Volume 3 Issue 20…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… May 26, 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. The DISH © 2000

by John Burl Smith

Reminiscent of segregation crumbling, today's diehards who support officially displaying Confederate symbols feel the seismic tremors from the "Georgia groundswell." In the 1960s, Jimmy Pearsall was a diehard fighting to preserve the "white male bastion of baseball." First in a long list of racist, xenophobic and generally outrageous actions was Pearsall's declaration, "never to play baseball on a team that played niggers." Pearsall had numerous altercations with fans. Not even leaving the playing field to brawl with spectators drew serious sanctions from Major League Baseball (MLB). An inconsistent performer, unlike many black players forced out of the game early, Pearsall rode the bench far beyond his productive years.

In 1948 crediting Jackie Robinson with ending segregation, blacks battled MLB and Pearsalls just to get on the field. Emblematically, Richie Allen exposed MLB's ugly face of racism during the 1960s. A very good fielder and a powerful hitter, Allen became ground zero for Black Power in MLB. From the perspective of one just coming into the movement, Richie always seemed like "El Toro" stepping to the plate and digging to get set. For everyone watching even most of his teammates, the major motivation was to see him dead. Such a powerful image strolling onto the field, sporting his huge Afro, which made a baseball cap look like a Dixie cup, Richie Allen intimidated entire stadiums.

Unlike the leniency shown Pearsall, MLB assumed a very hostile attitude toward Allen. Empires displayed blatant prejudice by calling balls strikes. They threw Richie out of the game when he protested. Playing for a notorious "white boy's team," the Philadelphia Phillies, Allen was fined every time he got tossed out of a game. MLB tried to gag Richie with sanctions to prevent him from speaking out about racism in baseball. Commissioner's office developed dress codes regarding hats, helmets and hair. As when El Toro dispatched too many Matadors and the owners cannot get better fighters, they weaken the bull. Living constantly under the threat of suspensions, Richie's play suffered and he was forced to leave baseball before his time. Classic! John Rocker is synonymous with Jimmy Pearsall. White players are seen as capable of being rehabilitated. Consequently, all efforts are made to salvage white boys, whereas, black players are viewed as threatening and must be put in their place or let go. A black man's economic value never exceeds his ability to be used as Willie Lynch prescribed - "be made an example of for the rest of the niggers," who dare stand up and speak out. John 2000

Atlanta Vibe

Hip hopping the Atlanta Jazz Festival at Yin Yang Tuesday, May 23, 2000, Fahamu hosted a cutting edge show. Torching the spot with a fusion of jazz and spoken word, Yohannes and Soulkonfiscation ignited Elevation. Charging up the crowd with Ease On, the "mad bomber of truth" was the wizard, scorching The Art of Red.

Parachuting off this high, Saturday May 27, 2000, consciousness droppers will throw down at Nensavior Production's film premiere of Spoken Word Is... A documentary on Atlanta Vibe poets, Felicia Moore's brain child, she hopes the film will bring a new level of awareness to the community about spoken word and its potential marketing value. RSVP feliciadmoore@yahoo.com for the 4-9 PM event @ Café Taste at 495 Courtland Ave.

Hypocrisy 102: Mainstream Media on McCain

Mainstream media gave New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's infidelity a bye and then wondered why. A Christian conservative, Giuliani believes in "traditional family values." Like Newt Gingrich, Republicans and "New" Democrats, a euphemism for Dixiecrats, embraced the Contract with America and severed family ties for younger women. Rumor has it, when he leaves office Bill Clinton, a "New Democrat," will resume his old shenanigans. Perhaps, the media gave Rudy a bye because infidelity is passé? Or, Rudy broke no ethical rule in jettisoning his family?

Whether a fiscal conservative-social moderate like Rick Lazio or compassionate conservative like George Bush, "traditional family values" refers to the 3/5ths Compromise of Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution, which defines the unequal values manifested in American family incomes. Clinton, Gingrich, etc. are hypocrites who support the 3/5ths Compromise. The media give them byes on hypocrisy, and sometimes, promote them as role models. John McCain is an example. His "Straight Talk Express," left the road and made a U-turn to embrace George Bush's soft money. Jettisoning campaign finance reform, McCain sold out independents who bought his rhetoric, as well as "Old" Democrats who broke habits of a lifetime to vote for him in the Republican primary.

McCain did a live tongue-in-cheek endorsement of Bush. Were he intelligent, Bush would recognize the ridicule, make McCain retract his facetious endorsement and bar the rat from speaking at the Republican Convention. The conscious knows Bush is no mental giant. While one does not have to be smart to get elected President, witness the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a Bush presidency begs the question, do we want Bush, Sr. back in the White House? Those on the Bush trail know, he is managed by the former President and CIA director, George Bush, Sr. Behind the scenes, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's mental ability is compared to the consistency of "helium."

