I heard about the CBC raising money for the victims of Katrina.
Lately I've been hearing that the CBC has yet to give out any of the funds. For example, read this
According to Marc Morano it would appear at the time bodies (the allegations being black bodies) were floating in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, the Congressional Black Caucus was floating tax-free charitable donation dollars. (See: "Bush-Bashing Black Charity Sits on Katrina Cash," CNS News, Marc Morano, Dec. 22, 2005).
Morano's investigation found the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation not only has not distributed any of the estimated $400,000 it raised for the black victims of hurricane Katrina, but as Patty Rice, spokesman for the CBCF told Morano, "The distribution of the money would not begin until January or February at the earliest." My guess is that unless shamed into doing so, they will not have dispersed one dollar toward the stated urgent need this time next year, but I digress.
This is quite a haul for CBCF, and if one were inclined to question the integrity of a group that proudly comport itself as what could be construed as available to the highest bidder, it could also be seen as quite a con game – one that should be looked into.
I was ready to slam them.
But I went to the CBCF website and read this:
On December 9, 2005, CBCF issued a $290,000 grant to the New Orleans-based Community of Faith for Economic Empowerment (COFFEE). COFFEE is right on the front lines providing crisis assistance to supplement rental payments for dislocated families and emergency food and clothing assistance. They also offer construction and rehabilitation assistance and loss mitigation counseling among other vital services such as, insurance claim filing assistance and foreclosure abatement assistance for those who have been unable to meet their mortgage payments. For more information on COFFEE, visit their website at www.coffee-neworleans.org.
Help me out here? Are people talking out of their behind or did they give up the money is response to critics?
Well, read this
Bush-Bashing Black Charity Sits on Katrina Cash
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 22, 2005
(CNSNews.com) -The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which slammed the Bush administration for its allegedly slow and racially insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to spend any of the estimated $400,000 that it raised for the victims of the Aug. 29 storm.
"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. The Foundation is an offshoot of the Congressional Black Caucus and was founded in 1976.
...
Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a group that monitors charitable giving, was quick to criticize the CBCF.
"It sounds like the CBCF has been stressing the immediacy of the [victims'] needs when they raised the money and yet for some reason when it comes time to dishing it out they can't seem to get organized," Boehm told Cybercast News Service.
:The author wrote an article near Dec. 22 saying the funds haven't been given. Funds were given on the 9th.
Interesting.
Going around the 'net, or reading opinion pieces, or listening to talk shows, I often read/hear people say something like, "Despite what Blacks think, racism is NOT the number one problem facing Black America.
OK, for me that's a no brainer; it isn't Black America's number one problem. What I want to know is, what percentage of Blacks believe it IS Blacks number one problem?
I suspect that most Blacks will say that it's not, and if that's the case, it's another issue of critics of the Black community setting up a straw man for them to defeat.
Does anyone want to help me find such a poll of Black folk?
From http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051124-111815-8121r.htm:
The current Republican mayor, Rick Baker who was re-elected two weeks ago with 90 percent of the black vote, gave immediate attention to development and worked closely with black businessmen, Mr. Rouson said.
So, who keeps saying Blacks won't vote for Republicans?
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112501301_2.html:
The two have disagreed on a recent decision by the Maryland Higher Education Commission to allow Towson University to offer a graduate business program. Morgan State's president has argued that Towson would duplicate what his Baltimore school offers. The historically black university relies on the MBA program and similar offerings to draw white students to the campus.
Ehrlich has said he "respects" the decision and is not opposed to having two MBA programs but wants to study ways to enhance Morgan State's offerings.
Steele credits the governor with recognizing Morgan State's needs, but the lieutenant governor said he was "very disappointed" about the decision to bring an MBA program to Towson.
This one has been swirling around in my mind for a bit. It's not formulated completely, but I just want to put it out there.
Michael Steele is getting support from the national Republican party because he is a Black Republican. He's getting help from Karl Rove, the president, and national conservative talk shows.
Michael Steele is the man.
Michael Steele is running his U.S. Senate for Maryland race, not as a Republican, but as an individual. His campaign is saying, forget the party labels and look at the man and the issues.
Now, he could be said that he is doing that so that Blacks "forget" he is a Republican and vote for him. But that is not the case.
Indeed, his campaign is looking at the Maryland demographics, 2:1 registered Democrats to Republicans, and see that in a state wide race, there is no other way to run.
His campaign, which has started, has already putting out that he should be considered independent of his party and the president.
I've written about the alleged name calling against Michael Steele.
I've written about my distaste for the name calling, but questioned the article because of what was directly quoted vs. what was paraphrased.
This is now national news and I'm wondering why:
Actually, I do know why and I have to ask why Michael Steele, someone who, from what I know, I think I like, politically, needs to be protected from normal Black politics?
Yesterday, I wrote about the dust up of an article that appeared in The Washington Times.
First, again, I want to make this clear: I don't like that sort of name calling. It serves no purpose, to me, instead of highlighting that the people doing it have nothing else to go after. Or, they may, but they are too damned lazy to try.
On the media:
When a reporter writes:
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.
"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."
I wonder why, in this case, the reporter directly quotes the person being interviewed, but uses his own words about what she said in another. When Lisa Gladden called into a hostile talk show and said that the direct quote was accurate but the first attribution was not accurate, why should she NOT be taken at her word?
