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Issue Number 36 - April 3, 2003
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Racists act in bizarre ways. Incapable of properly processing information that does not conform to core assumptions of white supremacy, they react, instead, to shared fictions that they propagate among themselves. The racist popular character of the American war against an amorphous, imagined Arab-Muslim "other" is obvious to every sane citizen of the world. (As distinguished from the piratical greed that motivates the war's authors.) This social fact of race-hate is acted out and verbalized in every nook and cranny of white American society, and sickly assimilated by many nonwhites, as well.
American corporate journalism, as deeply steeped in racism as the larger society, meets the challenge of war by devolving further into a vector of racist fictions. The miracle of "embeddedness" allows the corporate media to "enlist" in the equivalent of a Great Patriotic War, as it attempts to present one popular passion - racism - in the guise of another - patriotism. In everyday American practice and essence, the two are exactly the same thing.
In the Cold War days, American newspersons liked to repeat a purportedly popular Soviet street critique of the two main state newspapers: There is no news in Pravda ("truth," in Russian), and no truth in Izvestia (Russian for "news").
There is very little truth or news in the wholly embedded U.S. media's Iraq war telemarathon, as we wrote last week in "Onward Embedded Soldiers: The corporate media's deputized war coverage":They are acting out collective white fantasies, unconstrained by any pretense of professional ethics, purposely placing no distance between themselves and the "national interest" as defined by their Leader. They have been deputized, and are grinning like Barney Fife of Mayberry. The Pirates play them like a piano, but it's a song they enjoy as much as the Bush men do - for now.
Ella Baccouche expresses a sense of violation at the hands of corporate media and their Bush-masters.
These are, indeed, sad times for all humanity on this small planet when respect for international law has been killed and our only international institution (a.k.a. the United Nations) has failed us by allowing white supremacists with their humongous arsenal of various weapons of mass destruction to ram their version of liberty down the throats of yet another non-white sovereign nation. I feel that I share a deep sense of anguish and despair with the majority peoples of the world in witnessing this tragic event unfold before our very eyes. The belligerent hypocrisy of the white American government must be understood and condemned for what it really is, a rogue nation. The idea of providing liberty and democracy to Iraq is preposterous. Hello. You cannot give something you do not possess in the first place.
All of humanity is and has been suffering the psychological warfare from the white racist corporate media's relentless bombardment of "images" and "words" of mass destruction (propaganda). We are being invaded on all fronts and they are devastating our sense of morality by making it seem like slaughter on a grand scale is acceptable. They are ripping apart our spirits, leaving us with a feeling of despair and helplessness. But, thank God for Black Commentator which is on the frontlines of resistance, refusing to become a victim of the racist discourse-setting media, which can be predicted to always constrain the range of possible public discussion.
thinks out of the box as again evidenced by Dr. Nzito's fascinating tour of the white racist psyche, informing us on how their make-believe virtual world becomes institutionalized.
In his brilliant
According to racist logic, lies can be transformed into truths abroad by sheer military force or economic strangulation or both. At home, a public gullible to the propaganda onslaught is all that would be required. After all, it is their interest that the Administration seeks to defend. To accomplish this is no mean task, and must require that a concerted campaign of disinformation precede the evil deeds that will follow. Lies would normally resist their transformation into truths by any rational means. So long as a constituency of like-minded racists can be molded and maintained - and that has rarely been a problem - racist policies will continue to thrive and war would continue to be rationalized as a legitimate tool of American foreign policy.
Derrick Gibson juxtaposes the actual psychological warfare waged jointly by U.S. media and the organs of the Bush state, and the so far nonexistent foreign germ warfare attacks that Americans are conditioned to fear.
Black Commentator appears to have an innate ability to give voice to the timely truth that needs to be told. Contemporaneously with my review of your latest edition on the delusion the embedded media is fostering upon the nation, one lone embedded reporter discovered the strength within to lift his head from out the sand and actually see the world for what it is.
