My Chicago radio brother Richard Steele at Chicago's WVON in 1980
Monday, September 21, 2009
You might be a racist if ...
"You might be a racist if you call Kanye West a jackass.
"But that was President Obama himself. Could the nation's first black president, whose election was supposed to usher in an age of post racial reconciliation, really be racist? It's an absurd proposition that shows just how absurdly easy it is for people to play the race card when they lack the ability or inclination to debate an issue on its merits.
"The irrational hatred of racists, of course, does exist. The scurrilous accusation of racism, however, detracts from its reality. That's why you might be a fool if you exploit its specter and, in so doing, obscure the real thing."
-- San Antonio Express News
"But that was President Obama himself. Could the nation's first black president, whose election was supposed to usher in an age of post racial reconciliation, really be racist? It's an absurd proposition that shows just how absurdly easy it is for people to play the race card when they lack the ability or inclination to debate an issue on its merits.
"The irrational hatred of racists, of course, does exist. The scurrilous accusation of racism, however, detracts from its reality. That's why you might be a fool if you exploit its specter and, in so doing, obscure the real thing."
-- San Antonio Express News
Baucus' cheaper Trojan horse by Herman Cain
"More people are hearing the experiences of patients in other countries, and the experiences of people like Dr. Michael Hogan, an orthopedic surgeon who was born in England, attended medical school and practiced medicine in Canada, and now practices medicine here in the United States in Georgia.
"When I asked Dr. Hogan on my radio show last week if he believed the bills being proposed by the Democrats would lead to health-care rationing, he responded without hesitation 'absolutely.' He went on to say that whenever government controls the purse strings it takes away choices, reduces productivity and creates waiting lists for medical services.
"Even worse, some people simply die while they are waiting for medical care.
"The president and the Democrats would call that a scare tactic. Dr. Hogan, patients and doctors call it reality in government-run health-care systems."
-- World Net Daily
Don't tread on me! by Chuck Norris
"Regarding political accountability, Patrick Henry taught that, 'Our Constitution is … an instrument for its people to restrain the government.' Yet Washington politicians trample that founding document by their actions, bypassing its mandates, spinning its words to justify their choices, abandoning its balance of power and instead using it to accommodate their own desires, partisan politics and runaway spending.
"John Adams declared that, 'Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.' Yet we've bastardized the First Amendment, reinterpreted America's religious history, denied our Christian heritage and secularized our society until we ooze skepticism and circumvent religion on every level of public and private life."
-- World Net Daily
Governor Paterson bucks President Obama: I'm still going to run in 2010
"Gov. Paterson pushed back yesterday against President Obama's stunning attempt to shove him from New York's political stage, insisting he won't abandon his run for governor.
"'I've said time and time again I am going to run for governor next year," he declared before the African American Day Parade in Harlem. 'My plans have not changed.'
"Still, many Democrats and union officials, including those close to Paterson, described the White House intervention as a final nail in the struggling governor's coffin."
-- New York Daily News
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/20/2009-09-20_governor_paterson_bucks_president_obama_im_still_going_to_run_in_2010.html#ixzz0RkKaF2Uo
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Smack out of money
"Socialism is stealing by the government. It takes from one person and gives to another, and the government bureaucrats always take their cut out of the middle. If I go to your house and take your stuff and carry it back to my house, that's called stealing. If the government does the same thing, it's called compassion."
and
"The United States actually began with socialism. Both the Massachusetts Bay and Jamestown colonies started with a policy of putting all the food that they grew together and having everyone take what they needed. What happened? There were more takers than growers. Those who grew less stole from those who grew more. That socialism stopped when they saw they were running smack out of food. From then on, everyone ate what he grew, and the food supply increased."
-- World Net Daily
and
"The United States actually began with socialism. Both the Massachusetts Bay and Jamestown colonies started with a policy of putting all the food that they grew together and having everyone take what they needed. What happened? There were more takers than growers. Those who grew less stole from those who grew more. That socialism stopped when they saw they were running smack out of food. From then on, everyone ate what he grew, and the food supply increased."
-- World Net Daily
Socialist euphemisms
"They know no one in their right mind would ever willingly accept the tyranny they seek to impose on us. So people need to be manipulated. They need to be indoctrinated. They need to be convinced that the current purveyors of socialism have learned from the mistakes of the past and have finally figured out how to make it work – even though it has failed 100 percent of the time it has been implemented."
-- World Net Daily
-- World Net Daily
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Mary Poppins: A Spoonful Of Sugar
I bet you won't guess why I posted this video....
Please comment on your guess....
Please comment on your guess....
Opposition to Obama agenda not about skin color by Jonah Goldberg
"Meanwhile, no significant conservative politicians or pundits have said that they object to Obama's agenda because he's black. Rather, they've said they oppose his agenda for precisely the same reasons they oppose Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's and Barney Frank's agendas. They stand athwart Obama yelling 'Stop!' just as they did with Clinton and Democratic presidents before him.
"Magically, the alchemic powers of Obama's black skin transmogrify the same arguments and the same rhetoric into racism. Saying “you're wrong” to a white politician is a disagreement; saying it to a black politician is like shouting through Bull Connor's megaphone."
-- Houston Chronicle
Why we're talking about race – again by Star Parker
"When asked in an interview where the Constitution gives the federal government authority to regulate health-care delivery, Clyburn replied, 'There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.'
"Finally an honest Democrat. Clyburn pulled no punches that our Constitution, which is the basis of his authority, is irrelevant to him. It's all about political thuggery.
"Which is why we're now talking about race instead of health care."
Life is short – and eternity is real by Greg Laurie
"The question has been asked: 'How could a God of love send someone to hell?' The answer is that God doesn't; people send themselves there. We only receive in the afterlife what we have most wanted in this one: either to have God as our Savior and Master, or to be our own saviors and masters. Hell is simply one's freely chosen path that goes on forever."
-- World Net Daily
Laura Ingraham: The lioness of talk radio by Ellis Washington
"Ms. Ingraham's most recent contribution to the marketplace of ideas has been the launching of the project "TEN FOR '10: WINNING WASHINGTON BY EMPOWERING AMERICANS." This project is a list of 10 principles We the People can start to implement now to take back our country from the radical socialists dominating government before the 2010 elections.
"1. Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR). Limit federal spending growth to the percentage in population growth plus the rate of inflation; provide taxpayers the option of filing a post-card sized return using a low, flat tax rate of 25 percent; The Bible only required the Jews to give 10 percent – why can't the government be satisfied with two and a half times more? Because over the past 100 years since the advent of the Progressive movement and the imperial presidency under Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09), William Howard Taft (1909-13), Woodrow Wilson (1913-21), FDR (1933-45) and LBJ (1963-69), these presidents have progressively taken more and more of America's constitutional freedoms and liberties in exchange for a larger, more totalizing and fascist government. Obama is merely the latest in a long, ignominious line of presidents who consider themselves kings and We the People their powerless serfs or servants.
2. End tax-funded abortions. Stop federal payments to Planned Parenthood and prohibit any taxpayer-subsidized health-insurance plan from covering abortion; A recent cover of Newsweek magazine told the grim tale: "We are all Socialists Now." Newsweek could have easily stated: "We are all Abortionists Now." Liberals and progressives love to soil the innocent with their perverse policies, much like a gang initiation demands that you beat up or even murder someone to join the gang.
3. Defend American borders. Complete America's border-protection initiatives using remaining funds from the so-called stimulus bill;
4. King dollar. Preserve a strong dollar so that Americans' savings aren't wiped out by inflation and the U.S. dollar remains the world's reserve currency;
In 1971, President Nixon foolishly took America off the gold standard to try to please the radicals of the Democrat Party and stop rampant inflation. It did neither. Therefore, let America return to sane, sound economic policy going back to Adam Smith, the father of economics, by restoring the gold standard, which will overnight strengthen the U.S. dollar.
5. Empower American business. Immediately slash corporate tax rates to 15 percent and scrap the corporate capital-gains tax altogether;
6. Defend America. Strengthen America to defend our homeland and fully fund an operational, layered missile-defense system;
Front-page news on the DrudgeReport Thursday had these ominous headlines: "Secret Report: Nuke Agency Says Iran Can Make Bomb"; "Obama Kills Missile Defense for Poland, Czech," exactly 70 years to the day when the Soviet Union invaded Poland.
7. Statism exit plan. De-fund czars; immediately cease bailout payments to failed companies; ban future bailouts;
8. End generational theft. As few believe America's entitlement programs will be able to pay benefits to future generations, provide younger workers the choice of diverting payroll/Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts;
Welfare, or legalized thievery, is when the government steals money from producers through confiscatory taxation and gives it to citizens who didn't earn it. It must be deconstructed; otherwise our republic will fail.
9. Restore America's system of justice. Introduce British-style penalties for frivolous lawsuits, where those who launch unsuccessful lawsuits are liable for the defendants' legal bills;
Real tort reform is an absolute necessity. Judges must place a $250,000 limit on punitive damages, including "loser pays" as the only way to stop the legions of shyster lawyers of the trial lawyers lobby from further destroying America's health-care system and private industry.
10. American energy independence. All-of-the-above strategy that embraces alternatives, expands and accelerates exploration and production of oil and natural gas, and jump starts dramatic increases in nuclear power.
America! Let us support the yeoman's work of Laura Ingraham. Indeed, this woman is a real conservative, an American patriot, a God-fearing Christian and the adoptive mother to two beautiful children – Maria (from Guatemala) and Dmitri (from Russia).
"1. Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR). Limit federal spending growth to the percentage in population growth plus the rate of inflation; provide taxpayers the option of filing a post-card sized return using a low, flat tax rate of 25 percent; The Bible only required the Jews to give 10 percent – why can't the government be satisfied with two and a half times more? Because over the past 100 years since the advent of the Progressive movement and the imperial presidency under Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09), William Howard Taft (1909-13), Woodrow Wilson (1913-21), FDR (1933-45) and LBJ (1963-69), these presidents have progressively taken more and more of America's constitutional freedoms and liberties in exchange for a larger, more totalizing and fascist government. Obama is merely the latest in a long, ignominious line of presidents who consider themselves kings and We the People their powerless serfs or servants.
2. End tax-funded abortions. Stop federal payments to Planned Parenthood and prohibit any taxpayer-subsidized health-insurance plan from covering abortion; A recent cover of Newsweek magazine told the grim tale: "We are all Socialists Now." Newsweek could have easily stated: "We are all Abortionists Now." Liberals and progressives love to soil the innocent with their perverse policies, much like a gang initiation demands that you beat up or even murder someone to join the gang.
3. Defend American borders. Complete America's border-protection initiatives using remaining funds from the so-called stimulus bill;
4. King dollar. Preserve a strong dollar so that Americans' savings aren't wiped out by inflation and the U.S. dollar remains the world's reserve currency;
In 1971, President Nixon foolishly took America off the gold standard to try to please the radicals of the Democrat Party and stop rampant inflation. It did neither. Therefore, let America return to sane, sound economic policy going back to Adam Smith, the father of economics, by restoring the gold standard, which will overnight strengthen the U.S. dollar.
