The DISH
Unbossed and unbought
news and information you can use
Vol. 13 Issue
26…Dedicated
to the Dialogue on Race…June 27, 2010
A Continuing Dilemma:
Slavery
By John Burl Smith
The dilemma of slavery continues to dog the United States of America (USA) 137 years after Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (1862). Many historians say emancipation caused more problems than it solved. These learned scholars opine that the Civil War was unnecessary because slave masters would have ended slavery because they would have realized supporting slaves was too great an economic burden and that free labor was more productive. However, slavery was about more than economics and productivity. Slavery was the base of a value system that defined the Southern way of life. It was tied to a Southerner's sense of personal worth and upon which the house of cards of the Confederacy was built.
For the Southern gentry, it was not simply a question of freeing or not freeing slaves. The proposition was intimately related to a society's unwillingness to accept as human property it was taught to see as brut animals one owns like a horse or cow. Slavery's belief system attributed everything good/righteous to white people and everything bad/evil to blacks. Synonymous to the mind-set of English lords, families that owned slaves were bred to believe in their inherent right to be masters just as they bred into slaves the rightness of being owned. People who believed in that system could never accept that the stroke of a pen could rob them of an entitlement to which whites clung so tenaciously for generations and sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to preserve.
The reality is
First in
These types of gruesome "hate crimes" continue to occur from
The aforementioned historians would readily reject this hypothesis but when
people who have been immersed in the use of dehumanizing hatred which is tied
to their sense of worth and power lose status to those that are dehumanized,
the affect can be intolerable. Under such circumstances totally despicable acts
can result.
The next example relates to
children. Breeding slaves meant offsprings were not children worthy of compassion
but they were "pickaninnies." A 150-year-old photograph discovered in
an attic in
The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, is believed to be of a
boy named John and an unidentified companion. Will Stapp, a photographic
historian and curator for the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian
Institution said the picture is "A testament to a dark part of American
history. What you are looking at when you see this photo are two boys who were
victims of that history." Found during a moving sale in
Stapp said the photo was probably taken by Timothy O'Sullivan, an apprentice of
Mathew Brady, the famous 19th-century photographer whose portraits of
historical figures such as Pres. Abraham Lincoln are legendary. O'Sullivan
photographed what is believed to be some of the first slaves liberated after
Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (1862).
Harold Holzer, an administrator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an author
of several books about
The absence of John and millions of slave children like him is no accident of
history; they have been deliberately edited out of history by academicians who
frame and write it. Controlling that process is jealously guarded by
universities; Dr. M. Cookie Newsom, director for diversity education and
assessment at the
When confronted with the dismal statistics, Newsom says university
decision-makers offer: 1) There are not enough qualified candidates of color;
2) There is no need to interview them because they are in high demand from
other institutions; and 3) They are too expensive. Recalling an instance at UNC
where a black female staff candidate was disqualified on the claim she didn't
"fit well" and because she "spoke too loudly," Newsom
proclaimed "Underlying the excuses is an insidious presumption of
inferiority. Diversity research has not focused on the inner workings of the
tenure process in committees.... that is where most of the biases emerge."
Newsom's conclusions are drawn from research and statistics that show, while
peer research institutions have documented plans to retain and advance minority
faculty, the outcomes reflect nothing more than lip service. "If you are
an African-American, American Indian or Latino with a Ph.D., your odds of ever
receiving tenure at a Research I (school) are between slim and none."
Between 2001 and 2007, black professors consistently represented just 3 percent
or less of tenured or tenure-track faculty year after year at Harvard
University, Ohio State University, University of Florida, University of California
at Los Angeles and Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Texas,
Stanford University and the University of North Carolina, according to the
National Center for Education Statistics.
"It's racial discrimination," she said unapologetically. "We
know what's wrong; there is inherent bias in committees and negative
perceptions based on race.
'Institutional racism' is just the door blocking entrance, once inside
scholars find other superficial barriers for junior faculty, including
overburdening service work, undervalued qualifications, and the lack of
mentorship and support from senior faculty," Newsom reiterated.
Myths, misconceptions, deliberate distortion and outright lies taught about
black people during slavery are still a part of white folklore regarding
African Americans and continue to be taught. These socioeconomic, educational,
religious and political processes serve the same purpose now they did during
slavery; they are the base of an American value system that defined a way of life
-- white supremacy. This value system is no longer tied to just southerners'
sense of personal worth and power; it is as American as the "Tea Party
Movement." For a white man, there is no worst position or condition to be
in than to be beneath a black man, because he is educated to see a black as
totally worthless.
The continuing dilemma of slavery is the shared value it holds for whites, so
much so, they support each other as though status in the
Reluctant Passenger
By Peter Wyton
Rosa Parks
Whose challenge to the segregated bus system
In the southern
states of
Sparked a civil rights revolution.
