Paul Krugman: Yes We Did!

Krugman is correct in saying that we as a nation have changed for the better.

With the focus on terriorists, poor people and black men are no longer the major focus of contempt. Education is critical in order to compete in a global economy.

However, crappy schools in the inner cities and rural America leads to crime and feeds racism.

Racism is alive and well as evidence in the Clinton campaign. I will be interested in Krugman's view after the McCain camp has fun with the Clinton talking points.

Dowd: Black like, oh Whatever...

Whenever my daughter and her peers would get frustrated with a conversation, it would be abruptly terminated with "OH, WHATEVER!"

When I hear this endless blather about sticking Obama in a clearly misguided box, I want to scream "Oh, whatever." This nonsense by Maureen Dowd falls into that category. Why is it necessary for a black man to be comfortable swigging a Bud. According to my well informed baseball team, Bud is just awful. Or, maybe he doesn't like beer. Does that make him effete?

We know what a President who the voting electorate feels comfortable "having a beer with" looks like. I'll take someone who is SMARTER THAN ME and doesn't need to swig anything to get through the day.

 

What do you want Madame Dowd? He is not angry enough.  He is too angry. He is not black enough. He is not white enough. He is not wrapped in a flag. Is he posturing? He is not showing the traveling media enough love. 

Her boredom with actually working on this long than expected campaign is starting to show.

My head hurts.......................

Frank Rich: Preacher Double Standard

Kudos to Rich. He sums up the reality minorities and women face in daily living. We have been and continue to held to a different standard than our white male counterparts. We have prove we are capable of performing a task whereby it is assumed the boys get the job done.

Hillary is running as a white guy. She points to her "experience." I'm still not sure what exactly that experience happens to be, other than being an unaccomplished bully. While I am not a supporter, I give her credit for running like the boys. The boys she is running like just happen to be Republican.

William Jefferson Davis Clinton and the Uppity Negro Syndrome

Hooray for David Zephyr. He has eloquently stated what most folks are too polite to discuss in mixed company.

Obama is what is referred to as a Uppity Negro.  Some white folks who, for whatever reason only known to themselves, resent articulate educated black folks. It as if his ability to succeed against all odds has denied them of their American dreams. 

When Obama is called Elitist, it is an obvious code for Uppity Negro. Oh the flashbacks...

I remember working my way through college as a McDonald's shift manager in rural America. My direct manager did not go to college.  Managing a fast food joint was her career choice. She grew up in a suburban community that grew as the result of white people fleeing the city. She hated me and made my life miserable. Finally, I confronted her. "What is your problem?" I challenged. "Just because you are going to college, you think you are better than me," she countered. "You are such an uppity nigger," she continued. Her bitterness was palpable.

 

I was speechless.  We were working side by side flipping freakin' cheeseburgers. Granted with different goals. This was not my endgame. I suppose she felt trapped. 

It is amazing how folks can't see beyond superficial patriotism such as cloaking oneself in a flag. How well has the flag waving President run our country? Would they vote for Obama if he wore a flag pin? Would that take away their reason? Rev. Wright is not running for POTUS. Non-issue. Should you not vote for Hillary because she stayed with her cheatin'  husband for MORE than 20 years? He let her go on her "right wing conspiracy tour" knowing he was less than faithful. I guess that falls under for "better or worse."

It is a distraction to the real issues: 

     uncompetitive education system

     living wages

     affordable health care

             honorable retirement

             our planet

How dare Obama run an efficient well organized campaign? How dare he not wait his turn? How dare he not be an angry black man? How dare he? Who does he think he is?

So these citizens will vote for Hillary or McCain. Both will continue this misguided war AND start another one. More jobs will flow overseas; gas prices will rise to $5 a gallon; health care prices will soar. Will these conditions help these people?

My beloved country is a mess. The selling of the notion that blacks will steal their dream dates back to the birth of the country. It's funny, it was those who were oppressing the poor whites spinning this tale. It continues sadly by the Clintons.

When will these citizens drop their racial fears/discomforts and reach across the aisle to the people of color who have similar economic interests?

Talk about a revolution...........

Rape and Torture in West Virginia

"Crimes You Won't Hear About From O'Reilly
Dave Neiwert at Orcinus nails it in this post. In the past few months the right has been obsessing on terrible crimes that minorities (usually illegal immigrants) commit against whites, but Neiwert bets this crime will not appear anywhere on their TV programs or blogs. In fact it will probably get little if any play in the MSM. A black woman in West Virginia, kidnapped and held for a week, stabbed, forced to eat dog and rat feces, and repeatedly called the N-word, and more, much more.

