Afro-Netizen

The garrulous wonk, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), has been quoted in a newly released article in The New York Observer as saying the following about his colleague and new rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL):

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

He has apologized (sorta) for his use of the word "clean". And seemingly much of the news generated around this apparent gaffe on the part of white mainstream journalists is on what Biden meant by "clean" and how those of us loud, super-sensitive Blackfolk will take it. And the disparity between the two is grist for the mill, chum in the water, and [insert your own cliché here].

The focus is on "clean" because white corporate journalism wants to skillfully intimate that Biden is making a not so subtle commentary on other "Black leaders'" integrity and motivations that they themselves (besides Fox News and the like) do not have the courage to admit to: that they think that Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson are hustlin' snake oil salesmen.

This is what many white (non-self-identified conservative) journalists in print and broadcast arenas would love to say explicitly, emphatically and relentlessly, but don't due to the veneer of objectivity they would like to project and the limited, but still significant influence of these two same objects of their scorn.

The reality is that many discerning people believe that while Biden's use of "clean" was questionable, at the very least, other elements of his statement -- and his statement as whole -- were far worse than the possible jab at the probity of non-Obama Black leaders.

To Senator Obama's credit, while seemingly letting Biden off the hook about his use of the word "clean", the senator quickly reminded Biden of other esteemed Black presidential candidates (i.e., Chisolm, Jackson, Moseley Braun &  Sharpton).

The real question that should be posed to not only Biden, the mainstream media, to the growing hordes of overwhelmingly white Obamamaniacs (and to Senator Obama himself) is: why is this Black politician really so different and perceived to be so different? That is an underlying and essential question that must be answered to expose the nature and impact of this multi-faceted Obama phenomenon.

He is not as yet the first potentially viable Black presidential contender. He is not the first or only articulate Black public servant, nor the first "nice looking" or intelligent Black politician, all of which traits are highly subjective determinations. So, now we come to Biden's use of the term "mainstream".

Mainstream is one of those funny words like love and racism, because everyone seems to have their own definitions. For me, my sense is that what Biden wanted to say was that Obama is an assimilitated negro. And the set of criteria for this assessment are Obama's image as non-ministerial Black politician who is smart, clean-cut, telegenic, broadly charismatic, light-skinned, well-educated and one who speaks standard English-speaking as well or better than most whitefolk (i.e., the all too familiar racist compliment: "he's sooo articulate!"). This, on top of the fact frequently noted fact that his mother was white (and from the heartland) and ostensibly may have a split racial allegiance or cultural identity that many hope transcends race entirely.

However, this is not an image or political identity that Obama has to verbalize, but is attributed out of the neurosis of racism that compells its victims to twist reality in such a way that conforms to their socio-political dementia.

Within seconds of ending his seminal public address at the Democratic Convention in Boston 3 years ago, a fellow (white) blogger standing next to me in the nose-bleed section there exaltingly sighed, "He's the Tiger Woods of politics!" A revealing comment meant as compliment and taken (by me) as an insult; code for: he's not really Black. He's just like one of us, only with a slightly darker complexion. He's an exception because he's exceptional.

Blackfolk, just like other oppressed people in this society, are expert in deciphering linguistic and non-verbal codes. And the simple fact remains that to many (but not all) of us, Biden's initial remarks, lengthy protestations and rote genuflection to the arbiters of racial correctness evince the most common strain of unintentional racism that make us question the motivations of the most stalwart white supporters of Obama.

This suspicion that I'm fairly certain many African Americans share about Obama's broad, if not shallow, popularity thus far centers on Obama's very own mantra around the idea of hope. However, much like love and racism, what hope means to me as a Black man is vastly different than what hope might mean to many white people in the context of modern American politics.

I have the hope, to quote Rev. King, "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." But for many of my white counterparts, much of their hope appears to be invested in the notion that enough racial progress has been made thus far as manifest in the media-produced iconography of Barack Obama (and Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Colin Powell). And as a result, this new, young, meta-racial "rock star" can be emblematic of a new political environment in which white people can live in a guilt-free post-Civil Rights era simply by their conspicuous evangelizing around the myth of the 21st century American "melting pot" while neglecting the substance of working towards racial and economic justice for all.

BET founder, billionaire Bob Johnson, is at it again via his banking venture, Urban Trust Bank.

According to Black Enterprise, Urban Trust Bank may be locating some of its banks in Wal-Mart stores. While such arrangements with banks is not new for Wal-Mart, it would represent a first, as Urban Trust Bank is a Black-owned financial institution.

While this may be a good thing for Bob Johnson, Urban Trust Bank and Wal-Mart, how good will this arrangement be for everyone else -- most notably, the communities who suffer from Wal-Mart's very presence in their neighborhoods?

I'm all for supplier diversity, but at what cost?

I'm so glad that CNN investigated and debunked the e-hoax around Sen. Barack Obama's Muslim schooling while a youth in Jakarta, Indonesia. If it had been verified that indeed Obama did attend an actual madrassa as a child, how could he be fit to serve his nation?

Could you imagine if it were revealed that a long-standing and highly esteemed public servant was once a member of a terrorist organization? That would rock the nation to its very core! Clearly, that person would have to resign his office and leave public life for good, right?

Wrong:

(God bless fauxtography (for the moment, anyway!)

We've been bombing Somalia!

We've been bombing Somalia!

We've been bombing Somalia -- a sovereign nation!

As the mainstream press coverage so clearly spells out . . .

The U.S. has been bombing suspected terrorist targets and individuals tied to such targets believed to be involved in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Well, as long as they're not bombing just random targets, I guess that's okay. And maybe Somalia's not actually a sovereign nation on account of the fact that the U.S. has not yet successfully quelled opposition to the new government it has installed there in its global crusade to spread freedom like chunky peanut butter on thin, moist white bread.

But how can any red-blooded American dispute the noble intent of fighting the bad guys on their turf so that they won't wage war on our shores? After all, they're "suspected terrorists"? What more justification do we need than that?

Well, bear in mind that if Nelson Mandela were still a political prisoner in a post-9/11 Apartheid South Africa, the U.S. could be bombing his fellow African National Congress (ANC) party members and supporters which the U.S. Department of State once considered a terrorist organization.

Imagine the carnage that that could have been caused if history unfolded differently. Oprah Winfrey and Bono would be hiding out in caves like Osama as we speak!

I fell asleep watching last night's State of the Union address. The last thing I recall the President allude to was "strategury". On second thought, maybe I was watching an old SNL re-run. Regardless, I had the distinct displeasure of reading the transcript of Dubya's speech this morning.

No mention of Hurricane Katrina. No mention of Osama bin Laden. No mention of the U.S. bombing the hell out of the sovereign African nation of Somalia. He finally acknowledged the existence of global warming. Or, as the prez stated: "global climate change". Some were pleasantly surprised at this inaugural acknowledgment. But, honestly, what kind of party should we throw for someone who just recently accepts Newton's Law of Gravity?

Just to drive home my antipathy for the man who ironically mouths the sentiment of not giving in to "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations", I thought I would share the image that has been contained in an e-mail that has gone "viral" recently (see above). It uses a quote attributed to the throaty, but incisive Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY).

And on an end note, I thought I would ask you, the readers, what the heck you made of Dubya's final words . . .

As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "Each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream -- until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream -- until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream -- until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.

I'm confused, is this post-September 11th Attacks era an age holding on to a dying dream or one that is "coming to birth"? And regardless of which one you believe it is, what is the dream? And did I even peg this current "age' correctly? Maybe it's the post-Macaca era. Your guess is as good as mine.

What can I say? Friday was all about Jesse for me.

I sat in a back row of the darkened, behemoth grand ballroom of the Marriott to hear, once again, Rev. Jesse Jackson. I have met this man on several occasions. I have seen him on TV, cable, radio and print innumerable times. I have heard his speak live countless times as well. And I am always amazed afterwards at my own surprise regarding how much he moves me and myriad others.

Rev. Jackson has a gift. But it is a gift that is enveloped by acutely honed skills and discipline based on intensive research and study. Yet he is best known for rhyming. A man who has rescued more American hostages from more countries than Dubya can spell (or pronounce correctly).

He bemoaned despite these achievements, the media want him to come on-air only to discuss "black topics". He has been consistently labeled an inverate "self-promoter" for his near-ubiquitous presence on TV. However, if listen closely to his commentary, Rev. Jackson, unsolicitedly, speaks up for poor and working class whites, migrant workers, Iraqi families and the lot more frequently than perhaps any other public figure in America.

Rev. Jackson connects the dots -- dots few others in mainstream media or their lackees have the courage to admit exist. Dots like structural inequality.

Jackson is a loquacious man. This is true. However, in an era of sound-byte "communication", audiences some times need these lengthy sermons that much more. He provides all too undervalued context and historical weight to media reform (and other important issues) which, sadly, I have gathered at this conference and in the blogosphere many see as an end, whereas as Jackson implored the 1,500+ audience to recognize as a means to a much higher end.

What end is that, you ask? The same end that Jackson has always touted despite whatever frailties and missteps he has made or is constantly being maligned for: an even playing field.

I encourage you to listen to his speech and draw your own conclusions.

Afro-Netizen has been in Memphis since Thursday afternoon, participating at the National Conference for Media Reform.

On Thursday evening there was a party sponsored by the Save The Internet Coalition at Gibson Guitar factory off Beale Street where I saw a number of progressive and new media colleagues and other folks in this eclectic bag of journalists, activists, technologists, etc.

