What Will I Be?

By Angel

Sometimes I wonder what will I be,

If God spares my life long enough to see,

Will I be happy, prosperous and wise?

Will I sense evil looking in an enemy's eyes?

Is happiness in my cards?

Or just trials and adversity?

Will I forever live in grief? ,

Letting little things hurt me?

Will I possess power?

DEMAND all the love?

If my time is cut short,

Will I DWELL up above?

Should you accept people -

Just AT face value?

Should you ignore the warning signs,

Allowing them to hurt YOU?

Will I one day have a family,

Friends who are forever?

If I knew what tomorrow would bring,

Then would I feel better?

Will the cigarette burns and torture

Give me a thicker skin?

Will I take heed to the right

I know in my heart and avoid SIN?

Will I experience love unconditional

Unending pure delight?

I close my eyes and squint really hard,

Something clouds my sight?

Will I be successful and worry free?

I think hard, but still wonder-

What will I be? Venue

Tyisha Miller is the teenager killed by police in Riverside, Calif. Shot twelve times while sitting in her car, questions abound about the circumstances surrounding Miller's death. The teenager's family is requesting a federal investigation. For many, this young person's shooting death is a symptom of a more serious ailment afflicting America, i.e., the criminalization of black children. Miller's death underscores the need for a closer look at black human rights abuse in America.

Over a year ago, the Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Foundation commissioned a study on the condition of American youth. Alarmed by the study's findings, the Foundation asked the international community for assistance. Since then, groups such as Human Rights Watch have weighed in condemning human rights abuses in America. We must do more!

by Dot Smith

For 1999, the death penalty again headlines The DISH's list of boycotted places and things. Hypocrisy, lying politicians and dishonest government officials occupy places of prominence. During his visit to Mexico, Pope John Paul II called for an end to the death penalty and other intolerable evils. The pontiff cited torture and racism. Surely, the papal list of intolerable evils includes lying politicians and "prosecutorial fudge-making," the term used by Charles Ruff, the President's lawyer, in describing how Ken Starr and the House managers built the impeachment case. The practice amounts to prosecutorial misdeed or misconduct. Fudging seems a common practice, though it often violates the rule of law. When prosecutors manufacture evidence to convict or withhold evidence that exonerates, justice is denied. More important, the rule of law is crucified.

Too often, the onus of fudged facts falls on the backs of black Americans. A documented source of institutionalized racism, prosecutorial misconduct is a good reason not to support the death penalty; innocent people sometimes die. For Christians, a more cogent reason is it violates the law: "Thou shall not kill." Those who profess belief in the Commandment, but embrace the death penalty, doublethink to justify social killing.

In this regard, both Republicans and Democrats are hypocrites. Politicians in both parties support the death penalty, while claiming to be Christians. Citing the rule of law, Starr broke the law when he laid the groundwork to entrap Clinton, who lied about the tawdry affair to avoid the glare of public exposure and disapproval.

No doubt, Clinton is a hypocrite, a real scoundrel. Remove him? The DISH sides with most Americans. Starr should never have lowered the bar to get something on Clinton. In doing so, he invaded an area that must be private, if we are to be truly free. The DISH echoes the Pope's call for an end to intolerable evils, which include the death penalty, torture and racism. The DISH hopes he adds hypocrisy and fudging officials to his list of intolerable evils.

The DISH is encouraging its readers to contact national and international leaders on the issues raised by the untimely death of Tyisha Miller. Send the letter below via snail mail, facsimile or e-mail. This letter is based in part on a November, 1997 letter sent to U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. We must act to make a difference.

Honorable Sir:

Deeply concerned about the plight of America's black youth, the assistance of your good offices is honorably requested.

As the case of Tyisha Miller shows, our black youth are in an increasing vulnerable position. Disproportionate to their numbers in the census population, black youth endures the highest rates of unemployment, poverty level and rate of incarceration without rehabilitation. They are most often victimized by police brutality, hate crimes, inequities in sentencing and prosecutorial misconduct.

This amalgamation of conditions for black youth create a textbook case of genocide that demands an international solution.

Respectfully, your assistance is requested to end this deplorable situation. DISHing It Up Hot!

The Dark Knight -Batman/White Ninja/Zorro wants to learn to cook something. He makes an edible peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Bat Cave

Disgruntled says: Two wrongs don't make a right, so end social killing!

Disgruntled feels: The burden of working motherhood on a little sleep!

Disgruntled wants to know: Who brings the illegal drugs into prisons? Disgruntled

The Roots of Sprawl!

By John Burl Smith

Georgia's problems, like other southern states, are economic. Mrs. Barbara Oliver is typical of this problem. Her family moved into their north Fulton County home off Riverside Drive twenty-seven years ago. It cost $62,000; today, it is worth $400,000. According to the AJC 1/21/99, this area of Fulton County wants to secede and form a new county. Larry Hartstein's article included a survey of 402 residents to show at least 2/3 prefer secession. Economically, the dichotomy between north and south Fulton County represents an inverse relationship.

Inversely, a home purchased in south Fulton 27 years ago for $62,000 is only worth $42,000 today. If one drew a line from Tenth Street in Atlanta east to just north of Augusta and west to Tallapoosa, one can see this situation on a statewide level. This north-south dichotomy became more pronounced during the late 1960s. Republicans committed to "segregation forever" made decisions, which economically abandoned cities and other highly populated areas inhabited by blacks. They diverted resources from these areas to build suburbs for whites. Under segregation, blacks had no power to block such actions. Although whites enjoyed the benefits of segregation then, no one wants to accept responsibility for its results today.

