It is time to stop referring to Condoleezza Rice as an intelligent person. The White House National Security Advisor is a fool and a fake intellectual; how else to explain her speech to the National Association of Black Journalists, earlier this month, in which she compared Birmingham to Baghdad, inverting the truth with a furrowed, yet vacant face? There is nothing behind the woman’s eyes, organs that appear to be dedicated solely to the purpose of worshipping Power.

For some of us at , Rice’s remarks induced profound feelings of racial embarrassment, followed by uncontrolled, disgusted sputtering. Could such an insipid, hollow specimen of Black womanhood actually exist? By invoking the four child victims of the Birmingham church bombing in scandalous political service to her idol, George Bush, Rice has crossed the line from sycophancy to blasphemy.  

Fortunately, New York City writer Margaret Kimberley maintained her composure in the face of Rice’s assault on decency, to provide us with her August 14 Guest Commentary, “Condoleezza Rice and the Birmingham Bombing Victims.”  

 

Poor Condi Rice and company are left unable to sing about freedom or little else because our Iraq policy was based on lies and is now such an obvious failure.  It is difficult for the Bush administration to build democracy in Iraq because that was never their true intention. Had they been serious about bringing freedom to Iraqis instead of profits to Halliburton we would have involved the United Nations and Arab nations in bringing about positive change. Instead we have both the sorry spectacle of continued killings of Iraqi civilians and American troops and of a National Security Adviser making ridiculous statements.

 

As for the martyred Denise McNair, she and the other children killed by American evil doers deserve better than to be used as cover for the worst that America has to offer. As an aside, I have always found it offensive when victims like Denise McNair are described as having “sacrificed” or “given their lives.” Miss McNair’s life was taken from her. People who in all probability called themselves Christians murdered her in her church.   The only thing crueler is for people in power to evoke her name when telling us that peace is war and freedom is slavery.

 

Ms. Kimberley’s piece was the most widely read item on last issue’s menu. David Leander Williams felt compelled to respond.

 

Margaret Kimberley's brilliant piece that illuminated and underscored Rice's "wolf in sheep's clothing" dilemma brought back a mountain of painful feelings that I experienced that dreadful day in 1963 when the Birmingham girls were murdered.  Ms. Kimberley clearly addresses the gigantic contradiction that Rice spews like venom in her speech while on one hand, appealing to the emotions of the audience by evoking the memory of Little Miss Denise McNair while on the other hand, defending the illegal, immoral destruction of Iraq.  Tens of thousands of Iraqi children, women and men were murdered by “liberating” American bombs.

Perhaps, Ms. Rice is unaware of the little 12-year-old Iraqi boy, Ali Ishmael Abbas whose parents and siblings were killed during a residential neighborhood bombing raid.  Ali lost his entire family and both arms!  I'm sure he's so grateful to Rice and Company for liberating his country while destroying his family.  I'm sure if he had hands, he'd gladly shake the paws of Ms. Rice.  But alas, he can't, thanks to the compassionate conservatism and perverted foreign policy of this fine Christian woman.  

 

Not content to contort her own Black, southern psyche to satisfy the demands of Power, Condoleezza Rice attempts to enlist Black history, itself, in her masters’ imperial project. Bill Hicks does a brief scan of Rice’s brainwaves, such as they are.

Thanks for such an insightful piece.  I hope it gets the circulation it deserves.  As a white foot soldier in the civil rights struggles in the '60s, it's strange to me how far we have drifted from those ideals.  The worst event of the '60s might have been the King assassination in '68, as he was a man of true honor and vision and might have lead us all out of this wilderness.  In my opinion, one of the deep motivations of Ms. Rice is perhaps the shocking effects of the Birmingham bombing.  I wonder if she didn't decide right then, as a little kid, that it was safer to grab on to power than to fight it.  

