Table of Contents

There are 13 chapters in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story: Walter Fleming Worrill - Worrill’s World - By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD - BC Columnist

Quote to Ponder: "I have always felt it was a handicap for oppressed peoples to depend so largely upon a leader…” - Ella Baker

Just Married - Political Cartoon By Eric Garcia, Chicago IL

Remembering the African American Holocaust Survivors – Inclusion - By The Reverend Irene Monroe - BC Editorial Board

Double Whammy - A Grim Jobs Picture & a Horrible “Grand Bargain” Move - Left Margin - By Carl Bloice - BC Editorial Board

Fast Food Strike: It Looks as if We’ve Been through This Before - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

Baby Boom - Political Cartoon By Mr. Fish, Philadelphia PA

Congress’ “Moonwalk” On The Assault Weapons Ban: All The Rhetoric Was For Naught - Between The Lines By Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD

Our Black Cul-de-Sac- Nafsi ya Jamii - By Wilson Riles - BC Columnist

Free Speech in Egypt - BC Political Cartoon By Chuck Siler

Barack Obama - the 21st Century 'Carpetbagger' for the U.S. Power Elite - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

Conflict - Art By London Ladd, Syracuse NY

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

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Members of the BCEditorial Board represent African Americans and the African world. Theyare dedicated activists, thinkers and writers. The BC Editorial Board includes the following in alphabetical order by last name:

Lola Adesioye, Carl Bloice,Julian Bond, Rose Brewer PhD, Horace Campbell PhD, Imani Countess,Lenore Jean Daniels PhD, Bill Fletcher Jr., James Jennings PhD, BadiliJones, Martin Kilson PhD, Sharon Kyle JD, David A. Love JD, JulianneMalveaux PhD, Manning Marable PhD, Syreeta McFadden, The Reverend IreneMonroe, Leith Mullings PhD, Jacqui Patterson, Larry Pinkney, StevenPitts PhD, Barbara Ransby PhD, Jamala Rogers, Ethel Long-Scott, Amy V.Simmons, William L. (Bill) Strickland, Chuck Turner, Nathaniel Turner,Ron Walters PhD, Emira Woods, Jeanne Woods JD.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

Walter Fleming Worrill made his transition into eternity at 3:52 a.m. in Pasadena, California’s Huntington Hospital.

Walter Fleming Worrill was born on May 12, 1914 to Oscar Sr. and Mary Anna Fleming Worrill in Covington, Georgia. There were twelve children born into this family in Covington: George, Thomas, Robert, Oscar, William, Florance, David, Addie Mae, Katherine, Walter, Marguerite, Brainard; and Edgar Lee, was adopted when his mother, Oscar’s sister Mahaley, became gravely ill. All of Walter’s siblings preceded him in death.

The oral history of the Worrill family dispersal from Covington, Georgia explains that Oscar Sr. “to avoid the revenue agents who were coming to arrest him because he had a still in times of prohibition. The family secrets were held to protect Oscar Sr. from any problems connected with having a still in Georgia.” As a result of the threat against his father, the family was able to contact Oscar Worrill Sr.’s sister-in-law who provided the resources for him to flee the threat against his life on a freight train to Pasadena, California.

It was because of this that Mr. Worrill began relocating his family, in various stages, to Pasadena. Walter arrived in the last group to Pasadena in 1927. Upon his arrival, Walter was placed in the 5th grade at the Lincoln Avenue Elementary School. He was eventually inspired to meet the academic standards of his grade level and went on to attend Washington Junior High School and John Muir Technical High School in Pasadena. It was at John Muir that Walter continued to meet his academic challenges and began competing in track and field, and became a member of the high school marching band.

In 1934, along with his brother Brainard and Jackie Robinson’s oldest brother, Mack, Walt participated on the John Muir High School track team that won the state championship. Upon completion of John Muir High School, Walt attended Pasadena Junior College where he continued his academic pursuits as well as track and field. It was here that he was introduced to the YMCA Movement Leadership Training Club. His interest in working with young people propelled his increased interest in YMCA work and led to his life long career as a YMCA professional.

Upon receiving his Associate of Arts (AA) degree in 1937 from Pasadena Junior College, he was unable to continue his academic studies due to the lack of financial resources. He began a lawn cutting and landscaping business where he employed his brother and father where they serviced many of the wealthy homeowners of Pasadena. One of his clients constantly asked Walt when he was going to continue his education. He grew tired of his client’s repeated inquiries so he got a brochure to Whittier College (a YMCA training school) and gave it to the client. Shortly afterward, Walter received notice that he had a benefactor who would pay his way through Whittier College in California. With this financial support, for three years, Walt drove from Pasadena to Whittier, attended school during the day, drove home and worked in his business, studied all night and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in December 1941. He was the only black on campus at Whittier at that time.

It was during this period that Walter Worrill met Anna Belle Gravenberg, a member of his church choir at the First A.M.E. Church in Pasadena. They courted and married in September 1940. Anna Belle and Walter’s first child, born on August 15, 1941, was a son they named Conrad Walter Worrill (Conrad in honor of Anna Belle’s older brother and Walter for his father). Upon completion of Whittier College, Walter took on his first assignment as a member of the 28th Street Branch of the Los Angeles Metropolitan YMCA from 1942-44, before returning to the Pasadena YMCA staff from 1944-50.

