From theGrio:
The Urban Dictionary defines the term "throw under the bus" as: "to sacrifice some other person, usually one who is undeserving or at least vulnerable, to make personal gain." In the Obama administration, for example, green jobs czar Van Jones, ACORN, and now U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod were thrown under the bus. But the practice did not begin with the Obama administration. Throwing people under the bus, especially within the context of racial politics, is a time-honored tradition.
Metaphorically speaking, the political landscape is strewn with the victims of such bus-related incidents. Many of these individuals were caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and served as convenient scapegoats for some larger political agenda. Others did or said something that was twisted, misconstrued and used against them. Still, in other cases, their wounds were self-inflicted. With that said, theGrio takes a look through some pre-Obama moments in modern politics, at a mix of race-related bus victims.
Click HERE to read more.
July 22, 2010
Dysfunctional Politics Begets Suicidal Policies
America is in a whole lotta trouble, but I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know.
We unleash the so-called free market, and then once that free market has destroyed millions of lives and livelihoods, government must come to the rescue to save the system from itself. And once the oil company despoils the oceans with millions of gallons of black goop, or the criminally greedy mining company allows its workers to perish in an unsafe mine, government must intervene to restore a regulatory framework and rein in corporate excess.
And yet, the guardians of the status quo would seemingly fight reform, even if it meant bringing down the entire country.
The standoff in the Senate over the extension of unemployment benefits is a perfect example of the depths of the problem. To be sure, they did pass unemployment benefits for the 2.5 million people whose checks ran out in May. But there will be another standoff in the months to come. And the fundamentals of the political dysfunction will be the same.
In a normal world, helping out distressed families in a virtual depression is a no-brainer. It is the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, but it also makes good sense to use unemployment benefits to help stimulate an anemic economy.
But Congress, particularly in the Senate side, is being held hostage by a minority party that clings to a failed economic philosophy known as trickle-down economics. This is the theory that if you give the wealthy more money in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, corporate welfare and the like, those benefits will trickle down to the lower rungs of the population, and everyone will be happy and prosper in the end. Remember the Reagan years? In simpler lay terms, trickle down is also known as theft.
That is what the $1.6 trillion in Bush tax cuts have amounted to--theft of the middle and working classes, the poor, and everyone else at the bottom. The top 1 percent now owns about 35 percent of America's wealth, and the top 20 percent owns 85 percent.
This gross disparity was exacerbated by horrendous policies such as the Bush tax cuts, of which half went to the top 5 percent of U.S. households, while the bottom 60 percent of Americans received a mere 15 percent of the leftovers. No investment, no economic growth, no jobs--just highway robbery, the way it was meant to be in the first place.
The Republican party faithful care little about the lives of everyday people. But they do care about their corporate benefactors. They claim to care so much about deficit reduction that they do not want to extend unemployment benefits, yet they want to extend the very tax cuts that wrecked the U.S. economy. Three GOP-inspired policies-- financial ruin, the senseless yet costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tax cuts for the rich--put us in this mess that turned a Clinton-era surplus into a $1.4 trillion deficit.
And yet, we're in a recession, a Great Recession, and perhaps even for another ten years. This year, foreclosures could reach one million or more. Still, conservatives are on the deficit reduction bandwagon. The Obama administration, having learned nothing from the lessons of history, is drinking the Hooverade as well, saying there is "no great appetite" for aid to the states.
Now that's just dumb. Stressing deficits over job creation is suicidal in a broke economy. This strategy speaks to an administration that, however brilliant and accomplished, expends too much energy appeasing its adversaries and protecting those of its advisors who rate in the mediocre-to-incompetent range, even as it throws good people under the bus amidst right-wing smear campaigns.
Speaking of good people, it is speculated that the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will use his authority under the newly-minted financial reform and block Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Perhaps he doesn't want anyone to learn where the bodies are buried, in a metaphorical sense, and he knows the Harvard law professor will protect consumers and not allow banks to continue their abusive practices. For an administration that has backtracked and settled for second best when faced with the prospects of great reform (i.e., single payer and the public option in the healthcare debate) this would be the last straw. But time will tell.
In the meantime, when presented with viable options to fix our problems, there is this tendency for America to take the road to ruin. You have no choice but to come to this conclusion when you look at this country's military spending. While other nations seek to achieve economic and technological superiority, the United States aspires to win the Cold War.
Expensive, deadly and pointless, America's exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a price tag of $1 trillion, have amounted to the second most expensive military action after World War II. And with hundreds of military bases around the world, the U.S. spends far more on its military than any other nation, and about as much as all other nations combined, for that matter.
Slaves to our dysfunctional politics, America treats a dysfunctional and racist movement as legitimate. We walk a fine line when dealing with the Tea Party--pay too much attention and we give them more publicity than they deserve, but ignore them and we fail to learn the lessons of our troubled racial history. But in any case we must "refudiate" them.
Not actually a movement, the Tea Party is little more than a corporate lobbyist-supported project of the GOP, with a pseudo-populist overlay. Their aversion to taxes, to government spending, social programs such as universal healthcare, and their visceral hatred of a black president, have their origins in the Republican Southern Strategy.
Lee Atwater taught them well, though he repented on his deathbed. Taxes, big government, social programs, all of these were code words for fear of black people, when it was no longer acceptable to use the "N" word. Atwater was able to finesse the racist sensibilities of the Dixiecrat legacy in order to secure Republican victories. The strategy worked, but the moderates left the policy and the base remained. Some of the base has aligned with white supremacists, militias and jingoists, with a hate group helping to write Arizona's anti-immigrant law, and white supremacists donating money to defend the law. These are the folks who are providing the energy in the Republican Party today, and some conservative politicians hope to harness this energy, racism and all.