The direct quote isn't exactly making her look good, is it?
For the self proclaimed conservatives, if a "liberal" newspaper had quoted a Republican in such a way, and that Republican said the attribution was inaccurate, wouldn't you be rushing to defend and "attack" or "question" the source?
This morning, on WOLB, a Black talk radio station in Baltimore opened up the telephone lines to this topic. Most of the callers self-identified themselves as Black and Democrats, rushed to support Michael Steele. Additionally, some local Black politicians and citizens then ran down the list of accomplishments, from a Black point of view, of the Erlich and Steele administration.
In July, I highlighted a few of the accomplishments.
I read the online edition of The Washington Times. I've read their coverage and how they cover things and feel correct in saying they are conservative and Republican backers.
[Updated]
6:22 PM EST, Verna Jones is now on WEAA, The Danny Glover Show, discussing the original article. She is now saying the reporter took her out of context and added words to what she said:
State Sen. Verna Jones, Baltimore Democrat and vice chairman of the General Assembly's black caucus, said black Republicans deserve criticism because the GOP has not promoted the interests of the black community.
Verna Jones is saying that she never said Black Republicans. She was saying Republicans in general.
So, let me go to the liberal Baltimore Sun.
The article concludes that the lawmakers believe that some recent attacks against Steele are justified, such as a doctored picture on a liberal blog that showed Steele in minstrel makeup. But the politicians said that their quotes were taken out of context and that they do not support racially tinged criticism. The reporter who wrote the article and the managing editor of the Times did not return telephone calls.
Check out this article.
I'll take a bit from the article. I'll take it as is. Please note what was written, and when things are quoted.
Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black.
"Because he is a conservative, he is different than most public blacks, and he is different than most people in our community," she said. "His politics are not in the best interest of the masses of black people."
There is a problem with this. I just heard her on a talk show and she said she didn't say what is in the first paragraph. She did say what is in the second paragraph, thus the direct quote is accurate.
She gave her opinion, and that opinion can be questioned.
The talk show host was livid about this article, and based on what he was saying, I got mad as well, until I went to the article itself. Then I realized he was taking things out of context and getting things flat out wrong.
For example, he said that Mfume supported the idea of going after Steele for being a Republican. Well, Mfume is never directly quoted. Only Mfume's spokesman is quoted.
In fact, this is what Mfume's spokesman said:
"There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names," said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
...
"The facts are the facts. Ehrlich went to that country club, and Steele said it didn't bother him," Mr. Trippi said. "I think that says something ... and should be part of this debate."
This article is a race baiting hachet job.
And I'll say it again: When Black Dems attack Black Dems as sellouts, is it news like this?
Update
From the article:
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.
"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."
Lisa Gladden called into a radio program. She said the quote of the 2nd paragraph is accurate. She said she did not say the what was in the first paragraph. Note there are no direct quotes in that paragraph.
Update 2 Mfume called in and denounced it.
"Black politics" can be dirty, just like "regular" politics. From memory, these are some of the things that have happened, in no particular order:
Those examples are given to show the "Black flavah" of "our" politics. Frankly, I don't like it because when I see it used, sometimes (many times?) it's used to hide and ignore some of the real issues involved in the race. In the case of Corey Booker, it was used when polls showed Cory Booker was leading in the race.
Now, the question of the day: how often do those antics reach the level of national attention of the incident with Michael Steele and the doctored picture?
Does this mean I condone it? Uhhhh.... "Hell to da naw!!!!".
But I'm increasingly starting to wonder why "Black conservatives" or "Black Republicans" are getting special treatment or protection and/or asking for special treatment or protection from "normal" Black politics?
I'm serious.
Is it OK for Black Democrats to call other Black Democrats sellout but Black Republicans/Black conservatives are so fragile that they must be protected from it?
Hat tip: The Black Informant
I thought Harriet Miers would get confirmed, despite the pressure from conservative interest groups. I thought that way until I read that she seemed to support affirmative action. I knew she wouldn't get it then. (Colbert I. King wrote the same thing in this article, but he goes on to defend "activist judges". It's worth a read).
What this episode shows is how the president was forced to deal with his party's base. He had to buckle to the pressure which shows the strength of the base.
Now, compare that to Bill Clinton when his base said that the cocaine/crack sentencing disparity law should be allowed sunset. Instead, he made it permanent.
Black Democrats who are active in party politics should take note and do a real self assessment of political support.
I think I'm going to send letters to some Maryland Black Democrat politicians to needle them.
I just discovered this essay by Norman Kelly eviscerating Michael Eric Dyson's dubious critique of Bill Cosby.
Bill Cosby’s outburst could been seen as one of frustration, a collective one: forty years later America and black people still have the poor to deal with. Dyson spends a lot of time criticizing Cosby for what’s been a cottage industry for years: the foibles of the black underclass. But Dyson doesn’t really add anything to the debate; he merely constructs his book around the “text” of Cosby’s speech and adds a series of rejoinders that says more about him than Cosby. What the book tells us about Dyson is that he, like most pseudo-intellectuals of the black cultural criticism school, is a superficial thinker. He actually believes he’s doing important work: responding to a public figure whose major role is still one of being a comedian.
Crunch!
Relying as I do on the Blogosphere for debates and other intellectual table scraps from academia, I am surprised to have just discovered this. I know Spence was going to read Kelly, but I haven't heard any updates recently. What's up with Mr. Kelly?