5. Empower American business. Immediately slash corporate tax rates to 15 percent and scrap the corporate capital-gains tax altogether;
6. Defend America. Strengthen America to defend our homeland and fully fund an operational, layered missile-defense system;
Front-page news on the DrudgeReport Thursday had these ominous headlines: "Secret Report: Nuke Agency Says Iran Can Make Bomb"; "Obama Kills Missile Defense for Poland, Czech," exactly 70 years to the day when the Soviet Union invaded Poland.
7. Statism exit plan. De-fund czars; immediately cease bailout payments to failed companies; ban future bailouts;
8. End generational theft. As few believe America's entitlement programs will be able to pay benefits to future generations, provide younger workers the choice of diverting payroll/Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts;
Welfare, or legalized thievery, is when the government steals money from producers through confiscatory taxation and gives it to citizens who didn't earn it. It must be deconstructed; otherwise our republic will fail.
9. Restore America's system of justice. Introduce British-style penalties for frivolous lawsuits, where those who launch unsuccessful lawsuits are liable for the defendants' legal bills;
Real tort reform is an absolute necessity. Judges must place a $250,000 limit on punitive damages, including "loser pays" as the only way to stop the legions of shyster lawyers of the trial lawyers lobby from further destroying America's health-care system and private industry.
10. American energy independence. All-of-the-above strategy that embraces alternatives, expands and accelerates exploration and production of oil and natural gas, and jump starts dramatic increases in nuclear power.
America! Let us support the yeoman's work of Laura Ingraham. Indeed, this woman is a real conservative, an American patriot, a God-fearing Christian and the adoptive mother to two beautiful children – Maria (from Guatemala) and Dmitri (from Russia).
Cigarettes, cable and personal responsibility
"Although the system requires improvement, it has a good foundation, and through sacrifice and responsible decisions, 'regular people' can live within the current system, even without the government. America created plans to help the elderly and disabled (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid) and our military (VA). A smorgasbord of private-sector insurance policies is available to those who make responsible decisions for themselves and their families before getting ill or hurt. So why is it in a mess?"
Friday, September 18, 2009
Lost: 600,000 Jobs
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
"Add to that the China tire tariffs imposed last week, which Rutgers trade expert Thomas Prusa reckons would cost 15,000 jobs, and the grand total is 600,000 positions — a disaster for an economy in recession and a killer of consumer confidence and voter approval.
"For Democrats, this ought to be a wake-up call. For every job they save to repay unions, many more are lost in other sectors of the economy. What's more, jobs that would be created as a result of freer markets never materialize. Either way, the price is intolerably high."
"Add to that the China tire tariffs imposed last week, which Rutgers trade expert Thomas Prusa reckons would cost 15,000 jobs, and the grand total is 600,000 positions — a disaster for an economy in recession and a killer of consumer confidence and voter approval.
"For Democrats, this ought to be a wake-up call. For every job they save to repay unions, many more are lost in other sectors of the economy. What's more, jobs that would be created as a result of freer markets never materialize. Either way, the price is intolerably high."
Thursday, September 17, 2009
There is something I don't understand....
There is a common belief that blacks cannot be racist because we don't have power.
Can someone explain to me this article?:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2006/05/cory_booker_bla.html
"Just as deaf people can be accused of not being deaf enough, blacks can be accused of not being black enough.
"Congratulations to Cory Booker, a former Rhodes scholar and Yale Law School graduate, who on Tuesday was elected Mayor of Newark. Here's hoping he can make good on his intentions to clean up the place.
"Winning wasn't easy for Booker, thanks to his complexion. He's black, but has been criticized for having light skin. Anti-Booker signs urged people to 'vote black.'
"Booker also ran in 2002, but lost to longtime Mayor Sharpe James, whose campaign played the same race card.
"Meanwhile, conservatives are portrayed as racist."
Can someone explain to me this article?:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2006/05/cory_booker_bla.html
"Just as deaf people can be accused of not being deaf enough, blacks can be accused of not being black enough.
"Congratulations to Cory Booker, a former Rhodes scholar and Yale Law School graduate, who on Tuesday was elected Mayor of Newark. Here's hoping he can make good on his intentions to clean up the place.
"Winning wasn't easy for Booker, thanks to his complexion. He's black, but has been criticized for having light skin. Anti-Booker signs urged people to 'vote black.'
"Booker also ran in 2002, but lost to longtime Mayor Sharpe James, whose campaign played the same race card.
"Meanwhile, conservatives are portrayed as racist."
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Hooooray for Hollywood!
From an email:
**HOLLYWOOD SLEAZE MERCHANTS WANT TO ENSNARE YOUR CHILDREN**
One of the slick tricks that Hollywood uses to ensnare your children, especially your teenagers, is to hype a PG-13 or R-rated thriller or horror movie, no matter how bad, by releasing it without advance press screenings. By doing this, movie producers and distributors can insure that the movie will earn a big pot of money on Friday before word gets out to parents and children about how bad the movie really is.
This recently happened with the movie ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, which saw a huge dropoff in ticket sales on Saturday and Sunday in its first weekend, but still beat out the delightful family movie PRINCESS DIARIES 2.
You can prevent such tricks from working by going to our MOVIEGUIDE® website at http://www.movieguide.org/. There, you can find reviews about the best, most family friendly movies now at your local theater.
Even if the studio does not give us an advance screening of something like ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, you can find plenty of good movie choices until we are able to give you and your children a heads up about the latest schlock fare from Hollywood.
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO!
VISIT http://www.movieguide.org/ FOR THE LATEST, AND THE BEST IN MOVIE ENTERTAINMENT.
Christian Film & Television Commission
TM2510-G Las Posas Road #502
Camarillo, CA 93010Phone: 805-383-2000
Fax: 805-383-4089
http://www.movieguide.org/
The Christian Film & Television CommissionTM/Good News Communications, Inc has a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt status.
Donations are tax deductible.
The Christian Television & Film CommissionTM publishes MOVIEGUIDE®. MOVIEGUIDE(R) is dedicated to providing you with the best possible information for assessing the quality of movies and television programming for you and your family.
HOW CAN I SUPPORT YOUR ORGANIZATION?Make a secure online credit card donation.
HOW CAN I TELL OTHERS ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION?Send a personalized version of this message to your friends.
**HOLLYWOOD SLEAZE MERCHANTS WANT TO ENSNARE YOUR CHILDREN**
One of the slick tricks that Hollywood uses to ensnare your children, especially your teenagers, is to hype a PG-13 or R-rated thriller or horror movie, no matter how bad, by releasing it without advance press screenings. By doing this, movie producers and distributors can insure that the movie will earn a big pot of money on Friday before word gets out to parents and children about how bad the movie really is.
This recently happened with the movie ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, which saw a huge dropoff in ticket sales on Saturday and Sunday in its first weekend, but still beat out the delightful family movie PRINCESS DIARIES 2.
You can prevent such tricks from working by going to our MOVIEGUIDE® website at http://www.movieguide.org/. There, you can find reviews about the best, most family friendly movies now at your local theater.
Even if the studio does not give us an advance screening of something like ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, you can find plenty of good movie choices until we are able to give you and your children a heads up about the latest schlock fare from Hollywood.
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO!
VISIT http://www.movieguide.org/ FOR THE LATEST, AND THE BEST IN MOVIE ENTERTAINMENT.
Christian Film & Television Commission
TM2510-G Las Posas Road #502
Camarillo, CA 93010Phone: 805-383-2000
Fax: 805-383-4089
http://www.movieguide.org/
The Christian Film & Television CommissionTM/Good News Communications, Inc has a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt status.
Donations are tax deductible.
The Christian Television & Film CommissionTM publishes MOVIEGUIDE®. MOVIEGUIDE(R) is dedicated to providing you with the best possible information for assessing the quality of movies and television programming for you and your family.
HOW CAN I SUPPORT YOUR ORGANIZATION?Make a secure online credit card donation.
HOW CAN I TELL OTHERS ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION?Send a personalized version of this message to your friends.
Yet Another Letter to the Defender - Expert Black Sniper
November 14, 2002
Dear Editor:
I'm very ashamed to admit this in public, but I have been guilty of self-hatred.
When I first saw the photograph of John Allen Muhammad, a good-looking Black man (such as myself), it was hard for me to believe he was the sniper. I mean it was just like looking in a mirror, and I'm not a cold-blooded killer, so why should he be? I guess I could not believe that he could pull of all of those killings with one shot. I guess I was a victim in thinking subconsciously that Blacks still had a tendency for shoddy workmanship. I guess I did not want to believe that a Black man was that good in killing people. I have to confess if I wanted to hire a sniper, I would not have done business with one of my own people. I would not have thought about buying Black, finding a good sniper within my own community. I probably would have wanted to find a good White sniper with a good track record, I'm to sorry say. After all the evidence I have seen in Muhammad's case, I have to admit it seems like the evidence is proving me wrong. It seems like he is proving again to all of us that Black people are capable of being equal to or better in doing anything like any other race.
Robert Oliver
Dear Editor:
I'm very ashamed to admit this in public, but I have been guilty of self-hatred.
When I first saw the photograph of John Allen Muhammad, a good-looking Black man (such as myself), it was hard for me to believe he was the sniper. I mean it was just like looking in a mirror, and I'm not a cold-blooded killer, so why should he be? I guess I could not believe that he could pull of all of those killings with one shot. I guess I was a victim in thinking subconsciously that Blacks still had a tendency for shoddy workmanship. I guess I did not want to believe that a Black man was that good in killing people. I have to confess if I wanted to hire a sniper, I would not have done business with one of my own people. I would not have thought about buying Black, finding a good sniper within my own community. I probably would have wanted to find a good White sniper with a good track record, I'm to sorry say. After all the evidence I have seen in Muhammad's case, I have to admit it seems like the evidence is proving me wrong. It seems like he is proving again to all of us that Black people are capable of being equal to or better in doing anything like any other race.
Robert Oliver
My Letter to Judge Greg Mathis
TO JUDGE GREG MATHIS, SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
VIA FACSIMILE
YOUR SUDAN COMMENTARY WAS IN THE CHICAGO DEFENDER RECENTLY….
You said, “Why is it that when Black Africans are being victimized by the tens of thousands, no one intervenes to free them from tyranny and genocide…We must pressure our government and the United Nations to step in immediately to end the slaughter of Black Sudanese by its Arab countrymen. To sit on our hands again and watch another African slaughter would be a travesty.” I’m with you 100%.
Please read portions of a memo I sent to a staffer for a congressman in Washington:
Today I was on the Interactions radio program on WBGX 1570 AM and briefly talked about the situation in Sudan. For sake of time, the host asked me to give my phone number for more information. My cell phone must be in a coma because it is not ringing. Over a year ago I was at a small community meeting on a Sunday afternoon at Washington Park talking about the genocide. You know how passionate I am. I gave all the facts and figures about the Black Sudanese being slaughtered. If anyone did not know what the word genocide meant before, they found out then. I thought people would get riled and upset at all these Black folks getting killed.
I was very naïve.
All but one were falling asleep on me. They were going into comas. I assure you I’m not talented enough to make genocide boring. One of them seemed to come to life when I told him it was Arabs who were doing the killings and not white folks.
