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Volume 3 Issue 1… Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… January 14, 2000

Note: The DISH is based on themes from T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution. According to the President's Initiative on Race, "The issues that this book brings to the forefront are important in our efforts to achieve the goals set forth by the President for the Initiative. This work will serve as a solid resource for us as we begin to examine these critical issues." For your copy of T.H.I.N.C., The DISH or to submit comments, contact ICIM, Inc. at (404) 244-6023 or email us at icim@bellsouth.net. All rights reserved The DISH © 2000

The Shadow of Dr. King

by John Burl Smith

Retrospectively, blacks and Democrats share a curious relationship. The "New Deal" brought blacks wholesale into the Democratic Party. Harry Truman did little to advance civil rights. By not addressing racism, segregation, lynching or disenfranchisement, Truman pleased Dixiecrats. Bankrupt, Democrats lost successive elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Never making real gains, there is not a dime's worth of difference between Demo-Dixiecrats and Republicans.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy acknowledged the debt owed black people. The young Democrat addressed injustice, inequality and poverty in America. Challenging Americans to rise above personal greed and bigotry, Kennedy cashed in on hope. Infusing new possibilities, Kennedy offered a future including everyone. Blacks came back to the Democrats.

Vietnam- a fraud, and civil rights-a hollow shell, America tore at its empty soul. Emblematic of banks on "Black Monday," America closed its doors on blacks and hippies. Synonymous to Seattle and the WTO protest, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and the Memphis sanitation strike are mega-events, which forced America to chose between more or less freedom; less won as Richard Nixon was elected in '68.

My last conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. foreshadowed our understanding of today's struggle. Dr. King came to Memphis to support striking garbage workers. He was recruiting field workers for his "Poor People's Campaign." Sharing his vision of America, he needed committed young people to organize blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, women, gays, poor whites and other minorities in order to pressure the government into addressing our needs.

Demonstrations in Seattle exposed another bankrupt Democratic policy. Dr. King's "Poor People's Campaign" globalized the struggle. He confided back then, "I will not be around to see the day, but the "Poor People Campaign" will teach coalition politics. Their training during exercises like this will prove mass action is an effective tool for change." The WTO demonstrators learned their lessons well!

Coming South for a New York minute, the star of Slam, Saul Williams will get a close-up look at Atlanta's other rockers. Hosting Echoes of My Soul, Saul is part of a very ambitious effort. One Mind Inc.'s bold vision fuses jazz, hip-hop, creative dance, R&B, spoken word and visual artistry into one expressive motif.

The DISH caught cutting edge poet Shawna Kent after she torched Ying Yang with some up-front incendiary passion. Shawna gave a shout-out, "Bringing a brother like Saul to the ATL really spotlights the Vibe. This shows Atlanta Vibe talent is comparable to New York and LA." Ending a year of slam appearances including the Grand Marnier Speak Eazy, guest appearances, including Les Nubians tour and being named Creative Loafing's Critic's Choice best spoken word artist, Yohannes Sharriff said, "Saul's hip- hopping the Vibe is great. We can baptize one of New York's finest poets in some down home southern fried in your face mad bombing truth. We are new consciousness droppers and house rockers ready to throw down with anybody's best." The Vibe will blow the doors off the Atrium, January 22, 2000. Show starts @ 6 PM. That is the Atrium, 5479 Memorial Drive, Stone Mountain, GA. Be there! Be part of the start of the new millennium!

by Yohannes Sharriff Smith

"Flower be thy name.

Spring becomes your elegance."

Nature envy quips.

The weight of her touch...

I will never be the same.

Stones thrown...ripple pond

She reckless fire-ice.

Burn me with icicle stabs.

Love chilled to the bone.

Niggers, near and far,

The Great White Svengali says,

"We've come a long way."

First of the month trap...

Black male driving while ethnic

Suspicious Afro-blue.

Disgruntled feels: Fined, fleeced and fee-ed to fuel economic slavery!

Disgruntled wants to know: To further enrich the insurance-finance industry, Georgia's legislature made auto insurance mandatory. Driving without it can lead to incarceration. Georgians working for minimum wages to support families cannot afford insurance coverage, so how does a just Christian society explain enacting laws to criminalize people living in poverty?

