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Vol. 12 Issue 8…Dedicated to the
Dialogue on Race…February 22, 2009
Venue for an Artist
By Amy Dixon-Kolar
Chorus:
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barack ran, he ran and he won
So that all our
children could fly
Thousands of people that November night
All of us here who have fought the long fight
Knowing as one we're creating a new nation
Join together in
celebration
Chorus
Mother and daughter listenin' to the news
Momma breaks down cryin', little girl is confused
Honey we worked so hard to get to this place
Daughter puts a
loving hand on momma's face
Chorus
Mr. Obama all eyes turn to you
Share with the country what you're gonna do
Wars and foreclosures surround us this year
But Yes We Can rise above our fears
Chorus (2x)
About
Me: Amy Dixon-Kolar is a seasoned
singer-songwriter whose entrancing music and lyrics, honest, distinctive vocals
and fluid guitar stylings bring a new perspective to
the everyday. Her take on life comes from her years as a teacher, interpreter,
mom, social activist and performer. Amy performs mostly acoustic folk music -
original, traditional, contemporary and Celtic. You can find out more about
Amy, her new CD "Now It's Time," the story behind "
On What Holder Said
By Dot
February,
the shortest month of the year, is Black History Month. During this month, we
are apt to hear people say things not mentioned the other eleven months of the
year.
On Wednesday in a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History
Month, US Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's first black AG, said,
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting
pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too
many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." As an example, he argued that
many Americans are still segregated inside what he called "race-protected
cocoons." He said, "Saturdays and Sundays,
Holder believes, and I concur,
"Race is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation's
history, this is in some ways understandable. If we are to make progress in
this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough
of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that
continue to divide us."
Holder urged Justice Department employees and all Americans to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussions of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities. Kudos! Kudos! It is about time some high-ranking official acknowledged the elephant in the room.
Claudette Colvin: Before
"It was Sojourner Truth pushing me back down on the
seat, saying 'Girl, you can't get up,' and Harriet Tubman,
too. All of those people were in the back of my mind."
An
On
March 2, 1955, Colvin boarded a
The teenager was thrown into a jail cell until her parents posted bail. She was
charged with disorderly conduct, violating the segregation ordinance and
assault and battery, presumably for resisting arrest. At her trial, Annie
Price, a witness to the incident, testified there was no assault. Ultimately,
Colvin was sentenced to probation for violating the segregation ordinance.
Ironically, no boycott of the
segregated bus system resulted from Colvin's experience, even though she was a
member of the National Association of Colored People's Youth Council.
Apparently, the organization's leadership deemed her unsuitable to be the face
of the movement. A number of justifications have been cited by historians,
including her low income background, skin color and the out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, which resulted in her expulsion from high school.
On December 1, 1955, a
light-skinned, mature and respected member of the black middle class, Rosa
Parks boarded the same bus, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Her
defiance ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted for more than a year,
claiming a place in history as the Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.
However, Parks' arrest did not form the basis of the legal challenge to the
public transportation segregation ordinance. The NAACP attorneys approached
four other black women who had been mistreated. Aurelia Browder,
Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith became plaintiffs in the
legal challenge to
While she is not considered the Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement and
her role is regulated to a footnote in black history, Colvin has said, "I
feel proud of what I did. I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught
on... I'm not disappointed. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person
for the boycott. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other
women to the Supreme Court to challenge the 
law
that led to the end of segregation."
In 2004, Colvin retired from the Catholic nursing home, where she had worked
for 35 years as a nurse's assistant. Colvin's civil disobedience is the subject
of storyteller-actress Awele Makeba's
one-woman drama, Rage Is Not A 1-Day Thing! Makeba
tells the true story of the 1955-56 
, which is based on
interviews with the grandmother of five who currently resides in
The Census: How We Count and Why?
By John Burl Smith
Stepping aside as Secretary of
Commerce nominee, US Sen. Judd Gregg highlighted the
controversy involving how we will count and why during the 2010 Census.
Advocacy groups, black activists and Democrats say the Census Bureau's practice
of counting prisoners as residents of the area where they are incarcerated
proves the 3/5 Compromise in the US Constitution is still active. They believe
that in removing responsibility for the census from Commerce, the White House
is trying to "guard against the undercount." Ignored by the national
media, previous undercounts have resulted in lost political clout and revenue
for blacks and poor urban dwellers.
