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.

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

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!

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.

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!!!  . . .

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.

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.

Like my Grandmother Murphy always says: "If you're Black and not paranoid, you're crazy!"

And I suspect my . . . composure might fray over the years if I was one of only a handful of truly progressive public servants of the overwhelmingly milktoast senators and representatives in Washington, DC.

That's how I'm leaving the Cynthia McKinney debacle . . . for now, anyway.

In my eleven years of navigating and facilitating communications online, few articles to my memory have proliferated more rapidly and broadly than the recent New York Times article, "Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn".

A wake-up call to some, among the social circles I'm in online and offline -- spheres that skew highly educated and Black -- these data are confirmation of realities of which we are already well aware -- either through direct, personal experience or varying social proximity to this population -- far closer, more frequent and more intimate than our white counterparts of the same socio-economic profile.

More interestingly, in these times when the only phrase more pejorative than "liberal" is "Affirmative Action" -- a federal initiative which tripled the Black middle-class in just one generation -- the subtext of the ubiquitous e-mail messages citing this Times article are feelings of vulnerability and rage.

And while have yet to hear any of my fellow African Americans question the veracity of the data cited in the article, renewed and intensified conversations emerge that focus not so much on if such a crisis exists among poor, young Black men, but how the media choose to frame this issue and what salient omissions and tacit assumptions are being made by journalists, scholars, commentators, or at the very least choose not disabuse their largely white audiences from making spurious extrapolations based on their level of ignorance, or worse, malice.

In addressing the plight of the most disadvantaged among my Black brethen in this country, I am particularly concerned about how well -- or is too often the case -- how poorly this crisis is contextualized. Tip-offs of people's perspectives and biases include discussions that start with "these people", "the Blacks" and "what they need to do is . . .".

As my grandmother has always reminded me: "Consider the source." And in so saying, while I have not yet combed through the studies cited by the author of this gripping article in the Times, it is not lost on me that the messenger is the Times and that with every forwarded e-mail, blog post, web link, radio, TV and op/ed in reaction to it validates the writer's and editors' interpretation of this crisis at the expense of perhaps more balanced, progressive analyses of the same studies -- analyses that will not likely have the same acceptance and breadth of readership that they deserve.

As I mentioned in a previous article about the white-ownership of nominal Black media, I fear that we will lose sight of the filters, assumptions and political agenda of the interpreters of this undisputed inner-city pandemic and add insult to injury by further victimizing some of our most vulnerable and under-appreciated citizens by laying at their feet responsibility that our country has callously chosen not to shoulder since at least 1865.

While I do not like the New York Times to the Washington Times, I have little confidence that this publication can cover this polemic subject matter with the same level of insight, nuance and sensitivity than more progressive media entities whose imprimaturs do not have the same gravitas and respect that they deserve.

I know, I know. It's been ages since I've last blogged. I've been rather "hermitacious" of late -- a label which my brother Maurice invented in my honor and a status my wife applies to me more often than I care to admit online.

It seems the more salient the matters I'm dealing with offline, the more silent I become online.

Perhaps for some bloggers, the exact opposite phenomenon occurs: When compelling events in their lives push them to vent online. However, for me, it's often when exogenous forces, as channeled through cyberspace, pull me back into the blogosphere. This is my take on my irregular blogging schedule . . . Or maybe, just maybe, I'm just as trifling and distractable as any other multi-tasking Generation Xer who has a mortgage to pay -- none of it which is paid through the "professional avocation" I call blogging.

But now that I've peeked my head out of work for a moment, let me get a little neo-digital call-and-response by letting me know that my fellow afro-netizens and other good folk our out there by clicking here.

Today is my birthday, a day of the year I have not been known to be ecstatic about for many moons.

Ever since reaching my twenties (many years ago), I have had a growing reticence regarding celebrating my birthday. No doubt, this reluctance is in not no small part due to my once dominant overachiever, base ten outlook on life (i.e. "When I'm 30, I'll be X. When I'm 40, I'll be Y" and so on).

Since getting married to a wonderful, present-oriented woman, becoming a father, and having lost my father last summer, I have steadily grown to embrace the beauty of the present and look to the future as an unopened gift. Moreover, I have begun to reflect more deeply on my journey thus far and am taking the time to appreciate the experiences that have brought me to this point.

One such meta-experience that has all but become part of my identity began in 1995 when my brother and I founded a hi-tech product design firm in Chicago in which we worked doggedly for over five years before running out of working capital. It was a hard road to hoe -- and even harder to admit that all of our dreams and hopes surrounding this start-up enterprise may very well have been for naught.

Shortly before closing up shop and moving on with our lives, my brother and I summoned up the collective will and emptied our modest bank account to invest in one last prescient decision: to file a patent on our flagship technology, DynaGlyph™.

Nearly six years later -- on my birthday no less -- the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has seen it fit to issue us a patent: No. 7,002,583!

We could have given up so many times before August of 2000, but we chose to fight on despite the chorus of naysayers and the allure of more traditional, safer pathways.

We made many mistakes over the years, and have embraced the subtle benefits and successes borne from failure.

One such benefit is the undisputed imprimatur of grit -- a distinction that my brother and I earned over the years and that is averred by this long awaited patent issuance. And while I still believe that my brother (the visionary inventor) and I are no slouches in the brains department, today's feat rests squarely on perseverance -- with intelligence coming in at perhaps a distant second.

So, today I allow myself to revel in not so much the realization of a dream, but confirmation of an inviolable characteristic -- tenacity -- that defies society's growing love affair with immediate gratification and that so cavalierly and incorrectly conflates IQ with success.

So, my gift to myself today is my acknowledgement that while neither rich, nor famous from previous or current enterprises, my resolve will be rewarded in one way or another, and that I will have the patience and maturity to appreciate such rewards with each successive birthday.

While much of the nation's attention is rightfully focused on celebrating the life and legacy of the late Coretta Scott King, my colleague, policy wonk and social entrepreneur Walter Fields of Community Service Society of New York is "sitting in on one of the most important congressional hearings on the Internet, to determine if [Internet Service Providers] can determine access to the net, differentiate the rate of access to content."

Walter, who appears to have wi-fi access in the Senate hearing room, states that this . . .

[h]earing is focused on the issue of 'network neutrality' - [the] concept that there should be equal, unfettered access to the Internet.

I am one of only 5 (myself included) Black people in a room of about 200. Two of those I suspect are congressional and/or lobbyists' staff. Our access to information in the 21st century over the Internet is at stake. Imagine if network providers could determine if you can, or how quickly you can access certain websites - advocacy organizations, news sites, political and public affairs content, colleges and universities, community groups - while giving advantages to other types of content . . .

Walter, thanks for sharing what else is going on in the universe that may significantly impact afro-netizens and millions of other folk. We so often misdirect our energy towards addressing the symptoms of the far less invisible, but no less salient decisions of such a small few in positions of power.

Only until we learn to understand the relevance and urgency of these types of issues will we not be so easily distracted by whether or not NBC punished Jamie Foxx for allegedly banning whitefolk from his music special.

Senators Obama (D-IL) and McCain (R-AZ) duke it out . . . Senate-style: with razor-tipped pens and broad smiles.

The following letters came from Sen. Barack Obama's website.

It is clear to me that Sen. McCain was not at all happy with Obama's insistence to put forth ethics reform legislation sooner rather than later, which Obama implied was McCain's intent or at least the result of the senior senator's wish to have a bipartisan task force to look into such measures.

But you be the judge . . .

February 2, 2006
The Honorable John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear John:

    Thank you for inviting me to participate in the meeting yesterday to discuss lobbying and ethics reform proposals currently before the Senate. I appreciate your willingness to reach out to me and several other Senate Democrats to discuss what should be done to restore public confidence in the way that Congress conducts its business. The discussion clearly underscored the difficult challenge facing Congress.
    You and many in the Democratic Caucus have played a major role in reform efforts in the Senate. In fact, the Indian Affairs Committee hearings you led were instrumental in promoting public awareness of the culture of corruption that has permeated the nation's capital.
    As you know, Senator Harry Reid and others in the Democratic Caucus have taken an important step by introducing S. 2180, the Honest Leadership Act, which imposes many of the same disclosure requirements for lobbyists that you have proposed, while also strengthening enforcement, eliminating "pay to play" schemes, and imposing more restrictive rules on meals, gifts, and travel that Members and their staff can receive from special interests that advocate before Congress. This bill, which now has the support of 40 members of the Democratic Caucus, represents a significant step in addressing many of the worst aspects of corruption that have come to light as a result of the Justice Department investigation of Jack Abramoff.
    I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work on writing ethics and lobbying reform legislation that a majority of the Senate can support. Committee consideration of these matters through the normal course will ensure that these issues are discussed in a public forum and that those within Congress, as well as those on the outside, can express their views, ensuring a thorough review of this matter.
    Given the state of affairs in Washington, we have a historic opportunity to make fundamental changes in the way our government operates so that the actions we take as public officials are responsive and transparent to the American people. Thank you again for your interest in this important matter.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 6, 2006
The Honorable Barack Obama
United States Senate
SH-713
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Obama:

    I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.
    As you know, the Majority Leader has asked Chairman Collins to hold hearings and mark up a bill for floor consideration in early March. I fully support such timely action and I am confident that, together with Senator Lieberman, the Committee on Governmental Affairs will report out a meaningful, bipartisan bill.
    You commented in your letter about my "interest in creating a task force to further study" this issue, as if to suggest I support delaying the consideration of much-needed reforms rather than allowing the committees of jurisdiction to hold hearings on the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The timely findings of a bipartisan working group could be very helpful to the committee in formulating legislation that will be reported to the full Senate. Since you are new to the Senate, you may not be aware of the fact that I have always supported fully the regular committee and legislative process in the Senate, and routinely urge Committee Chairmen to hold hearings on important issues. In fact, I urged Senator Collins to schedule a hearing upon the Senate's return in January.
    Furthermore, I have consistently maintained that any lobbying reform proposal be bipartisan. The bill Senators Joe Lieberman and Bill Nelson and I have introduced is evidence of that commitment as is my insistence that members of both parties be included in meetings to develop the legislation that will ultimately be considered on the Senate floor. As I explained in a recent letter to Senator Reid, and have publicly said many times, the American people do not see this as just a Republican problem or just a Democratic problem. They see it as yet another run-of-the-mill Washington scandal, and they expect it will generate just another round of partisan gamesmanship and posturing. Senator Lieberman and I, and many other members of this body, hope to exceed the public's low expectations. We view this as an opportunity to bring transparency and accountability to the Congress, and, most importantly, to show the public that both parties will work together to address our failings.
    As I noted, I initially believed you shared that goal. But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.

Sincerely,

John McCain
United States Senate

------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 6, 2006
The Honorable John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear John:

    During my short time in the U.S. Senate, one of the aspects about this institution that I have come to value most is the collegiality and the willingness to put aside partisan differences to work on issues that help the American people. It was in this spirit that I approached you to work on ethics reform, and it was in this spirit that I agreed to attend your bipartisan meeting last week. I appreciated then - and still do appreciate - your willingness to reach out to me and several other Democrats.
    For this reason, I am puzzled by your response to my recent letter. Last Wednesday morning, you called to invite me to your meeting that afternoon. I changed my schedule so I could attend the meeting. Afterwards, you thanked me several times for attending the meeting, and we left pledging to work together.
    As you will recall, I told everyone present at the meeting that my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process. You didn't indicate any opposition to this position at the time, and I wrote the letter to reiterate this point, as well as the fact that I thought S. 2180 should be the basis for a bipartisan solution.
    I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.
Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

On a quest to gain greater attention and validation from angry white men with too much free time, CNN has hired racist hypocrite and amateur eugenicist, Bill Bennett, as a commentator. (I guess CNN was still smarting from losing the bidding war for isolationist bigot Pat Buchanan.)

You may recall that this is the same Bill Bennett who made the "aborting all black babies" statement, for which he has yet to apologize. However, my beef is not with this rightwing numbskull, because one should not really have too high expectations for such an idiot in the first place. My real concern is how best to punish CNN and the other mass media lemmings for being, well, . . . CNN.

And like my mother always says, "Success is the sweetest revenge!" So, what does success look like, people? And by success, I mean what are examples of collective victories for those of us who know that more people are -- and should be -- getting (better) news coverage from other news and other sources than CNN, MSNBC & Fox News and that news contains "actionable information" that can promote social and economic justice.

The sooner we realize CNN is not the best -- or even the biggest (in terms of reach or resources) -- the sooner CNN will die -- or at least the insipid, trite and biased "news" outlet it has become. And even if CNN doesn't die, practically speaking it will be dead to those of us with actual standards.

Was Kanye right to say what he said about Dubya on live TV several months back?

Is calling Judge Samuel Alito -- an Italian-American -- "Scalito" an ethnic slur?

Is calling Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice "Condosleeza" racist? And would calling her "Condoskeeza" sexist?

How about those who think that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is a sock puppet for money interests and are calling him "Ragin" (a la conservative demi-god and icon Ronald Reagan)? Cognizant of this increasing public perception in and beyond New Orleans, do you think Mayor Nagin was being racist for pandering to his MLK Day audience by saying that New Orleans needs to remain a "chocolate city"? Is such a statement anti-white? (FYI, White people: Blackfolk of all political stripes have been saying the same thing about DC for years. And recently, the term I hear is the once "chocolate city" is increasingly "cafe au lait"!)

How about Senator Hilary Clinton's pandering remarks to a Black audience (also on MLK Day) about Dubya's White House being run like a plantation? Was that racist?

Was entertainer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte treasonous when he called Dubya "the greatest terrorist in the world" while addressing tens of thousands of Venezuelans recently? Or how about when he basically said, "Every brotha's not a brotha" when questioned the relevance of Condi and Colin racial identities and stated that there were Jews high up in the Third Reich? Was Belafonte making an anti-semitic remark?

Lastly, I have been inundated with these annoying, anonymous chain e-mails stating that Whitefolk are trying to sabotage Jamie Foxx's upcoming music show because he refused to put token white performers on the roster. And to foil the success of his show due to his insolent Black pride, they've purposely put him up against 'American Idol'. Is this true? Was Foxx acting with conviction or with racial malice? And regardless, so what? After all, of all the things to clog up my inbox with, why moral outrage regarding a televised music show, of the kind that Blackfolk have been disproportionately visible for years? Why is this what people have chosen to be up in arms about and leveraging the Internet to advocate for versus, say, Darfur, Haiti, Katrina, political corruption, corporate greed, the fight for a living wage, etc., etc.?

Regardless of where you come down on any of these issues, it is quite revealing how and why people respond to media-amplified and -skewed issues -- particularly when laced with race.

Do I think folks are kinda missing the point when they choose to carelessly and thoughtlessly forward unsubstantiated information about something as benign as a televised music show? Absolutely. But as my grandmother always used to posit: "If you're Black and not paranoid, you're crazy."

You tell me, is the following situation -- true, exaggerated or fabricated -- worth the attention it's getting in afro-cyberspace?