Judge, here are portions of my radio commentary that was aired in March 2003 on WBEE in Chicago:
“Some of you in the listening audience may be telling yourselves ‘Sudan is thousands of miles away so I cannot relate to that.’ Let me tell you what South African Bishop Desmond M. Tutu said in 1984: ‘Some people may want to say to you that what you do ten thousand miles away doesn't affect South Africa, but what you do reverberates around the world.’ Many of you remember his opposition to the white minority regime in South Africa that imposed apartheid or legalized segregation on the Black population. That was an evil system. You also remember the massive protests and rallies against apartheid in South Africa in the United States and all over the world. I witnessed the arrests of the wife of a prominent civil rights leader, a state senator, and a congressman at the Chicago South African consulate in the 1980’s. But why are there no massive protests and rallies against the current genocide in Sudan against Black Africans?”
“Why the silence? Yes, even chattel slavery, which we African Americans are intimately familiar with, is going on right now in Sudan, Arabs enslaving Blacks. There are people who deny that is going on today. However, Rev. Al Sharpton went to Sudan and has testified that chattel slavery is indeed going on now. Only Rev. Sharpton and very few others have been outraged that this can be allowed to continue… Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and President of international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, said in the Wall Street Journal, ‘When several thousand Europeans are killed and tens of thousands displaced, the world calls it genocide. But when 1.9 million black Africans are killed and millions more are displaced, tortured, and even sold into slavery, the world remains strangely silent.’”
“‘However, a holocaust goes on at this moment in Sudan. In the 1990’s, 750,000 Black African civilians were murdered in Rwanda. That was also true holocaust and a clear case of genocide… I just wonder where the outrage was then any government, including our own in 1994, did not take any action to stop the slaughter in Rwanda. Journalist Barbara Reynolds wrote a commentary in 1999 that was published in the Chicago Defender that was called “Why Kosovo and not Rwanda?” I ask why Kosovo and not Rwanda and not Sudan? Colin Powell, who worked behind the scenes with the Sudan Peace Act, calls it ‘the worst human rights nightmare on the planet…’ After around 2 million dead Black Africans, I wonder how many more dead bodies will it take to make the situation in Sudan qualify to be a tragedy.”
Judge, a colleague of mine, Imam Najee Ali, wrote in a letter to the editor to the Defender: “What troubles me is the silence by the Arab American and Muslim leaders through out America and the world concerning the murders, rapes, and displacement of our African brothers and sisters. Many of these Arab and Muslim leaders were hysterical over civilian casualties in Iraq; were outraged by the plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East, complained about being the victims of racial profiling after Sept. 11, and there is always vocal outrage against the state of Israel, but the genocide of the African population in Sudan is being ignored by these Arab and Muslim leaders.”
Judge, I will be brutally frank. I promise you, I will not be very nice. Like Najee Ali with Muslims, I’m very dismayed and appalled by the thundering silence of many Black “leaders.” I remember when apartheid at the top of the charts years ago. People were angry enough, nationally and internationally, to protest and call for an end to apartheid. You know how angry we African Americans were. We really rocked the house. I was there when three prominent people got arrested at the South African Consulate in Chicago. It was front- page news in the Defender because I was their news photographer at that event. However, I do not understand when real slaughtering, burning, bombing, torturing, maiming, raping, and slavery happens to Black Africans, why these same people who yelled and screamed about apartheid in South Africa are silent or barely whispering on Sudan. If a person can march in the streets and publicly rally on apartheid on many occasions, but only issue a two-page press release, one time to my knowledge, on actual slaughter going in the millions in Sudan, that is very pathetic. Some of these Black folks even accuse the United States of genocide against African Americans but say nothing at all about bloody genocide against Black Africans. Buy them dictionaries and have them read to you the definition of “hypocrite.” My family and I have felt the effects of racism. However, I have not been bombed, burned, raped, tortured or sold into slavery lately. I call all of them “Mother Africa’s Sometimey Lovers.”
In 1999, Dr. Charles Jacob of the American Anti Slavery Group reported that Secretary of State Madeline Albright told him and others in a meeting of NGO’s “The human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.” She means you and me, right? Since when does genocide have to be “marketable”?
Judge, fasten your seat belt and hold on tight. I have to say this because it is true. This quote is from the Center for Religious Freedom website http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/sudan/ : “President Clinton never raised his voice publicly to decry the genocide in Sudan and failed to rally our allies to press the regime. In testimony before Congress on September 28, 2000, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted it was ‘struck by the huge disparity between the genocidal scale of atrocities being committed by the government of Sudan and the muted response of the President and Secretary of State of the United States.’ Clinton ignored the strong appeals for U.S. non-military leadership by Congressmen Frank Wolf, Chris Smith, Don Payne, and Tom Tancredo, by Senators Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, and Jesse Helms, and by the Congressional Black Caucus. Clinton deferred the request of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust poet Elie Wiesel to meet over U.S. policies on Sudan, ‘site of the world's most long-lasting religious persecution and genocide,’ which Wiesel wrote ‘haunted’ him.” Our first Black president., right? He said nothing and did nothing. Genocide is my poltical acid test and he got an F-. (Ed. I later found out he did name former congressman Frank Johnston to be Special Envoy to Sudan)
Sorry Judge Mathis. I take no prisoners.
I’m not a fan of George W. Bush nor am I campaigning for him. I’m independent politically. (Few I really do respect in his administration such as Colin Powell). However, suppose that quote read: “President Bush never raised his voice publicly to decry the genocide in Sudan and failed to rally our allies to press the regime…Bush deferred the request of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust poet Elie Wiesel to meet over U.S. policies on Sudan, ‘site of the world's most long-lasting religious persecution and genocide,’ which Wiesel wrote ‘haunted’ him.” Wouldn’t unholy hell break loose? Wouldn’t people accuse him of racism and aiding and abetting genocide? As I said I’m not a fan, but at least he said on October 21, 2002: “I have today signed into law H.R. 5531, the ‘Sudan Peace Act.’ This Act demonstrates the clear resolve of the United States to promote a lasting, just peace; human rights; and freedom from persecution for the people of Sudan. The Act is designed to help address the evils inflicted on the people of Sudan by their government -- including senseless suffering, use of emergency food relief as a weapon of war, and the practice of slavery -- and to press the parties, and in particular the Sudanese Government, to complete in good faith the negotiations to end the war… I commend the Congress for passing the Sudan Peace Act. This Act, passed with bipartisan support, demonstrates that the Congress shares my commitment to help end suffering and promote a just peace in Sudan. For too long, the people of Sudan have endured slavery, violence, disease, and forced starvation.” Right after he signed that bill into law, Bush met Francis Bok, an escaped Sudanese Black slave. That is reported to be possibly the first meeting between an American President and an escaped Black slave since the 19th Century.
I have been yelling and screaming for over a year that this has been going on for 22 years and over 2 million died and the body count rises daily. Yesterday, I contacted the Sudan Desk at the State Department, and I’m waiting to get accurate information to the situation in southern Sudan as the U.N. focus is now in Darfur that is in the western region of the country.
I’m very proud of Congressman Rush because he participated in a protest outside of the Sudanese Embassy and got arrested for it. Not many have stepped forward to do that. And his office is doing everything possible to give the situation more public attention. People such as you and he who take action show integrity.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR NOT BEING SILENT
Robert
P.S. Contributions for humanitarian aid to Darfur can be sent to Catholic Relief Services, Sudan-Darfur Conflict, P.O. Box 17220, Baltimore, MD 21298-6993.
VIA FACSIMILE
YOUR SUDAN COMMENTARY WAS IN THE CHICAGO DEFENDER RECENTLY….
You said, “Why is it that when Black Africans are being victimized by the tens of thousands, no one intervenes to free them from tyranny and genocide…We must pressure our government and the United Nations to step in immediately to end the slaughter of Black Sudanese by its Arab countrymen. To sit on our hands again and watch another African slaughter would be a travesty.” I’m with you 100%.
Please read portions of a memo I sent to a staffer for a congressman in Washington:
Today I was on the Interactions radio program on WBGX 1570 AM and briefly talked about the situation in Sudan. For sake of time, the host asked me to give my phone number for more information. My cell phone must be in a coma because it is not ringing. Over a year ago I was at a small community meeting on a Sunday afternoon at Washington Park talking about the genocide. You know how passionate I am. I gave all the facts and figures about the Black Sudanese being slaughtered. If anyone did not know what the word genocide meant before, they found out then. I thought people would get riled and upset at all these Black folks getting killed.
I was very naïve.
All but one were falling asleep on me. They were going into comas. I assure you I’m not talented enough to make genocide boring. One of them seemed to come to life when I told him it was Arabs who were doing the killings and not white folks.
Judge, here are portions of my radio commentary that was aired in March 2003 on WBEE in Chicago:
“Some of you in the listening audience may be telling yourselves ‘Sudan is thousands of miles away so I cannot relate to that.’ Let me tell you what South African Bishop Desmond M. Tutu said in 1984: ‘Some people may want to say to you that what you do ten thousand miles away doesn't affect South Africa, but what you do reverberates around the world.’ Many of you remember his opposition to the white minority regime in South Africa that imposed apartheid or legalized segregation on the Black population. That was an evil system. You also remember the massive protests and rallies against apartheid in South Africa in the United States and all over the world. I witnessed the arrests of the wife of a prominent civil rights leader, a state senator, and a congressman at the Chicago South African consulate in the 1980’s. But why are there no massive protests and rallies against the current genocide in Sudan against Black Africans?”
“Why the silence? Yes, even chattel slavery, which we African Americans are intimately familiar with, is going on right now in Sudan, Arabs enslaving Blacks. There are people who deny that is going on today. However, Rev. Al Sharpton went to Sudan and has testified that chattel slavery is indeed going on now. Only Rev. Sharpton and very few others have been outraged that this can be allowed to continue… Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and President of international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, said in the Wall Street Journal, ‘When several thousand Europeans are killed and tens of thousands displaced, the world calls it genocide. But when 1.9 million black Africans are killed and millions more are displaced, tortured, and even sold into slavery, the world remains strangely silent.’”
“‘However, a holocaust goes on at this moment in Sudan. In the 1990’s, 750,000 Black African civilians were murdered in Rwanda. That was also true holocaust and a clear case of genocide… I just wonder where the outrage was then any government, including our own in 1994, did not take any action to stop the slaughter in Rwanda. Journalist Barbara Reynolds wrote a commentary in 1999 that was published in the Chicago Defender that was called “Why Kosovo and not Rwanda?” I ask why Kosovo and not Rwanda and not Sudan? Colin Powell, who worked behind the scenes with the Sudan Peace Act, calls it ‘the worst human rights nightmare on the planet…’ After around 2 million dead Black Africans, I wonder how many more dead bodies will it take to make the situation in Sudan qualify to be a tragedy.”
Judge, a colleague of mine, Imam Najee Ali, wrote in a letter to the editor to the Defender: “What troubles me is the silence by the Arab American and Muslim leaders through out America and the world concerning the murders, rapes, and displacement of our African brothers and sisters. Many of these Arab and Muslim leaders were hysterical over civilian casualties in Iraq; were outraged by the plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East, complained about being the victims of racial profiling after Sept. 11, and there is always vocal outrage against the state of Israel, but the genocide of the African population in Sudan is being ignored by these Arab and Muslim leaders.”
