The latest news out of Italy concerns the role played the head of the Italian central bank in reviewing buy-out bids by competing Italian and Dutch interests.
The following story provides an interesting glimpse into how the judicial machinery of a nation-state can encroach upon the nationalist imperatives of that same nation-state in the arena of international capital. There is also a good deal more about this story than will be revealed in the short term.
I can only imagine that if Allen Greenspan were to do something along the same lines and it were caught on tape, the biggest question here would be, "Who decided to bug big Al?" As it stands, Antonio Fazio is on the hot seat. We shall see how long he remains.
I graduated from Bishop Borgess High School, right outside of Detroit, in 1987. 92 out of 287, or something like that.
Now? The school itself has barely 200 students total. Earlier in the year the Archdiocese closed down over ten Catholic schools.
Borgess was one of them. St. Martin DePorres, where my brother graduated? Closed it too.
I didn't care that much for my high school. I tolerated it as much as it tolerated me. I got into Michigan DESPITE, not because of, my high school. But when I got the news about the closing I was still set back a bit. Like I didn't have a home to go back to.
But recently someone with deep pockets came to the rescue. DePorres, where my brother went to school? IT's reopening too.
The interesting thing? At least one other school that closed contacted the funder...but he didn't bite.
Tim Vervaecke, former development director for Notre Dame Catholic High School in Harper Woods, said he is puzzled by Maida's acceptance of the Covenant plan even as he rejected proposals to reopen Notre Dame.
The worst thing about being ordinary is that since you are surrounded by same, there is nothing to remind you of your condition.
If the only place you know is the area of neurons where your consciousness was born, then no matter how much you glance around, everything seems fine and in order;
The ordinary human is born, wired & programmed in the nervous-system to be a seventy-year continuity; to live & die ordinary; to think only ordinary thoughts, and feel only ordinary emotions;
What are you if you choose to leave ordinariness – leave your natural-born-mind? Employing nothing but your own awareness, how might you accomplish a permanent escape from the ordinary?
It's hard to look at pictures like this and say the issues facing Africans on the continent and the US are simply a function of the priorities, principles and practices of white folks...there are too many black folk involved at all levels of this thing for such a simplistic analysis.
Doing the right thing has never the sole responsibility or province of any particular collective defined by "race", gender, religion, ideology, class or creed. Whether your beef is with Condi or Colin or Connerly or the "brothers Willams" (Juan and Armstrong, etc.) or maybe you resent leaders like Min. Farrakhan or Rev. Jackson - and prefer your local leadership they must not become the focal point of our approach to resolving critical issues. These individuals are fallible and our fidelity must be on the principle...and our practice should steer clear of judgment - even as we hold one another accountable.
I submit we can no longer exclusively see with our eyes, listen with our ears or smell with our noses - because the webs of disinformation are so complex (we have to trust our source - sure it's not empirical or replicable/verifiable - but that's beside the point)...it's like that scene in Indiana Jones-Last Crusade, where the cat with the whip is trying to reach the grail and remembers that "only a penitent man shall pass." Keeping it real is an overused saying, but it really means so much - and the biggest part of keeping it real is keeping it simple and keeping it old school and keeping it ancestral.
I don't recommend throwing out the baby in the bathwater of logic, reason and empirical standards. I do recommend expanding and respecting other ways of knowing because so often, things are not what they seem and our rush to judgment (based on the visible, audible or funky) can do more harm than good. With all the criticism heaped upon the shoulders of Ms. Rice, I hope she has the power, integrity and will to change the situation on the ground in the Sudan.
It was my privilege to interview Dr. Oba T'Shaka on June 16th 2005 at the National Black United Front (NBUF) annual convention held in Kansas City Missouri. Dr. T'Shaka is the Vice Chairman of NBUF, full professor at San Francisco State University, and former chairman of the Black Studies Program. I caught up with Dr. T'Shaka over the lunch hour, and we had to conclude after about 35 minutes - a discussion that I believe could have gone on much, much longer. Also in the discussion is Mr. Leon Dixon, founder and chairman of the Dubois Learning Center. Rooted in traditional afro-spiritual culture, and possessing a scholar/practitioner's deep knowledge thereof, Dr. T'Shaka confines this time constrained discussion to pragmatic cultural themes readily accessible to any audience.
For the past couple months, I've been trying to maximize fruit and vegetable consumption within the Nulan household. Well so, I buy a bunch of bananas every few days as part of this regimen. Anyway, I accidentally picked up a bunch of organic bananas at my local HyVee store yesterday. They were conspicuously large and unlike the regular bananas about ready ripeness-wise for eating. {the usual suspects were all bright green and looked at least a couple days from table ready}
I didn't find out they were organic until I looked at them just a minute ago, and they had a little *organic* sticker on them. So I peel and bite one of these barnaynays and KAPOW!!!!, discover that I haven't eaten a real banana in years. It was so sweet, firm in texture, and like I said above, conspicuously large - that I was shocked by the difference in flavor intensity between it and the high-yield agro product I've grown accustomed to.
From now on, I'll be doing vastly more careful shopping and testing the difference between organic and mass agro produce. If this banana was not merely a fluke, but instead the rule concerning the differences, then the often mulled engagement with gardening, farmer's market co-oping and emphasis on organic produce just went to the top of my priority list.
Not much seems to be said about Prince Bandar resigning.
Veteran Saudi ambassador in U.S. resigns
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, July 20 (UPI) -- Saudi King Fahd accepted the resignation of Saudi ambassador in Washington Prince Bandar bin Abdul Aziz who served in the post for more than 20 years.
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An official source at the foreign ministry said Wednesday Bandar expressed his wish to be relieved from his responsibilities earlier this month.
"After all these long years of devoted service as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, which exceeded 20 years, Prince Bandar solicited King Fahd to be released from his post for personal reasons," the source said.
He said the king appointed Prince Turki al-Faisal, the current ambassador to Britain, to replace Bandar.
The source did not say what prompted Bandar to resign.
It had been previously reported that there is tension between Prince Bandar and many of the House of Saud's leaders.
Given the massive amount of wealth Prince Bandar has accumulated because of his position, and the amount of power and access he had, it surprises me that he has resigned.