Please take the time to forward the below message to everyone in your
address book.  NBC is not doing any marketing and publicity on Jamie's Music
Special on NBC because he stood his ground and wouldn't have any white guests as
they requested.  To make it even worse he had two controversial guest stars
that do not fit the "NBC profile" on his show.  Tune in to find out who they
are.  They are purposely putting his show up against the second week of American
Idol in hopes that it will fail.  This will give them the excuse to never give
another black person a music special because "it doesn't work."  Let's show them
that it does work, and that we support each other.  Tivo Idol and watch Jamie.

On this Martin Luther King Day, I am reminded of two things: First, I recently heard someone cynically utter that "the only way you can believe in the American dream is if you're asleep." Second, I am perrennially frustrated whenever I witness the dilution and corporate hijacking of the King legacy, words and iconography.

I recall a few King days ago commiserating with a friend Byron after attending an underwhelming luncheon celebrating the Rev. King. I said that it was long on rhetoric and short on substance. At home, I was met with messages emblazoned on my television set that featured wanton mischaracterizations and highly abridged and purposely narrow samplings of King's prolific words, thoughts and positions.

Case in point, if you watch television it seems as though the late Rev. King only gave one speech in his short lifetime. But, instead of citing one of his many other speeches, I decided to simply reprint the rarely publicly referenced first ten paragraphs that precedes the now decontextualized shorter portion of what I call the Broken Promise speech (popularly known as the "I Have a Dream" speech):

By Martin Luther King, Jr,
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

If Reverend King were alive today, he would have been 77 years old.

Of course, we can only imagine what things would be like today had he been spared from his early demise by an assassin's bullet.

So for at least the past twenty years since the formal inauguration of the King holiday, many Americans have asked themselves how best can we honor King's legacy.

One of the most moving days of my life was participating with my family in the 20th anniversary celebration of the March on Washington in 1983. I was thirteen that summer. And it was an experience I will never forget.

I was sixteen on the first nationally recognized King holiday. And since that time have not joined in or created a tradition -- or awareness of -- community-based or other institutional initiatives to celebrate King on this holiday in highly substantive and participatory ways. This is not because I have conducted an exhaustive, but unsuccessful search over the years, nor because I feel that no such programs or initiatives exist. Quite the contrary, I am certain that such meaningful organized activities occur in communities throughout the U.S. (and perhaps abroad as well). However, I would like to take advantage of this moment in time and this powerful tool that is the Internet to highlight and promote such initiatives for the benefit of our readership and beyond.

So, if you have been involved with (or even heard of) inspired and compelling King Day activities, kindly share them with the Afro-Netizen community by clicking the 'Comments' link below.

In celebration of those U.S. senators who stepped up and did their job to defend Americans' civil liberties and privacy rights by blocking passage of a bill that would have renewed the controversial USA Patriot Act, I would like to share with you all a funny, incisive and all-too-scary glimpse into the not-so-distant future without such strong advocacy by a bi-partisan co-hort consisting of five Republicans, one independent and 41 Democrats.

Click here to listen to a parallel reality if Bush & Co. had won today's battle on the Senate floor.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams is scheduled to be executed by the state of California on December 15, 2005, unless its governor, Arnold "the Govenator" Schwarzenegger, commutes Mr. Williams' sentence or postpones his execution.

Does the Govenator have the moral courage to do either of the above? Probably not. But I'm not letting my pessimism stand in the way of what I believe to be a noble cause: sparing a man who has committed himself to redemption on a scale larger than what most of us can even imagine.

Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is not providing adequate coverage on this story, nor is much of what is covered about it particularly inspired.

Fortunately, we can count on Tavis Smiley -- per usual -- to shed some much needed light and perspective on this matter. And Tavis and his production staff have asked me to share with you this short audio clip as a prelude to a longer interview with Mr. Williams that he will be airing on his new nationally syndicated radio show the weekend of December 9th.

For those of you who want to share this audio vignette, please do so by copying and pasting the specific URL that will take you directly to the interview which I have provided below:

http://www.afro-netizen.com/files/stan_williams_clip_for_web_v3.mp3

Of course, while I hope you all enjoy listening to the above clip, Afro-Netizen also seeks to increasingly provide you with actionable information. So, now that you've got it, what are you going to do with/about it?

Well, if you're inclined to support the Govenator granting Mr. Williams clemency, feel free to participate in the following online petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?stw4804

For those of you who know of other actionable information that can be shared with your fellow readers, feel free to post it below by clicking on the Comments link.

P.S. Hate mail and hateful comments will be deleted, but not until they are forwarded to the appropriate authorities. (Seriously)

For those of you who may have heard my interview on Tavis Smiley's new radio show, thanx for listening. For those of you do not get Tavis' show in your market, you can listen to it in its entirety here.

It was a great experience being interviewed by someone who I've held in high regard for many years.

One of the questions I was prepared to answer on his show was how Blackfolk's increasing access to the Internet may impact our civic participation -- electoral politics, in particular.

He and his staff were turned on to the survey Afro-Netizen is helping promoted among Blackfolk that is being conducted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, which I have blogged on previously and have encouraged subscribers to my e-newsletter to participate in.

The IPDI survey seeks to study the impact of small and web-based political donations during the 2004 election cycle. To take this important (and confidential) survey, click here.

It seems that finding, reaching and effectively engaging Blackfolk online is still very difficult. And responsible groups, companies and institutions that are truly committed to reaching us -- particularly those of us who are already civically engaged -- need online (and on-land) entities to facilitate their efforts so that we will have a representative voice on all levels and in all matters that affect us directly and indirectly.

Anything less would be sooo 20th Century.

Dubya's newest Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, is no Harriet Miers -- which may be good for right-wingers, but not so much for us Blackfolk, other communities of color, progressives, and even moderates. And I doubt those of us on the left will be swayed as more is revealed about Alito's history on the bench -- despite his highly visible trip to the Capitol Rotunda where the body of Rosa Parks lay in state.

So, will he soon being donning the butterfly collar of outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor? Or will he be duly Borked? Only time will tell.

Either way, it seems that the NAACP is non-plussed by his nomination and track record as it relates to civil rights and other salient issues that impact the lives and livelihoods of Blackfolk.

In fact, yesterday USA Today quoted NAACP president Bruce Gordon as saying, "I sense that this is a nomination that may not be consistent with the America that Rosa Parks sat down to create". He went on to say that "[i]f I see that the extreme right celebrates this nomination, that certainly puts my antenna up."

Ditto.

Before I got off the phone this evening to wish my maternal grandmother happy 83rd birthday, I learned that Rosa Parks died earlier today.

To me, my grandmother, Madeline Wheeler Murphy, has been my own personal Rosa Parks -- and then some.

She was the activist, the warrior, the pioneer, the elder statesperson who represented the spirit of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation movements and who took the time to embrace and teach successive generations of Blackfolk that everything was political. She would say: "Even flushing the toilet is a political act!"

Like Rosa Parks, she walked the talk. And I would not be who I was and have achieved whatever measure of success I can claim today without her unyielding love, influence and integrity. So, to you, Grandma, happy birthday on this bittersweet day.

And to you, Ms. Rosa, happy homegoing. You will be sorely missed. But be comforted to know that there are less visible, but no less valiant legions of peers who -- like you -- led, taught and sacrificed for Black America's progeny -- and that millions of us around the world will remember not just that one defining act of civil disobedience on that fateful day in Montgomery, Alabama bus 50 years ago, but your moral conviction and bravery to dare to believe and dedicate your life to demanding full citizenship for Blackfolk in an America that barely recognized our humanity.

So, take your seat, Ms. Rosa. Take your seat, rest your weary soul. And look down upon the scions of the struggle who will be unmoved by those who use idle rhetoric to distract us from their deeds that dishonor you and the legacy of enlightened resistance you embodied and shared with the world.

Your legacy will live on in us and all those who we endeavor to touch.

Sorry you didn't win the PowerBall jackpot last night -- and for that matter -- albeit belatedly -- the presidential election last year.

Well, there've been plenty of studies about the impact of gambling and lottery ticket consumption on impoverished communities. But what about the impact of political contributions in presidential elections by small donors (contributors who've given less than $400) and via the Internet?

Well, last year, Public Campaign's ground-breaking Color of Money project documented how similar the segregation in American residential life mirrors who and from where political contributions come from (and likely are most solicited) during presidential campaigns.

According to the 2004 Color of Money report, 91.7% of Dubya's campaign finances came from people who lived in neighborhoods (actually zip codes) with 50% or more whitefolk.

But before you go wagging your finger at those pesky Bushites, wanna know what Kerry's fundraising "outreach" campaign produced 89.3% of his coinage from 50+% white zip codes.

So, Deaniacs, how did your boy do? 89%! Not so hot for Mr. Populist, huh?

Equally interesting is the fact that 57.8% of Kerry's money came from the zip codes where at least 24.6% of households made $100,000 or more (twice the national average for household income). Dubya and Dean trailed Kerry at 50.6% and 50.0%, respectively.

So why am I beating a dead hors-- mule, you ask? Because the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at George Washington University is conducting a survey of donors who contributed to presidential primary and general election candidates the 2004 election. And Afro-Netizen wants to make sure that donors of color -- particularly Blackfolk are well represented.

IPDI is particularly interest in donors who contributed $400 or less, and donors who contributed over the Internet. The survey takes about 10-15 minutes to complete.

To share this link with others, feel free to copy and paste this URL into an e-mail to share with friends and family:

Or, if you prefer to have the link to the actual survey, it is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=285501395416

After the survey is concluded and the data analyzed, we will share with you some of the aggregate results of the study to give us a glimpse of the Black contributor profile.

So, please share this survey link widely, and check back with Afro-Netizen to see what the study will reveal about Black political donors' aggregated opinions and behavior!

Personally, I can't wait to read these results!

The Institute conducts cutting-edge research that analyzes how the Internet is affecting American politics, with the goal of encouraging more citizens to participate in our democratic processes.

Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.

What do you think of this cartoon?

Bush's Black "friends" argument?

What about seemingly increasing public use and acceptance of use of the word "nigger", "nigga", etc. by Blackfolk, non-Blackfolk, rappers, politicians, film directors, etc.?

What about the very notion of a "race card", which I believe came into common parlance out of the OJ trial? I didn't understand it then and am not sure I understand (or maybe the better verb is "accept") the very concept.

 This past Monday I had the distinct pleasure of ushering the legendary Kenny Gamble into the digital age by introducing him to the blogosphere.

As he entered the room in which I set up my Apple PowerBook, I was playing "Wake up everybody" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes which 30 seconds prior I had purchased for 99 cents from iTunes.

However, what excited him more than the fact that he heard this age-old soul anthem emanating from my laptop -- a song as relevant today as it was when he and partners produced it over 30 years ago -- was that I could acquire it (legally via iTunes or elsewhere or via downloading it from a free peer-to-peer application) within seconds from almost any computer with a decent connection to the internet from nearly anywhere in the world.

In meeting this exuberant elder from the pre-digital era, I found that what I had hoped would be a good conversation piece was in fact a powerful entry point into a digital world that moments ago was other-worldly, unintelligible and thus irrevelant to his business, values and passions.

To watch this musical legend hunched over in his chair peering into the fascinating portal into cyberspace was inspiring, In that moment, Mr. Gamble was sold. He had to see it for himself and on his terms at his own pace. But the catalytic event that dissolved whatever level of technophobia Mr. Gamble might have admitted to revolved around two things that through his career have increasingly defined this man: music and movement; the latter, he would learn was linked to the former.

I told him about how I, a young Black man with just a laptop, digital camera, digital voice recorder, a blog-based website and press credential (and an American Express card) was able to cover the 2004  Democratic Convention along side the likes of CNN, NPR and the Wall Street Journal. So, perhaps I was oversimplifying, but I made my point: that Blackfolk could leverage the power of new media to create and distribute content in a broad, viral and unmediated fashion in ways unimagined just 3 years ago let alone 3 decades ago when "Wake up everybody" entertained and inspired its listeners in and around blighted inner-cities across the country and down-trodden folks all over the world.

Now in 2005 just weeks before the 10th anniversary mobilization of the Million Man March in Washington, DC, Kenny Gamble may view the lyrics of his grassroots anthem with some great dimensionality as it relates to his influential role in helping the Philadelphia area leadership responsible for doing its part in making this year's Million Man March a success on multiple levels, but particularly what occurs over next 10 years after this historic celebration and focusing on not merely the plan for this large-scale event, but the plan after the last attendees has boarded the bus back home. Interestingly, when you turn MMM upside-down, you get: WWW. Hmmm.

To listen to Kenny Gamble's brief responses to the following interview questions, click below.

Click here to hear what Mr. Gamble has to say about "Wake up everybody".

Click here to hear Mr. Gamble talk about his role in the Philadelphia area Million More Movement.

Click here to learn how to get involved.

Remember when there was an e-mail that went around saying that more European Union foreign aid goes to cows in industrialized nations than to people most parts of Africa? Well, here's a domestic metaphor for our country's priorities:

Here's a (real) image taken from a video recording of pre-presidential Dubya that is the perfect analog to his mommy's recent comments effectively voicing the Bush administration/family policy towards poorfolk.

And to see/hear some appropriately profane karmic retribution for Dick Cheney, click here. (Hint: remember when Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to go f*** off on the Senate floor last year?)

And to bring some much needed levity to otherwise pretty disheartening events in the news day in and day out, please take a moment to watch this great mini-mockumentary featuring of all people, Andy Dick -- with a cameo by nouvelle progressive pundit, Arianna Huffington.

I smell Oscar!

"Refugees" :: New Orleans Katrina victims
"You people" :: African-Americans

Both "refugees" and "you people" -- or "the blacks", for that matter -- are clear and straight-forward terms and expressions.

So, for those of you who are part of the torrent of the readers who have lambasted me recently about criticizing the media's use of the word "refugees" to describe the largely Black Americans who've been hit by Hurricane Katrina, I welcome you to start a conversation with a group of Black people with "you people" or "the blacks" and tell me if you feel connotations are not as valid as technical denotations.

It appears that only my more mature readers have understood that my beef with "refugee" is that it deflects from these largely poor and Black victims' American-ness by focusing on their Otherness, a common device in a race-obsessed society where non-whites -- and Blackfolk in particular -- are demeaned and devalued not just physically, emotionally, culturally and economically -- but linguistically.

C'mon, folks. Don't lecture me about the Webster's definition of the term refugee. Don't insult the intelligence of millions us (of all backgrounds) who can read between the lines here and try to dismiss us as crackpot conspiracy-theorists or what-not simply because you're uncomfortable when someone "injects" race into what you would like to think transcends race or is what I've heard alluded to (amidst unicorns and leprechauns) as "color-blindness".

In other words, don't relegate yourself to becoming a refugee from reality -- a reality in which we acknowledge the racial megalomania that has deluged our country since its birth and the concomittant impact its had on what and how we think, say and do -- consciously or not.

Having just lost my father this summer, this notion of legacies left is something that I've given inordinate thought.

I have often heard in eulogies that what matters most is not the birth year or death year of an individual, but the dash that separated them.

