Readers' Corner has returned, with a sampling of comments from BC Readers.
The mailbags are full.
Regarding our series from Health Care NOW on Strategies for a Single-Payer
Health Care System Introduction,
Part
1, Part
2 (Part
3 is in this issue):
I have requested Congress Woman elect Kirsten Gillibrand from the
NYS 20th CD to co-sponsor HR 676. Please send me any material can
use to help convinve her. Also put me on your e-mail notices/alerts.
-DB
Excellent story on Black Commentator. I will plan to
organize a meeting. -JP
I just got fired from my job, and I lost my health insurance. I live
in LA and was covered by Kaiser Permanente. To continue my coverage
for myself and my 2 youngest would cost $769 dollars per month. Now
you know thats a scheme. We are being played! -WEG
Thank you so much for running this piece on healthcare. I live in
Oakland, California and am studying to be a RN. I am appalled at the
number of my fellow students who do not think about access or insurance
issues. It seems imperative to me that, in addition to working in
our communities toward the goal of insuring everyone (and, yes, TRULY
insuring them), we need to incorporate the importance of this issue
into our healthcare providers' education. Our code of ethics mention
access for all but where is the action toward that goal?
And, yes, what do we mean when we say 'access'? As your article
smartly points out, access may mean nothing to those who have to pay
exorbitant copays and the like. What is access if you have to sell
your house to pay bills? What if you don't have a house to sell in
the first place? Or the plethora of other issues using just the word
access without thinking about the entire biomedical industrial complex!
(One last note: Thank you so much for mentioning that the Egyptians
were the founders of the field of medicine. As a person of Egyptian
descent, I am always so angered when the Greeks get all the credit!
Another case of Africa getting erased.) -JA
Regarding our reprint of Wampsutta's
speech, in the Thanksgiving Issue #207:
Thank you so much for publishing the aritcle by Wampsutta. I grew
up in Rhode Island. Native names abounded, but no one ever mentioned
their meanings. Streets, ponds, lakes, mountains and even bars and
used car lots used Wampanoag names.
Only a few years ago did I really begin to realize the history of
the Wampanoag. This enlightenment occurred when I read "Eulogy
on King Philp," a speech given in 1836 by Native American
author William Apess to a group of descendents of the Puritans in
Boston.
We hear the term "holocaust" used so much that we do not
acknowledge the two biggest holocausts of all time: those of the deaths
of tens of millions of Africans and Native Americans on U.S. soil.
-JA
The speech of Wampsutta was very interesting. It was cowardly of
the people to not let him deliver it in 1970. In reading it, I'm reminded
of the Speech by Frederick Douglas on July 4th during slavery. It
has the same feel of quiet truth as Douglas' speech did. Thanks...
-LC
Regarding Dr. Maya Rockeymoore's commentary, Where
Will Democrats Stand After the Party is Over? in Issue #204:
I am very impressed with the suggestions in this article. Please
send the article to Nancy Pelosi. It would be great to finally
have a government that does its job. -JR
Regarding the commentary of Dr. Manning Marable, PhD, Race-ing
Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: African Americans, Criminal Justice
and New Racial Domain in Issue #209:
The African-American male especially, is being displaced from the
work force. In private industry, our presence is negligible. It seems
we are being starved into submission and severely diminished demographically.
Genocide isn't considered a word polite these days but the trend is
unmistakeable. My opinions are based on long years of observation.
Your research and detailed analysis only confirm them. Thank you.
-WM
As a Latino scholar aactivist I have followed your work, and appreciate
this framing of political economy and the racialization of the criminal
justice system. It is quite appalling to see all the consequences
together and notice the pattern you so cogently have revealed. I also
appreciated the concept of "civic death" as a helpful and
powerful. This NRD is however having another effect, it seems to me,
limiting the kind of important coalitions and alliances Latinos and
African Americans were able to make in the past. The prison system
is using race to divide Latino and African American inmates and these
conflicts are becoming ingrained in the shared urban spaces where
these inmates go after they are released.
Systemic racism has found another way of dividing the oppressed.
Thanks for your work, it would be great to have you some day speaking
on our campus. -VR
Regarding the Quote to Ponder in Issue #208:
"Let us never forget that government is
ourselves
and not an alien power over us.
The ultimate rulers of democracy
are not a President, Senate or government officials
but the voters of this country."
- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
I just got the Nov. 30 issue, and I appreciate tremendously the pieces
by Marilyn Clement, Carl Bloice and Dr. Julianne Malveaux. They help
me orient myself and keep my feet on the ground in this complicated
world.