Given that he is strongly westernized, while the Saud family leaders seem to be embracing radical Islam, I don't think this bodes well at all.
I had a thought about the cnu post on blogosphere as "sub-optimal"...not too long ago, WiRed carried a story about Puff delivering the opening remarks to some technology group that deals with wireless communications (CTIA??)...
surprise...the appeal of Puff to this group is the percentage of young black folk using wireless communications...it's a higher percentage, according to WiRed, than for whites or asians...black folks are using the type of technology that can be accessed using cyberspace - but it may not be through a conventional blog because blogs are tied to keyboards and a functionally different than text messages and other mobile communications...still, there are tremendous possibilities here - especially with respect to organizing and the frequent use by those in the dope game of disposable phones...
so in one respect, you nailed it - but blogs are kinda old school - ass-tied to a desk communication...it's neither mobile nor active unless you have a nice little laptop and a battery supply...as the technology of keyboard phones is more widely accessible, it will be the time to develop new message formats to communicate and drive ideas - but this will require a CONTENT PRODUCTION machine that uses music and film without conceding all space to the Big 6 or Hollywood. and that is a project worth pursuing, but much easier said than done.
Just saw Dr. Joseph Graves, Jr., PhD, Professor Evolutionary Biology/Life Sciences, Arizona State University West, Phoenix, AZ on Tony Brown's Journal. I'm simultaneously saddened and gladdened by the Work of this distinguished researcher and scholar. On the one hand, it's heartening to see someone cooly and authoritatively demolish racist psychopathology across multiple sectors of its expression. On the other, it's just plain sad that a brother even has to bother wasting so many of his valuable and irreplaceable cycles on the uniquely American mental illness and moral plague.
Racism is not a necessary feature of human society though but coalitional allegiances might be ingrained. They have been and are a feature of present American society. People ask, 'Professor Graves, you say biological races are not real?' I say, 'Yes. Biological races are not real, but socialized races are real as a heart attack, and do not confuse those two.' There are no genetic barriers to dismantling racist ideology; it is a question of whether we want to.
A comprehensive discussion and presentation by Dr. Graves on the Myth of Race.
OK, I've been writing that Ward Connerly has taken advantage of affirmative action programs. I have no problem with people taking advantage of such programs.
I've come to understand affirmative action programs, in government contracts, as being pure set asides OR requirements that companies who win government contracts use some percentage of "disadvantaged companies" as subcontractors. Here "disadvantaged companies" tend to mean minority and/or women owned companies.
LaShawn Barber found it "repugnant" that I mention this because in previous "discussions", she has mentioned that she discussed this with him and he denied it.
So, I did some Googling...
The African American website had this:
Though some of his critics believed that Wilson contributed to his success, others disagreed. In addition, a Jet article cited a story in the San Francisco Chronicle which stated that he had accepted $140,000 over the years in affirmative action contracts from the government. Though roughly half of his business did indeed come from the government, Connerly disputed that it was affirmative action money, telling Donna St. George of the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, "I don't think there's a minority around who hasn't benefited from the climate of inclusion that affirmative action has fostered. But I have never gone after the preference." He mentioned that he never listed himself on minority rosters, nor did he apply for minority "set-asides." However, Ayres in the New York Times reported that Connerly had indeed listed his firm as minority-owned in order to "keep all the benefits of a government contract." Pooley in Time, on the other hand, noted that Connerly had only disclosed his race after it was required.
The article mentioned is one that Ms. Barber said that Connerly disputed. The full article can be found here.
A follow up article by the Chronicle stated the following:
Contrary to the report, Connerly did not register as a minority businessman before receiving a 1989 contract for $1.1 million. Kent Smith, executive director of the Energy Commission, said he erred when he told The Chronicle that the contract was awarded under the state affirmative action law.
Although the law had been enacted when the contract was awarded, the law was not implemented at the Energy Commission until 1990.
It then continues:
Connerly did, however, receive two Energy Commission contracts in 1992 and 1994 as a minority businessman and agent for the California Building Officials, a group that, by law, had to be trained in energy conservation. The contracts were legally awarded without competitive bidding.
Furthermore, records made public this week by the Energy Commission show that Connerly again enlisted in the minority program on April 26 and May 4 of this year -- but the two contracts he sought were awarded to other bidders.
...
In an effort to explain his use of the program, Connerly submitted a statement last month to the Energy Commission that read in part: `We are disclosing our group identities solely because the state procurement process requires that minority and women owned businesses be used and it would work an extreme disadvantage to the proposer of this proposal to involve an additional subcontractor merely to comply with the (minority) requirement.'
This comes from the first article:
Connerly, in an interview, acknowledged that his firm participated in the `repugnant' race-based program, but he denied that it was affirmative action. Instead, he characterized the program as a `policy that requires that every contract . . . include participation of at least 15 percent of minority businesses and 5 percent of women.'
OK, that looks like an affirmative action program. In fact, this type of requirement has been called such and fought against by people who disagree with affirmative action. Lastly, Connerly filed a law suit against the law that required contractors to get minority contractor participation, but after the report.
Unless I'm missing something here, it looks like he took advantage of affirmative action programs. It doesn't matter that he didn't go after "disadvantaged" set asides or "disadvantaged" company participation.
Such as it is today, the blogosphere is a sub-optimal technology for advancing black interests. Threaded discussion I got no problems with. With proper slashdotting, the emergent qualities of the same are of indisputable benefit. But slashdotting is not what's happening in the black blogosphere. What is instead happening by-and-large is that we are caught between a demographic and technological Scylla and Charybdis of a technology architected as popularity contest - with financial rewards proportional to popularity. In my opinion, this greatly limits the utility of the blogosphere as an instrumentality of free black pedagogy and leadership in what appear to be some fundamental and irremediable ways.
In a nutshell, free and valid black-partisan demagoguery {demos - the common people agein - to lead} cannot be undertaken in a context in which facilitators between people's emotions and their decisions are constantly at moral and economic cross-purposes with themselves.
