The Plan for White Slavery?

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Racism has a hidden face within all of us. Anyone who is different beyond our imaginings is suspect. By placing people in the "other" category, we distance ourselves and make them the enemy. To the Right Wing Nuts, Obama has become the thief.

The Plan for White Slavery | The LA Progressive.

In his bestseller, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell noted that people make powerful associations with appearances and make “snap decisions” based on “thin slices” of experience. One of the many studies he cited required the subjects to assign positive or negative words to images of white or black people. To their surprise, the subjects, including himself, associated positive words with pictures of white people and negative words with photos of black people.

Thus after a history of repeated othering of African Americans in the US, it is not unusual for the picture of the black thief climbing through the windows of our homes to evolve into the imaginings of a black man in the White House stealing our healthcare and hard fought freedoms. As educator and writer Tim Wise, shrewdly observed “the longstanding association in white minds between social program spending and racial redistribution has been long established, by scholars such as Martin Gilens, Kenneth Neubeck, Noel Cazenave, and Jill Quadagno, among others.” What is reparations in the mind of the Right?—another form of stealing. Tim further notes, bestselling writer and conservative commentator Glen Beck, as well as shock talk-show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, have linked health care reform and every piece of Obama’s legislative program with reparations. “His (Obama’s) goal is to create a new America. A new model. A model to settle old racial scores..,” decries Glen Beck.

Leaders from the healthcare corporate industry and the Right have been tapping into this programming. Observing the town hall rage and media coverage, historian and journalist Rick Perlstein reminds us that throughout history “the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.” Rick goes on to cite various examples such as Vice President Nixon claiming he found hidden in the White House “a blueprint for socializing America” or the various absurdities from the Right that the 1964 Civil Rights Act would “enslave” whites and that the Soviet Union served as an incubator for the “civil rights movement.” He concludes, “Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill—because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.”

However, the escapees of the Goldwater asylum are not the only ones prone to their programming being activated. Each one of us has it in them. Remember, during the struggle for desegregation of the lunch counters and outlawing racial housing covenants, a number of opponents used free market arguments of the “right to refuse service.” As Ronald Reagan once said as he successfully campaigned to be governor of California, “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, he has the right to do so.” Reagan, who publicly opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, still overwhelmingly won as president despite launching his campaign with a speech on state rights at the site of three slain civil rights activists. I am not saying all those who disdain any governmental involvement in healthcare want to push people of color to the back of the bus, but in the current healthcare debate, they have de facto shoved those without healthcare to the side to fend for themselves.

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Congress nibbles on edges of wealth gap

