Saturday, July 28, 2007

Oppression and Color-Blindness, Revised and Linked Reply to Goldstein, Part I

Note--I revised and linked the Part I post of what's now a gigantic three part post. I loaded all the replies from the earlier version of this post into one reply to this version.

INTRODUCTION. I was hurt--hurt--by Jeff Goldstein's reply to me last night. He seems to think that I believe him an unreconstructed racial bigot like the guys who murdered and mutilated Emmett Till or the white townspeople took pictures as they celebrated the latest lynchings of their black neighbors. Or maybe he believes that I think he follows Ann Coulter's indulgence in racial stereotypes and anti-black cheerleading. But that's not true at all. How can I think that after I've seen all the testimonials to Goldstein's wit and really cool guyness? Tonight's hymn of praise was from John Cole of Balloon-juice.com: ". . . the best blog in the world is now back after a lengthy hiatus." And didn't Goldstein quote somebody as referring to him as the "funniest guy on the internet" last night?

And who am I to disagree? Goldstein's Protein Wisdom is funny, ironic, intellectual, and upscale all at the same time. I sum all that up with the term "The Fluff Right" which I, of course, mean as a term of endearment. Goldstein is such a Really Cool Guy he couldn't be a racist. And besides Protein Wisdom practically held a parade for me a couple of days ago. Even last night, my name and affiliation were featured at the top of Goldstein's reply post. You just can't buy publicity like that.

Of course, I guess one could think me ungrateful for referring to Jeff's "color-blind" rhetoric as being worse than crude racism. And that's what we need to discuss here. The whole debate over the legitimacy of color-blind rhetoric revolves around oppression. In the seventies, the United States began emerging from the brutal racial oppression of the segregation era. If the forty years since the seventies has seen so much progress that there is at present either no racial oppression or only inconsequential oppression, then the color-blind idea of acting as though racial justice was the reality would be common sense. But, if racial oppression continues to be a significant part of the lives of black people, then it is necessary to discuss how "color-blind" arguments relate to current modes of racial oppression.

My argument, and I'm hardly the only one who thinks this, is that racial oppression continues in new forms today and that"color-blind" arguments are used to formulate racist attitudes toward blacks, rationalize racial oppression toward blacks, and to disparage any attempt to remedy racial oppression and its consequences. In other words, the rhetoric of color-blindness is part of the contemporary system of racial oppression. In that context, the purveyors of color-blind rhetoric are a unique evil. Because they are smart and sophisticated manipulators of political language, they have had a pervasive effect in promoting the politics of white racism. In this sense, stealing the magic words of liberalism is more of an evil than mouthing the discredited rhetoric of segregation.

The only way to get a handle on contemporary racial oppression is through a comparison with segregation. So, here we go.

SEGREGATION AND OPPRESSION. In "Letter from Birmingham Jail," MLK wrote in the context of his discussion of civil disobedience that "[w]e know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." For King, white people are "the oppressor" and blacks are the "oppressed" who are demanding freedom. He follows up with an detailed account of white oppression--the lynching and drowning of black people, police beatings, the "airtight cage of poverty" in which blacks live, the refusal of services at hotels, restaurants, the segregated drinking fountains and bathrooms, and the endless personal humilitations such as never being addressed with a title of respect like "Mr." or "Mrs." Needless to say, such a recitation does not do justice to the poetry of King's writing and the way that he brought the violence and moral sickness of segregation home to his readers in one of the great sentences of American writing. * (See bottom of post)

King also emphasized the enormous psychological and spiritual damage inflicted by segregation, lamenting the "ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in [his daughter's] little mental sky," and the "inner fears and outer resentments" and "degenerating sense of nobodiness plaguing adults." Of course, blacks had other responses to segregation and slavery before that as well. In particular, King neglected to mention the ways African-American traditions embodied a determination to overcome slavery and segregation, a powerful sense of mutual love and self-sacrifice among African-Americans, and a willingness to extend that love to white people despite everything. All of these elements can be seen in Boston King's memoir from the 1790's, the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, the statements that the Marsalis brothers and Ozzie Davis made in Ken Burns' Jazz, and in the writings of contemporary black feminists like bell hooks and Angela Davis.

Jeff Goldstein seems to believe that my reference to racial oppression is a matter of "white guilt." I'm surprised and somewhat disturbed that a really cool guy like Jeff wouldn't think that sensitivity to oppression would be a matter of empathy, of reading materials like "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and thinking about what he would think or feel if he had been subject to the physical and psychological violence of American racial segregation. Or why he wouldn't be disgusted, repulsed, or nauseated by what whites were doing? If I remember right, Rousseau defined "pity" in the sense of feeling another's suffering as one's own as something fundamental to human beings. Certainly, the purveyors of slavery and segregation took pride in not feeling any pity for the black people they were oppressing. That was part of the inhumanity of the system of racial oppression that fluorished in this country through the seventies.

That's also part of the inhumanity of the crude racists like the people who sent the threatening letters to the black Boise State football player who's marrying a white cheerleader or Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. But, that lack of empathy (or pity in Rousseau's sense) is something that also seems to characterize Jeff Goldstein. It's something he has in common with all the haters referred to by Mahablog.

Of course, it might just not be funny, ironic, or intellectual forJeff's to be empathetic to those who are suffering oppression. Perhaps Jeff believes in a general refusal to empathize in the way that Thoreau, Emerson, or Nietzsche attempted to universalize a refusal of human empathy. If that's the case, I'm not funny or ironic at all because I can readily say that I would have been so pissed off about segregation if I was a black guy that I probably would have done something to get myself killed. Even as a white kid, I did lots of things that would have gotten black guys killed under segregation.



*Note to PW readers. These are some of the facts of segregation. Needless to say, a full account of segregation would be much more appalling than I, or even King,. could convey.

7 comments:

Ric Caric said...

Anonymous said...
Is anybody arguing that there was not oppression previously ?

The reasoning behind using a loaded word like oppression to describe the current climate is dubious, based on your assertions and anecdotal evidence, though no actual anecdote or evidence is provided.

For example, my neighbors to the east and to the south are well-to-do black families. I know for a fact that their interest rates on their home and car are the same as what mine are. I know they are not stopped on their way to and from work, and he has never indicated that anyone has ever questioned his impeccable credentials.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that their is more police vigilence is predominantly black areas of town. Why do you think that is? Just a bunch of racist crackers with guns and badges?

In short, your post offers nothing other than predictable identity group leftist claptrap.

JD

12:50 AM
Michael said...
"One of the things I seem to be cursed with this summer is long-winded blog discussion partners."

lol

3:22 AM
Ric Caric said...
Unfortunately, you have to respond to long-winded people in long-winded ways. Goldstein didn't understand my argument the first time I posed it. So I have to do it in excruciating detail. I'll cite the information later.

4:21 AM
Michael said...
It seems to me he understood it perfectly, do you understand his rebuttal? Here is the money quote, which you completely avoid:

" the cumulative affects of racial discrimination have long been fought with social engineering policies specifically designed (or, at least, so they claimed) to level the playing field — with a goal toward establishing Dr King’s vision of a society wherein people are judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. And part of the “history” of racial politics that Fish and Caric rely on must account for the last 40+ years of Great Society programs (which have alternately given us forced integration (busing) and “good” segregation (identity politics)), which, too, are part of the “cumulative” effect of this country’s attitudes and policies with respect to race.

The question now is, have the attempts by government (and the judiciary) to correct the wrongs of the past proven successful? In what ways? What parts of that program should be continued, if any? Why? And — importantly — is it possible that those policies themselves have outlived their usefulness, or are they necessary in perpetuity? Can they withstand Constitutional scrutiny without the aid of an interpretive approach that avails itself of social advocacy?"

You seem to assume that challenging your solutions is the same as denying there is a problem. No one is denying there were and continue to be racial problems in this country, the discussion is on how best to address these. You seem to want to ignore that, kind of like how you never mention that quote of Dr. Kings about being judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. If that is the direction Dr. King thought we should be heading who are you to deny it? Oh, that's right, you are an educated white man who knows what is best for the coloreds.

4:37 AM
Todd Mayo said...
Alright Michael, if you won't let white people discuss racism in 21st century America, how about an African-American:
America’s Challenge to Honor the Broken Promise
Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
1/14/2004 New York
As we approach Dr. King’s 75th birthday, the dream is under attack. The dream of the Great American Promise is being deferred. Langston Hughes raises the question: “What happens to a dream deferred?” It rots, yet while indifference and hurt abounds, love and hope and reconciliation must abound even more. Today we pursue the fading American Promise of an even playing field, equal protection, equal opportunity for all - where all can dwell together under one big tent buoyed by hopes and dreams, and not hindered by fears.
The ethics, accountability, good governance and inclusion of all Americans on Wall Street, the capitol of capital, are critical to realizing the American promise. The leverage of Wall Street investors is determining the priorities of our political order, rather than our political order determining the priorities of our economy. Wall Street, the capital of our economic power, must have appropriate checks and balances if the government is to do its duty and protect the interest of all of the people.

The politics of enormous tax cuts for the top 1%, incentives to go off shore to avoid paying taxes, and no bid contracts, is not good for America. A wealth and stock recovery for the very wealthy without a worker recovery is a swimming pool without water. Workers would be well advised not to dive in the pool of a jobless recovery.

There has been a net loss of jobs in every state. As profits for the very wealthy rise and the middle class sinks and the poverty base expands, tuition rises, the poorest youth go to war, get medals and Purple Hearts. The better off get diplomas and their parents, who are their benefactors, get no bid contracts. We must address the strength, the genius, the power and the wealth concentration on Wall Street. In the face of the mutual fund scandals, Halliburton, Harken, World Com, Enron, the massive shake up in the NY Stock Exchange, the after shocks reverberate across our nation.

Gone is the dream of the peace dividend. Gone is the dream of the war on poverty. Gone is the dream of one big tent America. Gone is the promise to leave no child behind. The dreams are deferred in Appalachia where a coal miner dies every six hours. The right to poison the streams, killing fish and wild life has just been restored. Gone is the dream for adequate housing for the rural South. Gone is a communicating, caring White House and Department of Justice. The President and Attorney General has not met one time in three years with the Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Rainbow/PUSH or organized labor. He would rather go to foreign countries and take a rocket to the moon than talk about civil rights, social justice and a plan to elevate the least of these and even the playing field for the American worker.

So we gather today to commit to fair trade, fair taxes, freezing college tuition, and fair treatment of our veterans. If you were a victim of 9/11, your family is entitled to receive $1.9 million but if you were killed in Iraq, your family receives just $10,000. Equal, high quality education and health care for all must become constitutional rights, as profoundly articulated by Congressman Jackson in his book, “A More Perfect Union.” Dr. King’s dream of the great American Promise must not be deferred or destroyed.

Our economic challenge today is to democratize access to capital, secure for workers a place at the decision making table, to end predatory exploitation with an enforceable policy. The legacy of marginalization and economic exploitation and oppression by race run deep in our culture. From 1619 to 1865: 356 years of legal slavery.

Wall Street, the East Coast and the South, was built on the shipping industry and textiles. African American’s were the “shipped.” We were both the cargo and the commodity. For a long time our value was greater than that of the land in the stock market. We were the cargo and the commodity. We cultivated the product, cotton, for exchange. All of this investment was work without wages. And never equity. The African American burial ground on which Federal Plaza in New York is built is a testimony to the original investment of African Americans in the founding of Wall Street. We were original investors in the creation of wealth and capital.