Walt’s first YMCA office in Pasadena was on Holly Street where he organized a youth program for the young men of Pasadena. This work led him to become the first “Black Boy’s Work Secretary” of the Pasadena YMCA. Walt was very active with the Pasadena YMCA becoming one of its leaders in challenging racial discrimination in Pasadena.

Walter was the secretary of a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter when the Los Angeles Chapter filed a lawsuit against the City of Pasadena in 1939 regarding the Brookside swimming pool, which was known as “the plunge.” Blacks were only allowed to swim in the pool on Tuesdays since workers cleaned the pool on Wednesdays. The NAACP won the lawsuit. However, rather than abide by the court ruling, Pasadena closed “the plunge” altogether until the NAACP got an injunction forcing its reopening on July 7, 1947, eight years later, without racial restrictions.

In 1950, Walter was recruited to join the staff of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago where he relocated in August of 1950. Big city life was challenging for the Worrill family. Upon their arrival in Chicago, the couple resided at the YMCA Hotel located at 826 South Wabash. The challenges for housing in Chicago at that time were quite severe. Fortunately, on their train trip from California to Chicago they befriended a waiter, Mr. Anthony, who owned a building at 5640 South Maryland. He had a vacancy on the second floor and allowed them to lease the apartment. His second son, Oscar William Worrill, was born the following year in April 1951.

For the next twenty-one years, Walter served as Community Boy’s Work Secretary, Executive Director of the Wabash Avenue Branch, Executive Director of the Washington Park Branch, and then as District Director of the Near South District. This district encompassed four full facility YMCAs with an operating budget of more than $3 million. It included a 1900-room YMCA Hotel and a resident camp. The district itself had a total of 2,533 residence rooms, three swimming pools, and four gymnasiums. There was a working staff of 460 people, seventeen of whom were professionals.

In 1971, Walter became Executive of the Middle Atlantic Region of the National Council of YMCAs, a position he held until his retirement in 1980. The Middle Atlantic Region provided support and consultative service to YMCAs in the states and territories of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. There were 243 YMCAs in these six states and territories. During his tenure as Executive of this region, he had a professional staff of thirteen and was a catalyst in the organization of three management resource centers.

Worrill’s professional affiliations had been similarly exceptional. He served as President of the Illinois-Indiana Chapter of the Association of Professional Directors from 1963-66. He was also a member of its Executive Board for six years. From 1969-71, Worrill served as Secretary of the National Council of YMCAs of the United States.

In 1977, Walter divorced his first wife Anna Belle. In 1978, he married his second wife, Sylvia Adele Henderson. Sylvia made her transition in 2006. After Sylvia’s passing Walter returned to live in Pasadena. His first wife, Anna Belle, made her transition in 2007.

Walter was a deeply committed citizen of the community. For over sixty-years he was an active member of the Saint Mark Methodist Church in Chicago and Scott United Methodist Church in Pasadena serving as Sunday School Superintendent and Secretary of Stewardship. He also served as Chairman of the Trustees and Chairman of the Official Board. He was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and was an active lifelong member of the NAACP. Walter also served as a founding member of the Black and Non-White Directors of the YMCA.

After his retirement in 1980, Walter continued to serve as a consultant for the YMCA until 1988. On June 22, 1988, Walter Fleming Worrill was inducted into the YMCA Hall of Fame at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Walter Worrill’s work had great impact on the YMCA Movement and the community at large.

Walter Fleming Worrill leaves to cherish his life and legacy his two sons Dr. Conrad Walter Worrill (Talibah) and Oscar William Worrill (Denise), twelve grandchildren, twenty-one great grandchildren, one great-great grandchild, and a host of nieces and nephews and friends. He lived a long, productive, and impactful life that serves as an example to us all. The spirit of Walter Fleming Worrill will live on among us, as we continue to speak his name and remember his legacy.

Walter Fleming Worrill, Maa Kherew (True of Voice)!

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

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

Click here for more about Ella Baker

Apr 11, 2013 -Issue 512

BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces "historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com. Follow Eric on twitter garciaink@twitter.com or friend Eric J. Garcia on facebook.

Apr 11, 2013 -Issue 512

This week, April 8-12, marks the 27th annual observance of Holocaust Memorial Week. The week is about remembering not only the 6 million Jews murdered but also remembering the millions of allies, martyrs and victims who survived Nazi Germany’s reign of brutality.

The enormity of the mass slaughtering of Jews that took place - in ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, brothels filled with sex slaves and killing factories - is still being discovered as documents are unearthed. New scholarship revealed that, from 1933 to 1945, there were at least 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe. This represents a staggering increase, far exceeding the original guesstimate.

Thank goodness the stories of the millions of allies, martyrs and victims who survived Nazi Germany continue to be told.

On April 11th, City of Cambridge Annual Commemoration of the Holocaust guest speaker is Holocaust survivor, Edgar Krása. Krása will be telling his remarkable story of survival. Krása, who ran the Veronique restaurant at Longwood in Brookline, MA. was born in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia, and moved to Prague in 1933 with his family.