Cozy with the press and privy to its raucous comments, only a hypocrite would exaggerate Bush's mental ability in public! Like some perverse vulture, McCain waits in the wings. Betting Bush will lose in November, he is not the maverick, but an opportunist, a rat! If he cared about America, he would expose the charlatan who would be President, save his party and the country from the clutches of big money like he promised during the primary!

By not criticizing McCain, mainstream media gives him a bye for the Bush brain embellishment and his "support" of the big money candidate! Hypocrisy knows no bounds when the hypocritical mainstream press loves a favorite son, a fellow hypocrite! Now, we know how Reagan lasted two terms as president and nobody reported his Alzheimer's symptoms, and why police brutality (lynching) in New York and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's infidelity get byes from mainstream media. This is media hypocrisy, and that assessment is "fair and balanced."

Mailbox

Email Jdipierro@ncpls.org wrote "Reply from a whiteboy who's still a fan of yours: You called for people to come out and support McCain. I understand the frustration with people like Gore, and the attraction to a person who shows more authenticity than most candidates at that level. Be careful though - much as I might like McCain as a person, he is philosophically opposed to me - and probably to you - on just about every issue there is, except campaign reform. I can't imagine myself voting for him as long as there's ANY Democrat in the race, saddening as this may be. Just my humble opinion! Keep up the good work."

Disgruntled says: If the major political parties' choices for President are Bush and Gore, I will vote for the Green Party! It cannot be any riskier than jettisoning my vote for John McCain in the primary! McCain is no Luke fighting the Evil Empire! He must be Anakin Skywalker, before he embraced the dark side of the Force and became Darth Vader!

Disgruntled wants to know: How does one justify setting a fire to underbrush in very high winds under the pretext of controlling for future fires when there is no weather control switch to flip for making rain to put out blazing infernos? Did government scientists harness the weather and just not tell us?

Disgruntled feels: The Queen of England could not do a more royal job of bleeding us dry than GRTA (Georgia Regional Transportation Authority). Roy Barnes continues the Atlanta Regional Commission's (ARC) taxation without representation. Disgruntled2

SCLC Equivocation

Adhering to Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) removed Coke vending machines from its premises. Stopping short of endorsing the Coca-Cola boycott, SCLC equivocated, rather than support current and former Coke employees brave enough to challenge Coke's southern plantation style of management.

To rid us of the hostile work environment created by John Rocker-types in organizations like Coke, blacks must cease accepting the abuse and speak out. Otherwise, the cultural bias and legal basis of black inequality will continue. Likewise, when the brave few speak out, we must support them, especially organizations that make money claiming to represent and promote black people. If we do not support ourselves, whom do we rely on in the struggle for equality?

Since it can be strictly interpreted that it is legal to discriminate against black people, the court has not been particularly sympathetic. Adding insult to injury, "black leaders" studiously avoid citing the cause of black economic inequality; they latch onto its symptoms, such as racial profiling. Rather than state outright our situation, we get a lot of equivocation from our "black leaders, like Marty King of SCLC. To change our situation, we must change the Constitution, which makes us unequal!

As head of SCLC, instead of being reared at his father's knees, Marty's mother raised him; he epitomizes the slave mindset identified in Lynch's slave philosophy. Coretta may not realize it, but she raised Marty to be a slave, hence his equivocation. In stark contrast, Barbara Bush, her opposite, raised her boys to be callous slave masters. As evidence of her success, the Bush boys, governors of Texas and Florida, George and Jeb, respectively, lead the nation in executions. They ply the death penalty without remorse or compassion, while Marty equivocates about his economic slavery. Ironically, he parades before black people as a leader, as if being his father's son lends him moral authority.

Get real! We THINC, therefore, we lead ourselves! We jettisoned "black leaders" and Coke products before the "official" boycott of both. SCLC's equivocation will not stop the people's struggle for economic freedom. It just makes Marty an international laughingstock. By not joining the boycott, King's son plays the perfect house nigger, as prescribed by the Atlanta Compromise and predicted by Willie Lynch! And, so here we are, slaves in 2000!

Comments from the Bat Cave

Anxious to remove the shackles of childhood, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro believes it is slavery. He said, "I want to be grown so I don't have to be a slave to my momma!" The Dark One/Ninja/Zorro hates the thought of manual labor.