Judge, I will be brutally frank. I promise you, I will not be very nice. Like Najee Ali with Muslims, I’m very dismayed and appalled by the thundering silence of many Black “leaders.” I remember when apartheid at the top of the charts years ago. People were angry enough, nationally and internationally, to protest and call for an end to apartheid. You know how angry we African Americans were. We really rocked the house. I was there when three prominent people got arrested at the South African Consulate in Chicago. It was front- page news in the Defender because I was their news photographer at that event. However, I do not understand when real slaughtering, burning, bombing, torturing, maiming, raping, and slavery happens to Black Africans, why these same people who yelled and screamed about apartheid in South Africa are silent or barely whispering on Sudan. If a person can march in the streets and publicly rally on apartheid on many occasions, but only issue a two-page press release, one time to my knowledge, on actual slaughter going in the millions in Sudan, that is very pathetic. Some of these Black folks even accuse the United States of genocide against African Americans but say nothing at all about bloody genocide against Black Africans. Buy them dictionaries and have them read to you the definition of “hypocrite.” My family and I have felt the effects of racism. However, I have not been bombed, burned, raped, tortured or sold into slavery lately. I call all of them “Mother Africa’s Sometimey Lovers.”
In 1999, Dr. Charles Jacob of the American Anti Slavery Group reported that Secretary of State Madeline Albright told him and others in a meeting of NGO’s “The human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.” She means you and me, right? Since when does genocide have to be “marketable”?
Judge, fasten your seat belt and hold on tight. I have to say this because it is true. This quote is from the Center for Religious Freedom website http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/sudan/ : “President Clinton never raised his voice publicly to decry the genocide in Sudan and failed to rally our allies to press the regime. In testimony before Congress on September 28, 2000, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted it was ‘struck by the huge disparity between the genocidal scale of atrocities being committed by the government of Sudan and the muted response of the President and Secretary of State of the United States.’ Clinton ignored the strong appeals for U.S. non-military leadership by Congressmen Frank Wolf, Chris Smith, Don Payne, and Tom Tancredo, by Senators Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, and Jesse Helms, and by the Congressional Black Caucus. Clinton deferred the request of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust poet Elie Wiesel to meet over U.S. policies on Sudan, ‘site of the world's most long-lasting religious persecution and genocide,’ which Wiesel wrote ‘haunted’ him.” Our first Black president., right? He said nothing and did nothing. Genocide is my poltical acid test and he got an F-. (Ed. I later found out he did name former congressman Frank Johnston to be Special Envoy to Sudan)
Sorry Judge Mathis. I take no prisoners.
I’m not a fan of George W. Bush nor am I campaigning for him. I’m independent politically. (Few I really do respect in his administration such as Colin Powell). However, suppose that quote read: “President Bush never raised his voice publicly to decry the genocide in Sudan and failed to rally our allies to press the regime…Bush deferred the request of Nobel Laureate and Holocaust poet Elie Wiesel to meet over U.S. policies on Sudan, ‘site of the world's most long-lasting religious persecution and genocide,’ which Wiesel wrote ‘haunted’ him.” Wouldn’t unholy hell break loose? Wouldn’t people accuse him of racism and aiding and abetting genocide? As I said I’m not a fan, but at least he said on October 21, 2002: “I have today signed into law H.R. 5531, the ‘Sudan Peace Act.’ This Act demonstrates the clear resolve of the United States to promote a lasting, just peace; human rights; and freedom from persecution for the people of Sudan. The Act is designed to help address the evils inflicted on the people of Sudan by their government -- including senseless suffering, use of emergency food relief as a weapon of war, and the practice of slavery -- and to press the parties, and in particular the Sudanese Government, to complete in good faith the negotiations to end the war… I commend the Congress for passing the Sudan Peace Act. This Act, passed with bipartisan support, demonstrates that the Congress shares my commitment to help end suffering and promote a just peace in Sudan. For too long, the people of Sudan have endured slavery, violence, disease, and forced starvation.” Right after he signed that bill into law, Bush met Francis Bok, an escaped Sudanese Black slave. That is reported to be possibly the first meeting between an American President and an escaped Black slave since the 19th Century.
I have been yelling and screaming for over a year that this has been going on for 22 years and over 2 million died and the body count rises daily. Yesterday, I contacted the Sudan Desk at the State Department, and I’m waiting to get accurate information to the situation in southern Sudan as the U.N. focus is now in Darfur that is in the western region of the country.
I’m very proud of Congressman Rush because he participated in a protest outside of the Sudanese Embassy and got arrested for it. Not many have stepped forward to do that. And his office is doing everything possible to give the situation more public attention. People such as you and he who take action show integrity.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR NOT BEING SILENT
Robert
P.S. Contributions for humanitarian aid to Darfur can be sent to Catholic Relief Services, Sudan-Darfur Conflict, P.O. Box 17220, Baltimore, MD 21298-6993.
Book Review of Unfounded Loyalty
Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into The Love Affair Between Blacks and the Democratic Party
Wayne Perryman
Lantham, MD: PNEUMA Life Publishing, 2003
198 pp. $23.50
ISBN 1-562290-7-38
“Why are most Blacks in America Democrat?” asked a group of inner-city young people to Rev. Wayne Perryman of Seattle, Washington. Perryman replied, “Because Democrats have done the most for Black people.” They asked him for material find out exactly what the Democrats have done for Blacks. Perryman did not have any material to give them. He said, “I could see I would have to dig further to find the real answer…That decision led to some starling revelations regarding the relationships between blacks and the Democrats.”
Perryman is a former newspaper publisher and radio talk show host and now is a fact-finding investigator in discrimination cases for the plaintiff. He also devotes much of his time serving his church and the inner-city community. For his ongoing work as a community activist, Rev. Perryman has received commendations from members of the United States Congress, former Washington State governor Booth Gardner, and former Seattle mayor Charles Royer. In addition to this recognition, Perryman’s work with children, professional athletes, gang members, and major corporations has resulted in local, national, and international media coverage, including Sports Illustrated, Parade Magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Ebony magazine, Upscale magazine, EM magazine, Christianity Today, The Personnel Administrator, ABC’s Home Show, CBN’s The 700 Club, and Italy’s Speak Up magazine.
Perryman claims that after reading his book, you will understand that:
1. For 150 years blacks were victims of terrorist attacks by the Democrats and their Klan supporters, including lynchings, beatings, rapes, and mutilations.
2. On the issue of slavery, the Democrats literally gave their lives to expand it; the Republicans gave their lives to ban it.
3. Many believed the Democrats had a change of heart and fell in love with blacks. To the contrary, history reveals the Democrats didn’t fall in love with black folks, they fell in love with the black vote knowing this would be their ticket into the White House.
He continues, “In my research, which covers the period from 1832 to 2002, I found two familiar strains running through the cultural development of the American Black: the positive and powerful role of Christianity and the little known and debilitating role of the Democrats – from slavery through the Clinton Administration. There is also a critical analysis of our current black leadership.”
In the first few chapters, he writes of how the decline of spirituality affected Blacks. He writes, “Our faith in God has always been the inspiring factor that empowered many of our people to do great things. When it came to dealing with problems, many of our famous black historical figures depended on the providence of God rather than on the promises of government.” He cites examples such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, and Benjamin Banneker.
Perryman also says of African Americans, “Many no longer put their faith in God, instead they put their faith in government and those representing government. The shift from God to government has resulted in behavior unheard of and problems unprecedented.” Examples of those problems he cites are: More homeless than ever before. More rat-and roach-infested government housing. Fewer mothers who are full-time homemakers. More latchkey children home alone. More violence in schools. More couples living together out of wedlock. More single mothers who have never been married. More black men unemployed than ever before. More black men in prison. More abortions among black women. More drugs in the black community. More top-40 music degrading black women and glorifying sex and violence. More covert practices of racial discrimination. More black on black crime and the list goes on.
Perryman does an excellent job of detailing aspects of Black history that is not generally known. There is a belief in the African American community that the Republican Party, which started in 1854 to abolish slavery, was the party of the slave masters and the Democratic Party is the party of the “Great Emancipators.” I have personally talked to African Americans who believed that there were Republican slave owners. I also know of people who believe that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Obviously, they were not aware of actual history. Perryman writes, “In 1929, one year after President Herbert Hoover took office with a promise to ‘put a chicken in every pot,’ the stock market crashed, our nation went into a deep depression, and the Republicans knew they were in trouble. This was the perfect opportunity for the Democrats to take the White House, but they needed more than the Depression; they needed the black vote… Prior to this time from 1866 to 1928, blacks had voted exclusively for the Republican ticket. Frustrated with the economy as well as with the Republican Party, the (black) newspapers used their powerful voice to urge black voters to break tradition and vote Democrat. John Hope Franklin said, ‘The break was neither clean nor complete, however, for there were those who could not be persuaded to support the party that, after all, was the party of the Ku Klux Klan and other bigots.’”
Perryman is critical of the Democratic Party’s lack of acknowledgement of its racist history of supporting slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, racial violence, etc. and its seeming refusal to apologize to African Americans for that history. He details in Chapter Seven: “The Democrats’ Racist Past But No Formal Apology” the history of the Ku Klux Klan formed, in 1866, as a “terrorist” organization in response to the Republicans passing laws and forming programs to assist Blacks. “The Democrats became very angry and resentful…the Democrats became the ‘Daddy’ of the Ku Klux Klan.” He quotes Professor Howard O. Lindsey, author of A History of Black Americans: “Blacks and sympathetic whites were attacked and threatened. African Americans were discouraged from seeking elected office and even from trying to vote. Any and all means were used from threats to violence to outright murder.”
Perryman continues, “Today, a number of Democrats proudly boast about their civil rights accomplishments of the sixties, mainly the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Ed. – percentage wise, Republicans were in the majority of its support, not Democrats). However, after reviewing all the evidence, one must conclude that had the Democrats passed these same types of laws in 1864, their legislative efforts in 1964 would not have been necessary. From 1864 and beyond, Democrats proudly legislated Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and a multitude of other local laws to disenfranchise blacks. These laws were specifically designed to hurt blacks; they passed no laws to help blacks. The underlying truth is this: After two hundred years of racist practices, the Democrats didn’t pass laws and develop the programs (in the sixties) because they had a change of heart and fell in love with black folks. They did it because they fell in love with the black vote…Going after the black vote wasn’t entirely new for the Democrats. History reveals that since 1870, the Democrats have always gone after the black vote. From 1870 to 1930, the party used fraud, whippings, lynching, murder, intimidation, and mutilation to get their vote. In the 1930’s and 1960’s they switched from violence and intimidation to manipulation and voter’s registration. In their quest to obtain the black vote, Democrats conveniently ignored those portions of history that documented their inhumane treatment of African Americans.”
Perryman does not suggest that the Republicans of the past were “head over heels in love with blacks.” He says that Republican presidents such as Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Taft felt that “blacks were inferior to them.” He says that despite their attitudes of superiority, Republicans as a whole refused to accept the inhumane treatment that blacks were forced to endure at the hands of those who represented the Democratic Party.