In 1941, Krása was on the first train to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Terezín, now known as the Czech Republic, to help set up the garrison city into a concentration camp. Under Nazi control, Krása was ordered to set up the kitchen that fed prisoners-of-war, and he worked there until 1944 when he was deported to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, Krása walked in the notorious Death March and survived it by feigning death after being shot.

Missing, however, from the annals of history are the documented stories and struggles of African Americans, straight and “queer.” Valaida Snow, captured in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen and interned in a concentration camp for nearly two years, is one such forgotten story.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Valaida Snow came from a family of musicians and was famous for playing the trumpet. Named “Little Louis” after Louis Armstrong (who called her the world’s second best jazz trumpet player, besides himself, of course), Snow played concerts throughout the U.S., Europe and China. On a return trip to Denmark after headlining at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Snow, the conductor of an all-women’s band, was arrested for allegedly possessing drugs and sent to an Axis internment camp for alien nationals in Wester-Faengle.

In pre-Hitler Germany, all-female orchestras were de rigueur in many avant-garde entertainment clubs. These homo-social all-women’s bands created tremendous outrage during Hitler’s regime. Snow was sent to a concentration camp - not only because she was black and in the wrong place at the wrong time - but also because of her “friendships” with German women musicians. These friendships implied lesbianism.

Although laws against lesbianism had not been codified, and lesbians were not criminalized for their sexual orientations as gay men were, lesbian German women were nonetheless viewed as a threat to the Nazi state and were fair game during SS raids on lesbian bars, sentenced by the Gestapo, sent to concentration camps, and branded with a black triangle. In fact, any German woman, lesbian, prostitute or heterosexual, not upholding her primary gender role - “to be a mother of as many Aryan babies as possible” - was deemed anti-social and hostile to the German state.

Because Nazis could not discern between the sexual affection and social friendship between straight and lesbian women, over time they dismissed lesbianism as a state and social problem, as long as both straight and lesbian women carried out the state’s mandate to procreate.

Nazi Germany’s extermination plan of gay men is a classic example of how politics informed their science. Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code differentiated between the types of persecution non-German gay men received from German gay men because of a quasi-scientific and racist ideology of racial purity. “The polices of persecution carried out toward non-German homosexuals in the occupied territories differed significantly from those directed against Germans gays,” wrote Richard Plant in The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals. “The Aryan race was to be freed of contagion; the demise of degenerate subjects peoples was to be hastened.”

Hans J. Massaquoi, former Ebony Magazine editor, and the son of an African diplomat and white German mother, in his memoir Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, depicts a life of privilege until his father returned to his native Liberia. Like all non-Aryans, Massaquoi faced constant dehumanization and the threat of death by Gestapo executioners. “Racist in Nazi Germany did their dirty work openly and brazenly with the full protection, cooperation, and encouragement of the government, which had declared the pollution of Aryan blood with ‘inferior’ non-Aryan blood the nation’s cardinal sin,” he wrote. Consequently, the Gestapo rounded up and forcibly sterilized and subjected many non-Aryans to medical experiments, while others just simply, mysteriously, disappeared.

There was no systematic program for elimination of people of African descent in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 because their number were few, but their abuses in German-occupied territories, like the one in which Snow was captured, were great and far-reaching.

After 18 months ofimprisonment, Snow was one of the more fortunate blacks to make it out of NaziGermany, released as an exchange prisoner. She was, however, bothpsychologically and physically scarred from the ordeal and never fullyrecovered. Snow attempted to return to performing but her spark, tragically,was gone.

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.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

What unfolded in the corridors of power in the nation’s capital last week portends a serious blow to the interest of country’s working people and it came hard from two directions.

“First, a terrible jobs report, then a Democratic President offers a budget that proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare,” wrote Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America’s Future. “The only thing on the public’s mind is that we need jobs - and the President comes out with a plan to cut Social Security and Medicare. Is he telling the public that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are necessary to restore the economy and fix the jobs crisis? Because whatever the administration thinks it is doing, that is what the public will hear.”

What they actually heard was Austerity 2013 – U.S. style. President Obama’s offering up a cut in Social Security (make no mistake, that’s what it is) contravenes promises he has previously made about not undermining the program and a recent flat out pledge by Vice-President Joe Biden that it would not happen.

One unnamed “senior administration official” told a briefing last week, “The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficit, but only in the context of a package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth. That means that the things like CPI that Republican leaders have pushed hard for will only be accepted if congressional Republicans are willing to do more on revenues. This isn’t about political horse-trading; it’s about reducing the deficit in a balanced way that economists say is best for the economy and job creation. That’s why the president’s offer - which will be reflected in his budget - isn’t a menu of options for them to choose from; it’s a cohesive package that reflects the kind of compromise we should be able to reach.”

Not “political horse-trading”? You could have fooled me. No one even maintains that the “chained CPI,” is going to reduce the federal budget deficit. It’s a chit the President has put on the negotiating table.

It’s irritating when political pundits come up, as Josh Voorhees did the other day at Slatest.com, with various versions of: “Most notably, that means significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and fewer tax hikes than he’d like - neither of which will please the left.” Why? Because the “grand bargain” being concocted in Washington is not between the right and the left, or between the Republicans and the Democrats. It’s between big business (capital) and labor. The losers in this case will be the elderly, orphans, veterans and people with disabilities. Slightly higher taxes on the well-to-do will send not one of them to their local food bank.