Imagine if King had made such a decision.  Why, he'd be an elder GOP statesman, pontificating about how we're saving the Third World from the mysterious forces of evil who don't want us to fix everything by draining all their resources away for a pittance.  Instead he stood up to these forces – and they killed him.  Condoleezza is just a convenient shill, even more convenient as she is so obviously “smart and talented and wonderful” – in George Bush’s eyes.  She's even beautiful – for an ice queen.  The Bush talent for finding the needle in the haystack, shown first with Thomas and now again with Ms. Rice, continues. (One wonders what Mrs. Laura really thinks of the cozy Sunday football parties?)  There's an oil tanker named after Ms Rice!  Nuff said.  

Mr. Hicks’ psychological theory is intriguing: Rice swears childhood allegiance to murderous racists to save herself from otherwise inevitable doom at their hands. That's as good an explanation as any for Rice's madness.

Teresa A. Turner is a director of corporate sales and marketing. As such, she tends to think positively, if at all possible, and sees some light through the Swiss cheese in Rice’s skull.  

My hope is that there is still time for Dr. Rice’s blinders to be removed.  You see, Mr. Powell once had blinders and was actively used by the current administration.  Then it hit him – the truth about the current political party in office and what his true role was in all of this.  He then began to speak out and he then was shut down.  Which by the way taught him another lesson.  You will always be seen as Black over all else, which I believe he did not want to believe.  Now they are using Dr. Rice because she is still in the dark about the truth of all that has happened and all that will happen with this current administration.  She has not experienced or refuses to label her experiences as racism.  I really hope and pray that she continues to stay blessed but also gain an understanding of the truths of this nation we live in.  I do not want to see her broken and bitter but wise beyond her own understanding on the true plight of the Black African American.  

Federal law prevents us from expressing our wishes for Dr. Rice and the rest of the Pirates.  

Begging is not an urban strategy

One cannot make sense of the state of American cities absent an understanding of the African American saga and a cold analysis of the caprices and imperatives of capital, now engaged in ferocious assault on human social structures, worldwide. It is a conversation that will not be over until the men who use wealth as a weapon are rendered harmless to the rest of us.

We began our series on the interconnected urban-global dilemma with, “Wanted: A Plan for the Cities to Save Themselves, Part One,” in the August 14 issue.  Our subhead focus, “Black labor’s role in transforming the urban landscape,” was only touched on in Part One, and will be more thoroughly examined in part II at a future date.

Almost as soon as Blacks began to establish themselves in high elected offices of the nation’s big cities, the road to larger political power, previously traveled by waves of white urban immigrants – ended. The cities themselves had been divested by capital – leaving minorities numerically dominant – followed soon thereafter by capital’s forced march of manufacturing jobs to the sunbelt and, almost without a pause, the Third World. Black electoral leadership was adrift – and remains so.

is convinced that only when Black leadership is “guided by the powerful social message and historical experience of Black unionists” will a Black politics emerge that can defend the people and their assets against the ravages of capital – the corporate and financial managers that divested urban America twice in a single generation.  

You will shortly learn why we were overjoyed to hear from Irv Taylor, a reader who has corresponded with us before but never told us what he does for a living.

I loved your (lack of) city planning article. It hit right at home for me since, yes, I am a city planner. Everything you wrote is dead on the bull’s-eye. I have been a City Planner since the mid-Seventies once I got "qualified" with my master's degree. Ever since, I have not been impressed with the basic white city planner/builder/developer types (or with the ignoramus Toms and Tomasinas who are in league with them). It is clear that for all the undergraduate and master's programs purportedly producing planners, the planners can't plan a city worth a damn. The evidence of their stewardship is patently clear. Compared to Europe where they show some sense of responsibility to and artistry in the making of their cities, here, the ground is purely a commodity.  

The public guardians (elected and department officials) overwhelmingly see themselves not as stewards of the public, but as the puppets of the corporations and moneyed interests. These interests control and dictate what happens or is possible to happen way out of the normal public view, though in plain sight. The public guardians across the country, exhibit such a startling lack of imagination that time and again they can only arrive at the same tired and useless tactic: to give away the public money to some corporate pirate that sails in and raids the treasury. The tactic of the pirate is just as singular: they claim a project is not doable without the public's money. You would think that us Black folk would have this thing figured out, especially since this trickery and deceit has been going on for 50-60 years and more. 