Perryman also says, “The injustices that we faced produced pain, the pain produced problems, and the problems produced two types of African Americans: those who put their faith in God and made a difference, and those who simply ignored God and made excuses. Blacks who made a difference, trusted God, turned their stumbling blocks into stepping stones, and built a stairway to success. Others who simply made excuses did not see the blocks as stepping stones, but as obstacles to their future. Thus many became angry, bitter, and self-abusive. Instead of viewing the blocks as a means that could take them from the Valley of Despair to the Plateaus of Prosperity, they viewed them as worthless materials and used them to build a Monument of Excuses – excuses that eventually destroyed their families, their homes, their communities, their values, and eventually themselves.”
Wayne Perryman
Lantham, MD: PNEUMA Life Publishing, 2003
198 pp. $23.50
ISBN 1-562290-7-38
“Why are most Blacks in America Democrat?” asked a group of inner-city young people to Rev. Wayne Perryman of Seattle, Washington. Perryman replied, “Because Democrats have done the most for Black people.” They asked him for material find out exactly what the Democrats have done for Blacks. Perryman did not have any material to give them. He said, “I could see I would have to dig further to find the real answer…That decision led to some starling revelations regarding the relationships between blacks and the Democrats.”
Perryman is a former newspaper publisher and radio talk show host and now is a fact-finding investigator in discrimination cases for the plaintiff. He also devotes much of his time serving his church and the inner-city community. For his ongoing work as a community activist, Rev. Perryman has received commendations from members of the United States Congress, former Washington State governor Booth Gardner, and former Seattle mayor Charles Royer. In addition to this recognition, Perryman’s work with children, professional athletes, gang members, and major corporations has resulted in local, national, and international media coverage, including Sports Illustrated, Parade Magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Ebony magazine, Upscale magazine, EM magazine, Christianity Today, The Personnel Administrator, ABC’s Home Show, CBN’s The 700 Club, and Italy’s Speak Up magazine.
Perryman claims that after reading his book, you will understand that:
1. For 150 years blacks were victims of terrorist attacks by the Democrats and their Klan supporters, including lynchings, beatings, rapes, and mutilations.
2. On the issue of slavery, the Democrats literally gave their lives to expand it; the Republicans gave their lives to ban it.
3. Many believed the Democrats had a change of heart and fell in love with blacks. To the contrary, history reveals the Democrats didn’t fall in love with black folks, they fell in love with the black vote knowing this would be their ticket into the White House.
He continues, “In my research, which covers the period from 1832 to 2002, I found two familiar strains running through the cultural development of the American Black: the positive and powerful role of Christianity and the little known and debilitating role of the Democrats – from slavery through the Clinton Administration. There is also a critical analysis of our current black leadership.”
In the first few chapters, he writes of how the decline of spirituality affected Blacks. He writes, “Our faith in God has always been the inspiring factor that empowered many of our people to do great things. When it came to dealing with problems, many of our famous black historical figures depended on the providence of God rather than on the promises of government.” He cites examples such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Nat Turner, and Benjamin Banneker.
Perryman also says of African Americans, “Many no longer put their faith in God, instead they put their faith in government and those representing government. The shift from God to government has resulted in behavior unheard of and problems unprecedented.” Examples of those problems he cites are: More homeless than ever before. More rat-and roach-infested government housing. Fewer mothers who are full-time homemakers. More latchkey children home alone. More violence in schools. More couples living together out of wedlock. More single mothers who have never been married. More black men unemployed than ever before. More black men in prison. More abortions among black women. More drugs in the black community. More top-40 music degrading black women and glorifying sex and violence. More covert practices of racial discrimination. More black on black crime and the list goes on.
Perryman does an excellent job of detailing aspects of Black history that is not generally known. There is a belief in the African American community that the Republican Party, which started in 1854 to abolish slavery, was the party of the slave masters and the Democratic Party is the party of the “Great Emancipators.” I have personally talked to African Americans who believed that there were Republican slave owners. I also know of people who believe that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Obviously, they were not aware of actual history. Perryman writes, “In 1929, one year after President Herbert Hoover took office with a promise to ‘put a chicken in every pot,’ the stock market crashed, our nation went into a deep depression, and the Republicans knew they were in trouble. This was the perfect opportunity for the Democrats to take the White House, but they needed more than the Depression; they needed the black vote… Prior to this time from 1866 to 1928, blacks had voted exclusively for the Republican ticket. Frustrated with the economy as well as with the Republican Party, the (black) newspapers used their powerful voice to urge black voters to break tradition and vote Democrat. John Hope Franklin said, ‘The break was neither clean nor complete, however, for there were those who could not be persuaded to support the party that, after all, was the party of the Ku Klux Klan and other bigots.’”
Perryman is critical of the Democratic Party’s lack of acknowledgement of its racist history of supporting slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, racial violence, etc. and its seeming refusal to apologize to African Americans for that history. He details in Chapter Seven: “The Democrats’ Racist Past But No Formal Apology” the history of the Ku Klux Klan formed, in 1866, as a “terrorist” organization in response to the Republicans passing laws and forming programs to assist Blacks. “The Democrats became very angry and resentful…the Democrats became the ‘Daddy’ of the Ku Klux Klan.” He quotes Professor Howard O. Lindsey, author of A History of Black Americans: “Blacks and sympathetic whites were attacked and threatened. African Americans were discouraged from seeking elected office and even from trying to vote. Any and all means were used from threats to violence to outright murder.”
Perryman continues, “Today, a number of Democrats proudly boast about their civil rights accomplishments of the sixties, mainly the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Ed. – percentage wise, Republicans were in the majority of its support, not Democrats). However, after reviewing all the evidence, one must conclude that had the Democrats passed these same types of laws in 1864, their legislative efforts in 1964 would not have been necessary. From 1864 and beyond, Democrats proudly legislated Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and a multitude of other local laws to disenfranchise blacks. These laws were specifically designed to hurt blacks; they passed no laws to help blacks. The underlying truth is this: After two hundred years of racist practices, the Democrats didn’t pass laws and develop the programs (in the sixties) because they had a change of heart and fell in love with black folks. They did it because they fell in love with the black vote…Going after the black vote wasn’t entirely new for the Democrats. History reveals that since 1870, the Democrats have always gone after the black vote. From 1870 to 1930, the party used fraud, whippings, lynching, murder, intimidation, and mutilation to get their vote. In the 1930’s and 1960’s they switched from violence and intimidation to manipulation and voter’s registration. In their quest to obtain the black vote, Democrats conveniently ignored those portions of history that documented their inhumane treatment of African Americans.”
Perryman does not suggest that the Republicans of the past were “head over heels in love with blacks.” He says that Republican presidents such as Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Taft felt that “blacks were inferior to them.” He says that despite their attitudes of superiority, Republicans as a whole refused to accept the inhumane treatment that blacks were forced to endure at the hands of those who represented the Democratic Party.
Perryman also says, “The injustices that we faced produced pain, the pain produced problems, and the problems produced two types of African Americans: those who put their faith in God and made a difference, and those who simply ignored God and made excuses. Blacks who made a difference, trusted God, turned their stumbling blocks into stepping stones, and built a stairway to success. Others who simply made excuses did not see the blocks as stepping stones, but as obstacles to their future. Thus many became angry, bitter, and self-abusive. Instead of viewing the blocks as a means that could take them from the Valley of Despair to the Plateaus of Prosperity, they viewed them as worthless materials and used them to build a Monument of Excuses – excuses that eventually destroyed their families, their homes, their communities, their values, and eventually themselves.”
Chattel Slavery in Africa Today
This material is from http://www.anti-slavery.org/pages/reports/silent.html
Abolitionist Samuel L. Cotton issues a call to action Words to the New World Africans
"Are there not other of my African American brothers and sisters who have, like me, fantasized about traveling back in time to prevent the rape of our ancestral homeland, Mother Africa? Or of leading the charge of unbound African warriors, up from the hold of the slave ship Zion, to slay the enslavers on its deck and emancipate its terrified cargo?... Well, a window in time reopened. Now what are we going to do about it?"
Samuel L. Cotton is a member of the American Anti-Slavery Group's board of advisors, and director of the Committee Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS). In 1995, while a graduate student at Columbia, Sam first learned about modern day African slavery, and in December of that year traveled to Mauritania to see black chattel slavery for himself.
Sam's visit to Mauritania had a profound effect, and prompted him to write the book Silent Terror: A Journey into Contemporary African Slavery. Excerpted below are the book's prologue and epilogue, which eloquently make the case for a neo-abolitionist movement to fight slavery in North Africa. Sam challenges all Americans -- and African Americans in particular -- to seize this opportunity for action.
Prologue
It is December 23, 1995, and a steel ship, Flight 562, bound for Dakar, Senegal, surges and shudders in a storm somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Above me, a video screen begins to appear, opening slowly below the overhead luggage rack. The silent screen indicates the aircraft’s progress by displaying a small plane moving slowly from the U.S. coastline to the west coast of Africa. As the screen flashes off and on, it appears to me, after two hours into the flight, that the small plane has hardly moved. Not being one who likes to sit for long period of time, I tell myself to relax and accept that this is going to be a long flight. Anxious, I turn from the screen and begin to gaze out the window.
My eyes follow the silver wings of the aircraft as they stretch proudly out in the frigid air, capturing and reflecting the sun’s rays. I contemplate the soft appearance of the clouds and listen to the hum of the aircraft’s engines. Gradually, the cloud cover begins to thin until it dissolves into a view of that great body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean.
For me, the water visible below is more than an ocean. It is a watery grave. A memorial. A liquid tombstone. In that gray expanse, below the white caps, lie millions of my ancestors who were either seduced by suicide’s siren call, consumed by disease, or swallowed by storm-tossed seas with an appetite for wooden ships and their tormented cargo.
My thoughts, tranquil moments ago, fill with the history of a race jerked brutally off track—a race that has never recovered. My eyes mist as I contemplate the ocean and re-enter that space and time when my people were defeated and humiliated. I attempt to flee from these memories by turning away from the window and sinking back into my seat, but my spirit is locked in an embrace with the brutal past of my ancestors.
* * *
I am not your usual passenger. No, the man of color seated in 22F is a traveler devoid of the usual enthusiasms, for I undertook this journey after being stripped of all my illusions. I am neither joyful nor expectant, nor am I one of those sentimental tourists on holiday, eagerly anticipating the sights and sounds of his first trip to Africa. Rather, I am surrounded by sadness, and in my manner there is a hint of fear.
I am a haunted man. Haunted by myriad thoughts that crawl in and out of my consciousness. Sometimes these thoughts dance quietly below the surface. Other times they burst forth loud and insistent, demanding attention. It is these thoughts, along with the ancestral whisperings, that are the force driving my trip. My reflections are the children of research, born in the early morning hours and dusky evenings of days lost listening to countless interviews of Africans caught in nightmarish circumstances.
The Africans I spoke to were from Mauritania and Sudan. Interviewing them meant hours of gazing into pained faces that relate strange and terrible stories of human degradation and death. The written and oral evidence overwhelmed me. It was the evidence, after all, that took on a life of its own and commanded me to go to Africa.
Evidence, clear and insistent, that trading in black slaves was occurring in the North African countries of Mauritania and Sudan. Yes, Africa, in 1997, was still suffering from the same sickening humiliation that once almost destroyed her: human bondage. Her past was her present, and her present was her past.