America’s original wealth was built on this economic arrangement. That period was so harmful, so violative of democratic principles, with such disregard for human rights, so ungodly, that we are ashamed of it. We deny it and remain too arrogant to apologize for it.

When that period was over there was a promise made for reconstruction. A promise to, in some measure, repair and repay for the damage done. For the first time, African Americans were able to get an education, which was illegal during slavery. We were promised 40 acres and a mule, which has been reduced to jokes and folklore. We saw the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government entity to build schools, hospital and housing.

But most of all, we were promised a commitment to equal protection under the law, enforceable by the presence of troops.

The promise of reconstruction was broken. Lincoln made the promise. We got the Proclamation, but not the Emancipation. The Congress made the promise, with the 13, 14th and 15th amendments. And the Supreme Court broke the promise when it ruled separate and unequal. This was official, legal apartheid, the yoke of which has not yet been broken and which was the model used for South African apartheid in 1948.

Dr. King addressed these broken promises one hundred years later in Washington, DC. Yet, the media focuses on Dr. King’s dream - not on America’s legal and financial broken promises. When the promise was broken and the troops withdrawn we were left to live in zones, restricted zones called ghettos – or put another way, apartheid institutions.

Apartheid institutions are characterized by one word: Denial. Sometimes oppression, some exploitation, but always denial. Denial of equal protection. Denial of equal access. Denial of equal housing. Denial of equal jobs. Denial of equal wages. Denial of access to capital, which is to the economic system what blood is to the human body – that which carries the oxygen. The result is a system of legal, political, cultural and economic apartheid.

Jesus said, “You can see a speck in your neighbor’s eye, but can’t see a log in your own.” We can see apartheid as a system in South Africa, and ultimately apply political pressure, establish human rights standards, and apply economic disinvestment to end it.

The historical fact is that South Africa’s 1948 decision to legal apartheid comes from America’s 1896 decision to establish apartheid at home.

Apartheid. Separate. Undeveloped. Discernable by race and unequal treatment.

The citizens of apartheid work for low wages. They have less access to capital. As a matter of fact their profile is:

** We work harder, for less. We pay more, for less. We live under stress, and debt. We get sick more often, and don’t live as long.
We seek to change that arrangement in these ways:
1. We insist upon a government that will enforce the laws on the books. The law is simply not enforced. Predatory exploitation is a multi-billion dollar system that is somewhere between legal and un-enforced laws, conducted by prestigious institutions: pay day loans. Predatory lending where the poorest people pay the most for mortgages, houses, cars, insurance and taxes….and so often profiled by race. We want to end this practice.
2. We want workers to have a right to organize, so as to identify their labor sweat equity and interests in America’s economic development.

3. We want access to capital; the ultimate predicament of people in the apartheid zones is to live in capital-ISM, but without capital, leaving only the ‘ism.” It’s like trying to have gravy with no meat base – which is only greasy water.

In stage one, slavery, we were denied access to capital. In stage two, legal apartheid, we were denied access to capital or provided just limited access under unreasonable conditions: redlined capital in the apartheid zone.
In stage three, we got the right to vote and had some limited access to the flow of government jobs and contracts with the aid of affirmative action.

But we have met stiff resistance even to that, all along the way.

In this fourth stage, we come back to Wall Street, where, I repeat, the burial ground of our ancestors is a testimony to our original investment at the base. We are substantial investors in Wall Street – as workers, as consumers, investors as taxpayers. We want reciprocal trade, a mutually beneficial relationship with the economy and the private sector. We want to democratic access to capital. To Greenline America’s redlined zones.

We ended apartheid structures in South Africa by dis-investing and di-vesting pension funds and equity capital. We must end apartheid structures at home by In-vesting pension funds and equity capital in our communities. And by helping to manage these funds so as to direct their flow.

We must de-mystify the apartheid zones of our country. I may add whether they are ghetto, barrio or Appalachia, the ghetto represents market, money, talent and location. The ghetto represents underserved markets, underutilized talent, and untapped capital. We convinced President Clinton to create the New Markets Initiative as the American counterpart of Overseas Private Investment Corporation. We must go a step beyond a government initiative with the private sector.

Today, there is $7 trillion in mutual funds. 10 companies control $3 trillion. The scores of boards are beyond the radar screen of accountability. The combined management by minorities is just $5.5 billion. The wage gap and the value of a diploma gap are substantial, but nowhere close to the access to capital gap.

Our program for inclusion is straightforward simple: we want minority owned firms to manage 5% of all institutional assets, funds invested in companies, churches, universities, foundations, and pension funds. These are public funds, our pension money, our 401K money, and our investments.

Many of these institutions were instrumental in di-vesting funds in South African that help bring down the system of apartheid. Now, we call on the GM’s and IBM’s, the Pfizers, the Yales and the Stanford Universities, the Verizons, the United Methodist and Episcopal Churches and other major institutions to help lead the way – to involve minority firm in the management of their funds, and thus direct the flow of capital to spur economic development in underserved communities across America. For these institutions that enjoy such fine reputations, the destiny of America’s Promise is in their hands and well within their reach.

We “DI-vested” to bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, now we “IN-vest” to end apartheid in the U.S.

Furthermore we have qualified managers operating beneath their capacity to serve. America’s capital structure is very vertical. While effort and excellence is a value that we ascribe to, the system attaches more value to inheritance and access.

This is the fourth stage of our struggle, to make this a more complete union. Tomorrow we celebrate Dr. King’s 75th birthday. Once again, the media focus will be on his dream. His dream was that one day America would honor the broken promise. His dream was that one day American would even the playing field. People from the apartheid zone have done well in football, basketball, baseball, tennis, track, golf – an even the war on foreign battlefields, when the playing field is even. We didn’t know how good baseball could be until everybody could play. We don’t know how good America’s economic strength and political stability can be, until all of us can play as full participants. In this new world of competition, we don’t sufficient advantage or surplus to leave any players off the field because of their race, religion or gender. Half of all human beings are Asians, and half of them are Chinese. From that realm there is a new economic giant sucking sound – jobs and the economy. 1/8 of the human race is African, a billion in India. 2/3 of our neighbors speak Spanish and range from middle class to poor. We are a mere 6% of the world. The US and Russia combined are 1/8 of the human race. In such an arrangement, we globalize capital, but not human rights, workers rights, women’s rights, environmental rights, children’s rights, prisoner’s rights. We must lead by our shared values and shared vision.

I was with Dr. King on his last birthday. It was a day of serious work and measured celebration. One – he had breakfast at home with his family. Two - he came to the church around 10:00am. Blue jeans and jacket on. He convened a multiracial coalition of blacks, Native Americans, Jews, labor; working on a plan to challenge our government with a new public policy: jobs and income, and health care for all Americans. A plan to action to go to Washington, by feet, by wagon, by bus or by train. Engage in civil disobedience if necessary. Around 1:00pm, we brought in a cake and some punch, and had a brief celebration.

Then, we began to deal with shifting values and priorities from the war in Vietnam to the unfinished war on poverty at home. He spent that birthday organizing a multi-racial coalition to change government policy, change national priorities, and change the objective conditions under which too many Americans left behind were living in.

And so I appeal to you today to honor his legacy with renewed commitment to provide the workers a place at the table, end predatory exploitation, democratize capital, and leave no American behind in access to its many benefits. Even today, America is spending billions, losing lives and our national honor in the world with Bush and Cheney’s misadventure in Iraq: it is a war without international sanction, without credibility, without justification and without any moral authority. Today, as we honor Dr. King, we must again go about the work of organizing our people and changing the direction of America. Much is at stake in November 2004.

We sing with great authority and convictions. God Bless America. And God has blessed America, bountifully and beyond measure. Not because we’ve earned it, but because His grace has shined on us. We must never sing that song as a demand or an entitlement, but rather as an appeal of supplication. While God has blessed America we must work diligently for America to bless God and to make Heaven happy.

When we build a one big tent America, when we challenge the rising tide of racism and the ever-threatening tide of anti-Semitism and Muslim bashing, we bless God. When none are forsaken or abandoned, and all can share in the blessings of our bounty, we make Heaven happy, when all are treated fairly. When lions lie down with the lambs, and the poor have hope and the rich have humility, then we’ll make heaven happy and God will smile on us. The writer of the chronicles remains prophetically relevant to this day, “If my people will call by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I forgive their sins, then will they hear from Heaven, then, will I heal their land.

Keep Hope Alive. America Bless God. (http://www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro?-db=RPOdata.fp5&-format=rainbowpush/data06/resultsspeech.htm&-lay=main&category=speech&year=2004&-max=20&-sortfield=Date&-sortorder=descend&-find)

NAACP Convention Speech
Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr
7/12/2005

We meet today in the face of unusually chilly winds, when 20 U.S. Senators wrapped in faith symbols and moral values – wearing Jesus clothes – cannot show contrition by voting to apologize for the Senate’s historic failure to oppose lynching – acts of state sponsored terror – for fear their constituents would reject them. And when there is such a cold silence from the White House when this “failure to act” occurred – chilly winds.

It is a chilly wind when the head of another country – Vicente Fox – can make a demeaning statement about Americans, and then seek to justify demeaning racial stereotypes and caricatures in the postage stamp. Even as we pay taxes at home and shed blood on foreign battlefields, the silence of the White House and Secretary of State on this is chilling.

Our Voting Rights are under attack, coupled with a growing lack of government enforcement. The silence of the Attorney General and the closed-door policy of the Department of Justice are chilling.

There is this urban chill of first-class jails for profit and second-class schools, marked by a jail drug culture that is destroying families and taking away voters. We must look anew at this international drug war in which our cities play the most minor role and pay the most major price. When I talked with New York and Chicago police chiefs, both acknowledged that the purchases are mainly suburban. The gun shops are mainly suburban, propped up by NRA policies. The coke comes from Columbia and South America; the heroin comes from Afghanistan under U.S. occupation, brought in to the ports by ships and by trucks at known border points. The drug-gun industry attacks our cities like insurgents. We offer little defense. As we dump billions into Iraq to stop terror, the drug and gun terrorists are ravaging us at home.

It is in the face of these chilly winds that I greet you today.

I want to thank you for my upbringing and my liberated consciousness, for removing the veil from my eyes as a child. Unsung heroes like Rev. I.D. Quincy Newman in South Carolina, and a little known auto mechanic named AJ Whittenberg, and Rev. James Hall of Springfield Baptist Church, who led a demonstration on the Greenville airport because Jackie Robinson could not get off of the plane to use the toilet. These men kept talking about this “freedom thing.”

On July 17, 1960, along with seven students, I was arrested trying to use a public library, as a member of the NAACP youth chapter. We were directed to jail, and then bailed out, by the NAACP… but we helped change the course of South Carolina in very fundamental ways.

On July 17, 1984, 24 years to the day, I gave my speech at the Democratic Convention in San Francisco as a presidential candidate, having defeated U.S. Senator and former South Carolina Governor Ernest Hollings, Senator Glenn, and others, in the primary process.