There is an art to sitting down and standing up.
Books should be written on the subject,
Motion pictures made, modern dance routines
Worked out and ballets choreographed
In celebration of the simple change of attitude
We undergo at least a hundred times a day.
When Rosa Park put dignity before discomfort
And decided that the ticket she bought entitled her
To more than just the ride, an elemental change occurred
Deep in the psyche of
Initially, rather the opposite extreme, as though
A fragile butterfly had stamped one insignificant foot,
Provoking worms to turn in hitherto unheard of quantities,
Prompting particles of aspiration, pebbles of promise
To roll down hill in an unstoppable cascade,
Bringing along with them the sort of stones which gather up
The moss of mass opinion and precipitate
An avalanche of social change, triggered
The day a seamstress
on an
Sat down on principle,
stood up for what was right.
Nations Protest US Human-Trafficking Report
By Liz Goodwin
"Enslaving someone still
carries too little risk. Remediation, fines or warnings are too small a price
to pay - those who would profit by stealing freedom should lose their own.
Fighting trafficking commands too few resources, too little vision, and as a
result, too few outcomes." State Department Ambassador-at-Large Luis
CdeBaca, who heads the
Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton intended to include the
The State Department's 10th annual report on the global state of human
trafficking found that 12 million people live in forced labor or prostitution
worldwide, even though only 4,166 people were successfully prosecuted for
human-trafficking crimes last year. For the first time, the report ranked the
The report ranked several
countries, including
The Cuban government, which has no law against trafficking, is not happy about
being in the third tier. "
Meanwhile, some allies of the
While Secretary of State Clinton
is stirring up controversy abroad, though, she's increasingly popular at home,
the Washington Post reports. She leads President Obama by 10 to 25 percentage
points in polls.
Former Officer Says He Pulled Wrong Weapon
Johannes Mehserle, a former San
Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer testified on Friday that
he mistakenly pulled out his pistol instead of a stun gun when he shot and
killed an unarmed black man who was lying face down on an
In an emotional courtroom session, Mehserle broke down in tears as he told jurors in his murder trial that he heard a pop and thought the Taser had malfunctioned. "I remember the pop that wasn't very loud. It wasn't like a gunshot. I remember wondering what went wrong with the Taser. I thought it malfunctioned," he said.
Mehserle, who previously testified that earlier in the incident he had pulled out his Taser twice, said he only thought of using the stun weapon. "It was the only option that crossed my mind," he said. "Given the situation, the backdrop, the thought of using my gun never entered my head."
Mehserle, who is white, has
pleaded not guilty to murdering 22-year-old Oscar Grant on New Year's Day 2009.
The trial was moved to
Mehserle's face grew red, his voice dropped and he tried to hold back tears as he testified. Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, left the courtroom as the defendant cried.
Moments later, a spectator
walking out of the courtroom shouted, "Maybe you should save those
(expletive) tears, dude!"
Superior Court Judge Robert Perry asked sheriff's deputies to arrest the man,
who was placed in handcuffs and taken away. Timothy Killings was arrested for
investigation of disorderly behavior in any court of justice, a misdemeanor.
Mehserle's mother also was in the courtroom and sobbed.
Mehserle, 28, had maintained a public silence for 18 months about what led him
to shoot Grant until he took the witness stand in a surprise move Thursday. His
testimony over two days lasted for more that six hours.
On direct examination by his attorney Michael Rains, Mehserle told jurors that
he struggled to restrain Grant while he was on his stomach and repeatedly told
him, "Give me your hands." Mehserle testified that he saw Grant
digging his right hand into his right pocket and thought he might be going for
a gun.
News You Use
Black German Holocaust Victims
By A. Tolbert, III
So much of our history is lost to us because we often don't write the history books, don't film the documentaries, or don't pass the accounts down from generation to generation.
One documentary now touring the film festival circuit, telling us to "Always Remember" is "Black Survivors of the Holocaust" (1997).
Outside the U.S.., the film is
entitled "Hitler's Forgotten Victims"(Afro-Wisdom Productions). It
codifies another dimension to the "Never Forget" Holocaust story--our
dimension. Did you know that in the 1920's, there were 24,000 Blacks living in
Like most West European nations,
As a spoil of war, the French
were allowed to occupy
Hundreds of the African
Rhineland-based soldiers intermarried with German women and raised their
children as Black Germans. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote about his plans for
these "Rhineland Bastards." When he came to power, one of his first
directives was aimed at these mixed-race children. Underscoring Hitler's
obsession with racial purity, by 1937, every identified mixed-race child in the
Hans Hauck, a Black Holocaust survivor and a victim of Hitler's mandatory sterilization program, explained in the film "Hitler's Forgotten Victims" that, when he was forced to undergo sterilization as a teenager, he was given no anesthetic. Once he received his sterilization certificate, he was "free to go," as long as he agreed to have no sexual relations whatsoever with Germans.
