During more than three years of publication, BC has gathered around
it a truly talented band of writers, who are kind enough to contribute
their brilliance to our humble publication. These ladies and gentlemen
have allowed us to fulfill our mission: to define and refine progressive
thought in the United States. Not all of them are Black. We at BC believe
that African Americans – and our non-Black allies – deserve the best
insights and knowledge that is available, and that the authors’ race
is secondary to their contribution to our understanding of the world.
We have not included all of our esteemed colleagues in the following
review, because they have become so numerous. To those who have been
left out of this yearly review, we apologize. Blame it on the heat,
and the failings of the Publishers, Glen Ford and Peter Gamble.
Patrice D. Johnson, one of our original contributors, warned that
the bogus “war on terror” had targeted non-profit organizations that,
in the warped minds of the Bush people, might have connections to individuals
on an enemies list. The list is arbitrary and capricious, but might
embroil innocent givers and charities in the national security network,
as Ms. Johnson wrote in her September
2, 2004 article, “Charity
and Homeland Security.”
”OMB Watch, a Washington-based non-profit that monitors the activities
of the White House Office of Management and Budget, issued a statement
calling on the CFC to ‘change its misguided policy.’ The group, a participant
in the federal fundraising drive and a member of the dissenting coalition
of non-profits, says in its statement that following Patermaster’s
directive would ‘force America’s charities to act as police investigators
and enforcers... Nonprofits may become reluctant – even if unconsciously – to
hire minorities, especially those who appear to be Islamic or of Middle-Eastern
descent, or whose names sound like people who might be on the blacklist.’”
The crime against democracy committed by the United States in
Haiti in the winter of 2004 continues to bleed the country, with
the complicity
of a cowed United Nations. Perhaps the most courageous reporter
on the scene in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is Kevin Pina, BC’s
Associate Editor. Mr. Pina braves the bullets of U.S.-sponsored
goons every day
to report on the rape of the New World’s first non-racial republic,
now reduced to a colony of the U.S., France, and Canada. On September
16, 2004, six months after the United States kidnapped and
exiled the elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
head of the Lavalas
Party, Kevin Pina set the record straight in our pages. The massed
corporate media had distorted history to mask an orgy of criminality,
wrote Pina, in an article titled “One Man’s Democracy is Another
Man’s
Chains: The Untold Story of Aristide’s Departure from Haiti”:
”The Lavalas party’s land reform for the peasants and universal
literacy programs are ignored and dismissed as insignificant by the
outside world. Financial and political isolation begins to take its
toll. This becomes a period in which anything positive about Lavalas
appears to be censored while anything that damages the credibility
of the Haitian government is magnified. In this political climate,
even former ‘leftist’ allies of Lavalas, so-called Haitian human rights
organizations and members of Haiti’s press, justify accepting tours
to the United States – paid for by the U.S. State Department. During
these tours they are encouraged to develop contacts with the alternative
media and the United States ‘Left’ as they preach the evils of
Aristide and Lavalas to a largely uninformed American audience.”
That audience remains woefully uninformed. The Haitian people will
have to teach them a lesson, once again.
Unsettling the mind – is a good thing
“The Color of Justice” in the United States is white, as Ryan
Paul Haygood, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education
Fund,
wrote for BC on September
30, 2004. For the rest of us, there
exists a predatory system of mass incarceration:
”In America’s inner cities…where the ‘war on drugs’ is waged against
low-income Black and Brown people, mass incarceration rather than treatment
and rehabilitation guides police drug enforcement strategies. In
fact, the criminal justice system harbors a deeply held belief
that, unlike many white offenders, Black and Brown offenders
are beyond rehabilitation.”
Our comrade and co-upsetter Dr. Edward Rhymes, a gifted educator,
tackled the quandary of integration vs. segregation in an illuminating
October
7, 2004 piece. The problem is, as Dr. Rhymes points out,
the Jim Crow system was never really dismantled. In the phony
process that passed for desegregation, about half of Black
teachers lost their
jobs, but in most districts no meaningful integration took place:
”With the loss of black teachers and principals who served as mirrors
in which black students, by and large, saw the ‘angels of their better
nature’ reflected, a deficit was created in terms of black academic
achievement. Although this deficit was by no means total in impact,
it was significant. As mentioned previously in this writing, the public
school system in the United States has an explicit racist, sexist and
classist history. With that in mind, is it not somewhat naïve
for us to believe that a system that has shown that sort
of bias towards people
of color, would effectively teach our children without a
radical educational revolution?”