Before arriving at Gibson, several of us, including Tracy Van Slyke and Jessica Clark of In These Times, Ludovic Blain of the New Progressive Coalition, Roberto Lovato of the New American Media, Lark Corbeil and Susan Green of Public News Service, Carolyn Cushing of Progresive Communicators Network and a few others threw down on some ribs and fried pickles at BB King's joint.

After the "party", which felt more like an awkward junior high social, with most people lining the walls or milling about in the cavernous foyer, I joined colleague Steve Katz of Mother Jones/The Media Consortium for a bit more to eat at the Blues Café. We joined Vincent Stehle of the Surdna Foundation, reform activist Jenny Toomey and three other underground radio activists from Philly, one of whose names I vividly recall was Pete Tridish. (Get it? Petrie Dish.)

Sitting at the table next to us was none other than actor and progressive activist, Danny Glover. I opted to give him space while he gabbed and ate with his table mates, figuring that I would get another chance to meet him -- and potentially interview him -- later on at the conference.

By 11'ish, I was exhausted from all of my travel, swine consumption, networking and walking around in Memphis' balmy night air.

James Brown’s historic contribution to Black self-determination is incalculable, writes BAR’s Executive Editor. The ‘Godfather of Soul’ made it possible for the masses of people to affirm their own name. 

By Glen Ford
Executive Editor
Courtesy of Black Agenda Report

“Overnight, it seemed, the great bulk became ‘Black’ people.”

In death, James Brown this past weekend vied for headlines with two other passing luminaries: a former U.S. president, Gerald Ford, and the man a generation of Americans have been taught to hate, Saddam Hussein. That’s world class celebrity – no doubt about it. However, despite all the accolades, I believe the historical James Brown has been short changed. Even Brown’s many, mostly self-authored titles – “Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” “Godfather of Soul,” “Soul Brother Number One,” to mention just a few – fail utterly to convey the Barnwell, South Carolina native’s seismic impact on the modern age. James Brown can arguably be credited with a feat few humans have achieved since the dawn of time.

He named an entire people: Black Americans.

More accurately, James Brown was the indispensable impresario who chose the moment and mechanism that allowed Black Americans to name themselves. He was the Great Nominator who in 1968 put forward for mass consideration the term that the descendants of former slaves would voluntarily and by acclamation adopt as their proud, collective designation. “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” set in motion a tsunami-like process – breath-taking in speed and scope – that for the first time in their North American history created a mass social forum through which slave descendants could loudly register their ethnic-name preference. Overnight, it seemed, the great bulk became “Black” people – with an attitudinal clause: get used to it.

The uniqueness of the Brown-impelled nomenclature change lay in its referendum-like character. With “Say It Loud,” Mr. Brown, who had earned a powerful bullhorn by forging direct, cultural connections to the masses – which is, of course, what popular entertainers do – cracked open the social space in which a whole people could quickly affirm or reject their Blackness. The phenomenon built upon, but was more far-reaching than, Stokely Carmichael’s popularization of “Black Power,” two years earlier. Carmichael’s slogan called for – demanded – power for Black people. But James Brown’s anthem actually empowered ordinary Black folks to signal to their leaders and oppressors – the whole world, in fact – the fundamental terms of any dialogue: how they were to be addressed.
“Everybody got a chance to declare whether or not they were ‘Black and proud.’”

To be sure, group nomenclature had been a near obsession among Africans/Negroes/Coloreds/Blacks as far back as intra-Black debates have been recorded. But the late Sixties, the point in history seized by James Brown to introduce his plebiscite, was a time of both unprecedented mass Black political action (including urban rebellions) and the emergence of Black-oriented media that could reach into every nook and cranny of the national Black polity. For the first time, the Black call-and-response could be national – that is, people-wide – and, in political terms, near-instantaneous. Through the medium of Black-oriented radio – which was then a one-sound-fits-all Black demographics affair – the Black call-and-response was no longer limited to the literate classes, or to the realm of the church. Thanks to Black radio, everybody got a chance to declare whether or not they were “Black and proud.” Most voted, “Yes.” It was a landslide. The skeptical minority were drowned out by the Black and newly-Black, or borne along by the back-beat of James Brown and the Famous Flames.

Fully essay here

By Salim Lone
Courtesy of The Nation

The stability that emerged in southern Somalia after sixteen years of utter lawlessness is gone, the defeat of the ruling Islamic Courts Union now ushering in looting, martial law and the prospect of another major anti-Western insurgency. Clan warlords, who terrorized Somalia until they were driven out by the Islamists, and who were put back in power by the US-backed and -trained Ethiopian army, have begun carving up the country once again.

With these developments, the Bush Administration, undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, has opened another battlefront in this volatile quarter of the Muslim world. As with Iraq, it casts this illegal war as a way to curtail terrorism, but its real goal appears to be to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic area of the world through a client regime. The results could destabilize the whole region.

The Horn of Africa, at whose core Somalia lies, is newly oil-rich. It is also just miles across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through that waterway. The United States has a huge military base in neighboring Djibouti that is being enlarged substantially and will become the headquarters of a new US military command being created specifically for Africa.

Read more

Writer Paul Street shares cogent reflections on post-Civil Rights era racism and its intricate intersections with color and class in a recent essay of his published in the always incendiary and incisive Black Commentator.

Here's a sneak peek:

[Oprah's largely white female audience was] happy for Jamie [Foxx] and Oprah and Chris Rock and all the other African-Americans who have “made it” in the United States.  And they were happy for America’s benevolent decision to slay the beast of racism and open the doors of equal opportunity to all. It was another chance for white self-congratulation and for whites to forget about – and lose more sympathy for – the large number of black Americans who are nowhere close to making it in post-Civil Rights America.

. . . For a considerable portion of whites in “post-Civil Rights” America, black-white integration and racial equality are more than just accepted ideals.  They are also, many believe, accomplished realities, showing that we have overcome racial disparity. According to a survey conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, and Harvard University in the spring of 2001, more than 4 in 10 white Americans believe that blacks are “as well off as whites in terms of their jobs, incomes, schools, and health care.”

The 2000 US Census numbers that were being crunched as this poll was taken did not support this belief.  More than three and a half decades after the historic victories of the black Civil Rights Movement, the census showed, equality remained a highly elusive goal for African-Americans. In a society that possesses the highest poverty rate and the largest gaps between rich and poor in the industrialized world, blacks are considerably poorer than whites and other racial and ethnic groups.  Economic inequality correlated so closely with race that:

• African-Americans were twice as likely to be unemployed as whites.
• To attain equal employment in the United States between blacks and white, 700,000 more
• African-Americans would have had to be moved out of unemployment and nearly two million
  African-Americans would have to be promoted into higher paying positions.
• The poverty rate for blacks was more than twice the rate for whites.
• Nearly one out of every two blacks earned less than $25,000 but one in three whites made that little.
• Median black household income ($27,000) was less than two thirds of median white household income ($42,000).
• Black families’ median household net worth was less than 10 percent that of whites. The average white household has a net worth of $84,000 but the average black household is worth only $7,500.
• Blacks were much less likely to own their own homes than whites.
  Nearly three-fourths of white families but less than half of black families owned their homes.

Meanwhile, blacks were 12.3 percent of U.S. population, but comprised nearly half of the roughly 2 million Americans currently behind bars. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of black men in jail or prison grew fivefold (500 percent), to the point where, the Justice Policy Institute reported in 2002, there were more black men behind bars than enrolled in colleges or universities in the U.S.  On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males ages 20 to 29 were under correctional supervision – either in jail or prison or on probation or parole. According to the best social science estimates in 2002, finally, one in five black men was saddled with a prison record and an astounding one in three black men possessed a felony record.

I encourage you to read the full essay!

Paul Street (pstreet99 <at> sbcglobal <dot> net) is the author of Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2004) and Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy, and the State of Black Chicago (Chicago, IL: The Chicago Urban League, April 2005).

(Sometimes silly must trump substantive.)

FYI, don't click on the above link while drinking milk.

Enjoy the holidays!

By Rinku Sen
Republished courtesy of In These Times

Policies designed without racial justice goals can actually deepen the divide, while creating the illusion that they've taken care of everyone.

Every few years, a white progressive man begs activists to reject racial questions and focus on the “real” agenda. The latest is Walter Benn Michaels, head of the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who wrote the book The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality, and who was recently featured on this site (“Is Diversity Enough?” October).

Rather than saving democracy or liberating the working class, the argument goes, progressives have been forced by narrow-minded people of color to obsess about whether they have one of each kind on their conference panels or college faculties. In this narrative, identity politics is to blame for the inability of progressives to stick together, thereby making room for the rise of conservatism. Michaels says as much, barely acknowledging any other factors, including the right wing’s brilliant (and highly racialized) campaigns to establish its ideas in the American consciousness.

For 20 years, I have worked as an organizer and journalist in racial justice organizations owned and operated by people of color, hoping to contribute to a vibrant larger movement. My current employer, the Applied Research Center, holds that it’s important to be “explicit about race but not exclusive.” That’s not diversity; it’s a sensible analysis for a complicated world.

Analysts like Michaels repeatedly harp on “diversity” as if that’s the only measure of racial progress. That reflects their deep lack of connection with actual communities and their cluelessness about the role that race plays in economics and democracy. They want to write off racism as a distraction from universal solutions, or as a divide-and-conquer tactic to split the working class.

