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Volume 3 Issue 46… Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… November 24, 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

Over his lifetime, the Reverend Hosea Williams displayed all the signs of a work in progress (AWIP). Like all of us, he was not perfect in life. He evolved to become many things. He was a legislator, a chemist, an agitator, leader, father, husband, minister, etc.

The DISH staff will remember him for being unbossed and unbought. Hosea railed against hypocrisy. A radical in American society, he refused to accept the idea that his people were less than others. The consummate fighter, Reverend Williams fought the prejudice and racial discrimination commonplace in America. Hosea refused to be a slave. A foot soldier in the war for racial equality and justice, Hosea Williams is now a work complete. On the 16^th day of November, Hosea expired. His task done his spirit lives on in those committed to making Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream a reality. Hosea is a work complete. We will remember him for trying to achieve racial equality.

Disgruntled says: The Electoral College is the national Confederate flag. Symbolizing a lack of democracy, it highlights the national hypocrisy, i.e., the founding fathers did not believe in treating all men equally.

Disgruntled wants to know: In Georgia Power's response to a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by current and former African American employees, the company contends it committed no "illegal racial discrimination." Is there legal racial discrimination?

Disgruntled feels: To call Georgia's deregulation of natural gas competition is like calling strong-armed robbery a loan.

Milton H. Spencer (Contemporary Economics (1977)) defines monopoly as an "industry or market structure characterized by a single firm producing a product for which there are no close substitutes. In the absence of competition, a monopoly maximizes profits such that price exceeds the marginal cost of production." The natural gas industry in Georgia, after deregulation, exemplifies this description.

Under deregulation, all Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) natural gas customers were switched to gas providers by October 1, 1999. Any consumers that failed to select a provider were randomly assigned to one by the Public Service Commission (PSC), the state's regulatory agency. The Public Service Commission (PSC) assigned our AGL account to SCANA.

In 1983, we established this AGL account; the service, prior to November 6, 2000 had never been disconnected. Granted, we have been late, but the service was never interrupted.

Disconnected for non-payment is serious business. Over the next few weeks, Georgia natural gas providers plan to disconnect thousands of gas customers for non-payment. If you are disconnected, how will you restore your service? Given our recent experience, we wish to share what we discovered in getting over the monopolistic hurdles employed by the AGL-SCANA relationship, as provided by the PSC. We believe you will find them interesting and agree gas deregulation in Georgia gave AGL and its gas providers the green light to fleece the consuming public. Next week, look for Disconnect 201: Hurdles to Restoration.

 Atlanta Vibe

by John Burl Smith

A five-month art-support study by Georgia State University's Research Atlanta (11-19-00) pinpointed several deficiencies in art philanthropy. It looked at two funding questions, "what organizations are the recipients, and is it a question of allocation of resources." Commissioned by the Fulton County Arts Council, Arts & Business Council at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Business Volunteers for the Arts and Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, this study supports conclusions The DISH has expressed since 1998.

The resource allocation question dovetails into the fact white people are not interested in funding black art. Arts agencies and councils only fund black imitations of white art. Moreover, they do not consider out-reach projects designed to interest young black children in performing and other visual arts of any value. Consequently, they resist funding programs that educate the community and increase art availability and appreciation at the grassroots level.

Locally, the Atlanta Vibe Repertory Company, directed by Yohannes Sharriff Smith, is a collaborative of young black artist; it has presented spoken word performances since 1998. At the end of his first national poetry tour, which introduced T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution and competition in the 1997 National Poetry Slam, Yohannes joined the Atlanta poetry scene. Dramatically fusing slam, hip-hop, and MC techniques, Yohannes gave spoken word a new motif. Back then, black poets only had open mic venues; "The Patty Hut" was the spot. Unable to interest Atlanta art groups in supporting a black artistic based performance format, the ATL Vibe created a unique black expression.

Today, pulling itself up by the bootstraps this cadre has a new home at the Atlanta House of Poetry (AHOP), located 840 Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd. in the West End. The first venue developed by artists, for artists to benefit artists, presents E. S. P. (Experimental Spoken-word Performance) hosted by Yohannes every Wednesday @ 8:30 PM. The ATL Vibe's AHOP space is designed to challenge stereotypes, stretch young performers' imaginations while creating new ways of telling an odyssey that spans 400 years.