So, the question is, why does America allow dysfunctional politics to result in horrible, even suicidal policies? The question is not rhetorical, I really want to know.
We unleash the so-called free market, and then once that free market has destroyed millions of lives and livelihoods, government must come to the rescue to save the system from itself. And once the oil company despoils the oceans with millions of gallons of black goop, or the criminally greedy mining company allows its workers to perish in an unsafe mine, government must intervene to restore a regulatory framework and rein in corporate excess.
And yet, the guardians of the status quo would seemingly fight reform, even if it meant bringing down the entire country.
The standoff in the Senate over the extension of unemployment benefits is a perfect example of the depths of the problem. To be sure, they did pass unemployment benefits for the 2.5 million people whose checks ran out in May. But there will be another standoff in the months to come. And the fundamentals of the political dysfunction will be the same.
In a normal world, helping out distressed families in a virtual depression is a no-brainer. It is the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, but it also makes good sense to use unemployment benefits to help stimulate an anemic economy.
But Congress, particularly in the Senate side, is being held hostage by a minority party that clings to a failed economic philosophy known as trickle-down economics. This is the theory that if you give the wealthy more money in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, corporate welfare and the like, those benefits will trickle down to the lower rungs of the population, and everyone will be happy and prosper in the end. Remember the Reagan years? In simpler lay terms, trickle down is also known as theft.
That is what the $1.6 trillion in Bush tax cuts have amounted to--theft of the middle and working classes, the poor, and everyone else at the bottom. The top 1 percent now owns about 35 percent of America's wealth, and the top 20 percent owns 85 percent.
This gross disparity was exacerbated by horrendous policies such as the Bush tax cuts, of which half went to the top 5 percent of U.S. households, while the bottom 60 percent of Americans received a mere 15 percent of the leftovers. No investment, no economic growth, no jobs--just highway robbery, the way it was meant to be in the first place.
The Republican party faithful care little about the lives of everyday people. But they do care about their corporate benefactors. They claim to care so much about deficit reduction that they do not want to extend unemployment benefits, yet they want to extend the very tax cuts that wrecked the U.S. economy. Three GOP-inspired policies-- financial ruin, the senseless yet costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tax cuts for the rich--put us in this mess that turned a Clinton-era surplus into a $1.4 trillion deficit.
And yet, we're in a recession, a Great Recession, and perhaps even for another ten years. This year, foreclosures could reach one million or more. Still, conservatives are on the deficit reduction bandwagon. The Obama administration, having learned nothing from the lessons of history, is drinking the Hooverade as well, saying there is "no great appetite" for aid to the states.
Now that's just dumb. Stressing deficits over job creation is suicidal in a broke economy. This strategy speaks to an administration that, however brilliant and accomplished, expends too much energy appeasing its adversaries and protecting those of its advisors who rate in the mediocre-to-incompetent range, even as it throws good people under the bus amidst right-wing smear campaigns.
Speaking of good people, it is speculated that the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will use his authority under the newly-minted financial reform and block Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Perhaps he doesn't want anyone to learn where the bodies are buried, in a metaphorical sense, and he knows the Harvard law professor will protect consumers and not allow banks to continue their abusive practices. For an administration that has backtracked and settled for second best when faced with the prospects of great reform (i.e., single payer and the public option in the healthcare debate) this would be the last straw. But time will tell.
In the meantime, when presented with viable options to fix our problems, there is this tendency for America to take the road to ruin. You have no choice but to come to this conclusion when you look at this country's military spending. While other nations seek to achieve economic and technological superiority, the United States aspires to win the Cold War.
Expensive, deadly and pointless, America's exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a price tag of $1 trillion, have amounted to the second most expensive military action after World War II. And with hundreds of military bases around the world, the U.S. spends far more on its military than any other nation, and about as much as all other nations combined, for that matter.
Slaves to our dysfunctional politics, America treats a dysfunctional and racist movement as legitimate. We walk a fine line when dealing with the Tea Party--pay too much attention and we give them more publicity than they deserve, but ignore them and we fail to learn the lessons of our troubled racial history. But in any case we must "refudiate" them.
Not actually a movement, the Tea Party is little more than a corporate lobbyist-supported project of the GOP, with a pseudo-populist overlay. Their aversion to taxes, to government spending, social programs such as universal healthcare, and their visceral hatred of a black president, have their origins in the Republican Southern Strategy.
Lee Atwater taught them well, though he repented on his deathbed. Taxes, big government, social programs, all of these were code words for fear of black people, when it was no longer acceptable to use the "N" word. Atwater was able to finesse the racist sensibilities of the Dixiecrat legacy in order to secure Republican victories. The strategy worked, but the moderates left the policy and the base remained. Some of the base has aligned with white supremacists, militias and jingoists, with a hate group helping to write Arizona's anti-immigrant law, and white supremacists donating money to defend the law. These are the folks who are providing the energy in the Republican Party today, and some conservative politicians hope to harness this energy, racism and all.
So, the question is, why does America allow dysfunctional politics to result in horrible, even suicidal policies? The question is not rhetorical, I really want to know.
July 16, 2010
Is Mel Gibson the biggest hot mess in America?
From theGrio:
Mel Gibson is in a lot of trouble these days. In a voicemail message to his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, the actor, producer and director apparently went on a verbal rampage, laden with racist and misogynistic expletives.