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Minnesota Independent

As Washington policymakers screamed bloody murder last month over bonus payments for a few hundred AIG employees, another much larger scandal flew virtually unnoticed on Capitol Hill: The divide between the wealth of blacks and whites -- already gaping -- grew again. Now, as Congress prepares to consider a series of consumer-friendly finance reforms, some minority advocates, researchers and lawmakers are pointing to that startling trend as another reason the reforms are urgently needed.
"We need to work together to begin to attack the institutional and structural reasons why communities of color continue to lag so far behind white families," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus.
The concerns were justified last month. According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of the typical African American family in 2007 was just 10 percent of the net worth of the typical white family -- down from 12 percent in 2004. Put another way: For every $1 held by whites five years ago, blacks had 12 cents. Three years later, they had a dime.
"This is not just a gap. It's a deepening canyon," Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last month. "The overhyped political term 'post-racial society' becomes patently absurd when looking at these economic numbers."
The staggering statistic has taken some powerful lawmakers by surprise. Participants in a wealth gap summit on Capitol Hill last month said that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who attended the event, was shocked to learn the extent of the disparity.
But incredulity is one thing; closing the gap is another. And congressional lawmakers with that goal in mind face a series of barriers to getting the job done. Not only is there little recognition that such a divide exists, but the causes, according to reform advocates, are so rooted in history and engrained in policy that they're tough to iron out. Furthermore, the solutions reside largely in tax code reforms -- among the thorniest issues to tackle on Capitol Hill. Advocates for closing the wealth gap say that congressional lawmakers are well behind the curve.
"In terms of them really grappling with it," Lui said Friday, "I don't think they've done that yet. There's plenty of room for them to address this further."
It won't be easy. Advocates are pushing to reverse the Bush-era tax cuts, like those slashing the capital gains and estate taxes, which provide handsome benefits to those with accumulated wealth, but do almost nothing to help Americans of color, whose assets are a fraction of those held by white's.
"People aren't thinking in terms of wealth, it's always about income," Lui said of the public policy focus. "But income alone won't do it."
Thomas Shapiro, professor of law and social policy at Brandeis University, said additional tax reforms could include a shift in the mortgage interest deduction to benefit lower-valued homes and the creation of another deduction for renters -- controversial ideas that "no one's really talking about," he said.
"When the issue is something like the racial wealth gap," he said, "it's very difficult to think of policy levers [as solutions]."
That the wealth disparity is so wide is largely attributable to prejudiced policies both public and private. Advocates and academics point out that some of the largest federal benefit programs of the last century propped up whites but largely excluded minorities. The G.I. Bill, for example, provided $120 billion in low-interest mortgage loans to servicemen after World War II, yet less than 2 percent went to minorities before 1962, Liu found. And the Depression-era Home Owners' Loan Corporation, created to modify mortgages to prevent foreclosures, benefited no minorities whatsoever, she said.
More recently, Harvard University discovered that, among blacks and whites of similar incomes, lenders targeted blacks more often for sub-prime loans, even when those minority borrowers were eligible for less risky arrangements.
To combat that trend, advocates and some Democrats are pushing for the creation of a Financial Products Safety Commission, a concept championed by Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the congressional panel created to oversee the Wall Street bailout. A Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) would do just that. The commission would regulate financial products, like mortgage loans and credit cards, much the same way the Consumer Products Safety Commission protects buyers from faulty coffee makers and lawn chairs. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have also sponsored the bill.
The release of the Fed's latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial assessment of American financial trends, reveals that such policies have taken their toll. The report found that, as a group, people of color held roughly 16 cents for every $1 held by whites in 2007. For Hispanics, the figure was 12 cents. For blacks, a dime. And those figures were crunched before the collapse of the economy. Advocates fear that the gap probably widened since then because, while fewer minorities than whites own their homes, minority homeowners tend to have a higher percentage of their wealth wrapped up in their homes.
Similarly, blacks and Hispanics have fewer credit cards, but tend to drive up higher debts per card. As a result, said Jose Garcia, associate director for research and policy at Demos, a liberal policy group, "more of [minorities'] income goes to pay debt, and less goes to buy assets."
Minority advocates are also wary of payday lenders, who tend to charge exorbitant rates and target minority communities where traditional banks are often scarce. "Billions of dollars are being taken out of low- and moderate-income communities as a result of these alternative financing schemes," Shapiro said.
Not that Congress isn't doing anything at all. Legislation to help homeowners by empowering bankruptcy judges to alter mortgage terms passed the House last month, though it's since stalled in the Senate. Democratic leaders are also preparing to take up bills tackling predatory lending and credit card abuses. Another proposal to rein in payday lenders is also on the Democrats' radar screen.
Speaking at the wealth gap summit last month, Lee said that reforming these industries to protect minority communities is long overdue. "Too many communities do not have access to traditional banks and rely too heavily on payday lenders and check cashing stores that charge uncontrolled fees and out of sight interest rates," Lee said. "We must work together to use this financial storm to demand the institutional reforms that will begin to lift all American families out of this crisis."
Reform advocates say they're heartened by such statements coming from Capitol Hill, but many remain wary that few lawmakers are sticking their necks out to close the wealth gap.
"They were very friendly and very encouraging," Shapiro said of the congressional participants at the summit, "but nobody was stepping up and saying, 'I want to be the champion of this.'"
Mike Lillis is Congress reporter for the Washington Independent.

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New Yorker Caracature of Obama and Wife Backfires in Poor Taste/Bad Judgment

Alternet

It's easy to say "my work means what I mean it to mean, and if you don't get it, that's your problem" -- but it's never that simple. If you're approaching an assignment from a position of incredible privilege, say as a cover cartoonist for the New Yorker, you can't just write off the unintended consequences of your expression. If you insist on doing so, maybe that is racist.

SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME

Ever wondered why African Americans haven't recovered from slavery 150 years ago? Thats because slavery continued at a large scale as little as 50 years ago. The southern establishment used the criminal justice system and forced labor to force freed slaves back into involuntary servitude. Why haven't we heard of it before? Hear it from the author on Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS

Journalist Douglas Blackmon tells another tale of freedom postponed and denied in SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME. Blackmon's book tells the unfamiliar story of "neo-slavery" that reached beyond the de-facto slavery of tenant farming and debt peonage. Blackmon first became intrigued by this episode of U.S. history while researching a story for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL which documented how U.S. Steel Corp. relied on forced black laborers in Alabama coal mines. He discovered:

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible "debts," prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.