The last few days, all major US networks have been in a tizzy discussing a video that depicted the Iraqi president in a meeting with several men and one woman - whom they constantly referred to as "Dr. Germ". The obvious implication being once again that Iraq was preparing to use weapons of little destruction (let's face it: there has never been any mass destruction from germ warfare) against the "Coalition of the Greedy, Bought and Coerced". After days of attempts to inflame irrational fears, this one reporter finally said, "Not sure what video you are seeing, but the one I saw actually had an Iraqi female cabinet member and not the germ warfare specialist." The unrepentant anchor - Wolf Blitzer - was forced to concede the error, but no additional thought was given to this new detail. Where were the follow-up questions, such as: This evil oppressor has women in his government? Can Kuwait or Saudi Arabia say that?
This brief interlude of reality was quickly snuffed before it was allowed to infect the viewers with truth and the next video clip showed British soldiers doing their best "NYPD" impression with a door-to-door, presumed guilty search for weapons. The beat goes on.
So determinedly delusional are the corporate media that, despite operating budgets in the hundreds of millions, they manage to lose encyclopedias of facts from recent American history, involving momentous events that they themselves covered. Saddam Hussein's rise as a proxy regional warlord for the United States is one such missing piece of history, a fact that has become dead, cold and invisible to the corporate media just 12 years after the relationship was sundered by the first Gulf War. Among the national broadcast media, only not-quite-corporate PBS seems to remember whose bottle the Saddam genie popped out of.
Stephen Billock picks up the trail of Bush-media lies.
I inadvertently came upon this program last night on PBS. I had only seen the last part which disclosed the role the Pirates played in not only getting us into this mess but also lining their pockets beyond belief in the process. Many in this group led by Richard Perle before he "resigned" have had unlimited access to the TV news media since the 9-11 attacks. They have been seen attempting to link Saddam to these attacks despite there being no proof. This lie has been highly successful mainly because Bush often refers to the attacks in the same sentence when speaking about Saddam. The success of this lie can be measured by a news item disclosing that the vast majority of the US Marine Corps believe that Saddam was the perpetrator.
Another lie was when they also linked Saddam to the anthrax attacks. This falsehood was short-lived when the FBI rained on their victory parade by disclosing the disease was domestically produced. None of these frauds against facts would be successful without the collusion of our mainstream news media, which airs "a lie-a-day and two on Wednesday."
(The quotes are a bit of plagiarism on my part. I remember a story told to me by a black co-worker. He said, "The colonel on the ol' plantation got his mint juleps six days a week but on Wednesday he got piss." The big difference in this analogy is our government and media are dispensing "piss" to us seven days a week since the 9-11 attacks.)
Richard Wilcox sends greetings from Tokyo.
Great commentary on the corporate media, racism etc. While a terribly sad and frightening topic, your commentary was also very witty (we need that too).
Mr. Wilcox works closely with non-governmental environmental organizations in Asia.
Hunting "sand niggers"
At least three million people of Arab descent live in the United States.
I absolutely love your latest article in Counterpunch. Just a few days ago, I was telling my husband how horrible it is that a bunch of racist white guys are murdering innocent brown people. You see I am one of those people. I am not an Iraqi but I come from the same ethnic/religious group as the Shi'ites. I told my husband that this is colonialism all over again. This invasion (it's not a war) is being put on, as Robert Fisk, says "not by the coalition of the willing" but by an "Anglo-American force". Fisk couldn't have got it more right.
Thank you for a great article, keep up the fabulous work!!
British journalist Robert Fisk writes for The Independent (UK).
