The DISH
Unbossed
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Volume
10 Issue 41…Dedicated
to the Dialogue on Race…October 12, 2007
Intuit's Vibe
Only a Pawn in Their Game
By Bob Dylan
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood.
A finger fired the trigger to his name.
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in
their game.
A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them,
You been born with white skin," they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in
their game.
The deputy sheriffs,
the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in
their game.
From the poverty shacks,
he looks from the cracks to the tracks,
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in
their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught.
They lowered him down as a king.
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun...He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.
The Dark Knight-Batman/White
Ninja/Zorro attends public school, a microcosm of the larger society, indeed
the international community. This week students, parents and school
administrators were gripped anew with fear following the Ohio school shooting
and the arrest of another teen allegedly preparing a Columbine-type massacre.
Invariably, the child that chooses violence is the victim of bullying. While
the bullies get away with murder, their victims are labeled terrorists. When
queried for comments, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro simply said, "In school,
bullies rule."
Clinton's Race
Initiative (1997-1998)
"Today, I ask the American
people to join me in a great national effort to perfect the promise of America
for this new time as we seek to build our more perfect union."
President Clinton (1997)
At the University of California
San Diego's commencement on June 14, 1997, President Bill Clinton challenged
the nation to confront its racial prejudice; he informed those gathered of his
plan to appoint a panel to lead national conversations on racial, ethnic and
religious intolerance. One America in the 21st Century: The President's
Initiative on Race was a critical element in Clinton's effort to prepare the
USA for the 21st century.
According to population
projections by the U.S. Census Bureau (1992), by the middle of the 21st
century, non-Hispanic whites will no longer be the nation's majority
population. In highlighting the coming population shift, Clinton called on all
Americans to join him in creating an America based on opportunity for all,
responsibility from all, and one community of all Americans. Recognizing that
race relations remained an issue that too often divided the nation and kept the
American dream from being real for everyone, even as the nation rapidly became
the world's first truly multi-racial 'democracy,' Clinton's seven member
Advisory Board reflected the nation's racial diversity.
The seven member Race Initiative Advisory Board was established to counsel the
president on promoting national dialogue on race issues, increasing the
nation's understanding of the history and future of race relations, identifying
and creating plans to calm racial tension and promote increased opportunity for
all Americans, and addressing crime and the administration of justice. The
Board members were Angela E. OH, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Linda Chavez-Thompson,
New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, William F. Winter,
Robert Thomas and Suzan Johnson Cook.
Unfortunately, the conversation had barely begun before conservatives attacked
the dialogue, charging it was a monologue that excluded opponents of
affirmative action. Folding like a cheap lawn chair, Clinton caved in to the
country's staunchest anti-affirmative action conservatives, who wanted to
rollback the clock on efforts to improve conditions for minorities, especially
black Americans.
In the end, the dialogue that began as an opportunity to improve race relations
became another opportunity for white Americans to bask in denial and blame the
victims of racial discrimination for their unfortunate situation. Thus far from
improving, US race relations have deteriorated, hence the current proliferation
of nooses. (Sources: www.amren.com, www.prrac.org and http://clinton5.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/about.html)
Noose Epidemic!
Since Jena High students hung nooses from the "white tree" as a
warning to black students that dared sit beneath its branches, nooses have been
showing up in some unusual places. Near Ground Zero - hallowed turf - deemed
too sacred for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit; a noose, a symbol of lynching, was
found hanging from a light pole outside the Church Street post office.
New York police are investigating a noose found on the door of a black Columbia
University professor who teaches a class on racial justice. Days earlier, New
York police arrested a white woman on hate crime charges stemming from a noose
she hung over a tree limb to threaten the black family living next door.
Other nooses have been found aboard a Coast Guard cutter in the bag of a black
cadet. In August, a noose was found lying on the floor of the office of a white
officer conducting race relations training in response to an incident at the
Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. In September, a noose was found
in a tree at the University of Maryland and in the locker room of the
Hempstead, NY police department, which recently touted efforts to recruit
minority officers.
