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We're back from our break. We accomplished a great deal on projects you will see the results of in the not too distant future.

One change is an updating of our Advertise with Us and rate pages making our ad sizes and prices much easier to understand. Gone is the arcane rate chart. Now we simply say that we have a wide range of ad sizes and positions to accommodate any budget. So, give us a shout and begin a plan to reach our unique and highly influential audience of readers like you.

You will also hopefully notice the display ad encouraging organizations and businesses with a social conscience to get in touch with us to advertise products, services and job openings.

We invite you to check out the Job Postings page. You'll find a job posting by SEIU Local 399 in Southern California. If you or someone you know is ready to join SEIU Local 399 in its fight to organize for economic justice, please click on the ad and follow up.

Since August 5th when we published our best of 's 101 the Website was not without changes. Each week a new RADIO BC audio commentary was recorded by Co-Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Glen Ford. If you have not yet made listening to RADIO BC a part of your weekly visit, please visit the RADIO BC page and check out how we sound!

withdrawal pains

Our publication breather was not intended to cause problems, but we received the following message from an anonymous addict.

Help!

What has happened to my weekly newsletter????

These withdrawals pains aren't easy!!

And this one from Lynn Chadderdon.

HEY !!

Am a basket case until ya'll return!!

We hope this issue will serve as an adequate fix.

The "Rosetta Stone" of your Computer

Abby in Honolulu has made the RADIO BC connection.

I have attempted to listen to the RADIO BC commentary a few times in the past. However, each time I failed to manipulate my computer software correctly. I rarely utilize my PC's media capabilities, and I was discouraged.

Today, I learned something - two things actually.

First, I learned I don't need a broadband subscription to listen to your radio program, because my 56k dial-up connection is adequate. Second, I believe this is the first time I have heard anyone adequately address how the US Democratic Senators ignored the crime of 2000 (or maybe I was just asleep before, nevertheless, Amen!).

Now that I have discovered the "Rosetta Stone" of my PC, I will be listening to all of your radio commentaries.

We did not chose the Windows Media Player as the format for RADIO BC because we have a love affair with Microsoft, but because it works on any computer (PC or MAC) and comes free with Windows operation or can be downloaded free. It also does not bother you with constant upgrades or promotional messages to sign up for news, music or other items. If you don't like Microsoft, but must admit WMP is the best choice, just hold your nose, download it so you can listen to RADIO BC. Sort of like preparing to vote for John Kerry so you can stop listening to W.

Back Issue reading of

The activity logs of our Website tell us what pages are being visited. Therefore, we are encouraged on a regular basis to see readers checking out previously published commentaries. However, our working vacation issue encouraged readers to include past issues of in their late summer reading. We are pleased with the results in the data and the e-Mail it generated.

Martin F. Harper of High Point, North Carolina sent a note of praise, but was disappointed with our Best of 101 Cartoons choices.

Thank God Almighty for this bastion of truth called Black Commentator.com!

How could you leave off the Clarence Thomas in a dress cartoon as a "top 101" when the article it inspired was definitely a top 101? (just my opinion).

Keep up the good work!

Brother Harper is correct - so here she is - A female Clarence Thomas!

Those hard-right idiots are so insane they don't know how to read a cartoon. If Clarence Thomas was a woman he would look almost exactly how we depicted him.

Speaking of cartoons, Marjorie Loring spent some time on our Cartoons Page where every cartoon we have ever published can be viewed.

I remember the days when cartoons made me laugh.

Today, I spent five minutes in the above named section of and I sit here weeping.

Thank you.

I'll pass them along.

We don't want to make you sad, but if "29" touches your heart, we guess that's good.

Camille Sanders went back to issue number 20 to read about America's Black Right-Wing Forum.

I read with great interest your article about the new and not improved Americas Black Forum program. I ceased watching the show several years ago, when Armstrong Williams and Juan Williams joined the helm. Has a paradigm shift occurred in the African American media community that would allow a pit-bull like Williams to encroach on what the show once stood for? What happened? The Williams team makes Julian Bond look completely out of place which renders his political perspectives to become null and void. I watched with utter disgust as Julian Bond grappled with trying to make his point while appearing helpless in the jaws of Armstrong Williams.

This is appalling and sad at best. How did this happen? As your article correctly states, the Fox agenda is clearly in focus here. What are the alternatives? Are the Armstrong Williams of the world the new face of Black media; are they here to stay? Isn't there a much better alternative than this pit-bull journalism that Fox News has adapted as their new "journalistic" paradigm. I am truly disturbed by all of this.

Reader Jimmie also likes our take on Armstrong Williams.

You are right on point!