In a released audiotape, he referred to Latinos as wetbacks, and told Grigorieva that "if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault."
Gibson is no stranger to racist and sexist rants. Four years ago, Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. He told the arresting police officer, who was Jewish, "F***ing Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He also asked a female officer "What are you looking at, sugar t*ts?"
But this time, he might have gone too far, and his career could suffer for it. Gibson's agent WMA decided to drop him as a client because he is unmarketable. "There's nothing to do for Mel Gibson at the moment," a spokesperson for the agency said. "No one will touch him with a 10-foot pole."
But Gibson is not alone in his over-the-top behavior. Fox News jester Glenn Beck just started a university, and decided to book the Lincoln Memorial--on the anniversary of Dr. King's March on Washington--to hold a march of his own.
Rush Limbaugh said President Obama wouldn't have been elected if he weren't black, and Oprah wouldn't have become rich if she weren't black. What do Beck, Gibson and Limbaugh have in common? They are all a "hot mess".
We live in extreme times when people are saying and doing outrageous things.
Politicians do and say anything and everything to get votes; racist comments are back in style; celebrities seek attention and implode before our eyes and banks and oil companies create disasters of biblical proportions.
theGrio has compiled a Hot Mess List, an examination of people, events, topics and concepts that go over the top, offend our standards of good taste, make us cringe, and sometimes even make us laugh.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
Mel Gibson is in a lot of trouble these days. In a voicemail message to his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, the actor, producer and director apparently went on a verbal rampage, laden with racist and misogynistic expletives.
In a released audiotape, he referred to Latinos as wetbacks, and told Grigorieva that "if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault."
Gibson is no stranger to racist and sexist rants. Four years ago, Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. He told the arresting police officer, who was Jewish, "F***ing Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He also asked a female officer "What are you looking at, sugar t*ts?"
But this time, he might have gone too far, and his career could suffer for it. Gibson's agent WMA decided to drop him as a client because he is unmarketable. "There's nothing to do for Mel Gibson at the moment," a spokesperson for the agency said. "No one will touch him with a 10-foot pole."
But Gibson is not alone in his over-the-top behavior. Fox News jester Glenn Beck just started a university, and decided to book the Lincoln Memorial--on the anniversary of Dr. King's March on Washington--to hold a march of his own.
Rush Limbaugh said President Obama wouldn't have been elected if he weren't black, and Oprah wouldn't have become rich if she weren't black. What do Beck, Gibson and Limbaugh have in common? They are all a "hot mess".
We live in extreme times when people are saying and doing outrageous things.
Politicians do and say anything and everything to get votes; racist comments are back in style; celebrities seek attention and implode before our eyes and banks and oil companies create disasters of biblical proportions.
theGrio has compiled a Hot Mess List, an examination of people, events, topics and concepts that go over the top, offend our standards of good taste, make us cringe, and sometimes even make us laugh.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
California NAACP Is Right for Supporting Prop 19
The war on drugs has been a war on communities of color, plain and simple. Some people realize that it is time to end a war that has devastated so many people, so many families, and has accomplished little to deal with actual drug addiction. A criminal justice model for drug use must give way to a public health model and a regulatory framework.
The California NAACP, with the support of law enforcement professionals, realizes that the state's battle for legalization of marijuana is part of the war against the war on drugs. And this new war is part of the fight for civil rights. Yes, pot legalization is a civil rights issue.
California NAACP president Alice Huffman is catching a great deal of flack for supporting Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in her state. In an official statement, the California NAACP mentioned a recent study by the Drug Policy Institute that clearly shows marijuana laws are unfairly applied to young African Americans. Although young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than their white counterparts, they are arrested for marijuana possession at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites. In Los Angeles County, blacks are 10 percent of the population, but 30 percent of the weed-related arrests.
Supporting the NAACP is Neill Franklin, a retired black narcotics cop who now leads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of pro-legalization cops, judges and prosecutors. These are the people who have been on the frontlines of the war on drugs. And war can leave you weary and disillusioned, particularly when you don't like what you witnessed in that war. "As a member of the NAACP, and as a former police officer who waged the 'war on drugs' for three decades, I can tell you that it is long past time to change our failed marijuana laws," Franklin said. "Like Alice and the other good folks at the NAACP, I'm tired of seeing young black men and women funneled through the revolving doors of the criminal justice system, all in the name of a 'war on marijuana' that actually does nothing to reduce its use." Franklin also believes that continuing the failed policy of prohibition bears obscene human and fiscal costs, and California voters need to know that.
Franklin and LEAP are standing with Huffman on an important policy issue, but they are also supporting the embattled California NAACP chief against unwarranted attacks from anti-reform groups. First and foremost among the forces out to get Alice Huffman is the conservative black clergy, led by Bishop Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition (IFBC).
The IFBC website raises more questions than it answers about the organization, which purports to represent a coalition of more than 4,100 congregations. That's quite a claim, and quite unsubstantiated for that matter. The group describes itself as "an all-denominational, multi-racial, non-partisan non-political coalition of churches, ministries, community based organizations, governmental agencies, businesses and concerned individuals." Yet, this "non-partisan, non-political" group lists among its partners the California Republican Party and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (in fairness it also lists U.S. drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske).
