Table of Contents

There are 15 items in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story: Drones - Foreign & Domestic - African World By Bill Fletcher, Jr, BC Editorial Board

Mr. Blasty Goes to Washington - Political Cartoon By Mark Fiore, San Francisco CA

Women’s History Month Quote to Ponder: "Every great dream begins with a dreamer…” - Harriet Tubman

If Harriet Tubman Were President - Represent Our Resistance - By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD - BC Editorial Board

Lantern of Liberty - Harriet Tubman Wall Mural Photograph By Peter Gamble

To GOP: Make it $10 Billion - Or Save Your Money - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

The Life of Hugo Chavez and the Death of the L.A. Elections By Eric Mann, BC Guest Commentator

Mexico Sets the Tone on Hate Speech – Inclusion - By The Reverend Irene Monroe - BC Editorial Board

A Sweet, Sweet Spirit - Nafsi ya Jamii - By Wilson Riles - BC Columnist

If They Really Wanted To Surprise Us - Political Cartoon By Zapiro, South Africa

Dacajeweiah, Splitting-The-Sky: You Shall Be Remembered With Great Honor!- Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

For Republican TEA Party House Negroes the Kitchen is Gettin' Kinda’ Hot - Sharp n’ Blunt - By Desi Cortez - BC Columnist

Revisiting Black Nationalist History - Worrill’s World - By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD - BC Columnist

BlackCommentator.com: Political Cartoon - Pope Francis I: Good Friend of Argentina’s Dictatorship By Carlos Latuff, Rio de Janeiro Brazil

This is an eBook version of BlackCommentator.com - An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace.

BC Provides commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world.

BC was established April 5, 2002 and is published weekly on Thursday.

Executive Editor: David A. Love, JD - Managing Editor: Nancy Littlefield, MBA - Publisher: Peter Gamble

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

The debate over the use of drones took a very odd turn when it became clear that the Obama administration did not wish to state, categorically, that there would be no drone strikes against targets in the USA. Watching Attorney General Eric Holder bob and weave was actually quite fascinating and at the same time chilling.

The debate exists at multiple levels and one important level is what I would call imperial right. By ‘imperial right’ I mean the notion that drones can be used overseas, almost without question, but that we must draw a line when it comes to the domestic usage.

Drones are instruments of reconnaissance and attack. They are not fundamentally different than any military attack aircraft except that the pilot is not on-board. So, the question is not really one of drone usage in general; it is about how any sort of military craft is used, whether domestically or overseas. The drone strikes used against alleged terrorist targets have drawn attention not because of the deaths of alleged terrorists but because of what is politely referenced as “collateral damage,” i.e., the deaths of civilians. We have no idea whether solid evidence has been accumulated on various alleged terrorist targets but one thing that has become especially clear is that there are many civilian casualties and that these casualties are bringing with them increasing hatred of the USA and its overseas policies. Pakistan is a case in point but it is not the only case.

Drone strikes are no different than an F-18 carrying out an attack run. So, what we need to really focus on in the drone debate is the combination of the threat to the sovereignty of countries and the almost cavalier manner in which these strikes take place, with the corresponding loss of civilian lives.

In the case of domestic usage, there are certainly Constitutional questions. Have charges been drawn up by a grand jury against a particular target? Has there been an attempt to arrest them? Is the target simply a suspect? How solid is the evidence? What is the anticipated “collateral damage” resulting from such an attack? To questions such as these Holder seems to be saying something along the lines of “…it depends…” This is simply not good enough. If a journalist had contact with an organization on the terrorist watch list, does that justify a drone attack against the journalist? Where does it all start and where does it stop?

Drone usage has become very acceptable because it flows from the culture of video games. Sit behind a screen and ‘whack’ a target, but with no personal consequences. It all seems so clean, and to some it is fun. But with increased drone usage there has been a decrease in explanations and accountability. The fact that they are contemplated for use in the USA, therefore, should not surprise us. In remaining silent about their usage overseas it was only a matter of time before the chickens—the drones—would come home to roost.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board memberand Columnist, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is aSenior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfricaForum, and the author of “They’reBankrupting Us” - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions. He is also the co-author of SolidarityDivided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

Mar 21, 2013 -Issue 509

Mr. Blasty Goes to Washington

Animated Political Cartoon

By Mark Fiore, San Francisco CA

Click here to view the animation

Pulitzer Prize-winner, Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, where his work has been featured on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, SFGate.com, for over ten years. His work also appears on Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com and NPR’s web site. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Click here to contact Mark

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

Click here for more about Harriet Tubman

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

If Harriet Tubman Were President

In the Republic of poetry,

poets rent a helicopter

to bombard the national palace

with poems on bookmarks,

and everyone in the courtyard

rushes to grab a poem

fluttering from the sky,

blinded by weeping.

- Martin Espada “In the Republic of Poetry”

If Harriet Tubman were elected president of the United States, the Underground Railroad would become a modern-day institution in which the “wretched of the earth” here in the U.S. would be gathered together to rise from beneath the heels of their enslavers. These citizens would form local committees to review what is best in the U.S. Constitution as well as review the Iroquois Constitution and the Black Panther education and food distribution programs. Freedom would take on a new meaning and the word “reform” would be removed from the lexicon of all languages. “Economically poor,” “liberal,” democrat,” “republican,” “fundamental Christian,” and “conservative” would not represent anyone. And we would come up with a flag that would represent all the people and not be used to intimidate those of us who still do not feel welcomed.

If Ida B. Wells were president, any form of lynching would be banned, the death penalty would be outlawed, and the prison industrial complex would be dismantled. A freed and enlightened population would come to recognize the truly “innocent” and the “criminal.” A president who believes in justice would appoint a team led by Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal to review the cases of all political prisoners incarcerated in the United States and held by the United States in prisons around the world. Those incarcerated under unjust laws would be freed to learn to read and write by teaching the young to read and write. Both the teachers-students/students-teachers would represent a new institution of learners and doers for the larger community goal of freedom for all. Prison cells would be reserved for criminals like Karl Rove and his political and corporate cronies who perpetrated voters’ fraud against the people; the entire personnel at FEMA, Homeland Security, and the NSA, and corrupt local and state officials, and judges—haters of the people—who can’t be trusted to live among the people.

If Malcolm were president of these United States, his VP would be someone like Ghassan Kanafani and, if Kanafani were president, his VP would be someone like Malcolm. They would teach the people to remember. By remembering, the people would recall the value of their lives and recognize their own ability to strive for a community where the playing field is leveled and the hope for a truly new world order is something in which they contribute to each and everyday.

"Wherever you have organized crime, that type of crime cannot exist (sic) other than with the consent of the police, the knowledge of the police and the cooperation of the police," said Malcolm. Community counsels would replace the police force and the role community patrolling would work to eliminate what Malcolm called “organized crime.” Community counsels, accountable to the people, would submit to weekly town meetings.