Low census counts of blacks and the poor favor rural whites. US Rep. Joe E.
Serrano,
Counting incarcerated persons as
residents of the places where they are imprisoned rather than as residents of
where they call home does more than impact federal and state funds linked to
population data; it inflates population counts in areas where prisons are
located; it also boosts political clout at the expense of urban communities and
rural regions without prisons. Prisons, public and private, are mostly located
in rural areas.
Exploding prison populations
(over 2.5 million) have enabled unscrupulous politicians to create phantom
districts that contain more inmates than actual constituents. This hijacks
political power in that such bogus districts can elect politicians with
shockingly small numbers of free voters. Once in office, they reward friends,
punish enemies, block prison reform, support stiffer drug laws and wield as
much power as legislators that represent districts with free constituents.
Prison-based gerrymandering
exploits prison inmates, who are stripped of the right to vote in all but two
states. In most cases, inmates benefit prison towns hundreds of miles from
where they live. Clearly, prison-based gerrymandering affects voting, illegally
inflates legislative districts in violation of federal law and the one person,
one vote principle. This has significant civil rights implications, since so
many inmates are black. The NAACP has joined others in demanding a change in
the Census Bureau's counting procedure.
Examples of this problem abound,
for instance in
Another case is
Every time
Many constitutional scholars
express a view that compares the way prisoners are counted with the 3/5
Compromise, "The 3/5 Clause in the Constitution counted slaves as
three-fifths of a white person and assure Southern states extra representation
in Congress, as well as electoral votes. Within states, voters living in the
'slave belts' had much more political clout than those in districts free of slaves.
Changes in how we count and why
is the key to why Sen. Judd Gregg was so furious with the Obama administration
over the Census Bureau move. The New York Times, the National Conference of
Mayors, inmate re-entry service providers, former Director of the Census Bureau
Kenneth Prewitt, the Decennial Census Committee and the Census African American
Advisory Committee all have endorsed changing how the Census Bureau counts
prisoners. (Sources: www.brennancenter.org,
www.prisonersofthecensus.org, http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com)
Bailing Out the 3/5
Compromise
By John Burl Smith
The terms "revenue
stream" or "funding formula" may not be familiar but they have
profound impacts on the lives of all Americans. Cutting across socio-economic
and political lines, they function like a double-edged sword, favoring some while
disadvantaging others. Economic in nature, their source is political and their
economic impact is far reaching. Federal government efforts to bail out banks,
save the automobile industry, as well as the stimulus bill illustrate clearly
the significance of these terms.
The US Constitution is the law of
the land. Among its many roles and
responsibilities, it gives Congress control of the nation's purse strings.
Congress levies all taxes, determines how they are collected, their uses and
disbursal. The process of dispersing taxes is done through what are called
"revenue streams" or "funding formulas." This means all
funds disbursed, whether spent by the federal government or sent to states and
local communities have strings attached. These strings specify the
"revenue stream" or "funding formula" by spelling out how
the funds are to be used and/or divvied up.
The bank bailout, automobile
industry rescue package and stimulus bill are designated "revenue
streams" or "funding formulas" created by Congress to disburse
tax dollars. Unfortunately, all of these corporations and businesses are run by
white people who have tolerated discrimination against slave descendants.
Consequently, tax dollars from black people are being used to prop up companies
that practice discrimination. Neither Congress nor the White House added
language prohibiting discrimination by industries notorious for keeping blacks
out of upper management. It is the height of folly to assume these corporate
giants will suddenly stop discriminating against blacks because a black
president is giving them money.
Handing out trillions of tax
dollars prompts slave descendants to ask, what about black people? How do they
fit into this bailout picture? At the bottom or in the backwash of these
"revenue streams," we are residuals in these "funding
formulas." An afterthought, black people are still covered by the 3/5
Compromise which siphons off our tax dollars to benefit whites, a process that
locks their children into the boardrooms and black children in the outhouse.
These new "revenue streams" or "funding formulas" are no
different from those developed at the end of the Civil War. Slaves and their
descendants were not a part of any federal funding consideration and when their
descendants began paying taxes, discrimination was the law of the land. Even in
the North, blacks were second class citizens and were treated disparately. Not
only were state governments segregated but the federal government was
segregated also. It was not until Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive
order to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the "New
Deal" that mandated "hiring be done without regard to race,"
addressing discrimination for the first time.