Four data points prompt me to these conclusions;
1. Cobb's recent definition of punditry;
I think we in the intellectual elite have been cowed by the notion that there is some extraordinary 'grass roots' phenomena that is not essentially captured in our debates. If there is, I would submit that it is nothing more than chaos, solopsism or force of personality. Let me stress as clearly as I can that what we pundits do is control the publicity of rationale. All the logic in the world is pretty much out there, but the reasons those charged with making the final decision is are different from our own and everyone elses. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to change or deal with that.We are not changing what people can think, we are influencing how they think by giving them paths of rationality towards our opinions and away from the opinions of our opponents. I think this is (heh) an interesting way to think about the business of all punditry, whether it be MSM or New Media. In other words we are not owners of the ideas, we are facilitators between people's emotions and their decisions. We offer a publically referenceable decision making augmentation process. This is a great value add, especially if and when people can accept and vibe with our existentials.
I need to say that I think is one of the more profound insights I have come upon. The reason that I'm here is because of the confluence of events that have transpired for me in the past few weeks with regard to my acknowledgement of the value of progressive politics in African America, my broadcast TV debut as Cobb and my recognition of the value of porch conversations.
2. Because digital or blogospheric porch conversations are subject to constraints which would not apply in the real world setting, by interests unique to the digital rationale publicity site;
I'm on the verge of asking you not to comment on anything you haven't thoroughly explored on Vision Circle. The impact on your traffic will convince you I'm right about this mysogyny repels.
On the porch, in the barbershop, or around the kitchen table, a free-wheeling discussion of Faheem Akuta's Blacktown.net website would - and most definitely has -taken place countless times without fear of recrimination. Such issues are discussed all the time in far more direct terms in every place where unconstrained black discourse takes place. Nobody I kick it with on the porch practices or preaches misogyny. Most everybody I kick it with has a point of view concerning assimilation, aesthetics, and gender.
3.The valuable reminder that Temple3 dropped into this thread last night;
Given this, it must be our CHOICES that define our unity - just as we choose friends, but not family - we choose what we believe and how we choose to wage war and frame piece. Kujichagulia is all about the choices and the right of a people to define themselves and their world. To the extent that a people define and live in light of their own interests, they are "free." We recognize the distinction between individual and collective freedom - we also understand the distinction between what people say and what people do. The critical mass is all that is needed...the unity of all is neither necessary nor sufficient.led to my less than sanguine epiphany concerning black-partisan utility and the blogosphere. Thankfully, as I mulled this notion, the quantum mechanical aethernet went to Work on my behalf and I received a wisdom infusion.
4. The grand master just now called to give me a head's up about the C-SPAN2 program on Class Divide in Black America. {i.e., Bill Cosby's afrosticratic diatribes} Personally, I had to work my way through quite a number of free-wheeling porch conversations to come to terms with what Cosby is perpetrating. I told Mr. Dixon about what was on my mind concerning the blogosphere, the issue of hair as signifier, {a big issue for Akuta on Blacktown} and amplified further by my viewing of the Madame CJ Walker program the other night on True Stories - about which I remarked in response to something Temple3 said;
Of course we have trouble differentiating from the conscious and unconscious realms - our subconscious doesn't even bother - which means it is programmable.I saw a program the other night about Madame CJ Walker. In it, these two elderly Walker-agent women from Indianapolis protested vehemently that no aspect of the Walker aesthetic programme was intended to make black women look white, rather, it was about looking beautiful...,
Most often my Work consists of the struggle to sublimate immense resentment for people who fail to Work with what is termed subconscious -because in so doing - these people fail not only to complete their own development, which is the fundamental responsibility of every being daring to claim itself conscious - they also mechanically subject not only themselves - but every other duppy with whom they interact - to the most pernicious, ridiculous, and obvious memetic infections. case in point, the two lily-whitened little old women from Indianapolis vehemently denying the visually obvious about the Walker aesthetic written all over their lyed, dyed, and fryed heads and faces!
If I were to apply the Promethean/McGee-ian litmus test, in commenting on these two little old ladies, I just now veered waaaay deep into the realm of misogynistic hateration. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.
I asked Mr. Dixon what he thought about all this. He told me about his Aunt and the argument about good hair/bad hair. The upshot of the story was that one his cousins was being upbraided by the aunt for "bad hair". Mr. Dixon told his aunt at that very moment that any hair that doesn't come off your head in the shower is good hair. Everyone laughed then, as I laughed today, on hearing this. Then he dropped the moral of the story, "it's not so much a question of the extent to which people sell-out Craig, the real question is the extent to which people unconsciously buy-in to notions pernicious to their own interests."
Boiled down to salient points gravy;
1. We are not changing what people can think
2.We are influencing how they think by giving them paths of rationality towards our opinions
3. We offer a publically referenceable decision making augmentation process
4. This is a great value add, especially if and when people can accept and vibe with our existentials
5. The impact on your traffic will convince you I'm right about this mysogyny repels
I interpret these dots as indicative of a common debilitating constraint conjoining the Cobbian and Promethian ends of the political spectrum in the context of this digital medium; argumentum ad populum As Temple3 said;
To the extent that a people define and live in light of their own interests, they are "free." We recognize the distinction between individual and collective freedom - we also understand the distinction between what people say and what people do. The critical mass is all that is needed...the unity of all is neither necessary nor sufficient.Cognitive Flexibility of the type currently permissible only on the porch - is an essential prerequisite of black partisan freedom and utility.
I wonder whether a thorough exploration can now proceed, inclusive of material reflexively censored as misogynistic and thus inherently unpopular, or, whether my objection will be dismissed as specious demagoguery or nothing more than chaos, solopsism or force of personality...,
meanwhile, I rest easy knowing there's a free, conscious, and cognitively flexible multigenerational, multi-gendered porch conversation taking place - even as I type - over at the Learning Center...,
PRIME MIN. HOWARD: Could I start by saying the prime minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it. My first reaction was to get some more information. And I really don't want to add to what the prime minister has said. It's a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here.
Can I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.
Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.
And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.
Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?
When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?
When Sergio de Mello was murdered in Iraq -- a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, a person immensely respected for his work in the United Nations -- when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that de Mello had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor.
Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.
This is a quickie, hopefully I can sum it up nicely.
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), introduced H.R. 2592.