Bailouts for the poor and working class who have been locked into a system of servitude to the rulers will dissolve the income gap between the rich and poor. The few would not have more homes than they can remember while others are losing their homes or have inadequate housing. Someone like Cesar Chavez would break the link between the Democratic Party Machine and the labor unions and establish the rights of workers to determine the conditions of their work environment and negotiate the value of their labor. A president of the people would appoint someone like Wangari Maathai, Secretary of the Environment, and she, in turn, would appoint thousands of African, Asian, Latin American, Caribbean, and Native American women and girls to grow corn not for the further production of fuel and profits for the rich but for hungry children who go to sleep hungry, even in the United States. Maathai would consult with James Hanson, and they would work with a team of to end the catastrophe of ignorance by working toward a more green-conscious world.

If someone like Ella Baker were president, all children would be proud of their heritage, and a little white girl would admire the texture of a little Black girl’s hair. Corporations wouldn’t have more rights than a Native American child, and places like Iraq would not be seen as a good business deal for the procuring of more oil.

Someone like Paulo Freire would head a team with Jonathan Kozol and Marian Wright Edelman, and together they would work alongside the people to provide quality education for all children. Teachers would see their own child in every child under their tutelage. Every child would be a “special needs” child—handled with care and love. In addition, community sessions on this nation’s history of violence will be conducted to confront the U.S.’s penchant for systematic exclusion, humiliation, demoralization, and exploitation of those with racial, cultural, and religious differences.

If Father Ernesto Cardenal were president, there would be communities of Solentiname here everywhere in United States as part of a real free trade to share the beauty and wisdom of birds and deer that would not have to worry about someone like Hockey Mom with rifle in hand, hunting them down to add to her trophy wall.

If someone truly compassionate were running for president, millions would not die because of inadequate health care. People like Bill Gates would produce computers free to everyone. Bill and Linda would provide the salary for ethical scientists who would work to find the cure to cancer, and all those who suffer from aids, diabetes, and malaria would have the medication they need.

Multi-millionaire politicians would be replaced by men and women who truly love people and who respect the land. You could expect the president to eat a meal of beans and rice at your house. He or she would not ask for money. Campaign funds would be obsolete. Anyone could run for president and not have to amass a fortune in a true democracy. Those people who keep track of how much a presidential candidate raises would be out of work. They would be re-hired to track down truant young children and mark off each precious child that is returned to a classroom. You could vote on a Saturday, if you are Christian, and on Sunday, if you are Jewish, and your vote will count. And no—the Christian religion, in a true democracy, will be one, that is, equal, among many, and to believe in the Sun, again, will be no one’s business.

If Martin Luther King were president, funding for wars would cease. Troops would return home. A new institution to train and/or re-educate negotiators and mediators would recognize the importance of a culturally/globally literate neighbor-consultant in the world.

King George, Darth Vader, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and John Yu and the whole anti-people cabal would be rounded up, stripped of their illegally acquired wealth, and sent to work on behalf of the people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Columbia, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, working on the land to develop amble food sources, to build schools for adults and children alike, and to build hospitals and health care centers or all those they have mutilated or who have suffered from traumatic loss of family members. The people themselves will teach these people how to work and to value work that values the potential of people to live peacefully on Earth. Anyone who calls himself a “maverick” will be subject to the same rehabilitation program. In the evenings, these inmates of the people would have to listen to lectures provided by freed activist Aung San Suu Kyi—through a loud speaker.

Someone like a Lumumba and Evo Morales would conduct seminars for would-be-presidents across the global with no interference from the United States or the IMF because the President of the United States would call for the IMF to be dissolved and all debts cleared. Former monetary investors would invest funds in any classroom full of children until the money runs out. They would purchase new and updated textbooks, computers, art supplies and musical instruments (because art and music would return to the classroom). When their individual funds run dry, former investors would become teachers, teaching children to invest in humanity and the planet. They would have to make sure children read Wilfred Owens, Siegfried Sassoon, and Walt Whitman.

Former capitalist institutions serving war and conflict would have their profits confiscated and re-distributed to an effective, global poverty program. Corporations like AT and T and General Election would not be in the war business or nor could they employ slave labor. Former corporate CEOs would have to live among the people as activists—actively pursuing the goal of FREE trade among the peoples of the world. A child in need of one book would receive ten books! Solar energy would provide the heat that would never be shut off because former CEOs would not want to see his or her neighbor using a space heater. They could remain in business only if they offered their services free to the people because those who remain would real want to work on behalf of all the people.

And the news would look like the best of an Edward R. Marrow broadcast, with anchors of every racial hue and with news representing all the peoples of the world without bias to any one group of people or any ideology. To that end, the corporations would have to relinquish control of the media outlets and turn them over to the people, to responsible professional and citizen journalists.

If someone truly peaceful were running for the president of the United States, the Black man in Texas would still have his place of business. Another would not have been shot in the face for wearing an Obama t-shirt. And someone like Barack Obama can stand up and be a man and be Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Arab, Black, Latino, Native American, Asian and not have to apologize or explain.

Peace would mean living without hatred and prejudice toward others. Peace would mean thinking that everyone deserves to do more than survive. It would mean thinking how wrong it is to have any group of people profit and live because others are working to elevate them to a higher standard of living. It would mean rethinking the idea of work and the value of all labor. Peace would mean recognizing that America’s “land of opportunity” slogan is immoral and serves as a camouflage to exploit rather than allow human beings to explore their potential as human beings.

The new president would abolish the position of Secretary of Defense and appoint someone like Rosa Parks Secretary of Peace. And she, recognizing her own humanity among others, would sit and negotiate with heads of state and encourage them, in this new day, to end brute rule and the need to engage in mortal combat with their neighbors on the planet.

No one would say “nuculer” because the new president would smash the Black Box and then order the armed forces to dismantle all nuclear weapons. This would be bold leadership and welcoming to other heads of state who, lead by their citizens, agree to do the same.

The president would have to answer to the supreme leader—Pablo Neruda—declared supreme leader by a people truly enlightened in the wisdom of Confucius, Rumi, Jesus, Buddha, and filled with love for humanity and nature.

In the republic of poetry,

the guard at the airport

will not allow you to leave the country

until you declaim a poem for her

and she says Ah! Beautiful.

Those in fear of “spreading the wealth” will find that capitalism is out to lunch—permanently! If your god would hate this world order, and if you would feel slighted, indeed, impoverished, “spiritually” or otherwise, then perhaps your imagination has been too limited, flawed. Consider Rapture—soon rather than later. Go! Or consider space flights leaving from Houston for some other planet. (Please let Hockey Mom be first in line—whichever line!). Clear your bank account and fly off where you can have the economic system that makes you feel like a king or a queen among your peers. Exploit and kill elsewhere!

Just let some of us imagine a new and better world—without you!