Earl posted a brief snippet of a dialogue between Oliver Willis and Steve Gillard on the changing of the guard.
Every few years, right around one of these moribund marches, we get this argument. I'm not immune to it myself. Hell just the other day I told a couple of people that the old heads (Jackson, and Farrakhan in particular) are going to have to die before we get this marching stuff out of our blood and move beyond brokerage politics.
Oliver is right on point in his basic critique (jackson, farrakhan, and sharpton are hustlers). But here's where he is wrong:
1. Black people aren't as moved by these speakers as we may THINK they are. I think most of us realize that these guys are pimps and hustlers...BUT we also have a long standing love affair with wordsmiths. Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan are the best wordsmiths in America PERIOD. I have strong disagreements with ALL of them, but I'll be damned if I'd ever get snookered into a debate with any of them.
2. The idea of "black leadership" is bankrupt by its very nature. For folks like Oliver black people's problem isn't that we've got pimps running the show, it's that we've got the wrong kind of pimps running the show. Put Oprah and Cosby in the mix, and we'd be GOOD.
3. There's this sticky structural problem that Oliver can't get his head around. For Oliver our problem is largely cultural. The data is pretty clear here that it ain't the culture.
Now Gilliard (apologies) on the other hand seems to understand the problem of white supremacy, and the structural hurdles black men and women face.
But his argument--that Farrakhan and others are speaking truth to power when no one else will--falls flat for two reasons.
1. There are all TYPES of people who make the critiques that farrakhan and the others do. Of course no one makes these critiques as well on the mic. Adolph Reed for starters. Barbara Ransby. Errol Henderson. Oba T'Shaka. For some reason Gerald focuses on political representatives, as if that's the correct body of folks to focus on. JACKSON AIN'T BEEN ELECTED TO NOTHIN' SINCE HE WAS 2ND VICE GRAND OF OMEGA PSI PHI! You don't compare these guys to the ones that had to actually fight for votes!
2. Speaking against police brutality and doing something against police brutality are two very different things. Where was one of the big three when Jamala Rogers and an entire coalition of black, brown, and white folk in Saint Louis forced the mayor to create a police review board? Where were they when blacks in Detroit fought for the successful passage of a living wage ordinance? The part of northern black political culture that i've grown to detest is its acceptance of wolf ticket politics. Talking shit don't mean jack unless action follows.
Both should take a gander at an essay Michael Thelwell wrote about the March on Washington. The first one. It's in Gerald Early's excellent SPEECH AND POWER vol. 2, and also in REPORTING ON CIVIL RIGHTS vol. 1.
I have a long simmering thought that I think is ready for the public square: the "Black conservative" vs. "Black liberal" "debate" isn't really about liberal vs. conservative ideas. It's about being a Democrat or a Republican.
The rest of the stuff is noise.
This is generated by a post Cobb/Mike did on his blog.
I put this in his comments section, but decided to do it here as well.
Interesting defense.
Where were public Black conservatives concerning Tulia, TX? Larry Elder, who has written about the War on Drugs and it being wrong headed, had a great opportunity to build upon what he has written and said, and produced zip.
Where were the public Black conservatives when a study came out stating that employers appeared to discard resumes containing "ethnic sounding names" vs. "traditional names"?
Where were the public Black conservatives when a study done by doctors came out stating that Blacks, even when socio-economic status is taken into account, get less aggressive heart aliment treatment?
On Star Parker and welfare, I can show you a woman who was on welfare for 4 years, before her child went into elementary school. From some of the commentary that Parker has written or said, the woman I can point out was a "victim of government handouts" when it was far from the case.
Her husband died, she got fired, and she went on welfare while taking care of her child because she didn't trust day care and close family members worked during the day.
Plainly put, the public face of Black conservatives are what the writer is commenting upon. If it ain't you, fine it ain't you. But I STILL find it interesting that some Black conservatives get fired up over the image of the "sterotypical" Black conservative but say nothing about the "sterotypical" everyday Black person:
Come on Mike. You KNOW what I'm writing is true. How is it that you can be so ticked off and justified in your ticked off-ness but people like me are dismissed as being a liberal and "on the plantation" when I'm ticked off about the garbage coming from "the Black right"?
I'm going to end with this quote from Joseph C. Phillips, a blog mate of Cobb's Conservative Brotherhood.
And it is not just those on the left who are guilty. There is an old saying that when you point one finger at others, you point three fingers at yourself. Those of us on the right have engaged in our share of outrageous rhetoric. I have not cut off my Democratic friends, but I cannot claim innocence. The fact that I am now mourning the loss of a cherished friend has convinced me that we must turn down the fire. Political passions run deep but what do we accomplish by raising the temperature so high that we are unable to speak to one another, no longer able to recognize each other's humanity?
I do not have the luxury of discussing in the abstract air of theory issues of importance to this great land. I am a married father of three boys. Do I not care about healthcare? I must provide it for a family of five. Do I not care about education? I have three school age children. Do I not care about our foreign policy? I have three boys who will be called upon to offer their lives and service. The same is true of millions of other families who did not vote as I did on November 4, 2004.
I read The Black Commentator but I don't often agree with what is written.
This article, titled "How Black Conservatives Hurt Their Cause", is one that I agree with, in general.