Republicans and developers used racial hatred and fears of blacks by poor whites to cover diverting billions of dollars into their special projects. This scheme was billed as progress for all and given priority over all other needs. They claimed "This will create an economic boom. Growth will produce jobs, and increase the tax base. Therefore, any money spent will be recouped though growth." Sprawl was unleashed upon communities across the south. Billions were poured into preventing integration and reversing Federal mandates for equality.

The policies of segregation have become a liability to Republicans, and they are trying to distance the party from its legacy. Their policies have proven disastrous; Republicans are directing attention to disguising another divisive program. Residential areas that benefitted most want to secede and take community resources with them. Forgotten is Fulton County's bankrolling of these areas with schools, roads, water, sewers and other essential services these areas would have to purchase, if they started from scratch. More critically, this plan further reduces the tax base and places an even greater burden on the rest of the county.

Southern Fulton County has been deprived of improvements for decades, while funds were diverted to build suburbs. Passed over for years, a quick look shows a continual decline in south Fulton since 1970. Neighborhood decay is everywhere. Schools are dilapidated with outdated books, facilities, computers, science equipment and inadequate staffs. Streets are in deplorable condition. Poverty continues unabated, trapping thousands south of Tenth Street. Politicians and developers have hornswoggled south Fulton since the end of segregation. Now, they are being bamboozled by demands for environmental and transportation needs north of Tenth Street.

Governor Roy Barnes' transportation plan leaves south Fulton, as well as South Georgia, in the back of the bus once again. Fairness demands a new approach. The preliminary transportation scheme allocates most resources north of Tenth Street. It leaves in place all boards and commissions created to serve the aims of segregation such as the ARC. Roy supported most legislation and policies that created sprawl getting to the Governor's office. Equity demands the state expend sufficient revenue to eradicate the results of segregation, because Georgia spent billions enforcing it. Other Essays by John Burl Smith

In a bizarre twist this week, Lt. Governor Mark Taylor reminded Georgians of Skandalakas' outrageous charges. Reflecting a kind of Freudian flashback knee jerk respond, his first act was drug related. Behaving like a career minded politician, Taylor has one eye on a four year move up. Rather than addressing persistent poverty, low educational performance or ways to intervene before one gets into court, he wants more prosecutors. If he really wants to enhance his stature, he should work in the Senate to remove that racist battle emblem from the Georgia State Flag. Phantom Scribbler - the hand that writes and moves on!

Adore

by Yohannes Sharriff Smith

First, let me start with something simple...

I love you.

Like a drop of water loves the ground.

A drop of rain thundering through wind,

Gravity pulling, rushing to touch something.

Like the colors of Autumn, feelings fall...

Falling through the familiar...

Too deep for the eye to see, only touched by a few.

Through the deep blue, falling into you...

Then impact bursting

Into tremendous waves of brilliant feeling.

Beautiful...spiritual...sensual

Divine oblivion exploding

Like a rainbow... I adore you.

For you, I am an oxymoron...

Like sun rain. Contradictory...

Like a monk drunk on brandy.

Can it be so beautiful

Angels stop and take notice?

A lone muse worshiping

The wind amongst millions of people,

Patiently waiting for you.

You bring me peace of mind.

Thank you... Intuit

Excerpts from Racial Issues I.Q.

"Powder cocaine (largely used by whites) and crack cocaine (largely used by blacks) contain roughly the same amount of the drug per gram. How much of either substance must an individual be convicted of possessing to be sentenced to a mandatory minimum of five years in jail under federal law? Answer: 500 grams of powder cocaine or 5 grams of crack cocaine. What percent of America's drug users are black, and what percentage are white? Answer: 12% black, 70% white" According to the email forwarded from Leeunique@aol.com. The statistics were taken from Farai Chideya's book "Don't Believe the Hype."

"The colonialist regime bourgeoisie is helped in its work of calming down the natives by the inevitable religion. All the saints who have turned the other cheek, who have forgiven trespasses against them, and who have been spat on and insulted without shrinking are studied and held up as examples. Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (1966)

Throughout the nation one cannot ignore the repeated projection of so-called 'Black Conservatives' as the leaders of distinction, and proper 'role models' for the great masses of people in the African-American community to follow. One hears voices now that are indistinguishable from those of the ruling elite, and as such, they become echoes of the expressions of the white elite, in black-face. They thereby join the incessant drumbeat against the Black community, dark echoes of every supposed pathology that is said to be the exclusive fault of those who reside within Black ghettoes. In their perspective, the poor are responsible for their poverty, and their poorness is a kind of defect of character, or worse, a kind of sin.

The very notion that space, or more to the point, the uses of space, are determined by the system's laws, seems lost to them, and anathema. But it was law, the legal expressions of state power that built the walls around ghettoes, and constructed the psychic walls of mental ghettoes of Race that surrounds us all.

Legal scholar I.F. Haney-Lopez writes: Law...constructs racial differences on several levels through the promulgation and enforcement of rules that determine permissible behavior. The naturalization laws governed who was and was not welcome to join the polity, anti-miscegenation laws regulated sexual relations, and segregation laws that told people where they could and could not live and work. Together, such laws altered the physical appearances of this country's people, attached racial identities to certain types and features and ancestry, and established material conditions of belonging and exclusion that code as race." (Prof. I. F. Haney-Lopez, White by Law...(1996)" Email: Mumia@aol.com. Mailbox

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