Read more

Kudos to David Swanson of ImpeachPAC for deftly dissecting the Associated Press "coverage" of outgoing incendiary Congresswoman, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) on her bold move to introduce articles of impeachment against Dubya before taking her leave of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The mainstream media, and the feckless bloggers (conservatives and so-called progressives alike) who claim to challenge the Beltway status quo, can be glad that this much maligned representative will be gone (for now, anyway). But the bottom line (for me) is that she consistently spoke truth to power for all those who lack the voice and forum she had. Rep. McKinney will be departing Capitol Hill with a definitively progressive voting record that proves she walked the talk in rain or shine, regardless of which way the political winds blew.

Indeed, the enemies she has amassed over her tenure on the Hill is an impressive and protean cadre of folks any true progressive activist should boast having. For that roster of nemeses is a lot more substantive and telling than the years of faux reportage on her at the hands of most journalists and bloggers.

In a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal, writer Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg talks about the business of segregating books -- specifically Black books.

Here's a sneak peek:

"You face a double-edged sword," says Mr. Massey, 33 years old. "I'm black and I'm published by a black imprint, so I'm automatically slotted in African-American fiction." That helps black readers to find his books easily and has underpinned his career. At the same time, he says, the placement "limits my sales."

The article goes on . . .

As a practical matter, segregating books by race and culture makes it less likely that black writers will hit the national best-seller lists -- whites make up a majority of book buyers -- limiting their chances of earning bigger paychecks. Nadine Aldred, who writes as Millenia Black, says that writer Jennifer Weiner might not have become a best-selling author if her books had been sold exclusively in a Jewish-American section. Ms. Weiner, whose books include "Good in Bed" and "Little Earthquakes," agrees. "If my books were perceived as Jewish 'chick lit,' there would be a narrower appeal," she says.

Definitely an article well worth reading.

You can read the full article here.

(N.B. This link will be automatically deactivated by WSJ in 7 days or December 14, 2006.)

In Walter Mosley's second installation in a cycle of essays published in The Nation, the author looks at the tricky matter of class in America, what it means and how malleable its definition continues to be.

Indeed, we cannot truly understand the import of race without simultaneously analyzing the subtle intricacies of class in a society that rarely addresses this issue head-on. It is also true that we cannot fully understand class in this country without factoring in race (and for that matter, gender).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the following excerpt republished courtesy of The Nation. But I encourage you to read the entire essay as well.

What is the difference between the working class and the middle class? Is it a clearly demarcated line dividing those who pass on wealth and those who accrue it?

Most people I know consider themselves middle-class workers. They're making good money, they say, and have good credit at the bank. Their children will go to good colleges and get better jobs. They will retire in comfort and travel to Europe (or Africa) to see the genesis of their culture.

These self-proclaimed middle-class citizens feel a certain private smugness about their proven ability to make it in this world while those in the working and lower classes--because of upbringing, lack of intelligence or will, or bad luck--are merely the fuel for the wealth of the nation.

But how do you know where you fit in the class system? Is it a level of income? Is it defined by education or the kind of job you possess? Is class a function of your relationship to your labor? For instance, are you in the middle class because you own your own business? Or are we defined by our rung on the ladder? As long as we are not at the bottom (or the top), then we can say we are in the middle.

It's a difficult question because the economic state of everyone's life in this world is in perpetual flux. . . .

Read the full piece here.

Breathing While Black
By Christopher Rabb
Republished courtesy of The Nation
(Originally web published on December 2, 2006)

There is nothing like being made to feel like a nigger. Just having to verbalize it or commit such a thought to text is gut-wrenching. Janitor or journalist, if you're black in America, that feeling is both unmistakable and more familiar than it ever should be so long after the the visible successes of the civil rights movement. But despite the greater prospects, opportunities and privileges earned for and by many of us over the decades, the default has remained the same: The power dynamics that exist in this country at any given time may render us niggers.

I have often joked that if you ever want to see a modern-day Uncle Tom, look no further than me in the vicinity of a white police officer. The reality is, that is how I have been conditioned to behave around the police for pure self-preservation reasons, having grown up black in Chicago with parents who wanted their boys to live to adulthood. But the other reality is that whatever newfound liberties I have experienced, and all too often have taken for granted, I don't ever want to be made to feel like a nigger--something far, far worse than its utterance. It is a status whose roots form the tree from which we are lynched. Without the corollary lack of humanity and powerlessness, lynching could not occur, in all of its modern iterations, " contagious shootings" included.

Read more

If only it were that simple. Few things are, and the Black haircare market in urban America is no exception.

Watch the following video vignette for yourself and see how this compelling 6-minute documentary directed by high school filmmaker Rebecca Christian for the San Diego Asian Film Foundation's Reel Voices Documentary Project will raise as many questions as it seeks to answer.

Writer Derek Jennings weaves quite a narrative at AlterNet about his relationship to the word: nigger. It is masterfully written with wit, authenticity and nuance.

In it he writes:

What makes me really uncomfortable, though, is "nigger" and its cousin, "nigga." I generally don't F wit' the N-word(s). I'm quick to playfully deride those who euphemize regular curse words (saying "Darn" when we and they know damn well they meant "Damn"). But I'm so self-conscious about ni**er that even when writing it, I generally self-censor, adding asterisks. As if that makes a bit of darned difference.

The reason for my discomfort? Words like nigger, and hate speech, in general, have an added dimension of meaning, a historical intent to cause harm, communicate a threat or symbolize a power dynamic. There's a saying that goes, "It ain't what you call me, it's what I answer to." In the not-too-distant past, black folks had no control over what others called us, and reflexively, we co-opted the N-word, fashioning myriad alternative meanings and usages of it in an attempt to take the sting out of it. That's why the N-word is so unique among hate speech -- it's now used most frequently by the very people it was meant to oppress.

Please do read his entire essay, here.

In my small little corner of the world in northwest Philadelphia, I have been helping get out the vote (GOTV) for the 500+ registered Democrats who elected me this past May as one of two Democratic committeepeople to represent my ethnically and economically diverse, green, family-friendly community.

As of about 3:30pm, our humble division (aka precinct in most other cities) has an almost 50% voter turn-out. And polls will remain open to at least 8pm, depending on how many voters remain lined up outside in front of our new polling place at a progressive episcopal church conveniently located less than a block from my house.

My young volunteer, Hamilton, along with my fellow committeeperson, Dan, along with our Republican counterpart, Jane, all hand out literature to civic-minded neighbors, all the while guardedly optimistic about the prospects of victories in and well beyond the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

While I am excited about our chances in the House, I do not share that optimism about the U.S. Senate. Moreover, my last stab at predictions in 2004 was painfully wrong/embarrassing!

Though many people like to make predictions, most have the good sense not to share them with tens of thousands of people across the country, as I did 2 years ago.

Anyway, it will be a long and suspenseful night. And I look forward to debriefing with you all later.

Back to the polls in time for the evening rush!

Barely after the sun rises tomorrow morning, party apparatchiks will dissect the voting data to determine who captured politics’ golden chalice — suburban and exurban white voters — and how.   

Racism historically dictated both parties’ flirtations with suburban and exurban white voters — “End Forced Busing!” “States Rights!” “Contain Urban Crime!” — but now centrist racial politics do. Read how.

Occupying the middle lane, centrist racial politics try to be the most amount of things to the most amount of (white) people.  This outlook soothes the guilt of some whites, skillfully panders to the racial fears of others, and generally serves to woo the moderate “swing” white voter.   Try as they might, the Democrats can barely conceal their ambivalence towards issues facing racial minorities (immigration, affirmative action, etc).

The exurbs are having a big impact in the three Senate races that matter most to both parties: Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri.  Centrist racial politics produced some troubling moments, but also delicious comedy — especially in these crucial “toss-up” races.

Today, White voters in the emerging suburbs and exurbs in a handful of states may determine which party controls the US Senate.  And their brethren nationwide, establishment strategists believe, hold the keys to the 2008 presidential election.   

The rest of America, beware: centrist racial politics in Exurbland are transforming its voters’ hobby horses — school “choice,” taxpayer and private property “rights”, gated communities, and “color-blind” indifference — into sacred cows. 

Rich Benjamin is Senior Fellow at Demos, based in New York City.

According to the New York Times:

A Brown University committee has recommended the Boston school open a center for the study of slavery and injustice.

The Committee on Slavery and Justice, which was formed to analyze the schools` 18th century ties to slavery, also recommended Brown build a memorial and step up efforts to recruit minority students from Africa and the West Indies.

Acknowledging that these recommendations are not an attempt to "change the past", the chairperson of Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, Professor James Campbell, stated that "'we`re not making a claim that somehow Brown is uniquely guilty". This statement is, no doubt, an augur foreshadowing other elite institutions -- educational and otherwise -- internal and public grappling with this centuries-long blight of institutional racism and the poisoned fruit (i.e., ill-gotten and still accumulating wealth) it has produced and so unequitably distributed.

One is left to ask the question: Will it take a person of African descent to ascend to the office of chief executive of any and all institutions that have been financially enriched by their direct and substantive involvement in the U.S. slave trade in the past to provide appropriate reparations to their respective communities and society at large? Or can we hope that any leader in that position who embraces truth, light and reconciliation will have the moral courage to rise to President Ruth Simmons' level of vision and commitment to justice.

To download a PDF of the Committee's full report on this matter, please click here.

To read related new items, please click.

. . . "niggas and Black people", to quote from one of comedian Chris Rock's more popular and controversial stand-up routines, when an employee of this restaurant chain allegedly chose to discriminate against Rock's mother and sister recently.

According the Associated Press, . . .