Dr. Marcellus Andrews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation,
dared to emit the unspeakable: Would middle class Blacks break with
their poorer brethren? And what would be the consequences?
”What would become of poor black people who were abandoned by their
former middle class partners? They would slip further into the
shadows of American life, suffering ever greater poverty, sickness
and early death like their white, brown and yellow counterparts. If
they struck out at middle class blacks in the usual way that poor people
strike at society – through crime – they would find themselves assailed
by a rainbow coalition of middle class folks insisting on ‘law and
order.’ Indeed, one can imagine a situation where the New Washington
solution would lead to ever more punitive approaches to crime and punishment
once the black middle class stopped tying the fate of the black poor
to the nation’s history of slavery and apartheid. Sympathy would
shrivel still more for the poor and social outcasts, with no segment
of the middle class coming to the defense of those in society’s basement. The
United States would become an even meaner place than it is now.”
Dr. Andrews’ November
4, 2004 article, “No Exit in Black:
Trapped by the Economy and Politics,” opened a new portal on
Black political discussion.
BC has many friends, from diverse disciplines. Dr. Alvin Walker,
a psychologist from Louisiana now based in Manhattan, is an expert
in
the psychoses of the rich and powerful. In the wake of
the Republican victory last fall, Dr. Walker graced our pages
on November
18, 2004 with his compelling piece, “The 2004
Presidential Election: Another Pyrrhic Victory for White Supremacy.”
”Do you really think that the God of Christianity as revealed in
the Bible is unconcerned about the environment, or war and peace, and
injustice and poverty? Does God want 45 million
Americans to be without healthcare and does God support
the racist exclusion of
people of color and other out groups?
”So we see that the deeply ubiquitous ideology of Euro-American
supremacy trumps class interests and, in this instance, leads to a
tragic, dangerous, and irrational choice, the election of an overtly
racist, war criminal hell bent on destroying the last tattered remnants
of the social safety net and seems intent on attempting to remake the
world in accord with his own destructive, anti-democratic, white supremacist
vision: George Walker Bush.”
BC believes that history is the fountainhead of the present.
One of our mentors is Dr. Martin Kilson, the first Black tenured
professor
at Harvard University, and an inspiration to hundreds – maybe
thousands – of
Blacks seeking knowledge. On December
16, 2004, Dr. Kilson explained
the corrupt and convoluted logic of the peculiar brand
of American white racism in his grand piece, “Notes
on the Democratic Defeat: Conservative Christian Atavism
Ethos or ‘Christians from Hell’”:
”…the rightwing use of the atavism ethos by Christian fundamentalists
through Republican party modalities in the 2004 presidential election
was a depressing development. It was no doubt a valid revitalization
in the eyes of rank-and-file White Protestant and Catholic Christian
fundamentalists, as measured by the fact that White Protestants gave
Bush some 70% and White Catholics around 53% of their votes. But
the American society-wide consequences will be something
very different indeed. The consequences will be mainly
anti-feminist, homophobic,
anti-egalitarian in wealth and social mobility patterns, and
anti-Black.”
Black culture and politics are inseparable
Although a thoroughly political magazine, BC understands that
culture is also nurtured in politics, and that Black icons must
be remembered
and revered by ourselves – since nobody else will.
Our favorite expatriate African American in Toronto,
Canada, Norman (Otis) Richmond, paid homage
to the late, great Sam Cooke, on December
23, 2004.
”Cooke was one of the first R&B artists to take a stand for
civil rights and Black power. He cancelled performances rather than
play to segregated audiences. He was also one of the first artists
to cut off his "process". He did it years before Hank Ballard
came out with the 1968 song, "How You Gonna Get Respect (If You
Haven't Cut Your Process Yet?)." He knew both
Martin Luther King Jr. and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
(Malcolm X). Cooke sang at King's
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama
in the 1950s when he was a member of the Soul Stirrers.
