Volume 3 Issue 48…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… December 8, 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 8 2000

by John Burl Smith

The old Spencer Tracy/Robert Ryan classic western Bad Day at Blackrock is instructive in analyzing personalities of election 2000. Though Bad Day's plot and setting and today's reality are separated by space, time and technology, attitudes about "the rule of law" can be compared.

On a mission of conscience, Tracy ends up in Blackrock, surrounded by a bunch just like those upstanding citizens who stormed the Miami-Dade vote counting center. As in Florida, Tracy's search for truth pits him against Ryan and his crowd of cowardly bigoted rednecks. Ryan plays a George W. Bush, Jr. look-alike before he became "Gov'na Duyua." Stripped of high-tech cinematography, this drama clearly shows in black and white, how otherwise good and well meaning people can be cowed by fear, hatred and racism.

The Florida election debacle portends a grim picture for democracy in America. Typifying citizens in Blackrock who, in the end, had to fight to throw off their tyrant, Americans must now engage in a similar struggle.

Pundits and talking heads drew snide comparisons between civil rights protests and the mob of white men threatening public officials in Miami-Dade. They dismissed this threat to democracy as a bunch of "good ol' boys" having fun while protecting white privilege.

Georgia's history is shrouded in similar mob action; the most infamous was the riot of 1906. However, in 1950 at Moore's Ford on the Oconee/Walton County lines a monstrous lynching took place. The Sheriff took Robert Malcolm from his jail together with his pregnant wife Dorothy, WWII hero George Dorsey and his wife May Murray to a gang of white men, who riddled them with bullets and buried their bodies in unmarked graves. Unearthed only two years ago, their spirits still grips Georgia from the grave.

Back then, Black women lived in constant terror. White men in Walton County raped black women in their own homes with impunity. Black men cowed in fields during such outrages hoping to avoid Robert, Dorothy, George and May Murray's fate. There were white women in Walton County who knew what was happening to black women, but did nothing to stop their husbands and sons. Places like the Miami-Dade vote counting center may be where such mobs start, but Walton County is where they end up! For more, check out Women of Walton County on The DISH at http://www.thedish.ws/amlet.html. John 2000

Spoken word is art that teaches, inspires and enriches the masses. Soulful poetry, spoken word is the blues, hip-hop, rap or a special passage read aloud; all are rolled up into this art form. In Atlanta, spoken word grows in popularity. Spreading its soulful message, spoken word knocks down doors to consciousness. Sound bytes for a digital age, hope spawns in spoken word as artists connect the dots to where we come from, making art relevant. Gather close, witness the honest reflection; hear the naked emotion to demystify the human condition.

AHOP (African House of Poetry) is the place for ESP (Experimental Spoken Word) hosted by Yohannes. Every Wednesday night around 8:30 PM, local artists gather for an experiment in soul. Last week, Tony B. Conscious sang the blues, a career expansion for the poet and entrepreneur. Bring your favorite piece or something new to this experimental venue. AHOP is @ 840 Ralph Abernathy Blvd. For more, call 404-752-6030 or visit www.a-hop.com.

by John B. Smith

For two years, America has been inundated with polls about who would become President. Ironically, now that the only poll that really should matter has taken place, the poll does not count. Campaign 2000 brought America full circle with the election of 1876. In anointing George W. Bush, Jr. President, Americans are being asked to accept turning back the clock on one-person one-vote self-determination to where it was in 1876.

New polls say 60% of whites want Vice President Al Gore to quit. Contrarily, blacks see a different indicator in that response the 3/5ths Compromise and feel anyone who would ask that of Gore voted for George Bush. While campaigning Al Gore made one pledge, "I will always fight for you." Given that declaration and over 50 million votes, the question for Democrats is "are they going to stand up for democracy along with Al Gore?" The poll's 60% want Al Gore to agree to openly treating black people as second class citizens like they did in 1876. A Gore concession in this election will deny all rights blacks supposedly gained since the Civil War.

It is better to fight to keep the country free now, rather than conceding it today only to have to fight to take it back later. The latter is a tyranny from which one does not always recover. This struggle is about Americans fighting to make democracy an American reality.

George W. Bush, Jr. and the Republicans are convinced Democrats will never fight over the democratic principles at stake in Florida. They believe, if they can just get Bush anointed President, it cannot be taken away. This is like impeachment, which is like slavery, neither ended. Germans learned tyranny is a subtle seductive stalker, but a brutally abusive suitor. Like a battered wife, some Germans, in their terror, came to wonder if they would survive the next show of affection. Dé jà vu women of Walton County! John 2000

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is planning ahead for the coming school vacation. With more than two weeks out for the year-end holiday, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro says, "I have been to Florida; can we join the demonstration?"