Hood Notes

Rich's: An Atlanta Trademark

Rich's, the department store famous for selling over-priced merchandise, moved its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremonies to Buckhead, where it will be appropriately appreciated by folks who believe buying things is how to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Rich's closed its downtown store in the early 1990s. Without a store to draw patrons downtown, attendance at the annual event dwindled. With no store, what is the point of having Rich's Christmas tree lighting and downtown display? Tradition? Maybe, but the commercial value for the retail store is just not there. Rich's can get a bigger bang for its ad bucks, which is what the tree represents, by showcasing this famous Atlanta homage to commercialism where patrons flock to be ostentatious - Buckhead!

Rich's decision is a combination of economics and hypocrisy or hypocronomics, an Atlanta tradition. The history of how it has run its department stores speaks volumes on this subject. In South DeKalb, where blacks shop, Rich's is pig's po relative to its trendy Buckhead store. Its blatant discrimination is impossible to ignore. Many refused to enter any of its retail locations. Rich's has a rich history of racial discrimination in the Mecca!

ICIM Boycotted, People, Places and Things: Death penalty, IRS, Coke, Rich's, Waffle House, Denny's, Lockheed, Texas, Florida, the Bush babies, milk, meat, New York City, churches with fences, Georgia's flag, Mississippi, South Carolina, Eddie Bauer, Hilfiger, Nike, DNKY and other designer labels that kill, Wal-Mart, MCI, MARTA sales tax, Trent Lott and other weapons of mass destruction.

Bit of History

"The Natural Slavery of the Negro"

"At the end of the eighteenth century, the invention of the cotton gin made cotton the basis of the Southern economy; slaves became more necessary as the wealth of the region grew. In 1835, South Carolina Governor George McDuffie's speech to the legislature marked the beginning of the South's transition from viewing slavery as a necessary evil to seeing it as a positive good, for whites and blacks. McDuffie saw the Negro as "destined by providence to occupy this condition of servile dependence," which became the central theme in defense of slavery." (American History Leaflets, Colonial and Constitutional, Albert B. Hart and Edward Channing, Eds., No. 10, July 1893.)

"For the institution of domestic slavery we hold ourselves responsible only to God, and it is utterly incompatible with the dignity and the safety of the state to permit any foreign authority to question our right to maintain it....No human institution, in my opinion, is more manifestly consistent with the will of God than domestic slavery, and no one of His ordinances is written in more legible characters than that which consigns the African race to this condition, as more conducive to their own happiness, than any other of which they are susceptible. Whether we consult the sacred Scriptures or the lights of nature and reason, we shall find these truths as abundantly apparent as if written with a sunbeam in the heavens. Under both the Jewish and Christian dispensations of our religion, domestic slavery existed with the unequivocal sanction of its prophets, its apostles, and finally its great Author. The patriarchs themselves, those chosen instruments of God, were slaveholders. In fact, the divine sanction of this institution is so plainly written that "he who runs may read" it, and those over-righteous pretenders and Pharisees who affect to be scandalized by its existence among us would do well to inquire how much more nearly they walk in the ways of godliness than did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." (The Negro in American History, Vol. 3, Slaves and Master 1567-1854, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1969)

On Blaxploitation!

by Dot

When the black unemployment rate is more than double the average for whites and the black median family income is three-fifths or less than that of white families, economic slavery exists. This black exploitation or blaxploitation is an American tradition. The United States codified color inequality in its Constitution. This fact of law lies at the heart of institutionalized racism. Let us be honest! We must change the law. As long as the 3/5ths Compromise can be interpreted as the law, blacks are slaves. Moreover, the conditions of economic slavery continue without reparations.

Those who claim to lead black people or claim to aid our struggle should be able to mouth the dilemma and focus limited resources on it rather than its numerous surface manifestations, such as racial profiling, disparities in criminal justice, poverty, employment and housing discrimination and environment racism.

SCLC and Rev. Al Sharpton are planning a march on Washington to highlight racial profiling, which is a symptom of institutionalized racism, the result of other Americans obeying the rule of law, which makes it legal to discriminate against people of color. The DISH recommends that those who choose to march do so to amend the Constitution to include in its language what blacks have never had in America - economic equality. Unless we repeal Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution and pay a just reparation to slaves' descendants, we will forever be subjected to racial profiling and the other manifestations of institutionalized racism.

We must end blaxploitation. It is up to us to secure our economic freedom and prevent the enslavement of another generation of black children. They deserve better than hypocrisy from all of us, especially our "black leaders," who seem to be leading the charge to keep them enslaved. Let us work for real change, the African American Equal Rights Amendment (AAERA) ends blaxploitation! (Reparations)

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