“Look, this is compromise,” White House senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, said last Sunday. “And compromise means there are going to be some folks on both sides who are not happy.” “Yes, legislative deals require compromise,” economist Robert Reich wrote on his blog last month. “But why is it that deals over economic policy almost always compromise away what a majority of Americans want?”

This is not “everybody doing his part,” as Gene Sperling, assistant to the President for economic policy told the nation the other day. It’s political horse-trading with the welfare of the elderly, orphans, veterans and people with disabilities on the table.

“While cutting Social Security makes no sense at all in terms of economics or public policy, it makes excellent sense in terms of the selfish class interests of the super-rich,” wrote Michael Lind in Salon.com April 5. “They have extracted about half the gains from economic growth in the U.S. in the last half-century and recycle some of their profits to fund politicians, and lobbyists, as well as mercenary propagandists who pose as neutral think tank experts.”

“This morning’s jobs report was a big negative surprise and underscored the fact that a robust jobs recovery, even now, has not yet solidified,” observed Economic Policy Institute economist Heidi Shierholz April 5. “The job growth of 88,000 in March was far lower than the 2012 average increase of 183,000. It is important to keep in mind that the month-to-month numbers can be volatile, however; in this case the first quarter average growth rate is likely a better measure of the underlying trend. But at 168,000 per month, the average growth rate of the first quarter is not even close to what we need - at that rate we would not get back to the pre-recession unemployment rate until late 2019.”

“The unemployment rate ticked down to 7.6 percent in March, but not for good reasons,” continued Shierholz. “The decline is due to people dropping out of the labor force, not an increase in the share of the working-age population with jobs. In fact, the labor force participation dropped to its lowest point of the downturn, 63.3 percent. What’s more, the weak labor force participation is not due to demographic factors like retiring baby boomers; the labor force participation rate of the ‘prime-age’ population, people age 25-54, is also at its lowest point of the downturn, 81.1 percent. It’s the lack of job opportunities – the lack of demand for workers - that is keeping these workers from working or seeking work, not other factors.”

African-American unemployment slipped from 13.8 to 13.3 percent in March and black teen joblessness fell from 43.1 to 33.8 percent. How much of that is the result of black people finding sought after jobs was not immediately clear. However, the labor participation rate for African Americans as a whole remained about the same over the month.

“What’s most concerning about these trends is the prolonged double-digit rates of unemployment for African American, Latino and less-educated workers,” Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos and author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead , recently observed. “While much attention has been paid to the challenges facing indebted college graduates who are now much more likely to be working in jobs that don’t require a college degree, the deep and persistent high levels of joblessness and under-employment among young people without four-year degrees (the majority of the generation) is a silent crisis facing our nation. And it demands a robust and national response.”

Regarding the March jobs numbers, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge said, “The African American unemployment rate fell .5 percent to 13.3 percent, the most it has fallen in six months. However, that number remains at nearly double the national rate with 2.4 million African Americans still out of work.”

“While the private sector has steadily added jobs for 37 months, the public sector, where many African Americans are employed, continued to lose them. Last month, 385,000 more requests for unemployment benefits were made and by year’s end, sequestration threatens to put an additional 750,000 people with full time jobs out of work,” Fudge added.

Daniel Gross, global business editor at Newsweek’s Daily Beast, wrote that he had found a “small potentially optimistic note” in the latest government employment report. A major problem, he wrote is that while the private sector has been recently adding jobs to the economy cutbacks in the public sector have been “holding back the recovery in overall employment,” having eliminated millions of jobs “in part by firing police officers and teachers.”

Gross noted the situation with regards to public sector jobs at the state and local levels, last month: “The federal government cut about 14,000 positions, with most of those coming from the postal service.” “The non-Washington austerity hit to payrolls may finally be coming to an end,” he continued. “That’s the good news. The bad news? The Washington austerity looks like it is just beginning.”

If and when the “grand bargain” being pushed by the White House goes into effect it will make matters even worse.

“The optimist in me sees that yet again we had upward revisions and simply wants to believe that these March numbers are wrong and will be revised upward,” wrote columnist Matthew Yglesias at Slate Moneybox. “But hope is not a plan.”

Nor does anyone seem to have one.

No, that’s not true. There’s the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget that is far more sensible and humane than anything the White House is proposing. But since the “serious” people in Washington don’t cotton to it, the serious mainstream media won’t give it the time of day. Oh, yes, and there’s the President’s Jobs plan, which seems have to have evaporated into thin air.

As Jim Dean, the chair of Democracy for America, said, Obama’s move is a “profoundly disturbing shot across the bow for the progressives who called their neighbors, spent weekends knocking doors and donated millions to reelect [President Obama].”

“With this move, Obama gives progressives one less reason to work for Democrats - and every American citizen one less reason to vote for them,” Progressive magazine editor, Matthew Rothschild, wrote last week.