The mother of black comedian Chris Rock said Tuesday she will sue a restaurant chain after she was seated but ignored for more than a half hour at one of the chain's restaurants along the South Carolina coast.

Rose Rock said she and her 21-year-old daughter were the only blacks at the Cracker Barrel chain's Murrells Inlet restaurant in April. Rock said she asked the manager about the delay and was told she and her daughter could have a free meal.

"He never called over the waitresses and asked why did these people sit here for an hour without service?" she said. "The only thing he said was we could have a free meal and neither of us wanted to eat."

To ensure that this matter will be handled delicatedly in the press, Mrs. Rock will be joined by Rev. Al Sharpton (he says sardonically).

Founded in 1969, Cracker Barrel operates 547 restaurants in 41 states, and has been embattled by a series of racial discrimination lawsuits.

Why? Report blames racism, says mammograms, care may be inferior

By Jim Ritter
Health Reporter
Chicago Sun-Times

African-American women in Chicago are much more likely than white women to die of breast cancer, and the racial gap is widening, according to a new study that calls the disparity "morally wrong, medically unacceptable and reversible."

Just 10 years ago, black and white women in Chicago died at the same rate from breast cancer. But the most recent figures available, for 2003, show the mortality rate among black women was 73 percent higher, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital's Urban Health Institute report in a study being released today. Nationwide, the gap was about half that -- 37 percent.

The disparity in death rates appears to be the result of racism, "and it appears to be institutionalized," said Alan Channing, chief executive of Sinai Health System.

In Chicago, white women are diagnosed with breast cancer at a rate 15 percent higher than the rate in black women.

So why are more blacks dying from the disease?

Read more

I got a surprising e-mail from former Virginia governor, centrist Democrat Mark Warner. (Actually, I, and however many thousands of folks on his Forward Together PAC e-newsletter, received the same form e-mail message entitled "Thank You".)

The e-mail basically said: I'm out like Foley. (Okay, not "out"-out, but "gone" out.)

That's right, Warner's bowing out of a 2008 presidential bid, which probably is a huge relief for Senator Clinton, who now has no real competition -- regardless of whether Kerry throws his hat in the ring again or not -- assuming Obama can resist sitting this one out.

Of course, this news begs the question: Will Warner's decision have any influence on whether Gore enters the race?

For an interesting peek into virtual ruminations on a real Gore bid, check out MB Williams' blog post on this subject.

MB Williams is the campaign manager of Draft Gore 2008 PAC, which, oddly enough, has no direct affiliation with the former two-time VP, Albert A. Gore, Jr.

Stay tuned!!!  . . .

By Walter Mosley
Courtesy of The Nation Magazine

. . . and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!"

--Book of Revelation, Chapter 6, Verse 6

A while ago I was thinking about the phenomenon of famine; about how blight, disease, war, human nature and the earth itself sometimes conspire to deprive us of what we need to survive. At times starvation is used as a political tool by those in power to insure their control; other times it's just the season.

There are few afflictions worse than the slow death of entire families and villages, whole cultures that see death coming in each other's eyes. In its pure form famine is hunger carried out to its inescapable
conclusion: pain and suffering wending unerringly to eternal emptiness.

It's not surprising that I was having these cheery thoughts while thinking about my country, my people, my race and how these intimate and integral parts of my life are juxtaposed with, and often aligned
against, the rest of the world.

The deprivation of famine is certainly at its worst when people waste away and die. But there is also the possibility of another kind of famine: a dearth in the human soul. This barren emotional landscape,
this spiritual famine is in full swing today among our people and in much of the rest of the world. Hopelessness, emptiness and senseless cynicism have taken up residence in so many of our hearts that we seem to be wasting away even while we are surrounded by riches and blessed
with potential unequaled in human history.

We can see the deficiency in our nation through many sad manifestations: our willingness to go to war even though we are well aware that violence is the last resort of brutes; the poverty that grows daily like the vig on a loan shark's bottom line; the enormous expansion of our prison population; the stark, hungry and rampant adulation of wealth and fame.

I decided to come to The Nation to see if I could publish a cycle of brief reflections to create a dialogue about this psychic anorexia that has weakened our spirits to the point of collapse....

...These reflections are the work of an ordinary thinker with an average mind who, despite his limitations, desires to have the whole world move forward, leaving no child, woman or man behind. This work is optimistic and inclusive, not elite, restricted or an example of brilliance. The questions here are all that matter. If my inquiries about our situation strike any chord, then the dialogues that follow will be worth the effort.

* * *

America stands on a fiscal precipice here at the start of the twenty-first century. China and India and South America present powerful challenges to our economic hegemony; Europe's united economy
also imperils our dominance. Our money is worth less daily, our children's potential is dwindling; our medical insurance, Social Security and ability to make choices about when and if we retire are
fast eroding.

We cannot, with our present economic system, compete with Asia's burgeoning workforce. We are no longer superior in technology or the culling of natural resources. We can't even afford to pick our own
vegetables or dig our own graves.

We've made enemies of the adherents of Islam, socialists, the French and much of the rest of the world. Most of our citizens are in debt over products that were made according to the lawful conspiracy of planned obsolescence, and we are mired in a war that we cannot win and yet cannot stop waging.

We say, and most of us believe, that our form of government is democratic at its root. But contradictorily, we suspect that it is the wealthiest among us who control Congress, the legal system and the presidency itself.

If we are lucky enough to achieve old age we know that all of our savings must be lost before we are interred in public nursing homes that have the smell and feel of detention camps--the last stop in the
American Dream.

Our prisons are overflowing with undereducated and angry people of color, poor whites and the mentally ill.

Fast food clogs our arteries, and sugar is sprinkled over everything like fairy dust on ever-expectant Cinderellas. Television distracts us, and the Lotto is one of the minor faiths under the greater religion
of Capitalism.

This is America. This is our home.

Read more

By James Wright
NNPA News Report

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – To the chagrin of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require government-issued identification to vote. The requirement does not take affect until elections in 2010, but has already drawn condemnation from CBC members and the civil rights community.

The bill, ''The Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006,'' was passed Sept. 20 by the House, 228-196, along partisan lines.

Theodore Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called the legislation 'un-American.''

''It's a modern day poll tax. Any bill that would require all eligible citizen voters to engage in a bureaucratic process to obtain a citizen ID that includes swearing poverty in order to vote is corrosive and undemocratic,'' he said.

''The bill effectively transforms the vote from a right to a privilege by elevating the privileged over those citizens who will disproportionately become ensnared in this voting trap including African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, the elderly, disabled and the poor.''

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Sept. 20, joined other CBC members and members of Congress of Asian and Latino caucuses in voicing concerns about the bill.

''I am beyond disgusted,'' he said of the bill's passage, ''I am shocked.''Noting that Georgia is wrestling with the issue of voter IDs, he said:

''I find it hard to believe that the Republican leaders in Congress would put election year games ahead of the voting rights of Americans. People died in democratic process. We must not turn back the clock. We must open up the political process and let all Americans come in.''

Lewis noted that ''a poll tax is an extra burden on their most precious right'' which is to vote.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said that the bill is counterproductive to what democracy is about.

''As a country with one of the lowest percentages of voter participation in the world, we should be doing everything we can to remove the barriers to voting,'' she said.

''For example, we should have been debating legislation to fix the real problems with the 2002 and 2004 elections--long voting lines, voter intimidation, faulty machines, poor training of poll workers, discriminatory voter registration laws, or for example making Election Day a federal holiday so that everyone can exercise their right to vote.''

Rep. Al Wynn (D-Md.) had problems with his race for re-nomination for his seat. He made a point of bringing that out.

''Given the irregularities regarding the close vote in the Fourth Congressional District, we should be cautious of any bills that infringe on citizens' right to vote,'' Wynn said.

''It's a shame that two months after the Voting Rights Act we have passed this. This is an unfair mandate on the American people.''

NAACP President and Chief Executive Officer Bruce Gordon said that the bill's name is misleading and that instead of securing the integrity of the elections process, it undermines it.

''To add insult to injury, the bill would do little or nothing to prevent actual instances of voter fraud,''
Gordon said.

''Rather (the bill), would only exacerbate the already existing problem of voter non-participation by erroneously removing or discouraging countless eligible voters, American citizens from the process.''

The bill still has to go through the Senate and has to pass both houses before it can be enacted into law.

Chevy's icky, exploitative new ad

By Seth Stevenson
Slate.com

Listen to the author reading this story here, or sign up for Slate's free daily podcast on iTunes.

The spot: Singer John Mellencamp leans on the fender of a Chevy pickup, strumming an acoustic guitar. He sings, among other things, "This is our country." Meanwhile, a montage of American moments flies by: Rosa Parks on a bus. Martin Luther King preaching to a crowd. Soldiers in Vietnam. Richard Nixon waving from his helicopter. And then modern moments: New Orleans buried by Katrina floodwaters. The two towers of light commemorating 9/11. As a big, shiny pickup rolls through an open field of wheat and then slows to a carefully posed stop, the off-screen announcer says, "This is our country. This is our truck. The all-new Chevy Silverado."

This ad makes me—and, judging by my e-mail, some of you—very angry. It's not OK to use images of Rosa Parks, MLK, the Vietnam War, the Katrina disaster, and 9/11 to sell pickup trucks. It's wrong. These images demand a little reverence and quiet contemplation. They are not meant to be backed with a crappy music track and then mushed together in a glib swirl of emotion tied to a product launch. Please, Chevy, have a modicum of shame next time.