With your help I saw the light and joined the freedom train. During that season, we changed America’s direction, but not irreversibly. We defeated Goliath, but his sons and daughters have come roaring back.

So this Sunday in Greenville we will celebrate 45 years since being jailed in Greenville, and 21 since the historic run for the presidency in 1984.

Just this past year, Rainbow and NAACP – in coalition – were able to gain recognition of the King holiday in Greenville for the first time, against fierce opposition from Bob Jones University and the right wing. They sought to discredit Dr. King beyond the grave, and yet we prevailed. The struggle continues.

In this the year of our Lord 2005 the civil rights movement must declare this to be the Martin Luther King-Lyndon Johnson year. Under their leadership 40 years ago, promises made in 1865 were honored in some measure. Under their leadership 40 years ago, 346 years of voter denial ended. Under their leadership, and the tremendous legal work of the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall, the laws of Jim Crow – a creature of the Supreme Court in 1896 - came tumbling down. Under their leadership, America was transformed in fundamental ways.

But the gains achieved during that period are now under attack. The vision of state’s righters and Confederates is again challenging the Union. Their vision is not merely of racial and gender inequality, and worker exploitation; it’s a fundamental conflict of North v. South not unlike a century ago. Two competing views of the American Dream.

The glorious vision of the war on poverty has shifted to a war of choice in Iraq and a war on the poor. The war in Iraq is costing lives, money ($345 billion so far, and $5 billion a month) and honor. We are shooting ourselves into global isolation, built upon lies and deception. A war without moral foundation can have no good outcome. Yet our sons and daughters, for whom we have such love and such high regard, are caught up in this madness.

The ethic of Jesus the Christ is lifting up the poor, healing the broken hearted, feeding the hungry, providing adequate housing for every American. That gospel of liberation is giving way to a gospel of prosperity – a gospel of the rich young ruler. There now is a driving force for a “Mansion-Down” view where the rich are enhanced with tax cuts and privileges, rather than a “Manger-UP” for the poor to break the shackles of their deprivation and denied rights.

Wolves dressed up and appearing to be sheep; dressed up in Jesus’ clothes. They are deceptive as they turned the tenets of our faith on its head. Christianity at its best is a revolutionary gospel for inclusion, for the poor, for the downtrodden.

Today we call to stop this trend. Both parties seem to have more in common on critical matters with each other, than with our needs. We must reassess the need for a course of independence and action – I refer to it as the third rail.

In Chicago, in the elevated train system, there are two tracks for the wheels, but the third rail has the electricity, the power to propel the train forward or backwards. If that rail is not on and alive, the other two rails settle to the status quo – they stay as they are. When we are acting, litigating, legislating, demonstrating for a moral cause, we shake up and energize the whole system for the good of all. That’s how change comes about.

Civil rights struggle is not synonymous with Democrats or Republicans, and they are not synonymous with the civil rights struggle. We turn up the voltage of the third rail; we move both, but we must not be captive of either.

Historically, both parties found common ground in the status quo. We always needed the third rail of sacrifice and action.

In the time of slavery, conservatives said "treat them as you want, they are your property.” The Supreme Court of that era blessed this trend of thought.

Liberals said, "Be generous and patient toward them.”

The abolitionists said, "End the whole system." The third rail.

It was John Brown and Frederick Douglas and Dred Scott, and the runaway slaves. It was neither party, nor the compliant ones who adjusted to the system that created the dynamic for change.

In resisting Jim Crow and faith-based lynchings – I say faith-based because most lynchings were not abductions at night with men hiding their faces behind sheets and hoods. They were rituals after church on Sunday. We were lynched in the name of God. Out of your theology – your view of God – comes your view of people, your view of politics, of laws, of economics, of culture. This theology that chose race supremacy over love, and distorted the very essence and message of Jesus, has been a rat in the well of our quest to make this a more perfect union.

In resisting Jim Crow and lynching laws, and a perverse cultural theology, the NAACP, in its formation, had to build a course of action outside of the political norm. The third rail.

In the quest for women's right to vote, men on both sides of the aisle railed against women's rights. The women's suffrage movement was independent of the parties – third rail.

In the 1930, labor fought for the right to organize. Both parties supported right to work laws and too often they still do. Labor faced struggles at the plant gates. Workers were martyred. It was a third rail struggle. Out of it came a middle class. The 8-hour day. The NLRB. Dignity for workers.

The struggle to de-segregate the military took place over the objection of both parties. The struggle that led to the 1954 decision was independent. It came from Thurgood Marshall and Houston and the NAACP "to" the Supreme Court.

The struggle for the 1964 and 1965 civil rights acts came from Emmit Till, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney -- the marching feet in Selma and Montgomery, not from Pennsylvania Avenue nor Capitol Hill. They were independent, Third Rail struggles.

The fight to recognize the United Farm Workers Union came from Cesar Chavez’s Leadership, from the blood, sweat and toil of workers in the fields of California and Texas, not from the halls of Congress.

The third rail can relate to both parties, but must maintain its own identity and not be captive of either. We must be the voice of conscience; we must march to the beat of a different drummer. Elected officials too often represent the cultural norms, we must be the creative minority with a majority vision, and like a powerful tugboat we must pull the ship of state toward the safe landing of peace and justice.

We are not happy with the Democratic Party; we are not afraid of Republicans. 40 years after Dr. King and Lyndon Johnson, and the martyrs of our modern day struggle, we will pledge to not let them down. We cannot let Washington or Wall Street co-opt our identity – our electric rail for change – and wear down our will for equality. They are both central to the problem.

The Senate filibuster compromise was a cave in, a collapse. It protected the rights of minorities IN the Senate, but did not protect the right of minorities, women or labor OUTSIDE of the Senate. It was a charmed move for the club, but had no real value for civil rights, workers rights and social justice. It opened the door to the rightwing to take over our courts.

So the battle for the soul of the Supreme Court today – with the retirement of Justice O’Connor and the expected resignation of Justice Rehnquist, and possibly Justice Ginsburg – defines this era of civil rights struggle. Will the Court follow the tradition of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Court and strike down racial segregation and inequality and uphold civil rights? Or will it turn its back? That’s why we must do everything in our power to fight for an independent, fair Supreme Court that upholds the constitution, and prevent Bush from stacking our Courts with rightwing ideologues who would define the laws of our lands for the next 40 years.

The alliance of both parties against class action lawsuits, denying workers and consumers a voice, the bankruptcy laws, lack of concerted action on predatory exploitation, the will to write off the South by the Democrats in the last election - the largest region with the most needs - make it clear that we must form a third rail independent labor-civil rights action agenda.

And negotiate with whoever chooses to appreciate the legitimacy of our interests and needs.

We have the power to change the course of our nation – by the margin of our unregistered Black voters in the South:

Florida ........ 527,000
Georgia ........ 431,000
Texas .......... 421,000
North Carolina.. 483,000
Virginia ....... 412,000
Louisiana ...... 238,000
South Carolina.. 210,000
Alabama ........ 250,000

We have not earned the right to do less than our best. We are losing too many battles by the margin of cynicism and feigned effort. We must go home with a burning desire to target registration for the 2006 campaigns.

We need New Constitutional Rights and New Vehicles

In this quest we must build in new Constitutional rights and pick up where the 13, 14th and 15th amendments – which passed by only two votes – left off. We must fight for new rights and new vehicles to achieve these rights, to move from civil rights, to universal human and constitutional rights. We cannot just fight for grants and programs, and new faces in high places. We need new protections:

► 50 million Americans are now without health care insurance, a deepening crisis in a land of plenty that threatens our security. The health care system is broken, treated like a privilege, and leaving more and more families in the gap.

So we need a Constitutional Amendment for equal, high quality health care for all Americans. Constitutional rights are a vision for a more perfect union, not a program or a grant.

► Public education in America continues to leave too many of our children behind. Schools suffer from unequal funding, with schools in poor and urban areas receiving inadequate resources relative to their suburban counterparts. Teachers are not properly compensated. This administration has not provided the required funding for its "No Child Left Behind Act." Flawed policy. It’s flawed because it raises the ceiling without evening the floor.

I spoke at Little Rock Central High School last week, only to be reminded of the funding gap today between urban schools and suburban schools – which is greater today than in 1957. Chicago inner city schools spend around $5500 per child. Suburbs ten miles away spend over $17,000 per child. Educational inequality and segregation has moved from “race based” to tax based, but the results are the same.

So we must support the NEA lawsuit challenging the under-funding of No Child Left Behind, and work together to achieve a Constitutional Right to equal, high quality education for all Americans.

► We are exporting capital and jobs, and importing cheap labor and products. Wages are down, unemployment is up. Right to work means right to exploit.

[Tony Hill and Congressman Meek and Brown: initiative on the minimum wage; a third rail struggle. Successful in Florida.]

Hotel workers in New York earn $17 per hour, with health benefits and retirement plans. Hotel workers in Louisiana or Atlanta make $7 per hour with no benefits or retirement plan. Bally’s workers in Las Vegas make $40,000; yet in Tunica, MS, just $20,000. That’s the difference between right to work v. right to organize and be protected and represented by unions.

So we must support the Employee Choice Act, and a constitutional right for workers to organize.

► We have won the vote in the last two elections; but we lost the count. We still have 50 separate and unequal elections; voter suppression and fraud taint our system.

So we support the Conyers-Dodd comprehensive voter reform bill, the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, and a constitutional amendment affirming the individual, federally protected right to vote.

The Congressional Black Caucus met with president Bush a few months ago. Congressman Jackson asked President Bush if he would support voting rights act extension with Section 203 and Section 5. He said he didn’t know anything about it.

That’s an incredible response when you consider that Texas was under Voting Rights Act supervision. He knew very well what the question of voting rights enforcement was about. His constituency resists Section 203 and Section 5. They want to use tricky language, like “make it national and permanent” – they know full well the Voting Rights Act is narrowly tailored and would not survive strict scrutiny and would be declared unconstitutional. Another wolves in sheep’s clothing maneuver.

Already we see the ugly heads of voter restriction being raised. A lawsuit in Indiana. The Schwarzenegger redistricting plan in California. Tom DeLay in Texas. Perdue in Georgia. Georgia passed voter identification legislation, which requires you to have a state-issued ID to validate your registration and vote. So if you go to Georgia Tech or University of Georgia, you can use your student ID – they are “state” schools. But if you go to Morehouse, Spelman or Emory, your student ID is not valid – they are “private” schools. 100 counties in Georgia do not offer state ID’s, making it more difficult to register and vote. But to vote by absentee ballot no ID is required.

This voter restriction bill in Georgia revives a de facto poll tax, and Attorney General Gonzales must enforce the Voting Rights Act and prevent it from being implemented. But just as Ashcroft would not act on Tom DeLay’s manipulation of congressional districts in Texas, Attorney General Gonzales will not respond to our request to meet on Perdue’s voter manipulation and disenfranchising plan in Georgia. We need this administration to enforce – not ignore – the Voting Rights Act NOW.

I urge us this August 6, on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, to have a massive march in Atlanta, Georgia. A pro-Democracy rally. A rally for Voting Rights Act reauthorization. For workers' right to organize. For the end to the Iraq war. For a fair, independent and impartial Supreme Court.