Truth -- like legacies -- is subjective. So, when I think of the late Justice William Rehnquist's dash, I think of this, and am inspired and emboldened all the more by the legacy of the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.

When you hear white centrists and moderates making points that pre-Katrina you would've expected to hear out of the mouths of Black progressives, you know things are serious! [Supporting links coming ASAP. But feel free to provide your own URLs below.]

I've never heard so many (non-self-identified progressive) white people make explicit public statements that before this disaster were relegated by mainstream society as divisive race-baiting, whining, finger-pointing, blame-gaming, and let's not forget the infamous OJ trial-inspired catch phrase some folks love to spew mindlessly: "playing the race card".

But apparently, it takes a natural disaster of Biblical proportions in a densely, majority Black population to get non-progressives to see what we already knew: racial disparities of wealth, health, education, etc. are real, undemocratic and the unconscionable products of institutional racism and a civil society that has no consistent, long-term commitment to social and economic justice.

Also, kudos to the folks at CrooksandLiars.com for digitizing and re-airing some of the best video content about Katrina and the Bush administration's tragic neglect of victims!

Click here to witness the emotional reaction of Jefferson Parish, LA president Aaron Broussard to the dubious host of 'Meet the Press', Tim Russert.

Finally, watch superstar Celine Dion go off on The Larry King Show last night.

Click here to see for yourself what everybody's talking about -- everybody, that is, but NBC!

Here's an excerpt from today's Washington Post article on Kanye written by writer Lisa de Moraes:

West was not scheduled to perform; he was one of the blah, blah, blahers, who would read from scripts prepared by the network about the impact of Katrina on southern Louisiana and Mississippi.

West and Mike Myers had been paired up to appear about halfway through the show. Their assignment: Take turns reading a script describing the breach in the levees around New Orleans.

Myers: The landscape of the city has changed dramatically, tragically and perhaps irreversibly. There is now over 25 feet of water where there was once city streets and thriving neighborhoods.

(Myers throws to West, who looked extremely nervous in his super-preppy designer rugby shirt and white pants, which is not like the arrogant West and which, in retrospect, should have been a tip-off.)

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!

(West throws back to Myers, who is looking like a guy who stopped on the tarmac to tie his shoe and got hit in the back with the 8:30 to La Guardia.)

Myers: And subtle, but in many ways even more profoundly devastating, is the lasting damage to the survivors' will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all.

(And, because Myers is apparently as dumb as his Alfalfa hair, he throws it back to West.)

West: George Bush doesn't care about black people!

(Back to Myers, now looking like the 8:30 to La Guardia turned around and caught him square between the eyes.)

Myers: Please call . . .

At which point someone at NBC News finally regained control of the joystick and cut over to Chris Tucker, who started right in with more scripted blah, blah, blah.

You do NOT want to miss this compelling, but heart-rending first-hand account of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin bemoaning the lack of state and federal support for the Katrina victims in and around New Orleans.

It is yet another stirring condemnation of Dubya's poor leadership.

Click here to listen.

Mayor Raymond Nagin

Hurricane Katrina victims are Americans!

If Mississipians fled to Jamaica, then they would be refugees.

I don't recall the media referring to Hurricane Andrew victims in '92 as refugees. Do you?

Notice the imagery and language CNN and the rest choose use when identifying looters and such. It's not just Fox News. Remember, while the right-wing is ultra-conservative, what does "the center" represent, if not the mainstream?

Well, guess what? The mainstream is pretty darn conservative politically. So, if you hear "centrist", think "conservative". And for those folks claiming to be (or who simply act) "neutrally", please remember that neutrality almost always benefits the status quo and the entities that seek to preserve and conserve it.

So, we can choose to raise hell about how biased or bought off CNN, MSNBC, etc. are. Or we can focus our attention on building progressive media outlets by leveraging advances in new media and the talent and hunger for quality news and other substantive content that can be produced by folks in under-represented communities all across the country.

I should hope that in the foreseeable future, Afro-Netizen will be positioned to be part of such a progressive new media strategy for greater diversity of perspective and action, and we are working toward this presently. (So, stay tuned!)

In the interim, however, we cannot forget and must remind others who don't know how relevant it is to realize that who owns what significantly impacts what is aired on TV, radio, etc., to what extent, and how it is manipulated to suit the purposes of the media owners -- not the greater good of society. The latter would be far too civilized for the U.S. and the mass media industry that has pimped its consumers for profit.

Like the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said this morning at their press conference (that both CNN & MSNBC cut away from for dubious reasons), we need to not only demand that the Bush Administration intensify its relief efforts for Katrina victims, we need to pressure our major corporations who have not already stepped up to do so on a major scale.

We have the largest economy in the world and have a fairly decent track record of innovation in this country.

Let's hope that these two facts will override our very rich nation's equally robust insitutional racism and indifference to the poor.

In the interim, kindly support the NAACP's hurricane relief efforts by clicking here. (Other links to other support organizations are forthcoming.)

P.S. Incidentally, I'd "steal" food and clothing and "trespass" to survive and sustain my loved ones.

C'mon, now, Presidente Vicente. Don't make a brutha have to sell his timeshare!

Black people, take out your BiDil pills, this story might give you chest pains.

Critics denounce Mexican stamps

By Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
Published June 30, 2005

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government has issued postage stamps depicting an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin, just weeks after remarks by President Vicente Fox angered U.S. blacks.

The series of five stamps released Wednesday depicts a character with exaggerated features, thick lips and wide-open eyes. The character's appearance, speech and mannerisms are the subject of kidding by white characters in a comic book series, which started in the 1940s and is still published in Mexico.

Read more

I was recently on a faux talk show called "Blog Fire" loosely based on the Politically Incorrect"/"Real Time with Bill Maher" format. It aired live a week ago today on C-SPAN2 during the Take Back America Conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, a DC-based liberal non-profit organization.

I was the only person of color on the panel of four. And increasingly I am called upon to attend conference, speak on panels, etc. because I am erroneously believed to be the only (or best) political blogger of color around.

Fortunately, that is not true. And with that said, I would like to make an explicit plug to Margaret Kimberley whose talent, skills and perspectives I admire greatly. Her writing style is both compelling and incisive, and I cannot speak highly enough about her, a writer who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting yet.

In a piece she has written in her weekly column at The Black Commentator, Kimberley opines about today's neutered corporate media and Democratic Party and how the stalwart Rep. John Conyers has found himself in almost the same position he was in over 30 years ago during the Watergate debacle -- only this time, he has fewer allies in the media and Democratic party.

Ms. Kimberley and I are not the only bloggers operating in the politico-blogosphere either.

At the TBA conference last week I also met the witty and personable blogger, Oliver Willis.

In posts to come, I will highlight other talented African-American, Afro-Latino and other progressive bloggers on my existing blogroll and beyond. Because to not to do so would be wrong. (But more importantly, the Spook Who Sat By The Door role is exhausting, people!)

To view a video excerpt of Blogfire, please click here.

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown is the daughter of sharecroppers. And the American people are supposed to do what with this information exactly?

Are we to make certain assumptions about a Black woman whose parents labored within the harsh post-slavery servitude of the Jim Crow South? And if so, what assumptions should we be forming based on the GOP's media blitz hyping this aspect of Justice Brown's family history?

Are Republicans playing the "racial authenticity card"? Is the GOP's message: "Look, America, Justice Brown comes from humble beginnings, so don't let those liberal Blackfolk fool you, she's genuinely Black!" Well, if this is their jaded and simplistic approach to influencing public opinion in favor of her confirmation as a federal judge this coming week, then how does this jibe with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's middle-class background?

So, who's playing "class warfare" here?

The GOP consistently accused the Democrats of this tactic during the 2004 election -- particularly former Kerry running-mate Sen. John Edwards with his "two Americas" stump speech. Maybe the Republican leadership should have made a caveat to this attack by admonishing Democrats from playing the "class card" with white voters, thus making people of color fair game for both parties.

The same tactic was used in the confirmation battle for now Justice Clarence Thomas -- an equally unqualifed and self-loathing Black jurist who has made a fruitful career out of tilling and shilling for his conservative benefactors.

Brown, Thomas, Rice (and let's not forget Colin Powell) are disappointing successors -- if not disgraces -- to their forbearers regardless of their respective families' stations in life because among the sacrifices they made for their own uplift were the values and dreams of fairness, access and opportunity that have sustained Black people for generations.

Nevertheless, these influential and voluntary sharecroppers for the right wing will reap what they sow. And only hope for Justice Brown is that what she reaps in her Frist-led shuffle towards federal judgeship is as rotten as her judicial record and the ultra-conservative ideology from which it has been cultivated.

Actually, there have been (at least) three popes of African descent, all of whom lived, pontificated and died before "blackness" was a societally recognized and accepted social construction.

So, why am I so nitpicky on this subject? Because "blackness" as a socio-political identity is a relatively new construction -- along with "race" itself (versus nationality or ethnicity). So, these three popes of African descent were essentially pre-Black. And therefore, Jesus wasn't "white": 1) because he pre-dated what would centuries later be deemed "white" and 2) he was much more likely resembled a modern-day Ethiopian or Somalian than Jim Caviezel or Willem Dafoe.

Here are five other related musing in no particular order:

1. What is "black" in the United States is often deemed something else pretty much everywhere else on the face of the earth. The one-drop rule isn't exactly spreading globally like Coca-Cola, McDonald's and hip hop.

Go to South Africa, Haiti, Brazil or France, and see how many black people they call something else. Better yet, count how many times citizens of those countries call some of our most celebrated Blackfolk white (besides Michael Jackson). I lived in the capital of Bahia, Brazil for six months many moons ago. Its capital, Salvador, was the biggest slave port in the New World, and thus, had a population that remains to this day overwhelmingly of African descent.

When I asked a friend there if there had ever been a Black governor of Bahia, he said no. However, when I looked at the portraits of a great many of them, I, 99% of Black Americans and most non-Black Americans would classify many of them as Black. Additionally, along with their color-based racial classification system, Brazilians have an expression, “o dinheiro embranquece”, or "money whitens", adding a class dimension to their assignment of "race" as well.

2. What is "black" today is not necessarily what "black" was yesterday. Just like culture and language evolve, so too does racial terminology. Nonato, like most of countrymen and -women (regardless of race) defined black as a very dark-skinned (non-millionaire) individual with West African facial features and hair. I meant someone -- anyone with any discernible trace of African blood. Same word, different worlds, and lost in socio-political and cultural translation.

3. People of color shouldn't mindlessly demand, expect or even find solace in lofty symbols when those symbols have inextricable links to a substance and/or system not entirely or consistently sensitive to and/or actively supportive of their communities' uplift. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the Church's anti-death penalty and anti-war stances, among other positions. But don't get me started on their absence in HIV/AIDS prevention and leadership in Rwanda, the most Catholic country in Africa.

4. As a people, we need to learn to embrace a more textured understanding of the history and politics of race, ethnicity, culture, their interrelations and development over the millenia. Otherwise we will be applying very ethnocentric, untranslatable 21st century standards to cogent and complex world history that merits much deeper study and discussion than what our shallow mainstream framework allows us.

5. By erroneously identifying these past popes as black, we then facilitate the even greater flow of assumptions that, until spelled out, analyzed and discussed, can actually limit meaningful thought and discourse instead of broadening it for the benefit of all people, regardless of race, nationality or creed.

This is a world issue, and the Catholic church -- despite its global flock's declining church attendance and decreasing deference and adherence to Papal admonitions -- it is nonetheless the oldest of the remaining superpowers (i.e., the United States and the Internet). Therefore, it will serve us well to acknowledge and respect the origins and implications of the lexicon we (Americans in particular) seem to use so thoughtlessly.

Perhaps, as the popular American expression goes, it is easier to "call a spade a spade." But by so doing, the unintended consequences of erring on the side of habit or complacency can be something as innocuous as being handed a gardening implement or as hazardous as being handed your head.

I am saddened to report that, according to the L.A. Times, legendary attorney and philanthropist, Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. died today at age 67 due to an inoperable brain tumor.

The Times article states:

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse, then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges, died this afternoon. He was 67.

Cochran died at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles of an inoperable brain tumor, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. His wife and his two sisters were with him at the time of his death.

Cochran, his family and colleagues were secretive about his illness to protect the attorney's privacy as well as the network of Cochran law offices that largely draw their cache from his presence. But Cochran confirmed in a Sept. 2004 interview with The Times that he was being treated by the eminent neurosurgeon Keith Black at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

He will be sorely missed.

Amidst the laundry list of headlines I was alarmed to skim earlier today that refer to Rev. Jesse Jackson's support for Terri Schiavo's parents (despite Ms. Shiavo's expressed wishes to die), I saw one that made me have a "strange-bedfellows moment": "Jackson Prays With Terri Schiavo's Parents".

Well, folks. I got my own headline: "Rabb prays for Jesse". And while I'm at it, I'll have a two-fer and add m'man Bill Cosby to my new socio-political prayer list.

Why praytell have I added good ole Cos to this auspicious list? I recommend reading Deborah Solomon's short, but interesting interview with Prof. Michael Eric Dyson in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, and you'll know what I'm talking about. Brother Dyson speaks truth to power. He didn't let MLK off the hook, he sure as hell isn't letting Cos get a pass, while simplistic Horatio Alger-philes, classists and status-worshippers have sought to characterize progressive critiques of Cosby's words and deeds as "crabs in a barrel". At any rate, in this most recent interview, which alludes to Prof. Dyson's new book, Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?, Dyson riffs:

Mr. Cosby has been a supreme pitchman for American corporate capitalism for nearly 40 years. Had he come along now, he himself might have been promoting some gym shoes.

Dyson also adds:

[A] lot of what he said we can agree with. None of us want our children to be murderers or thieves. But Cosby never acknowledges that most poor blacks don't have a choice about these things.

To listen to what Prof. Dyson had to say on Tavis Smiley's now defunct show on NPR about the comments Bill Cosby made in 2004 that set off this firestorm in the first place, click here, draw your own conclusions, and sound off by adding your musings to this continuing public debate by clicking on the Comments link below.

Reuters cited a recent report that concluded UN Chief Kofi Annan did not influence contracting decisions that benefited a firm at which his son Kojo was employed.

Apparently, in a one-of-a-kind event in world history, a son misled his father. Now, that's news!

Nevertheless, will these investigations lead to Annan's demise? I don't know. But I have a sneaky suspicion OJ's to blame.

Yesterday I wrote a blog entry for PersonalDemocracy.com about issues of racial diversity and the left-wing of the blogosphere.

The long-and-short of it is that we need to be honest about the rhetoric we espouse, consistent with our language and intent, and true to the values underlying them as evinced by the deeds that validate them.

You can read it here.

At the eleventh hour I was invited to be a conference panelist at the George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.

Someone affiliated with a conference sponsor encouraged IPDI conference organizers to formally invite me to join th panel on Innovations and Successes of Online Issue Advocacy.

This new comrade -- who at blog-time, I have yet to meet -- took the initiative to recommend me to the IPDI folks after I had sent an e-mail to four white male colleagues of mine who I respect in order to prod them to actively leverage their access and privilege to call for greater inclusiveness at such events and overall.