And curiously, IFBC claims the NAACP as a partner, even as it simultaneously urges people on its website not to support the NAACP. "I would like to commend Rev. Ron Allen in his leadership against this evil Prompt 19 [sic]," said Rev. Anthony Evans of the National Black Church Initiative, on the IFBC website. Rev. Evans, by the way, has taken a prominent role against same-sex marriage in Washington. DC., and declared the black church will no longer allow African-American politicians to promote policies (i.e., gay marriage) that hurt the black church. It is uncertain how same-sex marriage will hurt the black church, but oh well.
Of Huffman and "Prompt" 19, Rev. Evans asserted "The NAACP is becoming an enemy to the Black family... Now they are allowing Ms. Huffman to unleash her unethical practices by supporting drugs that have ravished the African American community over the past 30 years." He continues: "I am authorizing all of our churches in the West Faith Command not to [sic] give a damn dime to the NAACP and not allow their congregation to be used for any of the NAACP meetings. There is no way that the Black Church will permit this immoral act as it will only further the devastation of the African American community."
Conservative preachers such as Rev. Evans and Bishop Allen are missing the whole point about the war on drugs, or perhaps this is intentional. Has drug addiction destroyed lives? Yes, to be certain, but so too have the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and these substances are not criminalized, but are regulated and treated as health concerns. Detractors insist Alice Huffman and the NAACP are an enemy of black America for supporting the legalization of marijuana. Yet, how can the prohibitionists claim to act in the interests of the black community when they support the perpetuation of a failed drug war that has placed countless black, brown and poor white folk behind bars, wasting their lives away in a cell, separated from their children, with their communities depleted of resources, hollowed out and disenfranchised?
The California NAACP is under fire when it should be applauded for its courage. Alice Huffman is carrying out the mission of her organization, ensuring that it protects civil rights and remains relevant in changing times. Should we expect her to do less?
The California NAACP, with the support of law enforcement professionals, realizes that the state's battle for legalization of marijuana is part of the war against the war on drugs. And this new war is part of the fight for civil rights. Yes, pot legalization is a civil rights issue.
California NAACP president Alice Huffman is catching a great deal of flack for supporting Proposition 19, the ballot initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in her state. In an official statement, the California NAACP mentioned a recent study by the Drug Policy Institute that clearly shows marijuana laws are unfairly applied to young African Americans. Although young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than their white counterparts, they are arrested for marijuana possession at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites. In Los Angeles County, blacks are 10 percent of the population, but 30 percent of the weed-related arrests.
"While marijuana has been decriminalized over the years, there are staggering statistics that African Americans in every county of California have conviction rates far and above those of whites. It is time for the War on Drugs to focus on drug lords and cartels," the NAACP said. "We need to give our young African American citizens a chance at opportunity and not an arrest record that dooms their chances of success. The money spent on these minor drug arrests could be better used on education, health services, and counseling."
Supporting the NAACP is Neill Franklin, a retired black narcotics cop who now leads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of pro-legalization cops, judges and prosecutors. These are the people who have been on the frontlines of the war on drugs. And war can leave you weary and disillusioned, particularly when you don't like what you witnessed in that war. "As a member of the NAACP, and as a former police officer who waged the 'war on drugs' for three decades, I can tell you that it is long past time to change our failed marijuana laws," Franklin said. "Like Alice and the other good folks at the NAACP, I'm tired of seeing young black men and women funneled through the revolving doors of the criminal justice system, all in the name of a 'war on marijuana' that actually does nothing to reduce its use." Franklin also believes that continuing the failed policy of prohibition bears obscene human and fiscal costs, and California voters need to know that.
Franklin and LEAP are standing with Huffman on an important policy issue, but they are also supporting the embattled California NAACP chief against unwarranted attacks from anti-reform groups. First and foremost among the forces out to get Alice Huffman is the conservative black clergy, led by Bishop Ron Allen of the International Faith Based Coalition (IFBC).
The IFBC website raises more questions than it answers about the organization, which purports to represent a coalition of more than 4,100 congregations. That's quite a claim, and quite unsubstantiated for that matter. The group describes itself as "an all-denominational, multi-racial, non-partisan non-political coalition of churches, ministries, community based organizations, governmental agencies, businesses and concerned individuals." Yet, this "non-partisan, non-political" group lists among its partners the California Republican Party and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (in fairness it also lists U.S. drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske).
And curiously, IFBC claims the NAACP as a partner, even as it simultaneously urges people on its website not to support the NAACP. "I would like to commend Rev. Ron Allen in his leadership against this evil Prompt 19 [sic]," said Rev. Anthony Evans of the National Black Church Initiative, on the IFBC website. Rev. Evans, by the way, has taken a prominent role against same-sex marriage in Washington. DC., and declared the black church will no longer allow African-American politicians to promote policies (i.e., gay marriage) that hurt the black church. It is uncertain how same-sex marriage will hurt the black church, but oh well.
Of Huffman and "Prompt" 19, Rev. Evans asserted "The NAACP is becoming an enemy to the Black family... Now they are allowing Ms. Huffman to unleash her unethical practices by supporting drugs that have ravished the African American community over the past 30 years." He continues: "I am authorizing all of our churches in the West Faith Command not to [sic] give a damn dime to the NAACP and not allow their congregation to be used for any of the NAACP meetings. There is no way that the Black Church will permit this immoral act as it will only further the devastation of the African American community."