To designate Haiti under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act in order to render nationals of Haiti eligible for temporary protected status under such section.
What does this have to do with the war on terrorism?
Well, for those who read the right papers, you may have read that Islam is spreading in the Caribbean. There is a fear that it is the extremist form that is spreading. With one of the London bombers seemingly coming from Jamaica, the spread of Islam, or at least the extremist form, should be watched in the Caribbean.
But that's still not providing the link, so let me get to it.
Drugs are run through the Caribbean and make their way to the U.S. The U.S. seemed to have helped the coup in Haiti. So, they got rid of someone who was not clean, but it was replaced by a group of people who are drug runners.
The drug runners are now working with terrorists to smuggle drugs and "human cargo" into the U.S. Haiti is a country of interest because of the poverty and because of the political situation in the country.
Yet, H.R. 2592 won't make it. It is because of race? I think so. But before you think it's the "racist Republicans", please remember that Clinton change the Haitian policy even though he had a chance to do so.
So, what does this have to do with the war on terrorism?
If the belief that poverty is one of the reasons why the extremist form of Islam is able to take hold, then isn't Haiti a prime candidate? It's in worse shape than Jamaica.
But, strange as this may sound, black America may now be strong enough to fashion an economic model of development and justice based on a new mixture of self-reliance and limited progressive politics. The conservative assault on black America has been a nightmare, but it has also cleared the way for a new development path, if we have the courage and patience to take it. Before outlining this potentially fruitful approach, we must understand how conservatism rebuilt American racism after the demise of Jim Crow.
His proposal is moderate and doable. It would beautifully complement something like the Technology Infrastructure and Training initiative at Dubois Learning Center, which is in my biased estimation, a singular node of masterful and proven black pedagogy and technological excellence.
Brother Andrews is on the right track and as much of his proposal as I've seen here in Part II qualifies nicely as pragmatic radicalism.
On Monday, the city of Baltimore lost one of its favorite sons. Jim Parker, born in Macon, Georgia, played left tackle for the Baltimore Colts during the glory years and was the bedrock upon which the safety and longevity of John Unitas rested. Parker established himself as the BEST in his field. Just another example of unparalleled excellence on a level playing field.
Was the theme of the 26th Annual National Convention of The National Black United Front [NBUF] held July 14th-16th in Kansas City Missouri. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered the keynote address at the Opening Ceremony and Mass Rally Thursday night. FOI took the batteries out of my DVR, otherwise you'd be listening to the Brother Minister's riveting oration. Suffice it to say every black politico and church leader in the greater metropolitan sprawl was in attendance, and Buck O'Neil sat up in the deacon's row right next to Farrakhan.
Less exhilirating - but more informative - are the opening remarks from the leadership of NBUF at the convention's opening session the following morning.
Turns out the kingpin of this marijuana ring worked at the plant where my father and brother work. So in order to hide almost $200 million, homeboy maintains a $70,000 job? For people with resources, one of our biggest hurdles is maintaining an imagination large enough to contain our desires. It's clear to me that this guy's imagination simply wasn't big enough.
I'm personally revoking the ghetto pass of any and all self-described black partisan who pays even a moment's lip service to the dopamine distraction theatre of abortion that will be staged around W's nominee for the Supreme Court.
Civilizations define themselves by when, how, and whom they punish. Those choices are especially important in a society like ours, with a long history of both criminal violence and official racism. Forty-five percent of American prisoners are black. The imprisonment rate--the number of prison inmates per 100,000 people--stood at 482 in 2003. Among black males, the figure was 3,405. For black men in their late twenties, the number exceeds 9,000. Court decisions that help shape those numbers are vastly more important than the latest church-state fight.
Wake up and focus on what's real to us!
THE COURT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT - Police Powers
by William J. Stuntz Post date: 07.19.05 Issue date: 07.25.05
Supreme Court appointments are like "Law & Order" episodes: The cast of characters changes, but the dialogue always sounds the same. Whoever the nominees are, the script for the inevitable confirmation battles has already been written. Abortion, church and state, more abortion, gay rights, and still more abortion--interest groups and senators are setting the table, and that's the menu. It's strangely disconnected from what the Supreme Court actually does and from the places where the justices really exercise power. If Roe v. Wade goes by the boards, abortion law will stay roughly the same. Nor will American life change much if the Ten Commandments start dropping off courthouse walls.
By contrast, another aspect of the Court's work affects lots of lives. The United States incarcerates more than two million people in its prisons and jails today, roughly seven times the number held in 1970 and five times the 1980 figure. For the past 40 years, the Supreme Court has helped shape the process that puts those men and women behind bars. When can police officers frisk suspects on the street or search their cars? When do police have to give Miranda warnings? How hard can they push suspects to confess--and how hard can prosecutors push defendants to plead guilty? How must juries be selected? Which sentencing procedures are permissible, and which ones aren't? Supreme Court justices answer all these questions and dozens more like them.
The answers matter enormously. Which means that the Supreme Court's most important job is not managing the culture wars. Regulating the never-ending war on crime is a much bigger task. Alas, it may also be the job the Court does worst.
ivilizations define themselves by when, how, and whom they punish. Those choices are especially important in a society like ours, with a long history of both criminal violence and official racism. Forty-five percent of American prisoners are black. The imprisonment rate--the number of prison inmates per 100,000 people--stood at 482 in 2003. Among black males, the figure was 3,405. For black men in their late twenties, the number exceeds 9,000. Court decisions that help shape those numbers are vastly more important than the latest church-state fight.
And the justices do shape those numbers, both by what they regulate and by what they leave alone. Fourth Amendment case law makes it easy to justify police stops and frisks in the inner-city neighborhoods where many of those young black men live. In one recent case, a Chicago man saw a police van and ran. According to the justices, that was reason enough to seize him. The result in Illinois v. Wardlow sounds obvious to middle-class suburbanites. But, to people in neighborhoods like Wardlow's, running from the cops may be more a survival skill than a sign of guilt.
