The DISH
Unbossed
and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 11 Issue 3…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 18, 2008
Dr. King National Holiday
On the third Monday of January, the United States celebrates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, this son of a black Baptist minister is the only American besides George Washington to have a national holiday designated in honor of his birthday. Recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King, a civil rights activist and minister, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968.
The effort to establish the King holiday began on April 8, 1968, four days after Dr. King’s assassination. US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) submitted the first legislation to commemorate Dr. King’s birthday. Aided by US Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), Rep. Conyers resubmitted the legislation during each congressional session. In 1970, a petition campaign coordinated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference submitted to Congress petitions with more than 6 million signatures calling on Congress to pass the King national holiday legislation.
Opposition to the holiday came from the Republican Party’s conservative right. GOP Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina led the opposition for conservatives, calling Dr. King a communist; he tried in vain to obtain release of FBI surveillance tapes on King that had been sealed by court order until 2027 in the hopes of tarnishing King’s character. Despite Helms’ formidable opposition, Republicans, Democrats, liberals and many conservatives, the White House, the courts and the media joined the call for the passage of the King holiday bill.
On
August 2, 1983, the US House of Representatives by a vote of 338 to 90 passed a
bill to create a federal holiday honoring Dr. King’s birthday. The Senate voted on October 19, with 78 US
senators, Democrats and Republicans, voting in favor of the legislation and 22
against. Marking the end of a 15-year lobbying
effort across the nation, President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation
establishing the national holiday in honor of Dr. King’s birthday on
November 2, 1983. The official holiday was first observed on January 20,
1986. (Sources: , and )
Say No to Nooses!
On this January 21, the day the nation is supposed to be celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday by engaging in good works, white supremacists plan to march in Jena, Louisiana. This proposed march is in response to the September 20, 2007 march in support of the Jena 6, the six black students of Jena High School that have come to symbolize injustice in America.
The September 20 march brought together people from across the country. Fed up with disparities in the criminal justice system, the marchers demanded justice. According to advanced reports on the proposed white supremacist march on Monday, demonstrators plan to display nooses and carry placards and banners calling black youth thugs and criminals and demanding jail time for the Jena 6. To counter this hatred, the January 21st Committee is calling on people everywhere to get to Jena on Monday to oppose the lynch mob racists!
January 21st Committee says, “Displaying nooses is a hateful and terrorizing message. These racists want to take us back to the days of lynch mobs murdering Black people in this country. Nooses are intolerable. Bring a sign, hang a poster, make a banner, get to Jena, say no to nooses!”
For
more information, contact the committee at or telephone 318-787-1190. Spread the word! Get out this call far
and wide, support and build for January 21st!
South Carolina A Real Question
By John Burl Smith
Having worked as a campaign coordinator in Memphis, TN for Rep. Shirley Chisholm when she ran for president (1972), I am deeply disappointed with the way the 2008 race is developing. Beginning with Rep. Chisholm, whose platform was the Black Agenda developed during the Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, then Jessie Jackson, who was followed by Rev. Al Sharpton, their campaigns were up front in addressing the needs of the black community. After a year long run up, then Iowa and New Hampshire, no candidate has addressed a single issue from the perspective of black people. Now comes South Carolina, a state where the votes are nearly equally divided between blacks and white. Rather than discuss issues, the rhetoric has degenerated into a he-said-she-said mud slinging contest, which from a black perspective, highlights Sen. Barack Obama’s political immaturity.
South Carolina has been catapulted into prominence by the Presidential Primary of 2008, not because of the number of delegates it will yield to the eventual winner, but because a black man has been thrust upon slave descendants as their candidate. One of the leading slave states of the Old South, South Carolina single-handedly forced the 3/5 Compromise into the US Constitution, legalizing discrimination against slaves and their descendants. The basis of contemporary disparities between blacks and whites is the result of the 3/5 Compromise. South Carolina led the fight against ending the African slave trade in 1807. Along with Georgia and Alabama, South Carolina was the leading breeder of slaves after the importation of African slaves was outlawed in 1808 by the US Constitution, Article 1 Section 9. In 1850, it introduced a bill to reopen the slave trade years after its 1808 prohibition.
