The DISH

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Vol. 13 No. 45…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…November 8, 2010

Obama's Cold Shoulder

By John Burl Smith

Viewed through the lens of hindsight, it is very easy to discern reasons for the success or failure of a particular program or course of action. It is even easier to offer counter suggestions or solutions to what has been proposed or implemented. Now that the mid-term election is over and winners and losers are known, such arm chair speculation has begun. The warm, almost affectionate, analyses of President Barack Obama's performance these last two years have now turned frosty, spreading chills, like a Canadian Clipper from Minnesota to Miami. However, braving frigid winds on Inauguration Day to hear Mr. Obama's glowing promises, those bone chilling winds foretold an unanticipated reality for those who packed the Capitol Mall.

Basking in a torrid wave of media popularity, the new President described the brave new world into which this nation was evolving. Visualizing what could be by disregarding what was, Mr. Obama threw aside the cold realities of American politics. Putting the cart before the horse, he broke the first rule of American politics, a rule I learned as a child of nine after walking door to door with my mother to support Adlai Stevenson in 1952. First, "Reward the people that supported your candidacy, then deal with those that opposed you."

Apparently, that lesson was not "blowing in the wind" on the walk from the Capitol Mall to the White House. Rather than consolidate his win by developing an agenda that reflected the interest and the change desired by those that ushered him into office, Mr. Obama capitulated to the status quo and adopted the Bush administration's economic and military programs. Hoping to gain Republican support, bi-partisanship became his mantra as he reached across the isle before reaching out to his grassroots supporters to solidify his political base. This strategic blunder was a signal to Republicans that Mr. Obama did not understand the number one rule of American politics. Offering only lip service to his base, Mr. Obama was cool towards developing a real role for young and black voters. His rebuff was even more gelid toward established black leaders that tried to become a part of the Obama team.

Turning a cold shoulder to the black community, the President failed to nominate a single black to a Cabinet-level position with an economic impact on the Africa American community. Frozen like ice sculptures, blacks watched as Mr. Obama made two Supreme Court appointments without seriously considering a single black. The frosty Presidential wind turned into an Arctic blast when Mr. Obama began lecturing blacks from the bully pulpit to get over discrimination and racism in America through education. All warm and cozy with the media, Mr. Obama relied on email and media PR to sell blacks his programs of Wall Street bank bailouts, a stimulus package that went to businesses and states, as well as an unwieldy health care plan.

Back during the recession of the 1950s when I was learning the first rule of politics, the black community developed a boots-on-the-ground political strategy that increased black voter participation in urban ghettoes and across the South. Metaphorically, it required the Democratic Party to "prime the pump" during election years. Democrats funded voter registration drives in the spring and summer, followed by "Get Out the Vote" campaigns in the fall. This formula helped Democrats take control and hold the Congress from the 1960s through the 1980s, even when they did not have the White House. This year Mr. Obama, as Bill Clinton in 1993, did not use this strategy to reach black voters. Therefore, African American voter turnout was miserably low and the lesson repeated itself resulting in huge losses for Democrats across the country.

Republicans do a good job of denigrating black leadership with accusations of corruption which intimidate Democrats. So, Mr. Obama and other Democrats refused to fund election efforts in the black community. Instead they threw hundreds of millions of dollars at the media trying to reach black voters, a strategy that played into Republicans hands. This scatter gun approach missed many black voters, who rely more on community sources when deciding about candidates. The black community's boots-on-the-ground political network cost far less and is far more effective than media driven campaigns.

Mr. Obama's lack of understanding regarding slave descendants -- he is not one, so his political training did not come through civil rights or black power activism -- and their relationship with America, which is based solely on their slave heritage and can not simply be brushed aside for political expediency, is why he has failed to grasp the real significance of being black in America. Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge or address the fact that discrimination and racism provide socioeconomic and political advantages that benefitted whites during slavery and continue today.