If only we could elect someone like Harriet Tubman for president…

Note: This commentary was originally published in BC October 30, 2008.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has aDoctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

Lantern of Liberty

Harriet Tubman Wall Mural Photograph

By Peter Gamble

This 70 foot high mural can no longer been seen on the west side of a building in the 9-hundred block of Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.

It was created by the Philadelphia Mural Project in six weeks at a cost of $45-thousand dollars in order to be finished in time for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in July of 2000. The inscription on the mural contains the names of Philadelphians who played important roles in the underground railroad.

The building it was painted on was torn down in June of 2002 to make way for an expansion of the parking lot. A spokesman for the city of Philadelphia said the decision was made due to the economic benefits of the additional parking.

No wall mural is a permanent piece of art. The average life of a wallmural is 20 to 25 years. Harriet Tubman's Lantern of Liberty lasted 23 months.

Photograph by Peter Gamble

Note: A publisher of children's books found the Tubman wall mural photograph while doing a search on the Internet. The photograph is now on the cover of Read About Harriet Tubman (I Like Biographies!) by Stephen Feinstein from Enslow Elementary, an imprint of Enslow Publishers, Inc.

You can purchase the book on Amazon.com by clicking on the name of the book above. BC receives a small commission on all sales and you do not pay a penny more for any purchase you make.

March 10th is officially Harriet Ross Tubman Day of Remembrance.

Click here for more information about Harriet Tubman - African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the U.S. Civil War.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

To GOP: Make it $10 Billion
Or Save Your Money

A headline in the local paper Monday morning announced: “GOP to spend $10 million to reach out to minority voters.”

It’s common knowledge that American voters have extremely short memories, especially when it comes to politics, but the announced plan of the Republican National Committee (RNC) to spend $10 million to send political operatives and low-level staff into minority communities across the country to bring them into the fold is like a contractor buying a hamburger for a politician, in exchange for a $2 million contract.

The announcement was made by the RNC with considerable fanfare over the past weekend and the party and its leader, Reince Priebus, believe that a precinct - and ward-level presence will get the party’s message out to voters and they will be “talking about our party, talking about our brand,” the Associated Press reported.

How well have these people thought this out? Aren’t the Republican Party and its cohort on the right the very outfit that was in the business of suppressing the votes of these very people? Didn’t they kick hundreds of thousands of minority voters off the rolls? And, didn’t their election officials at the state and county levels fix the voting process so that minority voters were waiting hours to cast a ballot, discouraging many so they went home without voting?

That appeared to be the objective and it seemed to work, but that still did not win them the presidential election. Priebus and his party must believe that minority voters will forget this and register Republican for the next election. It worked fine for George W. Bush in two elections. Why didn’t it work in this one?

Analyses of the voting patterns in the 2012 presidential election showed that voters in the African-American, Latino, and Asian communities voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The GOP knew that going into the election behind their standard bearer, Mitt Romney and they believed, as did he, that his election was a sure thing, the economy being so bad, unemployment so high, and the housing crisis far from over. And, the never-ending wars continued so enthusiastically by Bush and Cheney have not really reached their natural conclusion, since the conclusion would include rebuilding nations and societies that have been destroyed by the U.S.

Still, Obama was elected by a comfortable margin. Republicans and even Obama supporters realize that, to the extent that he might have been willing to take any bold steps on any given issue, the president was thwarted by the GOP that has become known as the “party of no.” Some of their rising stars know this is true, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal warning that the GOP must not be “the stupid party.” They have a lot of work ahead of them.

The GOP and its rightist political elements, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), made certain that Obama’s signature first-term issue, health care, would be as much of a failure as possible. They managed to eliminate the so-called public option, which would have given a very small alternative to the stranglehold the insurance industry has on health care in America. Essentially, what Americans now have is the same system of health care, if it can be called a “system.” The insurance companies remain firmly in charge and are raking in even more hundreds of millions of dollars because everyone will be required to buy health insurance policies. Because of that, Americans will continue to pay twice as much per capita as countries such as Canada and Germany, but there will still be tens of millions without coverage. This is not universal coverage or a “system” and it certainly is not a plan. Does the GOP think that the people will forget that?

There are a few other issues that the GOP is going to have to explain to the people they are trying to reach: low-cost housing (nothing in the works), education (students might pay off education loans over 20-30 years), and the one nobody talks about, the debt for the illegal war in Iraq that was put on a credit card. It is believed that that war alone will cost as much as $3 trillion and, possibly, much more.

If the GOP is going to send its young operatives into the ghettoes and “minority communities” to make the case for their joining and supporting the party, they’d better bring their lunch, because most of those places are what have come to be called “food deserts.” That means good, wholesome, nutritious food is not available in those places, and what is available is fast food, which is cheap (it’s industrial-agriculture produced), and tends to cause obesity and diabetes. Another problem is local schools. The imbalance in funding of city schools, compared with suburban schools, is well known. The answer to the reduction of the quality of schools by the Right Wingers has been charter schools (supported by ALEC, the infamous Koch brothers, and no end of Right Wing think tanks), which tend to take money from the other public schools, which must accept all students, rather than the often-handpicked students of the charters.

The list of GOP assaults on programs for human beings, in favor of corporations, is very long. They are for reducing the feeding programs for children, food stamps for families, and programs like Head Start and daycare (which they would like to eliminate altogether). The party works every day to eliminate programs for people, disdainfully and mockingly referring to them as “entitlements,” never speaking of the “entitlements” they provide for Corporate America in the billions of dollars, in subsidies, handouts, and tax breaks that never seem to be enough to satisfy their greed. The party operatives had better have good answers when they go into the “minority communities” to sell their peculiar brand of “American enterprise.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, in releasing his new budget, has just rolled out the same old budget that would eliminate “entitlements,” such as Medicaid, reduce or eliminate Medicare, and sharply cut into Social Security benefits. He does this, as if he doesn’t know that people actually try to live on $600 a month from Social Security.

There is not so much as a hint that he or the rest of the Republicans would ever consider cutting back on the Pentagon budget or the other departmental budgets that hide even more money for the military and defense. During the presidential election last fall, Romney kept up a steady drumbeat of accusations that any cuts to the military and defense would make the U.S. vulnerable. To what, he never did explain. Most of the world is afraid of the U.S. and what it might do to them or their neighbors (they have the example of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their wars of choice). All of that money could have been spent on making Americans healthier, well housed, and educated.

What must be adding some urgency to the GOP thrashing about is another headline in the same paper, on the front page, on Monday: “Whites set to become minority.” It is not scheduled to happen until 2043, but it will happen and for the GOP, which has trouble drawing any minority votes, that could be the thing that will cause the party of old, white guys to wither away. That is, if it doesn’t happen sooner.