40 years later we must focus anew on the threats to our gains over the last 40 years. Likewise we must continue looking at the 4th stage of our struggle – beyond slavery and segregation and the right to vote – to access to capital, industry and technology – our next phase.

What does it means when the government spends millions on bankruptcy proceedings but we are locked out? What does it mean when United Airlines spends millions on bankruptcy proceedings, but we are locked out. In effect, United Airlines boycotted our talented financial services firms.

What does it mean with JPMorgan-Chase merges with Bank One, a $60 billion merger, with $100 million in transaction fees and $750 million in legal fees, and we are locked out?

We must intensify our presence at shareholders meetings, demanding greater accountability in the use of pension funds. For too long, we have spent our energy knocking to open up closed doors. We must look at new alliances and rather than just knocking on closed doors, we must build our own doors and build bridges with new partners.

African American-Latino Alliance

I want to make a bold proposal today, to look anew at a strategic alliance between African Americans and Latinos. We cannot allow even the racial tensions within Mexico, the erroneous insulting statement of President Fox and the Memin Penguin stamp, to divert our attention away from the ultimate alliance between struggling workers of Mexico and of the U.S., and the African factor within the Mexican cultural experience.

African Americans and Latinos combined make up more than a majority of the populations in this country's 100 largest cities. When we work together we can finish the unfinished business of our movement: the constitutional right to vote, the constitutional rights to health care and education, the right to organize and breathe free.

African Americans and Mexican Americans share the lowest paying jobs.

We share the schools that have the least investment and resources. We have the highest infant mortality rates and the shortest life expectancies.

We face the most predatory exploitation, whether it be the auto, insurance or financial services industries. We share the most jail cells. Dr. King in his last staff meeting convened Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Jews, and labor to focus on a coalition - a working poor people’s campaign to lift all boats at the bottom and leave no one behind. That insight was brilliant

Yet we share our blood disproportionately for our country in times of war. We are the most likely to be profiled and suspected. We face the same racial inequities on a daily basis. Our profile is that we work harder and get paid less, we pay more for less, live under stress and don't live as long. We must reassess our relationship and have a summit to build on our common goals and needs, and to work on a shared destiny.

The victory of Villaraigosa, like the victory of Tom Bradley that preceded him, is a manifestation of our coalition. The victory of Harold Washington in Chicago, Brown in Houston, Webb or Pena in Denver, Dave Dinkins in New York, were all examples of what happens when our coalition finds common ground. We must unite our coalition around these 10 points:


1. Teach our children to be bilingual.
2. Teach our children nonviolence and to avoid gang warfare.
3. We must conduct trade missions.
4. We must conduct cultural exchanges.
5. We must have a conference with our religious leaders.
6. We must merge our quest to join corporate boards and upper levels of management.
7. Our labor and consumer patterns drive the companies; we are denied the road to inclusion.
8. We must fight for affirmative actions laws and strong enforcement by the EEOC and OFCCP.
9. We must fight for comprehensive immigration reform.
10. We must connect with Africans and Mexicans whom we share common history and challenges. They are our family in the diaspora.
Mexico is next door, not back door. Mexico is older than the United States. We must view Mexico as a hemispheric partner in progress. It is the largest trading partner in this hemisphere, and second in the world. The U.S. does more trade with Mexico than Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the UK combined.

Two-thirds of our neighbors speak Spanish. We have the more telephone traffic than anywhere in the world. One million people come back and forth across the border each day. 1000 people are deported. Africans in Mexico were the first freed in this hemisphere, before the Untied States, Cuba or Brazil. We must build upon that tradition.

We must work for comprehensive immigration reform, and the McCain-Kennedy bill, and actively work together to expand the road to opportunity in our nations, and peace between our nations.

Third Rail

It occurred to me in 1984 – the reason why we named ourselves the "Rainbow" – is that I observed there were more people OUTSIDE of the convention, than IN the convention. African Americans were having a rally. Latinos were having a rally. Women were having a rally. Asian Americans were having a rally. Peace activists were having a rally. Environmentalists were having a rally.

So I said why don't we pull all of that together and form a third force. And it was that action that elected new mayors and city council members from New York to Chicago, Cleveland to Los Angeles. It was that action that increased the most Black and Latino and Asian elected officials in history. It was that action of voter registration that led to U.S. Senate victories in the South. It was the Rainbow base that enabled Bill Clinton to win. And even in 2000 and 2004 we won the vote, but lost the count - which remains even another challenge.

But be encouraged. Don't let this foul wind of rightwing zealotry break your spirit. We have more capacity to fight back and make this a more perfect union than ever before. We have strategic partners. We have valued skills. We have a will to work. If we have a made-up mind and will to fight, we will prevail. This is not dusk moving toward midnight; it is dawn moving toward daylight. They have thrown their hardest blows, and yet we stand.

It is this faith that will carry us to a more perfect union.

It is this faith that will build more schools and fewer jails. It is with this faith that we will live longer and be stronger. It is with this faith that we will end the madness of the war in Iraq, and stop the genocide in Darfur.

It is with this faith that we will move beyond diversity toward real equity and parity. We have the most diverse Supreme Court in history, but it is devoid of the content of social justice and historical context. And now its fundamental direction lies in the balance.

It is with this faith that 2006 will be a year with a great surge in political empowerment and growth. It is with this faith that we will become healers of nations and builders of a more perfect union.

It is with this faith that we will march in Atlanta on August 6. It is with this faith that we will win the battle to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then God will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal our land. (http://www.rainbowpush.org/FMPro?-db=rpodata.fp5&-format=rainbowpush%2fdata06%2fdetailspeech.htm&-lay=main&-sortfield=date&-sortorder=descend&category=speech&year=2005&-max=20&-recid=33280&-find=)

Honoring Freedom Fighters
By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
2/14/2006 © Tribune Media Services

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” This aphorism wasn’t Dr. Martin Luther King’s motto, but it might have been. Dr. King had a dream, but wasn’t a dreamer. He was a remarkable orator, but he was not just a talker. He preached non-violence and respect, but he wasn’t passive in the face of injustice.
That is why the right-wing assault on Coretta Scott King’s memorial service is so misplaced. The right wing choir is in high voice denouncing former President Jimmy Carter and former SCLC president Reverend Joseph Lowery for bringing politics into a funeral, and for using the platform to criticize President Bush’s policies implicitly but clearly. Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin called their remarks “ungodly.” “Inappropriate” and designed to “embarrass the president,” said TV host Sean Hannity. Rush Limbaugh even had the nerve to suggest that he knew Coretta and Dr. King would be angry at the statements. How dare anyone say something that would discomfit the President of the United States, who had placed himself in the pulpit for maximum camera time.

Reverend Lowery said, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there [in Iraq] . . . But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right here. . . . Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more – but no more for the poor”. . . President Carter evoked the pain suffered by Dr. King from the illegal surveillance and wiretaps of the FBI. (Few remember that the FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover, who loathed King and targeted Civil Rights activists, protecting those who were brutalizing them, used illegal surveillance to try to pressure King into suicide.)

Memorial services are meant to pay tribute to the lives and the struggles of the deceased. No one would modify the memorial for Moses to make the Pharaoh feel better. Dr. Lowery and President Carter’s words paid direct tribute to Dr. King and Coretta Scott King. Their willingness to afflict the comfortable was faithful to the teachings of the heroine they mourned. It was Dr. King who taught us to use every occasion to challenge those who were supporting injustice with their action or their inaction.

For example, two weeks after his famous speech at the March on Washington in August 1963, Dr. King delivered the eulogy at the funeral for four little girls killed when their Birmingham church was firebombed. Their loss weighed heavily on Dr. King, Coretta and civil rights activists. They knew the risks. They realized that they were putting their lives on the line and that they were challenging others to do the same. It was a lot easier to talk big than to actually engage in non-violent protest. And when the church was bombed and the little innocents murdered, their grief was profound.

Dr. King felt that agony personally. He bore the responsibility. At the funeral service, he paid memorable tribute to those innocent spirits. He comforted their grieving families. But he also invoked the slain children to challenge the powerful and the contented:


“They are....martyred heroines...they have something to say to every minister of the Gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows...
......they have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism...

.....they have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans...

.....they have something to say to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice."

In discomfiting President Bush and the powerful in the congregation, President Carter and Reverend Lowery were in fact paying tribute to the remarkable example set by Coretta Scott King and her beloved Martin.

President Bush chose to come to the funeral, but he stands on the other side of history from Dr. King and Coretta. Coretta Scott King opposed the war in Iraq. She decried the immoral priorities of this Bush administration. President Bush went directly from the memorial service to release a federal budget that mocked the memory of Dr. King and Coretta. Over $500 billion – half a trillion dollars – for the Pentagon, including another $100 billion for Iraq, more tax cuts for millionaires, while cutting children from Head Start, raising health care costs on the poor and the elderly, cutting back on home heating and raising the cost of student loans. No one could pay honest tribute to Coretta Scott King without challenging the immoral priorities of this president.

The fiercely organized right wing in America now wants to transform Dr. King and Coretta from freedom fighters into trophies. They see the human family through a keyhole, not through an open door. They use religion to justify tax cuts to the very wealthy, and job cuts and benefit cuts for the working poor. The basic message of Jesus and Dr. King was amplified by the views expressed by Dr. Lowery and President Carter. Jesus’ mission was to heal the brokenhearted, defend the poor, deliver the needy and set the captives free.

It is because of these views that the Kings were hounded by our government – by the FBI and CIA. It is because of these views, the Kings sought to include all in the bountiful fruits of life and leave no one behind. They were the counter cultural architects that designed the new America – the one-big-tent America – hounded in life and now exalted in death. We have a tendency to exalt the dead and bury the living. These freedom fighters must not be reduced to trophies with streets named after them. There are those that want to separate an airbrushed version of these giants from the Civil Rights activists on whose shoulders they stood. They want to erase the reality that the President was and is on the wrong side of the human rights and justice struggle in America that Dr. King and Coretta led. The President has a right to be on that side of history. What he does not have a right to be, is a wolf in sheep clothing and pretending to be supportive of the civil rights and human rights struggle that others lived. Reverend Lowery and President Carter insured that the funeral service broke through that lie.

Dr. Lowery and President Carter brought clarity where there was confusion in an attempt to blur history. No greater tribute could be paid to Coretta Scott King and Dr. King than to use every exalted mountain and every low valley to put forth principle for the sake of justice. Mrs. King’s life exemplified the scripture in Micah that reads, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy God.”


###






Now, does Reverend Jackson not know more about how it is to live one's life as an African-American than any one of us? He WORKED with Dr, King. Do you not think he knows more about what Dr. King thought, and said, and wanted to do for his country? What will it take Michael? You're wrong and I think you know that.

7:19 AM
timb said...
The "racism is a thing of the past" is common to talk show hosts and PW commenters alike. All you need to know how about Goldstein's "colorblind" country is that he supported the recent Supreme Court decision which determined that segregated schools in Seattle and Louisville are consistent with Brown v Board of Education.

A new segregation built on ignoring race. It's really quite clever.