Although most Black Germans
attempted to escape their fatherland, heading for
Some Black Germans were able to
eke out a living during Hitler's reign of terror by performing in Vaudeville
shows, but many Blacks, steadfast in their belief that they were German first,
Black second, opted to remain in Germany . Some fought with the Nazis (a few
even became Luftwaffe pilots)! Unfortunately, many Black Germans were arrested,
charged with treason, and shipped in cattle cars to concentration camps. Often
these trains were so packed with people and (equipped with no bathroom
facilities or food), that, after the four-day journey, box car doors were
opened to piles of the dead and dying.
Once inside the concentration camps, Blacks were given the worst jobs
conceivable. Some Black American soldiers, who were captured and held as
prisoners of war, recounted that, while they were being starved and forced into
dangerous labor (violating the Geneva Convention), they were still better off
than Black German concentration camp detainees, who were forced to do the
unthinkable--man the crematoriums and work in labs where genetic experiments
were being conducted. As a final sacrifice, these Blacks were killed every
three months so that they would never be able to reveal the inner workings of
the "Final Solution."
In every story of Black
oppression, no matter how we were enslaved, shackled, or beaten, we always
found a way to survive and to rescue others. As a case in point, consider
Johnny Voste, a Belgian resistance fighter who was arrested in 1942 for alleged
sabotage and then shipped to
According to
Little information remains about the numbers of Black Germans held in the camps or killed under the Nazi regime. Some victims of the Nazi sterilization project and Black survivors of the Holocaust are still alive and telling their story in films such as "Black Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust," but they must also speak out for justice, not just history.
Unlike Jews (in
After the war, scores of Blacks who had somehow managed to survive the Nazi
regime, were rounded up and tried as war criminals. Talk about the final
insult! There are thousands of Black Holocaust stories, from the triangle
trade, to slavery in
For further information, read:
Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, by Hans J. Massaquoi.
(Source: www.black-history-month.co.uk
)
Disgruntled feels:
Insensitivity! Correct me if I am wrong, but a reader sent me portions of a
Media Matters transcript that allegedly came from a Rush Limbaugh radio
program. His joking comments poked fun at poor kids that often go hungry during
public school summer recess. Poor children rely on the School Lunch program for
breakfast and lunch. In far too many cases, these are their most important and
only meals for the day. Limbaugh facetiously suggested places where these young
people could look for food in lieu of the free meals program. The options
ranged from their kitchen cupboards, where they are "most likely...to find
Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, Lays ridgy potato chips, all kinds of dips and maybe a
can of corn" to the "Dollar Menu at McDonald's and if they don't have
Chicken McNuggets, dial 911 and ask for Obama." For his coup de grace,
Limbaugh suggested the neighborhood dumpster. A quarter of American children
languish in a government-defined state of poverty. Hunger in
Disgruntled
wants to know: In the news, a bed-ridden 86-year-old woman was tasered
twice by police. According to a lawsuit filed this week, in December 2009,
Lonnie Tinsley of
Disgruntled says: U.S. District Judge Martin
Feldman struck down the Obama Administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil
drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The ban was announced in response to the hole
in the ocean floor that has been spewing oil since April with no apparent
solution to plug the leak, save drilling relief wells that may not be the
definitive solution. It is apparent that mankind is in unchartered waters when
it comes to deepwater oil drilling. Solutions that have worked in shallow
waters have all tanked in the deep. It makes sense to step back and assess the situation
before surging ahead and digging more holes a mile below the surface. On
Thursday, Judge Feldman refused the Obama Administration's request to stay his
injunction against the Interior Department's six-month moratorium on deepwater
drilling. Critics of the judge's ruling point to his past energy industry
investments, suggesting he should have recused himself from this case. A
judicial activist, this judge is a Republican appointee and, like members of
Congress on both sides of the political isle, he makes decisions that will
improve his personal portfolio.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email www.cnn.com
...White actors snagging minority roles...By Lisa Respers France...There was a
time when if a white actor or actress was cast in the role of a character of
color, there was very little outcry. When Swedish actor Warner Oland portrayed
Asian detective Charlie Chan or Elizabeth Taylor was cast as Cleopatra, the
Queen of Egypt, there was no call for boycotts or publicized outrage. But times
have changed, and these days some fans ask the question why, with so many
talented black, Latino and Asian actors, does
Email www.ap.com
...NV focuses on pardon for first black boxing champ...By Martin Griffith...A
century ago, black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson reached the
pinnacle of his career when he defeated "Great White Hope" Jim
Jefferies in
Email www.huffingtonpost.com ..."Earlier this week
videotape of Officer David London beating
Email flycatcher@gmail.com ...June 23,
2010...Over 10,000 March in