The RNC and Republicans, in general, know that something is wrong with their perspective on life and their political philosophy. It appears that the only Americans they can see are those with lots of money…millions or billions (preferably, the latter). These circumstances are going to force Republicans to do a very strange dance before the people, who they have to convince are being deprived of the necessities of life “for their own good.” Trouble is, they don’t want to change either their perspective or their political philosophy. They are the tools of Corporate America and the nation’s wealthy elite. They seem to believe that, even though they might have only a few million dollars, one day they could be filthy rich, as are their benefactors. And, they have convinced a large percentage of the American people that they, too, can become filthy rich.

That belief is like raising money for the state or city by building more casinos. How much money can be squeezed from the masses of people until there is no more for that one, last casino? The people should begin to get the message soon, that they are being played the fools, and no one likes that feeling. The GOP, however, has held out the carrot of vast wealth for the masses, while, at the same time, they have stirred up the passions with social and constitutional issues (abortion, gay marriage, privatizing everything, and scaring everyone into believing there is a terrorist under every bed). Until last fall’s election, they thought they had it nailed and that their plan was working.

They thought the high unemployment rate could be hung around the neck of Obama, but the people showed more intelligence than that. They know that it took two parties, beholden to the monied interests of the nation, over a long period of time for us to ship millions of our well-paying jobs to low-wage countries. But, the voters must have seen that the “party of no” is the worst offender, as they make no bones about protecting the wealth and power of corporations and the wealthy 1 percent.

If the GOP is actually going to go into minority communities to try to convince them that their lifelines are going to be cut “for the good of the nation and themselves,” they are going to need more than a measly $10 million, even if they plan to pay their political operatives the minimum wage, which they are likely to do. Or, they can call them “interns” and pay them the equivalent of $3 an hour as a “stipend.” Their $3-an-hour interns will have a great responsibility in explaining the GOP philosophy as put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan in his latest budget, which is just as destructive as the budget he put forth the last time.

A $10 million project budget just won’t do. If they really want to convince the people that they are not out to reduce them to penury, they should come up with a thousand times that $10 million and put it to good use in those communities, for housing, schools, health care, and supermarkets that specialize in fresh foods.

The GOP does not have a public relations problem, as they seem to think. They have a real problem relating to the nation’s founding principles, as found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and their perversion of those principles is what has brought us to the danger point.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello,is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who livesin the Mohawk Valleyof New YorkState. Inaddition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as theystruggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory foodproducers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

The Life of Hugo Chavez and the Death of the L.A. Elections

By Eric Mann

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, two events happened of diametrically opposed moral and historical significance - the end of the life of the great world leader, Hugo Chavez, and the death of the Los Angeles mayoral elections.

In between yawns and “oh, was there some kind of election in the news that I missed?” 8 candidates ran in the “fight for the soul-less city” mayoral race. The results: City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Council member Eric Garcetti will run in another soul-less run-off on Tuesday, May 21, to see who will carry out the bidding of Eli Broad, the downtown business elite, the transnational capitalists, and the LAPD for the next four years - the job officially called “Mayor of Los Angeles.” This election was met with such a yawn that even the “voting class” - the group of middle-class people with no power and the illusion that they have some, forgot to vote. (“Hey, did you know that my brother-in-law knows Wendy’s nanny who knows Eric Garcetti’s mechanic and they said…blah blah blah.”) L.A., like most urban centers, is a city of color - of the 4 million residents, 12 percent are Black and 46 percent Latino. But you wouldn’t know it by listening to the candidates. Police brutality, low-wage and no wage jobs, choking air pollution, police and ICE suppression of immigrants, deteriorating social services, were not on the agenda - but all the candidates, including Jan Perry, a Black city councilperson, debated how many more police they wanted. These are the “free elections” that are so free that nobody gives a damn, only 16 percent of eligible voters showed up at the polls and the rest just stayed home and debated whether Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, or Rihanna should be number one.

Meanwhile, on the same day, in Venezuela, a true champion of the people, the amazing Hugo Chavez, died - an event of enormous world consequence. Hugo Chavez, a man of African, Indigenous, and Spanish ancestry was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, re-elected in 2000, 2006, and again in 2012. During the election of 2006, Manuel Criollo and I, representing the Labor/Community Strategy Center, were so fortunate to have witnessed history. We went to Venezuela, not as “impartial observers,” but on the invitation of friends in Venezuela as partisan U.S. friends of the Venezuelan people. On Election Day, we were awakened by bells ringing at 6 A.M. These were not church bells but bells of liberation - urging working class voters to get up and get to the polls before they even opened. But that was really not necessary. Most of the voters were awake long before the bells rang. By the time we got to the streets at 9AM, the lines to vote went on as far as the eye could see - an entire city ready to vote. We saw hundreds of thousands of Indigenous working people with Chavista hats, banners, red-t shirts, chanting, talking, laughing. They were not “waiting” to vote but having a “vote-in” that was an all-day event. In one of the more affluent downtown districts, I asked a woman of European-descendant, obviously a very affluent voter, what she thought of the election. She told me, “Well, Chavez will win because he is for the poor and there are so many of them, but he does not represent ‘us.’” I thought, well, she certainly knows her place in the class struggle, and fortunately, in Venezuela, so do the working class and the working people.

That night, the bells rang again, when Chavez won with 63% of the vote and a 74% voter turnout. Manuel and I stood in the rain in Caracas, along with what seemed like the entire city in the streets, crying with joy. It was impossible to explain to people in the U.S., the world’s policeman, what a free election feels like and looks like. Certainly no one in L.A. could comprehend if they judged by ours. And ironically, as soon as Chavez won in free elections again, the U.S. government began referring to him as a “dictator” to justify its plans to overthrow him.

But Chavez got elected because he had a program - social services for the poor, free health care, and challenging Yankee Imperialism. As the New York Times reported,

“In office, he upended the political order at home and abroad. Inspired by Simon Bolivar, the mercurial Venezuelan aristocrat who led South America’s 19th Century Wars of independence, Mr. Chavez sought to unite the region and erode Washington’s influence.” In a 2006 speech to the United Nations he said, ‘The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species,” In the same speech, he called President George W. Bush “the devil.” (Note that “the devil” remarks are repeated endlessly, a good thing in itself, but his context of the U.S. Empire is of course left out by the journalists of the U.S. Empire.)

As Simon Romero continues in the New York Times: “For years, he succeeded in curbing U.S. influence…Fidel Castro was not only an ally but also an inspiration. He forged a Bolivarian alliance with some of Latin America’s energy exporting nations like Ecuador and Bolivia, and applauded when they expelled U.S. ambassadors, as he had done. He asserted greater control of Venezuela’s economy by nationalizing dozens of foreign-owned assets, including oil projects controlled by Exxon-Mobil and other large American corporations. Though he met opposition at home, he enjoyed broad support. He did this in part by going into the slums to establish health clinics staffed by Cuban doctors and state-run stores selling subsidized food. These and other social welfare programs made the poor feel included in a society that had long ignored them.”