I should probably leave it at that (the poor ad is just trying to sell trucks, after all, in its own muddle-headed way). But this isn't your basic flag-waving car commercial. It mixes patriotic images with some heart-rending, shameful episodes from our past. And the ambiguity is furthered by the presence of John Mellencamp—a guy who, in a different incarnation, used to make semipolitical statements about the dark side of the American dream. A guy who wrote an open letter in 2003 arguing that the Iraq war was "solidifying our image as the globe's leading bully" and wondering why President Bush hadn't been "recalled" yet. Mellencamp once sang the line, "Ain't that America" with a decidedly bitter tinge. Now he sings the remarkably similar line, "This is our country," and it's hard not to wonder what he means by it.

Read more

By Josephine Hearn
The Hill

It may be more than two years until the 2008 election, but it’s not too early for some Democratic presidential hopefuls to begin courting the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in the hopes of currying favor among African-American voters.

Three would-be candidates planned to drop in last week on the CBC’s annual legislative conference, a four-day political networking event that draws thousands of politically active African-Americans to the capital.

Although wooing the black vote is a perennial activity for those vying for the Democratic nomination, it is even more important after national Democrats decided last month to schedule an earlier primary date in South Carolina, a state with a large black population. The move was designed specifically to give African-Americans more say in the nominating process.

At the CBC’s conference last week, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 nominee and a candidate now experienced in building support among black leaders, spoke Thursday at an event on minority-owned small businesses.

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) attended the conference’s awards dinner and VIP reception Saturday night, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) would have spoken on a panel Thursday had he not been forced to travel overseas at the last minute, his spokesman said.

A yearly event resembling a “church revival,” in the words of Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the 36-year-old legislative conference has been de rigueur for Democratic presidential candidates, with some of the most savvy attending two years in advance of the election. Kerry and former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) came in 2002. Then-Vice President Al Gore spoke in 1998, accompanying then-President Clinton, who made an appearance every year of his presidency.

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Later today will inaugurate my first time "cyber-paneling" where my comments (in mp3 format) will be played in my absence, as I have had fly out belatedly to Silicon Valley on pressing business.

There is a slim chance that I can break away from my commitment here in the Bay area for a few minutes to participate remotely in the Q&A session via video conference that will happen after the panelists speak this afternoon. But we'll see. I've asked the panel's moderator, my comrade, Micah Sifry, to text message me 15 minutes before the Q&A will begin.

Without such MacGyver-esque efforts, I will be missing out on what assuredly will be a great panel discussion among many others during this 3-day conference in Washington, DC entitled: Seize the Moment!: A National Activists Conference on the Public Financing of Elections.

The conference is sponsored by Democracy Matters, Common Cause, and Public Campaign, the latter which produced a powerful interactive report on called The Color of Money: Campaign Contributions, Race, Ethnicity and Neighborhood, which Afro-Netizen blogged on when it came out in 2004.

The agenda looks quite interesting and relevant, with a diversity of participants and attendees from various spheres of influence.

September/October 2006 Edition

By Chris Rabb
Contributor
ColorLines Magazine 

My genealogical quest to untangle ancestry and heritage.

IN JUST OVER TWO YEARS OF DNA TESTING, I may have become the most genetically well-documented Black person to date.

I have cajoled and convinced relatives to assist me in this quest by swabbing the inside of their cheeks in furtherance of the family good. After more than a decade of intensive research in the tradition of our family's elder genealogists going back three generations, I've been able to identify 10 distinct African lineages coursing through my body. I've been able to uncover what for so many descendants of enslaved Africans is a tragically elusive piece of our family history. What I initially thought was a potential means by which government agencies and eugenicists could harvest and misuse people's genetic code, I eventually saw as a powerful tool to delve deeper into the cultural diversity of my African ancestry.

But I quickly realized that the more intently I sought to learn about my Black ancestors, the more I would have to research the white people who owned them. A notable subset of the slave owners were also my ancestors. Many white people-mainstream journalists in particular-ask me how I used this technology to identify the prominent white ancestors in my pedigree. The answer is, I didn't. It was neither my goal, nor my interest.

While I was growing up, my complexion and features constantly reminded me of this fact, a reality I only came to peace with it when I learned the distinction between ancestry and heritage. Before this epiphany, the idea of white male ancestors who owned and raped my Black female ancestors filled me with so much rage and frustration that I nearly lost the will to learn more.

Genes, however, don't tell the whole story. Often, they only illuminate the corners of this planet from which our ancestors hail. The larger narrative is what our forbearers chose to do in those corners and how that, generations later, produced us and the socio-political circumstances into which we were born. Once I drew the line between what I was (my ancestry, which I cannot control) and who I was (the heritage I choose to embrace), whatever I uncovered in my genealogical journey had little impact on my racial identity. And racial identity, not to be confused with race-the biological term-is an incendiary and malleable artifice of our own making. What we loosely and provocatively call race, so often conflated with color, culture and consciousness, changes with the passing of each historical moment and each footstep toward or away from those earthly corners from which our ancestors migrated.

When my circuitous research finally revealed the identity of the first slave-owner who was also an ancestor of mine, I cringed and wishing it wasn't so. When that painful experience repeated itself for the second, third, fourth and fifth time, I had to consciously choose to process these genealogical realities in a way that did not psychically relegate me to being a man who descends from multiple rapists. That's when my epiphany came: How can I be ashamed for acts I did not commit? How can I take responsibility for the choices an ancestor-any ancestor-made decades, generations or centuries before I was even born? For that matter, how could I take pride in something I had nothing to do with?

I descend from 2 Black parents, 4 Black grandparents, 8 Black great grandparents and 16 Black great-great grandparents. Of my 32 great-greatgreat grandparents, at least 5 ancestors were white, slave-owning men who had relations with enslaved Black female forbearers. But for me, Ewondo, Tikar, Bamileke of Cameroon, Mende, Kru and Temne of Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ga of Ghana, Yoruba of Nigeria, Berber of Morocco and Pakistani, are a select sampling of my ancestral ethnicities that have influenced the heritage I own.

When I visited the site of the antebellum Rabb plantation from where my surname comes, I longed to know about my great-greatgreat grandparents who were kidnapped from points unknown and despaired that it might be impossible to find the names, language, beliefs and even just that small piece of the world they called home. I always knew my ancestors had a place in history. Now, thanks to science, I know where those places are, not just in history, but on a world map and amidst the tangled, blood-drenched, but resilient roots of my ever-expanding family tree.

Chris Rabb's forthcoming book
about his family and genealogy
is called Rivers to the Soul.

Human Rights and the Realities of Returning to New Orleans

By JEFFREY BUCHANAN
CounterPunch

Buried amidst video montages of a still devastated Lower Ninth Ward and sound bytes from the pundits and politicians who have come to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina's one year anniversary, the biggest story will continue to be who is not in the city. Sadly our nation's greatest tragedy continues for a displaced and dispossessed American community unprecedented in scale.

Katrina was more than just a failed levee system or a botched response to disaster. The storm displaced over a half million people, uprooting them from their homes and property. As they were being evacuated, these people trusted their government to help them eventually return home and to protect their rights. Now their geographically divided voices remain inaudible in the halls of government as their rights are gradually ignored.

Citizen groups in New Orleans like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now insist that all the storm's displaced survivors have a right to return to their neighborhoods, an idea backed up by internationally accepted human rights standards developed by the United Nations.

"After the storm, virtually every aspect of daily life became a struggle, particularly for displaced low- and moderate-income families," explains Stephen Bradberry, head organizer for ACORN New Orleans. "As we discover the city's new future, it is only right that these folks are fully engaged in the rebuilding process and can come home to benefit from its outcomes."

Mayor Ray Nagin and even some federal officials have begun giving the right to return lip service without enacting meaningful legislation to allow the displaced to exercise this right.

More than half of New Orleans' pre-Katrina population, predominately African Americans from working class communities like the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, and Holy Cross, has not returned. These were the vibrant neighborhoods that gave birth to the food, music and culture of the city and their residents were the backbone of the city's economy; small business owners, line chefs, hotel maids, and even the most revered musicians like Fats Domino.

More than 200,000 displaced former residents of New Orleans, spread across 46 different states, who have been denied their human right to return face numerous obstacles to be able to come home. They have no way of knowing the current state of their homes and neighborhoods-basic issues like whether the water and electricity are running, or whether their local schools are open. Their remains no centralized source for this information, neither government-run services nor private news sources. Most government decisions affecting their neighborhoods do not make it into the news broadcasts in their new communities. Without this necessary information it is nearly impossible for displaced people to make an informed decision to move back home.

Read more

By Michael Eric Dyson

For more than a year, I've been embroiled in a public debate with Bill Cosby about poor blacks. Cosby has been harshly critical of the poor, blaming them for their plight and arguing that personal responsibility is the key to their success. Cosby has dismissed both social forces and the legacy of racism in berating the poor for their many failures--bad parenting, bad language and bad behavior.

I have acknowledged that personal responsibility is an important element in all people's flourishing. I have also argued that it is naive and irresponsible to ignore the negative impact of low wages, poor health care, persistent prejudice and conservative public policies on the lives of the black poor.

Recently, civil rights leader (and my dear friend) Rev. Jesse Jackson and columnist Clarence Page have entered the fray. I'm afraid they've both missed the point of my criticism of Cosby's beliefs.

In an open letter, Jackson contends that my "attacks on Dr. Bill Cosby are too harsh," and that it is "one thing to disagree with his views, but quite another to personally denigrate him to make one's point." Instead of saying how this is the case, Jackson defends Cosby by chronicling his generosity to Jackson's organizations. Jackson also points to Cosby's pioneering role in defeating racial stereotypes as a reason to admire him.