Conservative preachers such as Rev. Evans and Bishop Allen are missing the whole point about the war on drugs, or perhaps this is intentional. Has drug addiction destroyed lives? Yes, to be certain, but so too have the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and these substances are not criminalized, but are regulated and treated as health concerns. Detractors insist Alice Huffman and the NAACP are an enemy of black America for supporting the legalization of marijuana. Yet, how can the prohibitionists claim to act in the interests of the black community when they support the perpetuation of a failed drug war that has placed countless black, brown and poor white folk behind bars, wasting their lives away in a cell, separated from their children, with their communities depleted of resources, hollowed out and disenfranchised?
The California NAACP is under fire when it should be applauded for its courage. Alice Huffman is carrying out the mission of her organization, ensuring that it protects civil rights and remains relevant in changing times. Should we expect her to do less?
July 12, 2010
Will the New Black Panthers become another ACORN?
From theGrio:
Did the New Black Panther Party intimidate Philadelphia voters on Election Day in 2008? Is the Obama Justice Department guilty of an anti-white voter bias when it dropped most of the charges against the Panthers? A former Justice Department lawyer would have you believe that the answer to both of these questions is yes. And he would also have you believe he is a whistle-blower, but don't believe the hype.
On Tuesday, J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A career official at DOJ, Adams claims that the department's civil rights division instructed its lawyers to ignore voter intimidation cases involving black defendants and white victims. He quit his position in May 2010.
All of this stems from an incident on Election Day 2008 in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, which, oddly enough, is my neighborhood. King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, two members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, placed themselves at the entrance to a polling place in a heavily African-American area. They were dressed in black militant attire, and Shabazz was carrying a nightstick. The two men allegedly hurled color-coded slurs and insults such as "white devil" and "you're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker." Police told Shabazz to leave but allowed Jackson to stay.
On its way out the door, the Bush administration brought a case against the group, accusing them of violating the Voting Rights Act. The Obama administration -- under the nation's first black attorney general, Eric Holder -- dismissed most of the charges for lack of evidence.
I certainly heard about the incident when it happened, but as the police officer says, "Keep moving, nothing to see here." And if there was anything to see, certainly we would have been talking about it in Philly, don't you think? Certainly, the right-wing noise machine at FOX News will attempt to make something out of this, but they will try in vain.
"The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career," Adams said in a recent Washington Times opinion piece following his resignation. "Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law.... The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election." But Adams' allegations appear weak. He failed to mention that when he worked under the Bush Justice Department in 2006, they declined to charge the Minutemen for voter intimidation against Latinos in Arizona, a case similar to the Panthers.
If Adams believes that the New Black Panther case was the worst case he has seen in his career, then he must not get out that much. The watchdog group Media Matters calls the whole thing a "manufactured story" from "a political operative with an ax to grind" and who wants to make Obama look bad right before the midterm elections. And even Abigail Thernstrom--Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a conservative member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who has shown nothing but open hostility towards minority voting rights--called this case "very small potatoes." Thernstrom said in the National Review that "There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general -- his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters -- but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics."
Nevertheless, under the Bush administration, Karl Rove politicized the Justice Department. In those days, officials purposefully ignored racial discrimination against people of color, did not enforce the civil rights laws, and ran the department based on a mixture of smoke and mirrors, and incompetence. They filled the once-prestigious department with 150 graduates of televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. They focused on distractions and scams such as reverse discrimination, anti-Christian religious discrimination, and voter fraud, which is little more than right-wing codeword for suppression of the black and Latino vote. Remember all of the drama over the community nonprofit group ACORN and those bogus charges of voter fraud? Conservatives were really angry because ACORN registered all of those new black, brown and poor voters that subsequently brought about an Obama victory.
So, it is no surprise that the Bush attorneys would care so much about the New Black Panthers. And conservative witch hunters, conspiratorial and deceptive as they are, are trying to make the Panthers the new ACORN. In the end, they are prejudiced against the president because he's black, and they believe, as Glenn Beck once claimed, that Obama is a racist who doesn't like white people. It doesn't help that his attorney general is black either.
Like the saying goes, where there is smoke, there is a fire. But with the case against the New Black Panthers, there's only smoke and mirrors, and lots of racial hating on Barack Obama--a man who has restored integrity, competence and the rule of law to the White House. So let's keep moving.
Did the New Black Panther Party intimidate Philadelphia voters on Election Day in 2008? Is the Obama Justice Department guilty of an anti-white voter bias when it dropped most of the charges against the Panthers? A former Justice Department lawyer would have you believe that the answer to both of these questions is yes. And he would also have you believe he is a whistle-blower, but don't believe the hype.
On Tuesday, J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A career official at DOJ, Adams claims that the department's civil rights division instructed its lawyers to ignore voter intimidation cases involving black defendants and white victims. He quit his position in May 2010.
All of this stems from an incident on Election Day 2008 in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, which, oddly enough, is my neighborhood. King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, two members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, placed themselves at the entrance to a polling place in a heavily African-American area. They were dressed in black militant attire, and Shabazz was carrying a nightstick. The two men allegedly hurled color-coded slurs and insults such as "white devil" and "you're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker." Police told Shabazz to leave but allowed Jackson to stay.
On its way out the door, the Bush administration brought a case against the group, accusing them of violating the Voting Rights Act. The Obama administration -- under the nation's first black attorney general, Eric Holder -- dismissed most of the charges for lack of evidence.
I certainly heard about the incident when it happened, but as the police officer says, "Keep moving, nothing to see here." And if there was anything to see, certainly we would have been talking about it in Philly, don't you think? Certainly, the right-wing noise machine at FOX News will attempt to make something out of this, but they will try in vain.