It was a system that Blackmon found carried on in some areas until the early days of World War II.

Government May Have Massive Surveillance Program for Use in National Emergency

AlterNet

“Main Core,” a program that authorizes “computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases” in order to discover “potential threats” in the event of a “national emergency”:

According to a senior government official…”There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” … One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

These so-called “Continuity of Governance” plans, Radar notes, “are shrouded in extreme secrecy, effectively unregulated by Congress or the courts.” “Main Core is the table of contents for all the illegal information that the U.S. government has [compiled] on specific targets,” said a former military operative. Furthermore, the NSA domestic surveillance program reportedly “suppl[ies] data to Main Core.”


According to Radar, a “number of former government employees and intelligence sources with independent knowledge of domestic surveillance operations” say Main Core is strikingly similar to what Comey refused to authorize at Ashcroft’s bedside:

[T]he program that caused the flap between Comey and the White House was related to a database of Americans who might be considered potential threats in the event of a national emergency. Sources familiar with the program say that the government’s data gathering has been overzealous and probably conducted in violation of federal law and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

“We are at the edge of a cliff and we’re about to fall off,” said constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein. “To a national emergency planner, everybody looks like a danger to stability.”

The World’s Worst Religious Leaders

Foreign Policy
Hassan Nasrallah
Religion: Shiite Islam
Who is he?: Secretary-General of Hezbollah
Country: Lebanon
Quote: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak, and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology, and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice I do not say the Israeli.”
Joseph Kony
Religion: Christianity/personality cult
Who is he?: Commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
Country: Uganda
Quote: “[The spirits] speak to me. They load through me. They will tell us what is going to happen. They say ‘You, Mr. Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack.’ They will come like dreaming; they will tell us everything.”
Yogi Adityanath
Religion: Hinduism
Who is he?: Religious leader and member of parliament from Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province
Country: India
Quote: “I want Muslim votes, too. But wash them in Gangajal [Ganges water] first.”
Athuraliye Rathana
Religion: Theravada Buddhism
Who is he?: Monk and member of parliament
Country: Sri Lanka
Quote: “Peace negotiations simply made the LTTE [Tamil Tigers] stronger. We mustn’t talk to them; we can crush the LTTE. It is like surgery.”
Dov Lior
Religion: Hasidic Judaism
Who is he?: Head rabbi of Kiryat Arba settlement
Country: Israel
Quote: “A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.”

Bush Administration Still Denying Justice for Sami Al-Arian

AlterNet

Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, who has spent the past four years in jail despite a jury's failure to return a single guilty verdict against him, has been called before a third grand jury, despite the fact that Al-Arian signed a "no-cooperation" agreement with the government providing that he would not be required to appear before any grand jury. The announcement came on March 3rd, one month before his scheduled release.


Past National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder, Al-Arian's counsel in 4th Circuit and 11th Circuit appeals, on the "acquitted conduct" Supreme Court cert petition said, "The duplicity of the Justice Department and the failure of the courts to recognize basic contract-law principles in this case is an example of how politically-motivated "war on terror" prosecutions are distorting the American legal system. In the Al-Arian case, the Justice Department and the courts have made a mockery of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial which should outrage all Americans as deeply as the Tampa jury that acquitted Dr. Al-Arian more than two years ago."


It is now likely that when Dr. Al-Arian again refuses to testify because of the "no-cooperation" agreement, he will be charged with obstruction of justice and could receive several additional years in prison. If he testifies, he faces a "perjury" trap based on Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg's past practice with other acquitted Palestinian defendants.


When he was arrested in February 2003, Dr. Sami Al-Arian was a prominent Palestinian academic and a leading member of the Muslim community in south Florida and one of the most prominent Palestinian academics and activists in the United States. He was acquitted on eight of 17 charges against him December 2005 after a six-month trial with three co-defendants. In April 2006 he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy, involving assisting his brother-in-law in his immigration matters and denying to a reporter that he knew of a colleague's association with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In return, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining eight charges on which the jury had "hung" 10-2 for acquittal and to recommend a time-served sentence with release and deportation in May 2006. The Tampa AUSA admitted, on the record, that the usual "cooperation clause" was removed from the plea agreement because Dr. Al-Arian and his lawyers would not agree to any form of cooperation.