However, as for your quote of the week from FDR, I used to believe
that stuff, but today we are ruled by a force of alien invaders called
the Bush Administration, which has overridden Congress, the Constitution
and the wishes of a majority of the people of the United States. The
people won a victory in the November elections, but it will mean little
unless Congress acts bravely, quickly and in unity and unless we retake
the White House in 2008. -BS
Regarding Worrill's World by Dr. Conrad Worrill, PhD, Get
Ready for Kwanzaa, 2006 in Issue #209:
Just read your article in Black Commentary! It was very informative
and insightful, so I am sharing with relatives and friends in the
South. -BW
Regarding Carl Bloice's Commentary, Will
Cheney Come Clean in Issue #208:
It actually may be possible to guess what was discussed and suggested
by the oil company representatives who attended the secret Energy
Task Force meetings, by looking at a report that was submitted to
Cheney in April, 2001. The report, called "Strategic Energy Policy
Challenges For The 21st Century," was commissioned by the Council
on Foreign Relations and James Baker, former Secretary of State under
President Reagan and was linked to a "veritable who's who of
U.S. hawks, oilmen, and corporate bigwigs," according to the
Sydney Morning Herald.
The report made the argument that there was a need for U.S. "military
intervention" in Iraq to "secure control of its oil."
It said that the U.S. should "investigate whether any changes
to U.S. policy would quickly facilitate higher exports of oil from
the Caspian Basin region...the exports from some oil discoveries could
be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified
swiftly."-JMS
I want to commend Mr. Carl Bloice for his article calling the Democrat
majority to task on cracking open the black box of the "energy
task force".
I am not surprised, but find totally disappointing nonetheless,
that the Democrats have already thrown in the towel on impeachment
proceedings; revealing the energy task force work would be a gesture
to save their face somehow (possibly together with a few other items
of a long laundry list that I can think of).
I wish you could join forces with other like-minded newspapers,
magazines and independent organizations to jump-start a public opinion
movement to put pressure on the Democrats and bring about at least
what your article calls for. -SO
Thank you for your wisdom in the article "Will Cheney Come Clean?"
The meeting between Cheney and the energy moguls is such an obvious
and common-sense place to begin sniffing. Cheney is being paid by
us and therefore has an obligation to let us know what he is doing
on our behalf. Secondly, people generally hide things that are shameful
and cannot stand the light of being revealed. Get Waxman on this.
And be of good cheer, we shall live to see the day when most if
not all that is hidden will be revealed. -DAB
Regarding Bill Strickland's commentary, Cover
Story: Black People, George Bush and Overcoming the Politics of
Armageddon - Part 1 of a Series in Issue #203:
Mr. Strickland has written a wonderful, timely article that pulls
no punches yet retains a high tone. The policies against the Middle
East seem to have tapped into a deep racist vein in white "Judeo-Christian"
America. Not only is there every danger that those policies will extend
into Africa which has a large Muslim population and is seeking financial
ties with Asia, but many African American politicians seem to have
abandoned their anti-colonial stances in the face of the new aggression.
Thanks for cutting to the chase Black Commentator. -SM
On the creation of the BC
Editorial Board:
I liked the expanded editorial board format as well as the broader
focus. -RR
Congratulations on the new board members. I would like to suggest
that you add a couple of radical voices for the arts, both visual
and performing, particularly our music. White folks are writing us
out of jazz and blues so fast that in a few years Duke Ellington will
be a protege of Dave Brubeck and BB King will have learned everything
he knows from Eric Clapton. -JA
and the BC Editorial Board Roundtable, Election
Reaction & Early Analysis in Issue #205:
Insist on ACCOUNTABILITY NOT RESIGNATION..push for impeachment and
trials.... -JCJ
Good job! You gave us a balanced set of pieces that offer
a much needed reality check. The single most important point,
for me, is that progressives have plenty of work to do, and that we
cannot just sit back and expect politicians, left to their own devices,
to do the right thing. They won't. The call for civic
responsibility, therefore, is dead on. -MN
I read today that 40 percent of the electorate voted. So maybe
21 or 22 percent of the electorate thought that voting against Bush
would be a good idea. And it was, I agree, but 60 percent of
the electorate thought that voting was not worth the trouble.
And they may be right. We'll have to keep the pressure up starting
right now. Thanks for all your good work. -EM
With election comments on the writings of specific BC Editorial Board
members:
Jamala Rogers, The
Day After:
The Dems are a sorry lot, true, but the extravagances of the Repugs
for the last six years have created an agenda that even craven worms
can't ignore: minimum wage, children's security, ethical governance,
reasonable financial management, improved education, a more ethical,
less brutish, less hegemonic posture in international affairs, getting
the hell out of Iraq, clean elections, a halt of lavish gifts to the
rich--and dozens more.
These are sure to be presented to Bush for his veto, and while he's
considering whether to veto or not, congressional investigations into
the irregularities of the Bush syndicate and its henchmen will be
making daily headlines , and W, his own man for the first time in
his life (except, now, for the shady counsel of his father and his
father's aging retainers) will be considering the specters of impeachment
and prosecution even as he considers using the veto.