Blacks aren’t voting liberal-Democratic because they are simply misled by Jesse Jackson and the civil rights leadership, or because they have a “herd mentality” as conservatives often contend. It would be condescending to deny the fact that black people, like any other population group, know and comprehend their self-interest. The black community is voting against what it hears, or does not hear, from black conservatives.
Will Bush-Backing Black Ministers Get Him to Keep His Katrina Promises?
The religious leaders that have Bush’s ear must hold him to his word. If he reneges, they should publicly disassociate themselves from him. Katrina’s victims need an authentic unity, one that will deliver sustainable results so they can reconstruct their lives.
What. Ever.
Mathis is on the inside of Democratic politics. Why not ask about holding the CBC members accountable?
The Whites House will work feverishly to preclude a full, timely reporting of the facts on the ground in and around the hurricane. Given that conservatives espouse a "you're on your own" brand of economics and politics, why would The Whites House consider the fallout a big deal - after all, Americans are notorious for having short memories.
Black Americans have to be the most internally questioning people in the U.S.
The idea that Blacks "speak behind closed doors" is a farce. Things are mentioned on Black talk radio. Things are mentioned in Black print media. The idea about Blacks "speaking behind closed doors" rests on the idea that it's "behind closed doors" because media appointed "Black leaders" aren't QUOTED as saying certain things. Then, critics of the American Black community, white and Black, say that because those "leaders" aren't saying things, it isn't being said.
False.
Then those same critics will say that those "Black leaders" don't speak for all Blacks.
True.
Then those same critics will say that the Black community, in general, is being "lead" by the "Black leaders".
Then those same critics will point out where the "Black leaders" are not sychronized with the general Black community.
Ummm.... Ain't there some contradictions there somewhere?
Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer Star Parker meets and exceeds her typical standard of high coonshowmanship - managing in one loopy screed to take a whack at Jesse, {who's prolly just there trying to arrange for a Citgo discount gas franchise for himself or a member of his extended entourage in a hood near you} deny MLK's suppressed vision for social justice and structural change, and most astonishingly, defend Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of the democratically elected leader of Venezuela who just happens to be black!!!
Jackson addressed the Venezuelan parliament, met personally with President Chavez and used the occasion to condemn Pat Robertson's unfortunate remarks calling for Chavez's assassination. However, Robertson's remarks, for which he had already apologized, were provoked by genuine and well-founded concern about the ongoing erosion of human liberty in Venezuela and Chavez's activities in spreading his influence throughout Latin America.Jackson, however, was more interested in attacking Robertson than in whether Robertson's concerns are legitimate.
oh Lawd...,
Jackson falls short of King's ideals
By Star Parker
Jesse Jackson chose to celebrate the 42d anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech by going to Venezuela and paying homage to its left-wing strongman president Hugo Chavez. Choosing this venue for recalling King's ideals tells us a lot about how Jackson understands those ideals and what he is about.
Jackson's politics have largely defined black politics since King's death. It has been my view that these politics have played a central role in creating the serious social problems in our community today. Checking out whom Jackson chooses to embrace provides insight into those politics and, hopefully, into our problems.
Jackson addressed the Venezuelan parliament, met personally with President Chavez and used the occasion to condemn Pat Robertson's unfortunate remarks calling for Chavez's assassination. However, Robertson's remarks, for which he had already apologized, were provoked by genuine and well-founded concern about the ongoing erosion of human liberty in Venezuela and Chavez's activities in spreading his influence throughout Latin America.
Jackson, however, was more interested in attacking Robertson than in whether Robertson's concerns are legitimate.
In response to concerns from the Bush administration that Chavez is a force for instability in Latin America, headlines in Venezuela and the United States reported Jackson as saying that Venezuela was "no threat."
However, here is what Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, who also teaches Latin American politics at Georgetown University, had to say in a Washington Post op-ed piece on Sunday:
"The Venezuelan leader is waging battles on several fronts. A great deal is at stake, including the prospects for liberal democracy in Latin America. Chavez is constructing a model of domestic governance that is inimical to democratic values and individual rights. He appears to be embarked on a mission that is not only virulently anti-U.S. but that seeks to push the region back toward authoritarian politics."
When Pat Robertson broadcast his suggestion that we "take out" Chavez, Chavez himself was in Cuba visiting his good friend Fidel Castro. Also among his friends is African dictator Robert Mugabe, whom Chavez honored in Venezuela last year.
However, Jesse Jackson had nothing but words of praise for Chavez.
"Your focus on foreign debt, debt relief, and free and fair trade to overcome years of structural disorder, unnecessary military spending, land reform... these are some of the great themes of our time."
Regarding the "unnecessary military spending," Peter Brookes, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation reports on Chavez's buying spree of MiG 29 fighters, helicopter gunships and AK-47 assault rifles from Russia and additional arms purchases from Spain and Brazil. Chavez has indicated intent to increase Venezuela's army reserve as "an honorable answer to President Bush's intention of being master of the world."
Meanwhile, Chavez has been busy using oil as a diplomatic tool, making sweetheart deals throughout Latin America, according to the Inter-American Dialogue's Shifter, to advance his anti-U.S. agenda.
King fought oppression with nonviolence and carried a message of freedom driven by Christian ideals. His message was transformed, under leaders such as Jesse Jackson, to the politics of power and political patronage, of entitlement and welfare. Since King's death, single-parent black households and out-of- wedlock black births have tripled. Life in our inner cities has become defined by drugs, aids, promiscuity, disdain for education, and unemployment.