7:28 AM
Todd Mayo said...
That not good enough Michael. Don't trust Reverend Jackson? How about an African-American lawmaker:

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE
51ST ANNUAL NAACP FIGHT FOR FREEDOM DINNER
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
APRIL 30, 2006

SHEILA JACKSON LEE
MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM TEXAS
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

"...Tonight, somewhere in Detroit and in Houston and in Los Angeles, a father just pawned
his television for money to fill his car with gas so he can drive the 20 miles to his other
part-time job. He hopes his 5-year old doesn’t have an another asthma attack because he
no longer has health insurance and the emergency room is too far for his wife to carry a
sick child and she can’t afford to take a cab. Let’s pray the child doesn’t get sick. But
we know he will because the worst that can happens always does when you can least
afford it.
[KATRINA]
Tonight, there are scattered across this broad land survivors of Hurricane Katrina who,
having survived the greatest natural calamity to befall the nation, are struggling to survive
the catastrophic response of their own national government. There are thousands and
thousands of them, our brothers and sisters, fellow citizens stranded and dislocated in
their own country, their past forgotten, their present unbearable, their future uncertain.
This is no way to live in America. This is no way to live in America.
[IRAQ WAR]
Tonight, in Iraq and Afghanistan and countless other places around the world, the men
and women who risk their lives to preserve our freedom are spending another night away
from their homes, their loved ones, their favorite places and familiar faces. We were told
they had to be sent over there . . . Over there . . . To face the enemy who attacked us
here. Over there so we wouldn’t have to confront them here. Except we now know the
enemy who attacked us wasn’t in Iraq. We also know now that even if Iraq wished it
could, it had nothing to attack us with. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction
over there. Only Words of Mass Deception over here. We were led to believe that Iraq
would pay for the war with its oil. Instead, we are now paying through the nose for the
gas we never got from the oil. Words of Mass Deception. Our troops would be greeted
as liberators. Words of Mass Deception. The war would be a cakewalk. Words of Mass
Deception. Mission Accomplished. Words of Mass Deception.
[DARFUR & SUDAN]
Tonight, in Darfur, in the western region of the Sudan, a faraway place in a faraway land
unknown to most Americans, a baby cries out in hunger and in pain. Does the world
hear? Tonight, nearly three years into the crisis, Darfur is a humanitarian and human
rights tragedy of the first rank: humanity, security, and politics have given way to
unimaginable barbarism, fear, and war. The situation deteriorates on a daily basis:
- 4 -
atrocities continue, large numbers of children die every day of malnutrition and disease, a
new famine is on the way. According to the World Food Program, the United Nations
and the Coalition for International Justice, 3.5 million people are now hungry, 2.5 million
have been displaced due to violence, and more than 400,000 people have died. After
Rwanda, the civilized world said never would a blind eye be turned again to genocide.
But here we are, just 12 years later, witnessing and watching unspeakable acts of
barbarism being committed by man against his fellow man.
[IMMIGRATION]
And finally: tonight, as we gather on this great occasion to celebrate and reflect upon our
long struggle for justice and equality and an honored place in the American family, there
is another family about to begin a similar quest. Somewhere down South, more precisely
down Southwest --- across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Laredo, Corpus Christi, or
Brownsville . . . . Or maybe just south of Tuscon or San Diego or Douglass, Arizona –
there is a family in Old Mexico anxiously about to embark on their own journey to the
New World of America. They come for the same reason so many millions came before
them, in this century and last, from this continent and from every other. They come for
the same reasons families have always come to America: to be free of fear and hunger, to
better their condition, to begin their world anew, to give their children a chance for a
better life. Like previous waves of immigrants, they too will wage all and risk all to reach
the sidewalks of Houston. Or Los Angeles. Or Phoenix. Or Chicago. or Atlanta. or
Denver. or Detroit. They will risk death in the desert, they will brave the elements, they
will risk capture and crime, they will endure separation from loved ones.
And if they make it to the American Promised Land, no job will be beneath them. They
will cook our food, clean our houses, cut our grass, and care for our kids. They will be
cheated by some and exploited by others. They work in sunlight but live in twilight,
between the shadows; not fully welcome as new Americans but wanted as low-wage
workers. Somewhere near the borders tonight, a family will cross over into the New
World, willed by the enduring power of the American Dream.
[SUMMARY OF CHALLENGES FACING NATION]
And so here we are. In addition to the enormous challenges we face in:
> relieving the growing economic insecurity gripping more and more millions of
Americans every month;
- 5 -
> Rebuilding and Revitalizing Communities in New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and Across
America;
> Winning the War Against Al Quaeda and Ending the War in Iraq;
> Healing the Human Suffering in Darfur and other troubled spots around the world;
and
> Devising a humane and comprehensive immigration policy that balances legitimate
concerns over border security without closing the “Golden Door” to America
symbolized by the Statute of Liberty.
As a nation we must also solve the problems of: our dependence of foreign oil;
skyrocketing healthcare costs and the increasing percentage of Americans without health
insurance; the quality of education and the ability of our schools and colleges to produce
graduates capable of outcompeting their peers in the rest of the world in the fields of math
and science.
We must find ways, as well, to ensure that elderly Americans who spent a life building
and contributing to this nation’s greatness are able to live out their golden years in dignity
and security.
Of course, we have an obligation to our children and theirs to protect the nation’s
security, and this means we have to secure our ports and plants and critical infrastructure.
We must narrow and then eliminate the digital divide so all children, urban and rural, of
every color and creed and nationality can have the tools needed to compete in the global
economy.
And we must restore the national government’s fiscal condition to health. We simply
cannot sustain the present course of reckless federal budgets which created trillions of
dollars in new deficits that threaten our economic future.
The challenges we face are great. But I believe we can overcome them. Know this
much, however, we cannot stand one more year or month or week of the status quo
which, by the way, is latin for the “mess we are in.” So where do we go from here?
How are we going to tackle these challenges?
- 6 -
And you know, I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. I have to.
I sit on the Homeland Security Committee, which among other things is responsible for
developing strategies to protect against terrorist attacks against the United States and
defeating terrorist efforts to inflict economic costs through threats and violence and
mitigating the potential consequences of terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure, and for
devising policies to protect the security of the nation’s borders, ports, and transportation
systems.
I sit on the Judiciary Committee, where as I mentioned, my leader is the honorable future
Chairman of the Committee. As a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, every day
I am reminded that I am expected to contribute to legislation involving the federal
judiciary and judicial proceedings, civil and criminal; Bankruptcy, mutiny, espionage, and
counterfeiting; Civil liberties and Constitutional amendments; the enforcement of the
Criminal law, including oversight of the FBI; immigration policy and non-border
enforcement; intellectual property rights including patents, copyrights, and trademarks;
antitrust; and Presidential succession, including impeachment.
I am also a member of the Science Committee, which has jurisdiction over all nondefense
federal scientific research and development (R&D) and NASA, EPA, the
Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, and Transportation.
I chair the Congressional Children’s Caucus and am a member of the Caucus for Women,
the Caucus on Ethiopia, and the Congressional Black Caucus.
My assignments as a Member of Congress keep me focused on the major problems we
must overcome.
[MICHIGAN]
It is for that reason that I was delighted to receive the invitation to address you tonight in
Detroit, Michigan.
For I know that if any state in the union had the knowledge and the experience and the
incentive to deal with big issues, it had to be Michigan. If any city knows how to cope
with global changes to the economy and how we live, work, recreate, and stay healthy, it
would have to be Michigan and Detroit.
- 7 -
Here in Michigan you invented the auto industry and ushered in the transformation of the
American economy.
You virtually invented modern manufacturing and collective bargaining and created the
American middle class.
During World War II, when the nation went to war in the mother of all wars, you
answered President Roosevelt’s call to turn your ploughshares into swords and became
the backbone of the American arsenal of democracy.
Michigan has always been imaginative, resourceful, creative, and indomitable. Folks
know how to get things done in this state.
Michiganders are model stewards of the environment, trustees of world-class universities
like the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
Perhaps most important, it is a state that has learned that the answer to the haunting
question for the ages posed by Rodney King – can’t we all just get along? --- is a
resounding “Yes, we can. Yes, we must.” So here in Michigan – and metro Detroit –
folks are working together to overcome some major economic problems and build a
common future of opportunity and respect for all.
Detroit is the home of General Motors, once the undisputed behemoth of the automotive
industry and unmatched as a job creator.
Today, the leveling effects of the globalization on the economy can be seen and felt in
Detroit better than any city in the nation.
If you want to understand why it is so important to control the costs of health care
without sacrificing quality, you need to come to Detroit. If your interest is environmental
protection, border security, transportation infrastructure, or the quality of education you
can learn a lot from Michigan and from Detroit.
And so I came to Detroit.
Guess what I learned?
[MCRI[
- 8 -
I learned that Ward Connerly got here first. I learned about the MCRI.
The “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.” The MCRI, I discovered, is a topic of considerable
discussion in Michigan because of what it does.
Its backers, including Mr. Ward Connerly, the former chair of the California Board of
Regents who led the fight in that state in favor of Proposition 209, claim it respects civil
rights by prohibiting discrimination by government against individuals based on their race,
sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.
Opponents say it bans affirmative action in admissions, employment, and public
contracting.
I have my opinion regarding who is right in this controversy but that is not the main point
that needs to made now and here.
Here is the point: as I see it, and as I have said it, Detroit and Michigan and the nation
face several significant challenges today.
> GLOBALIZATION and ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION
> COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION
> MILITARIZATION
> IMMIGRATION
Affirmative action did not create any of these challenges.
Banning affirmative action will not solve any of them.
So the question before the house is why this? Why now?
I would like to venture an answer if you would be so kind.
WHEN CONFRONTED WITH BIG CHALLENGES, SMALL MINDS RESORT TO
PETTY SCHEMES!!
- 9 -
Let me repeat: When confronted with big challenges, small minds resort to petty schemes!
And that is what you have in Michigan today with the so-called Michigan Civil Rights
Initiative.
Here is what the MCRI provides:
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to,
any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national
origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public
contracting.
The language of the MCRI tracks nearly verbatim the language of California Proposition
209 and Washington State Initiative 200, both of which passed in 1996 and 1998,
respectively.
In California, after its version of the MCRI went into effect,
> Initiatives designed to encourage the number of women to pursue fields where they
have traditionally been underrepresented, such as math and science studies, were
no longer permitted.
> pre-college programs that encourage underrepresented minority groups or girls to
apply to college or pursue nontraditional academic courses were likely prohibited if
targeted exclusively to women or minorities.
> immediately following enactment of Proposition 209, minority admissions at
colleges and universities decreased by more than 50%:
1. For example, at the University of California at Berkeley, only 191 black
students were black students were admitted compared with 562 students the
previous year; only 434 students admitted were Hispanic compared with 1,045
students in 1997).
2. The overall percentage of enrolled underrepresented minorities declined at both
University of California-Berkeley and UCLA, the two largest schools in the UC
System. For example, at UCLA, the number of black students from California
admitted dropped from 3.3 percent to just 2.8 percent in the fall of 2003.
- 10 -
3. In addition, minority enrollment numbers in the UC medical schools and law