His relationships with Malcolm
X and Muhammad Ali were documented in the film Ali.”
Richmond’s article was titled, “Sam Cooke Still Resonates.”
James Forman’s voice continues to resonate, as well. The civil
rights leader and visionary died early this year, and was saluted
by our colleague
David Swanson, on January
20, 2005, in an
homage called, “Jim Forman
and the Liberal Labor Syndrome.”
”Jim Forman did not wait for the Democratic Party to set an agenda. He
gave us a model of aggressive and militant action based on principles
of equality, social justice, and non-violence. Toward the late
sixties he grew more accepting of the idea of violent struggle, and
in doing so I believe he was horribly wrong. But what he showed
us through the early and mid sixties was aggressive non-violent organizing. He
organized, meaning he reached out to people, figured out what they
would fight for, inspired them to fight for it, coordinated their work,
found the resources to pay them for it, communicated their work to
the world, and bailed them out of jail. One of the reasons Forman
is not better known is that he actively sought to avoid stardom, and
one of the reasons he did so was that he wanted to develop many leaders
in a grassroots movement. Many of those
he mentored are still leaders today.”
BC is dedicated to the proposition that Black people must not be required
to reinvent the wheels of progress every generation, for lack of memory.
David Swanson is one of those who keep our memories intact.
A major mind from the Greater Antilles
John Maxwell, the venerable and distinguished professor at the
University of the West Indies, in Kingston, and columnist for
the Jamaica Observer,
is a special friend of BC. He allows us to borrow
his articles, and refresh our minds. We were especially impressed
with the wit and incisive
analysis of his February
10, 2005 piece, “The Silence of
the Blonds.”
”When Hitler was busy turning Jews into handbags, lampshades and
black smoke, his reason was that the world needed to be rid of them
(and of blacks, homosexuals, Gypsies and others) because they threatened
the purity of the Aryan master archetype. This archetype was a blue
eyed, blond superman with no resemblance to Hitler himself or to most
of his main assassins. They, I now realize, were a new species, Geopolitically
Modified Humans – GMH – Officially Blond. Looking
at them you wouldn’t know it. Some people even said that Hitler himself “looked
Jewish” – whatever that meant, obviously
missing his essential blondness which gave
him the right to talk nonsense and murder as
many
people as he wished.
”What I realized this week is that the Congo’s
Muzungo was not crazy, simply blond. And when this thought occurred
to me it cleared
up a host of misconceptions in my mind.
"I had been asking myself how could Africans like Kofi Annan
and Afro-Americans like Colin Powell , Canadians like Prime Minister
Paul Martin, and
Haitians like Gerard LaTortue not understand
the appalling wickedness which their policies have created in
Haiti? Or how did Tony Blair,
George Bush and Malcolm Fraser of Australia
not understand the primeval wickedness they had let loose in
Iraq? The answer was simple.
"Like Adolph Hitler, they are GMH-Blonds and are therefore exempted
from normal human feelings, duties and
responsibilities. They
are expected to giggle helplessly
when confronted with murdered children
and dismembered teenagers, with tortured
Arabs and raped Haitian
women. Like the good Germans in Tom Paxton’s
1960s song – ‘We didn’t
know a thing.’”
What exquisite sarcasm! Our hats off to Prof. Maxwell, a jewel of
the Caribbean.
Our guy in Chicago is Paul Street, the vice president for research
at the Chicago Urban League, and a prodigious
writer and thinker. Street points out the dangerous irony of
high profile Black success stories
that are taken as proof, by many whites,
that racial equality is a reality in the United States. He calls
this wishful phenomenon “The
Full-Blown Oprah Effect: Reflections on Color,
Class, and New Age Racism.” Street’s
February 24,
2005 article states:
“For a considerable portion of whites in ‘post-Civil Rights’ America,
black-white integration and racial equality are more than just accepted
ideals. They are also, many believe, accomplished realities, showing
that we have overcome racial disparity. According to
a survey conducted by the Washington Post,
the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, and Harvard
University in the spring of 2001, more
than
4 in 10 white Americans believe that blacks
are ‘as well off as whites
in terms of their jobs, incomes, schools, and health care.’