The consortium is on the web @ http://www.thedish.ws/. Its members have produced several anthologies, two full stage productions, a CD and a video. The Atlanta Vibe's growth since 1998 answers any question of credibility, viability, reliability or survivability concerning arts funding.

Young performers hanging in the Vibe are not chasing grants. They simply want to create art and prosper. If individuals or groups wish to fulfill a commitment to art by funding arts programs that work, the ATL Vibe has several.

The 1876 election occurred with Reconstruction as its backdrop. Then, as now, the question before the country was simple. Would it face its moral obligation to repair the damage caused by institutionalized racism?

Federal troops were stationed throughout the former slave states to insure that newly freed slaves exercised some semblance of self-determination. When troops were pulled out, socioeconomic slavery resumed.

The 1876 contest between Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York and Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes posed an unusual dilemma. Tilden received a popular vote majority, but his victory was complicated by disputed returns in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida, whose electoral votes totaled nineteen. Both parties claimed to have won these states. With a certain 184 electoral votes, Tilden was one short of the majority needed, while Hayes needed all nineteen to win.

A commission composed of five senators, five representatives and five Supreme Court justices broke the impasse. Their 8-to-7 decision for Hayes had to be approved by Congress. Democrats could have filibustered, but a successful filibuster required Northern and Southern Democratic cohesion. Republicans short-circuited it by offering Southerners sufficient inducement to accept the commission's vote. In the Compromise of 1877, Republicans pledged to withdraw troops from the South. Convinced they were getting as much from Hayes as Tilden, Southerners abandoned the filibuster. Hayes became the 19^th U.S. President. (Source: Current, Williams & Freidel, American History: A Survey, 4^th Ed.)

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is thankful for many things. For the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro, "I am especially thankful for the four days we do not have to go to school!"

Remember Pine Lake? Along Rockbridge Road, the Pine Lake Police Department set up speed traps and targeted African Americans for ticketing. The small Georgia town of less than 1,000 made a fortune off racial profiling. DeKalb County Police plans to do the same thing along Memorial Drive, a popular thoroughfare in a predominantly black section of the county.

Targeted fleecing is a hidden tax levied on living while black. DeKalb police will use roadblocks to check for automobile insurance, outstanding tickets or warrants and seat belt usage. DeKalb's newly elected sheriff, Derwin Brown, a black man, is being urged to halt it Insurance is a luxury. In Georgia, automobile insurance is mandatory, making it regressive taxation. A necessity in metro Atlanta, oftentimes, a car is the only way to get to and from one's place of employment. This economic necessity is made more difficult to obtain and maintain because of insurance coverage, a luxury. In a free market economy, it would be treated as such. The state should not make its citizens captives of the insurance industry. Mandatory automobile insurance coverage is regressive, like the sales tax, because the poor pay a higher percentage of their disposable income to purchase it. Blah on DeKalb County for the dastardly scheme to make things harder living while black.

Did Bush win Georgia? Here are some facts. See if you can connect the dots to a Bush victory.

A Republican cannot win in Georgia without white Democratic support. Black voters were the margin of victory in the elections of former two-term Governor Zell Miller and the current Governor, Roy Barnes. Black Georgians turned out in vast numbers and overwhelmingly voted for Gore. Georgia was conceded to Bush by the media before any votes were counted. In fact, most of the southern states, i.e., South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, with heavily Democratic urban areas, were conceded to Bush before the election. Heavily Democratic is code for large black populations. Why were these states assured Bush victories? Given the spectacle in Florida, Georgia and the rest of the solid south are suspect. Did Bush take Georgia?

Email: inertiafilms@juno.com "This country is not a democracy; it is a representative republic. Democracy leads to mob-rules - a bad idea indeed. Our founders discouraged a democratic form of government. Very few people in our society understand that we do not live in a democracy. I applaud you for knowing this.

Democratic governments walk a thin line with socialism and ultimately communism. (Example: if the majority wants the money to be equally distributed among everyone, then so be it. This is majority rules--true democracy, which leads to socialism). The word democracy was not used in presidential speeches or other addresses until the 1960s when Democrats introduced this term into our national mindset."

Email: Booty-Adams@prodigy.net Greetings, I wonder what took all the doctors, lawyers, politicians and educated Black people to figure out something isn't right about this voting process. Electoral College, one-man one-vote. I understand white people, but somebody keeps saying somebody died for Black people's right to vote. I would like to know who died and what they died for? It surely was not for this charade. When you have a tool that doesn't work, you throw it away. In the words of Biggie Smalls, "Niggas don't think shit stinks. It seems that white people always have us play their games, by their rules. Please spread the word...the shit stinks!"