Oh my goodness!!! It's so refreshing to read from a group of African American people who can see the garbage that people like Armstrong Williams can't. I wonder what he will do when the racist establishment turns on him, as it always does in the long run.

Our response regarding Armstrong Williams:

Don't fret about the future of Armstrong Williams. He has already made millions performing his "special" services to the enemy. He represents near-zero opinion in Black America - and will not be mourned.

Patricia Sharp checks in from Maine to attack the corporate beast.

I'm too busy, struggling for my own survival, to do more than scan your article today... but I wanted to write a quick note.

We old 55 yrs. & up, Wasps in the rural areas have joined the urban blacks in being marginalized, by the corporate beast! I am in Washington County Maine, one of the biggest "drug problems areas " in the country (on a
smaller scale) and where a number of us retired, have fled for refuge.

In '92 I drove across the southern US, & up RT #5 to get to my Mother in Portland OR. I noticed the pockets of older Americans in all the little towns I passed through. (The food was always better out there!")

I'm suggesting joining forces... after the election, when Kerry wins! Then our work just begins!

Discovering Obama

The speech by Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Boston brought a number of readers to issue number 45 in June of 2003, including this anonymous person from Pennsylvania.

I enjoyed your commentary "In Search of the real Barack Obama".

How far do you folks think this young man will get if he does not begin the long and arduous process of bartering and bargaining for his rightful place among our nation's "leaders" ( I use this phrase lightly )?

Although it might be possible for him to get elected by holding fast to his original platform, how long do you folks think it would be before he would be marginalized and cast off by his "colleagues" in the Senate, as just another person of color on "an emotional mission"?

The cries of the people in this country for "justice" have been falling on deaf ears since the killing years of the late 60's.

I wish him well, pray for him and hope that he can politic his way into this rat infested system and manage to keep most of the stench off him in the process. There is so much that needs doing for our community that, unfortunately, can only be done from the inside.

Thanks for your enlightening piece. I will keep a closer eye on his progress as a result.

Unfortunately for Obama, some of his comments tied him in with crazy Bill the pound cake comedian according to John Eden of Jesup, Georgia.

Hooray for "No Fools Allowed"! So glad to see the return of the reader's column, interesting new format, tho it doesn't sound like you...

Re: the 'acting white' issue - in my experience here in the deep south, black kids are more likely to shut out other black kids and accuse them of 'selling out' for dating or otherwise hanging out with whites, or for how they speak than for doing well in school.

Of course you know, Cosby and the others are just saying what will gain them white approbation. Can we name that the Clarence Thomas phenomena? It's what the kids call "sucking up." It's part of the nature of authoritarian, power-based systems.

I'm interested in what you and others think of Barack Obama, who said we must "eradicate the slander that says that a black youth with a book is acting white." I'm not sure exactly what he means by that, and it was probably tweaked to fit into the whole carefully scripted mold of the DNC anyway, but most of his speech was excellent -- perhaps if he reads the August issue you're promising, he'll turn out to be a positive force for progressive change. He's certainly got the political gifts!

I am still amazed by the great stuff you publish - installment 5 of the Plan for Cities is one of the most hopeful and inspiring things I've read in a while. Even as a white rural professional, I can fight Walmart.

Thanks again!

Brother Eden has noticed the slightly different house negro and oreo naming smart-assed voice of No Fools Allowed. No Fools Allowed will always speak from a position of anger, militancy and impatience.

Alan Keyes in his own words

People For the American Way sent us an e-Mail containing The Wit and Wisdom of Alan Keyes.

Alan Keyes, a right-wing pundit and former presidential and senatorial candidate who lives in Maryland, is reportedly considering a run for the U.S. Senate on the Republican Party ticket in Illinois. Here, in his own words, is a sampling of Alan Keyes’ record and rhetoric.

Keyes on Running for Office in another state in 2004:

Former GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes told Illinois Republicans Monday that he is ‘‘open to the idea’’ of taking on the Democrat in the U.S. Senate race ... Keyes lives in Maryland.

Chicago Sun Times, “GOP wooing Keyes to take on Obama,” August 3, 2004

Keyes on Running for Office in another state in 2000:

“And I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton’s willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn’t imitate it.”

Fox News, “Special Report with Brit Hume,” March 17, 2000

Alan Keyes on principle in 2004:

“I do not take it for granted that it’s a good idea to parachute into a state and go into a Senate race,” he said before meeting the Republican leaders. “As a matter of principle, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Chicago Tribune, “GOP Wants Keyes,” August 5, 2004

Alan Keyes on principle in 1996.