”The 2000 US Census numbers that were being crunched as this poll
was taken did not support this belief. More than three and a half decades after the historic
victories of the black Civil Rights Movement, the census showed, equality
remained a highly elusive goal for African-Americans.
In a society that possesses the highest
poverty rate and the largest gaps between
rich and poor in the industrialized world,
blacks are considerably
poorer than whites and other racial and ethnic groups.”
In a society that tends less and less to document facts, but to obscure
them with electronic rhetoric based on racist assumptions, we need
folks like Paul Street.
Going into labor
BC dived into the Great American Labor Debate with all four
feet. We got strategic assistance and trenchant analysis from
Dwight
Kirk, a Washington, DC-based activist,
writer, consultant, and intellect. On February 24, 2005, Kirk
posed the question, “Can Labor Go Beyond Diversity
Lite?”
”55 percent (or 168,000) of the union jobs lost
in 2004 were held by black workers, even though they represented
only 13 percent of total
union membership.
”More stunningly, African American women accounted for 70 percent
of the union jobs lost by women in 2004. Yes, 100,000 black union women – many
the sole or primary breadwinner in their households – lost
their paychecks, their job security,
medical insurance for their families
and their
retirement nest eggs in just one year. Gone!
”Compounding the disproportionate loss of union jobs in black households – especially
those headed by women – are the shrinking paychecks of black union
members. In 2004, federal income data ranked African American union
workers last among all the major worker groups in median weekly earnings….
”The AFL-CIO’s cosmetic embrace of diversity may have sensitized
to some extent, but it hardly uprooted, the white male power structure
that has shaped the federation’s internal culture and dictated its
policies since the merger of the AF of L and the CIO 50 years ago.
In fact, many black labor leaders and union staff workers quietly chafe
in the yoke of ‘official’ diversity,
which merely colorizes labor solidarity
within a non-inclusive framework
of power relations. Or to give
it a brand name, call it ‘Diversity Lite: more color, less flava.’”
That’s tellin’ it, brother.
Troy Peters, also based in DC, as a Senior Fellow at the Campaign
for America’s Future, warns that
the GOP’s attempt to bribe and
subvert Black preachers and their
congregations is abetted by white
Democrats’ arrogance
and ignorance. Peters’ March
24, 2005 article was titled, “Beware
Republicans Bearing Gifts.”
”So far the Democrats have dismissed the ham-handed appeals to black
churches and references to Fredrick Douglass, the Republican, as sloppy
and ultimately futile. This assessment may be correct, but the
Democrats have excelled at taking the black vote for granted in recent
decades. Conversely,
the Republican machine has
demonstrated a remarkable effectiveness
at doggedly refining their
message until
it strikes a chord. They can read the demographic writing
on the wall and they know to continue as the ‘white sanctuary’ may
soon leave them out of power. And
there are real weaknesses within
the black community for them to exploit.”
Our contributors are deep thinkers, and active movers and shakers.
Prominent among them is Rev.
Reynard Blake, Jr., of Michigan. On April
7, 2005, in the
farcical wake of the congressional crusade to preserve
the life-support of a white
woman in a persistent vegetative state, Rev. Blake put forward “The
Riddle for Black Conservatives: What Would Happen If Terri Was
Toya?”
”If Terri Schiavo was a black woman named Toya Brown would she
receive the same concern from white conservatives or members of
the 'pro-life' movement? For
black conservatives and government
grant-hungry black religious leaders concerned with gay marriage
and school vouchers the answer would be “yes.” Fortunately,
those of us that live reality-based
lives know that this is far from the case….
”Bush and his fellow 'Compassionate Conservatives' would do to
well to realize that if they were truly 'pro-life' they
would be concerned about the
totality of life for all
people, from birth to death. This
means that they would be
about the business of creating
more jobs. Tax breaks for
the wealthy are not a solution.”