I believe if King were with us today, he would be in our cities working to restore faith, family, and personal responsibility. He wouldn't be in Venezuela giving credibility to a garden variety Latin American despot.
Star Parker is president of Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education and author of "Uncle Sam's Plantation." The Web site address for her organization is www.urbancure.org.
Ideologies work to do a few different things. They identify friends and enemies. They identify opinion leaders and anti-opinion leaders. They identify goals, and to a much lesser extent, strategies and tactics. They link individual experiences to group experiences. They reduce complexity and interpret truth (Harris-Lacewell, 2004).
Harris-Lacewell, taking from Dawson, identifies four major streams of black political thought: Black Nationalism, Black Integrationism, Black Feminism, Black Conservatism. A fifth exists--Black Radicalism, but she (again taking from Dawson), argues that it doesn't really appear in popular black public opinion. Myself? I don't think this strain would appear in black public opinion largely because the survey questions used to measure radicalism are weak.
These ideologies are to an extent orthogonal to conservatism and liberalism. Louis Farrakhan for example, with his strong critiques of black cultural life, and his anti-democratic tendencies, can be thought of as a black CONSERVATIVE nationalist. And within black nationalism there are even more dimensions (I published a paper recently arguing that Pan-Africanism should be thought of as a dimension of black nationalism distinct from separatist nationalism).
One thing that bears witnessing. Just as the schools our children attend are set up to deal with mid twentieth century realities, and our media is set up to cover those same realities with a slight techno spin....it is very likely that our ideologies too are fifty years old. Separatist black nationalists for example no longer have to theoretically use the law or revolutionary means to take over land, or a set of southern states (like the Republic of New Africa suggests).
Simply convince around 100,000 or so black people to move to Rhode Island.
So, Lester is attempting to give me a cyber-spanking on ideology.
That's all well and good. I put words out there so if someone goes for them, that's cool. But let me clarify me thiknking a bit if I may.
There are serious issues within the Black community that need to be addressed. I'm not saying people aren't already trying to address them, but the more the merrier.
So this is where I'm coming from.
If students need to be tutored, does it matter if the tutors are from "the left" or "the right"? No. In fact, when I tutored, there were people politically aligned "left" and "right."
How about the creation of Black businesses? That something Earl Graves, Sr.has been preaching about with Black Enterprise magazine.
Michael Steele has been an advocate of Black business as well. Why should their "left" and "right" leangings prevent them from working together to benefit Blacks who want to start a business or who are already owning a business?
So this is where I'm coming from. If there are things to do, and the "sides" agree, drop the labels, put the shoulders together, and do it. If the "sides" disagree, salute each other, and go along the respective paths.
Check out this opinion article by Robert Woodson, Sr that appeared in The Washington Post's Outlook section.
Then, a community activist named Falaka Fattah and her husband, David, discovered that the oldest of their six boys had become an active gang member. Fattah responded by inviting 13 of her son's friends and fellow gang members to come and live in their small row house, replacing the family furniture with mattresses on the floors. They established rules together that governed conduct, such as requiring that everyone go to school or to work during the day, and that everyone practice good hygiene. Because fighting threatened the whole family, they agreed to bring all disputes to an "Adella" -- a peace session where all the members would participate in finding a resolution and meting out punishment if necessary.
When word circulated that there was a sanctuary from the street, more and more young people sought refuge at the Fattahs'. The family purchased the house opposite and then another one next door with the wages the young men earned doing odd jobs, washing cars and making deliveries. They named their community the House of Umoja, which means "unity" in Swahili. The number of houses grew to five, then seven.
...
If these programs have been successful, why haven't they been embraced more widely by school systems and communities? The fundamental resistance is from people on both the left and the right who argue that these remedies come from "untutored" people -- individuals who do not hold advanced degrees. More responsive, however, are police officers, judges and parents who have seen violence firsthand and know how young people can be influenced by real neighborhood experts.
I know I'm spitting into the wind, but I guess I can be an idealist, while being pragmatic and realist.
Ed's turn.
Ed's been on this kick for a while now. "Blacks shouldn't get caught up in this foolishness." What foolishness? This "left-right" foolishness. How do we know we're caught up in this foolishness? Ed's been talking to people. How do we know it's foolishness? Ed says it's foolishness. That we don't know what terms like "liberal" and "conservative" mean.
Here's a continuation of Black Politics 101. I'll call it "ideology matters."
What is ideology? I'm going to do this real simple like. Ideology refers to a worldview that gives people the opportunity to make decisions about political positions, about social reality, efficiently. Now as far as black people are concerned, there isn't just left-right, but nationalist, feminist, conservatism, and radicalism to content with.
But for ed, it's this left-right thing. This left-right "foolishness." Kind of like a mantra with him.
Here's the thing though. You take a group of say 1206 black people taken from across the country.
Ask them what they think of various political issues. And then ask them to identify themselves as either "liberal" or "conservative."
If Ed's right....then this should have absolutely NO predictive capability whatsoever. You ask someone whether they are liberal or conservative and you won't know JACK about how they feel towards Clarence Thomas, or how they feel towards Bill Clinton, or how they feel about gay men, or issues like abortion.
Guess what?