At sentencing on May 1, 2007, Tampa Federal Judge James Moody gave him the constitutional maximum sentence of an additional year, citing the very offenses of which the jury had acquitted him. Despite the "no-cooperation" agreement, and while the appeal of his acquitted conduct sentence was pending on appeal, Al-Arian was found in civil contempt in January 2007. In December 2007, a federal judge in lifted the civil contempt and Al-Arian's new release date was April 2008.

The Ballot or the Bullet

The Black World Today

We don’t know what Barack will do [if elected President], but he has presented some thoughts which would mean some change in the ugliness of the policies of this country. He hasn’t spelled out an anti-poverty program like the one proposed by Martin Luther King, a program of full employment, guaranteed annual income, and 100,000 units of affordable housing each year. But he has spoken out about Social Security reform that rejects privatization and raises the income cap for imposition of the FICA tax, a move that would secure Social Security for decades to come. Obama speaks of removing tax credits for those companies that send our jobs overseas. He speaks of raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 annually, and eliminating taxes for seniors who make less than $50,000 a year. Of course, he promises to end the war in Iraq, and bring the troops home by the end of 2009.


His foreign policy includes diplomatic overtures to Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. Does this mean ending the rhetoric about bringing democracy to the world? This rhetoric is so hypocritical coming from a country that becomes more fascistic by the day, by the hour, by the minute.


Poverty is not confined solely to Black folks. So anything that addresses that evil does indeed have universal appeal. The belligerence of the united states causes pain to the majority of its citizens. Obama’s promise to bring the troops home reaches all corners of the u.s.


[..]I have looked to Barack’s web page to find information about his thoughts on the criminal justice system. Found nothing there, and of course the issue of Political Prisoners in the u.s. is a non-existent issue in this campaign, and seemingly a non-existent issue for Barack Obama. He has been a civil rights attorney, so I can’t believe he is completely unaware of the issue, as so many of our so-called black politicians like to claim. No point talking to him about this now. But, hopefully, we will be all over him on this matter after he is elected.


[..]We are not a stupid people. We know better than to expect miracles, freedom, or liberation if Barack Obama becomes president of the united states. But the huge turnout of the so-called African-American vote will be a major factor in placing Barack in the Oval Office. Obama will do well to take a lesson from the David Dinkins saga.


Don’t take our vote for granted; it is what will get him to the White House, and if he turns it off, it will mean his ticket out of the White House – no second term.


Michelle Obama says she doesn’t want people to vote for her husband just because he is Black. She knows better, and saying it is only being prudent. Easily 90% of the so-called African-american vote for Obama will be because he is Black. And because he is Black, a renewed hope will rise up in Black youth, the new constituency that Obama brings to the ballot box. If he crushes their hopes, plays “plantation politics,” he will leave millions in hopeless despair. That hopelessness can evolve into anger and rage, and Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the entire country may well face the reality of Brother Malcolm’s admonition, “the ballot or the bullet.”

Obama Threatened and Secret Service Drops Gun Checks

While Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists publish ominous threats to Obama's life, reportedly, Secret Service ordered an end to gun checks at Obama rally. Now what is up with this?

"The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security," reported the paper's Jack Douglas, Jr. More than 10 days remain until the Texas primary and a key vote for president.


"Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. '"Sure,' said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a 'friendly crowd.'"


The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

Woman sues Ohio sheriff's deputy over 'outrageous' strip search

The Raw Story

Hope Steffey's night started with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the sheriff's deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and recently released video won’t help their case.


Steffey's ordeal with the Stark County sheriff's deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey's driver's license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister's license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That's when the situation became complicated.


"Hope was not treated as a victim," her lawyer told WKYC News. "The officer said to her 'shut up about your dead sister.'"


Eventually, Steffey was arrested and taken to the Stark County Jail, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But once in custody, her attorney says seven jail workers, male and female, forcibly removed Steffey of all her clothes, including her undergarments, while she lay face down in handcuffs. Local news footage shows Steffey wailing, asking "What are you doing?!?"


"And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?" said Steffey's lawyer. "What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim."


The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.


Although the sheriff's policy requires officers conducting any strip search to be of the same sex, the sheriff contends that the tactic used on Steffey was not actually a strip search. He also questions the validiy of the events leading up to Steffey’s arrest.


Once shown the exclusive video, Steffey’s husband was in disbelief. "You don't treat people like this," he said. "I don't think murderers are treated like this."