Disgruntled says: Those who think America achieved racial equality and offers minorities a level playing field should join Rocker and Ted Turner in some much-needed psychological counseling.

by John Burl Smith

Assessments of whether science, technology or finance shaped the millennium abound. Unnoticed is the overarching concept eclipsing a Mohammedan/Christian world. Dominated by the church, aristocrats and warlords Europe emerged from the "Dark Ages" a brutish feudal society. Medicine, witchcraft and alchemy were heads of the same monster. Controlling education, the Inquisition crushed independent thought and reinforced serfdom, Europe's economic bedrock. Wealth flowed to the Middle East, center of economic power in the first millennium.

Though Marco Polo and the "Crusades" began Europe's look outward, colonialism spearheaded Western Civilization about 1500. It mirrors the raise of European military power. Enforcing ones will on others is a powerful weapon for change. Blessed by the church, Europe exported slavery. African slaves were the dynamos that transformed wretched serfs into European barons. For more than 250 years, slavery was Europe's cash cow. Via the "Middle Passage," African slaves created Europe and colonial America's wealth.

For 400 years America exploited Africans, creating an economy powered on slavery. Founded on freedom, justice and equality, America incorporated African servitude into its Constitution, making it perpetual for their descendants. Taxing slave descendants and paying them less produced capital funds, which whites invested to entrench their culture. The blood of generations of slaves, not the stock market, fueled America's economic drive to surpass Europe.

Robbing Africa of her fruit extended white culture to every corner of the globe. At the beginning of this millennium, Europeans lived in squalor, while Africa was rich and thriving. After 500 years of plundering Africa, colonial and slave descendants are wretches in Europe and America, while Africa goes begging for food hat-in-hand. Punctuating CNN's effort to write this story out of the millennium, America and Europe refuse to talk about their debt of reparations!

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro watched The Matrix. Afterwards, he said, "Morpheus found a hero; he found Neo!"

Steve Forbes, candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination, came to Atlanta to tap the Christian Coalition. Simply, he fed them flat taxes, conservative judges and ending abortion. At the next debate, talking heads should show they are worth a million bucks and ask a real question of Forbes, Bauers, Keyes, Bush and other conservatives, who wish to take away a woman's right to decide about childbirth, her body and life. They offer sound bites about protecting babies in the womb, but could care less about babies already born. Holier than thou, these men would rather send missions to the moon, make guns and bombs than feed children. The question is; what do they plan to do for those children born? This is the question that drives women; it should drive men who think they alone possess the right to control a woman's womb.

"Good Ol' Days" by Paul Lucko

In 1885, black prisoners were forced to haul the granite used to build Texas's new state capitol. Many were born into slavery. Skilled granite cutters objected and boycotted. The use of prison labor led to the Briceville, TN Coal Creek Rebellion (1891-92). Coal owners sought to ban the union. Convicts replaced miners, who stormed the stockades and freed them.

Prison labor has a long history in America. Factory and plantation owners leased prisoners throughout U.S. history. Modeled after southern plantations, prisoners were punished for failing to meet quotas and other infractions. Most states banned prison contract labor by the early 1900s; the public learned of prison conditions. Moreover, citizens objected to the corruption, including kickbacks to elected officials.

Most infamous chain gangs ended circa mid-1950s, but Alabama and Arizona recently re-instituted prison gangs to do roadwork. Georgia and other states continue to provide inmate labor to private companies. In 1999, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor allegedly helped a campaign contributor get a prison labor contract. Prisoners replaced the welfare workers his business hired to receive a welfare-to-workfare tax credit. (Http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/prison-labor.html)

Politics 2000

by Dot Smith

The most attractive feature of Sen. John McCain's GOP Presidential candidacy is his position on pork barrel spending, which is part of every budget signed by the President. Resonating with voters, his criticism of tax dollars going to special interests is on point. Through campaign contributions, special interests control the political process. Tax money fund wasteful projects, while malnourished babies die. Programs to provide the necessities for survival are not funded. This duality is enough to make women cry.

America sends men to the moon and unmanned missions to the far reaches of the universe. Tax-credits, breaks and subsidies are given to well-heeled peanut farmers and other big business. Despite a "separation of church and state," even organized religion can belly up to the trough. Pork balloons the budget and increases the national debt, thereby burdening future generations.