M. Johnson, another
I just finished reading (after sending it to friends and soon-to-be enemies) another in a series of brilliant articles. I am surprised that no one seems to catch the pun-in-waiting as to "embedded" (in bed, duh). Also, your evaluation of our giddy media is right on and I must congratulate you for getting "vampirish" and Paula Zahn in the same sentence. One thing I frequently notice, being an actual son of a "sand nigger," and damn proud of it, is that most Middle East "experts" are not only white, but Jewish (Friedman, Pipes, Ledeen, Miller, Schwartz, Lewis, Emerson, Gold, etc). This same expertise extends to the topics of Arabs and Islam, and of course terrorism, as if people who actually have roots in this region, or are themselves Arabs or Muslims could not possibly know as much of these things as, say, some Jewish guy from Brooklyn. It is not unusual therefore to turn on CNN (or any other network) and see Aaron Brown or Wolf Blitzer chummily interviewing a fellow Zionist (and of course challenging nothing) and presenting the resultant propaganda as revelation.
As to Leon Harris, he is like most other Black pundits, anchors, talk show hosts and journalists allowed on Fox, CNN and MSNBC: a White Republican in blackface.
Mr. Johnson must have anticipated this week's
It is further true that CNN's Leon Harris has the political insight of a local weatherman, minus the intellect. We single out the most egregiously grinning Black anchors for special scorn because they represent a double insult to African Americans: first, they revel in the role of front persons for a racist ideology; second, they appear ridiculous in the process - some, like Harris-at-war, more ridiculous than others. This is truly a perversion of the old term, "credit to the race."
Bruce Tomczak reminds us that the current war fits neatly in the American historical pattern.
This corporate media will sell us all down the river if we aren't vigilant. And you are so correct in calling this attack on Iraq another racist war. Think of all the ones the U.S. has engaged in. I think Bush almost slipped and said this in his press conference with Blair.
Keep up the incisive observations and fine writing. I admire your passion and candor.
The United States is now engaged in a racist foreign war as its primary national project. That road leads straight back to home, writes a reader named Russell.
Your recent article about embedded reporting should be a call to arms for all people of color. There is obviously a racial bias to this perspective of white is right. I hear many undertones to comments about this slaughter and it is obvious that the statements are aimed at anyone that is not lily white. The Nazi's with their super race hideousness would feel right at home with this Bush Regime.
This Nation's assault on the red man and enslavement of the black man should at least steel us against such an unethical attack on people of color everywhere on the planet. The African Nation's have been pillaged for their assets and millions of their people forced into starvation or denied medical services to the point of extinction or just mowed down by U.S. supplied weapons. We are considered "useless eaters" by this self-anointed elite and we will be eliminated so that they might have even greater excesses at the expense of our very lives.
Jean-Paul Godon, of Paris, France, would like some clarification of the language employed by
It should come as no surprise to you that some French citizen out there finds himself in agreement with the spirit and content of your "Onward Embedded Soldiers " article. I can understand that from a strictly US perspective you refer to "White America" much like Michael Moore does to "Stupid White Men". To be sure, I note that you are careful to often use the words "White" and "America" together, but statements such as "white violence seems arbitrary to sane human beings. We understand racist behavior largely through the repetitive patterns of the pathology -- how "white folks act" maybe need the same qualification.
My point is that there are many white people outside of the US (and also inside, I believe) who would very much appreciate not being confused, solely on account of their color, with the gang of people you (In my view rightly) oppose. Looking at the issues world-wide, I guess generalizations along color lines simply do not work when dealing with the situation in Iraq, for instance. As a matter of fact, this situation also makes me uneasy with the notion of being a "Westerner", on account of what two of the so-called "western" countries are doing out here. (The present US administration and the British Labour government probably see each other as the vanguard of "bona-fide (!!)" White Westerners, alas.)
As for me, I need no category to thank you for your article.
France, of course, has its own murderous history, including the death of up to one million Algerians in the War of Independence (1954 - 62). However, unlike the United States, the French nation and culture were not born in slavery and wars of extermination.
We share part of our response to Mr. Godon, regarding how "white folks act."
The phrase "how white folks act" is a working generalization used by generations of African Americans to describe patterns of white behavior. In a racist society, members of the dominant race exercise - act out - their power over the oppressed in mutually recognizable ways: that's "how white folks act." White exceptions are notable, but not very useful for learning how to make life less difficult or painful.