This video is from WKYC News, broadcast February 1, 2008

On MLK Day: Obama Addresses Homophobia, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia Among Black Americans

Here Obama speaks with conviction and a level of honesty uncommon among politicians. Perhaps this guy is what he says he is: a uniter. Perhaps we shall see.
The New York Observer

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we’ve come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We’ve come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it’s just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.


All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.


But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.


It’s not easy to stand in somebody else’s shoes. It’s not easy to see past our differences. We’ve all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.


We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don’t think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.


And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.


Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.


But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

There is No Scientific Basis To Race

Archeology has largely accepted that man evolved in Africa and eventually traveled to the East, and then finally the west. Complexion became white along the way for reasons not understood.
The one fact that everyone seems to ignore is that we are all Africans.
UNDERNEWS

BURIED IN A NY TIMES ARTICLE on the effect of DNA research on people's view of race was a sentence of a sort we can't recall having read in a major paper before:


"Race, many sociologists and anthropologists have argued for decades, is a social invention historically used to justify prejudice and persecution."


The mythological - indeed racist - origins of the concept of race has almost completely passed the mainstream media by and this omission has been a major factor in country's continuing ethnic problems.


SAM SMITH, GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL, 1997 - There is simply no undisputed scientific definition of race. What are considered genetic characteristics are often the result of cultural habit and environmental adaptation. As far back as 1785, a German philosopher noted that "complexions run into each other." Julian Huxley suggested in 1941 that "it would be highly desirable if we could banish the question-begging term 'race' from all discussions of human affairs and substitute the noncommittal phrase 'ethnic group.' That would be a first step toward rational consideration of the problem at hand." Anthropologist Ashley Montagu in 1942 called race our "most dangerous myth."


Yet our conversations and arguments, in our media, and even in our laws, the illusion of race is given great credibility. As a result, that which is transmitted culturally is considered genetically fixed, that which is an environmental adaptation is regarded as innate and that which is fluid is declared immutable.


Many still hang on to a notion similar to that of Carolus Linnaeus, who declared in 1758 that there were four races: white, red, dark and black. Others make up their own races, applying the term to religions (Jewish), language groups (Aryan) or nationalities (Irish). Modern science has little impact on our views.


Our concept of race comes largely from religion, literature, politics, and the oral tradition. It comes creaking with all the prejudices of the ages. It reeks of territoriality, of jingoism, of subjugation, and of the abuse of power.


DNA research has revealed just how great is our misconception of race. In The History and Geography of Human Genes, Luca Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford and his colleagues describe how many of the variations between humans are really adaptations to different environmental conditions (such as the relative density of sweat glands or lean bodies to dissipate heat and fat ones to retain it). But that's not the sort of thing you can easily build a system of apartheid around.


As Thomas S. Martin has written:


"The widest genetic divergence in human groups separates the Africans from the Australian aborigines, though ironically these two 'races' have the same skin color. . . There is no clearly distinguishable 'white race.' What Cavalli-Sforza calls the Caucasoids are a hybrid, about two-thirds Mongoloid and one-third African. Finns and Hungarians are slightly more Mongoloid, while Italians and Spaniards are more African, but the deviation is vanishingly slight.


[..]And so we come to the Catch-22 of ethnicity. It is hard to imagine a non-discriminatory, unprejudiced society in which race and sex matter much. Yet in our efforts to reach that goal, our society and its institutions constantly send the conflicting message that they are extremely important.


For example, our laws against discriminatory practices inevitably heighten general consciousness of race and sex. The media, drawn inexorably to conflict, plays up the issue. And the very groups that have suffered under racial or sexual stereotypes consciously foster countering stereotypes -- "you wouldn't understand, it's a black thing" -- as a form of protection. Thus, we find ourselves in the odd position of attempting to create a society that shuns invidious distinctions while at the same time -- often with fundamentalist or regulatory fervor -- accentuating those distinctions.


In the process we reduce our ethnic problems to a matter of regulation and power, and reduce our ambitions to the achievement of a tolerable stalemate rather than the creation of a truly better society. The positive aspects of diversity remain largely ignored and non-discrimination becomes merely another symbol of virtuous citizenship -- like not double-parking or paying your taxes.


Martin Luther King said once: "Something must happen so as to touch the hearts and souls of men that they will come together, not because the law says it, but because it is natural and right."


Sorry, Martin. Our approach to prejudice and discrimination is not unlike our approach to drugs: We plan to simply rule them out of existence. In so doing, we have implicitly defined the limits of virtue as merely the absence of malice.