The point Orconus is making is that people are capable of great cruelty. The fact that whites tortured this black woman should not be an indictment of all white people, just as the fact that some illegal immigrants have harmed or even caused the death of some American citizens should not be used to indict all illegal immigrants.

As an aside, my wife and I spend a lot of time in West Virginia where we have a cabin. A year or so ago I asked my wife, who is African American, if she is completely comfortable when we go to town (which for all practical purposes 100% white, as is the entire region). She said most of the time it's okay but when she's alone she has heard derogatory comments. I wasn't aware of that and I asked why she hadn't told me before. She chuckled and said she only tells me things that are unusual."

--Trakker

God bless my buddy Trakker. Clearly he loves his Nubian Queen and has so for a long time. The racism that the average minority experiences on a daily basis when they simply are trying to get through the day is not noteworthy. Have things gotten better? My goodness yes. But it never ceases to amaze me what people say out loud and see no harm in it.

White is always the color of choice.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a family gathering on my Dad's side of the family. When you look to around you see the ignored middle class BLACK America. We have a Federal Judge who is married to a college ENGLISH professor. One cousin has at least 100 patents and has seen parts of the world in his corporate travels that most folks don't know exist. Another worked in research and development for DuPont. Hewitt & Packard recognized the operational talents of another cousin. We all use humor to mask the hurt that we have all faced in attempts to climb the corporate ladder. We laugh at how quickly we can receite our CV's. In not so subtle ways, our expertise is always challenged. We have to be better than our peers.

We are not aberrations in our community. Our stories are simply not sexy. We don't fit the profile. We all grew up in rural America, went to church, fought for a fair education and our parents were married. Our parents and grandparents were involved in our lives, we have command over the English language.

Our ancestors paved the way for us. But the painful reality is that if my male cousins took over a neighborhood, it is assumed the property values would go down. The fact that they all have degrees and make upper five to six figures is meaningless.

People see color first. White is automactically acceptable. Blacks have to prove their value.

It stopped being amusing long time ago.

Forgivable Sins?

I grew up in an AEMC church. The notion that we are all sinners was prominent in the weekly sermons. Coupled with the whole sin thing was forgiveness and redemption. Ok, fine. What is too often lost in the land of forgiveness is accountability.

Putting Ray Nagin back on the government payroll supports this attitude. His fingerprints were all over the mess what happened after the storm. Shit happens. How you deal with shit happening speaks to one's character.

He was given an opportunity do what he could have done to manage the situation from his level. It is well documented what he failed to do. By no means am I giving that silly woman Governor or our fearless leader in DC a free pass.

To forgive Nagin his sins is wonderful, not to hold him accountable is just silly

BTW, they should have thrown William Jefferson under the bus, too.

Race and Justice

Booman has a great piece on the prison system....

Lack of Hope=Urban Genocide

n Camden, N.J., on a Sunday morning in June, a 24-year-old nurse’s aide was killed in a burst of gunfire as she stood talking with a friend on a street corner. She was one of four young people killed in a four-day eruption of violence in Camden.

A teenager who lives in the city tried to explain to me what it was like to have a number of friends or relatives murdered: “You don’t exactly get used to it,” he said, “but you expect it.”

"Philadelphia, across the Delaware River from Camden, is struggling with an even worse problem. As if signaling the start of an accelerated killing season, six people were murdered on the first day of summer. Philly’s homicide rate is on pace to break last year’s tally of 406.

As Senator Barack Obama said during a visit to a Chicago church last month, “From South-Central L.A., to Newark, New Jersey, there’s an epidemic of violence that is sickening the soul of this nation.”

More attention to this crisis of violence is needed, and more police resources, and more jobs, and better schools, and improved prison re-entry programs, and tighter gun controls. But more than anything else, a cultural change is needed.

The communities hardest hit are those in which too many parents have failed their children. The most effective anti-crime effort begins at home with parents (fathers, are you listening?) who raise their kids to know better than to point a gun at another human being and blow that person away for no good reason.

That’s the essential component. Without it, all other crime-fighting efforts are doomed, and thousands upon thousands of poor youngsters will continue to be denied their most basic civil right — the right to grow safely to adulthood."

I AGREE WITH MR. HERBERT!

Fifteen years ago I met a smart, spirited and sort of cute attorney. We were thirty at the time. Through happentance our paths crossed. He had just left the DA's office and was working in a tiny minority firm. Another friend was looking to diversify his Irish, Jewish firm.

The transition to this all white firm was not easy for this gentlemen with the Muslim name. Part of the problem was his world view was different. As a practice he carried a gun. He didn't think twice about it. He wore it as easy as they all wore their Brooks Brothers suits. This was very unnerving for a corporate law firm.

