June 8, 2006 - Issue 187 |
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Bruce's Beat How To Help Africa Bradley’s Suckling Black Babies Does Bush Ever Get His Groove On? Email from Readers by BC Editor Bruce Dixon |
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For some time now,
every BC issue has showcased prints and visual works
of art by a collection of artists including Margaret Warfield, Larry
Richardson, Mwandishi Henry and others. We urge our readers to click
on over to the art forms
page, to check out some of the stunning work these artists have made
available, and to support these artists by purchasing some of their
work. Moved by the power of a recent illustration by the artist Fulani,
reader Edith Bowles writes us: Please tell me how I can follow up on
the statement on the front page of Black Commentator: "Afrika's
children die for Fascist fools' greed on a world scale and no one
cares," by Fulani. Bravo for Fulani! This is a topic of grave concern to me
and I would like to know how I can support a cause that would help
spotlight the heartbreaking situation in Africa where greedy, psychopathic
black people kill other blacks with impunity and serve as henchmen
and frontline troops for the world's greedy, power mad, corporate,
globalized fascists and nobody cries out, including black Americans. Where is the black church? Seemingly
it is too busy running after mythical federal funding for "faith-based
programs" and preaching an equally mythical "prosperity
gospel" while blacks in the U.S. and Africa are ground under
the heel of worldwide fascism. How can the black church, and the black
press, not scream out in pain at the horrors taking place in Africa?
And why are we not analyzing the geopolitical meaning of what is taking
place? Nigeria, Darfur, Chad, Rwanda, and millions dead
in the Congo and Sudan are not isolated incidents! They are part
of a worldwide effort to reclaim and control Africa! Whatever
happened to the calls for black unity and the mood of solidarity with
our African family that existed in the 1960s? The reader raises a lot of questions here, perhaps too many for one
editor in one column to tackle. But oppression is always about money.
Our ancestors were not kidnapped, sold, resold and enslaved here because
someone didn't like their looks. Slavery was an economic relationship
that benefited slave owners and traders. It was big business, big
money. Then as today, the only thing that beats organized money is
organized people. Whites in Europe and America organized
to limit and end slavery, and slaves resisted
and rebelled when and wherever they could, and in many places where
they could not. Our responsibility here is to inform ourselves and
organize our own churches and other formations to spread that knowledge
wider. We have to look for and to find opportunities to act, and
take them. We have to look for friends willing to explore this, to
talk about it to others, and to act, and if we lack such friendships
now, we need to make them. To borrow and mangle Booker T. Washington's
old maxim, we have to cast down buckets where we are, and come up
with something. Response from Ishmael Reed Nice work on the Bush family Nazi connections.
Here are some more Nazi connections. The Manhattan Institute's Eugenics
program is derived from the German program. If Giuliani is elected
president, he can be expected to bring its policies to the nation. John McWhorter is the most prominent
spokesperson for the Institute and is a regular commentator on NPR
where Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve" has admirers, including
Nina Totenberg, a very influential player there. When I debated John
McWhorter last week on Michael Eric Dyson's show, he showed
himself not to be familiar with the Manhattan Institute's history,
of its goals. He's just being used and thinks that he gets on all
of these networks and shows because he's smarter than other blacks. Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele, on the
other hand, know better. Both have received financial support from
right wing organizations connected to the Eugenics movement, Connerly
from the Pioneer Fund. Shelby Steele from the Bradley foundation which
awarded Charles Murray $119,000.00 for his work on "The Bell
Curve." Margaret responded. Mr. Reed, Thank you for writing. I especially enjoyed
your Counter Punch piece "The
Colored Mind Doubles" which was reprinted in BC. I do have to differ with you a bit, however.
John McWhorter of the Manhattan Institute knows precisely who he is
working for. He knows what they want, and he knows their history.
Of course he would plead ignorance when confronted. How could a black
man, even a conservative, own up to being in bed with the racist eugenics
movement? Ward Connerly, Shelby Steele and the
rest are all knowingly supporting white supremacy. As for Charles
Murray, author of The Bell Curve, he has been the recipient
of a lot more than $119,000 from the Bradley Foundation. He has in
fact received $1 million from Bradley.
And if we mention the Bradley Foundation,
we have to mention another successful supplicant from that group.
Newark 's new Mayor, Cory Booker, has fed from the Bradley trough. Into the quagmire Margaret Kimberley has also written about the penchants of White
House press secretary Tony Snow and his former employers, the Fox
news network, for racist
rhetoric. But some subjects are too sticky to be easily let go,
as BC reader Joy Matkowski reminds us: I had some sympathy for Mr. Snow initially.
Every few years I want to describe something I grabbed and then couldn't
get rid of. Tar baby" fits that scenario so well. I have to
agree with you that considering the source, naive, innocent usage
is out of the question. Although I'm a reasonably decent and unbigoted
person, I had no idea that term was offensive. I guess I'll just have
to avoid projects and responsibilities that might stick like glue
when I try to get rid of them, that are like burrs on my britches,
that are like chewing gum on my shoe until I come up with a good
substitute figure of speech. We could wade into the quagmire with our reader, but it's best not
to. A Theory Disproved Finally, upset about a widely rumored and long running affair between
her husband and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, first lady Laura
Bush has reportedly set up
occasional housekeeping in Washington's Mayflower Hotel. While this
is news, it's not entirely new news, as BC reader
Shirley Rish points out. My guess is that in your April 2005 BC
ThinkPiece,
in which author Mark Fancher mischaracterizes George W. Bush's relationship
with Condoleezzi Rice as "master and pet," with the
pet being an eager "fetcher, you got it wrong. For
a number of years, since Dr. Rice spoke of the President as her
husband, the relationship has been described as sexual. Over the last few years many of Bush's critics have therapeutically
opined that presidential indulgence in certain kinds of recreational
activities favored by past occupants of the Oval Office might somehow
contribute to making the nation's current chief executive less edgy,
more even tempered, and not as great a danger to humanity. At first
glance however, reports of a continuing dalliance
between Bush and his Secretary of State seem to disprove the theory
that such practices might in some measure mellow the president out.
It simply has not worked that way. Despite the purported relationship,
George Bush remains as unhinged from reality and as much a threat
to the peace of the planet as ever. BC and its readers, along with hosts of other virtual
therapists, will continue to monitor events as they unfold. Send us your virtual analyses of presidential behavior, your compliments
and criticisms of what you see in BC. We answer
much of our email, and print some of it here weekly. |
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