Caging the African American Voter

ProjectVote.orgRepresentational Bias in the 2006 Electorate
The proportion of the U.S. population that registers to vote and that does vote is highly skewed towards Whites, the educated and the wealthy. Furthermore, young eligible Americans, particularly young minority males, and those who have recently moved, are disproportionately represented among those who do not participate in the U.S. electorate.
This report provides an introductory review of frequency tables for responses to some of the questions in the November 2006 CPS as well as cross tabulations showing how the responses interact with race, gender and income. Data on voter registration and voter turnout for each state and the District of Columbia for 2002, 2004 and 2006 are also provided.
ProjectVote.org: Caging Democracy Report
Republicans have engaged in voter caging on the national and
state level since the late 1950’s. According to many election observers, voter caging is a controversial
political tactic that typically targets minority voters to directly disenfranchise them or suppress their
vote by intimidation. Republican officials, on the other hand, maintain that voter caging is part of
what they describe as “ballot security” measures necessary to combat voter fraud.
The following report reviews Republican voter caging operations during the last 50 years,
culminating with the unprecedented number of large voter caging operations conducted across
the nation in the 2004 presidential election. The report briefly covers the origins and history of
voter caging and follows with a survey of individual caging operations during this 50-year period.
The key findings are as follows:
• V oter caging is a practice of sending non-forwardable direct mail to registered voters and
using the returned mail to compile lists of voters, called “caging lists,” for the purpose of
challenging their eligibility to vote. In recent years, other techniques, such as database
matching, have been used to compile challenger lists.
[..]ocuments submitted during civil litigation have established that voter caging operations were
directed consciously and specifically at jurisdictions with large numbers of minority voters. At
least one public statement by a state Republican office-holder and private communication
between party officials evidence an unambiguous intent to suppress Black votes. Precincts
that had historically high percentage of voters supporting Democratic candidates, which were
often minority precincts, were also targeted for voter caging operations.
• M edia campaigns immediately before elections were a key part of voter caging operations.
Part of the strategy was to call a press conference to announce the filing of mass challenges
on the eve of the filing deadline. The challenges were billed as evidence of massive voter
fraud although the voter caging lists were, in fact, only evidence of returned mailings.
Frequently, the pre-election media campaigns alleging voter fraud were as vigorously, or
more vigorously, carried out than the challenges themselves.
[..]n 2004, political operatives targeted more than half a million voters in voter caging
campaigns in nine states. At least 77,000 voters had their eligibility challenged between
2004 and 2006.
• A t least five states with competitive political environments enacted changes to their voter
challenge statutes just before and after the 2004 election. Three states with Republicancontrolled
legislatures, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, made it easier for private individuals
to challenge a voter’s eligibility while Washington and Minnesota passed laws making it
harder for private persons to challenge voters. Minnesota specifically outlawed the use of
caging lists compiled from returned mail sent by a political party.
[..]Although the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA ) prohibits election officials from canceling
the registration of voters merely because a single piece of mail has been returned, Republican
operatives have used the lists for many years in caging operations to challenge the voting rights of
thousands of minority and urban voters nationwide on the basis of returned mail alone. [..]The RN C is bound by a U.S. District Court consent decree
ordering it to obtain court approval before it engages in any type of ballot security program. Yet,
Republican-led caging operations continue unabated.
[..]The Ohio precincts in which approximately 91 percent of the state’s African American population
resided - including urban areas like Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, and Akron - were
targeted for challenges.48 The state Republican Party recruited about 3,600 challengers statewide
to carry out the plan.

Female Airman Makes Rape Accusation, Ends Up On Trial Herself, With Her Accused Given Immunity

AlterNet[VIDEO]

CBS News reported Tuesday on a current case that calls into doubt the Air Force's promise, after a scandal four years ago, of better treatment for alleged rape victims. The case is that of Airman Cassandra Hernandez, who has stated that she was raped by three fellow airmen.


Hernandez gave an exclusive interview to CBS in which she admitted having drunk "a lot" at a party before accompanying three male colleagues to a dorm room. She acknowledged that her memory of events is fuzzy, but said she definitely remembers saying "No" and trying to push the men away. The three men allege that Hernandez started taking off her clothes and that the sex which followed was consensual.


A hearing was originally set on the rape charges, but after harsh pre-trial questioning, Hernandez decided not to testify. At that point the Air Force brought lesser charges against all four airmen, citing Hernandez for underage drinking and "indecent acts." The three men accepted minor punishments, while Hernandez refused. She is now facing a court-martial and could be jailed or expelled from the Air Force. At the same time, the three men have been granted immunity in their testimony against her.