Slavery and segregation froze blacks in a second class status while whites advanced. Not until the 1950s did blacks have political redress -- first the vote, then the streets. The brief civil rights thaw of the 1960s was met by a brisk wintry gale that blew Richard Nixon into the White House. Mr. Obama's cold shoulder has pushed blacks back into the deep freeze of "benign neglect," which has reduced their vote to a meaningless exercise. The Republican voter turnout was not so huge that it overwhelmed Democrats across the rust belt states from Minnesota to Pennsylvania. The truth is, black voters are so unhappy with Mr. Obama's icy words, his disregard and failure to do anything that specifically helps blacks, while targeting white women and gays with specific initiatives, blacks simply stayed home on Tuesday.

Without an organized effort to convince blacks not to go to the polls, the low turnout indicates a complete repudiation of and lost of faith in Mr. Obama. If President Obama and the Democrats have accepted his presidency "a one term wonder" and are willing to concede control of Congress to the "Tea Party," they will continue Mr. Obama's cold shoulder policies that have frozen blacks out of any real role in rebuilding the American socioeconomic and political landscape.

Venue for an Artist

The Solid South

By John Willis Menard

The monster, Treason, still survives!

And in the South domain,

The Negroes, trembling for their lives,

For justice plead in vain!

How long, O God of truth, how long,

Shall those vile gangs abound,

And with their guns, in numbers strong,

Shoot Negroes to the ground?

All o'er the South's fair sunny clime,

Is heard the rebel yell,

Where through the war, in manly prime,

The Union soldier fell.

The North was fooled, too soon the strife

Was closed, and pardon given,

To those who on the Nation's life

In bloody war had striven.

But see! the solid North arrayed

In glory and in might;

And like a giant, undismayed,

Again renews the fight!

It thunders from the Northern lakes--

It is the voice of God!

The giant tramp of Freedom shakes

The loyal Northern sod!

Let Treason and its hordes beware,

Lest Freedom's hosts again,

With sword, and shot, and shell, lay bare

Its unsubdued domain!

Bit of History

John Willis Menard (1838-1893)

Born April 3, 1838 at Kaskaskia, Illinois to free French Creole parents of color, John Willis Menard spent his first eighteen years in the small historic village. Menard was educated at an abolitionist school in Sparta, Illinois and attended Iberia College in Ohio. Menard achieved distinction at an early age. In 1859, at the age of twenty-one, he spoke in Springfield, Illinois at a celebration to mark the end of slavery in the West Indies. His address to the crowd at the State Fairgrounds on the subject of American Slavery was covered in the Illinois State Journal, which stated that Menard "gave able remarks in defense of Liberty and equality. His speech was truly the best of the day." In 1860, he published An Address to the Free Colored People of Illinois.

During the Civil War (1861-65), he became the first black to obtain a clerkship in the Interior Department in Washington, D.C. He was sent to Belize to research a possible colony to resolve the "Negro problem." On the expedition, Menard met his future wife, Elizabeth, a Jamaican.

In 1865, Menard relocated to the birth city of his parents, New Orleans, to participate in the reconstruction of Louisiana's government after the end of the Civil War. He became active in the Republican Party, serving as inspector of customs and later as a commissioner of streets. He also published a newspaper, The Free South, later named The Radical Standard.

In 1868, he campaigned and secured the Republican nomination for the unexpired term of deceased Congressman James Mann. On election day, November 3, 1868, Menard clearly received the majority of votes. Still, his opponent, Caleb S. Hunt, contested the election. Congressman James A. Garfield, who would later become a U.S. president, stated that "it was too early to admit a Person of Color to the U.S. Congress." The Committee on Elections of the U.S. House of Representatives agreed and denied Menard his seat. In his quest to be seated in the House of Representatives, Menard spoke before Congress on February 27, 1869. He was the first black American to stand on the floor of the House and address the Representatives.

In 1871, Menard moved to Florida, where he was again active in the Republican Party. He was awarded a post office position, edited the Florida Sun, and was in the fall of 1873 elected to the state legislator. He was, however, rebuffed in two bids for Congress and adopted a critical role of his party. Democrat George F. Drew in 1877 awarded him by reappointing him as a justice of the peace, which Marcellus L. Stearns had first named him in 1874.