According to the AARP, its polling says 70 percent of voters age 50-plus are opposed to the chained CPI gambit and two-thirds of them – including 60 percent of Republicans - say they would be “considerably less likely” to support a congressional candidate if he or she supported it. As Solon’s Joan Walsh reported, “On every single question, Republicans lag only a point or two behind Democrats in their opposition to Social Security cuts.”

And, just in case, the Washington plotters are banking on the “grand bargain” being upsetting only to the elderly and people with disabilities, Derek Pugh of Campaign for America’s Future, has an important observation and reminder.

“Remember the catastrophe of 2010, when millennials stayed home in large numbers,” Pugh writes. “Polling data shows that a solid majority of young adults (53 percent) wanted a Democrat-controlled Congress. However, only 20.9 percent of all eligible young people voted in the 2010 midterms. More than half of the people who voted in 2008 (51 percent) shied away from the polls. In the months leading up to November 2014, Democrats will have to try even harder to win the millennial vote. Republicans are already poised to make some headway: note the thousands of young people at the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks ago.”

“As the most diverse generation (39 percent are people of color), millennials are more civically engaged, progressive, open to change and tolerant non-meddlers on social issues. Overwhelming, they support same-sex marriage (78 percent), abortion rights (68 percent), and immigration reform (78 percent). Democrats’ stance on social issues are the main draw for young voters.”

“But demography isn’t destiny. It would be suicidal for Democrats to take for granted a group that will comprise almost a quarter of the electorate in 2014. Progressive views on social issues are appreciated, but are not sufficient. The number one priority of millennials and the rising American electorate is still economic recovery - and millennials need to see Democrats being the champions of a recovery that will allow them to rise.”

Last week, the very perceptive Grio managingeditor and MSBC commentator Joy-Ann Reid said the President is probablyconfident that if he cuts the proposed deal “Nancy Pelosi can deliver the votesin the House and Harry Reid can do so in the Senate.” Precious few of thepeople the two of them are supposed to represent favor the Social Security Medicareconcessions, and they and their colleagues ought to be reminded of that fact.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Other Carl Bloice writing can be found at leftmargin.wordpress.com. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

The lightning quick, one-day strikes against New York City’s fast food restaurants are a sign of the times, as well as a desperate attempt of low-wage workers to call attention to their plight: pay that is so low that they cannot live in the smallest apartment in the city or support a family.

Workers at places like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken struck recently again for one day and are likely to do so in the near future, demanding that their pay rise from the minimum wage of $7.25, to $15 an hour. Any honest assessment of living conditions in New York City would show that $7.25 is far from a living wage.

One of the workers said that she was finding it difficult to live on her $7.25-an-hour wage, an understatement if there ever was one. It would be difficult to do so in any state in the nation, let alone in what is arguably the financial capital of the world. And a large group of the fast food workers are going to try to do something about it.

What is remarkable in this period of strikes is that it is the result of economic conditions that existed in the U.S. in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, which was the time of the Robber Barons and rapidly increasing control of the economy by the corporations. It was a time when all of the members of a family went out to work, to bring in whatever pittance they could earn, to buy a loaf of bread or a bag of coal.

Americans are not so much into bread and coal anymore, but we do have their equivalent, and we certainly have the equivalent in the meager pay of those on the lower end of the economic ladder. In fact, some would say that most of the rungs are missing on that ladder and the working class chance of moving up, even to the middle, is about as good as winning a Powerball lottery.

The Great Recession that we are in is a prolonged and drawn-out final stage of a great readjustment in the economy that has been brought about by the scheming of Corporate America and its minions in Washington and the various state capitols, over the past 30 or 40 years. It has been going on longer than that. The past several decades have accelerated the process, which has included the emptying of the land of manufacturing and heavy industry. The rich and corporations found that they could enrich themselves much more easily if they farmed all of that out to other countries, where the labor costs were much cheaper and environmental laws, where they existed, were not much enforced.

Thus, since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. has embarked on a “service economy,” in which, no matter how many degrees from whatever prestigious school of higher learning one had, a temporary job in one of the “service industries” would be waiting, at the minimum wage or slightly above. That is the situation in which Americans find themselves at this time, and it does not appear to be ready to change in this generation or the next. More and more, they are finding themselves in the working class.

When one-tenth of the top 1 percent of Americans hold as much wealth as the bottom 40 percent of the people, even the rich have to be a little concerned. When more and more people are hungry, it could be a little scary for them to have their gourmet meals delivered to their homes in gated communities. But, as long as the stock market remains high and their investments seem secure, they go on their merry way, ignoring the suffering all around them.

About a century ago, the working class was organizing unions and the powers that be were doing everything they could to stop them. There was no National Labor Relations Act and there was no union movement that encompassed all workers, so they had to make it on their own. When things got tough enough, they went on strike, even though it meant that they likely would be fired, or that they might never work again in their industry. Unions of the time, in their organizing and strike literature, had fliers and other information written in several languages, because the workers neither spoke each other’s languages, nor did they speak English. Anyone in the family who could work did work, the pay was so low and the people were suffering in their dank tenements.

They acted at that time because they were desperate. Today’s fast food workers in New York City are similarly situated. They come from all over the world, they speak many languages, they are of greatly varying racial and ethnic backgrounds, they may have skills or education that they cannot use in a service economy, they have families to support and bills to pay, and they may be debt-ridden, such as the situation for students who borrowed money for an education only to be told there were no jobs in their fields.