The people who know that land is a valuable resource exert control over the use of that resource by every means. They tell us city dwellers what we can have, when we can have it and how much of it we can have. As a result, the great cities of the US – New York, Philly, Cleveland, Boston, D.C., LA and on and on and on – are all dysfunctional in fundamental ways for ordinary people. Far too many neighborhoods lack adequate transit service, lack place-to-place connectivity, lack access to everyday goods and services, have obsolescent school facilities and suffer from divestment, environmental racism, and more ills than can be comfortably listed.  

Everywhere I have been on the planet where there is a concentration of black people, the urban conditions are The Same: blighted! In the community I work now, there has not been a supermarket for 7-8 years. I asked some people what they thought about that, and they could only say: "We Need a Supermarket. We need a restaurant." I said, "The food marketeers know you need a food market. Everyone alive needs to eat, so they know this. But they aren't interested in your convenience." And they said: "But, we Need." And I said, "If this community was 20% Caucasian, you'd have one. If you formed a food co-op, collect dues or issue stock shares to participating residents, keep good records, eventually the food marketeers will start to pay attention. Why? Because your co-op is making money. And the corporate beast cannot stand it when someone else is making the money they think is theirs. And they will come." But they did not believe. I asked some other people what they thought about their community having so many boarded up buildings, vacant lots, and public owned land. The most common response was along the lines "Well its been going on for a long time. Somebody should do something about it."

The American white man does not care about his cities, at least he does not care about the areas of the city where people of color predominate. His so-called "City Planners" are no planners. They are gatekeepers to destroy the hopes and ambitions of people, particularly black people. Their objective is to remove Black people from the cities under the guise of the public health, safety and welfare. In the areas where white people are the numerical majority, magically there aren't any of the constraints they tell inner city people make investment so risky. So, where (since most of us never got the 40 acres + the mule or long since sold it, to some white man, probably) will the black people be relocated or removed to when we have been urban renewed out of and gentrified away from the neighborhoods we grew up in that decayed around us? Where will black folk go in AmeriKKKa then?  

We have not seriously bothered to even try to be good stewards of the cities, building our own economies, our own businesses, or creating our own jobs, instead we've remained dependent while even our own institutions blame and fault others for our malaise. We could have learned city building, community development, learned how to demand and get the use of resources to build our homes and neighborhoods. We settled for the handout, the sellout, and the buyout. But it is still not yet too late to claim neighborhoods that have been black for decades.

Instead of moving to the first or second ring older suburbs, black folks could stay in the city. We could demand that suburban style amenities – that is, quality of life stuff – be brought inside the city. Instead of accepting loans to sell out in the city for a place in the 'burbs, we could see the financial transaction for what it is, an investment, and our investment is just as important as anyone else's, individual or corporate. To protect the investment, we have a right to tell some public guardian, "NO! Not with my investment you don't."

Our cities do not have to be the graveyards they are becoming. Our cities do not have to be devoid of clean air, lacking enough jobs for ordinary folk, vacant of normal (take-it-for-granted) shopping opportunities, stripped of the barest quality of life trappings. They do not have to be cages with people isolated in avoided neighborhoods, become wells of hate and despair, or be cesspools of ignorance, criminality and excess. Our cities do not have to have zones of decay, destruction and apathy. Our cities could be nice places to live. But we must take the power of capital to our own hands to have any chance to make our cities the place we call home.  

We found Mr. Taylor’s commentary quite useful, as we hope will become apparent in our series on the cities.  

Concealing the racial facts of life

Ward Connerly doesn’t like Black people, beginning with himself. All of his rich white friends share the same sentiments, and pay him well to wrestle with his inner demons on the public stage. This year’s Ward Connerly show features the Racial Privacy Initiative (RPI), Proposition 54, which we characterized on August 14 as “Ward Connerly’s Crusade to Erase Black People.”