In 1879, Menard compiled and published his greatest poetic work and principal legacy Lays In Summer Lands. The poetic volume addresses a range of subjects from politics and nature to faith, family and love. Noteworthy are "To President Lincoln," "The Negro's Lament," "The Solid South," "Florida," "On the Banks of the St. Johns," "Sabbath Eve Musings," "Easter Hymn," "Parted," "Speak to Me Kindly," and "Adieu."

Menard, after securing the post of inspector of customs, relocated to Key West, where he became the most influential black editor of the 1880s with the Florida News aka Island City News as his forum. After 1884, he returned to Jacksonville where he battled for the rights and interests of blacks with the newspaper Southern Leader, which he continued until 1888.

In 1889, Menard accepted a clerkship in the census office and moved to Washington, DC, where he died on October 8, 1893. Menard and his wife, Elizabeth, had three children. (Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Willis_Menard, www.aaregistry.com and http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~crackerbarrel/Menard.html)

Intuit's Vibe

The Untold Crisis of the Recession

By Sophia A. Nelson

We've all heard the saying, when the economy is in a recession, "White America catches a cold and black America gets pneumonia." Nothing could be truer as we enter the last quarter of 2010.

No matter who is the President of the United States or who controls Congress, black unemployment is almost always double that of white unemployment. This current recession that began officially in 2008 actually started in 2007 for the black community. And this time, the black middle class was deeply affected by what some economists have called "the greatest loss of black wealth" in history.

Various reports show the blacks have borne the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. A 2009 New York Times op-ed, "The Recession Racial Divide," began by asking, "What do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a popular revolt."

This insightful article provides an interesting context for the rise of the "Tea Party" movement. And it may explain why President Obama and the Democratic Party have lost support from independent white voters and "Reagan Democrats." Whatever the case, Wall Street's experiment with subprime mortgages led to the global financial crash of 2008, resulting in reduced home values and emptied 401 (k) accounts across the racial and income divide.

The dirty little secret, however, is that even high-income blacks were almost twice as likely to end up with subprime home loans as were low income whites - even when they had good credit and qualified for prime mortgages. As a result of being steered toward such products, blacks lost $71 billion to $93 billion in home-value wealth from subprime loans. That's a catastrophe in terms of families' net worth.

So here is the takeaway" We as a black community must demand that our elected and private sector leaders come up with real economic development, small business and tax incentives, enforceable fair lending and credit practices, and most of all job creation in urban and rural areas where most black people live.

News You Use

US Ignores Racism in UN Report

The Obama Administration refuses to view the socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites as a result of systemic racism. Mr. Obama uses the general rubric "all Americans" to marginalize the importance of the history of slave descendants. "All Americans," except Native People, came to North America as a result of some voluntary action or agreement. Slaves came as stolen people, kidnapped from their homeland and brought to these shores. They are the only people who were forced into chattel bondage in perpetuity. This fact separated African slaves from all other Americans and this difference was codified in the United States Constitution by the Founding Fathers in Article I Section II, which established the value of slaves as 3/5 of white men (the 3/5 Compromise).

This article made slaves and their descendants less than human, a legal status never ascribed any other group of people that immigrated to the US. Emancipation, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments did not repeal the 3/5 Compromise, therefore discrimination remained legal. This relegated slave descendants to second class citizenship. Segregation institutionalized racist attitudes and discriminatory practices and "separate but equal" laws made enforcing racial discrimination a governmental function (Apartheid).

Lynching blacks was extra-judicial murder used to terrorize slave descendants. White terrorism forced blacks to accept second class status. Even after the US Supreme Court outlawed racial discrimination (1954), racism continued to deny blacks equality. Before the Obama administration came to power (1-20-09), the US government admitted racism was an ongoing problem in the US. This fact was further established in 2008 by Mr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance; his report left no doubt racism is alive and striving in the United States.

For the first time in February 2010, the US agreed to submit to a review of its human rights record by the UN. Prior to this, as far back as the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in 2001, the US had lobbied against racism being considered a human rights violation. This week (11-5-10) the US presented its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Today, racism is a violation of human rights and the US' UPR report was supposed to address racism in America. However, the Obama administration made no mention of racism in its review, which is intended to give the impression that racism is no longer a problem in the US. This omission means that the US does not have to explain the disparate treatment accorded slave descendants or develop protocols to end human rights violations against blacks.