If one understands the historical impact of slavery on black Americans, why would they waste time slinging mud, rather than addressing the history of slave descendants in America? Obama, who seems to believe the US is a color blind society, seems dismissive of the role and impact of color in determining the status of US slave descendants. On the one hand, he insists color doesn’t matter; on the other, he demands blacks vote for him because he’s black.
Being black in the US has always been a double edged sword for slave descendants. Those victimized by that legacy overflow with antidotal evidence of their struggle with that reality. Blackness is not an advertiser’s slick catch phase or smooth one-liner that rolls off of one’s tongue to cheers before multiracial audiences. It is a dilapidated rat infested tenement or sharecropper’s shack, a dirty low-paying job in a textile mill, picking peas, tobacco and cotton, with little or no food most of the time. It is the desperation of never having enough and with only the hope that your children have a better life that keeps you going. That reality is something one does not take off like a new suit, good job or college degree. Facing privatized healthcare, blacks are always the last hired and first fired. We endure the ghetto tax and predatory lending, while our black candidate slings mud rather than attack this black economic crisis.
South Carolina is a place closer to slave pens than ballpoint pens, to collard greens than Harvard greens, unpaved streets than Wall Street and an outhouse than the White House. It is a place where the standard of living is so low one has to tiptoe to touch the bottom of a dollar sign. Unemployment for slave descendants is so high one can look down on the White House and opportunity is as rare as a rose in winter. So, the question is how does one show people in such conditions that you feel their pain? What do you have to offer those who have struggled a lifetime and must now watch their grandchildren go down the same road that their grandparents walked down without a turn off in sight?
For slave descendants in South Carolina and the rest of America, this primary election is not a question of race or slogans about change; it is a question of survival for the next generation. It is not about appearing too liberal, too black or too far to the left. It is about too much despair, hopelessness and lack of opportunity. It is not about where you are or what you say today. It is about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing and what you’ve planned to do tomorrow. I believe one’s past is an indication of their future potential.
When Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Jessie Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton ran for president just being black was enough to get blacks’ votes. They came to black people and asked for their support before they started running. The first time Sen. Obama came to Atlanta, Dr. King’s hometown, he spoke to white people at Georgia Tech. He didn’t visit Dr. King’s shrine, Morehouse or the black community. His campaign is like a shotgun wedding; black people have been dragged down the isle without the opportunity to say yes. It would have been nice to get kissed first.
Paradise Lost
By Doug Holloway
A young man goes off to war in Korea. Upon his return, he marries his long time sweetheart, buys a basic saltbox home in a new development and starts a family. Being a free spirit, he finds it difficult to fit into the established employment order, so he becomes somewhat of an entrepreneur. With the profits from bootlegging Mississippi Moon Shine, trafficking in stolen goods and hauling laborers (cotton pickers/choppers) year round, he is able to expand on his home and provide a pretty good lifestyle for his wife and five kids.
Two boys, three girls, beautiful wife, large home, new cars, nice clothes, educated children, the whole nine yards. It is the realization of the American Dream of the day. The family motto is "if you don't hear from them, everything must be okay." Through all of life's comings and goings, the family home always stood. It was the place to return to watch Saturday morning wrestling, play with family pets that came with the house, eat good food, tell stories, glorify one's own family, celebrate holidays and major events, drop off the grand babies or even live in again if and when hard times fell on family members. It was a place of love, trust, comfort, kindness and warmth. Everyone was glad to be there, and everyone was welcome. With an occasional face-lift it was as instep with the times as any house on the block. It was that warm place in your heart called "home."
After the passing of time and parents, the inevitable happened. Having left no written will, the home that the parents had worked so hard for now stood idle and empty, a victim of family squabbles. Everyone wanted the home but no one could be responsible for it. Eventually the roof leaked, the paint peeled, the grass grew, the birds settled in and the taxes fell behind. Within three years the family home that had once been the warm, inviting source and center of all the family activities was now but a shell of itself. The realities of life had now caught up with it and its very existence was numbered in days.
There are many conclusions that could very easily apply to this story. There are many morals that could very easily apply to this story. Once a selfish dog guarded a pile of hay from a flock of sheep. When the sheep tried to eat, the selfish dog drove them away. The ever wary selfish dog refused to go and eat himself. Eventually, the sheep starved to death. Eventually, the dog starved to death. Eventually Paradise was Lost.