Another recent case, Kyllo v. United States, involved a defendant who was growing marijuana inside his house on Rhododendron Drive (no kidding) in Florence, Oregon. Using a thermal imager, officers discovered that one wing of the house was a lot warmer than the rest. Inside, they found more than 100 marijuana plants. The Supreme Court held that the thermal imager violated the defendant's rights. Decisions like Wardlow and Kyllo make it a good deal easier for the police to make drug busts on poor city streets than in the suburbs.
That's not all. Criminal trials have grown so cumbersome (and budgets so strained) that hardly anyone uses them. Nineteen out of every 20 felony convictions stem from guilty pleas. What does the Supreme Court have to do with that? Plenty. The Court has imposed elaborate rules governing nearly every aspect of criminal trials, from jury selection to sentencing. That makes trials more expensive. Worse, the justices keep refining procedural rules--making them so nuanced that no one can understand them. The examples are endless. The prosecutors in Miller-El v. Dretke struck almost all the blacks from the defendant's jury. You're not supposed to do that. A straightforward case, right? Not when Justice David Souter was through with it. His majority opinion went on for 33 pages of mind-numbing detail, muddying the waters. And, because lawyers can't tell what the law requires, they waste more time and energy arguing about it, which makes trials more costly still.
It gets worse. Last January, in United States v. Booker, the justices handed down a decision that rewrote key federal sentencing statutes. Booker provided dueling majority opinions by two opposing blocs of justices. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only justice to sign both, didn't explain her views. Lawyers and judges were left scratching their heads.
Procedures should be clear and simple. For criminal trials, they are anything but. That breeds uncertainty. It also breeds litigation that focuses on the process, rather than on the question that criminal trials are supposed to answer: whether the defendant committed the crime.
Poor defendants can't afford all that procedural litigation--hence the high guilty plea rate. Cash-strapped district attorneys know that and charge accordingly. So the universe of criminal defendants grows steadily poorer. In a society where race and class often coincide, these class biases tend to produce racial biases. This may explain why blacks, who were one-third of the total prison population in 1960, now make up nearly half.
These sound like liberal complaints. But conservatives have a lot to complain about, too, as they would know if they paid attention to anything other than the culture wars. Miranda doctrine bars the police from even the most genteel questioning of suspects who say the magic words--"I want to see a lawyer"--after they hear the famous warnings. That is a valuable gift to sophisticated criminals who know enough to keep their mouths shut. Not coincidentally, it is also a large gift to terrorists--which is why the government does not want to abide by U.S. law when questioning suspected Al Qaeda members.
hy does the Court do such a bad job in this area? The answer may be simple ignorance. The criminal justice system is a massively complex enterprise. Figuring out the effects of the latest abortion ruling is child's play compared with unpacking the consequences of decisions like Wardlow and Kyllo on policing or the effects of cases like Miller-El and Booker on criminal trials and plea bargains. Getting those consequences right would be hard even for experts. And the highest court in the land is not filled with experts. Souter is the only sitting justice with substantial experience in criminal litigation--and that was on the not-exactly-mean streets of New Hampshire. Frontline urban prosecutors and defense attorneys rarely end up on federal appeals courts, the breeding ground for future justices. So they never make it to presidential short lists.
Justices who have never seen the inside of a police station are happy to expound on the virtues and vices of different kinds of drug enforcement. If they knew more, they might say less. Veterans of the criminal justice trenches understand that, when it happens, productive change comes from the men and women who serve in those trenches. Community policing and crime labs, drug courts and faith-based prison initiatives, "broken windows" policing and partnerships with inner-city churches--all the best ideas in contemporary criminal law enforcement bubbled up from below. None stemmed from judicial edicts.
Judging from the names bandied about in the press, the next couple of Supreme Court picks will be like the ones who have gone before. That's a shame, but it need not be a tragedy. The justices--both old and new--need to remind themselves of a few simple truths. The Constitution guarantees a fair criminal process. That should mean a modest number of basic guarantees, defined as clearly as possible. Beyond the basics, legislators, prosecutors, and police officers should be free to experiment. The criminal justice system desperately needs innovation. Constitutionalizing everything five justices can agree on stifles innovation. If President Bush wants good results in this piece of the legal landscape, he should appoint justices who will let the real reformers do their jobs.
I wonder if this was part of a 1-2 punch? I've said all along that it was an inefficient use of resources (among other things) for Cosby (worth a few hundred million himself) to travel to various cities on his Smackdown Tour. Will he now travel to those same cities to mobilize support for his initiative?
(As an aside, usually projects like this are not so much co-authored as they are branded. Cosby probably wrote the introduction. I can't imagine him writing much else. Cornel West has done the same thing with many of his "co-authored" works.)
Reading today's Detroit Free Press, I run into an article dealing with the tension black metropolitan Detroiters encounter when they move into formerly all white suburbs. I grew up in Inkster, a small mostly black suburb outside of Detroit used by Ford in the mid 20th century to house black workers. Moving to Redford (a predominantly white suburb) in the eighties we experienced racism from adults and kids. The significant difference from our end was that we KNEW why we were being hassled. There are some class dynamics going on in this article that aren't being uncovered (Taylor, Trenton, and Warren are not just white suburbs, but rather are white working class suburbs). But when the black mother of a black child tells a reporter that her nine year old child didn't know what race was...there is a problem that goes beyond the actions of white racists. Black children brought up blind to the realities of racism are automatically crippled.
i am writing this post in recognition of the excellent questions posed by ebrown to republicans/conservatives with respect to "race" and "electoral politics." while my extended entry below was occasioned by the lashawn barber post, it was off the topic of eb's post - though relevant to the broader issue of republicans making a new appeal to american africans.
to the point, republicans may not be able to make inroads with the black community until black conservatives adopt a door-to-door strategy similar to that used by white conservatives...in addition, references to booker t washington are functionally useless in many respects (though not all) because black conservatives are not fiscally and institutionally capable of doling out patronage, let alone building a machine...while machine politics are still effective, black conservatives are notable for their fiscal dependency upon white-owned institutions...while the same may be said of so-called black liberals, this is not entirely true of segments of the black community where incomes are augmented through a variety of means not always captured by economists...recent investments in real estate in harlem followed, rather than preceded, corporate decisions to locate in harlem based on new, comprehensive measures of disposal income and spending patterns...beyond the simple notion of "buying power" is the question of what will folks buy for a premium, frequently, and without reservation...a walk along 125th street provides some interesting answers - and much of the commercial activity is directed toward street-vendor entrepreneurs unable or unwilling to pay store rents on a premium strip like 125th street, but they still get their piece of the action. today, a number of recognizable national brands have their best-selling stores in harlem...
