders of the Black community to let others know about what is happening in the Black community.

One of the most important and not reported (or under reported) incidents that will surely further weaken the minds of our young Black people, is the sexual abuse they continue to suffer at the hands of Black ministers.  I'm not talking about just in the Catholic Church.  I'm talking about in Black Pentecostal, Baptist, etc. churches.  This is a travesty of the true mission of the universal church.  Parents of these victims are afraid to speak up, lest they be viewed as "attacking" the "mand of God."  This is nonsense!!  The "mand" or "womand" of God is supposed to protect the flock, not prey and devour the flock which they oversee.

Again, your web site is marvelous!

Interpreting MLK

We’re pleased that our MLK Week Cover Story, “Dr. King’s Global Vision – Today’s Missing Ingredient,” was widely circulated on the Internet and for print publication, along with the fantastic work of our cartoonist, “Twenty-Nine.”

Click to view entire Mlk tribute image

We featured an especially appropriate passage from King’s “World House” chapter of his book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community,” published in 1967: “[T]oday our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world-wide brotherhood.”

It is woefully apparent that many of Dr. King’s purported admirers do not share his global perspective, or possess any sense of historical mission beyond their own immediate life circumstances. As we wrote:

They cannot find themselves or their fellow African Americans on the sweeping map of history, and so have no idea what direction to take. They are only vaguely aware that the “triple evils” King spoke of 37 years ago – racism, economic exploitation, and war – are now infinitely more dangerous to world survival than while King lived. Consequently, these “leaders” possess only the narrowest understanding of the threat that the Bush Pirates' global offensive poses to African Americans, specifically.

Erroneously assuming that personal wealth equals group leadership, too many beneficiaries of the great leap out of Jim Crow use their influence to lull the rest of the Race to sleep.  Like an adolescent class, they believe they have achieved their present status in life independent of historical Black struggle – or worse, that Dr. King, Malcolm and countless others were sacrificed for the purpose of their own eventual affluence. On King’s birthday, they celebrate themselves, oblivious to the blasphemy they are committing.  These “distracting classes” – in that they purposely present distracting stories of anomalous Black successes to counter the facts of massive social disintegration – have always been with us. However, with each ratcheting up of the global and domestic crisis, we can afford them less.

James H. Henderson, like many of us, has firm views on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Mr. Henderson wrote us this letter, after reviewing our January 15 Cover Story.

This article is right on time. Dr. King would die from depression and hurt to see the state of Black America. African Americans have been lulled into a sense of prosperity by being able to purchase things that have little to no real long term value: cars, clothes, electronics, car accessories, and jewelry. The ancestors of African Americans that came out of slavery had the intelligence, even though they were grossly illiterate by our standards, to understand that the ownership of real property, knowledge, education, and faith and belief in the Great Yahweh would open doors that the institution of slavery and hatred could not close. From 1865 to 1968, Blacks had the greatest period of productivity and growth. People then sought uplift and progress of the race. Now we search for another Dr. King, and God only sends one deliverer to an oppressed group of people, and it is their task to correct the wrongs that have been fraught against them.

The problem with African Americans today is apathy.  I teach at an HBCU and at a majority university, and the attitudes of the students are like night and day. The black students at the majority university see education as the key, while many at an HBCU do not view college as the opportunity to open one's mind to succeed.

Dr. King was not about status quo, cliques, Greek Worship, bourgie mentalities, and other superficial perks that many African Americans demean others and themselves with. The solution is right in front of our faces, but we choose not to take the right approach.  First we must empower those of us that are less fortunate, instead of disempowering and lauding over them with more severe repercussions than the most racist bigot on the face of the earth. Secondly, we must take our neighborhoods back and stop coddling psychopathic social parasites that only seek to destroy instead of build. Thirdly, we must once again educate our children at home prior to public school matriculation. Many of our grandparents and parents did it for us, and that is why many of the Baby Boom Generation are able to enjoy the levels of success that they have today. Fourthly, we must become a village again and help raise those who have parents or significant others that are incapable of parenthood. Fifthly, we must turn off the television and turn on the faucets of knowledge. We must be willing to read and learn and not be programmed and brainwashed by the media. Sixthly, we must be role models in our community, and stop looking to entertainers and athletes to complete our children's self worth and esteem. Seventh, we must learn to use our financial resources in a progressive manner to stimulate the growth of the group and the start of business enterprises. .Eight, we must stop looking for a system that never included us in its development to correct all of our problems.  Nine: We must teach our children of their history and heritage. For when a man does not know his history or heritage, he is doomed to repeat it.