"The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career," Adams said in a recent Washington Times opinion piece following his resignation. "Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law.... The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election." But Adams' allegations appear weak. He failed to mention that when he worked under the Bush Justice Department in 2006, they declined to charge the Minutemen for voter intimidation against Latinos in Arizona, a case similar to the Panthers.
If Adams believes that the New Black Panther case was the worst case he has seen in his career, then he must not get out that much. The watchdog group Media Matters calls the whole thing a "manufactured story" from "a political operative with an ax to grind" and who wants to make Obama look bad right before the midterm elections. And even Abigail Thernstrom--Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a conservative member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who has shown nothing but open hostility towards minority voting rights--called this case "very small potatoes." Thernstrom said in the National Review that "There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general -- his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters -- but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics."
Nevertheless, under the Bush administration, Karl Rove politicized the Justice Department. In those days, officials purposefully ignored racial discrimination against people of color, did not enforce the civil rights laws, and ran the department based on a mixture of smoke and mirrors, and incompetence. They filled the once-prestigious department with 150 graduates of televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. They focused on distractions and scams such as reverse discrimination, anti-Christian religious discrimination, and voter fraud, which is little more than right-wing codeword for suppression of the black and Latino vote. Remember all of the drama over the community nonprofit group ACORN and those bogus charges of voter fraud? Conservatives were really angry because ACORN registered all of those new black, brown and poor voters that subsequently brought about an Obama victory.
So, it is no surprise that the Bush attorneys would care so much about the New Black Panthers. And conservative witch hunters, conspiratorial and deceptive as they are, are trying to make the Panthers the new ACORN. In the end, they are prejudiced against the president because he's black, and they believe, as Glenn Beck once claimed, that Obama is a racist who doesn't like white people. It doesn't help that his attorney general is black either.
Like the saying goes, where there is smoke, there is a fire. But with the case against the New Black Panthers, there's only smoke and mirrors, and lots of racial hating on Barack Obama--a man who has restored integrity, competence and the rule of law to the White House. So let's keep moving.
Racially Biased SAT Speaks To A Broken Education System
From BlackCommentator.com:
An interesting study was just released by the Harvard Educational Review on racial bias in the SAT Reasoning Test, that well-known college entrance exam that so many educational institutions swear by in the admissions process. Well, according to the study, not only does the SAT discriminate against economically disadvantaged students, but it also results in different scores based on race, even when the students are of equal academic ability.
This study finds, curiously, that more difficult questions on the college entrance test favor black students (yes, favor), while easier questions favor white test takers. As a whole, however, the exam is skewed towards white students-- not because of their skills or aptitude, but because many questions reflect cultural expressions that are prevalent in white society. In other words, and I smell a lawsuit somewhere, some questions are hurting African-American students. On the reading section of the SAT, blacks score an average of 429, 99 points below their white classmates.
The College Board has reacted to the score disparities based on income and race by saying hey, society is unfair, but the test is fair, and the gap is attributable to educational inequities. But somehow, that explanation just isn't good enough.
On one level, the Harvard study reinforces what many have known for quite some time. The SAT has received scrutiny over the years, and standardized testing as a whole has its origins in IQ testing and the racist eugenics movement. High-stakes testing has forced students to learn the test rather than to learn something valuable. Colleges and universities have over-relied on these standardized exam scores in the admissions process. However, a growing number of schools have decided to no longer require the SAT, and this report is another good reason for other colleges to follow suit.
Although the SAT is a big problem facing American education that needs addressing, it is not the only problem. Rather, it is merely the tip of the iceberg. After all, many young people are not even in a position to take an SAT test or go to college. The cradle-to-prison pipeline in poorer and disproportionately black and brown communities provides children with a poor excuse for an education in crumbling, crappy, subpar schools. They are programmed for a life with few options other than to go behind bars. The communities that provide the prisoners are predictable: North Philly, East New York, East L.A., Chicago's South Side. In Brooklyn, NY, some blocks in predominantly black neighborhoods are known as "million-dollar blocks": the state pays $1 million or more to imprison residents of that block. At a cost of $30,000 per prisoner, that's at least 33 prisoners per block. In 2003, there were 35 such blocks in Brooklyn, and even a $5 million block--at least 167 prisoners from a single city block.
Prisons are a big business, it cannot be denied. And the majority of the prisoners in the U.S. are people of color. But sometimes green trumps any other color. The "kids for cash" scandal in mostly white, rural Luzerne County, PA--in which judges were paid by prison companies to throw good kids into jail-- shows that any of our children might be sale, no matter their complexion. Might as well lock them up and throw away the key, the saying goes, in order to decrease the surplus population.
Education is regarded as a tool for upward mobility and personal success. Many jobs that once required only a high school diploma now require a college degree. And in any case, many of those jobs are being outsourced or otherwise shipped offshore to a cheaper labor source. Although college might not be for everyone, there are relatively few options for those who wish to pursue training and acquire skills outside of a college setting.
And for those who do make it to college, many are saddled from the start with a mortgage-sized debt--due to the exponential rise in tuition costs, and the cozy deals made over the years between unscrupulous lending institutions and equally unscrupulous institutions of higher education.