For every point "more liberal" on a seven point scale, sentiment towards gay men goes up 12 points. For every point more liberal, sentiment towards abortion does similarly. For every point more liberal, sentiment towards Clarence Thomas DECREASES.
Just like we'd expect if black people knew what these terms meant...if these ideological predispositions were part of a larger worldview.
I am a professor of black politics.
Slapping around knuckleheaded positions shouldn't be part of my job desciption.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think that Al Sharpton has done more to break the binds of Blacks to the Democrats than any Black Republican today.
Here is Al Sharpton on Thursday's Tom Joyner Morning Show, in for Tavis Smiley.
Bill Clinton "The First Black President".
I bit the title of this entry from P6 because the phrase fits.
The more "conversations" I have online, the more hardened my idea becomes that Blacks shouldn't be involved in the "left" vs. "right" garbage.
From the online conversations, and a few "real world" conversations, I get more data points to support my thesis that most people don't understand what "conservative" means or what "liberal" means.
For example, I've been called conservative because:
But at the same time...
I've been called a liberal because:
Let's just state the obvious. The sad state of politics in the U.S. has lead to an even sadder state of politics within the Black community.
For liberals, if you support Republicans or too harshly criticize "Black leaders" -- although most Black criticize "Black leaders" -- or don't buy into the insane mau-mauing by the "Blacker than thou" cabal, then you are a conservative.
For conservatives, if you don't continuously attack "Black leaders", or you don't support Republicans, or you don't like Clarence Thomas, then you are a liberal.
It's insane.
What happened to the "right" to "think for yourself"?
But what do I know? This is just mental masturbation.
So, I guess I should ask, "What is a Black militant"?
Webster's definition of militant is
Main Entry: mil·i·tant
Pronunciation: -t&nt
Function: adjective
1 : engaged in warfare or combat : FIGHTING
2 : aggressively active (as in a cause) : COMBATIVE <militant conservationists> <a militant attitude>
synonym see AGGRESSIVE
- militant noun
- mil·i·tant·ly adverb
- mil·i·tant·ness noun
So, what is a Black militant?
When I see the phrase, at first thought I think of the Black Panthers.
When I think about this part of the definition, aggressively active, and think more in context of that, I think of Ezra Jack Keats.
You see, my mother and father were VERY excited when my mother brought home The Snowy Day and Whistle for Willie. I vaugely remember my mother saying it had a young Negro boy as the main character and how this was different from the rest of the books. It made sense to me in the mid-70s, but when I first saw the books in the late 60s, I didn't care much. It was just another book that was good to read.
I think Ezra Jack Keats was a militant. Or maybe he was a radical. Hmmm....
Was Malcolm X a militant?
"I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment."
-- Speech, Dec. 12 1964, New York City
How about Shirley Chisholm?
I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
So, what exactly IS a Black militant?
Bear with me for a few minutes please.
Can someone tell me exactly what came out of "Black militancy" other than a lot of hot air?
This is asked in response to Booker Rising commentary and P6.
[ Update ]
lks said the question should be phrased a different way, so here is the question phrased a different way: What would we as individuals have today WITHOUT black militancy?
And now I guess I should ask, what do you define as "Black militancy"?
Again, bear with me. I'm going somewhere. Just hang on for the ride.
So, I'm home a little early from work, stretched out on the bed, with my headphones on, listening to sometimes talk radio. (The kid is asleep at the head of the bed, I'm at the foot of the bed).
I wake up from a catnap to hear Black people talking about the Republican vs. Democratic party thing.
One person gets his facts twisted and states "Republicans" when it should be "Democrats". The Republicans in the discussion jump on him.
Should I mention this was an all Black panel?
Anyway...
What got me is one person said that parties don't matter, it's the policies that matter.
That's where I'm at in this stage of my life.
To hell with the party labels, I'm going to support the PERSON who is saying things that most align with my views.
Alan Keyes and Michael Steele and Olympia Snowe are all in the same party. (Shouldn't Keyes be pissed about the GOP pushing Steele as a star?)
Mfume, Ford, Teddy Kennedy and Zell Miller are all in the same party.
Screw the labels, I'm staying independent and will support the person not the party.
Footnote: I find it a damn shame that some people can't handle a person being critical of a party but that not meaning that a person supports the opposition party. How many people realize that the U.S. political system is not a 2 party system, but a multi-party system with the 2 primary parties rigging the game against all other parties?
I'll include the text of the Atlanta Journal Constitution Article detailing this hearing, but my real aim here is to do my little piece to lend exposure to skewed MSM coverage of Rep. McKinney's efforts. To that end, McKinney's 8/2 letter to the AJC as reported by Playahata first.
It's a shame that the Atlanta Journal and Constitution seems incapable of running factual coverage of important events for the people in the Atlanta area. Their coverage of our historic Capitol Hill 9-11 briefing, laden with commentary and innuendo, bore no resemblance to the content of the actual event. They refuse to retract that story--as I have requested them to do--or to even print this op ed signed by many of the panelists and me. Please share this op ed with your friends; post it widely as an example of the way serious issues are treated by the corporate media in Atlanta.