Earlier this month, a noose was found dangling from a utility pole at the
Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. In all, more than a dozen noose incidents have
been reported.
Jena 6 Update: Bell
Back to Jail
On Thursday, Louisiana State District Judge J.P. Mauffrey,
Jr. sentenced Mychal Bell to 18 months in prison for
violation of his probation in two cases unrelated to the Jena Six incident in
which Bell and five other black students are accused of beating up a white
classmate. At the time of the Jena 6 incident, Bell was on probation on two
counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property.
Observers were stunned by the judge's decision. Bell's attorney and others
expected a routine hearing on the Jena Six incident. Bell, who was convicted in
June of aggravated second degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime,
was initially charged as an adult with second degree murder and conspiracy to
commit the same. A judge threw out those convictions and sent the matter to
juvenile court. Bell was 16 at the time.
In addition to sending Bell back to jail, Judge Mauffrey
ordered his parents to pay all court and witness costs associated with this
case.
By John Burl Smith
Back in 1952, Adlai Stevenson and Dwight D. Eisenhower battled for the
presidency of the United States (US). That year, my mother introduced me to
electoral politics. Memphis, Tennessee was as segregated as any city in the
South. However, the black vote was
gaining potency for blacks in the Democratic Party. Last of the "New
Dealers," Stevenson gave lip service to the needs and aspirations for fair
housing, good jobs, and more rights for blacks. Only nine years old, I walked
door-to-door with my mother to get out the vote for Stevenson.
Once I matured into a young man, my allegiance to Democratic candidates
deepened and after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, I became a campaign coordinator
for then Rep Harold E. Ford, Sr. (1971). My fondest memories of those times was
coordinating US Rep. Shirley Chisholm's campaign for President (1972) in
Memphis and managing Derrick "Teddy" Withers' campaign for the State
House of Representatives in 1974-78. He was elected the youngest representative
at 22 in the history of the state of Tennessee.
Democrats never lived up to their promises to blacks, so over time, I became
more and more disenchanted with Democrats. The election of Bill Clinton gave me
hope once again; unfortunately my hopes were dashed once again. My
disappointment had nothing to do with sex in the Oval Office, it was his turn
to the right on social issues, embracing the Contract with America and its
welfare reform and his failure to make good on "The Dialogue on
Race." Had he continued the conversation and added legislation to continue
the process, slave descendants may not be finding nooses hanging like mistletoe
from campus trees, in locker rooms, and in police stations. Denial of racism is
now a national fixation, yet white parents continue teaching their children to
openly express hatred for black people.
The clearest example of the state of denial is the current presidential
campaign. Even though there is a black candidate, less is being said about race
and the plight of black people than during the campaign between Stevenson and
Eisenhower in 1952. It is as though the black vote is irrelevant. A black
candidate afraid to speak out on black issues has made it easier for candidates
like Hillary Clinton to whitewash her stand on black issues. Hiding behind his
silence regarding current issues that black women are up in arms about, such as
attitudes displayed by both Thomases, Clarence and Isiah, the humiliating episodes from "Flav-O-Flav," and the wholesale use of derogatory
terms used in referring to black women, allows Hillary to duck out the backdoor
without a word.
If Democrats don't speak to these outrages, black people should boycott the
2008 election altogether, since they don't count our votes anyway. Maybe
Democrats can make up the difference with illegal immigrant votes, since they
are getting all of their attention. I cannot deny communion, but I will not
vote for any candidate that does not begin making clear statements about what
they plan to do about the overt racism in the US. To hell with who controls the
Congress. What good is it doing us? The Jena 6 movement has shown we can
mobilize around issues that matter to us and there is no issue more important
than respect for our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. If we can't protect
our women, we can at least go down trying to avenge them.