My sense was that it was taken in the spirit it was sent. And within about 48 hours, I was invited to be a panelist at a conference that otherwise I was not likely to attend.

That said, now that I'm hear, I'm glad I was invited. But in this morning's plenary session where perhaps 500 people attended, while a surprisingly high percentage of women were on site, it looked like a College Republicans meeting in terms of its (lack of) racial diversity.

The trouble with me being the Ambassador for All Colored Peoples is that no such position exists, and would be woefully misguided to create, regardless the good intentions of the creator(s). The other impact of me being (potentially) the only person to talk substantively about issues of racial equity, fairness and inclusion with regard to electoral politics and civic engagement generally is that either by perception or in reality I morph into "the angry Black guy" icon that spooks the paleo-liberals (credit: Dan Carol) and others transcendent of espoused political ideology.

I need help. Blackfolk need help. People of color need help. Innumerable under-represented communities need help in this regard.

Howard Dean used to boast that he was the only (nationally, viable) white politician who initiates conversations about race -- even when people of color aren't in the room. Well, whether or not you think he and his camp have walked the talk, so to speak, those comments remain on point: If you acknowledge you have been born into or otherwise acquired some privilege or access in our society, be that racial/ethnic, gender, class, occupation, wealth, etc., if you call yourself a progressive, you have an obligation to leverage it for the benefit of those who do not. Otherwise, you are essentially a paleo-liberal (Dan who paternalistically believes that certain disparities are intractable and your privileged position mandates that you take it upon yourself to speak and act on the behalf of those less fortunate ones who can't handle the burden of democratic involvement.

With that said, I will be speaking on the aforementioned panel in about 15 minutes, and hope to do justice to discussing these issues further and enbolding other progressives of all stripes, as Ghandi once said, "to be the solution".

On Friday, January 28th, I participated in a panel called "The Grassroots, the Netroots and the DNC: A discussion of progressive participation, party politics & the race for DNC Chair" sponsored by Concerts for Change and Cosmopolity.com.

I asked if I'd be the only person of color on the panel, to which the organizer replied that he had calls in to other folks who had not yet responded. Yeah, right.

I told him that I'd be deeply disturbed if I was the only person of color on the panel, given that 1) it was being held in Manhattan (where there've been known to be colored person or two around), 2) there were many highly talented people of color far more worthy of an invitation than I, and 3) how are you going to talk about the grassroots and the Democratic Party and have one Black guy assuming the role of special envoy of Colored People United. Needless to say, I was not convinced that another person of color would show, so I gave the organizer a list of potential invitees to contact.

When it was all said and done, I decided to jump on a train from Philly to NYC and participate on this panel (at my own expense).

Along side me were fellow bloggers Zephyr Teachout & Duncan "Atrios" Black. Former NY State Democratic Party chair, Judith Hope, showed up a little later. And way towards the end, NY politician Mark Green showed up to do his 5-minute happy pigeon routine: you know, drop in, take a dump, and fly off -- all before the panel's wonderfully jaded and insightful moderator, Micah Sifry of PersonalDemocracy.com, could run him over for being the painfully traditional, political hack that he appeared to be, despite his "Nader's Raider" credentials.

But the real discussion occurred after the panel was over. Afterwards I was approached by two young white guys (and an older drunk white man who was immensely proud of being married to a Black woman -- the only other Black person in attendance).

The two younger guys thanked me for my comments, and asked what they could do to be down, so to speak. I asked them what they were involved in presently. One guy worked with ACORN and helped shuttle volunteers from New York to Philly during the election to canvas voters in largely low-income Black neighborhoods. My reply to him was that he already seemed to be keeping the right company, and that I had little else to suggest. Admittedly, I'm always a bit leery about being perceived as the-black-guy-who-can-answer-all-white-people's-questions-about-race-in-America. So, on a whim, I decided to ask some questions of them.

I asked if either of them had ever done community service in South Boston. I told them that there were plenty of poor people there who needed help, and the Black community has no shortage of dedicated students, activists, etc. who are doing good work in their own neighborhoods.

I told him that even if I wanted to volunteer in (most of) South Boston, I couldn't (unless I had no strong attachment to my head or limbs). I told him that it'd be much easier for them to go into poor white communities than any Black person. So, why did they feel the need to work in Black communities? I added to this query that I thought that all volunteers should be commended for their service and that anyone should be able to go to whatever neighborhood they wanted.

The quickest retort was that South Boston was not in a swing state like Philly. But I thought he was asking me what he can do to serve under-served communities, not win national elections. When I didn't tell him how he could best help Blackfolk and redirected him to help his fellow white people in South Boston, I could tell the suggestion jarred him. The other guy got it, and seemed fairly blown away by the not-so-subtle point I was making. So, did the young man want to truly serve or did he simply want to do the liberal pigeon thing in the context of a national political campaign? Probably both. But his immediate reaction was very telling.

The other guy expressed legitimate concern about who was looking out for people with even less than him -- a young man who stated that he was barely making it, living month-to-month without health insurance. He told me that he went to Cleveland, Ohio to volunteer in GOTV efforts leading up to the election. He said that he could now go back to those blighted communities without hesitation or fear. Despite his obvious sincerity, I did not know what to make of his comments. But it was apparent to me that these two had so little substantive exposure to Black people that it was all they could do to keep themselves from releasing at once all of these bottled feelings, curiosities and concerns. But to their credit of the 50+ folks who showed up, they were only two of a handful of whitefolk who took it upon themselves to talk to me.

But I suspect though that most white people who attended this event could be characterized similarly: going days, weeks, months, even years without engaging in a meaningful dialogue about the ubiquity and impact of race, racism and white-skin privilege in America.

I believe these two young white guys came to me in good faith. They want to learn. But they also wanted to be knighted "a good white person" by a Black guy who was saying things during the panel discussion that made a lot of folks uncomfortable, awkward, defensive, even upset.

I don't knight whitefolk -- or anyone else for that matter. I just try to be as candid and as consistent as I can. That in itself is hard enough. But one thing I can do, and temporarily satiate my angst in the process, is to respond to not-so-veiled self-serving questions from guilt-ridden white people with genuine questions of my own.

I said to these two young guys: "Here's an experiment. Given that in NYC white people are a minority and that for centuries white men have had exclusive political and economic reign over the city, how about pledging to only support mayoral candidates of color for the next 20 years? I quickly added (to preempt the rote color = incompetence retort) that all such candidates would possess great integrity and talent."

Man, it got real quiet real quick! The progressive Generation Y-folk started to get as nervous as Rush Limbaugh at a pharmacists convention. All of sudden, the pro-affirmative action rhetoric they had high-mindedly used to cut down their red-state counterparts seemed to instantly evaporate in this context.

They weren't ready to walk the talk. And that's okay, as long as they admit it (to themselves) their inconsistencies. The same holds true for the event's organizers, panel and audience. Walk the talk or STFU. Seriously though, in any enlightened group, most folks would have failed the "smell test".

When the older drunk white guy started to heckle the crowd for having only one Black person in the audience (his wife), someone retorted that there was a "Spanish guy back here". Indeed, there was one Latino in attendance. And yet, I still didn't feel all warm and gooey inside by this veritable parade of ethnicity.

If diversity and inclusiveness were truly important to the organizers of this event, the panel and audience would have averred this. Clearly, it did not.

If the whitefolk in the audience who I made uncomfortable truly believed in inclusiveness, they would commit to doing something -- anything -- to address the segregation which they in part help maintain by their complacency. In other words, they would have to take a leap into the unknown -- that is, real diversity, where the majority of people of color in their presence are of the same or higher social status.

And it is indeed a leap. Woody Allen and the cast of 'Friends' aren't the only New Yorkers who can experience a white Manhattan, if they wish to. The fact of the matter is that most white people live in a segregated world of their own making, and the only thing keeping them from jumping into the mix is the will to do so. Maybe before Google, I'd cut my white compatriots with no Black friends or acquaintances some slack. But, damn, just Google "blackfolk" and "Manhattan" and if you don't come up with something germane within 5 minutes, you're either an imbecile or full of shit.

So, my solicited suggestion to these two young white guys was: Leave your comfort zone. I did so by jumping on a freakin' train in arctic conditions to participate in a panel amidst a virtually all white audience to talk about something that assuredly would not have been meaningfully addressed had I not gotten off my ass and participated. In fact, I even joined a group of whitefolk afterward for dinner at a German restaurant. (I didn't even go to a German restaurant when I visited Berlin!) So, no one can say that I didn't practice what I preached.

Do I think that most whitefolk will heed my bitchy intonations? Nope. But if I just reach one privileged white person a year through 2008, I will have exceed my lifetime community service quota. Besides with the advent of the blogosphere, whitefolk who have not yet drummed up the will or courage to interact with their colored counterparts can at least eaves-drop on us by reading our blogs. That way you don't have to pay Amtrak $80 like I did to leave the comfort zone of your web browser's bookmarks.

Tavis Smiley & Kweisi Mfume have announced that they're leaving NPR and the NAACP, respectively.

I'm kinda surprised that Tavis is leaving his NPR radio show before his PBS TV show. I had assumed that his listenership for his NPR show was much larger than his PBS show. Perhaps not. And while my assumption that his NPR foray was well received, I never thought that despite its quality and content focus that it was reaching a critical mass of Blackfolk. I always assumed that there was a small, but hardcore subset of curious white liberals and negrophiles among NPR's overwhelmingly white audience.

I enjoyed Tavis' radio show, though I hadn't been listening to it as regularly as I'd like. I've never watched his TV show, primarily because his first guest on his debut show was none other than the right-wing congressman (R-GA), Newt Gingrich. I found Tavis far too conciliatory a host to such an evil man. What can I say? It just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big, big fan of Tavis. I think he's a trailblazer and often speaks truth to power. I am particularly proud of his exit statement confirming his departure from NPR, in which he rebuked NPR for not . . .

"meaningfully reach[ing] out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio but simply don't know it exists or what it offers ... In the most multicultural, multi-ethnic and multiracial America ever, I believe that NPR can and must do better in the future."

Tavis, as my uncle Arthur once told me: "Don't sell soap to people who don't wash." Perhaps the current leadership of NPR is a bit funky. I don't know. But money talks. So, the next deal you get where you try to integrate a market, make sure your lawyers make your employer/partner agree to an adequate marketing budget upfront. But I trust that you've already learned this by now.

Whatever you ultimately decide to do with this new free time, promise me, Tavis, that you won't go to CNN or UPN -- they're both beneath you.

As for Kweisi Mfume, I am neither surprised or upset that he is stepping down as president of the NAACP. It's time that he run for governor of Maryland or maybe for the U.S. Senate (assuming Sen. Sarbanes decides to retire soon) -- particularly, if Mfume has the opportunity to defeat the cheap, GOP imitation of Sen. Barack Obama, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in the process!

Okay, so Bush pardons two Thanksgiving turkeys, but that's supposed to be news?! C'mon.

Now, if Bush had real butterballs, he'd spare actual people -- worthy people -- not turkeys from government-sanctioned murder.

Click here to revisit my pre-election predictions.

If I could've said it any better, I would.

Simply put, I gravely underestimated the white "evangelical" constituency. And I significantly overestimated the youth non-constituency.

Not surprisingly, the one thing it is clear I was right about -- and had the most confidence about -- was the Black vote and its overwhelming opposition to the Bush administration.

20 Million Mute

It appears P. Diddy and Russell Simmons sold more t-shirts than the necessity to vote. I don't fault them for their advocacy. Quite the contrary, I applaud them and others for a worthwhile cause.

However, as one of my uncles who is a veteran political consultant (with a great track record) told me quite candidly and presciently, "Young people don't vote." After all, "don't sell soap to people who don't wash." Well, the hip hop impresarios sold helluv soap. But sadly, there's a fetid stench from all those young, newly registered voters who were to busy vegging on the couch in front of MTV & BET watching Eminem's 'Mosh' music video instead of exercising their right to vote.

This same uncle also forewarned me about doing consulting work for the DNC. His advice to me on doing consultant work for the Democratic Party? Don't. Or just be sure to get paid in advance!

Oh, well. Live and learn.

Sen. John Kerry wil be making his concession speech at Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA at 1pm ET.

What once was the motus operandi of Southern Democrats is now the likely strategy of the national GOP.

Where once there were poll taxes, fire hoses, attack dogs and the like, there may very well be roving bands of lawyers, poll watchers, and other Republican operatives staking out polling places in communities of color in key states to suppress the Democratic vote.

So, if you have a friend, relative or colleague who has documented a case of voter intimidation/suppression, please post an entry by clicking on the Comment link below and we will be automatically notified wherever we are.

If you have video, audio or photographic evidence of such transgressions, please contact us directly at 866.359.2635 and we will do our best to post them on this site ASAP.

The sooner we can collect documented cases of voter intimidation, the sooner we can generate the necessary attention within the blogosphere and beyond in order to quickly respond where appropriate.

This is what grassroots activism looks like in the 21st Century!

Electoral Vote Prediction: Kerry over Bush, 322 to 216!

I know you think I'm crazy for predicting what amounts to an electoral landslide, but I have every confidence that the depth and diversity of hatred for Bush has not been adequately picked up by pollsters. And even the best pollsters and pundits agree that the X factor are that demographic that includes first-time voters who are overwhelmingly young, single and of color.

So, here are the states I believe Kerry will win:

The entire Northeast Corridor (including New Hampshire and all of Maine's 4 electoral votes) will go to Kerry.

Kerry will win Pennsylvania.

I also predict Kerry will carry West Virginia.

In the South, Kerry will win Florida by a wide enough margin to obviate the need for a recount.

In the Midwest, he will take Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa & Missouri, but will lose in Wisconsin.

I also predict Kerry will lose Colorado (and that Colorado's Amendment 36 will not pass), so that Bush will receive all of the state's 9 electoral votes.

Kerry will pick up California, Washington state, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada, but will not take Arizona. (While Nevada has been leaning Bush in all the polls, I think it'll tip for Kerry given the incredibly high rate of new voter registrations this year. I also think there may be recounts in New Mexico and/or Nevada if Kerry doesn't have a significant margin of victory in these states.)

Kerry will win Hawaii, but only by a hair.

Despite the mackliciousness of Bill Clinton's 11th hour stumping in his old stomping grounds, Kerry will not carry Arkansas, nor John Edwards' native "cradle of the mill worker", North Carolina, which only the most optimistic Democratic operatives thought might go Blue.

On the popular vote front, I predict Kerry will get at least 2 million more votes than Bush.

Sadly, I think that the GOP will retain control of the House and Senate, but I'm not going to predict the number of seats won/lost by each party.

Finally, I predict Alan Keyes will beat Barack Obama for the open Senate seat in Illinois.

. . . Pysche!!!

As is my consistent, if not ubiquitous schpiel over the past year or so, Blackfolk will turn out in record numbers to carry Kerry to victory, despite our tepid support for his candidacy and the recent and highly dubious nationwide poll conducted by the Black think tank, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which estimated that Bush will get 18% of the Black vote.