True, but that has little to do with the legitimacy of my criticism of Cosby's stern rebuke to the poor. In the absence of any supporting evidence, it might appear that Jackson is arguing that the very act of my disagreeing with Cosby is to denigrate him. But that would mean that kowtowing to the rich and mighty had replaced the role of social criticism and, presumably, strong black leadership: to speak truth to power and defend the vulnerable.

Jackson is justly famous for doing both. Renowned scholar John Hope Franklin reminded him of it recently in a public forum. When Jackson asked Franklin about Cosby's comments about poor black folk, Franklin said that too many influential blacks have been "co-opted by white people" and have "betrayed their own race." Franklin urged Jackson to keep up his fight for the voiceless.

In a profile of Jackson by Don Terry in the Tribune Sunday magazine last year, Jackson said that while he agreed with much that Cosby had to say, he thought the comedian's words were too harsh and lacked context. I agree with Jackson's assessment, one that I think he should have repeated in his open letter to me. Jackson calls for a balanced approach to our problems: Black folk must exercise personal responsibility as we fight "institutional inequality and injustice." I agree. But Cosby's stark insistence on personal responsibility while slighting institutional impediments is a gross distortion of the situation of the black poor.

Jackson knows better. He has criticized others for holding such out-of-kilter views. He must summon the courage to confront Cosby.

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The solicitor general urges the Supreme Court to scrap schools' voluntary programs that exclude some students because of their race.

By David G. Savage
The Los Angeles Times

Washington - The Bush administration has urged the Supreme Court to strike down voluntary school integration programs across the nation that exclude some students because of their race.

Administration lawyers filed briefs this week in pending cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., on the side of white parents who are challenging "racial balancing" programs as unconstitutional.

The parents say the integration guidelines amount to racial discrimination and violate the Constitution's guarantee of the equal protection of the laws. They lost in the lower courts, but the Supreme Court will hear their appeals in the fall.

In the briefs, U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the justices to rule that "the use of a racial classification to achieve a desired racial balance in public schools" is just as unconstitutional as old-fashioned racial segregation.

Louisville, which had a history of segregated schools, adopted integration guidelines in 2001 that said the black enrollment in each elementary school should be at least 15% but no more than 50%. In Meredith vs. Jefferson County, Crystal Meredith, a white parent, sued when her son was prohibited from attending the elementary school nearest to his home.

The Seattle school board adopted integration guidelines for its high schools, beginning with the 1998-99 school year. Officials said they hoped to preserve racial diversity in the schools and prevent segregation that mirrored the racially segregated housing patterns in the city.

In the case of Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle schools, a group of parents sued to challenge the guidelines after their children were denied enrollment in their first choice of a high school because of their race or ethnicity.

As many as 1,000 school districts nationwide - including the Los Angeles Unified School District - are integrating some of their schools by using race or ethnicity as a factor for enrollment, according to Sharon L. Browne, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento. That organization filed suit in October against the Los Angeles district in state court, contending that it had violated Proposition 209, the 1996 statewide initiative that prohibits public programs from using racial preferences.

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An Interview with Shana Griffin
By Elena Everett

(From "One Year After Katrina" a 98 page report released yesterday by Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch)

There have been a lot analyses about race and class post-Katrina, how does your organizing philosophy differ and work to address women’s issues?

I, and the women I work with try to organize from an intersectionality approach that includes an analysis of gender, race, class, citizenship status, sexuality, and a critique of privilege. We try to organize from an unfragmented approach, meaning we don’t expect people to walk through the door and drop 3/4ths of themselves and come in as a just woman or just a black person. We don’t exist as just women, we do have a race and we do have a class and ethnic background. It’s important to look at things from an intersectionality - in the Gulf Coast there are reasons why things are unfolding the way they’re unfolding.

On TV, immediately after Katrina and as things began to unfold in the city with the flood waters, most of the faces we saw were women, poor black women and their children and their families. If you took any urban area and gave it 24 hour notice to evacuate, it would be the same population, the same poor black women in the most vulnerable situations.

What do you see as unique challenges and issues women have been facing in the Gulf post-Katrina?

One of the biggest post-Katrina challenges is the complete absence of consideration or special provisions to meet the needs of women. So many studies related to disaster or times of war and conflict show that women are one of the most vulnerable populations. Violence against women increases as well as their responsibilities since they are generally the primary caregivers for the elderly and children. There’s been an invisibility toward the needs of women of color in the Gulf Coast region.

To me, it’s not enough to have a solid race and class analysis, because beyond those two, you also need a gender analysis. Because of the absence of the gender analysis of many agencies, organizations who identify as women of color organizations have to constantly fight to render ourselves visible and at the same time, we have to justify our existence in the work that we’re trying to do.

New Orleans pre-Katrina population was more than half women and today when you look at the statistics around housing, healthcare, even incarceration  women and especially black women are much more vulnerable. In 2003 in Louisiana 80% of new HIV cases were black women - in public housing, the vast majority of tenants were women…I can go on and on  those who are most directly impacted are women when it comes to the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters.

How do you feel the initiative and clinic will work to address some of those issues?

The purpose of the clinic is to improve low-income and uninsured women of color’s healthcare access and to promote an holistic and community-centered approach to primary to healthcare. At the same time we look at the oppression and violence that have impact on the health status of women and to improve those situations. It’s more than providing healthcare services it’s also about challenging the conditions that limit our access and our opportunities, such as poverty, racism, gender-based violence, imperialism, and war. We see it as more than just a clinic  we want it to also be an organizing center that can meet immediate needs while also working for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice.

We see our clinic as a great opportunity to talk to people and discuss why these services and this approach is needed. We have the power to reinvent ourselves and create institutions that are equitable.

Shana Griffin is resident of New Orleans and organizer with INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance New Orleans. Shana grew up in the Iberville Housing Development and is completing a Masters Degree in Sociology at the University of New Orleans. She is currently working on the Women’s Health and Justice Initiative, which is a coordinating with several organizations to open a Women’s Health Clinic this September in the historic Treme district of New Orleans. For more information, email whji_info at yahoo dot com.

Elena Everett is Program Associate, Institute for Southern Studies and Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch. She can be reached at elena at southernstudies dot org.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Barack Obama may have only landed Thursday for his latest visit to his father's homeland, but the U.S. senator is already become the country's most prominent "citizen."

People drinking a Kenyan beer called Senator are ordering "Obama" instead. Obama's photograph is popping up on T-shirts, and the once knee-high grass in his ancestral village was cut in advance of his arrival.

As the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, Obama is seen as an inspiration in this east African country where more than half its 33 million people eke out a living on less than $1 a day.

Obama arrived Thursday for a six-day visit, and planned to meet with President Mwai Kibaki and stop at the site where Nairobi's U.S. Embassy was bombed in 1998, killing 248 people.

The Illinois Democrat, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia, 8, and Sasha, 4, were greeted at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi by U.S. Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger, the embassy said.

Read more

By Richard Muhammad

The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina brought the focus back to New Orleans, but Gulf Coast communities in Mississippi still struggle to get attention and help for areas swept away by last summer’s deadly super storm.

“We have been so overshadowed. In Mississippi, we have total neighborhoods that have been just completely wiped off the map. Not even streets were left,” said Cynthia Seawright Wright, who lives in Ocean Springs, Miss. Before the hurricane, she lived in Escawtapa, Miss. Driving around nearby Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., after the storm, she couldn’t find her way around areas she’d known all her life. Most apartment buildings were destroyed, Seawright Wright said.

"We are still living in trailers that are meant for you to live in for a few days," said Darneice Williams, who is raising her granddaughter Brianna with her son deployed in Iraq. He has not been allowed to come to Mississippi to tend to his family because the Army does not want him “injured” trying to help rebuild, she said. Meanwhile, Williams said she was diagnosed with severe liver damage from drinking dirty water in the FEMA trailers. "I need to talk to someone, I need psychological help, I cannot get it,
I don't know what to do," she said.

“There is still such a long way to go and still a lot of work to be done,” commented Rev. George Rouse, pastor of Missionary Baptist Church in Gulfport, Miss. He and other faith-based leaders and churches are renovating and putting survivors back in their homes. He hasn’t seen a lot of federal government help. About 1 in 10 people knocked out of their homes are back inside, he said. FEMA trailers dot many places as Mississippians await help and try to rebuild on their own.

“The government isn’t the one who are really putting the people in houses, it’s actually the church or faith-based organizations,” Rev. Rouse said. “FEMA has put people in their FEMA trailers, however, the church stepped up and put people in their homes,” he added, quoting one of his church deacons.

Jaribu Hill, executive director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, in Greenville, sees grassroots organizations and community leaders at work. But, she pointed out; there is no excuse for the lack of federal government support and action. No one in the government has been held accountable, she said. The racial disparities and injustices existed before Hurricane Katrina, but the disaster has made them more pronounced, she added. The Mississippi Workers’ Center has been working on the Gulf Coast for more than eight years combating workplace hate violence and other issues.

The priority is rebuilding casinos with promises of economic development, without a commitment to building low-income housing, according to Hill. Casinos offer low-wage jobs that help keep people in poverty, she said. Questions remain about public education and getting students on track, environmental hazards abound, workers are getting hurt at unsafe sites and some immigrant workers aren’t paid at all, she added.