It is that outcome that has so alarmed advocates for rape victims and raised a concern that -- regardless of whether Hernandez is correct in her accusations -- the case will have a chilling effect in the future. According to the Los Angeles Times, Hernandez' attorneys have released a statement saying that "'important, relevant evidence' was denied them during discovery and that Hernandez decided not to plead to the same indecent-act charge as the three airmen because 'she was told that she was considered guilty unless she proved herself innocent.'"


"The system failed Hernandez," one of her attorneys told CBS.

A Natural Healing

It's not often that I find good news worth sharing. But this story is a gem. Every time I think the world is falling apart, I hear a story like this that warms my heart and melts my cynicism.
AlterNet

They went to kindergarten together, sharing crayons and sleeping carpets, chocolate milk and peanut butter sandwiches. They navigated the treacherous waters of adolescence, laughing their way through disastrous first dates and drivers ed. They gossiped about teachers, cried over broken hearts, and struggled with algebra.


For as long as Turner County High School's seniors can remember, they've always been together -- black and white, rich and poor. And now less than a month from graduation, they wanted to be together one more time, experiencing one of high school's most sacred traditions: the prom.


In the process, their simple wish would shatter another time-honored tradition in Ashburn, Ga., and change history.


Although segregation ended in this farming community years ago, some say the old ways never truly died. And every spring, while schools around the country planned junior/senior proms, Turner County's parents and students planned two unofficial private proms -- one for the white students, and one for the black.


Within the school's hallways, the parties weren't discussed. No posters were hung, no fliers distributed, no tickets sold. But everyone knew. It was so common that it was considered normal here in rural Georgia.


Because the parties are private, no one tracks the number of towns still holding separate proms, but most people here say fewer places seem to be continuing the practice.


[..]Mandy Alberson's eyes are shining as she inspects herself in the mirror at His and Hers Hairstyles in downtown Ashburn. Consulting a folded piece of paper, the senior, who is white, compares her tiara-topped tresses to the drawing in her hand. "Is this going to hold?" she wails to stylist Luana Moore. "It's gotta last 'til tomorrow morning for 'Good Morning America!' "


The cellphone in her lap rings. It's James Hall, the senior class president, who is African-American. He's got his own problems. A television crew is following him everywhere he goes, and he's not sure if he and his date will be able to meet Mandy and her date at Applebee's after all. They'll meet up at the prom. "I love that boy," Mandy says, clicking the phone closed.


Giddy with excitement, she explains that she and James have been planning this night since middle school. Even then the two friends knew they wanted one prom for everyone. When the school year began, the four senior class officers -- two black and two white -- came to principal Chad Stone and asked for his support. To their surprise, the first-year administrator gave it, wholeheartedly, even agreeing to devote $5,000 of his discretionary funds to the cause.

Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists

Republicans once were the party against regulation. That has changed. Now with the continued fascistic tactics of the Bush Administration, ordinary businesses have been enlisted in a manditory program intended to deny terrorists access to resources in the US, but that has effectively created an officially sanctioned program of discrimination against Muslim and even some Hispanic Americans and legally documented aliens.
Facing 10 to 30 years in prison, businesses without the resources to do background checks are denying anyone with a name similar to one on the list. That means anyone with the name of Muhammad, Hassan, Hussein could be denied loans, and plane tickets. Technically, landlords and sandwich shops could be held accountable by the government for serving someone on the list.
Welcome to Dubya's America.
washingtonpost.com

Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.


The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to be issued today.


The lawyers' committee has documented at least a dozen cases in which U.S. customers have had transactions denied or delayed because their names were a partial match with a name on the list, which runs more than 250 pages and includes 3,300 groups and individuals. No more than a handful of people on the list, available online, are U.S. citizens.


Yet anyone who does business with a person or group on the list risks penalties of up to $10 million and 10 to 30 years in prison, a powerful incentive for businesses to comply. The law's scope is so broad and guidance so limited that some businesses would rather deny a transaction than risk criminal penalties, the report finds.


[..]Saad Ali Muhammad is an African American who was born in Chicago and converted to Islam in 1980. When he tried to buy a used car from a Chevrolet dealership three years ago, a salesman ran his credit report and at the top saw a reference to "OFAC search," followed by the names of terrorists including Osama bin Laden. The only apparent connection was the name Muhammad. The credit report, also by TransUnion, did not explain what OFAC was or what the credit report user should do with the information. Muhammad wrote to TransUnion and filed a complaint with a state human rights agency, but the alert remains on his report, Sinnar said.