schools still have not rebounded to pre-Proposition 209 levels, which were
consistently higher than 20 percent. The enrollment percentage for
underrepresented students in the first-year class for UC medical schools in
2002 was 16.5 percent. The proportion of underrepresented students in the law
schools was 16.2 percent of the first-year class.
Similar results were experienced in the state of Washington the year after it passed a
law similar to the so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.
> Minority enrollment at the flagship University of Washington dropped from 373
to 255 in the year following passage of the initiative.
> At Washington State University, the number of black, Latino, Native American,
and Asian students dropped from 396 students to 284 students.
If the MCRI is passed, educational opportunities for minorities and women will diminish
as they have in other states adopting similar anti-affirmative action proposals.
THE MICHIGAN CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE IS NOT “CIVIL.” IT CERTAINLY
ISN’T “RIGHT”!
AND MICHIGAN VOTERS WILL REJECT IT IN NOVEMBER.
BECAUSE MICHIGANDERS DON’T WANT TO TURN THE CLOCK BACK.
MICHIGAN IS A PLACE WHERE OPPORTUNITIES EXPAND, NOT CONTRACT!
MICHIGAN IS GOING FORWARD TO A BETTER FUTURE.
The MCRI is, as Yogi Berra once said, “déjà vu all over again.”
The organizers of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative raise two principle objections to the
continued use of affirmative action in admissions, employment, and public contracting:
(1) it is unfair because it penalizes “qualified” non-minorities and stigmatizes
qualified minorities by tarring them as affirmative action beneficiaries.
(2) it is unnecessary because the badges and vestiges of past discrimination have
long since faded
- 11 -
Neither of these claims can be taken seriously.
[AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DOES NOT MAKE BENEFICIARIES FEEL
INFERIOR]
Some opponents of affirmative action say that it inflicts psychological harm on women
and minorities because they will go through life wondering whether they earned their
opportunities based on merit or were give special treatment because of their race or
gender.
Give me a break!
Do you think Michael Brown stayed awake at night wondering whether he deserved to
be Director of FEMA?
How much sleep does Clarence Thomas lose every night worrying whether he really
earned his way on the Supreme Court? Or Condoleeza Rice? Or Colin Powell?
The special treatment and special privileges that come with being born rich and famous
and connected doesn’t seem to have destroyed the psychological well-being and selfesteem
of the fellow living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I say: Give women and minorities the opportunity to succeed and let them worry about
their self-esteem. Believe it or not, women and minorities are mentally and emotionally
tougher than you think.
[RACISM STILL EXISTS TODAY]
In the first place, the racism and sexism that created the remedy of affirmative in the first
instance has not yet vanished from American life.
I am reminded of the words of President Lyndon B. Johnson at the 1965 Howard
University Commencement. President Johnson, who had a deeper and richer
understanding of the centrality of race in American politics of any president since
Abraham Lincoln, used to explain why the eradication of the badges and vestiges of
slavery required more than just the cessation of racial segregation and discrimination. It
was not sufficient to stop the harm; it was essential that you begin to help. In other
words, active engagement or “affirmative action” was required:
“You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and
liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you're
- 12 -
free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have
been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates or
opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those
gates .... We seek not...just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a
fact and equality as a result.”
Minorities and women continue to face discrimination on many fronts, and that shows up
in many ways. Women in Michigan today are paid only 67 cents for every dollar paid to
men.
Consider these alarming facts, which I learned from One United Michigan, the leading
coalition opposing the MCRI:
> The FBI report for 2004 shows that Michigan ranks third in the U.S. with 556
reported hate crimes. Of those, 366 were motivated by race. This reveals a climate
of racial tension and hostility which creates further discrimination and barriers.
> The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is investigating racial steering by a metro
Detroit real estate firm, where agents routinely discriminated by sending African-
American home seekers into minority neighborhoods and white homeowners into
white communities.
> As reported in recent Gallup Poll results, 31% of Asian-American respondents
have faced incidents of employment discrimination, the largest percentage of any
racial or ethnic group
> In Livonia, discussion over location of a Wal-Mart store into the city turned into an
attack on minorities when speakers at a public hearing said the store shouldn’t be
built because it would attract African-Americans from Detroit.
> In June 2005, a local paper published a blatantly anti-immigrant cartoon, targeting
Latino/a immigrants as welfare seekers. A month later, another paper ran an
offensive cartoon featuring a “Muslim” in confessional for “failing to detonate.”
> In Chesterfield Township, Macomb County, a police chief was fired after he
suggested the community should consider hiring minority police officers.
> In Cutlerville, near Grand Rapids, a woman applicant to the local fire department
was asked during her interview whether she was planning on becoming pregnant
- 13 -
and could cook – and then was denied a position when the department decided to
hold off on hiring. It later opened hiring without informing the woman, a
paramedic, and hired a less qualified male applicant.
[AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WORKS]
We have come a long way: It may be hard to believe but it has only been in the last 40
years that barriers to systemic discrimination have been coming down. The U.S. Civil
Rights Act was passed in 1964. Title IX, barring sex discrimination in education, was
passed in 1972. We have seen growth in the numbers of minorities and women in the
workforce, as elected officials, and in colleges. We celebrate those gains. During the last
40 years, women and minorities have made progress in many areas, often thanks to
strong governmental action to break down the barriers of discrimination.
Diversity and affirmative action is good for everyone in Michigan: Diversity helps
enrich the lives of all Michigan citizens, in many ways, including improved learning, better
health and safer communities. Michigan faces international competition as it works
through its economic transition. We need to have every Michigan citizen engaged if we
are to compete with other parts of the nation and world in providing a highly educated
and motivated workforce.
Understand there are social benefits flowing from the diversity that affirmative action
helps promote. For example, woman and minorities have better access to treatments that
particularly impact their communities. An important reason we pay more attention to
issues like breast cancer and have made tremendous progress as a result of investments in
research in women’s health is because we have so many more women in the research and
health professions. So, in a real sense, we can say that affirmative action is responsible
for saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives.
[CONSEQUENCES OF ENDING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION]
My friends, you know better than anyone that choices have consequences. If we are
apathetic and unmotivated and do not do all we can to defeat this anti-Civil Rights
Initiative, the people of Michigan will suffer the adverse consequences, which include the
elimination of:
· Outreach programs that encourage minorities and women to enter fields such as
police, fire fighting, and engineering or to attend college will be ended.
- 14 -
· Programs to encourage women and minorities to stay in school and prepare for
good-paying jobs in engineering, science, or even construction and law
enforcement will be eliminated.
· Programs to encourage men to become teachers or nurses, where they are underrepresented
and needed.
· No affirmative action goals for contracting or hiring in state and local governments,
and fewer opportunities for minority and women-owned firms to compete with big
business.
· Gender- and minority-based representation on boards and commissions, including
advisory boards dealing with corrections, education and public health, will end.
· In other states that have eliminated affirmative action, lawsuits threaten the ability
of the state to provide gender-specific health services such as breast or prostate
cancer screening.
But we are not going to let that happen because:
Affirmative action has been healthy for Michigan and America.
It has helped maintain diversity in education.
Affirmative action encourages women and minorities to enter high paying fields where they
can add to Michigan’s economy.
Affirmative gives small businesses a chance to compete against larger businesses and helps
communities create democratic institutions that look like the constituencies they serve.
BECAUSE MICHIGANDERS DON’T WANT TO TURN THE CLOCK BACK.
MICHIGAN IS A PLACE WHERE OPPORTUNITIES EXPAND, NOT CONTRACT.
MICHIGAN IS GOING FORWARD TO A BETTER FUTURE.
AND MICHIGAN VOTERS WILL REJECT THIS BACKWARD PROPOSAL IN
NOVEMBER!
[TYING IT ALL TOGETHER AND SUMMING UP]
Friends, this is 51st time the Detroit NAACP has gathered to remember the “Fight for
Freedom.” But the fight for freedom never ends. It goes on and on and on. Because freedom
- 15 -
is precious, it is worth fighting for. Tonight, that father in Detroit I spoke about struggling to
make ends meet, is fighting for freedom from economic insecurity. The survivors of Katrina
are fighting for freedom too. They have a right to be free from the fear of being abandoned
in their own country by their own government. The soldier and airmen and marines and
sailors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world are fighting for freedom.
They will gladly give their lives so that we can live the life we can imagine. The immigrant
family south of the border risking everything to come to America are fighting for freedom as
well: the universal longing to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
That is the desire that beats in the hearts of every man and woman and leads them to risk
everything to spend at least one day in America.
The fight for freedom is never done, it is never complete, it is never over. There is always
more struggle. Which means there will always be a need for warriors for justice to wage that
struggle. Which means my work is not near done. Neither is yours. There is much work
we need to do and we need to work together to win. Here is what I think we should do:
1. Change Our Economic And Budgetary Priorities: stop Bush tax cut giveaways, invest in
health care, education, job creation, energy independence.
2. End the War in Iraq and Win the War Against Al Qaeda: adopt the Murtha plan and
redeploy troops to region and disengage them from Iraq civil war. Insist that Shiaa,
Sunnis, and Kurds recognize they have a common future and destiny and need to form a
government that is pluralistic and diverse.
3. Stand Up And Speak Out For Human Dignity and Against Genocide.
4. Work For A Humane Immigration Policy That Secures Borders But Offers Chance To
Earn Access To Legal Residency And Citizenship For Those Already Here.
5. Avoid Being Distracted By “Wedge Issues” Like Affirmative Action, Flag Burning,
Pledge Of Allegiance, Gay Marriage, Death Penalty, Etc.
CONCLUSION
I am reminded as I stand before you tonight that the “moral arc of the universe is long but it
bends toward justice.” When the guests sat down for dinner at the very first Fight for
Freedom Dinner, I was but a little girl of five living in a little apartment/house in Jamaica,
Queens, New York. The Supreme Court had decided Brown v. Board of Education the
previous year.
- 16 -
Little did I know then that decision would give hope to my parents, and countless others, that
mine would be the first generation to enjoy the full promise of America. The parents of our
generation were the first who could reasonably dream that their children might enjoy
opportunities denied their forebears for more than three centuries. That decision inspired me
to work hard in school, which won me admission to Yale University as a part of the cohort
that admitted women in large numbers for the first time. I was inspired to attend and
graduate from the University of Virginia Law School, where I deepened by commitment to
serve the public interest.
I had no idea when I was a child growing up in Jamaica Queens that one day I would be
elected to serve in the Congress of the United States from the same district that sent Mickey
Leland and the immortal Barbara Jordan to Washington. I remember watching Barbara
Jordan serve on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate Hearings. I’ll never
forget when she said:
“Earlier today we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United
States, We, the people. It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was
completed, on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that We, the
people. I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton
just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and
court decision I have finally been included in We, the people.
“Today I am an inquisitor. I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not
overstate the solemness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is
complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution,
the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”
I understand much better now the faith and passion of which she spoke. And I say to you
tonight as a member of the Brown v. Board of Education generation, the greatest victory for
civil and human rights in our nation’s history which was won by this august organization, that
my faith is whole, my faith is complete, my faith is total.
I have faith in the NAACP."