 Phantom Scribbler

Rats!

Armed with money, the GOP bought the media. With tacit Democratic support, Bush was assured of victory. Then, Americans voted. Unable to measure disenfranchisement, Voter News Service (VNS) exit polls correctly gauged the "will of the people." By reporting VNS' Florida numbers correctly and then retracting them because Bush needed Florida to win, the world will learn of the voting shenanigans practiced in the Sunshine State and across America.

If Bush's overtly covert operation to subvert the popular will of the people succeeds, the country courts a constitutional crisis. Deprived of a voice in our past, black Americans voted in record numbers. We voted for a future better than the 40%-off rule or 3/5ths compromise that shaped our past and defines our present. Bush promised to turn the clock back on civil rights. Like Rutherford B. Hayes, Bush will do just that. It smells like another GOP-Demo conspiracy! Rats!

 An Electoral College Education

By John Burl Smith

Electoral College students know little about the true meaning of democracy. Its founders and alumni do not believe in one-man one-vote self-determination. The Electoral College represents the privileged property class of America; whites who see democracy as mob rule. America did not always claimed to be a democracy. It did not need to intimate its policies represented the will of the people to blunt charges of institutionalized racism and genocide. Pressured by slave descendants to end segregation after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, America adopted the rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Hence, America's claim of democracy.

However, America cannot hide a damming contradiction written in Article 1 Section 2 of the United States Constitution, which places different values on its citizenry. White men of property are valued as one; all "others" are valued at 3/5ths, except Native Americans who are not taxed. Common people exercising political power strikes fear in the hearts of the privileged. If you believe certain people deserve more than others because of their race, then you belong to the privileged class and are represented by the Electoral College. Conversely, if you believe people are equal and one-person one-vote is how America should operate, you are an "other."

What must be affirmed in Florida is that campaigns belong to parties and candidates, but elections belong to the people! Courts are the people's representatives in any disputed outcome. A classic case is before the nation in Florida. The butterfly ballot favored well-educated and well-informed voters. Poor sighted uneducated voters were at a decided disadvantage. Furthermore, the double punches impacted Al Gore or Pat Buchanan not George Bush. Privilege and power must never supercede the people's will.

Those supporting the Electoral College say the 3/5ths value assigned "others" does not mean anything today, that was back during slavery. Besides they say, the Civil War ended all of that, now everybody can vote. The question is does that mean equality? Further, does that make America a democracy? The Electoral College preserves the 3/5ths inequality by counting some votes less than "others," which gives more representation to some than it does to "others." Citizens voting to keep the Electoral College accept the idea that some Americans are less because of their color, gender, origin, physical attributes, etc. That thought is the basis of America's institutionalized racism. Everyone should be smarter now! T.H.I.N.C. about it! John 2000

by Dot

I had to mention chad. A regular voter since the 1970s, I never heard of chad prior to election 2000. I knew a little about Chad, the African country. I can intuitively relate to the piece of paper punctured out of a paper ballot, but call me chad-challenged, I did not know chad was the term used in referring to it. More important, I had no idea chad could invalidate your vote.

This year's election expanded the lexicon and provided a priceless civics lesson. From now on, I will remove chads from my ballot. I will carefully hold the ballot up to the light to make sure the punch went through and the chads are dislodged properly.

Even though some citizens are chad - and apparently ballot - challenged, to omit their votes because chads prevented the machine from counting them is disenfranchisement. Furthermore, to create a ballot that confuses disenfranchises by design.

The vote is too close to leave any pimpled, dimpled, pregnant or swinging door chad uncounted. Too many were disenfranchised outright to give either candidate a victory without a full and accurate count. Doing otherwise dooms the presidency with another tainted victory. "His Fradulency" is the term used to refer to Rutherford B. Hayes following the election of 1876.

Given the amalgam of irregularities in this presidential election, had it happened in Chad, the United Nations would send in election monitors to guarantee the popular will of the people is 'respected.' Without international scrutiny, the problem underscored by the chad controversy would remain in obscurity. The chad controversy may force the media to pierce the absence of democracy in America. In doing so, they may even explain why black people went to the polls in vast numbers, an event unexpected and unexamined in mainstream media. Power to the people!

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