Such irony is lost on the racist Right. But not on readers of The
Black Commentator.
No excuses for racist behavior
Tim Wise is…well, he’s a wise man, and one of the nation’s most
effective white anti-racism activists. We’re proud to be co-collaborators
with him. Mr. Wise submitted a multi-part examination of “How
the Right Rationalizes Racial Inequality in America,” Part
One of which appeared in our May 5, 2005 issue.
”While some of the conservatives who regale me with their rationalizations
for racial inequality manage to quote a gaggle of right wing ‘experts’ to
help make their case,
the claims they forward
are hardly the stronger
for it.
”For example, the argument that racial wage gaps
merely reflect different levels of experience and qualifications
between whites and
blacks is simply untenable, when one examines the data.
”Fact is, earnings gaps persist at all levels
of education. According to Census data, whites with high school
diplomas, college degrees or
Master's Degrees
all earn approximately twenty percent more than their black counterparts.
Even more striking, whites with professional degrees
(such as medicine
or law) earn, on average, thirty-one percent more than similar
blacks and fifty-two percent more than similar Latinos.
”Even when levels of work experience are the
same between blacks and whites, the racial wage gap remains between
10-20 percent."
Tim Wise has a brilliance for shredding racist presumptions and effrontery.
We’re glad he’s part of our team, and we, part of his.
Tamara K. Nopper, of Philadelphia, is an extraordinary intellect.
Although BC does
not usually feature book reviews, we made an exception in Ms.
Nopper’s case. Tamara brought to our attention a new book by
Prof. George Yancey,
whose studies show that Blacks may become even more politically
isolated in this century. Nopper’s May
12, 2005 review
was called, “The Browning and Yellowing of Whiteness.”
”[The] author suggests that European phenotype or ancestry will
no longer be prerequisites for becoming white. While the US Census
Bureau treats Latino/as as an ‘ethnic group’ of sorts by emphasizing
Latin American origin, many are socially read as “brown.” Most
Asian Americans
are markedly
non-European
in phenotype
and ancestry.
Nevertheless,
Yancey argues
that while they
may experience
patterns of discrimination
and racism from
whites, both
Latino/as and
Asian
Americans are
following the
same pattern
of assimilation
as Europeans
did before them.
”Grounding his study within the framework of noted sociologist Milton
Gordon, whose work on assimilation emphasized social acceptance by
the majority and identification with it from the minority, Yancey provides
compelling evidence indicating that Latino/as and Asian Americans are
well on their way to becoming white. In the chapter ‘They are
Okay – Just Keep Them Away from Me,’ the author analyzes survey data
on racial groups’ social
attitudes regarding
who they approve
as potential
neighbors as
well as marriage
partners for
their children.
”Contrary to the popular image of blacks as racially restrictive,
Yancey discovers that black respondents are the most open to all other
races. Yet despite being the most receptive to other groups,
blacks in general are rejected by all non-black groups – whites, Latino/as
and Asian Americans. While some assume that whites will be closed
off to anyone not white, Yancey’s research show that white respondents
are more accepting of Latino/as and Asian Americans than they are of
blacks. In turn, Latino/a and Asian American respondents are
fairly receptive to one another as well as whites. Overall, Yancey’s
findings reveal that whites, Latino/as and Asian Americans do not tend
to reject one another as possible neighbors or their kids’ spouses,
but all three
groups show
a general resistance
to blacks in
these social
roles.”
Prof. Yancey concludes that “black respondents were the only group
to demonstrate a ‘distinct’ worldview.”
That’s why we need The Black Commentator. If we must be alone, at
least we should make sense.
History and memory
From New York City, Prof. Jonathan Scott has been tilling old
ground and building up new earthworks to serve the BC readership.
His May
19, 2005 article
was titled
with a hip
hop flavor – “Punks
Jump Up to
Get Beat
Down” – but the thrust was intellectually earnest. White supremacy,
says Scott,
insulates white Americans from competition with other peoples,
at home and abroad. The result is mediocrity: the stagnation of
a nation.