Let's hope we'll know the undisputed results before Thanksgiving!

Vote early and often!!!

Does it ever blow you away that after all these many years, folks still underestimate us as Blackfolk?

Sometimes it simply boggles the mind. But, I suppose its one of the very few benefits of institutional racism and white supremacy. It happens generation after generation, time after time. And we always suprise the hell out of America by coming out on top. The fact is, we're not supposed to survive, let alone succeed. We're not supposed to count or get back up. But we always do!

Though I have every confidence the IRS probe into the NAACP is politically motivated, if indeed they're politically inept enough to mess with this venerable civil rights organization, it most certainly will piss off enough Blackfolk for the NAACP to actually become relevant to millions of people who see it as that group I heard my grandparents talk about.

The other reason I think the probe might help the NAACP is if their 501(c)(3) status is actually stripped, maybe they'll morph into a 501(c)(4) or Section 527 organization -- both of which are tax-exempt entities, but neither confers tax-deductible donations to their contributors. By becoming one of these types of entities, the NAACP could commit to greater advocacy in accordance with the IRS code, and remove that bogus veil of impartiality masquerading as non-partisanship. The down-side, of course, is that the NAACP's major corporate and individual donors would not have the benefit of taking tax deductions for the sizeable contributions they would ordinarily or have historically made to the organization.

An influential Black non-profit without white money? That's crazy! Revolutionary is more like it. But the dreaded "R" word has little to no political capital in the hyper-pragmatic Black political mainstream in this post-Civil Rights era of corporate sponsored community building.

But think about it for a sec. Look at the strangle-hold outside money has on so many of our Black institutions -- without such funding many such entities would be dead or dying.

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the National Urban League, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. You take away their corporate financing, and what do you have? A bunch of traditionalists who won't know how to keep the lights on because the operating model for these and other related groups is not based on grassroots financing.

Naturally, the folks who've been in the movement far longer than I've even been alive will say cynically that if DuBois waited for Blackfolk to fund the NAACP one hundred years ago, it would never got off the ground or grown to what it's become today. Well, perhaps that's true. But let's honestly ask ourselves what it has become today?

While I learned of its storied past by the accounts of my father's parents who were hard-core integregationists in Louisville, Kentucky and proud, active members of that chapter for decades, what the NAACP -- at least nationally --is something of a semi-revered anachronism.

Look at the anatomy and size of its board of directors and draw your own conclusion about the extent to which it is a nimble, vibrant, or grassroots organization. And while its critics may contend that the NAACP never pretended to be grassroots, if any Black institution truly committed to the advancement of people of African descent receives the overwhelming majority of funding from without, then some large concerns are worth noting.

To what extent and how consistently can an organization speak truth to power when its largest contributors seek to uphold that power? An equally important query is: What is the future of an organization that has all but written off the potential of community-based financial support?

Please do not confuse me for an idealist here. But the question must be raised that if there is a fundamental lack of faith in or commitment to even the possibility that a major Black entity can be supported by its own, how does that ultimately bode for its organizational mission?

To me, the very real and sad reality for the executive leadership of these groups is that as presently operated, they would stand no chance of surviving -- let alone thriving -- without considerable "outside" money (if indeed you agree such qualifiers are valid). So, the ultimate question for these leaders is which is more important, keeping things going as they are -- lavish black-tie event, golf tournament, lavish black-tie event? Or, perhaps -- just maybe, something a bit more gutsy, daring, and in the much older African American tradition that embodies our people's indominable spirit and improvisional prowess to boldly define ourselves and craft our own fate when others are prepared to dig our proverbial grave.

As my late grandfather Murphy always used to chime, "We are an amazing people!" Our self-appointed leaders and institutions need to act accordingly. To not do so will imperil the future and long-term legitimacy of such organizations and simultaneously expedite a changing of the guards, the likes of which our community has not seen in far too long.

It's sad that it may take an IRS probe to be the catalyst of a change that should've happened proactively years ago from among our own ranks.

Fresh off smacking the doltish smirk off Dubya's mug, John Kerry and the Democratic Party have gone Black on us:

All within the span of about one week, the Kerry-Edwards campaign and the DNC have wooed rising star, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama and the ubiquitous Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. to help get out the vote (GOTV) for the Democratic presidential nominee as well as other Democratic candidates across the country -- but particularly in hotly contested battleground states.

And as of yesterday, John Kerry has accepted an invitation to be interviewed on BET next friday.

That's great! Now with this inspired political trifecta, the Dems won't have to spend the millions of dollars most critical constituencies receive to ensure high voter turn-out.

Those tireless Black grassroots organizers in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Miami, Columbus, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh must be so pleased.

After all, why do Blackfolk need money for GOTV when a few rousing sermons from our official leaders will do!

On the heels of announcing an unprecedented, multi-state $45 million media buy, the Kerry campaign has fired Black advertising agency, New York-based Uniworld Group.

According to a reliable source, Afro-Netizen has learned that to some working on the account, the sudden news was actually a relief.

Frustrated and underwhelmed by the lack of cohesiveness, clarity of vision and aggressiveness of the Kerry's campaign's "decision-making by committee", Afro-Netizen has independently confirmed what many average citizens in the African-American community have stated all along: Kerry -- and the DNC in general -- are unncessarily losing ground to Bush and poorly communicating its message to the disaffected portion of the Democrats' most loyal constituencies -- African-Americans in key swing states, who at this rate may very well choose to stay away from the polls on election day.

Sources close to Afro-Netizen speculate the contract may go to Spike DDB -- the partnership between noted filmmaker Spike Lee and DDB Needham -- who currently does advertising work for the DNC focused on African-American outreach.

The extent to which the Kerry campaign will invest in sharper anti-Bush advertising that apparently Uniworld was kept from doing remains to be seen. However, any strategy that avoids acknowledges many Black voters' antipathy for George W. Bush or overlooks the 10 - 12 million African Americans who regularly surf the web will undoubtedly reduce Kerry's already dwindling chances to win the presidency.

Okay, so "crash" is probably not the best verb to use.

For the first time in 11 years, I have actually registered to attend ""CBC Weekend" -- Beltway shorthand for the 34th Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference.

Actually, I registered, but didn't pay because this year I am attending this conference as a member of the press (even though 9 out of 10 people behind or in front of the counter have no clue what a blogger is.)

Off and on over the past decade or so, I have been "participating" in CBC Weekend, and every year is pretty much the same: the "Ebony/Jet Showcase" of the Black political elite, the who's who of the Fortune 500's top Black government affairs folks, lobbyists, policy wonks, a smattering of media folk, and a sprinkling of Black quasi-celebs du jour. (Apparently, Omarosa this year's who-gives-a-damn "celeb"). Oh, and let's not forget the CBC groupies -- the folks who make the pilgrimmage to DC every year to get their groove on, but say they're in town for meetings and to attend actual conference events (in the daylight hours).

Over the years I've attended countless CBC "braintrust" sessions and issue forums sponsored by various CBC members, and back in 1994, I even coordinated the former Sen. Braun's federal procurement fair that brought together top procurement officers from all of the federal agencies and vendors of color.

At these braintrusts, I heard highly expert panelists opine on all things political, civic and policy-related. I have met the charismatic and the catastrophically boring among these wonks, activists and pundits.

But one thing has remained the same: the template never changes. And perhaps that's what concerns me the most.

It seems that 95% of the panelists who speak at this sessions have participated in the same (type of) braintrust sessions and given the same talk for the past 34 years!

I see the same people at the same parties with the same type of corporate sponsors.

I see the same folks lining up at the open bars and shakin' it on the same dance floors in the same venues with the same gratuitously expensive wardrobes that could feed a family in Darfur for a month. More sad than this is the fact that the flossin' is often by junior Hill staffers who make far less than the average sanitation worker.

Indeed, the DC I know (and left) is the L.A. of the East Coast. And yet within this perhaps stinging indictment is another equally true reality: "we are an amazing people", to quote my late grandfather. Most of us are acutely aware of the plight of our people. We understand the mechanics of "the system" in which we have expressly chosen to work. We are not so deluded that we feel that we've "made it" and our work here is done. We have so much promise -- if only we can break out of this culture of conservative complacency. Instead of the highly ambitious tactic of "infiltration and subversion", over time, we've merely acclimated and acquiesed. Not exactly revolutionary or all that fruitful for the millions of Blackfolk on whose behalf many of us politicos we are supposed to being advocating.

My fellow CBC pilgrims and I are not inherently vapid, materialistic, or selfish people; we have merely bought into a paradigm that gives us the perception of comfort and stability, but is fundamentally flawed. The flaw it seems is the notion that we can insinuate ourselves into a system to the point where we understand it so well that we will ultimately be able to exploit it fully for our own collective benefit. The grim reality I'm afraid is discernably different.

The reality is that "power concedes nothing without a demand" -- but from an equal or greater power. And such power from our community will almost certainly come from without and well beyond the Beltway, executive suites, and new Black suburbia. It will come from the slums, schools, and streets. And if the Kerry-Edwards campaign continues to nickel-and-dime its most loyal core constituency, the re-election of Dubya will undoubtedly create a groundswell of street-level rage and protest 21st century America has seen.

But, hey, maybe I'm just bitter because I didn't get an invitation to whatever is tonight's "in" party.

Have you ever seen the hit BBC show called "What Not to Wear"?

The premise of the show is basically two fashion experts pull no punches in trying to educate habituallly bad dressers on how to select a wardrobe that accentuates their strengths and deemphasizes their weaknesses.

In my case, I am deciding what to wear for my time on the convention floor. Yesterday, I was dressed very casually, but chose to do so because I was not going on the convention floor. (I needed to take off a day to de-slime.)

Tonight's a big night. You know, the grand finale of the GOP's New York romp, where Dubya will read his Hooked-on-Phonics-equipped teleprompter, and convince the masses of impressionable Americans that antagonizing Islamic extremists and their growing network of supporters throughout the Muslim world is a compelling reason we should vote for him -- at least those somnolent "swing voters" who have somehow drawn the strength to register to vote, but too daft to not yet know who the hell to vote for in November! Some people like to call this constituency "NASCAR dads", but that's not the case. This constituency is represented by another group who I have labled: Idiots. But this is just my professional opinion. I'll keep my personal feelings to me, myself, and -- the Hallibacon-engineered Ashcroft RNC 3000 microchip planted deep within my skull.

Anyway, I'm deciding if I should sport the Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air look so that I can have greater access to unsuspecting elesycophants. Or perhaps I should opt for standing out a bit, and rockin' the disheveled "outsider" look a la Michael Moore.

Here's the dilemma: If by some small chance my 95-year old grandmother, Jewel Rabb, of Louisville, Kentucky, catches a glimpse of me on CSPAN looking like a bum, I'm toast. But I'm also worried about soaking my nice duds in the stench of 20,000 Republicritters.

Ah, decisions, decisions.

But here's my legitimate concern regarding this seemingly trivial question: My grandmother wakes up at the crack of dawn and dresses to the tee -- whether or not she leaves the house or has visitors! So, what do you think this woman is going to think of her grandson interviewing national figures on the convention floor looking like I just rolled out of bed.

I've got one word for you: "Pshaw!"

For those of you with grandmothers, mothers, aunts, cousins or alter egos like my very traditional grandmother, you know that as a Black woman who started a family in during the Great Depression, she is a member of that noble generation who were the architects of "the politics of respectability" so synonymous with the ethos of the Civil Rights Movement. Yada-yada-yada: You always gotta dress sharp!

My brother Maurice and I could be professional bankrobbers. But if we show up to work in a conservative suit, are clean-shaven and mannerly, my god-fearing grandmother, bless her soul, could look past it!

Grandma, the pressure's killing me. That's it, I'm staying at home tonight!

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Joe Trippi last night at Blogger Alley at the Tank on 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. It's a great little hole in the wall set up by a few anti-Bush techies who generously have provided a blogging bunker for the majority of top left-leaning bloggers.

Draped over one of the windows of the storefront was a big green banner that read in bold lettering: "Progressive Tourist Bureau". (I'll be sure to snap a photo of it tonight and upload it later.)

I cut into an intense conversation between Trippi -- former Dean campaign director -- and Peter Daou, a blog strategist with the Kerry campaign who introduced himself to me in the "bloggers' pen" in the upper eschelons (read: nosebleed section) of the Fleet Center in Boston during the convention.

To his credit, Peter was vigorously defending what Joe and I, the entire media and several million other discerning citizens believe is an all-too-cautious and faltering Kerry-Edwards election bid.

Those devils on the GOP side are wickedly good at what they do. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" some say. Well, I'm greedy, so I hate 'em both! Needless to say, I understand the game, and on that basis alone, the elephants are kickin' some donkey ass at present, and it ain't pretty.

Joe Trippi -- the architect of Dean campaign's early and most notable successes -- was (astutely) lambasting the Kerry and DNC politicos for getting "it" profoundly wrong and having an untimely amnesia, having not learned anything of enduring value from the few, but highly noteworthy strategic decisions the Dean camp made, the aftermath of which -- to a great extent anyway -- is the basis of the unaffiliated anti-Bush/anti-war demonstrations here in NYC and all over the country over the past many months.

What could Peter do or say? Peter is a smart, ambitious Lebanese-American Generation X'er who's working for a presidential candidate for whom he has abiding faith and admiration. Moreover, he is (admittedly) not responsible for, or highly influential on, decisions about messaging, media buys, and the like.

All he could really say is that John Kerry is a good man, an honorable man, and is a proven winner. Let's hope that indeed "the past is prologue".

The "dialogue" between Joe and Peter was by no means ad hominem, but it certainly reached a fever pitch, at which time I interjected (as I always do around white Democratic politicos) my consternation about the apparent lack of substantive and wide-spread outreach to "the most loyal Democratic constituency since the New Deal"? Where on Kerry's radar screen are Blackfolk? The same folks who will ultimately determine whether or not he is elected.

Peter was quick to ask if I knew about the very recent $45 million Kerry ad buys, a large portion of which he emphasized will be targeting "minorities". Resisting the legitimate urge to take him to task on the politics of that term, I simply responded with another question:

Will these ads be as cautious as the first batch of TV commercials that members of the Congressional Black Caucus deemed lackluster?

With as much confidence as he could muster, Peter assured me that these ads will be on point. Lord, I hope he's right. But I reminded him and Joe that there are at least 10 million of us afro-netizens online on a regular basis, and we are a diverse and highly influential constituency that has not been adequately targeted by . . . anyone, not including professional spammers.

By the end of 2004, I predict that over 500,000 Blackfolk will have signed up to join Afro-Netizen. Yet, since the Democratic Convention, we have only been seriously approached by one Democratic entity. So, I ask you, my fellow afro-netizens, is it me? Or is there a systematic disconnect, or worse, antipathy to engage the Black electorate in a consistent, meaningful and respectful manner? On second thought, don't respond to that -- the Republicans have only left me with one good nerve. Let me keep my last good one through Labor Day, okay?

At any rate, the point I left Trippi and Peter with was that, bottom-line: low Black voter turn-out in Miami, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Philly, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and so on, means four more years of Dubya! That's the straight-forward political calculus that few pundits or politicos choose to make plain in the media and generally.