More Words for the Jena 6 Movement
By John Burl Smith
Motivated by the Jena 6 movement, young slave descendants remind me of where we
were when the black power movement exploded in the 1960s. Today, you face an
older generation of black leaders totally absorbed with their own status or
so-called prestige. Like most of those out front of the civil rights movement,
they have grown fat, wealthy and comfortable saying what whites want to hear.
Such leaders attacked black power activists for demanding freedom, justice and
equality without delay. Those Uncle Toms preached the Booker T. Washington
mantra of patience, acceptance and a willingness to serve whites as a means of
proving to them that blacks were worthy of the blessing of liberty. Today,
whites are still telling you what they told us, "We still have a long way
to go," while they teach their children the same racist attitudes their
parents taught them.
The real question for the Jena 6
generation is why? What is the justification for denying blacks access to the
same rights and protections immigrants, legal and illegal, are granted even
though they are not citizens of the United States US). Cities are creating
sanctuaries for Hispanics to protect them. Illegals
are being granted drivers' license, and police cannot ask them about their
citizenship status. Whereas, blacks that are six generation US citizens are not
afforded such protections. Slave descendants, who have done nothing and have
clean records, are stopped during routine traffic stops and killed for any
number of specious reasons, these are not accidental deaths. The source of the
problem is the US Constitution, Article I Section II.
Slave descendants were hoodwinked and bamboozled with the Emancipation
Proclamation, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. None of these measures
repealed Article I Section II, the 3/5 Compromise, which made slaves 3/5 of
white men and legalized discrimination. The lie slave descendants were told was
that emancipation and those amendments replaced the 3/5 Compromise. However,
everything that was based on the 3/5 Compromise - the Electoral College and the
election of US Senators - remained intact. Consequently, how is it possible to
say the 3/5 Compromise no longer applies?
Currently, civil rights leaders continue to mislead black people regarding the
3/5 Compromise in a number of ways. First, they refuse to accept the research
of economist Dot M. Smith which established that the chasm of inequality
engulfing blacks today has not changed since slavery. In other words, the
disparities in employment, income and wealth for blacks, relative to whites, have
remained constant since slavery. Secondly, their refusal to admit our slave
legacy is the source of the problem we face today means their arguments
concerning the black situation are based on false premises. That is to say,
they believe discrimination is due to the actions of individual whites, rather
than the systemic impact of the constitution - the 3/5 Compromise. Thus,
discrimination against slave descendants is based on the law of the land and
not on racist individuals.
These leaders knowingly or unwittingly, like Booker T. Washington, are helping
whites keep blacks in the second class status mandated by the 3/5 Compromise.
If the Jena 6 movement follows their leadership, you will be betrayed in the
same way as the black power movement. They aided Co-Intel-Pro to protect their
leadership position. They turned their backs on the generation of the 1980s and
'90s and stood idly by as whites labeled those young blacks as "Generation
X." White used terms like gang banger, Crips and
Bloods and the war on drugs to isolate them and fill jails all over the US with
young blacks.
The Jena 6 movement is the first
real intelligent action to come out of the black community in almost forty
years. Whites have used the criminal justice system to criminalize millions of
black youth since the 1980s. Judges know that "strict construction of the
constitution" means enforcing the 3/5 Compromise. The choice for the Jena
6 movement is to lead your own movement or follow the old line civil rights
leadership into US prisons. Over the last thirty years, the US has built more
prisons than schools. If you are a young slave descendant, there is a cell with
your name on it.
Disgruntled feels: Outraged! The US
Congress can pass resolutions condemning the Turkish genocide of Armenians and
the Jewish holocaust, but it is silent on the genocide of native Americans, the
holocaust of slavery and Jim Crow segregation and the ongoing devastation of
the 3/5 Compromise on the lives of black Americans. When it comes to justice in
America, there appears to be two systems at work. It is like the Benjamin
Crump, attorney for Gina Jones, mother of Martin Lee Anderson, told reporters
outside a Florida courthouse on Friday, "You kill a dog, you go to jail. You kill a little black boy and nothing
happens." An all-white jury deliberated roughly ninety minutes before
acquitting the nurse and seven boot camp guards charged with Anderson's death.