How to live and survive in any U.S. city is the dilemma they face. Because of the nature of the fast food business, these are jobs that are usually relatively easy to get, but they pay at the rock bottom of the economic scale. But this is the kind of job that racial minorities, immigrants, students, and the poor are forced to take. There is really no place for them to go (there isn’t a lot of upward mobility), so they are demanding to be treated as human beings; they are demanding that they be treated as the people who enable the corporate hierarchy to live their lavish lifestyles. They are demanding a rate of pay that will allow them to survive, let alone live a decent life with their families.

In their struggle, they face some of the most hostile opposition that anyone has seen in generations: the Right Wing in politics (mostly Republicans) and those who control Corporate America, who have raised wage suppression to an art form.

An example of the societal pervasive hostile wage suppression, one only has to consider a short exchange of “commentators” on Fox News, which has seemingly become the propaganda arm of the GOP and Corporate America, in their efforts to keep things just as they are.

Here’s a bit of the exchange on Fox on April 5: Brian Kilmeade: “So I believe, you - minimum wage was never meant to be a career wage. If you work hard you will get higher - you will get more money. Here’s the other thing, as hard as it is in some cases, because you are a single mom or a single dad, you’ve got to get another job. You’ve got to get another job on top of that so you have two incomes. Hopefully, that will change.”

And, Steve Doocy, on the same show: “Brian you hit it on the nose I think the key thing. If it is a minimum wage job, expect to get paid the minimum wage. The National Restaurant Association said that they provide 13 million jobs, and those jobs could be jeopardized across the country if the minimum wage goes up. The industry says one of the best paths to achieving the American dream is to start with an entry level, minimum-wage job that is minimum wage.”

In case they hadn’t noticed, or willfully failed to notice, these minimum wage jobs are not held by teenagers who are looking for a way to pay for car insurance. They are held by women and men who have to support a family and have other responsibilities. And the 13 million jobs in the restaurant industry are not going to disappear if they are required to pay a livable wage. Saying that if one low-wage job is not enough, just get another shows that Fox talkers and the people who watch their shows don’t have a clue what is happening to the U.S. It is time they started finding out what’s happening.

With people like thatlooking out for the hard-working working class, what could go wrong?

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

Apr 11, 2013 -Issue 512

Mr. Fish is a cartoonist and writer who lives in Philadelphia, PA. He says never asked to be born. Occasionally, he laughs his head off. His mother has no idea what he's up to. She cries easily. His Website is clowncrack.com. Click here to contact Mr. Fish.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

From the time the tragic school massacre occurred that killed 20 young children (and their teachers) on December 14th, 2012, the national debate shifted to what could be done. For the past three and a half months, all we heard from Congress, the pundits and the media was that, “It was time!!!” Time for what? Time to do something about the proliferation of guns in our society, particularly, assault weapons. The NRA came out with the most outrageous statement we had ever heard, in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, no less. Assault weapons are not the problem. Huh? Then it flipped, “government wants to take our guns.”

Now we have to have another national debate.

And we have…for nearly four months. Congress came back, two days after the Inauguration, full of “piss and vinegar,” vowing to do the right thing. California U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein, rolled out a comprehensive gun reform bill, comprehensive being the operative term.

Comprehensive, in this instance, means inclusive of an assault weapons ban that was allowed to expire in 2004. Suddenly, the Feinstein bill was considered “dead on arrival.” Why? Because it included an assault weapons ban. What??? Yeah, you heard it right. The very thing that caused the national outrage was written out of the legislation, first. Now the public is even debating the size of gun magazines. Banning high capacity magazines that shoot over 15 rounds sounds reasonable, right? Well, it’s now the sticking point of the current pending legislation.

The outrage is gone. Or is it? The gun lobby plays to the nation’s fear of government, of the current President (Negrophobia) and our love of liberty to convolute the issue. So what we know is not good for us, the nation is prepared to tolerate a little longer…until the next time.

In December, 54% of Americans polled said they were in favor of comprehensive gun reform. One Hundred days later, it’s down to 46%. Now Congress is having a problem passing a watered down bill that just expands background checks. And the President has to focus his attention on the issue to keep gun control reform on the legislative agenda. As we say in the community, “This is some bull…” The American people deserve more than this.

The problem is that most Congress members are pollwatchers. When polls favored gun control, they favored gun control. Now that the polls are slipping, suddenly Congress is slipping. In fact, Congress is doing a total moonwalk… they look like they’re stepping forward on the issue but they’re actually moving backwards. It’s the politics of illusion that have created a delusion.

The nation is clearly delusional if they believe this is simply a background check problem. Criminals and other gun enthusiasts can get guns without background checks, or with background checks. We didn’t get alarmed at Sandy Hook because the shooter didn’t pass a background check. What alarmed us was the massive array of war weaponry to which the shooter had legal access. He was just a kid. Some think, a disturbed kid - but a kid nonetheless - who shot his own mother. A nation that turned its back on the mentally ill chose to reintroduce that discussion before it introduced a discussion on banning assault weaponry. The excuses just keep coming as to why we, and Congress, can’t do the right thing, ban assault weapons.