Eventually, the experiment ended and he started his own successful criminal defense firm. On the eve of his firm's anniversary party, we had a reflective conversation. I inquired what do you think happened at the other firm?

He gave me a big smile and said, I really did not expect to make 30 so I never really planned for life once I got there.

Wow.

I grew up in a community with OLD people. Many of my most powerful life's lessons came from my GREAT Grandparents. They lived across the street from us. They worked everyday, went to church and travelled with us to all of our events. The loved baseball. Both my brothers played and they couldn't wait for the games.

They never quite understood the field hockey I played but they were always there.

It was expected that we went to college. My grandparents saw in us opportunities they could only dream of.

When I entertained "not walking" to pick up my college diploma, my Mom dimed me out to my Grandmother. After work that day, before I got out of my car, my Grandmother summoned me. My mother stood in the doorway smirking.

My grandparents informed me how important the walking across the stage was to them. I was the first person in the family to get a college diploma and it was going to be done right.

It was a very brief directive.

The day of graduation was record cold but we froze our backsides off taking pictures in front of the school signs. My father took pictures until my grandfather told my grandmother it was time to go home. He didn't say much, but when he did, Grandmom relented.

I am so glad I had family to point out positive rituals and accomplishments. They cared enough to fuss at me. The respect was instilled early and often enough that I listened. We expected to work and live in white America. We were taught survival skills with the expectation to get an education, a good job, get married have babies, get a pension, retire, THEN die. In that order....

What we are dealing with is a generation of kids who do not expect to make their next birthday. Unless this generation is taught there is the possiblity of life past 15, the issue will solve itself. They will all be dead or shuttled into the dysfunctional criminal justice system.

The hope must begin at home.

Nerdiness = Hyperwhiteness?

Black nerds represent the “silent majority” who go to school, get a job and without fanfare take of their families.

Do we really have that many criminals?

If we spent more money on providing our population with good schools and health care, I doubt that we would have a need for so many prisons.

As a surprise to no one, what has been deemed a crime changed after the burgeoning private prisons. The prisons only make money if there are prisons.

I can't help but venture into conspiracy theory territory but it does give one pause.

Read Andrew Bosworth's piece and weep.

Killing is not nice

I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Me and ex actually like each other and had a sane divorce. I have watched my friends go through some pretty nasty breakups. One friend was almost run over by a Volvo. If struck by his ex, my friend surely would have been killed. His ex was just that pissed. She had a nice comfortable lifestyle and my friend was wrecking it.

Hurt feelings, rejection, embarrassment and of course money are at the core of the murder plots.

What chaps my backside is, these "nice" guys always point the finger at a black man. There is plenty of real issues in the urban community, being falsely accused of a crime is convenient piling on. The black community is put through unnecessary hell because some white guy doesn't want pay for his babies or a divorce lawyer.

Newsflash, nice guys don't kill their wives.

Too poor to stay, too poor to move

“I was born poor; I’m probably going to die poor; and before the storm came through I was doing pretty good,” Ms. Anderson said. She and Mr. Evans paid $325 a month for half a duplex in the Uptown section of New Orleans, with “a little porch watching the laundrymat,” she said, “and a backyard.” The streetcar took her right to her job at the Columns, an elegant 1883 hotel in the Garden District. Mr. Evans built cabinets and countertops.

Now they live in a monochrome apartment complex. An empty swimming pool bakes in the Memphis heat, and frayed ropes dangle where the swings should be. FEMA pays the rent. Their social life consists of church on Sundays. For the first time in their lives, they are on food stamps, and to make them stretch, Ms. Anderson shuns the nearby Kroger in favor of a distant Save-a-Lot. Without a car, she trudges home from the bus stop with frozen turkey legs in a canvas bag over one shoulder."

All this couple wants to do is work for a living wage. How dare they?

This is the America we dare not face or talk about. These people were poor in a community that poor educationally and economically. For years they managed to make a life for themselves. Onethat many of us can't even begin to wrap our brain around.

But instead employers will import/exploit immigrant labor. Is this the cornerstone of our repbublic?

Alexander H. Stephens one opined "the democracy's worst defect, demagogues rousing the poor against the rich, never occurred where the poor were nonvoting slaves"

Furthermore, black serviles SPARED WHITE CITIZENS FROM DEGRADED MENIAL WORK.

Sound familiar?


Who was Alexander H. Stephens? The Confederacy's Vice President.

End of Integration

How can you end what never began?

Italy v US

"The Italians won on health, family and food. The United States was better on race and opportunity."

If health care is not truly available to all in the good ole US, are we really morally superior on issues such as race and opportunity?