Haiti coverage

Our Associate Editor in Port-au-Prince, Kevin Pina has filed a series of compelling reports from Haiti, documenting and interpreting the current crisis. Pina’s latest article, Haiti’s Cracked Screen: Lavalas Under Siege While the Poor Get Poorer,” appeared on January 15. Last week, was proud to republish Jamaican activist and educator John Maxwell’s fine commentary, “The Racist Antecedents of US Haiti Policy: ‘Imagine! Niggers speaking French!!!” We have also been privileged to publish recent articles by TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson, now living and writing in the Caribbean, most recently, “Honor Haiti, Honor Ourselves – Forget Haiti, Forget Ourselves,” January 1.

Derrick Gibson writes from New York. He appreciates the coverage.

should be commended solely on your coverage of the nations of the Caribbean – particularly the recent series on Haiti.  While I became acquainted with the Jacob Lawrence series on Toussaint and the Haitian revolution a few years ago, these articles have filled in the back-story, including the inevitable US involvement in placing the world's first Black Republic in the dire straits it still inhabits today.  These communiqués give me the history I was never taught in school, regardless of how well I did on the Regents exams, but they still leave me with questions.

Why do we – Black people – continue to give credence to nonsense terms like West Indies?  How is it that for over several hundred centuries we continue to reinforce the inane notion that a lost Italian navigator "discovered" a westerly passage to India?  What rationality states that an African – once transported across the Atlantic Ocean in chains – transmutes into a West Indian?

Only once we – Black people – learn to recognize ourselves, learn to realize that the face we see in the mirror, whether in the US or the Caribbean and South America, is all part of the same family tree (albeit on different branches) will we ever be able to break through all of the madness that exists around us.

How is it possible that with the collective economic power of what has to be over $2 trillion from just the Africans in the Western Hemisphere alone, we fail to be able to organize ourselves to prevent those who wish to do us harm from doing so?

Propaganda or predisposition

Events of the past year leave no doubt that white America can be oh so easily brought to a state of mass, murderous dementia. The question much of the world asks is: are these people predisposed to commit atrocities against the rights and bodies of people of color? Or are they innocent dupes of the War Party’s propaganda?

Johnnie Quezada wrote us a letter on the subject.

As I’ve read much on the material on blackcommentator.com I’ve been impressed with the focus and dead-on analysis of U. S. society.  Specifically, on the current misadventure in Iraq, much of the commentary focused on the enabling character of the white U. S. population. Although there is some truth to Noam Chomsky’s assertion that the high levels of support for the war is a result of the massive and unprecedented propaganda campaign unleashed on the North American populace, I have always maintained that the strength of the propaganda campaign is not solely based on its intensity and pervasiveness but on the receptiveness of the white American audience that it is directed at. It does not take much to convince a population who are inured to violence (witness the popularity of professional wrestling and reality TV), mesmerized by popular media that consistently and unabashedly define democracy and freedom as uniquely American values and finally, are heirs to three plus centuries of fashioning a national identity based on white superiority and privilege.