August 2, 2005Editor
Atlanta Journal Constitution
55 Marietta Street, Ste. 1500
Atlanta, GA 30303OP-ED TO THE EDITOR:
Your recent article ("McKinney reopens 9/11" July 23, 2005,by Bob Kemper) covering a day-long Congressional briefing on July 22 was totally misleading in claiming that it consisted of "conspiracy theories implicating president [Bush]." The actual title was ""The
9/11 Commission Report One Year Later: A Citizens' Response – Did They Get it Right?" and not a single panelist at the event, which included 9/11 family members, former intelligence and government workers, whistleblowers and academic experts, raised any allegations that the Bush administration arranged the
9/11 attacks.The eight hours of testimony included a powerful statement from New Jersey 9/11 widow Lorie van Auken speaking for other family members about their questions that remain unanswered to date, and their frustration that no one has been held accountable at any level for what was not an "institutional failure" nor a "failure of imagination"in relation to the 9/11 attacks, but personal failures to heed multiple and explicit advance warnings of just such an event in the United States.
Your reporter has done the concerned family members and scholars present a disservice by his defamatory remarks which continue to hide from the American public the many unexplored facts and unanswered questions that mark our understanding of and response to 9/11. I hope the public and the citizens in my district in Georgia will take the opportunity to hear this new evidence through C-SPAN, Pacifica Radio,and my own website.
Certainly the dozens of panelists who spoke about
post-9/11 violations of civil rights and liberties, the rise of secrecy and the hidden costs of covert operations and consolidation of intelligence, and the rise of the neoconservative view in foreign policy and a new "Pax Americana" and permanent warfare that ignore international law or the alternatives of restoring justice and peace cannot be called "conspiracy theorists" because they question the immediate response and flawed recommendations that now guide legislation and a new security paradigm.Historians and researchers who discover glaring errors or omissions in the Commission's report, or the lack of historical framework to their comprehension of the sources of terrorism can't be called "contrarians" for unearthing facts that contradict faulty conclusions or assumptions in the official version of events.
This calls for another look at the government's account of 9/11, which guides so much of what has happened since. Mistakes of fact, intentional or not, have changed and guided America into costly wars and increased insecurity at home. They need to be addressed and scrutinized, not dismissed and used to attack those who discover or raise them.
Your writer further implies that the issues I raised in 2002 regarding 9/11 and its aftermath "helped to spur my ouster from Congress" and that this event merely revisited the questions I raised then. To the contrary, my legitimate questions of 2002 have been taken up since by many others in Congress and the public. Many 9/11 victims' families share these concerns as well. My re-election calls the question to such claims, since my credibility with the electorate in my district is intact.
In the end, public consideration of important new facts regarding all aspects of the 9/11 tragedy is my responsibility to my constituents, the victims of 9/11, and the oath I took to defend our Constitution.
The presenters listed below, who were at the July 22 briefing, join me in this response.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
4th District, GeorgiaPeter Dale Scott, Ph.D.
Ray McGovern
David MacMichael
Paul Thompson
Nafeez Ahmed
Elaine Cassell
C. William Michaels, Esq.
Dr. John Nutter
Anne Norton
Dr. William F. Pepper
The article which provoked Rep. McKinney's letter;
Original Article in the AJC
Conspiracy theories implicating president aired at 8-hour hearing
Bob Kemper - Staff
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Washington --- Revisiting the issue that helped spur her ouster from Congress three years ago, Rep. Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill hearing Friday on whether the Bush administration was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The eight-hour hearing, timed to mark the first anniversary of the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report on the attacks, drew dozens of contrarians and conspiracy theorists who suggest President Bush purposely ignored warnings or may even have had a hand in the attack --- claims participants said the commission ignored.
"The commission's report was not a rush to judgment, it was a rush to exoneration," said John Judge, a member of McKinney's staff and a representative of a Web site dedicated to raising questions about the Sept. 11 commission's report.
The White House and the commission have dismissed such questions as unfounded conspiracy theories.
McKinney first raised questions about Bush's involvement shortly after the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, generating a furious response from fellow Democrats in Washington and voters in Georgia, who ousted her in 2002.
"What we are doing is asking the unanswered questions of the 9/11 families," McKinney, a DeKalb County Democrat who won back her seat in 2004, said during the proceedings.
She rebuffed a reporter's repeated attempts to ask her why she would so boldly embrace the same claims that led to her downfall.
"Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian," panelist Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official, said. "And I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom."
Though she left the testimony and questioning of panelists to others, McKinney was the main attraction, presiding over more than two dozen participants, including the author of a book that claims the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and allowed it to happen, and Peter Dale Scott, who wrote three books on President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Georgia peanuts, Cokes and coffee were available to more than 50 attendees, whose casual dress was a decided change from the gangs of blue-suited lobbyists who usually crowd Capitol Hill hearings.
McKinney herself offered witnesses bottled water and found additional trash cans to place around the room.
Nearly a dozen 9/11 enthusiasts lined one side of the room, camcorders at the ready, broadcasting the hearing live over the Internet or recording it for later release. C-SPAN cameras documented the hearing, and a DVD recording of the proceedings will soon be available.
Ten people sat in a section reserved for family members of 9/11 victims.
"Nine-eleven could have been prevented," said Marilyn Rosenthal, a University of Michigan professor who lost a son in the attacks, echoing the premise of the hearing.
Panelists maintained that Bush ignored numerous warnings from the CIA, the Federal Aviation Administration, foreign governments and others who told him before 9/11 that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States and that terrorists were likely to use hijacked airliners as weapons.
But why would the president or his administration want the 9/11 attacks to occur? Power, the panelists agreed.