Sadly, as we go back to Los Angeles, for now (“Por ahora! As Chavez explained”) neither Wendy Greuel nor Eric Garcetti are running on a “social welfare state not the police state” campaign. They do not propose free medical care or subsidized food and housing - but the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the City does. So, with the Mayoral elections run-off coming up on May 21, we are reaching out to candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti to ask them to support our vision that includes:

- Restoring one million hours of bus service, lowering the Monthly pass to $42 on the way to creating a first-class, 24/7, zero emission, free public transportation system based on a 5,000 MTA bus fleet (more than double the current fleet.)

- Restricting auto use, toxic air contaminants, and greenhouse gases by initiating auto free zones, auto free rush hours, reducing auto and truck traffic, and expansion of freeway buses.

- Stopping police sweeps of LA schools, eliminating police from any role in school discipline, and reversing LAPD’s decision to put 600 “police patrols” inside schools.

- Reducing, not expanding the size of the police force and the overall police budget.

We know there cannot be “free” elections when the corporations control our society and the electoral process. But we are asking candidates Greuel and Garcetti to consider our alternative to their soulless city based on private profit and the interests of the corporatizing, policing, privatizing, and polluting classes. We are building a movement in Los Angeles that is based on the Black/Latino strategic alliance. We want to encourage a national urban insurgency in alliance with the movements of the peoples and nations of the Third World - as we continue to Fight for the Soul of the Cities - from Los Angeles to Caracas!

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator Eric Mann, a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers is the author of Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer (Beacon Press). He the host of Pacifica Radio KPFK’s Voices from the Frontlines and director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. Click here to contact Mr. Mann.

Mar 21, 2013 -Issue 509

Mexico Sets the Tone on Hate Speech

Homophobic epithets are so pervasive across the globe that most heterosexual people are sadly unaware of the psychological and physical toil they have on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people. Too often and cavalierly these epithets go either unchecked or unchallenged as hate speech.

Mexico, however, has stepped forward to define and reduce homophobic hate speech. Two commonly used words - “punal” and “maricones” are the main targets. Both words closely translate as “faggot.”

On March 6, in a vote of 3-2, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that these two homophobic hateful slurs are not legally protected in the country’s constitution as freedom of speech. The Supreme Court further ruled that any citizen offended by these words now could seek redress by suing for moral damages.

“Even though they are deeply rooted expressions in Mexican society, the fact is that the practices of the majority of society can’t validate the violations of basic right,” the Court wrote in support of its ruling.

The LGBTQ communities across Mexico are, no doubt, ecstatic by the ruling, hoping it will engender more respect and consciousness of their struggle. But as most LGBTQ Latinos know these two homophobic epithets are so frequently and easily espoused throughout Latin American culture that many are not cognizant of their deleterious effect.

Case in point: Toronto Blue Jays shortstop, Yunel Escobar, was suspended last September for three games for wearing eye-black displaying a homophobic slur written in Spanish during a game against the Boston Red Sox.

With the phrase “TU ERE MARICON” (sic) written in his eye-black, the phrase can be loosely translated as “You are a faggot” or “You’re a weak girl.”

“It didn’t have significance to the way that’s being interpreted right now,” Escobar emphatically stated through a Spanish interpreter. “That’s not the significance that I put into it. That’s a word used often within teams. It’s a word without meaning, the way we use it.”

Escobar, a native of Cuba, contested that the phrase is taken out of context because, used in his culture, it is not intended to be offensive; it’s merely used as banter in their friendly repartee.

“I have friends who are gay. The person who decorates my house is gay; the person who cuts my hair is gay. I have various friends who are gay. Honestly, they haven’t felt as offended about this. They have just a different understanding in the Latin community of this word,” Escobar stated, defending himself to the media.

While the word is no doubt homophobic it does seemingly carry different cultural connotations throughout Latin America.

“To tell a man not to be a maricón, also means ‘don’t be a coward.’” Cuban homophobia differs from homophobia in the United States. We do not fear the homosexual; rather we hold him in contempt for being a man who chooses not to prove his manhood. Unlike North Americans, where two men engaged in a sexual act are both called homosexuals, for Cubans only the one that places himself in the “position” of a woman is the maricón. Only the one penetrated is labeled loca (crazy woman, a term for maricones). In fact, the man who is in the dominant position during the sex act, known as bugarrón, is able to retain, if not increase, his machismo...,” Liberation theologian, Miguel De La Torre, wrote in his essay, “Beyond Machismo: A Cuban Case Study.”

Language is a representation of culture and if a culture is unaware of or anesthetized to the destructive use of homophobic epithets, it re-inscribes and perpetuates ideas and assumptions about race, gender identity and sexual orientation. Consequently, these ideas and assumptions are transmitted from field houses to playing courts and into the dominant culture. And, unfortunately, even accepted or explained away among some scholars.

“It is derogatory, but it’s not necessarily homophobic,” said Maria Cristina Cuervo, a professor of Spanish at the University of Toronto.

While Professor Cuervo agrees that the phrase is insulting, she doesn’t grasp, however, that if the phrase “TU ERE MARICON” goes unchecked or is not challenged it allows people within their culture to become unconscious and numb to the use and abuse of the power and currency of this homophobic epithet - and the power it still has to thwart the daily struggles of many of us to ameliorate LGBTQ relations.

Also, part of the problem contributing to the unconscious insensitivity to the phrase is the cultural construction of “machismo.” In many Latin American cultures, it is perceived a gross failure in masculinity. But this hyper-masculinity not only exploits women, it also unabashedly denigrates and targets LGBTQ people as scapegoats and pariahs.

Stephen O. Murray further points this out in his essay, “Mexico” in the anthology, ***The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Readers of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, edited by Javier Corrales and Mario Pecheny that “The perceived failures of masculinity of ‘maricones’ made (and makes) them ‘fair game’ to be robbed, beaten, and used as sexual receptacles by males upholding conventional ‘macho’ notions of masculinity, particularly policemen.”

With landmark rulings made on behalf of LGBTQ citizens in many countries across the globe these days, violence, intolerance, and discrimination are still a constant.

Activists have for decades argued the relationship between hate speech and violence. Cleaning up language is just one more needed act furthering LGBTQ justice.

And Mexico is leading the way.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

A Sweet, Sweet Spirit

On March 14, Rachel Maddow interviewed on her show (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC) a person with the sweetest spirit that I have encountered in a long time! Many folks on the left refuse to admit that there is such a thing as spirit even when it causes them to fall silent and awe struck. Some of us may be so closed down from our pain - either direct or assumed - of living real human lives that we can’t feel spirit even if we wanted to do so. However rarely, for most of us there are individuals and moments that blow us away with spiritual sweetness. Such was my moment while watching the March 14 Rachel Maddow Show.