”By fighting against desegregation and the civil rights agenda,
white workers have been working hard for their own pungent mediocrity
and bland homogeneity. People talk about “the politics of fear,” but
the real fear is not Muslim terrorists. The real fear is an old fear,
the mother of all U.S. fears: that whites will one day have to compete
against equal or in many cases superior opponents, namely black folks,
who have been competing intensely and without protection for the past
300 years against everyone in the entire world. Just take Tiger Woods:
what nationality hasn’t he defeated already? Who will be next?
“…we need to remind white American radicals that they wouldn’t
exist today had it not been for African American writers. Do they
imagine
they can
avoid falling into the pit of U.S. mediocrity without studying
systematically the work of black intellectuals? We’ll
find out
soon enough,
for the
race to
the bottom
is reaching
the finish
line."
Our publication believes that mass Black incarceration is the
greatest crisis facing African Americans – a systematically induced
cancer on our people. BC has documented the horrific growth in
the American prison
gulag,
that now holds one of every four prisoners on the planet – half
of them
Black. Randall G. Shelden, a Professor of Criminal Justice at
the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, buttressed our argument
with
a multi-part
series, “Slavery in the Third Millennium.” Here’s a slice
from Part One, June
9, 2005.
”As our standard history books have told us, constantly reinforced
during our public school education, the slaves were ‘freed’ after the
Civil War ended. Well, not exactly. After the war the South was
faced with some rather serious economic, political, and social problems.
Political and economic recovery was among the first priorities because
the economy of the South, based as it was on a slave mode of production,
was being replaced by a capitalist mode of production. Another crucial
problem was what to do with the newly ‘freed’ slaves.
What
the
white
ruling
class
commenced
to
do
was
to
begin
the
systematic
oppression
of
blacks
and
maintain
a system
of caste rule that would replace
a system of slavery. What happened was that the sharecropping system
replaced
slavery
as
a ‘legal’ method of controlling the labor of African-Americans. A
system of agricultural (and eventually industrial) ‘peonage’ emerged
and
was
supported
by
such
informal
methods
as
vigilantism,
intimidation,
Jim
Crow
laws
and
the
like.
What
became
known
as convict leasing was
a prime example.”
The Harold Ford minstrel show
Harold Ford, Jr. is the prime example of the non-representative
Black U.S. Representative on Capitol Hill. He was elected by one
of the poorest
districts
in the nation – in Memphis – but fraternizes with and seeks
to
speak for rich corporations. We have pilloried Ford many times,
but
our colleage Charles Cinque Fullwood, of Washington, via South
Carolina, raked the rogue over the coals in a scorching piece called, “Harold
Ford,
Social Security, and Telling Lies.” If you didn’t read it on
June
23, 2005 take time to do so now.
”Evidently, the insanity of racism and its crippling
affects have no respect for the passage of time or the birth of successor
generations.
You
simply have to have your mind right. Be you Choochie-Boy Robinson,
Coota
Bug McKnight, or Congressman Harold Ford. Whether you are dressed
in
overalls or Brooks Brothers, you simply have to have your mind right
to
deal with both white people and Negroes talking backwards. And it
is
clear that Harold Ford's mind ain't right. He might as well be a
smooth talking pimp selling his sister to the highest bidder in a
urine-stained
alley.
”Make
no
mistake,
African
Americans
need
debate,
new
ideas,
deep
think,
vigorous
discourse,
a
discussion
of
the
merits,
brainstorming
(even
a
slow
drizzle
would
help)
and
a
clean
break
from
old
tired-ass,
sclerotic
ideas
and strategies that simply won't work in a fundamentally new
world.”
BC believes in the power of ridicule. Mr. Fullwood’s got the power.
Manifest mediocrity
White American Manifest Destiny and the concept of American “exceptionalism” are
tightly
entwined. Both are profoundly racist concepts, but there is something “exceptional” about
the United States: it is an exceptionally violent society, that
now spreads its sick culture of violence, rooted
in
genocide and slavery, throughout the world. We were honored that
Dr.
Ira M. Leonard, of Connecticut State University, saw fit to outline
and
analyze the gruesome tale in his series, “Violence is the Engine
of U.S. History,” Part One of which appeared on June
30, 2005.