We suspect that non-whites in France employ similar working generalizations.
Who's gonna take the weight?
Just as many white people believe that racism is a simple matter of individual likes and dislikes, so the term "segregated society" is conveniently misunderstood as limited to Jim Crow social and spatial arrangements. Institutional racism remains a mystery to most of those who are privileged by it - including many white Americans who consider themselves progressives. They wonder why African Americans do not flock to anti-war rallies in numbers at least proportionate to the Black population.
Donna J. Warren is no stranger to predominantly white organizations - she ran for Lt. Governor of California last year on Green ticket. In her March 27 Guest Commentary, "Are Black People Pulling Their Anti-War Weight?" Ms. Warren listed four "good reasons" that anti-war sentiment among the Black public, leadership and media has not translated into large numbers at demonstrations.
1. Black people remain under the prison industrial complex in proportions far greater than our proportion of the population.
2. White activists do not share leadership with, and are not willing to follow the lead of people and organizations of color.
3. The movement against the war on Iraq fails to recognize the continuing war on communities of color. White activists continue to ignore issues that speak to the experiences and struggles of people of color.
4. Current demonstrations, disproportionately white and middle class, are done by those who can most easily take the time and expense to travel to major anti-war events.Ms. Warren asked, as did
Americans live in very different worlds. In much of Black America, police state conditions have existed for some time and people of color are disproportionately subjected to poor schools, inadequate jobs, poor health care, and poor housing. The White anti-war movement needs to recognize these facts, and work with Black activists to bring an end to America's war on our communities.
I have written to thank her for making this clear to even those of us who would otherwise question ourselves, motives and seemingly lack of response. Instinctively we do not respond to the massa's call. Just cuz he sick don't make us sick. And even if we're both sick, the source of infection and point of inoculation are different. He can't relate and won't seek to and quite frankly I could care less if he does. This is ours to address. We must apply the salve. We must turn everything inside out, to get a better view, a different reference point, in order to understand the historical impact of racism on our behavior as a collective family. And then, we must turn from this external reference point, turning outside in, to liberate and elevate ourselves according to our standards and definition for key attributes of a free people.
Why Pick On Condi?
At the tale end of The Issues column of last week's
Kane got very upset. Apparently believing he could chase Baraka's skeeza hoodoo from Condoleezza's person by denying the charge three times in quick succession, Kane wrote:
It is something Rice certainly is not. Baraka knows she's not. Those blacks who laughed, giggled, tittered and applauded when Baraka said it know she's not.
Puff - she's not a skeeza! We at
What exactly was the point of the "Condoleezza's a Skeezer" account? I'm not sure it was necessary or up to the high standard of relevance that I love
Fearing that we had impetuously alienated a sensitive and intelligent reader, we made haste to reply:
Dear Ms. Sublett:
The Condoleezza item is what was called a "kicker" in broadcast news - a short, unconventional, sometimes humorous, human interest item at the end of the lineup.
Having given the straight explanation, we are sure you are aware that we have great disdain for the woman. It would be silly for us to pretend otherwise. We have made our political case on the matter many times. We also believe that columnist Kane's nonplussed reaction to Baraka's crowd-pleasing insult - which Baraka probably employs at each of his campus speaking engagements - was indicative of an ancient mindset among many African Americans, one that paralyzes the community in pretense and false celebration of non-existent victories.
The young people at Coppin know exactly what older Blacks know: Rice is a paid mercenary for the enemy. The vernacular has other names for that. Kane's reaction was remarkably lame. He appeared ridiculous. It was as if someone had called his mother a whore, and he answered the insult with three denials: "No, she's not. You know she's not a 'ho. You know it!"