“This must be a terrible feeling,” Keyes tells his would-be supporters. “You make a decision based on expediency, and it doesn’t work. And then you are left without expediency and without principle. With nothing. This is sad, I never want to wake up the day after an election or any time else with that emptiness in me, knowing I have given away the things that matter most for the sake of what I thought would win and finding that I have lost and have nothing.”

Minnesota Christian Chronicle,

“In ignoring Keyes, Christian voters choose expediency over principle,” Feb 22, 1996

Keyes on the Republican Party

In 1992, according to the Washington Post, as Republican nominee in Maryland’s U.S. Senate contest that year, Keyes denounced the national leadership of his party as racist, saying senior GOP officials had ignored or disparaged his campaign because he is black. GOP leaders “basically are sending the message that beyond a certain level blacks need not apply,” Keyes said. “If I can work out in the fields, I think I ought to be allowed to come into the house for dinner.”

Washington Post, “GOP Hopeful Says Party Is Racist,” August 14, 1992

Keyes on Moderate Republicans

“On all the matters that touch upon the critical moral issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the evil side. This is a fact. A mere list of the positions he supports is enough to make this plain: abortion as a ‘right,’ cloning of human beings, governmental classification of citizens by race, public benefits for sexual partners outside of marriage, disrespect for property rights against environmental extremism, repudiation of the right to bear arms - no more need be said to show that this candidate is wrong where human decency, human rights and human responsibility bear directly on political issues.”

WorldNetDaily, “Arnold’s corruption of Republican Party,” October 6, 2003

Keyes on Black Leaders

“ I think part of it is that the Black leadership, the vocal ones that the media concentrates on, are all bought-and-sold, step-and-fetch-its of depravity for the Democratic party.”

People For the American Way Foundation, “Eyewitness Report from the C-PAC Conference,” February 21, 1999

“I think it would be a terrible shame to abandon the fate of America or the black community to the likes of people who are speaking as Julian Bond has spoken, but more importantly, the likes of people who have supported policies that have destroyed the black family, that support abortion, which is committing genocide against black people in this country with devastating demographic results that we have already seen in the course of the last census.”

Hannity and Colmes, “Interview with Alan Keyes,” July 12, 2004

Keyes on Reproductive Choice

“The violation on [sic] innocent human life is the same whether you commit terrorism or commit abortion.”

People For the American Way Foundation, “The Vocabulary of Terror: Anti-abortion politics since 9/11,” April 10, 2002

“I will never again cast a vote for an individual I in conscience believe to be pro-choice, pro-abortion, not pro-life. Based on the confession of his heart in New Hampshire, when John McCain told us clearly that he would tell his daughter it was her choice -- and every woman is somebody’s daughter, so if you tell the daughters of America it’s their choice, you’re pro-choice. He is pro- choice, he is not pro-life. I will not support a pro-choice, pro- abortion candidate.”

Republican Presidential Debate, March 2, 2002

Keyes on Homosexuality

“Hitler and his supporters were Satanists and homosexuals. That’s just a true statement.” He added that, “The notion that is involved in homosexuality, the unbridled sort of satisfaction of human passions” leads to “‘totalitarianism,’ ‘Nazism,’ and ‘communism.’”

People For the American Way Foundation, “Hostile Climate 1997,” p.26

Keyes on Equal Rights for Gay Americans

“It’s about time we all faced up to the truth. If we accept the radical homosexual agenda, be it in the military or in marriage or in other areas of our lives, we are utterly destroying the concept of family. We must oppose it in the military. We must oppose it in marriage. We must oppose it if the fundamental institution of our civilization is to survive. Those unwilling to face that fact and playing games with this issue are doing so irresponsibly at the price of America’s moral foundations.”

Republican Presidential Debate, January 6, 2000

Keyes on Hate Crimes Legislation

“The whole push with respect to hate crimes legislation is an effort to create a body of law that allows the government to coerce opinions, and to punish people because of their opinions. In this particular case, the opinion that is going to be punished is the opinion that homosexuality is immoral and against the laws of God. That opinion is now going to become a crime. And this whole push with respect to hate crimes is an effort to establish that agenda.”

WorldNetDaily, “The Trouble with ‘Hate Crimes’,” October 16, 1998

Keyes on the Courts and Prayer in Public Schools

“If they tell us that we cannot pray in the classroom, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray in the hallways, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray at graduation ceremonies, we should pray. Because what they are doing fundamentally violates probably the most important of our God-given rights, which is the right to appeal for aid to our Almighty God.”

Renew America, “Alan Keyes on the Issues,” http://www.renewamerica.us/keyes/issues.htm

Keyes on Taxes

“The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. ... Only abolition of the income tax will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business not the government’s.”