Meanwhile, to be frank, the Great Recession has cast serious doubt on the value of education as a tool for success in capitalist America. Education is important for personal enrichment and fulfillment, building character and creating better individuals, to be sure, but there are no jobs. A generation of young people is graduating with degrees, doing everything that society told them to do, and yet there is no work for millions of them. And their $100,000 to $200,000 in school loans is sticking around like baggage. Five of them are chasing one job. Extension of their unemployment benefits is precarious because Congress would rather throw the money into sinkholes for the military and Wall Street bankers. This is a lost generation of people who start their career in chronic, long-term unemployment, unable to make it out of the gate because they cannot find a job to get a career off the ground. Now, the black community never was a stranger to unemployment, due to institutional racism. And the black unemployment tends to be double that of whites, in good times and bad. Nevertheless, these days, with massive layoffs and millions of jobs disappearing, never to return in this lifetime, far more Americans are having a "black experience," if you will, than they would care to admit.
If we do not act now to solve the education crisis in our nation, and the related problems of inequality and deprivation, surely we will all sink together.
An interesting study was just released by the Harvard Educational Review on racial bias in the SAT Reasoning Test, that well-known college entrance exam that so many educational institutions swear by in the admissions process. Well, according to the study, not only does the SAT discriminate against economically disadvantaged students, but it also results in different scores based on race, even when the students are of equal academic ability.
This study finds, curiously, that more difficult questions on the college entrance test favor black students (yes, favor), while easier questions favor white test takers. As a whole, however, the exam is skewed towards white students-- not because of their skills or aptitude, but because many questions reflect cultural expressions that are prevalent in white society. In other words, and I smell a lawsuit somewhere, some questions are hurting African-American students. On the reading section of the SAT, blacks score an average of 429, 99 points below their white classmates.
The College Board has reacted to the score disparities based on income and race by saying hey, society is unfair, but the test is fair, and the gap is attributable to educational inequities. But somehow, that explanation just isn't good enough.
On one level, the Harvard study reinforces what many have known for quite some time. The SAT has received scrutiny over the years, and standardized testing as a whole has its origins in IQ testing and the racist eugenics movement. High-stakes testing has forced students to learn the test rather than to learn something valuable. Colleges and universities have over-relied on these standardized exam scores in the admissions process. However, a growing number of schools have decided to no longer require the SAT, and this report is another good reason for other colleges to follow suit.
Although the SAT is a big problem facing American education that needs addressing, it is not the only problem. Rather, it is merely the tip of the iceberg. After all, many young people are not even in a position to take an SAT test or go to college. The cradle-to-prison pipeline in poorer and disproportionately black and brown communities provides children with a poor excuse for an education in crumbling, crappy, subpar schools. They are programmed for a life with few options other than to go behind bars. The communities that provide the prisoners are predictable: North Philly, East New York, East L.A., Chicago's South Side. In Brooklyn, NY, some blocks in predominantly black neighborhoods are known as "million-dollar blocks": the state pays $1 million or more to imprison residents of that block. At a cost of $30,000 per prisoner, that's at least 33 prisoners per block. In 2003, there were 35 such blocks in Brooklyn, and even a $5 million block--at least 167 prisoners from a single city block.
Prisons are a big business, it cannot be denied. And the majority of the prisoners in the U.S. are people of color. But sometimes green trumps any other color. The "kids for cash" scandal in mostly white, rural Luzerne County, PA--in which judges were paid by prison companies to throw good kids into jail-- shows that any of our children might be sale, no matter their complexion. Might as well lock them up and throw away the key, the saying goes, in order to decrease the surplus population.
Education is regarded as a tool for upward mobility and personal success. Many jobs that once required only a high school diploma now require a college degree. And in any case, many of those jobs are being outsourced or otherwise shipped offshore to a cheaper labor source. Although college might not be for everyone, there are relatively few options for those who wish to pursue training and acquire skills outside of a college setting.
And for those who do make it to college, many are saddled from the start with a mortgage-sized debt--due to the exponential rise in tuition costs, and the cozy deals made over the years between unscrupulous lending institutions and equally unscrupulous institutions of higher education.
Meanwhile, to be frank, the Great Recession has cast serious doubt on the value of education as a tool for success in capitalist America. Education is important for personal enrichment and fulfillment, building character and creating better individuals, to be sure, but there are no jobs. A generation of young people is graduating with degrees, doing everything that society told them to do, and yet there is no work for millions of them. And their $100,000 to $200,000 in school loans is sticking around like baggage. Five of them are chasing one job. Extension of their unemployment benefits is precarious because Congress would rather throw the money into sinkholes for the military and Wall Street bankers. This is a lost generation of people who start their career in chronic, long-term unemployment, unable to make it out of the gate because they cannot find a job to get a career off the ground. Now, the black community never was a stranger to unemployment, due to institutional racism. And the black unemployment tends to be double that of whites, in good times and bad. Nevertheless, these days, with massive layoffs and millions of jobs disappearing, never to return in this lifetime, far more Americans are having a "black experience," if you will, than they would care to admit.
If we do not act now to solve the education crisis in our nation, and the related problems of inequality and deprivation, surely we will all sink together.
July 3, 2010
The evolution of Robert Byrd's racial politics
Published in theGrio:
When Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) died on June 28 at the age of 92, he was the longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history. In 2006, he was reelected for an unprecedented ninth term in office. And he was elected by his colleagues to more leadership positions than any senator ever. With 18,000 votes cast and a career attendance record of 98 percent, he had a proud record of achievement. But he also had a disturbing history as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd would later renounce his racist past, demonstrating to us that people have the power to change and move beyond their hate.