“They are rebuilding for the sake of profit, not for the rebuilding of peoples’ lives,” she said. Hill’s group and the U.S. Human Rights Network opened the Mississippi Hurricane Media Center in Biloxi, Miss., to try to draw attention and document survivors’ experiences. She wants survivors to be given a real role and voice in the rebuilding effort, government commitments to make survivors whole, and a push for a better way of life. The FEMA trailers need to be replaced with decent, affordable housing, Hill said.

“People don’t have a desire to go back to the same conditions they were in before Katrina. Katrina exposed the gaps and the underclass and the face of the poor. It only comes up when people are put on the national media. Dead bodies floating in the water, people trying to swim to save themselves, it’s a media event. That’s the only reason we’re seeing the poor in the United States,” she said.

Worst of all, Hill continued, the basic things that people want, food, clothing, shelter, safety, income and education, are human rights. The U.S. has been exposed as a major human rights violator, and sham democracy as it exports “freedom” around the world, she said.

“We are seeing people use this event as a media opportunity, but it is an opportunity to change things,” Hill continued. She believes Black and Brown unity, visible solidarity from Black communities outside the Gulf Coast, a constant demand for updates and answers about why residents can’t return, or rebuild, are needed.

“We need people from every community letting the government know that this is not an isolated incident, but you’ve got to be concerned about all of us,” she said.

According to Gulf Coast activists, 231 people died from Katrina, 750,000 people were displaced by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, damages in Mississippi hit $125 billion, the state’s fishing and shrimp industry is still reeling, unemployment remains high, billions are needed to repair public schools, and just 12 percent of $2 billion in federal contracts went to the state.

Housing remains a major concern, activists add.  Just over 100,000 people still live in temporary housing and 274,000 individuals and families still receive housing assistance from FEMA, which provided over 37,000 trailer and mobile homes in Mississippi.

“Stranded, lost, left out and homeless,” said Karen Madison, of the L.C. Jones public housing development in Gulf Port, Miss., describing the plight of residents. Some buildings were patched up to keep residents in apartments, but now the property is going up for sale, she said.

Federal officials promise housing vouchers and transfers to other developments, Madison said. But, she added, three public housing complexes with more than 3,000 residents each are closing. “I don’t know of no other public housing around here that they could move us to,” Madison said.

The 32-year-old mother of three is worried about moving further from work, and where her children will go to school. “To me, they’re just telling us, you ain’t got nothing, get out. If there was anywhere to go we wouldn’t be having all these FEMA trailers out here,” she said. “We have no help, other than working. And, those that can’t work, they’re ground zero.”

Cynthia Seawright Wright watched the storm hit the Gulf Coast on TV in Atlanta, having evacuated her home. When she came back to the mostly Black community of Moss Point, Miss., neighbors had stacked possessions on the side of roads, trying to salvage things. Seawright Wright found four feet of water inside her home. She moved.

“I walked in the house, turned around and walked out,” she said. “I did not want to touch anything that had been in that sewage water.” Seawright Wright was worried about what a nearby industrial plant and a water treatment facility might have dumped in the water and environmental hazards. Her possessions, packed in boxes and suitcases on the floor of a friend’s home in anticipation of moving, were drenched.

When Seawright Wright saw her friend’s bath tub and commode filled with three to four inches of a blue-green sludge, it confirmed her decision to abandon everything.

Later, she found out Moss Point had high levels of arsenic left after floodwaters receded and many suffered from rashes and respiratory problems. Violence, suicides, and depression have increased, Seawright Wright said.

The Red Cross came out the third week after the storm, the Salvation Army showed up late and dumped things “funky old clothes” in church parking lots and at shopping centers, Seawright Wright recalled. By that time, she had started her own emergency distribution effort. She recruited a former beauty queen to help. Her sister, Toni Seawright, was the first Black woman chosen as Miss Mississippi, make appeals for assistance. With some news coverage and some breaks, helped started to pour in, she said.

Then there were problems, with people treated badly and questions about how a pastor was using donated money, according to Seawright Wright. She turned to another pastor in Moss Point and went to work. Out of her efforts was born An Outreach of Love, a faith-based group. “We called it that because we weren’t getting paid. We still don’t get paid,” said Seawright Wright, who receives disability payments.

Distributed by the Katrina Information Network and the Hurricane Katrina Media Center.

By Stephen Bradberry and Jeffrey Buchanan
TomPaine.com

Stephen Bradberry is the Head Organizer of ACORN New Orleans and recipient of the 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Jeffrey Buchanan is the Information Officer for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights.

The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, August 29, should be a day to remember our commitments to our fellow Americans and mourn our collective losses. It should be an opportunity to reflect on what we as American citizens expect from our government in our most dire hour of need. It should be a time to honor the courage of the hundreds of thousands of still-displaced Katrina survivors as they struggle to return home one year after the storm broke land.

But instead, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the city council have callously chosen the anniversary to begin a policy that will demolish what little hope displaced families have of returning to their city.

In May, the city council unanimously passed City Ordinance 26031, which sets a deadline for homeowners to gut their homes or potentially lose them. By August 29, homeowners who have not been able to make the necessary repairs to their battered homes risk having their property seized and bulldozed by the city. The council’s decision will further “cleanse” New Orleans of its poor, continuing the exclusion and discrimination that have become hallmarks of the reconstruction.

But the survivors of Katrina are not alone. Although the government is not fulfilling its obligations, many nongovernmental organizations are trying to help survivors. Groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are working around the clock to save homes from demolition and enforce a principle of fairness and inclusion in the disaster recovery process.

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By Jamala Rogers
The St. Louis American

NEW ORLEANS - A year after the unthinkable devastation of New Orleans wrought by Hurricane Katrina, progress in reconstruction is slow or non-existent if you’re poor or black. In fact, many observers believe New Orleans is a case study of what those in power would make out of every American city if left alone to execute their plans - urban centers without poor folks.

Katrina left 80 percent of the city flooded, killed more than 1,339 people in Louisiana, displaced 786,372 citizens and has ruined 18,752 businesses, according to the NNPA.

In New Orleans, there are efforts to reassure the people that everything is all right. On WYLD 98.5 FM radio, deejays continuously plug the slogan “Building New Orleans, one day at a time.” A “My Katrina Hero” essay contest is underway by the city government. The French Quarter, which sustained only wind damage, looks like a Hollywood movie set. Rumors still persist that levees were blown up to spare this historic tourist district by redirecting raging waters to the predominantly African-American 9th Ward.

A casual pan of city streets indicates priorities in the rebuilding effort. A gigantic sign graces the top of the New Orleans Astrodome, letting passersby know that the facility re-opens on August 26. The Dome of Death was the shelter of last resort for more than 60,000 stranded victims and the centerpiece for many a reporter’s human interest (or horror) story.

A closer look and a chat with the residents reveals that all is not well, even in the Quarter. Two hostile, hand-written signs were posted on the storefront windows of YesterYears on Bourbon Street, a shop of quaint and quirky novelties. One sign read, “There is no real intention to rebuild New Orleans” and the other lamented “There is no economic recovery money.” The owner had just laid off her last paid employee and was uncertain about her 29-year-old business. Without government assistance, YesterYears was about to become yesterday’s failed business statistic.

The Democratic members of the House Small Business Committee have found that 80 percent of small businesses on the Gulf Coast have not yet received loans promised by the federal government. The Small Business Administration has approved loans of more than $10 billion, but only $2 billion has been loaned to business owners.

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By Jamala Rogers
St. Louis American

Andy, Andy. What were you thinking? With the history of Wal-Mart as a despicable corporate giant, it doesn’t need an Andy or an Amos to speak on its behalf.

Andy Young was forced to step down recently as the head of Working Families for Wal-Mart, based upon negative stereotypical comments made last week. Andrew Young once boasted that he’s “more a spokesman for the company” than the company itself.

Here is a man who walked in the light of Dr. Martin Luther King to advance the civil and human rights of all people. Young has served as an ambassador and as Atlanta’s mayor. Why in the world would he feel that he has to be the black voice box for Wal-Mart and tarnish a half-way decent legacy?

There is a national boycott of Wal-Mart (not the Sam’s Club division) because of its anti-family policies. The company, founded by Sam Walton, is credited with the “big box" retail phenomenon and has built its mega profits on unscrupulous and unfair business practices.

Those of us supportive of the boycott sometimes felt invisible as 100 million shoppers pass through Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. and nine foreign markets. It can be a difficult argument to tell people not to shop at a store when their economic blinders lead them to the cheapest prices in town.

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I couldn't have blogged about this better myself . . .

By Terry Smith
BlackProf.com

Imagine a Korean-American neighborhood in which the supplies for Korean restaurants are sold primarily by black merchants.  Imagine a Jewish neighborhood where blacks are most of the property owners and merchants, or an Arab-American neighborhood where primarily blacks sell fried chicken to its inhabitants.  You are unlikely to find any such places in the United States today, but you are sure to find many black neighborhoods where these non-black groups are reaping profits from where they neither reside nor invest.

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young may not have achieved MLK-like eloquence in his criticism of non-black ethnic groups who do business in black neighborhoods, but the attempt at turnabout in accusing this civil rights hero of racism won’t mask the basic truth of his observations.  Young recently resigned a post at Wal-Mart Stores that he never should have assumed on the heels of his comments that Wal-Mart should drive “mom and pop” stores out of business because such stores had “overcharged blacks” and sold them “stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables.”  Young continued, “I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough.  First it was Jews, then it was Korean, now it’s Arabs; very few black people own these stores.”
Which part of Young’s statement is untrue?  Poor neighborhoods in which blacks are disproportionately concentrated pay a “ghetto tax,” spending more for basic goods and services than most middle-income neighborhoods.  As for quality and price of the food and merchandise sold to the inhabitants of these neighborhoods, suburbanites and residents of white neighborhoods are not rushing to the ghetto for fresh fruit or bargains.  Indeed, if the “mom and pop” stores Young criticized fostered the good-will their names suggests, presumably many of them would be more competitive with larger chains.