Be that as it may, this point is not lost on most politically astute Blackfolk, other informed people of color, and enlightened progressives. But it seems like the top Dems didn't get the memo -- or are perhaps insecure about the lack of control they would have to accept by acknowledging that their candidates simply can't win without Blackfolk here on out, suggesting an uncomfortable dynamic that Rev. Jesse Jackson so eloquently articulated at a Progressive Majority-sponsored event during the Democratic convention in Cambridge, Mass., and attended by a disturbingly homogenous audience.

Rev. Jackson reminded folks that among other notable facts, there are more Blackfolk registered as Democrats in the South than whites. And that any Democratic strategy to write off the South poised this election cycle was highly problematic and self-defeating in the short- and long-terms.

Lay as much blame on Nader as you like, but Jesse's point was that the New Democrats' short-lived success in the '90s of rushing to the political center to preempt Republican initiatives and appeal to the fairly conservative and equally fickle swing voters of middle America is not nearly as sure-fire and politically expedient as making a long-term investment in energizing and mobilizing the millions of unregistered, voting-age Black people who would vote overwhelmingly for Democrats if they were made to feel as relevant and respected as they need to be.

To my loyal readers, please believe me when I tell you that I met and interviewed Alan Keyes on the convention floor yesterday in front of the Illinois delegation -- and when I shook his hand to my surprise there were no strings anywhere to be found! And while I can definitively confirm that he is not a marionette of the GOP, I did not look at the seat of the pants to see if he was merely a puppet. I'm curious, but I'm not that curious, people.

That being said, it might even appear to some that he was an adherent of leftist reparations advocates if he wasn't a right-wing nutjob who chose to affiliate himself with a party that for decades has displayed great distain for the lot of Black people who choose not to be their darker-hued lackies.

But politics makes strange bedfellows. And given Keyes' recent about-face on reparations, I can only wonder if the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and/or the venerable Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) will invite him to join a braintrust panel discussion on this salient issue during the CBC Annual Legislative Conference next week (Rabb says while holding his breath).

Well, it was in this spirit and with great (albeit morbid) curiosity, that I decided to approach the surprisingly affable, somewhat lonesome, and eerily all-too-accessible Keyes.

He graciously took a moment to answer a few questions. (Though, it would not surprise me if he agreed to an interview request by the Invisible Male Lesbians from Mars Coalition.)

In an instant, Keyes simultaneously made -- for him -- uniquely lucid points on the need to discuss and address the legacy of slavery and segregation and further boost his opponent's prospects, front-runner Illinois state senator Barack Obama -- who in elephantine circles is known as "the Michael Steele of the Democratic Party". (Incidentally, I don't know what is more insulting, the former moniker or "well meaning" whitefolk who I heard/read immediately after his watershed DNC address praised him as the "Tiger Woods of politics". I almost would have preferred to hear the hackneyed "he's so articulate" poison dart.)

Whaddya say we just go to the interview, shall we?

How have your comments in support of reparations for African-Americans been received so far?

"I think that it's roused a great deal of interest because it's a very constructive proposal to address an issue that hasn't been resolve.

I think that there've been a lot of attempts but in point of fact the last attempts during the Great Society and all these government programs have in fact harmed the Black community. . . Left the family [inaudible] . . . undermined the work incentive because instead of repairing the damage done by the legacy of slavery and segregation, it actually made it worse.

I have offered a proposal that's based on free-market principles that would give people a stake in which to rebuild their own future. And think that's what's really needed."

Do you think that has been well receive among your Republican colleagues among the state party leadership?

"Well, I think among some, not so much among others. But I've always said I'd always try to speak the truth as clearly as I see it explain. I think the business of leadership is persuasion. So, if people don't get it at first, you explain it until they can understand it better. And that's what I do."

Are you familiar with Congressman John Conyers' legislation to fund a task force to talk about the issues [surrounding reparations] you have recently raised?

"Well, I think that it's very important to try and raise public understanding. But at the same time, we need to avoid notions that would encourage the belief that this is some kind of extortion or repayment for injustice. I really think it's just a common sense effort to repair damage that persists from what was after all a historic assault against the Black community."

Do believe this issue should be a non-partisan or bi-partisan issue?

"I think it is. I think it is a non-partisan, bi-partisan issue that addresses our responsibility to the legacy of our history. We have to respect the positive legacy of the Constitution and our liberties. But we also have to have to take responsiblity for some of the negative legacies as well."

Well, there you have it. You heard it here first.

For my Beltway friends and colleagues, please share this blog post with Conyers et al., and post comments below so that the rest of the Afro-netizen community can read about their reaction.

I'm giddy with anticipation!

I had planned to give a moving defense of the conservative principles of the Republican Party tonight.

But there was only one problem; Barack Obama gave it last month at the Democratic Convention.

--Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele

That's a curious statement for him to make, don't you think? I was there the night Obama made his momentous address to Democrats, I came away thinking how rooted his speech was in the values of the most loyal base of the Democratic Party: Blackfolk!

To read the rest of Steele's speech from last night, click here.

First things first, I would like to thank my jouralistic compatriot and RNC sponsor, Walter Fields of The Northstar Network for facilitating my getting press credentials for the GOP Convention.

As many of you may recall, I blogged about Walter the first day I arrived in Boston for the Democratic Convention. After picking up my press credentials the Sunday before the start of the convention, I passed Donna Brazile and reintroduced myself to her. Shortly thereafter, Walter came up to me and said he overheard my conversation with Donna, and wanted to introduce himself to me. The rest, as they say, is history.

Walter was kind enough to meet me at the security-laden Penn Station early yesterday evening and debrief me on the lay of the land, logistics, his observations on this convention, the election, and politics in general. His knowledge and expertise of the political game is indeed impressive, and I encourage all of my readers to check him out.

I can honestly say that I have never in my life received more unsolicited words of warning than I have regarding my sojourn to the Republican National Convention!

At first, I wasn't sure if there admonitions had to do with possible terrorist threats or Republicanist threats. Now, I know that it was largely the latter. Although, those who warned me drew little rhetorical distinction between the two.

"Don't drink the water at the convention!"

"Don't sign any loyalty oath!"

"Don't look them directly in the eye!"

Well, I'm here to say that I survived my first safari into the Elephantine jungle!

I must say, those Repubs sure do know how to have a good time though. Of course, by expropriating Blackfolks' and Latinos' best music, they had a good head start, not to mention whatever invisible "social lubricants" abounded. It was so raucous on the convention floor, that I thought I almost heard the Log Cabin Republicans chanting "Y-M-C-A" from their "VIP quarters" in a guarded closet in the sub-basement of Madison Square Garden.

That said, my time in GOP-Land was fascinating and surreal. It was like watching a car wreck in slow-motion.

I was shocked to see so many Blackfolk there who weren't security or maintenance workers. Sadly, this observation didn't extend to the press corps which was whiter than the Mississippi state delegation.

Unlike my inaugural blog experience in Boston in July, I took the time to meet with delegates on the convention floor.

I interviewed five Black delegates from California, Oregon, Texas, North Carolina, and New York. By clicking on some of the aforementioned states, you can hear the entirety of my interviews taken with my handy-dandy Olympus DS-330 digital voice recorder. (Olympus, where's my royalty check?!)

My favorite interview of the night, however, was the inimidable Sir Alan Keyes. The affable and far-too-accsessible Senate challenger to Illinois State senator Barack Obama gave me a moment to expound on his recent statements about his "free market-based" reparations proposal to benefit African Americans.

Within the last 36 hours or so, CNN, and the lazy media lemmings that follow it, have been covering Dick "Off the" Cheney attacking John Kerry for the Democratic nominee's use of the word "sensitive" with regard to prosecution of the war on terrorism.

Stumping for Dubya in Ohio, Cheney retorted: "We don't need to wage a sensitive war". And if anybody knows about insensitivity, it's this dyed-in-the-wool war hawk, whose valliant service in Viet-- oh, that's right. Cheney didn't serve in Vietnam. He was granted not one, but war hawk" target="blank">FIVE deferments!

Anyway, I'm sure he would have been as a good a soldier as Dubya was a reservist.

Be that as it may, the fact that all the major news outlets -- not just cable bad-guy, FOX News -- chose not to air footage of Dubya using the same "sensitive" verbiage in front of a sea of black, brown, red and yellow journalists at the Unity Journalists of Color Convention in Washington, DC just last week, speaks volumes. Maybe if the media industry actually had a critical mass or proportional representation of people of color in decision-making positions, this glaring oversight wouldn't have occurred. Moreover, this is particularly worrisome, given that basic cable phenom and left-of-center fake news innovator -- The Daily Show -- aired an excerpt of Dubya's speech on their show last night in which he stated:

Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is -- we need to be very sensitive on that.

It took me just seconds to find the entire transcript of Dubya's speech on the White House website. But perhaps the cash-strapped CNN et al. doesn't have the limitless resources of the vast Afro-Netizen Empire.

Given that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart airs on Viacom-owned Comedy Central, I wonder what we can expect from Viacom-tool CBS and the professional musings of veteran anchorman Dan Rather.

So, sorry for being so judgmental, Wolf! You're doing a bang-up job at CNN, which apparently stands for the Co-opted News Network.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so judgmental, and be a little more . . . sensitive.

GOP stooge, Virginia Walden-Ford, has done it again: The new president of the deceptively named, DC-based Republican front organization, People of Color United, has sacrificed her own (vestige of) integrity to do the shabby and desperate dirty work of a bigoted and equally well-funded right-wing cabal determined to promote presidential candidate John Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy".

I honestly don't know who is more more delusional: a Black woman who thinks by hitching her wagon to an elephant will put her on the fast-track to "success", or an elephant who tries to pass off its droppings to Blackfolk as candy. No doubt, a disgusting metaphor for a disgusting reality. But wait, there's more! . . .

According to Chris Brennan of the Philadelphia Daily News (free subcription), this organization was established last week by Ms. Walden-Ford's DC Parents For School Choice, a GOP-infested non-profit group that advocates school vouchers, not unlike the Bush-friendly Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).

The Philadelphia Daily News article continues . . .

• "John Kerry for president? How is it we don't know anything about this guy? You'd think someone who has been in office for 22 years, we'd know why he's supposed to be our savior. What's Kerry done for us?"

This ad fires the parting shot: "Boy, does Kerry come across as rich, white and wishy-washy!"

• Another quotes NAACP Chairman Julian Bond from an April New York Times story, saying of Kerry: "I don't think you can be a serious contender for the votes of people of color - if you don't have people of color making the decisions in your campaign."

This ad does not mention that Bond praised Kerry at the NAACP convention in Philadelphia last month. Bush snubbed the group's invitation to speak.

• A third ad takes a shot at Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who has called herself African-American because she was born in Mozambique. "While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa surrounded by servants, qualifies."

• Kerry is criticized in the last ad for missing a May 11 Senate vote on extending unemployment benefits. The measure, which needed 60 votes to pass, failed 59-40. "Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting - the more likely we would vote Democratic!"

Not mentioned: Republican votes killed the proposal.

People of Color United joins the ranks of nonprofit advocacy groups firing salvos in the presidential campaign. Bush has been assailed on radio and television by Democratic-friendly nonprofit groups America Coming Together and MoveOn PAC. And he has been helped by conservative groups like the Club For Growth.

These dubious radio spots were produced by QWorks Studios, run by white GOP operative, M. Darrell Williams. (I mention his race because 1) I try to make a point of ascribing race to all folks, not just people of color, and 2) his name sounds like he's a brother.)

Anyway, Mr. Williams is the principal and executive director of with what is a rather . . . interesting clientele which includes the Republican Party of both Florida and Pennsylvania, but also the Boys and Girls Club of America, the National Mining Association, and the front group for the Black Lung lobby, Coalition for Affordable & Reliable Energy (CARE).

Illinois GOP affirmative action beneficiary and flip-flopping, right-wing carpet-bagger Alan Keyes compared fellow U.S. Senate candidate state Senator Barack Obama's strong pro-choice stance to a "slaveholder's position".

Keyes' shoddy juxtapositioning of women's reproductive rights and slaveowners' rights was ostensibly based on the premise that while slavery was constitutional, it flew in the face of the stated principles of the Declaration of Independence, asserting that "all men are created equal" yada-yada-yada, Obama loves slavery. Clearly, Keyes' mouth is quicker than his mind.

At a press conference in Chicago yesterday, Obama's responded with his usual poise and thoughtfulness:

"I think that Mr. Keyes is going to use rhetoric like this throughout the campaign.

This is sort of what he's built his career on. I don't doubt his sincerity, but I do suggest he look even to members of his own party to see whether it's appropriate to use that kind of language."

I'm resisting the urge to make some well-deserved Harvard jokes here, but since Obama is a Harvard alumnus, I'll refrain (for now). I will say this, though: Keyes' insanity aside, I don't doubt his intellect or native intelligence, but they by no means trump wisdom, common sense, good values, an enlightened world view, and personal integrity. All of which Keyes lacks, along with a host of other hypocritical, Ivy-educated, Black conservative affirmative action beneficiaries, such as Uncle Clarence.

Of course, my favorite "pre-legislated" affirmative action recipient is Dubya, who without his blue-blood pedigree couldn't have gotten a job at Yale Locks, let alone accepted at Yale College (or, for that matter, Harvard Business School).

Repeat loser Alan Keyes has accepted the Illinois GOP's invitation to be beaten by up-and-comer state Senator Barack Obama for U.S. Senate, and it reminded me of a recent conversation I had with Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who kicked Keyes conservative keister back 1992.

I had the pleasure of a long, impromptu conversation with Sen. Mikulski (D-MD), the day after Sen. John Kerry "reported for duty", having formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

The Senator sat next to me in the waiting area at Boston Logan Airport. Across from us were two of staffers. Midway through the conversation we were joined by the Senator's DNCC "tracker" -- a Greg Kinnear look-alike with disheveled hair and short-shorts, and a smile that could light up a room.

Sen. Mikulski explained to me that a tracker was the person responsible for prepping folks who would take to the convention podium. He would tell her when to walk, how to stand, where to look, how to pace oneself while speaking, etc. While I have already forgottten this man's name, one could not forget the wonderful stories he told us with great glee, which may have even gotten the Senator's stoic bodyguard to crack a smile.

We had ample time to be regaled with colorful tales of public figures asking for beer before they went on stage, or others resisting his requests to practice their speeches, because our respective flights were both delayed.

Later, the Senator and I talked about many different, intersecting subjects: absentee voting, progressive 527 organizations like MoveOn.org and Progressive Majority, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama -- all of whom she spoke about with high regard. We also commiserated on the demise of her former colleague and my former boss, Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun, for whom I worked on her legislative staff early in her first and only term. We talked about the racism and sexism she encountered while in office, and the more preventable issues she grappled with that all conspired to derail the political career of a highly competent, truly intelligent, and decent woman.