The Legacy of Slavery
I, like most African Americans, have contended and wrestled for decades with a rage born of remembrance—a resentment fomented by the poignant images of Africans being captured, bound, and shipped into the horrors of slavery. Many African Americans have been driven by these images to travel to the shores of West Africa. They can be seen in Senegal among the crowds at Gorée Island, standing in the “Doorway of No Return,” or off the coast of Ghana, walking among the slave “castles.” They walk slowly and linger in the corners and stairwells of these hellish sites—the terrible places where the degradation of a race began.
In these places, the great grandchildren of slaves, survivors of a holocaust, contend with a terrible mixture of emotions. Their passions are produced by the realization that the fort before them housed their shackled ancestors in their last days on African soil before a long and miserable voyage delivered them into the hands of cruel masters. A wet eye, a sigh, and then a wisp of white hot anger rises slowly within the hearts and minds of these New World Africans as they recall these events. From the dark recesses of their racial memories, storms appear on the psychic horizon. Epithets begin to dance in their throats. Emotional forces take on a power of their own and occasionally fight their way clear, escaping the lips as curses and bitter mutterings.
Such acid expressions of resentment and grief can only be cooled and soothed by a belief that many African Americans hold: that buying and selling of black African slaves ended in the distant past. Such a belief, however, is both myth and illusion. I was cursed with the death of that illusion in the year preceding this trip, when it became clear to me that the enslavement of black Africans did not stop with the demise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The reality, instead, is that on this very day and in this very hour, even as you read these pages, black Africans are being bought and sold in at least two northwestern African countries.
Today.
Now.
* * *
The book you are about to read is a documented response to this atrocity. It is an expression of moral outrage. It is an instrument designed to inform, to disturb, to prick the moral nerve of all who read it and, I hope, elicit some moral reaction from the world community.
As a man of African descent, I am outraged that other African men and women have been forced to live for centuries in a debased state as a result of slavery and oppression. As a human being, I have a need to be reassured of the world’s humanity, a hunger to see some sign of moral indignation over the continued enslavement and debasement of black people. It is especially important for me to see that those who worship Islam, whether they are white or black, say or do something about the abuse and enslavement of their black spiritual brothers and sisters. I pray that this book will be a means by which the ongoing enslavement of Africans will become an important issue, not only to them, but all African Americans, Americans, Africans, and other people around the world.
Epilogue: WORDS TO THE NEW WORLD AFRICANS
When that which was done in the dark is brought into the light, when evils are exposed, such as those related to slavery, invariably the character of those who grasp the horrors of the revelation are tested. It is easy to rant and rage against horrors lost in antiquity, to express bitterness and anger for those tortured souls now asleep in death, or to shake one’s fists at ghosts. The difficulty lies in opposing a living adversary whose rapacious appetites are hell-bound to decimate all that one holds dear in the here and now.
It is a profound experience when your adversary confronts you in battle. When the plunderer points to his spoils and hurls a challenge that finds its mark in the very center of your being: “Yes, I did it! Now what are you going to do about it?” It is then that you must look deep inside yourself and bring forth a response that puts an end to the rivalry. That silences the foe. That squashes the threat.
What will be done about slavery in Africa today?
History rarely gives us a chance to confront a tormentor previously lost to time and place. Are there not other of my African American brothers and sisters who have, like me, fantasized about traveling back in time to prevent the rape of our ancestral homeland, Mother Africa? Or of leading the charge of unbound African warriors, up from the hold of the slave ship Zion, to slay the enslavers on its deck and emancipate its terrified cargo?
Well, a window in time reopened. Now what are we going to do about it?
The modern-day curse of slavery in Mauritania and Sudan presents us simultaneously with a challenge and a blessing—indeed, an opportunity to end this madness, once and for all. Will we African Americans continue to do as we have done in the past? Will we play down the role being played by the Arabs in supporting and extending the vile trade in black flesh? Will we exonerate them while turning a baleful gaze on more familiar conspirators or on newly discovered ones? Will we point solely to the White “Christian soldiers” who perpetrated the Middle Passage. Or will we singularly chastise a few dead Jewish merchants who financed and profited from it?
Will those of us who follow Islam take action to rise up and reprove their Islamic kin who even today enslave fellow Muslims or turn a blind eye to enslavement simply because the skin color of the oppressed is different from their own?
Will those of us in leadership positions—those who stand at the helm of organizations that in the past have been quite vocal about slavery, apartheid, and racial injustice—be seen in the first charges of this battle?
What will we do about this issue of slavery, not that which we know of in the past, but which still exists on African soil today?
In the final analysis, each and every one of us must examine the evidence with our own hearts and with our own consciences and decide where we stand on this issue.
Whether you choose to close your eyes and ignore it, preferring instead to shake your fists at the ghosts of the distant past—or whether you decide to join the ranks of the modern-day abolitionist movement and add your voice to others joined in protest—one thing is clear: until the enslavement of African men, women, and children vanishes from the face of this earth forever, this discussion will go on.
Abolitionist Samuel L. Cotton issues a call to action Words to the New World Africans
"Are there not other of my African American brothers and sisters who have, like me, fantasized about traveling back in time to prevent the rape of our ancestral homeland, Mother Africa? Or of leading the charge of unbound African warriors, up from the hold of the slave ship Zion, to slay the enslavers on its deck and emancipate its terrified cargo?... Well, a window in time reopened. Now what are we going to do about it?"
Samuel L. Cotton is a member of the American Anti-Slavery Group's board of advisors, and director of the Committee Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS). In 1995, while a graduate student at Columbia, Sam first learned about modern day African slavery, and in December of that year traveled to Mauritania to see black chattel slavery for himself.
Sam's visit to Mauritania had a profound effect, and prompted him to write the book Silent Terror: A Journey into Contemporary African Slavery. Excerpted below are the book's prologue and epilogue, which eloquently make the case for a neo-abolitionist movement to fight slavery in North Africa. Sam challenges all Americans -- and African Americans in particular -- to seize this opportunity for action.
Prologue
It is December 23, 1995, and a steel ship, Flight 562, bound for Dakar, Senegal, surges and shudders in a storm somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Above me, a video screen begins to appear, opening slowly below the overhead luggage rack. The silent screen indicates the aircraft’s progress by displaying a small plane moving slowly from the U.S. coastline to the west coast of Africa. As the screen flashes off and on, it appears to me, after two hours into the flight, that the small plane has hardly moved. Not being one who likes to sit for long period of time, I tell myself to relax and accept that this is going to be a long flight. Anxious, I turn from the screen and begin to gaze out the window.
My eyes follow the silver wings of the aircraft as they stretch proudly out in the frigid air, capturing and reflecting the sun’s rays. I contemplate the soft appearance of the clouds and listen to the hum of the aircraft’s engines. Gradually, the cloud cover begins to thin until it dissolves into a view of that great body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean.
For me, the water visible below is more than an ocean. It is a watery grave. A memorial. A liquid tombstone. In that gray expanse, below the white caps, lie millions of my ancestors who were either seduced by suicide’s siren call, consumed by disease, or swallowed by storm-tossed seas with an appetite for wooden ships and their tormented cargo.
My thoughts, tranquil moments ago, fill with the history of a race jerked brutally off track—a race that has never recovered. My eyes mist as I contemplate the ocean and re-enter that space and time when my people were defeated and humiliated. I attempt to flee from these memories by turning away from the window and sinking back into my seat, but my spirit is locked in an embrace with the brutal past of my ancestors.
* * *
I am not your usual passenger. No, the man of color seated in 22F is a traveler devoid of the usual enthusiasms, for I undertook this journey after being stripped of all my illusions. I am neither joyful nor expectant, nor am I one of those sentimental tourists on holiday, eagerly anticipating the sights and sounds of his first trip to Africa. Rather, I am surrounded by sadness, and in my manner there is a hint of fear.
I am a haunted man. Haunted by myriad thoughts that crawl in and out of my consciousness. Sometimes these thoughts dance quietly below the surface. Other times they burst forth loud and insistent, demanding attention. It is these thoughts, along with the ancestral whisperings, that are the force driving my trip. My reflections are the children of research, born in the early morning hours and dusky evenings of days lost listening to countless interviews of Africans caught in nightmarish circumstances.
The Africans I spoke to were from Mauritania and Sudan. Interviewing them meant hours of gazing into pained faces that relate strange and terrible stories of human degradation and death. The written and oral evidence overwhelmed me. It was the evidence, after all, that took on a life of its own and commanded me to go to Africa.
Evidence, clear and insistent, that trading in black slaves was occurring in the North African countries of Mauritania and Sudan. Yes, Africa, in 1997, was still suffering from the same sickening humiliation that once almost destroyed her: human bondage. Her past was her present, and her present was her past.
The Legacy of Slavery
I, like most African Americans, have contended and wrestled for decades with a rage born of remembrance—a resentment fomented by the poignant images of Africans being captured, bound, and shipped into the horrors of slavery. Many African Americans have been driven by these images to travel to the shores of West Africa. They can be seen in Senegal among the crowds at Gorée Island, standing in the “Doorway of No Return,” or off the coast of Ghana, walking among the slave “castles.” They walk slowly and linger in the corners and stairwells of these hellish sites—the terrible places where the degradation of a race began.
In these places, the great grandchildren of slaves, survivors of a holocaust, contend with a terrible mixture of emotions. Their passions are produced by the realization that the fort before them housed their shackled ancestors in their last days on African soil before a long and miserable voyage delivered them into the hands of cruel masters. A wet eye, a sigh, and then a wisp of white hot anger rises slowly within the hearts and minds of these New World Africans as they recall these events. From the dark recesses of their racial memories, storms appear on the psychic horizon. Epithets begin to dance in their throats. Emotional forces take on a power of their own and occasionally fight their way clear, escaping the lips as curses and bitter mutterings.
Such acid expressions of resentment and grief can only be cooled and soothed by a belief that many African Americans hold: that buying and selling of black African slaves ended in the distant past. Such a belief, however, is both myth and illusion. I was cursed with the death of that illusion in the year preceding this trip, when it became clear to me that the enslavement of black Africans did not stop with the demise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The reality, instead, is that on this very day and in this very hour, even as you read these pages, black Africans are being bought and sold in at least two northwestern African countries.
Today.
Now.
* * *
The book you are about to read is a documented response to this atrocity. It is an expression of moral outrage. It is an instrument designed to inform, to disturb, to prick the moral nerve of all who read it and, I hope, elicit some moral reaction from the world community.
As a man of African descent, I am outraged that other African men and women have been forced to live for centuries in a debased state as a result of slavery and oppression. As a human being, I have a need to be reassured of the world’s humanity, a hunger to see some sign of moral indignation over the continued enslavement and debasement of black people. It is especially important for me to see that those who worship Islam, whether they are white or black, say or do something about the abuse and enslavement of their black spiritual brothers and sisters. I pray that this book will be a means by which the ongoing enslavement of Africans will become an important issue, not only to them, but all African Americans, Americans, Africans, and other people around the world.