That leaves us with Young’s temerity in calling out specific ethnic groups as having engaged in exploitative conduct toward black neighborhoods.  There’s a familiar pattern here.  A black public figure criticizes a particular ethnic group, such as Jews, and his sin of specification, rather than the substance of his charge, becomes the focus of public attention.  It’s the racial equivalent of wag the dog, a perfect deflection of the public’s attention from the real, more serious issue.  And a black public official is the perfect foil because his perceived gaffe dilutes the moral legacy of black people as victims of exploitation by virtually every ethnic group in the United States, including Jews, Koreans and Arabs.

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Official results are not expected for at least three weeks

By Joseph Winter
BBC News website, Kinshasa

The first results from Sunday's landmark elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being published outside some of the 50,000 polling stations around this vast country.

And yet the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) says official results will not be published for up to another three weeks.

The CEI says it will take this long to gather together the results from across a country two-thirds the size of Western Europe with just 300 miles of paved roads.

It says it does not want to publish partial results for the presidential vote in case these are misleading.

Cooling-off

Some Congolese approve of the delay, saying it will give people a cooling-off period and avoid the outbreak of violence feared in this country emerging from years of conflict and misrule.

"The city was really tense," said Aime, a businessman. "This period will let people calm down."

But others are not convinced.

"The delay is only to give the mafia time to cook the results," said one man angrily outside a Kinshasa polling station, where he had gone to check the results.

"If everything is above board, why wait?" he asked.

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By Michael E. Dyson

Ever since he battered poor blacks two years ago in his infamous remarks on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Bill Cosby has been taking to the road to spread his bitter gospel to all who will listen. In rigged town-hall meetings, Cosby assembles community folk and experts who agree with his take on black poverty: that it's the fault of the poor themselves.

It's often difficult to point out just how harmful that sentiment is, because most black folk do believe strongly in taking their destiny into their own hands. They believe in hard work and moral decency. They affirm the need for education and personal discipline. When they hear Cosby say that poor black folk should go to work, stay out of jail, raise their children properly and make sure they go to school, they nod their heads in agreement.

But it's one thing to say that personal responsibility is crucial to our survival. It's another to pretend that it's the only thing that matters. The confusion between the two positions is what makes Cosby's blame-the-poor tour so destructive. By convincing poor blacks that their lot in life is purely of their own making, Cosby draws on harsh conservative ideas that overlook the big social factors that continue to reinforce poverty: dramatic shifts in the economy, low wages, chronic underemployment, job and capital flight, downsizing and outsourcing, and crumbling inner-city schools.

None of these can be overcome by the good behavior of poor blacks. As historian Robin D.G. Kelley argues, "All the self-help in the world will not eliminate poverty or create the number of good jobs needed to employ the African American community."

Furthermore, Cosby's insistence that race has little to do with the circumstances of the black poor pleases right-wing pundits who believe his denial is a sign of mature black leadership.

For most of his career, Cosby has avoided the subject of race. When approached by blacks to speak out on the subject, he has refused. "I don't have time to sit around and worry whether all the black people of the world make it because of me," he complained early in his career. "I don't want to be a crusader or a leader." Although he spurned the role of spokesman at the height of the civil rights movement, Cosby doesn't mind attacking the black poor now, while playing to stereotypes that plague their path.

One of those stereotypes is that poor blacks are lazy citizens who victim-monger while bemoaning the "white man." Such a view is undercut by what we know about the black poor: Most of them work, and few are paralyzed by their astute perceptions of persistent racism. But Cosby is hellbent on denying that race and structural forces play any role in the lives of the poor -- apparently because of his unsubstantiated fear that if these forces are acknowledged, the poor will lose their initiative, their desire to move ahead.

To borrow the language of philosophers: Personal responsibility is a necessary but insufficient condition for poor blacks to do better. We also need social justice to give them real opportunity to exercise that personal responsibility. That's why Martin Luther King Jr. didn't lead a behave-in to correct black morality, but a sit-in to protest racial injustice. (To be sure, King believed that for blacks to achieve "first-class citizenship," we must "assume the primary responsibility for making it so," even as we continue to "resist all forms of racial injustice.") Even conservative cleric T.D. Jakes argues that personal responsibility is "one-half of the solution" and that the "greater solution" is to combat "the lingering attitudes and bias that continue to fuel injustice."

The plane of black progress lifts on the wings of personal responsibility and social justice. Cosby is trying to fly the plane with one wing. With such a philosophy, it's bound to crash and burn.

By Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Oxford University Press

I’m a journalist, not a poll-taker, however, over the past month, while touring the country to talk about my book New News Out of Africa, I’ve been conducting an informal, highly un-scientific survey about how much Americans know about Africa. I know that the majority of the people I talk to are already interested in Africa because they have turned out for my readings in bookstores, churches, theaters and private homes, or they have called in to the radio talk shows where I’ve been a guest. My survey has sampled a wide cross section of Americans: young, old, black, white and brown, immigrants from all parts of the world, including Africa, as well as native born. Many of them feel a spiritual or emotional connection to this faraway continent; many have an historical connection, too, their fore-parents having been brought here as slaves in chains during the Middle Passage.

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By Jeff Zeleny
The Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - One day before President Bush addresses the NAACP for the first time during his presidency, two Democratic senators on Wednesday urged those attending the meeting to hold the administration accountable for renewing - and enforcing - the Voting Rights Act.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois warned NAACP delegates to be cautious of any civil rights promises Bush offers when speaking to the group Thursday. The senators criticized Republicans for allowing the landmark 1965 voting act to nearly expire and said the Justice Department has failed to aggressively pursue allegations of disenfranchisement.

"Don't be bamboozled. Don't buy into it," Obama said, trying to anticipate Bush's speech that is expected to touch upon his support for extending the Voting Rights Act. "It's great if he commits to signing it, but what is critical is the follow-through. You don't just talk the talk, but you also walk the walk."

While Democrats have accused the GOP of being too slow to renew the Voting Rights Act, hoping to make it an issue in the midterm election campaign, Republicans responded last week by passing the legislation in the House. The bill is pending in the Senate.

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Sherrel Wheeler Stewart
BlackAmericaWeb.com

Now that the reauthorization of Voting Rights Act of 1965 has cleared the U.S. House of Representatives, supporters said the next push is to move the legislation quickly through the Senate and on to President Bush's desk for signing.

After being delayed a couple of weeks, the House on Thursday passed the Fannie Lou Hamer-Rosa Parks-Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Reauthorization Amendments Act on a vote of 390 to 33. Several attempts to amend the legislation failed.

"We are pleased with the passage of the reauthorization," said Rep. Artur Davis, (D-Alabama), one of the sponsors of the bill. "We hope now that it will move quickly through the Senate so the president can sign it before the anniversary of the act, which is in August," Davis told BlackAmericaWeb.com after casting his vote.

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It's so crazy, it just might work (a la MacGyver reasoning)!

How is it that the following anti-GOP chain e-mail message (see below) is more compelling than the drivel the DNC comes up with?

Things you have to believe to be pro-Dubya . . .

~ Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary.

~ Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's
daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with
him,and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden"
diversion.

~ Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade
with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

~ The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our
highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

~ A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but
multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind
without regulation.

~ The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in
speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

~ If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

~ A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies,
then demand their cooperation and money.

~ Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing
health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance
companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

~ Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but
creationism should be taught in schools.

~ A president lying about an extra-marital affair is an impeachable
offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which
thousands die is solid defense policy.

~ Government should limit itself to the powers named in the
Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the
Internet.

~ The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but
George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

~ Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a
conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers
for your recovery.

~ What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but
what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

After participating in a panel on the politico-blogosphere at the 2006 Take Back America (don't get me started on the name of this conference!), I was approached by two folks at the ACLU who asked to talk to me about the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which is set to expire in 2007.

They're in the trenches trying to preserve the special protections still needed to secure the franchise for Black and Brown folks in the South. (Perhaps if we had a Democratic majority, we could extend those protections to Ohio, New Mexico, etc.).

They told me that there were key conservative Republicans who were trying to disrupt the bipartisan momentum for this act's reauthoritization in the House, and that we had to get the word out to make sure that it passes in this session of Congress.

Recently quoted in the Baltimore AFRO newspaper, ACLU legislative counsel LaShawn Warren stated:

"We are at the crossroads where the Congress will not have the appetite to bring this up again," said LaShawn Warren, ACLU legislative counsel. "We have to do it now or it won't happen."
Warren also expressed concern with possible changes to the legislation during the interim, especially to Section Five of the Act, which she said has had the most impact on shoring up minorities' voting rights.
"It has been the saving grace for African Americans," she said. "It allowed them, for the first time, to vote for people who represent their interests."

To make sure the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 gets passed, please click here.

Yup, that's me in the Condisleeza head. Political theater at its best at the 2006 Take Back America Conference. Of course, I'm still wondering who had it to begin with? Oh, well.

If you like the walking effigies, check out the courageous grassroots organization, The Backbone Campaign.

Thanx, Bill Moyer, for nudging me to volunteer to join the loathsome foursome at the last minute. I really feel I became Condisleeza -- and the resultant nausea to prove it.