In the wake of the attacks, the administration was able to greatly expand the president's power and the reach of the federal government, they said, but whistle-blowers and other potential witnesses who could have testified to the Sept. 11 commission about such things were either prevented from speaking or ignored in the commission's final report. Panelists called the commission's report "a cover-up."
"The American people have been seriously misled," said Scott.
Why is it that only Blacks have their sense of American-ness questioned?
I have no patience from this questioning, no matter who is doing it.
I have no patience for those who claim that, because of the history of this country, Blacks should not consider themselves American.
Black, African-American, Colored, Negro, it doesn't matter. We're still Americans and saying the use of such labels demonstrates a lack of American-ness, is a farce, illogical, and an insult to the Blacks who have been a part of this country from day one, under any circumstance.
In short, the following statements or questions, in any form, is B.S.:
[Update] Let me add one thing to this.
White Americans have created most of the groups that are subversive to the American ideal, yet white Americans, as a whole, don't have their American-ness questioned.
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.
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.
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
Cobb wrote this about his view of the Black Political Spectrum.
I put the following in the comment section.
Thinks a bit...
I think my relation to society is that I am part of a society that has set high goals for itself, but has only historically recently, really started to live the goals that it has set for itself.
There are definitely problems that still abound, but some of those will always be around: crime, poverty, deviency. Society sets the standards and society addresses those that live outside of the standards.
"As Black folk", we are a part of the society as a whole, even though there are many who view us outside of society and still not willing to be a part of society. For "Black folk" in general, that view is garbage. And, IMNSHO, speaks to the ignorance and bias of those who think so, regardless of race.
Thinks...
But racism or other's ignorance ain't our greatest foe, though it is one that can beat down those who aren't prepared. Our own ignorance is greater. But I'm hard pressed to think of something that IS our GREATEST foe.
After writing that, I'll add some more thoughts.
There are those who will say that morality is our greatest issue. I understand that point as well and have some sympathy for it, but if you go strictly by the Bible, most of America is immoral. If you don't believe me, look up the statistics on out of wedlock sexual activity of those under 21 and ask yourself if it moral to have sex outside of marriage.
Education definitely is a problem as well as business creation. The latter is improving, the former has some bright spots and some bleak spots.
Now for the big "DUH" moment: it's not one thing is the combination of all things that provide the biggest challenge.
But African-Americans are Americans, and most Blacks know and understand this. I say to you, question all of those who say otherwise. Question all of those who say Blacks are not part of the mainstream. No matter what they tell you to support their idea, the are shoveling muck.
On Cobbs analysis, it breaks down in my view because it doesn't take into account the role of government. Despite what the critics state, the view of Blacks toward the government is more complex than "depending on the government for everything." Welfare doesn't define Black America, neither does "depending on the government."
Liberal, conservative, progressive, whatever. Trash those labels. Blacks can't afford to be a part of that nonsense.
OK, now THIS has been what I've been trying to get at with the "Black liberal" vs. "Black libera" madness. This is true for especially the last quote.
Joseph C. Phillips nails it!
And it is not just those on the left who are guilty. There is an old saying that when you point one finger at others, you point three fingers at yourself. Those of us on the right have engaged in our share of outrageous rhetoric. I have not cut off my Democratic friends, but I cannot claim innocence. The fact that I am now mourning the loss of a cherished friend has convinced me that we must turn down the fire. Political passions run deep but what do we accomplish by raising the temperature so high that we are unable to speak to one another, no longer able to recognize each other’s humanity?
...
What is clear is that none of us has a monopoly on morality, patriotism or good ideas. It also becomes increasingly clear that our republic and the citizens therein suffer when the exchange of ideas is sacrificed in favor of overblown political rhetoric.
Riddle me this, what is the meaning of “black” (the adjective) in your theory of interpersonal communication?
The same as the orthodox meaning of "church". Black is a communion of persons participating in the emergent interpersonal properties arising from our unique protective and developmental psychological adaptation and social configuration in America.
Nietzsche would've understood black; Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Nulan,Are you so obsessed with "data", "facts", and "information" that you have turned a deaf ear to what is coming out of the mouths of the Black folk?
Spence asked for data to corroborate your position brah. What data there is, doesn't strongly support your contention(s).
Leaving that minor point aside, my interest is strictly applied and empirical. You see, I eschew economic sophistry in favor of direct engagement with energy and infrastructure, ideology in favor of psychology, and direct interpersonal engagement with black people in favor of abstract argumentation about the nature of the same.
In my 42 years of unrepentant blackness, the only time I've ever heard the accusation that I'm "acting white", was from the mouth of the elderly white woman who ran the pre-school program I attended in Wichita Kansas. This woman told me I was excessively assertive. She went on to say that I acted like a little white boy..., my mother had a life-changing conversation with this woman.
In a discussion of culture there are no "facts", there are only "interpretations". Are you a business major or an engineer or something? Is that why you seemingly love numbers so much? It is obvious that each one of us is convinced of their own claim and are therefore disdainful of proof.
I'm conversant with science and technology. My abiding interests lie elsewhere, however. IMOHO, all useful discussion must be rooted in practical experience of the thing discussed. As Nietzsche asserted in Die Götzen-Dämmerung
One chooses logical argument only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to nullify than a logical argument: the tedium of long speeches proves this. It is a kind of self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons.
"NR has no data. Look through the awesome expanse of verbiage he has produced a