So yes, there was more than wicked playfulness in our placement of the Condoleezza item, made possible by columnist Kane's sputtering defense of her. We would have had a harder time justifying a simple account of Baraka's insult. Kane's column spread Baraka's characterization of Rice as a "skeeza" far beyond Coppin's campus, the equivalent of a kid telling the schoolyard, "Did you hear that Bobby called Jimmy's mother a 'ho?"
We just couldn't pass it up.No sooner had we composed a response to Ms. Sublett's letter, than another arrived from Deonna Moore, of Fairlawn, Ohio.
While I am opposed to this war due to the fact that it is more personal gain than "to rid the world of evil," I think that Baraka's comment about Condoleezza Rice being a "skeeza" was unnecessary. There are other ways to get your feelings and opinions across than to use derogatory and slanderous words. I am also disappointed to have read that blacks encouraged his remarks.
I am not a fan of the Bush administration. However, when I see black people trying to be successful, I try to be as supportive as I can. I know that people have called Condi an "Uncle Tom," and other names. I respect her for the fact that she has an important job in a hated administration. We, as black people need to stop tearing one another down. I think that she is handling her position well considering her circumstances. I have never heard anything about her personal life in the press, and from what I see, she is consumed by her duties and this war. Baraka needs to look up words and find the definition before he opens his mouth. After reading the article in the Baltimore Sun and the NY Times in depth, he truly made an idiot out of himself. I would not be a bit upset if Ms. Rice did not pursue a Defamation of Character suit against him.Feeling utterly Condi'd out, we took comfort in the arrival of an email from Chris Citko.
God bless you. You are completely right! Bush-devil exploits most brilliant black people for his imperialism!
Let us pray for peace!
Amen to that! For a more complete exposition of
World recoils from U.S.
The sheer destructiveness of America's rampaging military belies the inherent fragility of the U.S. position in the world, resting as it does on an artificial dollar supremacy that must ultimately evaporate based on the realities of a deteriorating American economy. Shock and Awe cannot coerce the planet into doing business with a rogue nation. Bush's naked bid for world domination will surely accelerate a planetary withdrawal from entanglement with the U.S. wherever possible - the thrust of
Although they are incapable of realizing it, the Bush men have revealed themselves to the world - the audience for Shock and Awe - as grotesquely ugly, brutish, irredeemably repugnant human beings whose touch must be avoided under all circumstances. Every plan and project of individuals and nations will be shaped by having witnessed a racist America raining fire on a weaker people - and reveling in the crime.... The Pirates have accelerated the processes of their own ruin.
Catherine Wright, of Henderson, Nevada would like to see the same light that we see at the end of a long and bloodstained tunnel. But she fears what will happen to Americans in the interim.
In paraphrasing the words of one of your readers - Regina Tillman, Issue 34 - your newsletters provides for food for my soul. Please keep keeping on because what you give is so needed during this horrible time of history, this naked aggression against Iraq under the guise of liberating Iraq. With the passage of Patriot I and Patriot II on the horizon, I am in the process of printing all of your back issues - so that I can reap some solace during the upcoming battle of darkness and depravity that will occur in this country. Thanks for
The Fire Right Now
In our March 13 commentary, "Racism and War: Perfect Together,"
The criminal enterprise on which the United States is embarked - the ghastly equivalent of a live-fire, multi-megaton Fourth of July celebration of the New American Century - is the end product of a society shaped by genocide and slavery. White America sees the world through the eyes of the mass murderer and slaveholder. Were it not so, there would not exist the grotesque disconnect between white American public opinion and the opinions of mankind, shared generally by Black America. Bush would not be possible.
Chris Herz writes as an intimate of the war mongering masses.
I am a white male voter, one of the few who did not cast his ballot for the selected president. But I agree with every word of your wise article of the 13th.
Most of my contemporaries are entirely convinced that things went way too far in the sixties. They want affirmative action nowhere but in the prisons. They are quite convinced that "their" God placed "their" oil under Iraq's sands. And they are quite prepared to kill any and all who might get in the way.