The intended effect of RPI is to make it nearly impossible to compile evidence of the existence of racism, or to create public policy that would counter the effects of racism, or to identify the victims of racism. A “color blind” society would be achieved by blinding citizens and government to the facts of bias. It is the equivalent of vanquishing crime by making it impossible to introduce evidence of lawbreaking, or conquering disease by eliminating the practice of medicine. Racial peace will reign in the land, the theory goes, since there will be no official racial facts available to argue about.

Leutisha Stills is one of the living facts that Connerly wants to erase from the records of Oakland, California. She’s seen Connerly’s act, up close.

Kudos for your insightful article on a piece of human slime known as Ward Connerly and that misnomer "Racial Privacy Initiative."  I work in the field of EEO/Cultural Competency in Health Care and know the potential devastation that will happen if we can't get access to statistics to prove that minorities don't get good health care because no one is in practice is sensitive to their cultural differences that may prohibit access to good health care. Your story reminds me of a scenario that actually happened in 1996 when I was working for the Feds and actually encountered good ol' slave boy Ward.

In 1996, I was a Civil Rights Specialist in the U. S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. I attended a Civil Rights Conference in Oakland, where Mr. Connerly was the keynote speaker trying to sell us on the need for the misnamed "California Civil Rights Initiative" (Prop. 209).

My supervisor and I had researched and reviewed the Initiative, and since our office was responsible for the oversight and enforcement of the Civil Rights Programs of State Transportation agencies giving minority and women-owned businesses a slice of the Federal pie of dollars in four states and two American Territories, we sent an in-depth analysis of the initiative to our National Director of Civil Rights in Federal Highway Administration in Washington with a letter urging the Secretary to threaten to cut off California's money if they didn't take Prop. 209 off the table. To us, Prop. 209 was the nail in the coffin to wipe out any progress or opportunities for minority and women owned businesses contracting to the Feds.

The day arrived for Mr. Connerly to speak at our conference. After 20 minutes of futilely trying to convince a room of 300 EEO and Civil Rights/Diversity Practitioners of the inherent "goodness" of the California Civil Rights Initiative, (cause we proceeded to drown him out with boos, catcalls and hissing) we were allowed to submit written questions on a 3 x 5 card to Mr. Connerly.

My question: "If this proposition passes, what are you suggesting to replace implemented, systematically proven programs that prevent institutional discrimination?  In other words, what is going to keep agencies from discriminating if there is no mandate and no legal remedy to forestall it?”

Mr. Connerly:  "They're just not going to discriminate...."

The Crowd: "W-T-F?  Is he kidding, or just plain delusional????"

Rather than answer a legitimate question, he then asked who sent that question up there.  I stood alone in that room, then a couple of more people, until half the room was on their feet.  He screamed at us "I don't see why you invited me here if you are going to disrespect me like this" – and ran out of the ballroom like the sniveling wimp he is.   Needless to say, I didn't get an answer to my question.

The point is, Connerly called and challenged the organizers of the conference to invite him, saying that if we were truly pro-civil rights, then he deserved the opportunity to present his views.  So they acquiesced to his bullying tactics and he screamed like a little kid ("I'm gonna take my toys and go home cause I don't wanna play with you anymore!") because he didn't get the reception he thought he deserved from a crowd that included many who stood to be unemployed because Prop.209 was going to eliminate their jobs.  Do you see his grandeurs of delusions here?
 
Now this state is probably going to have Conan the Barbarian as governor, with Orrin Hatch in the wings trying to get a Constitutional Amendment passed to allow the foreign-born to become President. (If that's the case, someone had better answer why an American-born African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or female doesn't get the chance at the Oval Office before Ah-nold does.)  And Connerly is hoping to slip one past us because we're going to have our attention diverted with the Terminator.  