The committed get forced out: Herbert

"The angry officer, according to Mr. Soguero, barged past him and into the classroom. “I followed him,” said Mr. Soguero, “and he’s pushing desks aside, walking through students to get at her, disrupting everything. She’s sitting in a chair. He grabs her arm, her left arm with his right hand, and he’s reaching back to grab his cuffs. At that point I walked around him and physically stood in between the two of them.”

This sort of thing, the police wildly overreacting to behavior by schoolkids that is not criminal, happens much more often than most New Yorkers realize. Officer Gonzalez behaved as if he were rounding up the James gang. He arrested the girl. He arrested Mr. Soguero. And he arrested a school aide who had tried to come to the principal’s defense.

Mr. Soguero was handcuffed in full view of everyone — students, teachers, staff — and marched out of the school. Later the police paraded him in front of news photographers in a humiliating “perp walk.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly supported Officer Gonzalez, telling reporters at the time, “The principal was simply wrong.”

But that was not the case. There was no evidence that a crime had been committed, and the charges were later dropped. Mr. Soguero, who was suspended by school authorities at the time of his arrest, was allowed to resume the post of principal."


I doubt this sort of thing would be permitted if the kids were in an exclusive community. You wonder why these kids grow up mistrusting the police.

Clarence Thomas' America

Education is THE great equalizer. To deny a child an education, is to deny a child an opportunity. Most slaveholders forbid their slaves education. Imprison the mind, imprison the body and soul.

I must wonder what America Supreme Court Justice Thomas grew up in and currently resides. We have made some advances but inequality still exists, whether we like it or not.

My parents are in their seventies, when they were in school, many of their peers were pushed out of school for various reasons. My grandparents made sure that they graduated high school. Back then, this was a huge deal. In turn, it was a no brainer that my generation was expected to graduate high school.

What it is not common knowledge, it was Thomas Jefferson who founded his university in the spirit of public access to education. This is the same man who denied his lover their children freedom until after his death.

Funny how that worked out.

As far as this latest Supreme Court decision:

When men of color no longer get stopped for no other reason than being black...

When little black children are not given a second chance for doing something stupid but are funnelled into the criminal justice system, instead of given a second chance...

When I am no longer the only chocolate baby in the boardroom....

When all schools have books, clean bathrooms, committed teachers and administrators....

When some white people stop assuming that all black people know each other and have one voice....

Then I will celebrate how far we as a nation have come in race relations.

Clarence Thomas is a selfish human. He managed to work the system and snag a nice gig. His views, opinions and attitudes are unbelievably conservative. Does he really think that he has been given the secret handshake? Unlike those who sacrificed and made it easier for him to make it; Thomas is throwing up roadblocks for those who follow him.

Well Done my brother.

For those who don't think judicial picks are important, they are living in the same fantasy world next door to Clarence Thomas.

Fox, CBC, Black Separatist Agenda

Booman ponders the acceptabitlity of the rants on Fox. He has to remember the very people who still think Iraq had something to do with 911 watch this stuff. Furthermore, 29% of folks polled think the country in on the right track & Bush is just swell.

They want to demonize people of color or worship God differently than do. These clueless wonders think that the Hannitys, Coulters, Bushes and Cheneys would welcome them into their little circle. They haven't figured out that these hatemongers are keeping them down.

The CBC doing anything on Fox is just silly. I wonder if the folks who sent them to DC think its accepatable to be on Fox?

Herbert: New York a police state

What Bob Herbert is politely saying is, nobody cares because little black kids were rounded up. I'm sure New Yorkers attitudes would be different if these were little white kids.

When crime actually occurs the police wonder why no one from these communities step forward. My guess is the witness would be charged with whatever the police can manufacture.

Sadly, folks are actually befuddeled as to why young black men are angry. The argument if they aren't doing anything, what's the big deal is always offered by someone who is not rounded up "just because."

THOSE WITHOUT A WHITE PENIS NEED NOT APPLY IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION

Let's see Bradley Schlozman in charge of the US attorney's Civil Rights division? A right wing political hack as the boss, that would ensure fairness and EQUALITY. So "THOSE NOT SPORTIN' WHITE PENIS NEED NOT APPLY" in the CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!

The definition of a good American is WHAT?????

I know black ladies were not included in the original Constitution, but throughout our history, a few amendments have granted the basic rights property owning, twenty one year old, white men were afforded.

Why would Scholzman act with higher standards than his employers?

They took the Constitution, wiped their collective backside with it, then flushed it down the toilet. Shrub's second term can't end soon enough.

How did Condi manage to get a gig with this administration? I guess it's just peachy to keep one Black Oracle around.

WTF?

Spread the Love

My goodness, if things didn't change most of my entire family would be in jail.