Colleen Tunney-Ryan, a TransUnion spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that clients using the firm's credit reports are solely responsible for any action required by federal law as a result of a potential match and that they must agree they will not take any adverse action against a consumer based solely on the report.


The lawyers' committee documented other cases, including that of a couple in Phoenix who were about to close on their first home, only to be told the sale could not proceed because the husband's first and last names -- common Hispanic names -- matched an entry on the OFAC list. The entry did not include a date or place of birth, which could have helped distinguish the individuals.


In another case, a Roseville, Calif., couple wanted to buy a treadmill from a home fitness store on a financing plan. A bank representative told the salesperson that because the husband's first name was Hussein, the couple would have to wait 72 hours while they were investigated. Though the couple eventually received the treadmill, they were so embarrassed by the incident they did not want their names in the report, Sinnar said.

February is Black History Month

AlterNet: Are We As Enlightened As We Think We Are About Race?
February is Black History Month in the U.S. It gives us an extra reason to ponder the journey of African-Americans from the early days of slavery, through Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, an on through the present day.

The Right To Vote

Women's right to vote


The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."


They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.


Thus unfolded the Night of Terror on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.


For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/clarify3.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/05/MNG1ME3JJG1.DTL
Before The Voting Rights Act
The extension of the franchise to black citizens was strongly resisted. Among others, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations attempted to prevent the 15th Amendment from being enforced by violence and intimidation. Two decisions in 1876 by the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of enforcement under the Enforcement Act and the Force Act, and, together with the end of Reconstruction marked by the removal of federal troops after the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, resulted in a climate in which violence could be used to depress black voter turnout and fraud could be used to undo the effect of lawfully cast votes.
Once whites regained control of the state legislatures using these tactics, a process known as "Redemption," they used gerrymandering of election districts to further reduce black voting strength and minimize the number of black elected officials. In the 1890s, these states began to amend their constitutions and to enact a series of laws intended to re-establish and entrench white political supremacy.
Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were "color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the procedures selectively. Other laws and practices, such as the "white primary,", attempted to evade the 15th Amendment by allowing "private" political parties to conduct elections and establish qualifications for their members.
As a result of these efforts, in the former Confederate states nearly all black citizens were disenfranchised and removed from by 1910. The process of restoring the rights taken stolen by these tactics would take many decades.

Voting Rights Act Renewed, Not Broad Enough

Despite moves by bigotted Republicans in the House, the Voting Rights Act passed the Senate today and will likely be signed by Bush given his statements to the NAACP this week.
The problem is that it has limited authority in most states, focusing on the South where discrimination has been flagrant in the past. However, the problems in Ohio and Florida in the last election will not be addressed. Clearly, many red states have unwritten policies designed to intimidate get out the vote drives and minority voters. The law needs considerable strengthening.
WaPo

The Senate voted 98 to 0 to renew key provisions of the Voting Rights Act yesterday, permitting the federal government to continue its broad oversight of state voting procedures for the next quarter-century, and allowing Republicans to claim equality with Democrats in protecting minorities' clout at the ballot box.


The act requires several states, mostly in the South, to obtain Justice Department approval before changing precinct boundaries, polling places, legislative districts, ballot formats and other voting procedures. It also requires many jurisdictions throughout the nation to provide bilingual ballots or interpreters for voters whose English is not strong.


The law, first passed in 1965, retains near-iconic status in civil rights circles, even though some elected officials say it is no longer needed. GOP leaders were eager to renew it before the November elections. Unlike the House, where some Southern Republicans opposed provisions that focus on their states, the Senate passed the bill unanimously after hours of one-sided debate in which member after member praised leaders of the 1960s desegregation movement.

Latino Citizens and Immigrants Are In Solidarity

Since Republicans decided to make hay on racism by proposing kicking out Mexican illegal aliens, not surprisingly, that inspired increased discrimination. However, this has had a positive effect that may prove a political backlash to the Republicans. For the first time ever, Hispanics are showing signs of working together politically. This may not bode well for Republicans in November.
WaPo

Hispanics believe that discrimination has risen since the start of the congressional debate over illegal immigration, according to a survey released yesterday. But they also think their group is more galvanized after the pro-immigration marches that resulted from the debate, and many believe they are on the verge of a major social movement, according to the survey by the Pew Hispanic Center.