The Zimbabwe debate

In our July 31 Cover Story, “The Debate on Zimbabwe Will Not Be Throttled,” we called for the widest possible discussion among Blacks in the Diaspora on issues related to Africa – including and especially the situation in Zimbabwe. Our critique was largely directed against “individuals and organizations [that] appropriate to themselves the colors Red, Black and Green, and label as treasonous all Black criticism of their current Strong Man of choice, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.” The commentary specifically cited “circles associated with the December 12th Movement [that] seek to monopolize and smother that discussion through intimidation and slander.”  

The furor began with a June 3 Open Letter to President Mugabe from African American trade unionists, educators, clergy and activists who “view the political repression underway in Zimbabwe as intolerable and in complete contradiction of the values and principles that were both the foundation of your liberation struggle and of our solidarity with that struggle.” This incurred the wrath of the December 12th Movement and others, who charge that criticism of Mugabe encourages U.S. and British intervention against Zimbabwe. 

’s position is that Mugabe does suppress civil society, and we believe that the most prominent member of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, does act and talk like a collaborator with imperialism. We oppose U.S. intervention under any circumstances, and also oppose those who would strangle the African American debate over how to best support the people of Zimbabwe.  

Rashieda Weaver is a leader of the Zimbabwe Support Committee, in Chicago.

She writes:  

I am surprised at the amount of discussion over the fact that there is disagreement over Zimbabwe's political parties among Black Americans. The intellectual community is not only comprised of scholars but also activists. There are still many political activists who don't use their professions as venues of expression. No we don't agree!!! The scholars can write as many books on the subject as they choose. That does not make them experts on any political contingent.  

I do agree with some of your writers’ points particularly the issue of being branded as capitalist sympathizers etc. For that reason I will be direct. There is a tremendous amount of racism in United States foreign policy. Because some writers and scholars agree with U.S. foreign policy regarding Zimbabwe doesn't mean they are racist.  

You and your readers are aware that the land question in Africa is not only being challenged in Zimbabwe. You and your readers are aware that the people of Zimbabwe are impoverished and enfranchised. They choose their governments, and their leaders. The people in urban cities voted for Tsvangirai. The people in rural countryside voted for Mugabe. The election was monitored and found to be a fair election. The MDC lost. ZANU-PF won a decisive victory. MDC has challenged the results of the election – a subsequent by-product of their discontent being the planned assassination of Robert Mugabe.     

We must recognize all governments have a right to defend themselves and all elected officials. In this case, the President. Zimbabwe has its own legal system whether the U.S. agrees to that point or not. Presidents appoint justices to the high court routinely. They often appoint justices who favor a specific political viewpoint. This doesn't make Robert Mugabe a dictator. Just the same way that Black Americans who agree with a racist U.S. foreign policy doesn't mean they are racist.  

Certainly things are very difficult now. Believe me, before it is all over it will be even more difficult. When it is all over the people of Zimbabwe will control the land and resources. The mines and the farms. The industry and the commerce. Not Britain or the U.S.A.      

We marched in the streets against apartheid and boycotted Nestle, Kodak in an effort to end colonial exploitation in southern Africa. Yet at the end of colonial exploitation the Black Americans have said very little about debt relief, very little about affordable HIV-AIDS drug regimens. We have done very little to support the people who fought so hard to gain freedom from colonial governments.

In short the rhetoric was not enough to sustain consistent support for the people.    

It is the people I am concerned about not the rhetoric. And if you believe U.S. State Department rhetoric that Robert Mugabe is a dictator then, rhetorically speaking, Salih Booker is a racist.  

Salih Booker is Executive Director of Africa Action and one of the signatories to the letter critical of President Mugabe.  

U.S. Africa policy: permanent instability  

At least since the summer day in 1960 when President Eisenhower ordered the assassination of Congolese democratic leader Patrice Lumumba, U.S. policy in post-colonial Africa has been to thwart the development of civil society by creating conditions of Hell on Earth. As we wrote in the July 17 issue, “American policy is designed to place Africans at the extremes of insecurity, in order to foreclose the possibility of civil societies taking root. This policy has always resulted in mass death.” (See “Barefoot Sick Hungry & Afraid: The real U.S. policy in Africa.”)