About Me: A Memphis, TN native, Holloway has been writing since the age of 14. His work has been published in Readers Digest, The Whitehaven Appeal, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, Tri-State Defender and read on The Tavis Smiley Show, WDIA radio and other venues. Married for thirty years to the same woman, he is the father of three.
Disgruntled wants to know: Sadly, neither Democratic Party hopefuls embroiled in the media-driven race brouhaha speaks to the substantive issues negatively impacting slave descendants, which make up the majority of blacks in this country. With disparities in everything from life to death, none of the presidential candidates is addressing this black reality. Listen closely to those political stump speeches; their rhetoric relegates blacks to the trash heap of US history, much like Native Americans driven to the brink of extinction by manifest destiny-- the US push to own land from sea to sea. Question is, why are these candidates wasting time arguing over who has done most for black folks when so much more needs to be done to improve the black American socioeconomic and political condition?
Disgruntled says: Already GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has promised to appoint judges that strictly interpret the Constitution, if elected. When political candidates make this promise, they basically telegraph their intention to stack the courts with people they think will follow the founders’ original intent. The founders legalized slavery. George W. Bush made the same promise and appointed two justices that formed a majority that has dismantled many of the civil rights gains of the 1960s. We can ill-afford to continue moving backwards. Before pulling that lever or punching a ballot, be sure you understand where the candidate stands on judges and neo-slavery.
Disgruntled
feels: Bankrupt! In his famous “I Have a Dream
Speech,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. mentioned the check marked
insufficient funds that the US government has given black people. This check is still un-cashed; the US
government refuses to honor the debt.
Consequently, the nation morally bankrupt and should hide its face in
shame rather than claim to spread democracy abroad with guns.
Changing of the Guard
By Yohannes Sharriff
Trumpets blow calling home
So many of our heroes and icons
The torch has been passed, now we hold the baton
This is the changing of the guard
Our leg of the marathon out of this Olympic farce
Seems the same trek Marcus Garvey was on
His biggest opposition was his own
Prominent black figures,
Like W.E.B. Du Bois and A. Philip Randolph
Wrote letters in protest of the black star
Even though we are no longer stuck
On the back of the bus, we have yet to overcome
‘Cause even though Benjamin Banneker
Surveyed the city we still have to boycott
March on Washington to get our point across
Stigmatized black folks picking cotton
We fashionably flaunt our oppression
Thoughts of cooperative harvest make us nauseous
Pavlovian dogma
The auction blockage got our minds held hostage
Willie Lynch our senses til sense ain’t common
Til we can’t sense them coming
Identifying with fascist,
We defend an offensive position with conviction
Ostensively free to self sabotage our own progress
This process has become so obvious
Acknowledging working together is the only option
The future is a promise we must fulfill
Yesterday’s tomorrow is already here
Standing on the shoulders of giants we take the field
Beautiful as Isis, the spirit of Harriet Tubman
In the eyes of my new born niece
As she greets the world,
“Let me see the sun and I will fly!”
So we teach her to use her mind to reach that high
Recognize the Nile as the birthplace of civilization
Every other civilization on the face of the planet
An example of African adaptation
Including the birth of nation in belly of a slave ship
Whipped, raped and stripped of culture,
Our people packed in cramped quarters
Tortured for sport then ordered to death.
We survive hell thanks to God and nothing else
Cosmic as the ocean placed between us and home
Kings and queens with or without a throne
Seeds sown so that hope survives
Young souls to rock the boat and dive overboard
Reminding us we fly, our spirits soar beyond folklore
We emerge from these waters heading to shore
Like Haitian refugees and hurricanes,
We make our way to shore
Not quite sure where we are, we travel down this dark road
Obscure as that moonless night in 1945
My father’s family fled Mississippi
Amidst domestic terrorism, no headlights on this road
Oppressive as Jim Crow and post Reconstruction
The shackles still cuffing the minds of so many of my peers
Sharecropping in corporate fields
Slight of hand conceals the black and white signs
Behind boardroom doors good ole boys wage war
Distort our choice with biased questions
And low scores on standardized tests.