I mentioned to Sen. Mikulski that my family was from Baltimore. And after a minute of playing the name-game, she realized that I was the grandson of long-time community activist, TV personality, and former columnist for the Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper, Madeline Murphy. Once that connection was made, her body-language changed, such that for the rest of our exchange, she was turned fully towards me and leaning in as though we were old friends. She gave a knowing laugh, clearly reminiscing about the Madeline Murphy who would call her office to raise hell without hesitation or apology.

It was clear that she had great respect for my grandmother -- a woman who spoke truth to power, and, without a doubt, is a hero of mine, whose edge while beveled by a massive stroke a few years, still has that characteristic.

Her late husband, Judge William H. Murphy, Sr. -- my grandfather -- would always remark when hearing about the achievements and advancements of my generation, "We are an amazing people." But as much as successive generations of Blackfolk have undoubtedly accomplished, I look at my mother's mother, Madeline Wheeler Murphy, and I see a freedom fighter with extraordinary wisdom and an iron will, a fraction of which I could only hope to possess one day. When other grandmothers were telling their little ones, "Don't forget to wear a sweater," my grandmother would remind me as know-it-all college kid in the belly of the Ivy beast, "You are surrounded by assassins" -- said not so much as an insult, but as a cogent reminder that Yale was not built for "us".

I had heard from some of my fellow legislative staffers in the Senate that there was a seal on the floor of Sen. Mikulski's office that staffers quickly learned not to cross. When I asked what made that seal such an important threshold, I was told in half-jest that it was because when the Senator would hurl her desk phone in a rage, that's as far as the cord could reach.

I never met the Senator while working in the Beltway. However, given the deference she showed my grandmother and the legendary "edge" she and my grandmother shared, I wonder what it would have been like working for her: another diminuitive, but forceful crusader for the less fortunate, representing a state where my maternal lineages go back well over 200 years.

I doubt I'll never know, as I have since acquired an allergic reaction to employment within the Beltway. But I do know one thing: It's time I paid my grandma a long overdue call!

Determined to be equally "up-with-people", the Illinois GOP party has extended an invitation to two-time presidential also-ran and radical right TV talkshow host, Alan "He's so articulate" Keyes, to run against ascendant Illinois legislator, Barack Obama, for U.S. Senate.

Though the former Reagan-era State Department appointee has never lived in Illinois and has never held elected office, Illinois Republican leaders believe Keyes is a smart choice to challenge state Senator Obama in his bid for U.S. Senate. Quite simply, ultra-conservative Keyes is highly dispensible, given he lacks any loyal constituency in Illinois and will not likely be a competitive threat to his white GOP colleagues in either Chicago or anywhere else in "the Land of Lincoln" after November 2nd, when the Republicans can resume their business of dispassionate conservatism the old-fashion way: without Blackfolk's help.

It's been . . . hours since the GOP has been so patently offensive to Blackfolk in its dim-witted selection strategy to oppose Democratic shoe-in Obama. Given the high probability of a Democratic victory in this Senate race, GOP state party leaders have decided to cynically embrace African-American dark horse candidates whose reputations and upward mobility they have little interest in genuinely promoting.

If indeed Keyes confirms accounts that he has accepted the GOP's offer to run against Obama, runner-up token, Dr. Andrea Grubb Barthwell, can go about her business of being obscure.

Illinois GOP leaders have not played "the race card", they've played "the race deck". Either way, Obama's got the winning hand.

Dear Deaniacs:

Please accept my sincere apology for my less-than-substantive commentary on Howard Dean last week. It was uncalled for and beneath Afro-Netizen's reputation and mission to "inform, inspire and engage" its readers.

Of all the blog entries Alex Williams of The New York Times decided to excerpt from, he chose my pre-convention missive on Dean. I gave him the rope, and he hanged with it. I could speculate why of all the entries he chose to use for his article, he chose that one, but that's a separate matter. (Although, I find it somewhat ironic and amusing that the impetus for this mea culpa is the revered, but bruised New York Times whose own mea culpa for their tainted coverage of the American invasion of Iraq was, shall we say, half-assed.)

I had only wished that I had posted my many observations on conversations I had with a diverse array of citizens at and orbiting the convention last week in time to clearly show the growth (what Republicans call "flip flopping") I experienced with regard to my views on the impact of the Howard Dean movement on the DNC, this election cycle, civic involvement from previously disaffected people. Well, better late than never.

For many months now, I have found Dr. Dean to be an enigmatic character; and I have been frustrated by some of the things he has said, and the extent to which he has been portrayed by many as a progressive largely because he 1) was not in the DNC's pocket, 2) was unabashedly against the American invasion of Iraq, and 3) his candid insights about Democrats' poor response to the highly cynical GOP strategy to spook white rural swing voters, appropriately titled: "guns, God and gays".

And though I am still not quite sure where to place Dean on my political radar screen, I have a new-found respect for his ability to rouse thousands upon thousand of Generation Xers and others, who had not been moved to action by any other movement or public figure.

Before the convention, I used to postulate that these Deaniacs were BHNC-types ("big hat, no cattle"). I believe now that I was egregiously wrong. I have greatly underestimated legions of Deaniacs who now are not only first-time voters, but who have also become delegates, precinct captains, local campaign volunteers and so on. I met many such folk in Boston who are truly walking the talk, and are outpacing many of my well-educated, upwardly mobile Black friends and colleagues who, despite their awareness of the bloody sacrifices our parents and grandparents made mere decades ago for us to be able to vote undaunted, are still painfully derelict in their most basic civic duty to be counted.

My conversations and experiences in Boston this past week have given me a much more nuanced and higher regard for Dean's impact on civic activism -- particularly among whitefolk within my generation (of thirtysomethings), who like himself are what Deaniac Lawrence Winnerman's mother dubs former "Yell-at-the-TV-Democrats". Essentially, folks who have the energy to gripe about the right-wing direction in which this country's been moving, all the while eroding our already proto-democracy, but who are not sufficiently motivated to get off their Dorito-laden sofas to do anything about it.

After talking with folks like Lawrence and his buddy Shanna Sawatzki, spouse of a Dean delegate from Washington state, I had an actual heart-to-heart dialogue with real Deaniacs without the blurred lense of the press getting in my way.

Lawrence is white. He is 34 years old -- my age. He had never voted before (an ungodly crime which in my family would be punishable by . . . I can't even imagine the consequences)! He had not felt moved (from the couch) to vote until the candidacy of Howard Dean. Not only that, he actually contributed money to Howard Dean via his weblog BEFORE he took his first vote! If that's not revolutionary in this beat-up, Republicrat-dominated political system, I don't know what is. But wait, there's more!

Lawrence is now a precinct captain in his home district, and is helping to elect Democratic candidates on the local and state level -- not to mention actively working towards electing the very-non-Dean candidacy of John Kerry. Lawrence and crew have also taken it upon themselves to spin off their state's version of Dean's Democracy for America called Democracy for Washington.

Lawrence is also part of The Backbone Campaign, a small, but growing regional project geared towards supporting and conspicuously honoring Democrats who walk the talk regarding promotion of progressive legislation and public advocacy.

Bill Moyer and compatriots brought out a 70-foot backbone to the Democratic convention to promote their simple, but enlightened cause. I didn't get a chance to see it in person, but the symbolism was vivid enough in my mind's eye to appreciate their creative effort to encourage the DNC to act like the Democrats their leadership once faithfully produced.

I know this sounds like a Kum-ba-ya moment, but the impact of the Deaniac movement is neither minor nor ephemeral. It is real and nothing less than revolutionary. And in discussing its anatomy, scope and import, we -- particularly those of us in the Black community -- can avoid being preoccupied with personality or policy differences and focus on the infrastructure and mechanics of a movement that will soon eclipse the man who was once its epicenter.

While many Blackfolk are content to wait for "our next leader", many previously apathetic whitefolk have not only found a "leader" in Dean, but more importantly, embraced and helped strengthen a movement that transcends the cult of personality or leadership as embodied in one chosen individual.

I never thought I'd say this, but perhaps the Howard Dean movement is exactly the wake-up call many of us Blackfolk need in this most crucial election cycle (and beyond) to be movement-minded and not leader-leaning. While to older and wiser activists may see few unique elements of the Dean movement, Deaniacs' web-empowered activism should remind us that when we dig deep enough, indeed it was this movement made Dean -- not the other way around.

And it is this fact and powerful lesson that compelled me to acknowledge what I believe is a turning-point in grassroots politics that I should not have initially reduced to tongue-in-cheek jabs that belittled the largely positive contributions Howard Dean and his adherents have made to this election season and the two-party system at large.

To think, armed with my Mac laptop with WiFi access, a new Casio Exilim digital camera, a tiny digital audio recorder, a snazzy smartphone, a smidgen of chutzpah, and several thousand Blackfolk and other negrophiles eggin' me on, I was able to represent for the little known, but fast-growing "afro-blogosphere" and definitively prove once and for all that "blogging while black" is not a myth, it is a vital reality that will one day revolutionize the modern mass media mafia, as we know it today. (I love alliteration, don't you?)

As a result of the DNCC having the sense to allow irreverent, unruly and largely unaffiliated independent bloggers to cover the convention along with traditional members of the press, it turns out the big story of the convention was the bloggers themselves.

Who would you have thought that a progressive, neo-capitalist afro-cosmopolite like me would have garnered the interest and attention of dozens of news outlets? Clearly, I didn't when I received my confirmation letter in the mail just two short weeks ago.

I also got the chance to talk to a number of interesting public figures including, but not limited to: Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D., Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC), Rep. Chaka Fattah, Philly mayor Hon. John F. Street, award-winning writer ZZ Packer, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), actor/radio host Janeane Garafalo, Oracle president Charles Phillips, Prof. Michael Eric Dyson and wife, Rev. Marcia Dyson, DC mayor Hon. Anthony Williams, political strategist/TV pundit Donna Brazile, and a handful of esteemed Black North Carolina state legislators.

I also spotted Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., 70's bombshell Jayne Kennedy and Outkast's Andre 3000, among other notable Negroes.

However, one of the absolute high points for me was having the honor interviewing Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) who I learned knew my paternal grandfather, Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, Sr., of Louisville, Kentucky. Both Fiskites, Rep. Lewis and the late Dr. Rabb (1901 - 1982) were civil rights activists and "race men", though my grandfather was significantly older than the venerable congressman. To download the enormous, unedited audio file (in AIF format) of my interview with Rep. Lewis, please click here.

I would have never dared to think that what began as a humble, civic avocation would one day be covered by the likes of " target="blank">The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, " target="blank">L.A. Times, Newsday, Houston Chronicle, " target="blank">Congressional Quarterly, and so. (See below for more references.)

I also was interviewed via phone on CSPAN's Washington Journal last Tuesday, and on live television on Canada's CBC "Canada Now", a primetime news show anchored by David Gray, which CBC producer, Jennifer Brown, told me (afterwards) reached over 50 million people!

Well, thanks to these same media outlets' coverage of this weblog and the rampant word-of-mouth within Afro-Netizen's long-time and loyal following, Afro-Netizen is no longer in "guerilla mode". How ironic it is that many of the same media outlets who have done so poorly providing consistent, meaningful and highlly visible reporting on our community are the ones who have helped usher Afro-Netizen into "primetime".

Other publications and entities that cited Afro-Netizen:

Air America Radio

BrainFrieze

Culture Kitchen

Daily Kos

Norwegianity

Rocky Mountain News

Have you ever heard twenty thousand people exhale all at once? You would have if you were in the Fleet Center tonight after newly minted Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, accepted his party's nomination.

There was a collective sigh of relief that radiated through the entire arena and carried exhausted conventioneers out of the Fleet Center on a cloud of hope that maybe, just maybe, Kerry might actually pull this election off, and inaugurate a new era of Democratic leadership not seen in decades.

You just can't get the scale and gravitas of this convention on TV -- what little televised media show of it on our public airwaves.

Fomer senator from Georgia, Max Cleland, just gave an emotional introduction to John Kerry. And now, John Kerry is being welcomed into the arena by a standing ovation and cheers from thousands of hysterical supporters. While I am quiet and still, I am still moved by this highly scripted and Spielberg-produced moment. So, you could say that this seamless convergence of the Beltway and Hollywood has made me take a wee sip of Kool Aid.

The preparation, technology, and logistics behind this 4-day extravaganza is mind-boggling. But tonight is "Oscar night" of American politics.

It's import on the folks in this arena is palpable. And while the vast majority of attendees here are political stalwarts and civically engaged in their respective communities, you'd have to be Spock not to feel the sublime weight of this imperfect, but elastic democratic exercise I am witnessing now.

In a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, I was asked for whom I would vote. My tongue-in-cheek response was anyboby but Bush or Nader. But there is no question that I will be voting for Kerry -- perhaps even twice (as is my right as a native Chicagoan).

The Kerry-Edwards campaign needs help towards meaningfully working with communities of color in enlightened, timely, well-funded, and non-paternalistic ways. And I am committed to working with them to that end. It appears that this Afro-Netizen community is an ideal and vital means by which this can be done.

Thanx to all of you who brought to my attention Chris Matthews' unceremonious and hostile decision to cut into Sharpton's speech last night and make reference, of course, to Tawana Brawley.

New blogging buddy and political satirist, Tom Burka, of Opinions You Should Have, received a call from his wife decrying Matthews' decision to yank coverage of Sharpton's amazing oration -- quite possibly the most powerful speech of an electorally non-viable political figure in modern times. His non-viability only increasing with every highly selective reference to Sharpton's storied past.

I wonder what former Klansman, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) thinks about this media phenomenon. Or for that matter, former drunk driver and alleged cocaine expert, George W. Bush. And since I'm in good ole Beantown, would it be inappropriate for Chris Matthew and Co. to familiarize TV audiences with the late Kennedy family patriarch, Joe Kennedy's "entrepreneurial activities" that paved the way for the unequivocally positive contributions many of his scions made to this country?

While not particularly surprising to many of us, Matthews' selective double-standard may be the outgrowth of a tragic disease called in this new civil era: "bias" -- or what my maternal grandmother, Madeline Murphy, and former Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper columnist, would call the antics of a racist dog.

Oh, wait a minute, he worked for the late, great Democrat, Tip O'Neill -- and he's a celebrated on-air personality in the leftist-dominated mainstream media, so I guess it'd be impossible for him to be . . . "biased".

Anyway, I'm sure that in the interest of fairness, whenever Matthews talks about his buddy and (briefly) deposed white journalist, Mike Barnicle, he'll start every exchange with "noted plagiarist" .< p>

Speaking of racist dogs, I walked past fascist columnist and CNN talking head, Bob Novak, on my way to the convention the other day. I thought he was ugly on the inside, but damn! Even "fugly" would be too mild a term. Granted, I don't have the dashing good looks of civil rights deactivist Ward Connerly, but come on, Novak. Perhaps it's time to consider a visit from the Fab 5.

The next day when leaving the convention, I ran across noted gay rights activist, Armstrong Williams, and vegan anarchist, Delroy Murdock. (I believe that's their respective claims to fame, but I may be wrong. Can someone check this for me?) Too bad I didn't run across them with a truck . . . filled with anti-self-loathing ointment, which incidentally, I am told Pfizer is working on as we speak.self-love that is (metaphorically, of course.)