My heart is filled with joy to see them exposed before all the world for the Fascists that they really are. Even their fellow whites in Europe cannot stand them.
As if on cue, Helmut Schlieger sent us this note, from Germany.
Thanks for your clear stand on the new campaign. It may well be future generations will look back on the American people with the same harshness of judgment with which many of us look back on the 1930s Germans.
And thus we see the actual direction of political globalization in these harrowing times, as C. Lee, an African American, finds common ground with Helmut, a German.
I think your commentary was one of the best analyses of white America that I've read in awhile. White Americans are the only people I know that want to be loved by the world, yet do everything they can to make the world hate them.
Denothra Rose writes with suggestions to our reading list.
Thank you for your astute observations. I have not read any thing regarding this fabricated war that was as on target as your analysis. Not since Dr. Bobby Wright in his book, "The Psychopathic Racial Personality" described the warped thinking that has embodied white American racial policy toward persons of color, have I seen anyone write so clearly on this subject.
For years African Americans have been trying to make sense out of American racial policy, but have come away scratching our heads because there is no sense to be made of this.
Thank you for coming on out and saying what has been on the minds of people of color regarding American racial policy: These people are crazy!
David Elliott says the article "could not have been more on-point." Mr. Elliott also offers reading suggestions.
Your excellent article on Racism & War could not have been more on-point. It should be required reading for all Black people in this country to help remove the blinders that most of us have on. We need to see and understand the very tenuous nature of our existence and how dangerous the pathological disease of "white supremacy" actually is. I would recommend that all of your readers pick up a copy of The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. This landmark work gets to the very essence of white supremacy and explains in detail how it is deeply rooted in racism.
Please keep up your excellent work.High time to charge Crimes and Misdemeanors
As we reported last week, "Congressman John Conyers, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, is methodically examining the case for a bill of impeachment against George Bush." Reader Kurt Kiebler, for one, wishes Conyers would hurry up.
I am glad to hear that Representative John Conyers is finally hearing from the public the proposal to impeach the president. As far as I know, he is the only representative to stand up and do so. When Rep. Conyers was in Kansas City, he indicated he had a high stack of proposals and was waiting for the right time. In these days of "shock and awe," I believe the time is now.
Fort Lauderdale's Al Buono is also impatient.
International lawyer Francis Boyle's brief, in which he charges Bush with "'a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations' against the Constitution since September 11, 2001 is available in the January 17 issue of Counterpunch. But it struck me in reading your report that John Conyers is not taking this as seriously as he should, as all the Democrats in House and Senate should be taking this. It needs some momentum and the Black and Progressive Caucuses can provide that. Perhaps he can enlist the aid of Kucinich and Pelosi - and Barbara Lee of course.
This needs some heat and quickly before Bush claims some sort of victory and his minions "find" the WMDs and nuclear weapons which he and Blair claimed were buried in the desert.Bush will "find" whatever he arranges to find - and the embedded media will stamp his validation ticket.
The road well taken
Carole K. White is lucky enough to live within broadcast range of WABC-TV's "Like It Is," the venerable Sunday program hosted by Gil Noble. "Like It Is" has been a New York institution for around 30 years, during which time Gil Noble has imparted more relevant information through a larger number and broader spectrum of Black leadership than any program in the nation. There exists no Black broadcast entity with a comparable history and value. The show is a Black National Treasure and, for that reason, constantly in danger of elimination.
We thought this preamble would provide proper context for Ms. White's letter to
Just a note to tell you how much I am enjoying "The BlackCommentator.com." I came upon it in a round-about way. In watching Gil Noble's "Like It Is," with Cynthia McKinney today, I decided for the first time to email Mr. Noble regarding my deep appreciation of the day's program and the valuable information that I gained from Ms. McKinney. On his website there is a message board. On the message board there was a link to your site. I have now forwarded that link to several of my closest friends.