In Boston, Dr. Alvin Foster draws parallels between U.S. African and domestic policy.

After reading your excellent articles and others, I have come to believe that this same policy of destabilization – keeping Africa incapable of withstanding the thievery practiced by multinational corporations, now fully applies to Blacks in America. Like Africa, they (the people who own America) too often select our Black misleaders and murder our chosen leaders (Malcolm X). The multiple street demonstrations and riots of the 1960 & 70s (Civil Rights, Women Rights, Poverty & Job Marches for union scale wages, Vietnam, etc.) instilled hope for change among the oppressed classes: the poor, Blacks and Latinos; however, it threatened the profits and domination of the owners.

It scared them so much so that they created with President Johnson’s help the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration [LEAA]. It supplied the funds and weapons that fueled the lock up of a significant number of Blacks. The lockup policy is designed to assure riot free streets, destabilized Black families, and to contain the threat of Democracy or the people taking control of their lives and country. Under President Bush even more unemployed Blacks, most with families, are finding the prison doors wide open. Incarceration rates of the unemployed in the USA last year beat all previous lockup records.

To get large corporations fully on-board with the Black destabilization policy the USA owners offered them tax incentives for investing in the ghetto. To get the police fully cooperating with their undermining policy they used money again – President Reagan passed legislation that legalized police departments keeping assets acquired with suspected drug money. Not to be outdone, President Clinton raised the terror on the poor in 1996 when he championed the passage of the ‘The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act’. It almost eviscerated Habeas Corpus, making it easier for states to execute the poor.

Contrary to popular belief the prison-industrial-complex is not hugely profitable, but it is critical if maintaining high unemployment, civil order and low wages are desired. The prison-industrial-complex will continue to expand as long as the need to terrorize immigrants and maintain worker passivity remain state policy.

The proletariat (the poor) according to Marx and Engels’ Collected Works, “…will surprise the property-holding class one day with things not dreamed of in its philosophy.”  

Dr. Foster is correct: in the Sixties the LEAA "federalized" suppression of Black populations, previously the responsibility of Dodge-sheriff types and their redneck irregulars in the South, and ethnic gangs of whites in blue in the North. In what seemed like no time, many county and city police departments doubled and tripled in size and armaments, and SWAT made its dramatic appearance.

Dr. Foster also points out that the prison-industrial complex's primary role is massive social coercion, not as a profit center, although the system has become an economic mainstay of many white communities. Mass incarceration also serves the deep longings of many whites to make Blacks disappear. There is an exterminationist impulse at work, here, something much more sinister than fear of crime.

Kind words

Sometimes a brother just wants to say something nice. We got this letter, signed “A Brother in Florida.”

The voice of the Black Commentator is more than a breath of fresh air in a suffocating gas chamber. Your research is probably the best I have ever seen and it impresses me as being thorough and complete. Thanks, Brothers and Sisters.  

Arlene and David Pellow went on record as fans of illustrator Khalil Bendib.

We like your cartoons – they are right on target, as they reflect truth and make fun of it at the same time.

Freedom fighter Fogg

welcomes news that our friend and collaborator Matthew Fogg has been named to the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA. A U.S. Marshall since 1978, Fogg won a landmark racial discrimination judgment against the Marshall’s Service in 1998. He appears to spend every waking hour organizing everyone in sight.

’s path crossed with Fogg’s when, as Executive Director of the Redstone Area Minority Employees Association, he alerted us to flagrant use of the racist slur “Tar Baby” by white managers at the highly sensitive Hunstville, Alabama weapons installation. The story appeared in our June 7, 2002 issue: “Tar Baby Outrage! Racism and Corruption at Redstone Arsenal.”  

Several thousand of Marshall Fogg’s friends, admirers, and contacts soon became readers of our fledgling publication – which makes Matthew Fogg a VIP at .  

Keep writing.  

gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for sending visitors our way during the past two weeks:  

Buzz Flash

Black Planet

Bartcop

Liberal Oasis

Democratic Underground