it may be that there are a considerable number of black folks who simply will not respect the position of black republicans because of the role of white funding...can you represent one group if your bills are paid by another - especially if many policy/ideology issues remain unbridged? i think this same principle applied to Garvey's criticism of DuBois and to Malcolm X's criticism of King...of course, DuBois was never a "popular" leader - and even given King's popularity, he saw the limitations that funding sources imposed on the CRM...black republicans do not have the intellectual reserves of Dubois or the magnetism/leadership of King - and therefore must change tactics to make inroads.
the social conservatism of american africans is not unlike that of caribbean or continental africans...each group has an extensive legacy of seeking to preserve core values like family, industry, achievement and reciprocity...to the extent that republicans can get in the door by demonstrating industry (not charity from white donors), achievement (not hype from pseudo-objective media entities) and reciprocity (not hollow "do for self" mantras, but grounded economic development/investment commitments (real $-wagon train charter equity), i believe they will make considerable inroads in any community...at present the image of republicans is too tied to images that black folks believe are antithetical to our well-being...black republicans, not unlike black democrats, face the challenge of wresting some of the imagery and apparatus away from their fellow party members who would proffer a narrow vision of the future.
i think there is a good deal of merit in the principles of the republicans, but linkages
some things from the conservative side that may be relevant...
i don't regularly read LaShawn Barber's column...a few of the pieces i have read were lacking in many respects - so my interest waned. nonetheless, i believe there is considerable value in her line of thinking...check out this link...http://www.southernevents.org/southerners_first.htm
it seems that given some of the unanticipated outcomes of the civil rights movement, the non-black financial leadership of the movement, the limitations of american schools (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm) and the constitutional questions surrounding Brown (let alone the implicit assumption that black folk need white folk to feel worthy), there are some issues worth delving into here...
in the absence of integrating schools - an area untouched by the founders - how could the US have addressed the issues at hand in the jim crow south...it seems to me that one of the most pivotal moments in our history was the compromise of 1877 which removed union troops from the south...it also seems to me that the failure of southern states to provide security/protection (physical-political-economic) to blacks was of greater import than the opportunity to attend integrated schools...that's fairly obvious...
and so, the question for me is what are the implications of states rights in a federalist system when states fail to uphold the principal agreement of citizenship - the exchange of allegiance for protection...is there a federal prerogative to impose the laws of that state...it seems that this approach would have been much more controversial - more difficult to implement - but could likely have resulted in a much better solution that what prevails now...
establishing state-supported protections for blacks, even two generations after the national lynching frenzy, would have gone a long way to obviating the need for Brown legislation...take the case of the Blair Bill - also centered on education...the bill proposed funding based on population - with the proviso that schools with black children in the south would receive equitable allotments - based on population...imagine the implications in 1883 for South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc.
it seems that the federal government's agreement of 1877 (Hayes, Ohio Republican - Tilden, NY Democrat) sealed the deal in which southern states were relieved of their obligation to honor its citizens...the removal of union troops ushered in the era of the klan - (nathan b. forrest-gump) - in this light, the education of children in integrated schools seems a farcical approach to such a fundamental security issue.
barber has some ammo here, but i don't see the point in solely attacking the democrats when it was the republican party under hayes which really created the circumstances that required the level of social engineering that is decried on her blog...of course, it can be argued that these parties are like all institutions in that they seek merely to extend their existence through whatever means available...and that makes the democrats and republicans more alike than most care to admit.
Students Say High Schools Let Them Down
Students Say High Schools Let Them Down
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
DES MOINES, July 15 - A large majority of high school students say their class work is not very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would work harder if courses were more demanding or interesting, according to an online nationwide survey of teenagers conducted by the National Governors Association.
The survey, being released on Saturday by the association, also found that fewer than two-thirds believe that their school had done a good job challenging them academically or preparing them for college. About the same number of students said their senior year would be more meaningful if they could take courses related to the jobs they wanted or if some of their courses could be counted toward college credit.
Taken together, the electronic responses of 10,378 teenagers painted a somber picture of how students rate the effectiveness of their schools in preparing them for the future.
The survey also appears to reinforce findings of federal test results released on Thursday that showed that high school seniors made almost no progress in reading and math in the first years of the decade. During that time, elementary school students made significant gains.
"I might have expected kids to say, 'Don't give us more work; high school is tough enough,' " said Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and chairman of the governors association, which opens a three-day summer meeting here on Saturday.
"Instead," Mr. Warner said, "what we got are high school students actually willing to be stretched more. I didn't think we'd get much of that."
More at the link provided.
It has been over a year since Los Angeles suspect Stanley Miller got clocked in the noggin by the LAPD. Activists have waited patiently for the police to make a big mistake and are now capitalizing on the sensation caused by the Pena Shootout.
In a Vision Circle exclusive, I have obtained photographs of the spontaneous demonstrations.
While running errands with the wife and kid, all around me I saw young children, young adults, and adults, all reading a green book.
Amazing...
By Carol M. Swain
Saturday, July 16, 2005; Page A17
It's time for the Republican Party to write a new chapter in race relations. What I have in mind is something beyond the Senate's recent resolution on lynching and this week's expression of regret by a high-ranking Republican official for the GOP's use of what came to be know as the "Southern Strategy." What I propose is a formal apology for slavery and its aftermath. This could take the form of a joint resolution passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president in a ceremonial setting where Americans could gather to symbolically bury their past.
Whenever the idea of an apology is raised, some whites reflexively recoil. They believe it is a bad idea because it conjures up images of innocent whites prostrating themselves before blacks for crimes they never committed. Most outspoken are whites whose ancestors arrived after the end of slavery and those who fought for the Union. Neither we nor our ancestors, they argue, had anything to do with slavery, so why should we apologize?