I cannot tell you how important your work is to me. I had started to wonder if there were any African Americans in positions of influence that were willing to tell "the other side" of this nonsensical war and its deeper, darker meanings. You and your guest commentators have taken all of my "wandering feelings" and put them into words that exactly express my concerns. Until I came upon your sight, the NY Village Voice was the only other journalistic endeavor attempting to give some kind of check and balance to this heavily (and falsely) weighted war. You can be sure that I will be a regular visitor to your site.
Lydia Thomas, of Riverdale, Georgia, came to
I discovered your publication several weeks ago from a link on the Counterpunch website and cannot tell you how much I enjoy reading it. Your articles are always so well-written, insightful, relevant and revealing!! After reading each issue, I find myself sending certain if not every article to those of my friends without Internet access.
Keep up the work you're doing; our community desperately needs an alternative to the otherwise biased and bought media we see, hear and read.This has truly been a week of discovery for
I discovered your work when issue 26 was linked in Counterpunch and have read ever since. In case you're keeping track of the diversity of your audience, I'm a 31-year-old white male from Alabama and currently read you from Mexico, where I am a teacher. Every day I see in the "news" one more example of the mask coming off of the USA and I think about how things couldn't possibly get worse. Then I read
Keep it up!
We hope it does not seem that we are intentionally poaching Counterpunch's most intelligent readers. It has just worked out that way, for which we are grateful.
Mary Anne Cummings is a newcomer, too.
I am only recently acquainted with your commentary, but have been truly impressed by the depth and thoroughness of your analysis and insight. Apart from the obvious intelligent and informed nature of your columns, I find them also hopeful... maybe because truth is so skillfully expressed, it seems that it will prevail sooner or later over the "forces of darkness". And also such a relief!
Then I go back to the MSNBC website.... ARGGHH! Big mistake!Unforeseen consequences
Victoria signs her letters, "Cheerio." Therefore, we do not believe she sees the world as darkly as this letter might indicate.
I love your magazine. I found it recently on Liberal Oasis. It's one of the few things keeping me alive right now as America descends into a police state. I do think black folks will probably do better than almost anybody in this climate because, hey, you're used to the police state. You've been dealing with it for, oh, about 400 years. Keep on keepin' on. All of us depressed liberals need Black Commentator to keep us from blowin' our brains out.
We feel compelled to caution Victoria that such comments could lead the Bush men to conclude that elimination of
Dear Anonymous Educator
Finally, we respond to a writer who must remain anonymous, for reasons that will soon become clear. This person teaches at an historically Black university where, the writer reports,
"Ignorance," the educator counters, "is universal" and "the obliviousness of my white and black students is completely equal, and equally astonishing. On this, they are united. Replacing one prejudice with another gets us nowhere," said the teacher.
On this critical point, the writer is fundamentally wrong. The Black students are surely aware that white racism is a powerful, evil force in the life of the nation. This knowledge is what sets them apart from most of their white peers, and allows them to see the world more clearly. It is the difference that separates the Black American polity from the white. This clarity, which is denied most white people, allows Black intelligence to flourish even in poverty and informational deficit, while white racism destroys the cognitive capacities of afflicted individuals and nations as surely as the most virulent cancer.
The teacher cannot recognize or value this cognitive capacity in his/her Black students, because he/she does not understand the nature of racism. And it is not simply because the teacher is white. Were that true, there would be no future for the United States outside of Tim McVeigh's twisted Oklahoma City visions.
There is hope for American white folks, yet. Some of them. But our teacher needs to do some serious self-examination, as do many of his Black co-educators.
Keep writing.
In addition to the sites mentioned above, BC gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for featuring our commentaries during the past month:
HipHop-Elements
www.hiphop-elements.com/Take Back The Media.com
www.takebackthemedia.comSons of Afrika
www.sonsofafrika.orgU.N. OBSERVER & International Report
www.unobserver.comBlack Electorate
www.blackelectorate.com/
www.blackcommentator.comYour comments are welcome. Visit the Contact Us page for E-mail or Feedback.