In his final years, Sen. Byrd was frail, in poor health and confined to a wheelchair. Yet, he was still on call to vote for President Obama's health care reform bill and help ensure its passage. In his early years, it is safe to say, Byrd was sick with the disease of racism, segregationist sentiment and a hatred of black people. At age 24, he joined the Klan in 1942 and rose to positions of leadership within the white supremacist organization. He vowed to fellow segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo (D-Mississippi) that "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
When Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) died on June 28 at the age of 92, he was the longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history. In 2006, he was reelected for an unprecedented ninth term in office. And he was elected by his colleagues to more leadership positions than any senator ever. With 18,000 votes cast and a career attendance record of 98 percent, he had a proud record of achievement. But he also had a disturbing history as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd would later renounce his racist past, demonstrating to us that people have the power to change and move beyond their hate.
In his final years, Sen. Byrd was frail, in poor health and confined to a wheelchair. Yet, he was still on call to vote for President Obama's health care reform bill and help ensure its passage. In his early years, it is safe to say, Byrd was sick with the disease of racism, segregationist sentiment and a hatred of black people. At age 24, he joined the Klan in 1942 and rose to positions of leadership within the white supremacist organization. He vowed to fellow segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo (D-Mississippi) that "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
Supreme Court Hearings Remind Us of What's at Stake
I don't know about you, but after watching the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, I was given the distinct impression that Thurgood Marshall was being subjected to a criminal trial, post-mortem, by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The late great Supreme Court justice -- and the first African-American to sit on the high court -- was mentioned no fewer than 35 times the first day. Meanwhile, President Obama was mentioned only 14 times.
Elena Kagan has the nerve to actually admire such a man as Marshall, a civil rights giant who served as lead attorney in the Brown v. Board of Education case, and served as a jurist of high distinction. She even served as a law clerk to the man. How dare she! Didn't the White House people properly vet this candidate, so as to discover such disturbing, and potentially deal-breaking, information in her past?
Each time a Supreme Court nominee comes before the Senate, we should expect the same thing: one group of lawmakers will ask thoughtful, probing questions in an attempt to determine the candidate's suitability for the nation's top judicial body. But the other group, generally a contingent of dour white-male, pro-corporate, segregationist holdovers, are charged with the task of disrespecting any nominee that does not subscribe to their narrow and flawed worldview. And it is this second group -- which never passes up the opportunity to portray themselves as the twenty-first century reincarnation of Senators Strom Thurmond, Theodore Bilbo and James Eastland -- that tells you all you need to know about the nature and purpose of these hearings.
And these Republicans spent valuable time sullying the name of a man who accomplished more for this country than they could ever dream in a thousand lifetimes, and whose shoes they are unworthy to fill collectively, much less shine.
Harsh words, perhaps, but the unsolicited commentary those senators provided that day was harsh, and was said in the presence of Justice Marshall's son. The common theme was that liberal activist judges are evil, whatever "activist" means, with particular attention paid to Marshall's view that "you do what you think is right and let the law catch up." Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) condemned Kagan for praising Marshall for believing that "it was the role of the courts in interpreting the Constitution to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government." Kyl also said that Marshall's judicial philosophy "is not what I would consider to be mainstream," and slammed Marshall for "his unshakable determination to protect the underdog."
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said of Kagan's purported "liberal" political leanings, "And if at the end of the day, you think more like Justice Marshall than Justice Rehnquist, so be it." Well, one would hope that Kagan does not think like the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, who once defended the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, and began his legal career working for Operation Eagle Eye, a Republican project to intimidate, harass and exclude black and Latino voters. He also fought the passage of a Phoenix, Arizona ordinance allowing blacks to enter stores and restaurants.
In his opening statement, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) reminded us that Elena Kagan "clerked for Judge [Abner] Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge." Yes, she clerked for a Jew and a black, and we know what happens when you get those Jewish and black civil rights-loving activist types together. Surely this thinly-veiled racist point was not missed by the Tea Party base for which Sessions' troubling message was intended, provided their mental capacity allowed them to catch it.
And Sessions is not one to be in judgment of anyone, yet he remains on the Senate Judiciary committee. This is the man who was rejected by the Senate for the federal bench because he opposed the Voting Rights Act. As a U.S. attorney in Alabama, he called a black assistant U.S. Attorney "boy" and warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." He said the NAACP and the ACLU were "un-American and Communist inspired" groups that "forced civil rights down the throats of people." As a federal prosecutor, Sessions engaged in a voter-fraud witch-hunt against three Black civil rights workers, including a former aide to Dr. King. Moreover, during a 1981 KKK murder investigation, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers."
Race was a fixture of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, and apparently race is a big part of the Kagan hearings, even though Kagan is not a person of color. That's because the ultra-Right Republicans can't let it go. Race-baiting is their crack, if you will, and they refuse to get treatment for their affliction. The race card won them many an election. And though their base of good ol' boys is dwindling, they refuse to divest themselves of a strategy that is doomed to failure in light of changing demographics.
The Kagan hearings, or any Supreme Court hearings for that matter, are part of the war to win over the hearts and minds of America, to determine what kind of country we want this to become.
Conservatives will decry the rise of the liberal activist judges who legislate from the bench. But activism is in the eye of the beholder. I cannot think of any greater examples of activism than the gems promulgated by the current court, such as the Citizens United decision, which gives corporations free rein to influence the political process. And another great example is the court's new interpretation of Second Amendment, in which the language regarding "a well regulated militia" is misconstrued as a fundamental right of personal gun ownership under federal and state and local law. This, in a nation with 30,000 gun murders a year.
In the end, the real question is whether we want the Dred Scott court and the Plessy court, or the court that gave us the Brown decision. It's for the people with power or its power for the people. And that's what these hearings are all about.
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