Epilogue: WORDS TO THE NEW WORLD AFRICANS
When that which was done in the dark is brought into the light, when evils are exposed, such as those related to slavery, invariably the character of those who grasp the horrors of the revelation are tested. It is easy to rant and rage against horrors lost in antiquity, to express bitterness and anger for those tortured souls now asleep in death, or to shake one’s fists at ghosts. The difficulty lies in opposing a living adversary whose rapacious appetites are hell-bound to decimate all that one holds dear in the here and now.
It is a profound experience when your adversary confronts you in battle. When the plunderer points to his spoils and hurls a challenge that finds its mark in the very center of your being: “Yes, I did it! Now what are you going to do about it?” It is then that you must look deep inside yourself and bring forth a response that puts an end to the rivalry. That silences the foe. That squashes the threat.
What will be done about slavery in Africa today?
History rarely gives us a chance to confront a tormentor previously lost to time and place. Are there not other of my African American brothers and sisters who have, like me, fantasized about traveling back in time to prevent the rape of our ancestral homeland, Mother Africa? Or of leading the charge of unbound African warriors, up from the hold of the slave ship Zion, to slay the enslavers on its deck and emancipate its terrified cargo?
Well, a window in time reopened. Now what are we going to do about it?
The modern-day curse of slavery in Mauritania and Sudan presents us simultaneously with a challenge and a blessing—indeed, an opportunity to end this madness, once and for all. Will we African Americans continue to do as we have done in the past? Will we play down the role being played by the Arabs in supporting and extending the vile trade in black flesh? Will we exonerate them while turning a baleful gaze on more familiar conspirators or on newly discovered ones? Will we point solely to the White “Christian soldiers” who perpetrated the Middle Passage. Or will we singularly chastise a few dead Jewish merchants who financed and profited from it?
Will those of us who follow Islam take action to rise up and reprove their Islamic kin who even today enslave fellow Muslims or turn a blind eye to enslavement simply because the skin color of the oppressed is different from their own?
Will those of us in leadership positions—those who stand at the helm of organizations that in the past have been quite vocal about slavery, apartheid, and racial injustice—be seen in the first charges of this battle?
What will we do about this issue of slavery, not that which we know of in the past, but which still exists on African soil today?
In the final analysis, each and every one of us must examine the evidence with our own hearts and with our own consciences and decide where we stand on this issue.
Whether you choose to close your eyes and ignore it, preferring instead to shake your fists at the ghosts of the distant past—or whether you decide to join the ranks of the modern-day abolitionist movement and add your voice to others joined in protest—one thing is clear: until the enslavement of African men, women, and children vanishes from the face of this earth forever, this discussion will go on.
Click Here For Funding Ebonics Isn't A New Idea, It's Just A Bad One
"Senator Haynes is inspired by President Kennedy who once said that, 'A child miseducated is a child lost.' The argument over 'Ebonics' is often presented as a 'black issue,' but Senator Haynes correctly sees it as a California issue. Senator Haynes has said, 'Ebonics education has fast become a statewide concern because, if implemented, it has the potential to miseducate an entire generation of children by lowering academic standards and legitimizing incorrect English.'"
He Is Black, Born in Africa, An American Citizen, But Not African American?
I don't get it.
Black Africans who become American citizens are not "African Americans"?
I can understand people being dismayed that Teresa Heinz Kerry claims to be African American as she was born in Mozambique and is an American citizen. But the following New York Times article says: "Many argued that the term African-American should refer to the descendents of slaves brought to the United States centuries ago, not to newcomers who have not inherited the legacy of bondage, segregation and legal discrimination."
What is this? Do we Blacks in America have a corner on victimhood? Is the term "African American" now an elite badge of honor to say "My ancestors were victims. Yours were not"?
If the immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens are not African Americans, what are they? Why do we say to them "You are not one of us"? Yet we claim they are our "brothers and sisters."
The report says: "Bobby Austin, an administrator at the University of the District of Columbia who attended the meeting in Washington, said he understood why some blacks were offended when Mr. Kamus claimed an African-American identity. Dr. Austin said some people feared that black immigrants and their children would snatch up the hard-won opportunities made possible by the civil rights movement."
Just say to me "It's a victim's thing. You wouldn't understand."
Read http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/national/29african.html?ex=1095825600&en=f5d2be7383717e0c&ei=5070&hp.
Black Africans who become American citizens are not "African Americans"?
I can understand people being dismayed that Teresa Heinz Kerry claims to be African American as she was born in Mozambique and is an American citizen. But the following New York Times article says: "Many argued that the term African-American should refer to the descendents of slaves brought to the United States centuries ago, not to newcomers who have not inherited the legacy of bondage, segregation and legal discrimination."
What is this? Do we Blacks in America have a corner on victimhood? Is the term "African American" now an elite badge of honor to say "My ancestors were victims. Yours were not"?
If the immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens are not African Americans, what are they? Why do we say to them "You are not one of us"? Yet we claim they are our "brothers and sisters."
The report says: "Bobby Austin, an administrator at the University of the District of Columbia who attended the meeting in Washington, said he understood why some blacks were offended when Mr. Kamus claimed an African-American identity. Dr. Austin said some people feared that black immigrants and their children would snatch up the hard-won opportunities made possible by the civil rights movement."
Just say to me "It's a victim's thing. You wouldn't understand."
Read http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/national/29african.html?ex=1095825600&en=f5d2be7383717e0c&ei=5070&hp.
Yet Another Letter to the Defender -- On Reparations
Dear Editor:
Here is a plan for reparations that can be implemented immediately, in my view.
There are properties maintained by the federal government, state governments, and probably county and municipal governments that formerly belonged to slave owners. There are also properties that were related to the institution of slavery now administrated by those governments.
These properties have revenues, some from tourism and usage fees for private events. For example, use of the Aiken Mansion - a slave owner's mansion - in South Carolina for fundraisers. Let 100% of the profits from these revenues be equally distributed to the historically Black colleges in the United States. There are your reparations from the governments, including the U.S. government.
This is a fair plan to all U.S. citizens. This plan does not raid the U.S. Treasury or other government treasuries, and it diverts some of the revenues streams from properties that were linked with slavery to Black educational institutions.
One problem with current plans for reparations is that slave ancestry must be proven. A Black U.S. citizen whose one parent was African and the other parent was White could not qualify for reparations. Even one who was born in the U.S. to two African parents would not qualify for reparations -- no documented slave ancestry. We do not get paid for just "being Black." Also I suspect much resentment for some who can qualify for reparations. My grandmother and her brothers passed for 100% White, but did not claim to be White, yet they had documented slave ancestry. Would these "White" descendents of slaves, get any reparations while "Black" descendents of slaves who could not prove their ancestry would be left out? And don't you think that the Black ones would be resentful of the White ones who legally got their money?
Also, if a person who is half-White and half-Black, such as Halle Berry, would that person get half of the reparation money since he or she is half-Black, i.e. half-slave ancestry? Does anyone get any reduction in pay based upon the level of White ancestry they have? Do they get the full amount or fractions based on White ancestry? Suppose I'm a descendent of one of the free Black slave owners? (Read Black Slavemasters: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 by Howard University graduate Larry Koger.) Not only would my reparations be reduced, but do I owe reparations myself?
Also, since the Democratic Party supported slavery in its past platforms before the end of the Civil War and it never apologized for its open support of slavery, does the Democratic National Committee of today owe us reparations? If it can be proven that slaves were used in one of the Democratic conventions in the 1800's, should the Democrats of today pay?
The Republican Party was formed in 1854 to abolish slavery, so we cannot go after them. Dang it.
Robert Oliver
Chicago
Here is a plan for reparations that can be implemented immediately, in my view.
There are properties maintained by the federal government, state governments, and probably county and municipal governments that formerly belonged to slave owners. There are also properties that were related to the institution of slavery now administrated by those governments.
These properties have revenues, some from tourism and usage fees for private events. For example, use of the Aiken Mansion - a slave owner's mansion - in South Carolina for fundraisers. Let 100% of the profits from these revenues be equally distributed to the historically Black colleges in the United States. There are your reparations from the governments, including the U.S. government.
This is a fair plan to all U.S. citizens. This plan does not raid the U.S. Treasury or other government treasuries, and it diverts some of the revenues streams from properties that were linked with slavery to Black educational institutions.
One problem with current plans for reparations is that slave ancestry must be proven. A Black U.S. citizen whose one parent was African and the other parent was White could not qualify for reparations. Even one who was born in the U.S. to two African parents would not qualify for reparations -- no documented slave ancestry. We do not get paid for just "being Black." Also I suspect much resentment for some who can qualify for reparations. My grandmother and her brothers passed for 100% White, but did not claim to be White, yet they had documented slave ancestry. Would these "White" descendents of slaves, get any reparations while "Black" descendents of slaves who could not prove their ancestry would be left out? And don't you think that the Black ones would be resentful of the White ones who legally got their money?
Also, if a person who is half-White and half-Black, such as Halle Berry, would that person get half of the reparation money since he or she is half-Black, i.e. half-slave ancestry? Does anyone get any reduction in pay based upon the level of White ancestry they have? Do they get the full amount or fractions based on White ancestry? Suppose I'm a descendent of one of the free Black slave owners? (Read Black Slavemasters: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 by Howard University graduate Larry Koger.) Not only would my reparations be reduced, but do I owe reparations myself?
Also, since the Democratic Party supported slavery in its past platforms before the end of the Civil War and it never apologized for its open support of slavery, does the Democratic National Committee of today owe us reparations? If it can be proven that slaves were used in one of the Democratic conventions in the 1800's, should the Democrats of today pay?
The Republican Party was formed in 1854 to abolish slavery, so we cannot go after them. Dang it.
Robert Oliver
Chicago
Letter Published in the Chicago Defender to Roland Martin
September 16, 2004
Dear Editor:
Roland, your article in the last edition was very profound. I have wondered what name Sean Combs will name himself next.
You could have mentioned that on the Destiny's Child CD along with"Bootylicious" there was a gospel medley "praising God." And I have wondered about Beyonce's parents. Are they saying to their friends and relatives "our daughter's too bootylicious" or "we are so proud of our successful bootylicious daughter"? You are right. Not a one of us is perfect. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. However, if these entertainers want to talk the talk, then they should accordingly walk the walk.
By the way, I saw the Source Magazine Awards program. It was horrible. It wasits own parody. People were being "ignant" and "unedgimacated" on stage andat the podium. A group called "D-Block" in prison clothes were rapping. They had backup dancers in prison clothes too. After we all complain about Black men in prison, these punks and fools glorify being in prison. It seems to be the natural environment of Black men according to those images. And at the end of the awards two Black women, scantilly dressed of course, were passionately kissing each other! You know kids watch all this and emulate it.
On the same note, I took my mother to the emergency room at the University ofChicago Hospital last week. A young brother wore a shirt with the mugshotsof 10 popular rappers such as "C-Murder" and "Pimp-C." This shirt did not say"Do not be like them." This shirt did not say "This is not acceptable behavior in our community." This shirt was glorifying these rappers as criminals. I was beside myself when I saw that shirt. Remember a popular record label was called "Death Row Records" with a logo of a man, I bet Black, in an electric chair? Young people have been trained to love and attach themselves emotionally to those images. I wonder if that is the result of a conspiracy to keep young Black minds in the dark mentally and to keep them out of the mainstream marketplace. Those images do not encourage them to be educated, to be good citizens, nor to be servants to their communities. They do not even acknowledge African heritage. It is as if Black culture is totally "ghettocentric." If it is not ghetto or"geto," it's not really "Black."