Others will say that an apology is not necessary because one has already been issued -- two, really. In 1998 President Clinton acknowledged the evils of slavery. And last year President Bush visited Goree Island, a holding place for captured slaves in Africa, and spoke of the wrongs and injustices of slavery. "Small men," he said, "took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters. Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience. Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice."
More at the link provided.
So we have the Republican Party chair saying this:
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman attended the NAACP convention in Milwaukee Thursday. He planned to express regrets for Republican attitudes toward blacks in the past.
"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," Mehlman said in remarks prepared for delivery. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."
Now, I've been saying for some time that it isn't entirely "the fault" of Black voters that Blacks vote Dem in such high numbers, and that Repubs have to carry a lot of "the blame".
And I've said that if that was acknowledged and proceed from there, things would be different. That is the path that Michael Steele uses when he says his party was wrong to support strategies that divide and that it was wrong for Repubs to "turn away" from Blacks who used to support the party so strongly.
But coming from a non-Repub, which doesn't mean a Dem, I always catch a lot of heat for it. Even when I provided supporting information from white and Black Repubs.
Now I want to see how Republicans respond to Mehlman.
Next, is this from the same article:
Bush told the Indiana Black Expo that he believes in an America where all people, including blacks, have the chance to own homes and businesses and share in the country's prosperity.
In discussions I've had with a few Black Republicans who were trying to get me to become a Republican and/or during political conversations were they whined complained about lack of Black support, I've asked why they weren't at places "Black leaders" were. Why weren't they at "Black Expos"? I saw the local chapters of the Urban League, the NAACP, League of Negro Women, and the like, but not one "Black Republican" or "Black conservative" group.
For better or worse, black America’s future is brightest if we become the nation’s best educated, most intellectually sophisticated, most highly developed social group that succeeds spectacularly in the academy and the marketplace while we push the nation toward justice in the interest of self-protection. This will be a difficult task, not least because so many of us are poor, badly schooled, unemployed, sick and afraid. But we have no choice: we must find a way to traverse the chasm between our current state and one where we compete successfully in schools, jobs and politics on our own terms, so much so that we gain real power to shape public, cultural and business affairs.
Sounds ever so Cuban to me..., part one of a promising looking think piece by Marcellus Andrews at the Black Commentator
Education and identity have been critical factors in the transformation of Cuban agriculture in the 1990s. They have provided a framework within which new policies, new actors, and new agricultural systems gained acceptance and were implemented. Cuban agriculture is something very different and the extent to which its model is applicable elsewhere is unknown. Conclusion: Given specific factors embedded in the Cuban paradigm, more research – certainly comparative research evaluating agroecological efforts in other countries – is necessary before universality questions surrounding the Cuban model can be adequately addressed.
would love to hear a bit more about the teeth of the coalition between blacks and latinos - 'cause i don't know cali, but i know these coalitions have been fractured in places like new york and chicago (forget about miami)...it will be interesting to see the extent to which something viable can be sustained between these two groups - as it stands the galvanizing of the latino vote under the new mayor may auger better for this party than for a coalition between blacks and latinos -- in fact, it may be that this new mayor is better served by capitalizing on the disaffection with the former mayor in certain quarters, while doling out patronage principally to his latino base...it will be interesting to see how the team is built and the reorganization conducted...
dopamine aside, the competition between culture groups over scarce resources remains fierce, and the uneven preparation of the black community during post-electoral carving sessions is legendary...there is value to the "other side" in divide-and-conquer...that's all it ever is - but the fact remains that black folk have never had a permanent alliance with another ethnic group - and it is hard to distinguish between these other groups based on "degrees of assimilation of white supremacist ideology." it could be argued that the closest we came to a permanent alliance was in Florida/Georgia (Seminole country) in the late 1700's, early 1800's. we are left with reactions to cop firings and fading memories of hook-ups in the 60's...
The voter survey, supervised by Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, interviewed 3,191 voters as they left precincts across the city. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2 percentage points overall, and more for smaller voter groups.
Among the survey's more striking findings was its confirmation of Hahn's loss of support among African Americans and Valley voters, the once-sturdy coalition that drove his 2001 triumph over Villaraigosa.
The mayor, whose father, Kenneth, built an African American political base for the family decades ago as a county supervisor, won 80% of the black vote four years ago. But on Tuesday, he captured just 52% of those voters.
Among blacks who supported Villaraigosa, nearly two out of five cited the ouster of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, an African American, as a main reason for their vote. Also, 59% of the blacks who voted for Parks in the first round of mayoral voting in March shifted to Villaraigosa in the runoff. Parks had endorsed and actively campaigned for Villaraigosa.
Yet the survey found sharp distinctions within the black community. Black voters 45 and older — those most apt to fondly remember the legacy of Hahn's father — strongly favored the mayor over Villaraigosa. Younger blacks leaned heavily toward the challenger.
Also, black men favored Villaraigosa, while black women strongly supported Hahn.
Villaraigosa, who won 48% of the black vote, had campaigned aggressively for African American support. A large group of black leaders who backed Hahn in 2001 — among them former basketball star Magic Johnson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and various church pastors — abandoned the mayor this year and vouched for Villaraigosa. An ebullient Johnson helped introduce the winning candidate at his victory party.
"The really interesting and intriguing question is what happens to relations between Latinos and blacks now," Sonenshein said. "Because by no means is this the sign of a full-scale coalition. But it is certainly a bridgehead in what could have been a purely competitive relationship."
In the Valley, as among blacks, Hahn suffered a sharp reversal of fortune. In 2001, the Valley favored Hahn over Villaraigosa, 55% to 45%. The election Tuesday flipped that precisely: The Valley opted for Villaraigosa over Hahn by the same 10-point margin.
A key problem for Hahn, the poll confirmed, was his 2002 campaign to kill the proposed secession of the Valley from the rest of Los Angeles. Nearly three in 10 of the Valley voters who supported Villaraigosa cited secession as a main reason for their vote.