You don't think perhaps she knows more about this than we do? Come man, what will it take?

7:34 AM
Todd Mayo said...
That's what they do Tim? It's how they think. I don't think they realize how truly and hideously wrong and racist their arguments are. I've posted here some rather long statements from two prominent African-Americans. How much you wanna bet they'll either ricicule me for citing Jesse Jackson, or ridicule me for "not having original ideas or an argument of my own" (already tried that with this crew, they didn't believe me), or some other generic form of attack the messenger/s rather than try to see the truth of the message. God Him/Herself could appear to them, tell them they're wrong and five minutes after God left, they'd figure out a way to attack even THAT messenger. I guess one has to admire the tenacity if not the reasoning.

7:42 AM
timb said...
My first snarky thought was it would depend what Jeff G told them think, but that's not true.

Michael tends to get his news from a number of right wing blogs, not just Jeff's. To be fair to him, which I generally avoid, he's an engineer (like bin Laden!), calls himself a "former liberal," participated in election fraud in West Virginia (in his youth) to help elect Senator Rockerfeller, lives in Athens Georgia, and has been to known to share a beer with Michael Stipe (fine, liberal company indeed). A pretty varied resume.

Jd, God bless him, is completely shaped by the partisan battle in America and the side he's chosen. He's as interested in fairness, as I am interested in Rudy Guiliani becoming President. For all of that he wouldn't be a bad neighbor, especially if you could keep him home on election day.

The anonymous posters sound like various members of the PW varsity. Thankfully, we seem to have ditched Pablo, who has nothing but silliness to add to any debate.

As far as what they would think of your posts, I would think they would reject them out in hand. Firstly, they wouldn't listen to Shelia Jackson Lee tell them their hair was fire, let alone accept a cup of water from her to put it out. Jesse and his son are seen by the righties as hustlers hypocrites who exploit race for financial and political gain.

In the case of the elder Jackson I have some sympathy with that point. He has at times been a crass hypocrite (which the right will overlook with it own...see Newt Gingrich or Tom DeLay).

Someone will also go Marx on the Jesse Junior and ask how a kid who went to St. Albans is supposed to know how poor African-Americans feel (it's about class and not race, see).

In the end, they will just parrot Jeff G's belief that anyone who looks out for the disenfranchised in this country is just playing "identity politics," and can't be trusted. Of course, as white and well-off supporters of the status quo, they never seem to note that their defense of the status quo (and the benefits it has blessed them with) is just as big a part as identity politics as Jesse's.

Then again, these are not people content with introspection. They attack. They've been attacking since the New Deal and watching them lose now, despite the attacking, is the most pleasurable part of being interested in politics.

10:05 AM
Michael said...
We bought votes with corn liquor, timmy, straight up. Wasn't anything fraudulent about it.

10:39 AM
tim said...
Dude, buying votes is fraud. By the way, you got any of that left. After coming over from PW I think we've trashed the Professor's site enough we should drink a jug of corn liquor amid the ruins, before running off to yell at each over Scott Thomas or something....

We can take Todd with us. I need a) someone with whom I can agree with, and b) someone slightly to the left of me so I look less offensive to you nutty rightists.

On a less serious note, no comment about Todd's posts?

11:00 AM
Michael said...
I was going to cut and past some Thomas Sowell, Bill Cosby and Herman Cain, but why bother.

Did you know that when Sheila Jackson Lee was visiting the Houston Space Center and being briefed on the first Mars rover mission, she asked if it would be able to take pictures of the American flag the astronauts left up there?

11:11 AM
Michael said...
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=9514
Heh.

12:32 PM
Anonymous said...
At least he gets to the point quickly....does he get paid by the word?

12:37 PM
Michael said...
He also doesn't use only pronouns so it is easy to tell who he is talking about.

1:02 PM
Todd Mayo said...
Actually, I really don't mind the vote buying so much. It's a form of recreation where I come from though I wouldn't be quite so quick to admit complicity. I know local politics in Kentucky and it is different.
Now I'll say this for Michael, he has the guts to at least give us his first name. Only you Tim and a few others besides you have done that and you are to be commended for standing by your position, as are those with whom we don't agree.
I have no tolerence for people who lack the courage to put their name on their words. It is cowardly and small-minded. It is like the person who complains incessently about the state of affairs in their City, State, Nation, ...whatever, and then does not vote.
All that though is largely irrelevent. There will be no changed minds or disciplined restrained discourse here as you point out Tim. So...what's left to say but..(I heard this on Seinfeld)"Here's to those who wish us well, and those who don't can go to hell!"

4:06 PM
Todd Mayo said...
"On a less serious note, no comment about Todd's posts?" "Less serious"? WTF?? Way to take one for the fucking team Tim!

4:10 PM
Michael said...
"Dude, buying votes is fraud. By the way, you got any of that left."

Nope, the leftovers got taken back to the dorm and didn't make it to Christmas.

On the subject of buying votes is fraud, other than the obvious difference that one is illegal and one is not, what do you see as the moral difference between giving someone 5 or 10 bucks or a half pint of "cough medicine" right there at the polls, and this:

"The same was the case with his policy prescriptions of universal health coverage, making unionization easier, raising the minimum wage, and making college available for everyone."

From RSI post on 7/18.

Why is vote buying legal only if you use a defered payment plan and other peoples money? I thought you guys liked the grassroots type shit?

6:13 PM
Anonymous said...
In fact, I argued that Goldstein is worse than the bigots or haters because he functions to legitimize them. - Ric Caric

“Arguing” implies the use of evidence, logic, and persuasion. Ex cathedra claims and schoolyard insults don’t enter into it. Not even if you have tenure.

Sorry.

6:53 AM
Todd Mayo said...
Then, my brave anonymous friend, there has been no arguing going on here from anyone EXCEPT Ric and one or two others. Even I have been guilty of playing your ignorant mud-sling game. For that I take responsibility. Why won't the Protein Wisdom folks admit their complicity in this "Ex cathedra claims and schoolyard insults" game?

10:19 AM
Post a Comment

Gib said...

January 29, 2007
By Herman Cain

When The Pillsbury Company appointed me president of the then-troubled Godfather's Pizza chain in 1986, they were not looking for a black president because it was time for the first time in its history to have a black man in charge of a major business unit. They were looking for someone who had successfully demonstrated leadership ability.

In the real world, the individuals who usually rise to the top of their chosen professions and achieve their dreams are the most talented and hardest working. In the political world, success is too often determined by political tenure, timing and factors none of us can control, such as our race, ethnicity or sex.

The process for choosing the next president of the United States should focus on electing someone with the experience and leadership ability to identify the most important challenges to our economic infrastructure and national security, and to articulate common sense solutions. The job is too important to choose someone solely because they are black, Hispanic, or female. Yet the media and many of the Democratic Party's self-appointed kingmakers are focused solely on the Democratic candidates' checkbox demographics, and not on their ability or the substance of their message. So far, substance is noticeably absent from these and most of the presidential contenders.

In a January 25 Washington Post article on Senator Barack Obama's (D-IL) support among Democratic African-Americans, Reverend B. Herbert Martin of Chicago stated, "How does he identify himself? Will he continue to be an African-American, or will he become some kind of new creation?"

My guess is that Sen. Obama will continue to be an African-American, just as the sun will continue to rise in the East.

African-American columnist Stanley Crouch wrote in a November 2, 2006 column, "Other than color, Obama did not – does not – share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves."

So what!

Isn't it funny that it is the liberals who are obsessed with Obama's race? Many of those who claim to be black leaders in the mold of Martin Luther King, Jr., who stated that we should judge each other by the content of our character and not the color of our skin, cannot get past Obama's skin color and how the senator plans, if at all, to represent his skin color.

Of course, the origin of Obama's parents has nothing to do with his cautioned support from liberal black leaders. As Debra Dickerson notes in a January 22 Salon.com article, "He didn't attain power through traditional black channels (not a minister, no time at the NAACP) so, technically, he owes the civil rights lobby nothing, but they need him in their debt."

In other words, if Obama doesn't start blaming Hurricane Katrina on tax cuts for the rich, he can forget about support from Jesse and Al and all of the class warfare warriors. They'll give their endorsement to Hillary and Bill, who will be more than happy to put them on the payroll.

Obama's potential challenge in attracting black voters does not exactly grease the skids to the nomination for Sen. Clinton, however. The media and likely Democratic voters appear to be as obsessed with the fact that Clinton is a female as they are that Obama happens to be black.

Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen recently wrote, "Polls show just about everybody knows Clinton and has an opinion of her. Some are energized by the prospect of the first woman president, and she'll attract support from those who say "it's about time" and women who say "it's our turn." But she also registers some of the highest negative ratings of any candidate in the race."

In reality, there isn't much diversity among the Democratic presidential candidates. Yes, Obama is black, Hillary is a woman and Bill Richardson is Hispanic. But they are all liberals who advocate universal health care, high tax rates on everyone and cutting and running from the global war on terrorism. Whichever nominee Democratic caucus and primary voters select, they will voice the same old liberal class warfare rhetoric, chapter and verse.

When I ran in the 2004 Republican U.S. Senate primary in Georgia, the majority of my support came from white Georgians, not urban Atlanta's African-Americans. Those who supported my campaign and voted for me embraced my issue-based campaign of a strong national defense, replacing the income tax code, restructuring Social Security and the health care system, and not the color of my... eyes.

But what did the media always want to ask me about? My position on affirmative action. My standard answer was, "It depends on what you mean by the term 'affirmative action'." That usually caused blank stares from the reporters and allowed me to turn the focus back on the big issues.

One would think that by 2007, we would have moved beyond judging each other by the demographic factors that only God can control. Our great nation is starved for political leaders in the Capitol and the White House with the courage to fix the crumbling and archaic pillars of our economic infrastructure, regardless of the perceived political fallout.

It's not time for a white president, a black president, a female president or a Hispanic president.

It's time for a leader.


Entitlement is a Disease
February 5, 2007
By Herman Cain

Entitlement is a disease, much like cancer. I fought and won my personal war against cancer, but have thankfully never suffered from entitlement. If there is indeed a divide in our country, as liberals in both political parties are all too willing to espouse and exploit, it may very well be between those Americans who feel entitled to guarantees of health care, retirement income and protections of their self-defined class, and the rest of us who have read the Constitution.

Our nation was founded upon the notion that government should protect individual rights while individual citizens pursued their own version of happiness. The founding fathers acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence the self-evident truth that our Creator endowed upon us the right to pursue happiness. The right afforded Americans is the pursuit, not the outcome. Neither the Declaration nor the Constitution guarantees happiness as an outcome.

Nearly 200 years later, Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for the same principle. His pursuit was not economic entitlement for racial minorities who felt the cruel sting of discrimination at the ballot box and an unequal access to economic freedom, but for the equal opportunities afforded all citizens as envisioned by our founders.

Too many Americans and too many political leaders currently ignore the founders' and King's shared vision. Instead of recognizing the awesome potential within individuals to achieve their dreams and support themselves and their families, power-loving politicians are spreading entitlement like a plague.

The problems inherent in our health care system provide an instructive example. Health care costs of all types are high because individual Americans do not pay enough for their own care.

The costs are subsidized by the government and employers, which causes gross distortions in the health care market. Government created this mess by enacting tax laws that actually penalize individual purchasers of health insurance, and by enacting programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to finance health care for those deemed by government as too poor to pay for it themselves.

The disastrous result is not only the fiscal cost to taxpayers, but that entire generations of Americans have been socialized into believing they are entitled to health care coverage.

Instead of legislating reforms to eliminate the tax burden on the self-employed and instill free market forces and individual choice in the health care system, liberals want to mandate even more employer and state-paid coverage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is clear about her desire to mandate universal health care for all Americans. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have made universal coverage a centerpiece of their issue agendas.