The US faced criticism of human rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo. There were even critics of US human rights treatment of Muslims in the US, but no questions were raised regarding African Americans nor did any blacks appear as witnesses on behave of slave descendants. Again, the Obama administration froze blacks out regarding an issue on which the majority of blacks agree -- racism exists in America; but, their opinion has been summarily dismissed.

The Dialogue on Race International Network has filed a petition with the UN General Assembly opposing the US' UPR because the US failed to address systemic racism in America. This 72 page petition presents a chronology that traces the racist treatment endured by slave descendants from 1619 to the present. It makes clear no fair and impartial review of the US' human rights record is possible without a wide ranging discussion of racism. Moreover, if the UN adopts the US' UPR, it will undercut efforts to establish racism as a human rights violation anywhere else in the world (Israel in particular), which has been the aim of the US all along.

Those who wish to read the Dialogue on Race International Network's petition to the United Nations can go to www.thedish.org and click on Human Rights Petition.

Hood Notes

Cop Kills Man with Knife

Alexis Stevens

An Athens-Clarke County (ACC) police officer shot and killed a man who was holding a knife to another man's throat Friday night (October 29, 2010). The officer was on foot patrol when he heard an argument inside the Parkview Homes apartment complex around 9 p.m., according to Major Mike Shockley with ACC police.

Inside the apartment, Officer Lou Pasqualetti saw Samuel Thomas Cunningham III with a knife and believed he was going to kill the other man, 55-year-old John Willie Jennings, Shockley said. Jennings lives in the apartment, police said.

Cunningham was holding a knife to the throat of Jennings, whose shirt had blood on it, Shockley said. Pasqualetti ordered Cunningham to drop the weapon, police said.

Pasqualetti fire several shots at Cunningham, 53, to prevent him from injuring or killing Jennings, Shockley said. Officers administered CPR to Cunningham, who later died after being transported to Athens Regional Medical Center.

On Wednesday, the ACC issued a revised statement on the police shooting in which a man was killed. Senior Officer Lou Pasqualetti was on foot patrol Friday night when he witnessed a man holding a knife to another man's throat. Pasqualetti fired several shots at 53-year-old Samuel Thomas Cunningham III, fearing for the life of 55-year-old John Willie Jennings. Cunningham died after being transported to the hospital.

However, police originally said on Saturday that Pasqualetti had demanded that Cunningham drop the knife prior to firing shots. In a written statement, Pasqualetti said he never asked Cunningham to drop the weapon. "SPO Pasqualetti fired his service weapon without giving commands due to the jeopardy he felt for Mr. Jennings' life," Shockley said in a statement. "SPO Pasqualetti was in his ACCPD uniform and displaying his badge of office at the time of the shooting."

Pasqualetti, a nine-year veteran of the force, has been placed on administrative leave and the GBI is investigating the incident, police said. Both moves are protocol in officer-involved shootings. (Source: www.ajc.com/news/police-officer-didnt-tell-716868.html)

Disgruntled says: Unlike so many of my black sisters and brothers, I voted on election day. Old habits die hard! As the polls indicated, there were no long lines at polling places, sure signs that blacks in my community decided to stay at home or they chose to vote early. However, since there was plenty of press about the low early vote turnout, it's a sure bet they stayed at home. The question is why? I suspect they decided to stay home because they either had no horse in the race or they figure their lives will be miserable no matter who runs Congress and lives in the governor's mansion, a lesson reinforced by the election of the first black president in the nation's history. After having been elected by the overwhelming turnout of black voters, President Obama has run away from the notion of doing anything that would specifically improve the lives of black Americans. Just as he did with Rev Jeremiah Wright, Obama threw blacks under the bus as he attempted to ingratiate himself with white America. So, like Ronald Reagan, he professed to see the black condition improving by "a rising tide that lifts all boats." The fact that he would go there is enough to make black voters elect to stay home rather than cast a vote for the Democratic Party and politicians that intend to do nothing to better their lives.