Last query: Can whiny 'Crossfire' co-host and DNC automaton, Paul Begala, call a guest on his show a "racist dog"? No? Too bad. We can in the blogosphere though. Right, folks?!

Aside from the periodic death threats, blogging's awesome!

I thought Brother Senator (aka Barack Obama) owned the night yesterday. Tonight, however, was all Sharpton. Don't get me wrong Jesse was on point, as was Kucinich, and no slight meant to Edwards either, who incidentally is the son of a mill worker. (I kid because I love.)

But back to the keynote speech of the night, Sharpton blew this crowd away!

Addressing a group of African Americans at the National Urban League Conference in Detroit last week, Bush risking a migraine, raised a number of salient rhetorical questions of his largely masochist audience.

Excerpted below is a passage from his speech that Rev. Al Sharpton definitively answered in such a way that Dubya may refrain from speaking to any assembly of Blackfolk -- maybe even Colin, Condi, and Clarence on a bad day.

Paraphrasing some extraneous incognegro, Dubya begins:

"Blacks are gagging on the donkey but not yet ready to swallow the elephant." (Laughter and applause.)

Now that was said a while ago. (Laughter.) I believe you've got to earn the vote and seek it. I think you've got to go to people and say, this is my heart, this is what I believe, and I'd like your help. And as I do, I'm going to ask African American voters to consider some questions.

Does the Democrat party take African American voters for granted? (Applause.) It's a fair question. I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But do they earn it and do they deserve it? (Applause.) Is it a good thing for the African American community to be represented mainly by one political party? That's a legitimate question. (Applause.) How is it possible to gain political leverage if the party is never forced to compete? (Applause.) Have the traditional solutions of the Democrat party truly served the African American community?

Sharpton's " target="blank">retort was nothing less than riveting. I have taken the liberty of excerpting what I thought were his most inspired comments:

Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question.

You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule.

That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres.

We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of good men (inaudible) soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.

(APPLAUSE)

This vote can't be bargained away.

(APPLAUSE)

This vote can't be given away.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read my lips: Our vote is not for sale.

"So, how does it feel?"

This is the question I asked rising star, State Senator Barack Obama, tonight after his triumphal debut as U.S. senator-to-be from the great state of Illinois.

Upon recognizing my voice, Brother Senator (as I will call him henceforth) turned a bit to make eye contact with me and give me that easy, familiar smile. He stopped a moment, looked at me intently through the dark richness of the music-filled room as though the sway of the people encircling him was a mere summer breeze, and simply said: "It's good." Not a rote: "It's all good," but more like good in the sense of goodness.

Goodness, no doubt, radiating from the collective surge of pride toward a man who made the more jaded and disaffected among us Blackfolk feel a sense of hope, optimism, and dare I say belonging to a political party still a shadow of its former self since the tragic rise of the New Democrat. Not ironically, Brother Senator became the embodiment and most compelling messenger of what Howard Dean's "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" rhetoric sought to reveal without the need to say so explicitly. The poignant authenticity of his personal narrative transcended what other speakers had to spell out with expressly ideological language.

Nearly crushed by undulation of old and new friends and supporters who raced to his party in downtown Boston to bask in the afterglow of collective, I saw in Brother Senator a calmness -- and perhaps relief that had the effect of putting me at ease as well.

I nodded, allowing my non-verbal cue to signal that I appreciated the courtesy of his response and his need to move on. But before I got a chance to step away, he asked me, "How are your folks?"

C'mon. Is he for real, this humble servant-leader? A man who just hours before made an inspirational keynote address that made grown men tremble (myself included), took a moment to genuninely inquire about my mom and dad amidst the throngs and the shower of red grids of refracted red beams emitting from the dozens of digital cameras raised high in hopes of capturing a moment in time framed by his youthful visage. (I tend to get a bit maudlin after 4am.)

Stunned to find his presence of mind to ask about my people, I warmly replied, "Good. They're good." Good as in the goodness of parents who raised me to appreciate the importance -- necessity -- of civic involvement, who over 20 years ago took me to the victory party of my native Chicago's late Mayor Harold Washington -- perhaps the last time I felt as moved by a rising Black political servant-leader in my 34 years.

Lastly, I'd like to end this blog entry with an exceptionally rousing portion of his speech:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here—the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

Obama broke it down!

I have been acquainted with this man for a number of years, and have always been impressed with him as a public servant and as an individual. But he definitively hit that next level tonight. It was a deeply moving experience that viscerally effected this crowd of thousands here tonight in a dramatic and overpowering manner I can barely describe.

This arena was filled with an excitment and energy far surpassing the reaction to Bill Clinton and Howard Dean's speeches. In fact, I found his words transcended the conventional political speech, and reached a truly sermonic level while still deftly avoiding all the usual preachy or moralistic traps many lesser public speakers fall into.

Obama's got the whole package: substance and style and represents the future of the Democratic Party.

Before Afro-Netizen reached hundreds of thousands of Blackfolk online, my nascent ChicagoBlack e-newsletter promoted his unsuccessful bid for U.S. Congress a few years back. And I suspect Afro-Netizen will be covering his certain political ascent for years to come.

Remember all that talk way back when about Colin Powell? Tonight represented the end of that shallow era.

Keepin' on keepin' on, Barack! You have arrived -- and there's no going back now!

This moment I will remember for a lifetime. I only wish I could have shared it with my son.

I can't wait to hear what Howard Dean has to stay tonight.

I've joked about Dr. Dean previously, but I don't do it to disparage him. Despite my lingering unease with his candidacy and various foot-in-mouth gaffes, I respect his candor and work ethic.

I feel compelled to say this having shared a cab last night with Terri MacMillan and D. Dillard, two very impressive afro-cosmopolites I met after the mass exodus from the Fleet Center.

Deaniacs through and through, these women are ex-pats living in Tokyo, Japan and Geneva, Switzerland, respectively, here representing the Democrats Abroad delegations.

I must say, I admire the fact that they are as politically involved as they are, given the thousands of miles that separate them from our fruited plains and purple mountains' majesty!

Well, now I can tell my son, Freeman Diallo, one day that I attended the Democratic Convention in Boston as the sole credentialed blogger representing a predominantly Black online readership among an inaugural class of 35 very affable and eclectic bloggers. (It has been brought to my attention, however, that there is another credentialed blogger of color, Jesse Tayler of Pandango.net whose target audience is not geared specifically to Blackfolk as is Afro-Netizen.)

Surrounding the largely white, male, techie cadre of affable fellow bloggers, there were diverse hordes of journalists, guests, DNCC, DNC & Kerry-Edwards staffers, lobbyists, security, teenaged DNCC volunteers, security, lobbyists, security, and delegates -- oh, and did I mention security?

What can I say? It was a rousing night of scripted Democratic sentimentality and cautious optimism. You don't have to be the inventor of the Internet to know an A+ set of speeches by Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton and the inimitable "Comeback Kid"!

And while very swiftly replayed, lauded, dissected, and critiqued, the speeches that should have been covered by CNN, MSNBC, and other mass media outlets were barely mentioned.

Quite possibly one of the most influential individuals in this presidential race has yet to be sufficiently acknowledged by journalists and pundits: Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH). If she can energize and mobilize her largely Black constituency in the Cleveland area to turn out in big numbers in November, she may very well put Ohio in the blue column for the Dems, just as the Florida Democratic delegation seeks to accomplish down South -- particularly, CBC members Reps. Kendrick Meek, Corrine Brown and Alcee Hastings.

As Ohio is a bellweather for the nation, if Rep. Tubbs Jones delivers in her congressional district and beyond, she should would most certainly deserve "honorary white-boy" status and all the perks that come with it. It is also worth noting that Rep. Tubbs Jones is a co-chair of the DNCC's Platform Committee, not to mention that she is also the very first Black woman to serve on the juicy Ways and Means Committee (aka Dollars & Cents Committee).

While I'm not particularly impressed with the Dems' 2004 Platform document whose theme is: "Strong at Home, Respected in the World", it's vastly better than Dubya's prospective GOP platform simply entitled: "Yee-ha!"

[Attention readers: These blog entries may contain high doses of sarcasm. Please read with caution.]

I'll be hoofin' it to the Fleet Center shortly to join the 15,000 credentialed journalists who are covering this suspenseful political extravaganza (he says sardonically)!

After all, other than knowing the nominee-to-be, his running-mate, and the Democratic Party's official 2004 platform, we don't know anything! For instance, where is the Utah delegation going to be situated? And who will be holding the tazer-gun when presidential footnote Al Gore takes the podium?

Have I already mentioned that it appears I am the only credentialed blogger of Negroidal descent to cover this convention? I hasten to add that there would be none had I not known a few folks in the DNC and DNCC who facilitated my request for such access.

This lack of meaningful inclusion adds insult to injury given that of the 15,000 credential journalists here, only a smattering of Blackfolk are among them. A new friend and colleague, Walter Fields of The North Star Network said that at the media walk-thru here 3 weeks ago, of the few thousand press folk who attended, he literally saw only a handful of Blackfolk present.

Now, don't even get me and Walter started on Viacom's erudite BET presence here, or the underrepresentation of Black newspapers. And before folks start adding comments to this blog entry about the "crabs in the barrel" phenomenon many of us believe our community suffers from, let me interject something to the contrary. Over the last few weeks, I have begun to have highly encouraging conversations with other Black netpreneurs who are actively interested in and committed to working together towards pooling our resources for our mutual benefit and the benefit of the African-American community -- online and off.

I am certain that by this time next year, those of us in Black cyberspace will have formed a well organized coalition that will bear much fruit.

Lastly, on an unrelated note, I was mortified to hear Teresa Heinz Kerry tell Pittsburgh journalist and part-time supermodel, Colin McNickle [cmcnickle@tribweb.com/(412) 320-7836], to "shove it"". I hope she didn't learn such language from that awful hippity-hop music that those angry Blacks like to play so loudly in their ghettos. After all, you know she's African-American. Surely, the family values-lovin' dynamic duo of Bush & Dick wouldn't dare utter such foul language [not including "*sshole" and "f*ck off"].

I got back to my hotel at 2am this morning, and returned to my room which overlooks one of Dubya's alma maters, the Harvard Business School. (BTW, I think his concentration while there was Financial Mismanagement.) Anyway, I was supposed to attend the bloggers breakfast this morning hosted by the DNC, but I had a mystery ailment my wife speculated I got from tying my shoes too tightly. (Boy, is that pathetic or what?).

Anyway, I'm back on my feet and headed to the Ritz Carlton for a lunch honoring members of the Congressional Black Caucus. I'll be using an obsolete press pass that I have yet to renew to my podiatric-induced injury this morning. From there, I will likely head to a off-site session entitled: "Media and the Minority Community". Of course, my first question is what the hell is a "minority community"? And secondly, who the hell are they calling a minority? Every time I hear that word, my skin crawls, and it makes me think back to the 3/5 Compromise.

I also find it odd that in one breadth conservatives and liberals alike talk about "the global economy", but neglect to acknowledge the global complexion -- a decidedly melanin-rich one, making people of Caucazoidal extraction the new minority. That semantic beef aside, I will be interested in seeing the extent to which the growing concentration of media control is occuring and its impact on the de-democratization of the press. For indeed, to paraphrase an anonymous wise person, "Hegemony [political, cultural or commercial] and freedom of speech cannot co-exist."

Let me get going before I harangue any longer! But before I go, here's a list (to be fleshed out later) of where I went last night, with whom, and who I spotted:

I tagged along with long-time friend and former Capitol Hill running buddy, Nicole Venable, and her beau, Hassan Christian (all jokes about his name have already been made). Nicole, along with fellow lobbyist and friend, Laurel -- and husband Clint -- were generous enough to help this hapless blogger gain access to four high-filutin' convention-related receptions [read: alcohol-ladened pseudo-hoity, rump-shaker expos]! One party was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, another by the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the Black Caucus of Massachusetts, and AT&T; et al. The last reception was for jazz afficionado and senior congressman, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) at Cheers "where everybody knows your name" [unless you're a Black actor, of course].

Though I missed this morning's bloggers brunch, I did run into the Napoleonic Howard Dean last night who was surrounded by three burly security guards who made Dr. Dean look like a Vienna sausage, albeit a surprisingly well dressed Vienna sausage. Donning a new dark suit complemented by a white shirt whose collar did not gouge his neck veins, Dean is now what I'd call "fashionably irrelevant."

Later on, I saw Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) [self-proclaimed lover of P. Diddy's 'Making the Band'], Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), and I actually shook my blogging booty with a very festive Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) whose staff implored me not to eblogerate the congresswoman. I told them that as long as they didn't take any compromising pictures of me surrounded by three girating white women sandwiching me in a Champagne and mussels-induced dance frenzy, I'd be kind to the liberal California congresswoman with the fancy footwork who "dropped like it's hot".

A fuller list of luminaries with whom I rubbed elbows is to come ASAP!

If for some reason I'm not able to bloggify again until the wee hours and you're suffering from insomnia, click here for the perfect cure!

I've been running Afro-Netizen ("aN") in stealth mode for so long, it's quite a bizarre experience now having to field calls from the Wall Street Journal, New York NewsDay, Congressional Quarterly, and so on.

Since someone at the DNCC leaked the list of credentialed bloggers last week, I've been getting many requests for interviews from journalists all across the country who want to know more about Afro-Netizen, why I'll be blogging for it at the Convention, and what I'll be blogging about.

What I've been telling folks it's pretty straight-forward:

Founded in 1999, Afro-Netizen is an online community of civic-minded, intellectually-curious, and (to a greater or lesser extent) computer-literate Negroes. (Incidentally, if you are none of these things, you likely have little to no use for aN.)

I tell them that while this website is technically a blog, I am not your typical blogger. While I am young, male and computer-savvy, I am neither white nor a nerd, though some of my best . . . never mind. I kid because I love, people. Certainly, not all of my fellow bloggers are nerds -- just an overwhelming majority of them. And before folks fire back that I am only nominally a blogger, let me just preempt them by conceding that fact.

In reality, I am merely a rogue afro-cosmopolite who for years has been a news aggregator by avocation, and only recently has leveraged blogging tools to build out a site to complement my guerilla e-newsletter for the benefit of my many thousands of loyal readers nationwide and abroad.

I tell inquiring journalistic minds that my Afro-Netizen constituency is overwhelming educated, urbane, and Democratic. I then mention how it appears from my vantage point administrating this de facto community of conscience that many of our readers seem disaffected with the paucity of viable choices we have as voters who wield inordinate power as an influential contingent of the most solid Democratic constituency since the New Deal. We are, thus, stuck on a jackass in a bleak two-horse outpost called the American electorate.

Journalists have asked me if I think that now and/or in the recent past there are/have been gaps in coverage of political conventions. My response has been that as an avid consumer of "news", little substantive information is given by the networks in particular on how this process works (at the conventions), how campaign finance reform will impact the conventions' dynamics, participants and constituencies they serve, and what this all means to the average voter.

So, we'll see what happens on Monday when I enter Jackass Central!

Stay tuned . . .