Outdated textbooks and inferior technology
Underpaid and overworked cacophony
Often the lost in lofty places...Turn and fire after 15 paces
Exhausted parents hang on like apostrophes
While apathetic educators serve as proxies producing
Institutionalized students who probably will sit
Behind bars on school windows doing time
Who am I? Just one amongst a sea of forgotten youth
Who viewed the Niagara Movement as too far away
When trap stars are parked right outside the door
Lining this yellow brick road surrounded by crows
Who want you to believe you can’t win
But listen, the wiz ain’t God
He just pretending and this ain’t Oz
It’s just enough for the city
If you with me, nothing can stop our victory
The God within is no mirage
We paradigm shift positive over negative
Even the odds will witness the meek inherit the earth
But f*ck being timid! Listen!
Even freedom can be used as a euphemism
For slavery ‘cause they say so much
But do you really know what they saying?
I’m just saying ask the natives
Reincarnated soul of those who laid down their lives
The firmament of fertile soil
So, we can thrive thank the Most High
And our Ancestors for guiding us here
Now that we are behind the wheel,
Keep your eye on the road.
Cause we’ve come so far, yet we have so far to go
Abolish the Electoral College
By Dot
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. Dr. King --August 28, 1963.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in the shadow of the Lincoln Monument is as relevant today as it was in 1963. Every time the United States mobilizes for a presidential election, the fact that blacks are not truly free is evident. These national contests give rise to the question, why is there an Electoral College? The US is supposed to espouse and support one man, one vote democracy, yet here is this anathema.
The Electoral College is based on the 3/5 Compromise of Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution, which codified slavery. Maryland state Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and constitutional law professor at American University, noted, "The electoral college is intertwined with slavery. It worked like a dream for the slave owners, because each slave, which was denied citizenship and voting rights, counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning House seats. And that increased a slave state's electoral votes." Indeed, according to Sen. Raskin, the current winner-take-all system, in which the candidate who wins a majority of a state's citizen's votes wins every one of its electoral votes, evolved as states, particularly slave states, vied for power leading up to the Civil War.
While apologists for this system of inequality pretend the 14th Amendment repealed Article 1, Section 2, they ignore the Electoral College, which is based on that article and values votes differently. Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, a high hurdle requiring three-fourths of all fifty states. Instead, New Jersey and Maryland passed legislation to circumvent its unequal intent. These states will cast their electoral votes for the presidential contender that wins the popular vote.
Unfortunately, before the law becomes effective, a majority of the states representing 270 of the possible 538 electoral votes must endorse the measure. So far, only New Jersey with 15 electoral votes and Maryland with only 10 have done so. Still a long way from ending the political slavery represented by the Electoral College, the current election will not reflect one man, one vote democracy.
Several other states, Illinois, Colorado, Arkansas and North Carolina, have passed similar measures in at least one house of their state legislatures. Republicans, especially conservatives, oppose the measure using the age-old small state argument. They ignore the impact of the Electoral College in devaluing votes cast in large population centers of Northern cities and southern states, where blacks reside.
If this nation is to ever live up to its creed that “all men are created equal” and realize Dr. King’s dream, then it must abolish the Electoral College.
Mailbox: E-mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email ...France Is Healthcare Leader, US Comes Dead Last: Study...France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective healthcare to its citizens, according to a survey of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries.
Email ...Cloned Animals May Be Used for Food in U.S., FDA Says...By Catherine Larkin...Cloned cows, pigs, goats and their offspring are safe to enter the U.S. food supply, regulators said over protests from lawmakers, consumer groups and worried eaters. The Food and Drug Administration issued a final report today backing the use of cloned food, after a seven-year review.
Email ...E-coli-tainted Beef Recalled Rochester Meat Company of Rochester, MN recalled 188,000 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli and that are linked to six illnesses. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the beef was produced between Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. It was sent only to restaurants and food services, the USDA said.
Email ...Consumer group criticizes industry profits...By Marcy Gordon...US insurance companies systematically overcharge customers and underpay home and auto claims to pad their already-fat bottom lines, according to the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and several other consumer organizations that said the industry's overcharges reached an average $870 per US household over the last four years.