Renew America, “Alan Keyes on the Issues,”

Keyes on the Democratic Party

“Democrats are going to have to go on record standing against the marriage-based family, standing for the continued annihilation of new generations of young black babies through the promotion of abortion in the black community. This is devastating, the truth is going to be told.”

Hannity and Colmes, “Interview with Alan Keyes,” July 12, 2004

Keyes on Affirmative Action

“Moreover, preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that secures money and jobs for the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people, and draws attention away from the moral and family breakdown that is the chief cause of the despair and misery in which too many of our fellow citizens struggle to live decently.”

Renew America, “Alan Keyes on the Issues,”

Keyes on Jews and Anti-Semitism

“The tragic and violent clashes between blacks and Jews are unhappily not the product of a unique and isolated set of circumstances. I believe that, unwittingly, Jewish supporters of the government-dominated welfare state approach to the economic and social problems of the black community helped to create the mentality that now produces anger and anti-Semitism in black neighborhoods.”

Alan Keyes, “Our Character, Our Future,” May 2, 1996, p. 48-50

Keyes on the First Amendment and Separation of Church and State

“[The Founding Fathers] put an amendment in the Constitution with … wording intended to tell the Congress and thereby the national government that the whole business of religious belief, that whole business of any regime, any attitude to be imparted through law, that it was none of the federal government’s business.

“Now, that still gives rise to the possibility. Some folks don’t want to see it. There might be states in which they require a religious test or oath of office. There might be states in which they have established churches, where subventions are given to schools and so forth to teach the Bible. There might be places where you and I might disagree with the religion some folks wanted to put in place over their communities. But guess what the Founders believed? They believed that people in their states and localities had the right to live under institutions they would put together to govern themselves according to their faith.”

Roy Moore Rally, Montgomery, Alabama, August 16, 2003

Compiled by People For the American Way, August 2004

Still upset with reactionary tripe

Anthony Ware writes to us about Spike Lee and the Cos.

Congratulations on the 100th issue!! Keep up the good work.

That Mars Blackman (Spike Lee) would follow lock step behind Bill Cosby with more reactionary tripe isn't surprising. Comments from a filmmaker that played plantation politics to make a bad film about Malcolm X, Lee should shut up and concentrate on making better films.

Cosby's comments on May 17, 2004 reflect sentiments he's had since 1968, according to Clarence Page Washington Post May 25, 2004. Why did it take 36 years? Classist diatribe and cowardice, in my opinion. To Bill, its working class and poor African Americans that prevented him from buying NBC instead of rich whites. Twisted logic.

Old Bill insults the memory of so many that fought for educational equity against Jim Crow by referring to Brown v. Board as a deal that lower socioeconomic blacks aren't upholding. Yet, none of his supporters seem to notice. His commentary diverted attention from meaningful dialogue regarding Integration in America in the context of Brown v. Board 50 years later.

Stating that Africans Americans are more concerned with police murder than thieves stealing pound cake and black men incarcerated in high numbers, Cosby casts his lot with the White Plutocracy, whose direct response to the Civil Rights/Black Power eras is state repression and the prison industrial complex.

Bill Cosby should cease and desist.

From Nassau, Bahamas Alexandrio Morley sends a thank you and uses the "T" word.

I don't know who you people are nor which heaven you all came from, but I would like to say; Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

I have been reading this publication for the last year now, and it feels as if my A.Q. (African Quotient) has increased two folds. I constantly find myself quoting your articles during heated debates with friends who believe that "Africa is dead" or that Black culture, politics and economics is becoming insignificant or marginalized with the coming of the new bogey man; globalization.

I am a young aspiring Afrocentric/Pan Africanist from the Bahamas, and I truly believe that your publication is the most progressive black magazine on the net. Trust me I know.

In answer to your question about Black Leadership; I truly believe that men like Mr. Cosby (sorry I meant Dr. Huckstable) should be called out Malcolm X style. I don't mean that he should be called a house nigger either. I believe that men like Mr. Cosby and others like him (e.g. Colin Powell) are not house negroes, because the argument can be made that house negroes did what they had to do to survive.

However men like Mr. Cosby, have been blessed with education, money, and success and yet they still tend to turn on their people or they simply believe that everyone else is not "trying hard enough". Forget labels like house nigger, sell-out or even black bourgeois, these men are plain and simple traitors to the race.

Yeah I said it; he is a traitor. Race hatred plus poor people bashing equals traitor in my book.

Keep up the excellent work.

An anti-racism Website worth visiting

contributor Tim Wise wrote to us to announce the creation of his anti-racism Website.