Robert Oliver
Chicago
Dear Editor:
Roland, your article in the last edition was very profound. I have wondered what name Sean Combs will name himself next.
You could have mentioned that on the Destiny's Child CD along with"Bootylicious" there was a gospel medley "praising God." And I have wondered about Beyonce's parents. Are they saying to their friends and relatives "our daughter's too bootylicious" or "we are so proud of our successful bootylicious daughter"? You are right. Not a one of us is perfect. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. However, if these entertainers want to talk the talk, then they should accordingly walk the walk.
By the way, I saw the Source Magazine Awards program. It was horrible. It wasits own parody. People were being "ignant" and "unedgimacated" on stage andat the podium. A group called "D-Block" in prison clothes were rapping. They had backup dancers in prison clothes too. After we all complain about Black men in prison, these punks and fools glorify being in prison. It seems to be the natural environment of Black men according to those images. And at the end of the awards two Black women, scantilly dressed of course, were passionately kissing each other! You know kids watch all this and emulate it.
On the same note, I took my mother to the emergency room at the University ofChicago Hospital last week. A young brother wore a shirt with the mugshotsof 10 popular rappers such as "C-Murder" and "Pimp-C." This shirt did not say"Do not be like them." This shirt did not say "This is not acceptable behavior in our community." This shirt was glorifying these rappers as criminals. I was beside myself when I saw that shirt. Remember a popular record label was called "Death Row Records" with a logo of a man, I bet Black, in an electric chair? Young people have been trained to love and attach themselves emotionally to those images. I wonder if that is the result of a conspiracy to keep young Black minds in the dark mentally and to keep them out of the mainstream marketplace. Those images do not encourage them to be educated, to be good citizens, nor to be servants to their communities. They do not even acknowledge African heritage. It is as if Black culture is totally "ghettocentric." If it is not ghetto or"geto," it's not really "Black."
Robert Oliver
Chicago
A Letter to Students of My Old High School in Chicago
To Every Leo High School Student:
I graduated from Leo in 1975. I cannot say it was the most pleasant time in my life. It definitely was not the easiest. But I got through it because of my trust in God and thinking about what I wanted for the future.
I also wanted to share with you some admonitions from Larry Elder, a successful Black author and radio talk show host. He calls these thoughts “Resolutions for Success”:
1. There is no excuse for lack of effort.
2. Although I may be unhappy with my circumstances, and although racism and sexism and other "isms" exist, I know that things are better now than ever, and the future is even brighter.
3. While I may be unhappy with my circumstances, I have the power to change and improve my life. I refuse to be a victim.
4. Others may have been blessed with more money, better connections, a better home environment, and even better looks, but I can succeed through hard work, perseverance, and education.
5. I may be a product of a single- or no-parent household, but I will not hold anyone responsible for my present, or allow anyone to interfere with my future. Others succeed under conditions far worse than mine.
6. Some schools and teachers are better than others, but my level of effort, dedication, curiosity, and willingness to grow determine what I learn.
7. Ambition is the key to growth.
8. I will set apart some time each day to think about where I want to go, and how I intend to get there. A goal without a plan is just a wish.
9. "Luck" is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
10. If suitable role models are not nearby, I will seek them out.
11. A role model is someone who, through hard work and a positive outlook, has achieved.
12. A role model may be a parent, relative, friend, church member, judge, doctor, attorney, businessperson, or someone I've read about in the newspaper or seen on the local news.
13. I will contact role models and seek their advice, guidance, and counsel. People remember when they were my age and are eager to help.
14. I will seek out recommended magazines, articles, books, biographies, videos, and motivational and how-to books, and use them for education and motivation.
15. The light is always green. You cannot go full speed with one foot on the brake.
16. I am always "in school," and I will not waste my summer by failing to read about and speak to people who can inspire me.
17. I will avoid friendship with people who do not share my goals and commitments. Non-supportive relationships waste time and energy.
18. I will not seek immediate results, as I understand life is a journey and not a destination.
19. I will read a newspaper each day.
20. I will entertain myself in ways that challenge and expand my mind. As someone said, a mind once expanded never returns to its original size.
21. I will pay attention to my diet and overall fitness, as they are the keys to a healthy and productive body and an enthusiastic mind.
22. Drugs are stupid. People who believe in drugs don't believe in themselves.
23. I understand that jobs of the future require more preparation and training than ever, and I am determined to obtain the necessary background.
24. A well-rounded, competent student studies math and science.
25. People are not born "deficient in mathematical ability." Through hard work and dedication, the subject can be mastered.
26. It is essential that I learn to speak and write standard English. This is not "acting white," but acting smart.
27. A strong vocabulary is the key to communication, and I will read books on vocabulary enrichment.
28. I expect sometimes to be teased, even ridiculed. This will not stop me; it will only make me stronger and more determined.
29. I control my body and will not create a child until I am spiritually, psychologically, educationally, and financially capable of assuming this awesome responsibility.
30. Life is difficult. I expect setbacks and will learn from them. Struggle creates strength.
31. Every day is precious, and one without growth is squandered.
32. There is only one me, and I'm it!
Let me share with you one more thing. Halle Berry in Queen said to her husband, played by Danny Glover: “You was a slave. I was a slave. We free now but we still think like slaves. We still think that it our place to serve. And that’s all negras ever gonna be if we go on thinkin’ like that. We got to start takin’ what we can get instead of just gettin’ what we are allowed to have.”
Change your thoughts and you change your life.
Take care,
Robert
I graduated from Leo in 1975. I cannot say it was the most pleasant time in my life. It definitely was not the easiest. But I got through it because of my trust in God and thinking about what I wanted for the future.
I also wanted to share with you some admonitions from Larry Elder, a successful Black author and radio talk show host. He calls these thoughts “Resolutions for Success”:
1. There is no excuse for lack of effort.
2. Although I may be unhappy with my circumstances, and although racism and sexism and other "isms" exist, I know that things are better now than ever, and the future is even brighter.
3. While I may be unhappy with my circumstances, I have the power to change and improve my life. I refuse to be a victim.
4. Others may have been blessed with more money, better connections, a better home environment, and even better looks, but I can succeed through hard work, perseverance, and education.
5. I may be a product of a single- or no-parent household, but I will not hold anyone responsible for my present, or allow anyone to interfere with my future. Others succeed under conditions far worse than mine.
6. Some schools and teachers are better than others, but my level of effort, dedication, curiosity, and willingness to grow determine what I learn.
7. Ambition is the key to growth.
8. I will set apart some time each day to think about where I want to go, and how I intend to get there. A goal without a plan is just a wish.
9. "Luck" is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
10. If suitable role models are not nearby, I will seek them out.
11. A role model is someone who, through hard work and a positive outlook, has achieved.
12. A role model may be a parent, relative, friend, church member, judge, doctor, attorney, businessperson, or someone I've read about in the newspaper or seen on the local news.
13. I will contact role models and seek their advice, guidance, and counsel. People remember when they were my age and are eager to help.
14. I will seek out recommended magazines, articles, books, biographies, videos, and motivational and how-to books, and use them for education and motivation.
15. The light is always green. You cannot go full speed with one foot on the brake.
16. I am always "in school," and I will not waste my summer by failing to read about and speak to people who can inspire me.
17. I will avoid friendship with people who do not share my goals and commitments. Non-supportive relationships waste time and energy.
18. I will not seek immediate results, as I understand life is a journey and not a destination.
19. I will read a newspaper each day.
20. I will entertain myself in ways that challenge and expand my mind. As someone said, a mind once expanded never returns to its original size.
21. I will pay attention to my diet and overall fitness, as they are the keys to a healthy and productive body and an enthusiastic mind.
22. Drugs are stupid. People who believe in drugs don't believe in themselves.
23. I understand that jobs of the future require more preparation and training than ever, and I am determined to obtain the necessary background.
24. A well-rounded, competent student studies math and science.
25. People are not born "deficient in mathematical ability." Through hard work and dedication, the subject can be mastered.
26. It is essential that I learn to speak and write standard English. This is not "acting white," but acting smart.
27. A strong vocabulary is the key to communication, and I will read books on vocabulary enrichment.
28. I expect sometimes to be teased, even ridiculed. This will not stop me; it will only make me stronger and more determined.
29. I control my body and will not create a child until I am spiritually, psychologically, educationally, and financially capable of assuming this awesome responsibility.
30. Life is difficult. I expect setbacks and will learn from them. Struggle creates strength.
31. Every day is precious, and one without growth is squandered.
32. There is only one me, and I'm it!
Let me share with you one more thing. Halle Berry in Queen said to her husband, played by Danny Glover: “You was a slave. I was a slave. We free now but we still think like slaves. We still think that it our place to serve. And that’s all negras ever gonna be if we go on thinkin’ like that. We got to start takin’ what we can get instead of just gettin’ what we are allowed to have.”
Change your thoughts and you change your life.
Take care,
Robert
A Letter to the Chicago Defender - Queen
January 4, 2004
Dear Editor:
In the television miniseries Queen, Halle Berry, who played the title role, said to her husband, played by Danny Glover: “You was a slave. I was a slave. We free now but we still think like slaves. We still think that it our place to serve. And that’s all negras ever gonna be if we go on thinkin’ like that. We got to start takin’ what we can get instead of just gettin’ what we are allowed to have.”
Proverbs 23:7 says “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The late British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said: "Nurture great thoughts, for you will never go higher than your thoughts." Author John C. Maxwell says in his book Thinking for a Change: “Unsuccessful people focus their thinking on survival. Average people focus their thinking on maintenance. Successful people focus their thinking on progress.”
What is the total mindset of the African American community today? Is the majority thinking about survival, thinking about maintenance, or thinking about progress? What are the results? Is the majority surviving, maintaining, or progressing? The most important question is what category does the reader choose to leave and what category he or she choose to move into? What category will he or she teach his or her children to be in for a lifetime? You change your thoughts and you change your life.
Take what you can get in ways that are legal and moral. Don’t get what you are allowed to have.
Robert Oliver
Dear Editor:
In the television miniseries Queen, Halle Berry, who played the title role, said to her husband, played by Danny Glover: “You was a slave. I was a slave. We free now but we still think like slaves. We still think that it our place to serve. And that’s all negras ever gonna be if we go on thinkin’ like that. We got to start takin’ what we can get instead of just gettin’ what we are allowed to have.”
Proverbs 23:7 says “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The late British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said: "Nurture great thoughts, for you will never go higher than your thoughts." Author John C. Maxwell says in his book Thinking for a Change: “Unsuccessful people focus their thinking on survival. Average people focus their thinking on maintenance. Successful people focus their thinking on progress.”
What is the total mindset of the African American community today? Is the majority thinking about survival, thinking about maintenance, or thinking about progress? What are the results? Is the majority surviving, maintaining, or progressing? The most important question is what category does the reader choose to leave and what category he or she choose to move into? What category will he or she teach his or her children to be in for a lifetime? You change your thoughts and you change your life.
Take what you can get in ways that are legal and moral. Don’t get what you are allowed to have.
Robert Oliver
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