Because McCain is on point, his fellow Republicans, committed to big business and Bush, do not like it. Flexing considerable financial muscle, they are putting the screws to McCain. You know the drill. These are the same radical Republicans who embarrassed the nation, when they hammered Clinton on the Lewinsky scandal. Led by those supreme hypocrites Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott, these same Republicans are after McCain. Probably behind the scenes calling the shots, the McCain attacks smell a lot like their pig slop. Given the GOP's most recent dismal history, Gore's campaign manager summed them up perfectly, "they'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them." Fact is, the GOP's record is so dismal when it comes to the disadvantaged among us that Bush's compassionate conservatism is laughable. By dealing with the control special interests exert over the political process, McCain is doing a good deed for the people and his party. John McCain epitomizes the Grand Ole Party of Lincoln. He and Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Bradley are the only candidates with visions for the new millennium that make sense - visions that are inclusive, and that put the power of government in the hands of the people so this country can be truly united in facing the challenges of globalism.

The South relies heavily on plentiful supplies of cheap labor. This region, nor the country, relinquished the lucrative practice of slavery. Though individuals no longer own slaves, multi-national corporations and the government are close approximations of neo-slave masters. Neo-slavery includes prison and migrant labor, temp agencies and day workers. The latter is prominent in Georgia. Mainly Hispanics, these workers gather at sites to be picked up by contractors to work on area construction projects. Marietta, GA enacted an ordinance "banning the congregation of laborers on city streets looking for work." Modern-day 'black code, " this is a Reconstruction throwback aimed at Hispanics. If convicted of violating this law, poor workers can be "fined up to $500 and face six months in jail."

Depending on a country's cultural makeup, attitudes about crime and punishment vary greatly. The starkest contrast is between Japan and the US. Japanese view society as the failure when individuals engage in criminal activity. Society is responsible for providing the proper environment to mold individuals into productive humans. The incarcerated undergo extensive rehabilitation. In stark contrast, crime in the US is seen as an individual's shortcomings. Years of incarceration are the remedy. Society accepts no blame, though its policies create criminals. (http://mindit.netmind.com/)

Georgia State Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) sums up the US attitude. "It is silly to expect criminals to be reformed. The only true rehabilitation process is aging; it is best to keep these criminals in jail as long as possible." (Atlanta Journal Constitution 1/5/00, B3). In America, crime and punishment is big business. Like slavery, prison labor is profitable; those most often incarcerated are the poor and minorities. Fines and fees tacked onto minor offenses add more time to the sentences of poor people arrested in places like Georgia. It is a Catch-22 existence. Moreover, poor people are most likely to face the death penalty.

Governor Roy Barnes personifies this inhumane attitude about crime and punishment. In reforming Georgia's prisons, he will look at ways to "ply the death penalty more humanely," which amounts to sheer hypocrisy, since taking a life is the ultimate inhumanity. Barnes' proposed prison reforms will not change the system or bring "truth in the penalties" meted out to Georgia prisoners. Increasing prison revenues to turn a profit will be his focus. A stable prison population is essential to meeting budget projections; he knows how to wrest profit from labor. His heritage is based on the time-honored southern tradition of slavery.

On Economic Slavery

by Dot Smith

GOP hopeful George Bush, Jr. promises to appoint only judges who will "strictly interpret" the Constitution. "Strictly interpreted," the 13^th Amendment did not abolish slavery; it just provided an exception. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Moreover, the 14^th Amendment did not specifically abolish slavery. With no specific repeal of Article 1 Section 2, when "strictly interpreted," The DISH argues the ambiguous language leaves the door open for legal slavery. Constitutional amendments changed the rules of ownership, so only governments own people. A steady supply of free labor is provided through laws that criminalize behaviors and slammed the door on the "invisible hand"- hallmark of the free enterprise system. Because it results in a bottom-up redistribution of wealth, this is classic economic slavery.

Re-THINC the 13^th Amendment, examine Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution and the 14^th Amendment Section 2, which are provided below for your convenience, then apply a "strict interpretation" to the language. Did slavery end or morph into neo-slavery of the masses to benefit a few? The latter is reality! "Welcome to the real world!" (The Matrix, 1999)

Article 1 Section 2 (1787): "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States and with every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.

14^th Amendment Section 2 (1868): "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representative in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state."

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