The Catholic Church’s recent Pope selection was dominating all the news and was the topic of this interview. Rachel set up the interview with her typical sparkling intellectual dexterity, bold liberal analysis, and brisk verbalization. The entry hook was a reference to Bill and Hillary (Clinton) NOT standing alone as the most famous political couple in the western hemisphere in the 21st century. When Maddow said it, I immediately knew that she was right. That honor must also be shared with Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the consecutive elected presidents of Argentina from 2003 until today. Right out the box, this was a pleasing dash of cold water to the US right-wing’s twisted claim of “American” exceptionalism.

Rachel followed up that hook by referencing the incredible political courage of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in picking a fight with the powerful Catholic Church just prior to her reelection. There is an extensive negative history of the Church’s involvement in South American politics and specifically in Argentina. Argentina has one of the highest concentrations of Catholics of any country in the world. Behind President Christina Kirchner’s personal leadership a bill was presented to give gay people in Argentina the right to marry, to adopt children, and to inherit money.

“In response to this move of the government, Church leaders organized big anti-gay marriage protests around the country in the months and weeks and days before the Country’s Senate was due to vote on the bill. They spoke out forcefully against gay rights, against gay marriage and against Christina Kirchner in particular. But far and away, the most out front vocal opponent of gay marriage within the Church’s effort on this issue, the one who took this on as his cause célèbre, the person who entered into the political fray with the most gusto, determined to keep gay people from getting married in Argentina was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.” As you know, Bergoglio is now Pope Francis I.

Maddow went on to describe how Bergoglio claimed that Argentina’s government, if it passed the bill, would be committing a “destructive pretension against the plan of God.” In other words, they would be doing the devil’s work. Kirchner courageously shot back that the arguments of the Church leaders were reminiscent of “the times of the Crusades.” Many of us who are or whose likeness has been the target of the Church’s imperial sinfulness do not forget. We may forgive - especially if there are reparations - but we do not forget! Obviously, Madam Kirchner was familiar with the Church’s sordid history during the Crusades.

Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope, lost this political fight in Argentina and Kirchner was reelected. So Maddow’s questions of her guest were focused on what impact would result from having this loser as head of the Church for folks who are still the targets for exclusion as full spiritual human beings. That Maddow said little about Bergoglio’s so-called “preference for the poor,” even though he condemned Liberation Theology, is an artifact of Maddow’s liberalism as opposed to her having a more radical progressive perspective. Neither did Ms. Maddow note that Saint Francis of Assisi, after whom Cardinal Bergoglio named himself, rejected most trappings of the Church, including the exclusion and marginalization of human spirits - the opposite of Bergoglio’s practices.

But Rachel’s guest - the one with the sweet spirit - was Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of the national Catholic social justice lobby called Network. Sister Campbell helped organize the Nuns on the Bus tour last year that opposed Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Sister Campbell began, as we should all begin such assessments of other human beings, by finding the humanness and goodness in the other. The Sister expressed her hope that what appears to her to be a real “preference for the poor” by Cardinal Bergoglio would be strongly expressed in the direction that he would push the Church. “I think he would speak out against Paul Ryan’s new budget as our bishops spoke out against the old budget.” Sr. Campbell expressed no expectation of a miraculous change in the person who is now Pope on the issues more sexually-oriented. Next, incredibly, she expressed some recognition that this man appears to sometimes be “touched by other people and see their struggles, see their efforts. And let his heart be broken by that.” Wow! What a perfectly wonderful, sweet spiritual wish for someone: that their heart would be broken by touching other humans in struggle! This is a wish and expectation for transformation that does not arise from coercion or defeat but from the spiritual power of empathy and enlightenment. [For Senator Rob Portman, it took the confession of his son. Sister Campbell is talking about a heart-breaking empathy that can connect with all humans, not just one’s relatives.]

Maddow asked about the Sister’s internal struggle with the Church over issues of male hierarchy. “Do you now foresee that getting better? Or do you know yet? Could it get worse?” Sister Simone Campbell’s response to this question was profound. “I guess it could get worse. But the thing that I’ve seen, Rachel, is that the fact that we got criticized by the Vatican gave us the notoriety that gave birth to Nuns on the Bus. So I say that the Holy Spirit from my perspective, the Holy Spirit is alive and well and making mischief. So even though painful things happen to us when the criticism from the Vatican, the spirit took it and generated a hope and an engagement for people. And so that yesterday, I was in Richmond and some of the people in the crowd pointed out, we were talking about women’s leadership in the church. And one of the members of the group said, oh, but you - but you, Sister Simone, have become a leader in the church and I was really surprised. I mean, I think of myself as engaged in politics. But there is a way in which this movement has generated a - I don’t know - a really electricity about hope and about another way forward. The spirit’s alive and well while it could be painful in the criticism, other things are happening because of it.”

Unique and rare is the recognition of the mischief element in the social psychological, phenomenal history of human beings. That powerful institutional “criticism” can lead to notoriety and then to powerful engagements that have the potential to bring about change is counter-intuitive. The power of this way of understanding the unfolding of human circumstances has mostly been lost in Western Culture but still is vibrant in indigenous cultures.

In fact, the honoring - not just acceptance - of “the two spirits” (homosexuals) in indigenous cultures often “rests” in this sacred mischief. Sister Campbell expressed this well and has much to teach the Church and the Pope. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Sister Campbell must obviously believe that “the universe bends towards justice.” There are opportunities, openings, and hope even in adversity that true creative revolutionaries can grasp and use to make change without succumbing to hate, coercion, or offensive violence. Maddow recognized the strength, dignity, and eloquence that shone through Sister Simone Campbell. Shinning through it all was Sr. Campbell’s sweet spirit; I could feel from her person - her voice, her dress, her mannerisms, her history, her everything - that she was fully with what she was saying and what she was saying was wise and profound. Maddow was inspired. I am inspired.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Wilson Riles, is a former Oakland, CA City CouncilMember. Click here to contact Mr.Riles.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

If They Really Wanted To Surprise Us

Political Cartoon

By Zapiro, South Africa

Jonathan Shapiro is a South African cartoonist, famous as Zapiro, whose work appears in numerous South African publications and has been exhibited internationally on many occasions.

Licensing & Syndication Rights

Zapiro is always keen that his cartoons are published as widely as possible. There are many circumstances where the use of Zapiro cartoons can help you get your message across or increase the sales of your publication. For example:

- syndication for regular use in a newspaper or magazine

- on websites and other promotional materials

- in fan websites dedicated to Zapiro or cartooning in general

- in reports and books to emphasise or illustrate issues

- in printed and online collections of cartoons either by Zapiro or by cartoonists in general.

Whatever your use please only use Zapiro's cartoons for your own website, publication or presentation once you've got his prior consent — they are both his livelihood and his copyright.

Normally permission will be granted quite readily provided that your use doesn't conflict with or misrepresent the message in the cartoon. Sometimes there will be a fee for using the cartoon(s) — particularly for commercial or quasi-commercial purposes.