While the jury could have found them guilty of lesser charges, the jury chose
acquittal. Members of the black community are outraged that this kind of dual
justice continues to be the norm in the 21st century.
Disgruntled
wants to know: According to news reports, imports from China represent a
"clear and present danger" to US consumers' health and welfare. While
the Chinese lob counter charges that the US has sold them defective products,
US consumers are contending with lead paint in toys, cardboard filler in foodstuff,
poisoned pet food, toothpaste and who knows what else. After announcing the
biggest toy recall in the nation's history, US toy manufacturer Mattel
apologized to China. One would think the nation would be up in arms over lethal
Chinese imports. Is China a threat to our health or are the Chinese giving us
what folks such as population-control advocate Henry Kissinger would recommend, things made of poison to kill off several hundred million?
Disgruntled
says: A conversation on talk radio happened to prick my interest, so I
listened for a minute. The conversation - a bitch session - had to do with the
way women are treated. The callers were especially down on the
"reality" television show the Flav O Love.
Of course, there is nothing real about this piece of crap or its spin-offs.
More importantly, why people watch it escapes me! However, to the ladies that
want respect, I suggest you stop watching this kind of nonsense. Better yet,
stop buying its sponsors' products and those of any other group or individuals
that think it is open season for dissing black women.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email www.rumormillnews.com....The 9-11 Conspirators
& Their "Unbreakable Bond" with Israel...By Christopher Bollyn...As expected, the nominee to be next Attorney
General of the US has a long history of obstructing justice, preventing
discovery, and covering up the evidence of Israeli involvement in the terror
attacks of 9-11. If Israeli agents were not prime suspects in the "false
flag" terror attacks on the World Trade Center, and if a passenger
screening company owned by Israeli intelligence agents were not a defendant in
the 9-11 litigation, the fact that the crucial 9-11 lawsuits have been handled
by two Zionist judges from the same synagogue might be considered a
coincidence. But with so much evidence of Israeli involvement in 9-11 in plain
view, the intimate connection with the State of Israel of these judges cannot
be discarded as mere coincidence. It should rather be viewed as evidence of the
on-going, high-level, and well-planned cover-up. The Zionist judges controlling
the 9-11 litigation have acted like the Israeli bulldozers after the massacres
in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila, and Jenin. Like judicial
bulldozers, the mission of these Jewish judges is to bury the evidence of
Israeli involvement in the "false flag" terror attacks of 9-11.
Email www.progressiveexchange.com ...The
Democrats Who Enable Bush...By Helen Thomas...Washington - President Bush has
no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and
the party's leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq
policy. Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want
U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible
reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war. Last week at a debate
in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the
same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and
Barack Obama of Illinois
and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S.
troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical
presidencies. Can you believe it? When the question was put to Clinton, she
reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: "It is very difficult
to know what we're going to be inheriting."
Email www.cnn.com Paulson: U.S. to Hit Debt Limit
Oct. 1...By Martin Crutsinger -- Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson told Congress in September the government will hit the current
debt ceiling on Oct. 1. He sought quick action to increase the limit, saying it
was essential to protect the "full faith and credit" of the country,
especially at a time of financial market turmoil. The limit is $8.965 trillion.
Unless Congress votes to raise it, the country would be unable to borrow more
money to keep the government operating and to pay debt obligations coming due.
This month, the Senate Finance Committee approved increasing the limit on the
debt to $9.82 trillion. That boost of $850 billion would be the fifth since
President Bush took office in 2001.
Email hazelk@att.com Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in his memoirs that Bush and the Republicans had abandoned the GOP's conservative principles of favoring small government by failing to fight against rising government spending. He also stated the nation went to war against Iraq because of oil. In backing away somewhat from that assertion in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Greenspan lost credibility.