It sends the wrong signals to our society as to what is important in our society. Education is not important. Literacy is not important. Unrestricted gun ownership is important. Defending your gun rights has twisted this nation’s priorities beyond reason…and the youth know it. Kids on the streets may not know where the local library or bookstore is but they know where they can get a gun…any kind of gun they want. Including assault weapons.

There are 350 million guns in circulation in America, more than the national population (311 million). America doesn’t have a gun problem, it has a gun addiction. The problem is that the addiction has gotten bigger. Like a druggie that looks for a more power high, America’s now fiending for more powerful guns. The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms for hunting and home protection. Assault weapons, and the ammunition that goes with them, are not compatible with that guarantee. Assault weapons are for fighting wars. What war is America looking to fight at home?

Search the internet and be prepared to be shocked. I’m not going to say it here, but it’s central to America’s social construct from its very outset. There is no other reason to explain the nation’s resistance to give up the most dangerous threat in our society. Our second amendment rights aren’t being threaten, just our scene of security and democratic stability are being threatened.

We can regulate drugs in our society, and determine which ones can be sold “over the counter” and which ones need a prescription…because they’re too dangerous for self medication. But we can’t do the same for guns? Please…

The moonwalking our society is doing on gun reform is unjust, irrational and unethical.

The rhetoric after Sandy Hookis an insult to the lives that were lost and society will pay a cost if itdoesn’t become rational and pragmatic around gun reform in supporting anassault weapons ban. Anything less is milk toast policymaking that won’t changea thing.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad,is a national columnist, managing director of the UrbanIssues Forum and author of REAL EYEZ: Race, Reality and Politics In 21st Century Popular Culture and Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Twitter @dranthonysamad. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

My friends, you should batten down the hatches. This country - and I do mean the country - has worked itself into a massively destructive national psychological cul-de-sac. The seemingly impenetrable walls of this cul-de-sac are constructed of the lies and the mythology that some of us tell each other and have told each other for too long. Human social psychology is such that when we work so hard to cover up a lie or to pump-up a myth, our brains create thought patterns that retard in-sight from penetrating what has been constructed. We easily skip over the markers that separate fiction from reality. We cling to false assumptions - prejudices - that help us maintain illusion. The dominant culture - in words, with assumptions, through stories, and unmitigated emotions - short-circuit critical thinking. By brain evolution, some deep emotional processes can short-circuit the participation of the forebrain. Without the many-sided prospective testing of the forebrain, lies and illusions are encrusted and protected.

These are then passed on to other contemporaries and passed down to subsequent generations. This social-psychological-cultural encrustation resists exposure, most vigorously because our personal identities get tangled up in the construction, we massage our egos with lies. And at the subconscious level - down deep where our sense of identity presides - we are threatened by contrary points of view. We are twice threatened by any fractional emergence of feelings of guilt. In Western society guilt is often followed by punishment or retribution rather than redemption and enlightenment.

Manipulative, authoritarian social structures - like some religions, like some family traditions, like some political organizations - use this guilt/punishment dynamic to corral members into obedience and acceptance of illusion. Those of us who are raised from childhood in such structures find it very difficult to escape the illusions. Often, it will take some peak or intense experience which hangs with us to allow the possibility of puncturing the illusion. Living with counter examples will help but is not guaranteed to succeed; note the many racists who will say “my good friends are…but he/she is the exception.” When minds are so captured by illusion, there is no need for cabals or Trilateral Commissions. The culture and our minds do all the work that is needed. Reporters and assignment editors need almost no “push” from their capitalist commercial bosses because they lack the critical thinking abilities to challenge the illusions.

Frequently, we are freed from illusion by coming into contact or by building a relationship with someone who is “like us” and who has escaped the illusion and not been crippled or disappeared. Sometimes it takes knowledge that forgiveness and a “life” is on the other side of the illusion. Admitting guilt is much easier if one can appreciate that there might be light on the other side. It is in fact better if that road to forgiveness is a bit of a challenge. If there is no challenge, the words may be said but there will be little change of heart or mind; the illusion will persist. It will be voiced less.

That is the nature of the mythology of racism for most people in this country. Hearts and minds have not changed much; racism is just not voiced much. Consciously, unconsciously, and institutionally, racism continues. Lethal discrimination remains largely unabated bolstered by basically the same illusions of superiority and inferiority. The US has had no real process of puncturing racist illusions neither through the Civil War nor through the turmoil of the Civil Rights Struggle. Too many pockets of racism remained and continued to proliferate, albeit more subtly and clandestinely. There is no firm, nationally recognized stand against the illusions that underpin racism; there are only the disfavor and frowns at its open naked expressions. Whites are still fully presented as superior and blacks are frequently displayed as inferior.

Because of the election of Barack Obama, this racism illusion is now buried so deeply in the national psyche that it might never surface again! The Country might acquiesce that a black man was a reasonably capable President but that acceptance can be done without puncturing the illusion that blacks in general are inferior. Even blacks will find it difficult to surface the racist illusions. We will be confronted with the nearly impenetrable wall of “why can’t you just be like Barack.” Whites and those who have bought into the status quo will continue to believe that if only blacks would change, things would be alright. No white person will understand that it is the general societal illusions that will have to change. Few will be confronted with the untruth of the superiority illusion. This idiocy is so intertwined with history, so deeply embedded in societal institutions, and so deep in individual psychic identity structures that it will not surface again. This is a recipe for disaster.