For further information about licensing Zapiro's cartoons please click here to make a Licensing Enquiry.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

Dacajeweiah, Splitting-The-Sky:
You Shall Be Remembered
With Great Honor!

“Today is a good day to die. Follow me!”

- Crazy Horse, at the battle of Little Big Horn

“To die for the...racists...is lighter than a feather. But to die for the people...is heavier than any mountain and deeper than any sea.”

- Huey P. Newton

Words seem so inadequate when our freedom fighters transition and pass on from this mortal existence.

My Sisters and Brothers, yet another freedom fighter and people's warrior has passed on. We must bid our farewell to the renowned, committed, outspoken, and courageous Mohawk nation's Dacajeweiah, Splitting-the-Sky; who passed on from us a few short days ago in British Columbia, Canada. Dacajeweiah, was also fondly and respectfully known to many by the name. Splitting-the-Sky.

I can give no better or more fitting and appropriate tribute to Splitting-the-Sky than did the Mohawk Nation News which wrote about him, in relevant part:

“SPLITTING-THE-SKY: Mohawk Warrior and Champion of the People Dies On March 13th, Dacajeweiah, Splitting-the-Sky, 61, left us forever when he passed away in his home in Adams Lake, British Columbia. Dac's colonial name was John Boncore Hill, from Six Nations. “From Attica to Gustafsen Lake,” and thereafter, he was a warrior, a comrade, a brother, a father, a grandfather, a friend. – We deeply mourn his loss.”

Splitting-the-Sky was, nationally and internationally, a critically thinking person in both word and deed. He pulled no punches as to exposing the thievery, genocide, brainwashing, and on going pillage & disenfranchisement by the U.S. and Canadian governments against Indigenous Native peoples. He made it crystal clear that every major treaty (at least 371 such treaties) that had been made with Indigenous Native peoples has been broken and ignored - as if they never existed. Moreover, Splitting-the-Sky was also a former political prisoner (and a de facto prisoner of war) who, upon his release from prison, never ceased sounding the alarm in this urgent and continuing struggle, to politically educate all people irrespective of color or ethnicity. He minced no words in describing the multinational “corporations” for what they are – bloodsuckers of humanity. He constantly warned everyday people of the very real and active conspiracies on the part of their own respective governments against them. He was truly, in the words of the Mohawk Nation News, “a Champion of the people.”

In the uncompromising tradition of Crazy Horse, Geronimo, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Luxemburg, Joe Hill, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and so very many others, Splitting-the-Sky stood tall and unrelenting. For this, ALL people of goodwill and consciousness honor him and remain determined to carry on and intensify in the everyday people's struggle for political, economic, and social justice.

Perhaps, the selected words from his February 5, 2013 note to me were, in a sense somewhat prophetic, when he wrote, “I'm short on time but would like to engage this issue.” Splitting-the-Sky, as it turned out, was indeed “short on time,” but he was always ready and willing to “engage” in the people's struggle. And that's the point – he never shirked his responsibility and demonstrated an enduring love for the everyday people. We, whom he has left behind, can do no less.

It is with good reason that Splitting-the-Sky was thought of by many of us as the 'Che Guevara of the America's,” for he was a relentless everyday people's warrior in every sense of the word; and it is his example that must and will be emulated. Now, he has departed and is a part of our memories and the peoples collective history. We must keep him and his example as an important part of the everyday people's narrative – not the corporate-stream narrative of deception, greed, and perpetual wars of conquest and exploitation.

Be at peace now, my dear Brother Dacajeweiah-Splitting-the-Sky, for you have been a good and faithful steward and servant of the everyday people of Mother Earth. Take your rightful place among the ancestors, and know that we, whom you have left behind, honor and cherish you now and forever!

We will remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers, for there is much work that remains to be done!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to view Larry’s interview of October 26, 2012. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

For Republican TEA Party House Negroes
The Kitchen is Gettin' Kinda’ Hot

Here’s the question: with the hallowed 1965 Voting Rights Act on this Supreme Court’s chopping block. Hangman Antonin Scalia spits on the graves of heroes such as Dr. King, Fannie Lou, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner… Will these attempts to “go back in time” serve as a 3:37-in-the-AM-wake-your-ass-up-call for Americans of color?

Now please note, that’s but a day’s work for one big-shot bigot and his faithful negro companion, Clarence Thomas. It’s like Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson of Django Unchained.

Someone please enlighten me as to how men-of-color like political hucksters Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and the rest of the unconscious Coconuts... along with the Republican TEA Party’s internal in-house House Negroes (see Herman Cain/Allen West)... how is it they can ”go-along to get-along?”

Someone explain how they can continue to “shuck n’ jive” for a political party based solely on nothing else but the most-recent “White Backlash” movement forced by the Grey coats to show their true crimson and grey Confederate colors.

There’s little hope these greedy, arrogant “turncoats” will pull their heads out of their asses. You show me an American-of-Color who’s a Republican, in this day n’ age, in the times we’re a’livin’ in, and I’ll show you a bloodsucking shark, a mountebank, a swindler, a rogue, a strikebreaker, a con-man...

Republicans-of-color say very-little to correct or contradict Donald Trump, Rush or the rank n’ file rednecks who’re all but calling the President n’ First Lady everything from “Uppity niggers” and tarbabys to apes and coons.

These weasels of color don’t say a damn thing.

Yes, you’re right. It’s so-very quiet you can hear a rat piss on cotton...

These political prostitutes don’t understand they’re being pimped n’ played by their conservative allies with this latest proclamation where Scalia has branded the Voting Rights Act a “racial entitlement.” And he went further, blaming Congress for pandering for votes by keeping that “racial entitlement” alive.

I don’t understand how colored people, women, people, worker ants n’ bees - with any measure of good sense, with any measure of decency and honor can stand with these racist, sexist and elitist bastards.

I’m already mystified how Black Republicans can align themselves with any political organization that has opposed something as uncomplicated as a national MLK holiday, or could somehow justify supporting Apartheid in South Africa. And now the attacks on Voting rights in Florida, Ohio, Alabama and across the South, and spreading out West...

But those calculated positions by a political party comprised almost solely of angry White people fails to deter Colored Conservatives, whose financial well-being far outweighs the harsh reality - the folks they’re in bed with - would never allow them in bed with their daughters or sisters, or for that matter their ex-wives.

Never desire their kids sit at a desk next to Black, Latino and Asian kids... based on their belief that their Euro-American WASP culture is far-superior.

Somehow Michael Steele, Shelby Steele, Larry Elders and the rest of the boys who tap-dance on FOX News believe men like Scalia don’t weigh, measure or pound a human being based on the color of their skin, or the content of their character... but rather the deepness of one’s pockets. Yes, they think the collective mindset is... “Rich people are better than poor people.”