Hoping not to seem distressingly narcissistic (and because I have some requests to make), I wanted to let you all know about the launch of my website, www.timwise.org. I have put off doing this for a while because I know how important it is for those of us who are white allies in this anti-racist struggle to retain as much humility as possible, and something about a website named for oneself can seem counterintuitive to that need. In any event, I finally decided that because of the need to get some of these ideas out there to as broad an audience as possible (ideas which, to be sure, I owe all of you something, because they are in most cases yours as well as mine), I should go ahead and do this.

Having made that decision however, I want you all to know that I want this site to be a place where folks can find not just my writings, etc., but also really good links to other antiracist organizations, media outlets, etc., as well as recommended readings for people who might come upon the site (maybe because they saw me speak at their school or something), and who need to delve into this work more deeply. So...

Thanks y'all. Hope you're well.

Tim's site is so thick, it's dangerous to the workday of brothers and sisters.

Freedom Rider

Margaret Kimberly's column about Arabs on Planes and White People in the Board Room was applauded as a fantastic piece by Chad C. McCool.

The blatant bigotry and racism that has exploded in this country (all in the name of "Homeland Security") is absolutely disgusting. It frightens me to know that I am about to bring a child into the world with all of this going on, while White America sits by and feels that it is all okay.

The thing that truly saddened me was to hear on a news or pundit program, I can't recall (although it is hard to tell them apart these days), say that why were 14 Arab men allowed to be on the same flight.

I look forward to your pieces each week, keep up the fight; it does not fall on deaf ears.

Peace...

Joe Osorio kept it simple.

Margaret,

Keep White people away from money. I love it!

From Fayetteville, NC, Victor Hebert wants Margaret to hit the big time.

I really like your column. Lady, you are something special. Keep up the good work. In reading your recent contribution, I couldn't help but think, comically, that you are som nuther else (I think you may understand this
slang expression).

Lady, don't you know that our good suthrn and nawthrun
white folks are gonna cry foul when you tell the truth. I know. Almost as bad is their black surrogates.

I wish this article could be published on the front page of the New York Times, and every major paper in the nation.

Anyway, keep your rope for lynching lies, lies, and damn lies always taut.

May God be with you in your career.

Question of the Week

The question of the week brother Morley was referring to was the following which was published in the first No Fools Allowed column on August 5th. The question was:

How would you rate the current Black Leadership?

A - They are wonderful and love Bill Cosby like I do.

B - Not very angry, militant or impatient.

C - Need to be "called out" Malcolm X style.

Here are some of the responses we received.

From Kim Elliot:

The answer to the question of the week for me is : C - These Negroes need to be "called out" Malcolm X style.

For every example of Blacks who fail to rise above the challenges and obstacles placed in front of them by the reality of a tremendously race-judgmental society, I could show him ten of whites who, with every advantage and resource available to them, managed to lower themselves to the depths of marital failure, financial failure, addiction, crime, and personal degradation. But for some reason, these whites are never the ones contrasted with Blacks.

I just loved that response from Derbig Mooser about that Jell-O minstrel, fool cosby! I can't BELIEVE you actually got tons of people defending that fool. Ugh...

From Eric Bogan of Portland, Oregon:

How I would rate the current black leadership? Judging from the hoopla surrounding Cosby's street-corner tirades, not highly. Davey D mentioned the lack of visibility of members of the Congressional Black Caucus with some of the Nat'l Hip-Hop summit folks in Boston.

So, I would choose C.

From Jeanette Pollard:

That is a very loaded question. First, to define leadership. If you are referring to those people who manage to get themselves into the spotlight only to further their own ambitions, then there is no Black leadership in my opinion.

I believe that everyone, in his/her own little corner, can become a "leader", by speaking out and speaking up about issues that affect them and their surrounding community. I can't remember the last time I sought help from a so-called "leader", and I had more courage than the "leader" had.

From Elizabeth Quinn:

Firstly, what black leadership?

Sarcasm aside, my vote: B -- Not very angry, etc. (The Rev. Al's Dem Convention speech, notwithstanding.)

To call them out Malcom X style would be counterproductive, I think. People are confused enough and lack motivation.

For the record our very un-scientific poll did not receive a single vote for choice A.

Our question for this week is:

What percentage of American Blacks do you think are as far to the hard-right as Armstrong Williams?

A - Greater than one percent?

B - Are you kidding?

If you would like to suggest a question the No Fools Allowed column, please do. Remember, a multiple choice format is probably more fun for this rhetorical exercise.

We also think creating a question of the week for us would be a very entertaining exercise to do around the dinner table, the lunchroom table at work or school or an after work gathering.

Send your e-Mail to [email protected].

Thank you very much for your readership and keep writing.

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