Anonymous dropped it like it was hot over at P6. A deadly serious fellow traveller, undistracted by the theatre of the absurd, called it like it T.I.is..., I pray that folks will take note of this. With all the other distracting hijinks now in play, this is a crystal clear synopsis of the terror of the situation looming just past the signpost up ahead.
but i did...kenyatta got me started on this...wassup with the jeff gannon character and bush with the fudging...it seems to be connected to the plame story and rove and the rest...i don't know how deep you're digging on this, but if any of these old links have any merit, the third estate is merely the tip of a much colder iceberg...this is all news to me, i guess i've been under a rock or behind a cave or maybe just in the 'hood ignorin' the news on the boob tube.
i won't even flex on this notion that nobody knew about this cat - you cain't get in if you are not on the same program - 24 hours a day - so denials and no comments may be best - but if the cats in your house and you say you're not down, somebody's lyin' - and my money's on the guy with the fat budget, the security detail and the press office...and if any of this stuff is legit, as i said above, it seals the deal - in a j. edgar hoover sort of way...
Like W. You can't make this stuff up...and by the way, you've got a great face.
Frank Rich writes an editorial in the New York Times arguing that the outing of Valerie Plame and the prosecution of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper represent something far worse than Watergate. It represents nothing less than the crumbling of American democracy. While I think Rich has the kernel of a case here--given the decline of transparency, and the decline of investigative reporting--he's definitely off his rocker. And while some bloggers seem to understand, they all neglect a painfully obvious point.
The whistleblower that needed to be protected in this case was Wilson. The best way to protect him was to punish the person/s responsible for outing his wife. The best way to do this was to get the journalists aware of the person/s to reveal that information to the public.
Though it is apparent to me that Robert Novak should be the one behind bars, I cannot think of any other way to get what is now commonplace knowledge.
For some reason, Rich is actually arguing that ROVE is the one needing protection, that protecting Rove protects the third estate.
When nothing could be further from the truth.
I don't have the answer to this question, but think it is one worth posing. A decent place to start on co-ops.
The London Bombings have yet to be digested and extruded by the narrative manufacturing system. There seems to have been a nasty bit or two that may prove difficult to digest - but leaving aside vast conspiracy theories for the time being - one thing for sure is that no British spin-sphincter should be so audacious as to call this bombing Islamic Terrorism. Given the decades of Catholic Terrorism which Britain experienced at the hands of the IRA without ever once stooping to such base and inaccurate propagandism to describe the same, one can only hope that British propriety will hold sway when the machine begins to extrude in earnest for sheeple consumption.
Something doesn't make sense:
Rice offers rare praise for Syria
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered rare praise for Syria Tuesday for battling militants trying to slip over its border into Iraq but said more such action was necessary.
Syrian forces captured two "terrorists" Monday in a dawn clash with extremists who included former bodyguards of Saddam Hussein, official media in Damascus had reported.
The gunbattle on Mount Qassioun overlooking the Syrian capital was the second such firefight with extremists in recent days and comes amid intense US pressure on Syria to stop militants slipping over its border into Iraq.
OK, then we have this:
Iran, Iraq to OK Military Pact, Including Troop Training Help
From Reuters
TEHRAN — Former foes Iran and Iraq said Thursday that they would sign a military cooperation agreement that would include Iranian help in training Iraq's armed forces, despite likely U.S. opposition.
The agreement marks a breakthrough in relations between the two countries, which fought a bitter 1980-88 war. And it comes in spite of repeated U.S. accusations that Shiite Muslim Iran has undermined security in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003.
...
Asked about possible U.S. opposition, Shamkhani said, "No one can prevent us from reaching an agreement."
OK, we have Rice praising Syria when people are saying Syria not only hosts the terrorists, but may be helping fund some of their efforts?
Then we have Iraq making a pact with Iran, who is said to be helping fund the terrorists who are using the Syrian border to come in and attack the people of Iraq?
P6 gets a hat tip.
The following are the sources of the current destruction of the U.S.
Rather than just telling us to feel good, dopamine tells us what's salient--the unexpected bits of new information we need to pay attention to in order to survive, like alerts about sex, food and pleasure, as well as danger and pain. If you are hungry and you get a whiff of a bacon cheeseburger...Dopamine's role is to shout: "Hey! Pay attention to this!" Only as an afterthought might it whisper "Wow, this feels great." So maybe addicts aren't just chasing a good time. Perhaps their brains have somehow mistakenly learned that drugs are the most important thing to pay attention to, as crucial to survival as food or sex.
Methinkst the question actually begged by the Director of NIDA is why don't these people pay closer attention to the marketing and propaganda flow which is, after all, the lifeblood of hegemonic governance of the free.
Based on an intentionlly provacative post from LaShawn Barber, and the comment thread I've become a part of, I've come up with the following questions.
For those who want to label themselves conservatives, and for those who believe that conservatives are "people who think vs. feel", I want you to think about the following questions:
1. It's well known that the membership numbers of the NAACP has been steady since about the 70s. Given that the American Black population has grown, essentially, the NAACP membership has fallen. If the NAACP is a group that "leads thoughts" of Black people in the U.S., how is it that its membership numbers are steady with the average age of NAACP members rising?
2. With question #2 in mind, how is that public Black conservatives only point out the membership troubles of the NAACP, but never publically point out the criticisms of the NAACP by "non-conservative" Blacks?
3. With questions #1 and #2 in mind, why is it when it is reported that Blacks who have been polled favor "conservative" ideas like vouchers or support heterosexual marriage only, none of the conservative critics of said "leaders", try to find out other areas of disagreement?
4. With #3 in mind, do you believe that the images of Blacks, by "news media" is accurate?
5. With #4 in mind, if you do NOT believe the images of Blacks are totally accurate, have you ever wondered why conservatives, of any race, have tried to give a more complete picture of the Black community.
6. To go further, if there is indeed a "silent conservative Black population", why are there no efforts by conservatives to profile the everyday "conservative Black population"?
7. If you believe that "standard" conservative image of Blacks, do you believe that Earl Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise is someone who is castigated or cheered?
Bonus questions:
1. Why is it that the biggest critics of the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, are not white conservatives or Black conservatives, but the general Black population?
2. Why is it that the biggest critics of Blacks in the U.S., are Blacks?
3. If the media distorts the picture of Black conservatives, and the media distorts the picture of progress of American Blacks, why trust the picture of Blacks following "Black leaders"?