I'm not a pundit, not a teacher, just a small-time reporter of 68
years (and single dad of three kids for 18 years), more than 50 of
them in the craft. I can't see how these things, this shower of prospective
benefits, are anything but inevitable, and, barring the unlikely possibility
of a Republican win in '08, most will eventually be realized. It's
still not enough, but it's more than I thought I'd live to see, far,
far more. Jubilation is in order! Thanks for your good writing! -MC
Would like to hear more on new stragey. I am firmly rooted in the
position it is time for African Americans to re-asses our investment
in America. That it is time to build a global foot print that fosters
self sustainability in our communities. That it is time to hold our
financial instutions accountable and participate in the real world
economy instead of the imaginary one the now wallow in. It does not
do much to understand that until we begin to divert our capital to
our own benefit we will have less and less of a real voice. -CK
Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD, Musings
on the Midterms
I am glad that you said that Harold Ford, Jr.'s centrist politics
were sometimes galling. Or let me say it this way. You were very kind.
His policies at times were very galling. While I would have voted
for him if I lived in Tennessee, I would not be happy. Many people,
including some liberals, are praising him. But I do not think he deserves
all of that praise and have had problems with Junior. After all I
would have voted for the lesser of two evils. Anyway, if junior would
have pushed more progressive or what some of us southerners have called
meat and potatoes issues more aggressively like minimum wages, college
financial aid, clean environment and affordable health care, he might
have won. BTW I grew up in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains.
So I know that poor and working class Whites are hurting from these
conservative policies.
I followed the race because my father grew up poor in his district.
I did not think that Harold, Junior represented poor people, especially
poor Black very well-especially in his last two years. -ES
Your candid analysis of the mid-terms is insightful and very informative.
-FL
Your BlackCommentator piece is right on target, pleased that many
voters seem to have recognized what some of us could have told them
in 2000, hopeful for change from a Democratic Congress, concerned
that the Party continues to rely on black voters support even when
they neither campaign on our issues nor much push them once we have
helped put them in office. -DB
Comments on Dean Lawrence R. Velvel, JD's, National
Affairs, The African American Experience and George Bush in Issue
#204:
Wow! A great article, and a lot to chew on. 1) As an African American
myself, my impression is that white media people critical of Bush
are pushed to the Internet, or not hired in the first place. 2) I'm
all for proportional representation, but apparently we're so impotent,
we can't even stop open vote theft. I've also just watched a documentary
called "Why We Fight". We have a LOT of work to do. 3) Speaking
(earlier) of the Internet, I've stumbled upon more American history
there (your article is an example) than in a lifetime of reading and
watching mainstream media. Again, a LOT of work. And thanks.
-JF
I deeply appreciate your article that appeared in today's Black Commentator,
particularly the discussion of southern dominance in our nation's
political life.
Thank you for revitalizing the rhetoric and insights concerning
southern undemocratic, throttling control, pointed out by almost every
19th c. abolitionist from Douglass, McCune Smith, J.Brown, Garrison,
Gerrit Smith, Sojourner Truth, etc., etc., (for all their differences
on the Constitution), giving rise to their persistent use of the term
"the Slavepower" and description of the nation
as perpetuating the original sin of the 3/5 'compromise'. When I was
in graduate school, all the radical abolitionists were condemned as
fanatics and the probable "cause of the war."
That reductionist view has been largely unseated, but few researchers
have taken the 19th c. critiques of the constitutionally imposed structural
shackles seriously enough to chart a reform agenda, now desperately
needed.
Thank you again for this spearheading analysis. -BL
Regarding Bill Fletcher's commentary, Wishful
(Political) Thinking in Black America in Issue #204:
Bill Fletcher's article about Black folk that support the likes of
Clarence, Colin, Condi and now Michael Steele just because they are
Black show to the world just how politically naive many of us are.
There are far too many of us that are so overjoyed at seeing a Black
man or woman in power "Speaking Properly" and acting with
intelligence, especially in the company of White folk, that all many
see is that Black person's socially acceptable behavior and never
bother to ask what is going on in his or her mind. Too many Black
folk think that a successful Black person will naturally sympathize
with other Blacks and have our best interests in their hearts. Clarence
Thomas should have proven once and for all that "A brother ain't
always a brother."
We need to ask tough questions of Blacks in power or those seeking
power...What have you done for your people lately? What will you do
for your people in the future? How will you make the playing field
level for us? How will you show thanks for those that have gave their
lives for you to be in the position you are now? -DT
And finally, a reader comment on Anthony Asadullah Samad's Between
the Lines, How America Made Niggas, Revisited (Hopefully For The
Last Time) in Issue #209:
Until this incident, and the uproar around it, I had never heard
of Michael Richards. Until reading your article I had never heard
of Paul Mooney. However, I have often heard the mindless justification
of use of the N word, and it is long past the time when we tolerate
those, Black or white, comedian or otherwise, who use the word.
Such people should be ostracized. I mean it; no matter who they
are. Problem is, we lack the guts to do so. Mainly because the next
person to use the term will be someone we know and like. Like, our
children. Or maybe Mom will let it slip. Maybe the wife or husband.
Such a state of affairs is proof we are still slaves. Men & women
aware of being free would not use the term nor would they consent
to its use around them.
What is the psychology that does not educate its group to preserve
itself? What is the psychology of some in the group who would rather
destroy it? These are the real questions. -JH
Your comments are always welcome. Click
here to reach Nancy Littlefield.