Disgruntled feels: Mystified! I am at a loss! Given the economic garbage espoused by Republicans that was apparently bought by a majority of those voting in November, something is amiss. Could it be mass ignorance? Some have labeled the affliction pure racism. Obviously, there is an unexplained element, since history does not support the notion that tax cuts and less regulation generate long run economic welfare. In fact, the record shows just the opposite. Ronald Reagan, then George Bush, Sr., and Bill Clinton dismantled most of the safeguards put in place after the Great Depression. The resulting lack of regulation and unrestrained financial markets resulted in the Great Recession. George W Bush's tax cuts and multiple unfunded wars plunged the nation into debt as far as the eyes can see. In case there is mass electorate amnesia, Bush who gave us wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy was a Republican! Despite this history, white people want to blame Obama for a crisis he inherited. After two years in office, he is the responsible party. I am mystified!

Disgruntled wants to know: I am as certain as one can be in these uncertain times that the Republican Party will use this opportunity and their newfound majority to redraw district lines to ensure a Republican majority in the US House of Representatives for the next decade and perhaps longer. The Republican leadership has also indicated a burning desire to repeal the landmark health care legislation, when their number one task should be job creation, about the only thing I can think to improve the current economic morass. In time, we shall see just how successful they will be, when people come to understand what it will cost them to return to what one Republican leader called "the best health care system in the world." In addition, we shall also finally grasp what pundits and politicians mean when they talk about US exports to other countries, since the nation's manufacturing sector has been decimated. So, the questions we should all be asking are, what comes next for a country divided and in serious economic trouble and will those exports be white collar jobs?

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.ap.com...Mass. town makes peace with Du Bois, a native son...By Russell Contreras ...He's the most famous son of this quiet mountain hamlet in western Massachusetts. But until recently, people looking for signs of W.E.B. Du Bois' life and legacy in Great Barrington would have had a hard time finding them. For decades since Du Bois' death in Ghana in 1963, the civil rights activist and scholar has drawn praise for his writings but scorn from residents upset that he joined the Communist Party, became a citizen of Ghana and often criticized the U.S. over race relations. FBI agents and riot police guarded a park dedicated to him more than 40 years ago. Efforts to name a school after him were blocked. Some residents saw him as the father figure of black radicalism, and they remained conflicted over his legacy and his relationship with the largely white town he often romanticized in writings. But now, as Great Barrington readies to celebrate its 250th birthday, supporters say Du Bois is finally getting his due. His image will be featured in many of the town's birthday events, a portion of the River Walk has been named in his honor, and the University of Massachusetts is embarking on a major restoration project of his boyhood homesite. In each case, the recent Du Bois honors came with no resistance. Supporters say these new efforts, pushed by a coalition of black and white residents, are signs that the town is finally at peace with Du Bois.

Email greercharles@yahoo.com...Oakland protests took new tactic: in neighborhoods…By Trevor Hunnicutt and Sudhin Thanawala...Looking out her front window in a usually quiet residential neighborhood in this city, Deanna Goldstein's knees began to shake. More than 100 protesters were hemmed in by police in riot gear. A trash can was blazing on the street. "I came home early from downtown to get away from the craziness, but the craziness came to me," she said. In the past, the violent protests over a white transit officer's slaying of an unarmed black man trashed downtown Oakland businesses. But after Johannes Mehserle on Friday received the minimum two-year sentence for slaying Oscar Grant, angry demonstrators marched into residential areas near Lake Merritt for the first time, putting innocent people in harm's way. Police arrested 152 protesters, including seven juveniles, on suspicion of crimes including vandalism, unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace. Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said 56 of those arrested were from outside the city. Investigators will be reviewing video and photographs of protesters damaging property to help prosecutors file charges, he said. A "Justice for Oscar Grant" community meeting Saturday night at the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church in Oakland drew about three dozen people, including at least one person who was arrested Friday. Yvette Felarca said she was taken into custody while simply standing in the crowd with a megaphone. "I was arrested for protesting and demanding justice for Oscar Grant," she said. After the meeting, Minister Keith Muhammad expressed disappointment with the sentence, as well as the judge's decision in the case. Police said they were not anticipating more violence.