What is disturbing is that much of the rag tag left in this country continue to insist that if only the American public were better informed by the media then a movement would arise to challenge the neo-con’s plans specifically and all injustices generally. But the truth does not get through the filters of the corporately controlled media and naturally, the color red or orange or any other color can mean something only to someone who can see to begin with. Clearly, the white U. S. population by and large has been blinded by centuries of racism. As, indeed, historically is the case with settler states, which typically have genocidal origins. The pogroms (what else can they be described as) carried out in Tulsa and Rosewood should be a lesson to those who believe in the inherent goodness or benevolence of white U.S society as a whole. As a people, sectors of the white population throughout the long and tortured history of the country, have personally engaged in genocide or ethnic cleansing. Many of those that have not, which may be the majority, have either cheered from the sidelines or tacitly agreed through their silence. The main difference between the genocide of the past and that ongoing today being that for much of the country’s existence it was accomplished by the settlers themselves and now its labeled “the war on drugs” and carried out by the various state institutions comprising the prison-industrial complex.

Even if one charitably assumes that the U. S. media can and will accurately report on U. S. adventures or misadventures abroad, will as racist society such as the U. S. be able to muster the appropriate moral outrage and countervailing action appropriate to the slaughter and maltreatment of black and brown peoples? Not likely since so much of their identity is based on the domination of and perceived superiority over black and brown peoples. Then, when someone among their own, such as Eugene Debbs, decides to stand with humanity and attempt to move the white U. S. masses away from their allegiance to the brutish U. S. ruling class, he is either quickly marginalized (ala Noam Chomsky) if he or she is lucky or simply murdered or imprisoned if not. But lets also not forget the economic dimension. Much of the wealth of not only the U. S. but of the global North as a whole originated and continues to originate with the destruction and exploitation of people of color. Racism is integral to the maintenance of a modus vivendi with the conscience (such as it may be) of whites individually and collectively. This is why poor whites consistently vote against their material interests by voting for the most reactionary politicians.  Abandoning racism would simply mean the destruction of their collective identity. An identity that while having spelled doom for non-white peoples and perhaps ultimately whites themselves cannot be easily discarded. Apparently, the psychological comfort of their white skins is more valuable than decent healthcare, wages and schools. In short, if the Iraqis, or the rest of the world for that matter, are waiting for the white masses in the U. S. to wake up from their stupor and put the clamps on their ruling class, we all should collectively not hold our breath.

The good folks

reaches an ever widening circle of very smart people. We’ve just been introduced to Cynthia Emerlye.

This is the first time I've visited your website.  Your article on Howard Dean was very informative.  I mostly want to congratulate you on the beauty of your website design.  I love the layout and colorful, playful feel of it. Congratulations on great design!

design honcho Susan Gamble thanks you, Ms. Emerlye.

Ms. D. Green has kind words for the whole crew.

Just had to thank you for your wonderful commentaries.  I find your commentaries to be the most thought provoking take-no-prisoners analyses of issues since the now defunct "EMERGE" Magazine articles. Although I don't get the chance to read every article due to my hectic schedule, I try to read them as often as I can.  The articles help me to maintain my sanity in the midst of the suffocating propaganda masquerading as "news" in the mainstream media.  Your articles let me know that I am not alone in my thinking and that some people really do see through this massive mainstream "bamboozle" as I call it. I hope you never stop writing and publishing.

Nice folks like Ms. Green remind us that there is intrinsic value in Truth.

Keep writing.

gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for sending visitors our way during the past three weeks:

Intelligence Squad

http://www.intelligencesquad.com/id38.html

Alternet

http://www.alternet.org

Sons of Afrika

http://www.sonsofafrika.org/

AntiRacismNet

http://www.antiracismnet.org/main.html

Portside

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portside/

UN Observer

http://www.unobserver.com/

All Facts and Opinions

http://fando.blogs.com

Liberal Oasis

http://www.liberaloasis.com

Black Planet

http://www.blackplanet.com/

Mamjo

http://www.mamjo.com/mamjo.html

The Volokh Conspiracy

http://volokh.com/

Smirking Chimp

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

Unknown News

http://www.unknownnews.net/012204.html

Black Electorate

http://www.blackelectorate.com

Rense

http://www.rense.com

 
 
 
 

 

January 29, 2004
Issue 75

is published every Thursday.

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