According to Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute, the recently enacted "universal" health care plan in Massachusetts, which isn't yet in effect, will cost nearly double the original projections. The Massachusetts plan is pure socialism. Individuals must purchase health insurance by July 1, 2007 or face significant tax penalties.

Further, as Turner notes, "State agencies will be checking on individuals' insurance status, monitoring their income to see if they qualify for subsidies, and tracking individual health habits to determine how much they should pay for their health insurance."

Entitlement disease is also spread by the class warriors who want to punish success by taxing individual achievement. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, is holding hearings to find "solutions" to non-existent fiscal challenges affecting the so-called middle class. A February 1 Washington Post story noted, however, that median household net worth grew by 35 percent from 1989 to 2004, including increases in all income groups.

Schumer stated, "We have big plans. The party that can create a model paradigm... will not only win in 2008 but could create a long-term majority." In other words, more entitlement spending, government mandates and class warfare rhetoric might create long-term power for liberals.

Unfortunately, Schumer is not alone. In a January 31 speech on Wall Street, President Bush stated, "The fact is that income inequality is real; it's been rising for more than 25 years." With all due respect, Mr. President, that statement is false. A recent study released by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee found that from 2001 to 2005 there was no statistical change in income inequality. The president is simply pandering to the entitlement addicts.

History has taught us that the constitutional protections of equal opportunity do not yield equal outcomes, nor can government legislate equal outcomes. As economist Ludwig von Mises once wrote, "Government can't make a man rich, but it can make a man poor."

Government will not aid us in fighting the entitlement disease, because most in government have a vested interest in perpetuating the disease. The only cure is for individuals to educate themselves and each other on the principles of free market economics.

We must elect a president and members of Congress with the will to reverse the threatening growth of entitlement disease on the American people.

The Grand Fraud: Affirmative Action for Blacks
by Thomas Sowell (April 1, 2003)

No issue has been more saturated with dishonesty than the issue of racial quotas and preferences, which is now being examined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Many defenders of affirmative action are not even honest enough to admit that they are talking about quotas and preferences, even though everyone knows that that is what affirmative action amounts to in practice.

Despite all the gushing about the mystical benefits of "diversity" in higher education, a recent study by respected academic scholars found that "college diversity programs fail to raise standards" and that "a majority of faculty members and administrators recognize this when speaking anonymously."

This study by Stanley Rothman, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Neil Nevitte found that "of those who think that preferences have some impact on academic standards those believing it negative exceed those believing it positive by 15 to 1."

Poll after poll over the years has shown that most faculty members and most students are opposed to double standards in college admissions. Yet professors who will come out publicly and say what they say privately in these polls are as rare as hen's teeth.

Such two-faced talk is pervasive in academia and elsewhere. A few years ago, in Berkeley, there was a big fight over whether a faculty vote on affirmative action would be by secret ballot or open vote. Both sides knew that the result of a secret ballot would be the direct opposite of the result in a public vote at a faculty meeting.

When any policy can only be defended by lies and duplicity, there is something fundamentally wrong with that policy. Virtually every argument in favor of affirmative action is demonstrably false. It is the grand fraud of our time.

The need for "role models" of the same race or sex is a key dogma behind affirmative action in hiring black or female professors. But a recent study titled "Increasing Faculty Diversity" found "no empirical evidence to support the belief that same-sex, same-ethnicity role models are any more effective than white male role models."

The related notion that a certain "critical mass" of black students is needed on a given campus, in order that these students can feel comfortable enough to do their best, has become dogma without a speck of evidence being offered or asked for. Such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.

Without affirmative action, its advocates claim, few black students would be able to get into college. In reality, there are today more black students in the University of California system and in the University of Texas system than there were before these systems ended affirmative action.

These black students are simply distributed differently within both systems -- no longer being mismatched with institutions whose standards they don't meet. They now have a better chance of graduating.

What of the idea that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty and is needed to continue that rise? A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 -- that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation -- than in the more than 40 years since then. This trend continued in the 1960s, at a slower pace. The decade of the 1970s -- the first affirmative action decade -- saw virtually no change in the poverty rate among blacks.

In other words, most blacks lifted themselves out of poverty but liberal politicians and black "leaders" have claimed credit. One side effect is that many whites wonder why blacks cannot lift themselves out of poverty like other groups, when that is in fact what most blacks have done.

Affirmative action is great for black millionaires but it has done little or nothing for most people in the ghetto. Most minority business owners who get preferences in government contracts have net worths of more than one million dollars.

One of the big barriers to any rational discussion of affirmative action is that many of those who are for or against it are for or against the theory or the rationales behind group preferences and quotas. As for facts, the defenders simply lie.

Victimhood: Rhetoric or Reality
by Walter Williams (June 9, 2005)

If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation. According to them, President Reagan, and later Presidents Bush I and II, would turn back the clock on civil rights. They'd appoint "new racists" dressed in three-piece suits to act through the courts and administrative agencies to reverse black civil rights and economic gains. We can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope."

As my colleague Tom Sowell pointed out in a recent column, "Liberals, Race and History," if the Democratic party's share of the black vote ever fell to even 70 percent, it's not likely that the Democrats would ever win the White House or Congress again. The strategy liberal Democrats have chosen, to prevent loss of the black vote, is to keep blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear. But is it fear of racists, or being driven back to the plantation, that should be a top priority for blacks? Let's look at it.

Only 30 to 40 percent of black males graduate from high school.

Many of those who do graduate emerge with reading and math skills of a white seventh- or eighth-grader. This is true in cities where a black is mayor, a black is superintendent of schools and the majority of principals and teachers are black. It's also true in cities where the per pupil education expenditures are among the highest in the nation.

Across the U.S., black males represent up to 70 percent of prison populations. Are they in prison for crimes against whites? To the contrary, their victims are primarily other blacks. Department of Justice statistics for 2001 show that in nearly 80 percent of violent crimes against blacks, both the victim and the perpetrator were the same race. In other words, it's not Reaganites, Bush supporters, right-wing ideologues or the Klan causing blacks to live in fear of their lives and property and making their neighborhoods economic wastelands.

What about the decline of the black family? In 1960, only 28 percent of black females between the ages of 15 and 44 were never married.

Today, it's 56 percent. In 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks was 19 percent, in 1960, 22 percent, and today, it's 70 percent. Some argue that the state of the black family is the result of the legacy of slavery, discrimination and poverty. That has to be nonsense. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, comprised of two parents and children. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents. In fact, according to Herbert Gutman in "The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925," "Five in six children under the age of 6 lived with both parents." Therefore, if one argues that what we see today is a result of a legacy of slavery, discrimination and poverty, what's the explanation for stronger black families at a time much closer to slavery -- a time of much greater discrimination and of much greater poverty? I think that a good part of the answer is there were no welfare and Great Society programs.

Since black politicians and the civil rights establishment preach victimhood to blacks, I'd prefer that they be more explicit when they appear in public fora. Were they to be so, saying racists are responsible for black illegitimacy, blacks preying on other blacks and black family breakdown, their victimhood message would be revealed as idiotic. But being so explicit is not as far-fetched as one might think. In a campaign speech before a predominantly black audience, in reference to so many blacks in prison, presidential candidate John Kerry said, "That's unacceptable, but it's not their fault."

I would like to highlight this passage from Sowell again:

What of the idea that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty and is needed to continue that rise? A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 -- that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation -- than in the more than 40 years since then. This trend continued in the 1960s, at a slower pace. The decade of the 1970s -- the first affirmative action decade -- saw virtually no change in the poverty rate among blacks.

Did you get that?

What of the idea that affirmative action has helped blacks rise out of poverty and is needed to continue that rise? A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 -- that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation -- than in the more than 40 years since then. This trend continued in the 1960s, at a slower pace. The decade of the 1970s -- the first affirmative action decade -- saw virtually no change in the poverty rate among blacks.

That doesn't lead you to question your beliefs even a little bit? Because it did me, and I came to the conclusion that maybe the affirmative action programs I had been supporting weren't working as planned, and we needed to change course.

Anonymous said...

Michael - You are a racist, either covert or overt, a racist you are.

And that Todd Mayo is a whiz at cutting and pasting. Going to Jesse and Sheila for support of your position is like quoting Grover Norquist about taxes. Amazing when they spew out exactly what you expect them to.

Anonymous said...

Todd, told you that's what they'd say. They live in Goldstein's world, where Jeff is the height of intellectualism sophistication. The fact that he doesn't actually have any sort of coherent philosophy is a giant blind spot they never see and it makes them predictable. I called that reaction perfectly.

They are Limbaugh fans with a better vocabulary.

Oh, and Michael/B Moe may be a racist, although my only purpose mentioning it here is because it makes him extremely angry and that makes me giggle. Give me the outraged post, B Moe. Also, could you whine about it on PW again? That was like a double reward.

Anonymous said...

Right brilliant there, timb. Why should we take a position from race pimps like Jackson and Lee as fact? Why not add in a quote from Sharpton and Farrakhan to round it out? Throw in a little hebe hating and race baiting, coupled with some corporate blackmail, and you would have all of the bases covered!

Anonymous said...

Jesus, it's as if you reading from the script I wrote for you. Damn, I wish Todd could see this. This is wonderfully delicious.

You know, one time my barber told me he was cheating on his taxes and his wife. I assumed that those character flaws meant he couldn't cut hair. Same logic you're using, brave anonymous. I don't like Jesse Jackson, because of his politics, but I will disdain the views of his son regarding race, because of his father's politics!

Care to extrapolate from the sins of Bill Clinton, why you wouldn't let Chelsea Clinton treat you for a broken leg in the hospital. Clown.

Anonymous said...

Here's my original forecast of the PW "thought pattern" (PW's new motto: "We're the only who still believe the Vice President!)

My first snarky thought was it would depend what Jeff G told them think, but that's not true...

...As far as what they would think of your posts, I would think they would reject them out in hand. Firstly, they wouldn't listen to Shelia Jackson Lee tell them their hair was fire, let alone accept a cup of water from her to put it out. Jesse and his son are seen by the righties as hustlers hypocrites who exploit race for financial and political gain.

In the case of the elder Jackson I have some sympathy with that point. He has at times been a crass hypocrite (which the right will overlook with it own...see Newt Gingrich or Tom DeLay).

Someone will also go Marx on the Jesse Junior and ask how a kid who went to St. Albans is supposed to know how poor African-Americans feel (it's about class and not race, see).

In the end, they will just parrot Jeff G's belief that anyone who looks out for the disenfranchised in this country is just playing "identity politics," and can't be trusted. Of course, as white and well-off supporters of the status quo, they never seem to note that their defense of the status quo (and the benefits it has blessed them with) is just as big a part as identity politics as Jesse's.

Then again, these are not people content with introspection. They attack. They've been attacking since the New Deal and watching them lose now, despite the attacking, is the most pleasurable part of being interested in politics."


Damn, I'm good. It's one thing to say "the sun will rise in the east," "water will be wet," or some where in Iraq today, women and children are going to die because George Bush made a stupid decision and Protein Wisdom reader will say that's okay." It's another to predict the exact bs reason an entire collective will use to impugn the experience of people they just don't like.