They’re not only misguided, they’re wrong.

Rand Paul does not consider wealthy Blacks, Latinos, Asians or Women to be 1st class citizens, nor does Rush Limbaugh - and those two men speak for “Real White people.”

“Real White people...” Not the “Rhinos,” “Hippos” n’ “3-toed Ground Sloths” who’re merely pretending to be dyed in the holy Confederate grey elephants… but rather the Sarah Palins, Michael Savages, Rand, Hannity and their half-mad followers.

At what point do these Black n’ Brown Benedict Arnolds run away from the Big House? Once you work against the best interests of your own people, damn n’ ridicule your own, for the pleasure and benefit of those who seek to oppress people-of-color, merely because they are people-of-color... we don’t want you.

At what junction do they grasp the simplicity of their complicated situation - The Republican TEA Party has no place for Americans of Color but back in the kitchen, out in the yard maybe.

Here’s what few of us on the “Left” don’t seem to understand... we are playing with fire. The “war between the states” never ended and the core issue which ignited it - race, is today a tender-box ready to explode.

The Democratic Party, the party of mommie, a rainbow coalition of wilting flower children and hippies with hip replacements, the formally educated and self- enlightened, the 3rd or 4th generations of Black men raised solely by momma and Big momma - we are a collection of sometimes simple-minded folk who don’t understand the mindset of angry White men - you’re thinking the “Right” is thinking like you, that’s why we hear MSNBC pundits trying to shame and insult the Right - the Right’s gonna walk-up and bust the finger-painters and Black nerds in the mouth.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Desi Cortez, was hatched in the heart of Dixie, circa 1961, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the by-product of four dynamic individuals, Raised in South-Central LA, the 213, at age 14 transplanted to the base of the Rockies, Denver. Still a Mile-Hi. Sat at the feet of scholars for many, many moons, emerging with a desire and direction… if not a sheep-skin."Meandered thru life; gone a-lot places, done a-lot of things, raised a man-cub into a good, strong man, produced a beautiful baby-girl with my lover/woman/soul-mate…aired my mind on the airwaves and wrote some stuff along the way." Click here to contact Mr. Cortez.

Mar 21, 2013 - Issue 509

Revisiting Black Nationalist History

One of the biggest challenges African people face in America is to rejuvenate Black Nationalist thinking as struggle to determine for ourselves as a people what is in our best collective interests.

There are far too many African people in this country who think what is good for other people should be good for us. Nothing could be further from the truth. We can only determine what is good for us by reestablishing Black Nationalist thinking and developing a Black Nationalist program of action. This is the missing link to the liberation of African people in America. Let us briefly review the development and impact of Black Nationalism in America.

Black Nationalism is a tradition that emerged in the early nineteenth-century among those Black leaders who understood the need for African people in America to develop a national entity as the only solution for Black people in North America, Latin America, or the Caribbean.

These nineteenth-century Black Nationalist leaders such as Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, James T. Holly, Martin R. Delany, Pap Singleton, Edwin McCabe, and Henry McNeal Turner understood that African people in America were a “nation within a nation” and should organize to collectively struggle for the liberation of Black people in this country and throughout the world.

During this era there were some Black Nationalist leaders before, and after the Civil War, who led movements for people of African ancestry to leave this country and establish a homeland somewhere else. These proposals included Africa, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Other Black Nationalist leaders led movements for Black people to control the towns where they lived and others who led movements to the western region of this country to establish all Black towns in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The core of this Black Nationalist tradition has been to defeat and overthrow the system of white supremacy, seize control of land (somewhere) and to achieve self determination for the oppressed Black masses.

The Black Nationalist tradition has always been opposed to integrations, assimilation, and accommodation as a solution to the problems of people of African ancestry in America. In this regard, Black Nationalist tradition has rejected the strategy and tactics of appealing to the morality of white people and their white supremacy system.

Black Nationalists have been historically clear that people in power don’t teach powerless people how to get power. And they certainly don’t give power away, even though, when challenged, they may give up some concessions.

As Black Nationalism emerged in the twentieth-century, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the establishment of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communicates League (ACL) became the leading spokesman for Black Nationalist ideas and organizing.

Garvey used his varied skills to become on of our true twentieth-century freedom fighters. Garvey arrived in Harlem, New York on March 16, 1916. By 1919, Garvey was well established as the President General of the UNIA/ACL that had membership of over three million people with more than three hundred branches in the United States.

Perhaps Garvey’s greatest contribution to the upliftment of our people, through Black Nationalism, was his ability to find a formula for organizing African people around the African principle: the greatest good for the greatest number.

This was reflected in the First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, in Madison Square Garden, in 1920. Over twenty thousand Black people from all over the world witnessed the choosing of Red, Black, and Green as the colors of the Provisional Government.

In this context, Garvey and the UNIA/ACL had established an economic arm, the Negro Factories Corporation, with cooperative stores, restaurants, steam laundry ships, tailor shops, dressmaking shops, millinery stores, a doll factory to manufacture Black dolls and a publishing house. Also, Garvey formed a Steamship Corporation.

The Black Nationalist tradition was continued in the twentieth-century through the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who utilized many of the Garvey and UNIA/ACL organizing tactics and strategies.

It was during the 1960s Black Power explosion, the Black Nationalist tradition reemerged through the influence of Malcolm X who adopted Black Nationalism as the political philosophy, economic and social philosophy of the organization of Afro American Unity in 1964 after he left the Nation of Islam.

Finally, the Black Nationalist tradition, today, is spearheaded through the African Centered Education Movement. The mass acceptance of Kwanzaa, African Liberation Day, Buy Black Campaigns, the Reparations Movement, and Controlling Our Own Communities Campaigns are all part of the ongoing Black Nationalist tradition.

Without vigorous Black Nationalist thinking and an aggressive Black Nationalist program of action, we will continue to chase false dreams created by our oppressors. We must put an end to this!

Once Black Nationalism is understood by all Black people, it will be the foundation upon which the true liberation of people of African ancestry in America will take place.

[Please support the upcoming CCICS Open House Wednesday, April 10th 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. and Thursday, April 11th 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.]

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is theNational Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

Mar 21, 2013 -Issue 509

Pope Francis I
Good Friend of Argentina’s Dictatorship

Political Cartoon

By Carlos Latuff, Rio de Janeiro Brazil

Click here for details about Pope Francis I Bergoglio's Ties To A Dark Period For The Catholic Church.

Carlos Latuff, a cartoonist, artist and activist based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Latuff has spent the last 15 plus years crafting a style that can best be described as “populist cartooning.” He has touched on issues like Apartheid in South Africa, the plight of Native Americans in the US and the oppression of Tibetans in China.

But perhaps his most controversial series to date is “We are all Palestinians,” in which he compares the actions taken by the Israeli government towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip directly to the Nazi’s treatment of Jews.

Click here to contact Mr. Latuff