As African Americans do battle with the education system, the criminal justice system, the economic system, and the media systems we will feel like we are stuck in a cul-de-sac. No easy opening will present itself. Almost any institutional, societal movement will more negatively affect the black community. Our only chance is radical change of the whole society. That will take more than we alone are capable of accomplishing. Batten down the hatches. Gird your loins. Let’s get about recruiting others and doing what we will have to do: bring about deep and radical societal change.

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

Apr 11, 2013 -Issue 512

BlackCommentator.com artist/cartoonist Charles E. "Chuck" Siler's works feature a variety of themes ranging from New Orleans' lively and unique jazz scene to its lively and equally unique political scene. He uses his art and political cartoons to comment on life's complexities, warts and beauty marks.

His creations include fine watercolors and acrylics and pen and ink cartoons. His cartoons are featured on a regular basis in The Louisiana Weekly.

A Katrina evacuee, Siler has spoken on New Orleans history across the USA at universities and culural events.

Click here to contact Mr. Siler

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

“Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.”

- Lucy Parsons

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”

- Albert Camus

The indefinite detention - NDAA signing, drone man Barack Obama is singularly the most insidious and hideous U.S. politician thus far in this 21st century. There is nothing – absolutely nothing - that he will not say or do in willing service to his corporate / military masters of the U.S power elite, at the horrible expense of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people.

Barack Obama – the consummate political pimp, has taken the outrages against ordinary people by his predecessor George W. Bush, to a level unmatched in the history of this nation or of humankind as a whole. He has (without Congressional approval) militarily attacked sovereign nations in Africa and the 'Middle East.' He has shredded the U.S. Constitution with his draconian (NDAA) indefinite detention law and his obscene 'Kill List.' He is now, in 2013, in the process of dismantling Social Security for senior citizens, the disabled, the needy, and the future; after having already wiped out (in his first presidential term) the non-mandatory single payer universal health care option on behalf of his corporate pharmaceutical benefactors.

To refer to Barack Obama, as a 21st century 'carpetbagger' on behalf of the Wall Street and military power elite is, quite frankly, an understatement. He is far, far worse. His incessant obfuscated and misleading rhetoric, combined with his brazenly opportunistic use of his slightly darker skin pigmentation, has horribly redefined, the already deplorable realities, of opportunism and exploitation.

This man, Barack Obama, has proven to be the perfect tool for his Wall Street corporate / military masters and the U.S. corporate-stream media. He has proven to be the bane of humanity – all in the fallacious name of 'progress.'

White 'Liberals' and the Black Bourgeoisie

White 'liberals,' not to mention much of the leadership of so-called 'progressives, and the opportunistic black bourgeoisie (and its aspirants) in this nation, have overwhelmingly demonstrated that when it comes to principles and integrity they are virtually no different from their supposed foes of the so-called right wing. They outright support, or are complicit in supporting, U.S. wars, military incursions, U.S. occupations of sovereign nations, and the economic emaciation of the of the poor (at home and abroad) as long as these actions are carried out by their perceived team – the Democrats. And the opportunistic and relatively small black bourgeoisie (adored by the U.S. corporate-stream media) is absolutely no different. They rationalize these abominations abroad and at home in the name of the allegedly sacred name of supporting a “black” head of the U.S. Empire. Massive hypocrisy notwithstanding, they have shown, in real terms, in the words of Albert Camus, that they are “on the side of the executioners.” Indeed, in the words of Malcolm X, they are on the side of “those who want to continue the system of exploitation.” They have joined the blood suckers of humankind at home and abroad. They too, are the 'carpetbaggers' of humanity and their betrayal is utterly repugnant and unacceptable.

What Next for the Everyday People?

Everyday ordinary people in the United States and throughout Mother Earth must understand that they – and only they – are the ones who can best and most effectively and collectively protect their own interests and human rights. This national and global corporate system of thieves, liars, and blood suckers will never do such a thing no matter what their obfuscated rhetoric implies. Their rhetoric is nothing more than a distraction and a trap for the undiscerning.

In this 21st century, we- the people – have the opportunity and obligation to relentlessly and collectively pursue what is in our own best political, economic, and social interests. At stake is literally everything – the very existence of Mother Earth, and of we, her stewards.

In the words of Lucy Parsons, “Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth.” That “wealth” was, and continues to be, stolen and ill gotten wealth. Mother Earth belongs collectively to the everyday ordinary women and men who are her stewards – NOT to the blood suckers of humanity and their corporate-owned, war mongering political pawns.

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward...!

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.

Apr 11, 2013 - Issue 512

London Ladd Studios

Click here to contact London Ladd

London Ladd is the Illustrator for the book:

March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World (Hardcover)
by Christine King Farris

Artist statement: I’m a 2006 grad of Syracuse University with a BFA in Illustration. My main medium is acrylic. I enjoy painting and illustrating various aspects of life especially African American. I especially love working in my sketchbook because I wouldn’t be able to grow as an illustrator without it. My sketchbook goes everywhere with me.

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