Nevertheless, the 3/5 Compromise (Plessy v
Although Barack Obama has been elected President, nothing is being said about
changing the 3/5 Compromise or old segregation "revenue streams" and
"funding formulas" that benefited whites by keeping black communities
poor. For instance, Wall Street is the most segregated work place in
For instance, black companies doing infrastructure work, like rebuilding sewer
and drainage systems, need access because many of these contracts are let
through a "good old boy" network. Dredging and levee contracts are
let in the same fashion, black companies are locked out of bids based on
insider tips and family associations. Without affirmation action to open up the
bidding process, black companies cannot get a foot in the door.
Moreover, banks employ some of the most egregious discriminatory practices and
are getting trillions from taxpayer. Are minority banks receiving bank bailout
funds? Minority banks have been treated disparately as depositories for federal
dollars and squeezed out of the credit market. Now is the time for Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner to correct such obvious
discrimination. He must issue an order reaffirming the federal government's
commitment to affirmative action and take positive steps to make up for decades
of the federal government's discrimination against slave descendants. There
should be a determined effort to bring blacks up at least to the level of white
women, who profited most from affirmative action.
Black Americans have lost more
ground under the current downturn than any other group. Far behind already
because of the 3/5 Compromise, blacks need a "revenue stream" or
"funding formula" that addresses historical systemic discrimination,
if they are ever to catch up. It is time to drop the old cliché "We
have come a long way but we still have a long way to go." WHY!! Dot M.
Smith's research has proven the consistent gap between black and white income is the result of discrimination, so while the federal
government is reinventing the economy, now is the time to build an economy with
enforceable laws against racial discrimination. Obviously, once the trillions
of dollars now being spent are gone, if blacks are not included now, there will
be nothing left in the treasury to address disparities between blacks and
whites.
On
Open Letter to NY
Post Editor Written By John Legend
I'm trying to understand what
possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting
the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be
funny to suggest that whoever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery
legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent
chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really? Did it
occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President
Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our
President has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it
occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a
way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes
when you printed the cartoon?
If that's not what you intended,
then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily
connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly
provocative, racist and offensive to the sensibilities of most reasonable
Americans. Either way, you should not have printed this cartoon, and
the fact that you did is truly reprehensible. I can't imagine what possible
justification you have for this. I've read your lame statement in response to
the outrage you provoked.
Shame on you
for dodging the real issue and then using the letter as an opportunity to
attack Rev. Sharpton. This is not about Rev. Sharpton. It's about the cartoon being blatantly racist and
offensive.
I believe in freedom of speech,
and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still
comes with responsibilities and consequences.
You are responsible for printing
this cartoon, and I hope you experience some real consequences for it. I'm
personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your
reporters, and I encourage all of my colleagues in the entertainment business
to do so as well. I implore your advertisers to seriously reconsider their
business relationships with you as well.
You should print an apology in
your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist
and should not have been printed.
I'm well aware of our country's history of racism and violence, but I truly
believe we are better than this filth. As we attempt to rise above our
difficult past and look toward a better future, we don't need the New York Post
to resurrect the images of Jim Crow to deride the new administration and put
black folks in our place. Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate
our new President, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.
(Source: www.johnlegend.com/us/blogs)
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email www.mercurynews.com/ Stanford filmmaker fights
for aging survivors of nation's worst race riot...By Lisa M. Krieger...Stanford
alumni Reggie Turner and Charles Ogletree thought
they knew American history. Political activists and scholars, they studied at
the nation's top law schools, launched successful legal careers and joined
Email www.gazette-mail.com Melting Pot...Today, the
US Census Bureau says, America's population remains 66 percent white - but
white dominance is fading rapidly, soon to vanish forever. As early as 2040,
traditional whites, with lower birth rates, will become a minority as the
country swells with more-fertile Hispanics, Asians, blacks, Pacific Islanders,
American Indians and other minorities. At that point, the Census Bureau
predicts,
Email www.chicagosuntimes.com...Racial
gerrymandering, backed by Dems, hurts
blacks...Obama's election clearly confirms that majority-white