”The reality, not taught in American schools and textbooks, is that
war – whether on a large or small scale – and domestic violence have
been ever-present features of American life and culture from this country's
earliest days almost 400 years ago. Violence, in varying forms, according
to the leading historian of the subject, Richard Maxwell Brown, ‘has
accompanied virtually every stage and aspect of our national experience,’ and
is ‘part of our unacknowledged (underground) value structure.’ Indeed, ‘repeated
episodes of violence going far
back into our colonial past,
have imprinted upon our citizens
a propensity to violence.’
”Thus, America demonstrated a national predilection for war and
domestic violence long before the 9/11 attacks, but its leaders and
intellectuals through most of the last century cultivated the national
self-image, a myth, of America as a moral, ‘peace-loving’ nation
which the American population
seems unquestioningly to have
embraced.”
Mexico, too, was born in a cauldron of genocide and slavery – and
it shows. President Vincente Fox bared his “white” ass to the
world, twice, first with denigration of African American workers,
then with
the issuing of a pickaninny stamp. We were fortunate to be
the recipients of an article from Dr. Abdul Karim Bangura, of
the School of International
Service at American University, Washington, DC, that put the
Mexican racial situation in perspective. Dr. Bangura’s cogent
piece for July
7, 2005 was titled, “White Mexican Racism Rears
Its Ugly Head Again.”
”The Afrikan Mexican presence has been relegated
to an obscured slave past, cast aside in the interest of a national
identity based
on a mixture of indigenous and European cultural mestizaje – i.e.
the idea of the goodness of being classed as racially mixed. However,
in practice…this ideology of ‘racial democracy’ favors the European
presence; too often, the nation’s glorious indigenous past is reduced
to folklore and ceremonial showcasing. But the handling of the Afrikan ‘third
root,’ which is represented by more than 200,000 Afrikan Mexicans,
is even more dismissive. Since they live as their neighbors do, carry
out the same work, eat the same foods, and make the same music, it
is assumed that Afrikan Mexicans have assimilated into ‘Mexican’ society.
But…Afrikan
Mexicans are Mexican
society, as the historical
record offers compelling
evidence that Afrikans and
their descendants contributed
enormously to the very formation
of Mexican culture.”
Vincente Fox doesn’t want to hear that. But we’ll keep shouting it.
Finally, we include an author who is dear to our hearts, because
she is a broadcaster, like the publishers of BC – who
can write! Lizz Brown, of St. Louis radio station WGNU, schools
the people
every day. She
has been kind to us, as well. On July 14, 2005 Ms. Brown informed
our readers of the death of Dr. Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi human
rights worker and
journalist who was apparently murdered by death squads organized
by the U.S. occupation forces – a man who knew too much. We titled
it, “Strange
Fruit in Iraq.”
”When battered and methodically beaten dead bodies
started showing up in Iraq, Dr Salihee started reporting. Dr Salihee
wrote about bodies
in the morgue with their hands tied or handcuffed behind their backs.
Bodies with their eyes blindfolded appearing to have been tortured,
whipped with cords and subjected to electric shocks. Bodies beaten
with blunt objects and shot to death, often with a single bullet.
Bodies found in mass graves and bodies floating in rivers.
”Dr Salihee also reported that many of the members of the Wolf
Brigade came from Saddam Hussein’s
Special Forces and Republican Guards. Indeed, these men were
decorated veterans of homicide,
genocide and torture.”
Conclusion
We know that we have left some very deserving contributors out of
the mix, and we are sorry. But we promise to be around next year in
the same hot season, and to include all those who were neglected in
this roundup of articles.
The Black Commentator is grateful for the attention of our many tens
of thousands of readers. There can be no organized movement, without
an informed conversation. We wish there were more journals of this
kind, so that we would have somebody to argue with; arguments are necessary
in these critical times. Such discourse should, of course, lead to
action – otherwise, what’s the point?
We have faith in our people, who have always acted – although not
necessarily on time. That’s why we’re still here, collectively. Have
a good and productive August.
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