Spreading its toxic spores, red tide taints the air and clogs the lungs; it empties beaches along Florida's eastern shores. Ocean-borne algae, red tide makes people sneeze and cough, as though they are experiencing some allergic reaction. In 1999, Duval, Miami-Dade and other coastal counties were hard hit by the public health hazard.

This year the Sunshine State is inundated with politics 2000. Worse than the microscopic organisms that cause red tide, Florida's electoral shenanigans pose serious constitutional questions about American democracy. Will every vote count in this presidential election? Without a full and accurate count of the ballots, America tramples one-person one-vote democracy. More important, the country shows this is a principle that is not protected by law under America's Constitution. By not counting all votes, America telegraphs to the world that equality is just a civil rights mantra with no legitimacy in this hypocritical republic.

Human beings have five means of verifying the appropriateness of stimuli. Commonly called senses, they are tactile, auditory, olfactory, visual and gustatory receptors that provide environmental feedback which indicates whether an organism's chances of survival increases or decreases with every encounter. Intelligence is measured by how fast an organism responds to stimuli. This realization gives new clarity to responses to events in Florida. For 90 % of the people expressing an opinion, the election results fail to pass the feel, smell or taste test for judging fairness, justice or equity in Florida. Since the ballots are not saying anything to vote counters to indicate voter intent, the only other means for human beings to ascertain possible voter intent is to look at the ballots. The only reason humans come into play here is that machines refused to count the ballot in the first place. Is the power to reason a sense (common)?

by Denise Johnson denisej@dnaco.net

Bush is my shepherd.

I shall always want.

He maketh me to lie on park benches.

He leadeth me beside the steel factories.

He restoreth my doubts in the Republican Party.

He guideth me to the path of unemployment

for the Party's sake.

Yeah though I walk through the valley of soup kitchens,

I am still hungry.

I do fear evil for thou art against me.

Thou anointest my income with taxes.

So that my expenses runneth over.

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me

All the days of the Republican Party.

And I shall live in a rented house forever.

Disgruntled says: The outcome of the Florida election is so important, we should all demand a thorough audit. No wonder it is being contested. Yet, Dubya's side in the election controversy argues against counting all votes, and the media are playing it as if the American public believes these convoluted talking points. According to their bogus polls, we are buying this line of reasoning! To the contrary, the media spin is not working! We did not buy into Dubya as a presidential candidate. We certainly do not buy not counting all the votes to propel him into office.

Disgruntled wants to know: During his campaign, Texas Governor George Bush, Jr. pledged to bring integrity back to the White House. How can he claim to be a man of principle, leader of a democracy, when he steals the office by not counting all the votes?

Disgruntled says: In June, the United States tried to get Haiti kicked out of the Organization of American States (OAS) for voting irregularities in that country's national elections. Now, Americans are being told it is possible to have a democratic election and not count all the votes. This is rank hypocrisy multiplied a thousand-fold.

According to Vibe insiders, Atlanta, Georgia is waning in popularity as a sport venue and convention destination. The reasons are diverse; they include the city's handling of the John Rocker fiasco, the state flag, Buckhead racial profiling, a rash of racial discrimination lawsuits, etc. To stem this negative groundswell, insiders say the powers that be in the city too busy to hate are aggressively working to change the flag and beef up its flailing image as a city for the future, rather than one mired in its racist past and obsessed with racial inequality. Rather than run away from it, they say the city must embrace its diversity, because that is the one thing that makes Atlanta a new millennium city.

CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson made an impassioned plea before the Atlanta Rotary Club to change Georgia's flag. Great-grandson of a Confederate Army Captain, Johnson urged them to "replace the state flag, which we have loved for so long. It symbolizes divisiveness today, not unity."

Johnson should be applauded for recognizing the national groundswell for change. Concerned that Georgia will lose tourist and convention revenue from a continuing boycott, like South Carolina, Johnson sees changing Georgia's flag as a prudent economic matter. Neo-Confederacy expert Ed Sebesta believes the South Carolina flag boycott was unsuccessful. He suggests that if Georgia simply returns to its pre-1956 flag, the state in effect replaces one Confederate symbol with another. For him, such a change is as hollow a victory as the South Carolina flag boycott, where the flag was simply moved from atop the state capitol building to a more prominent public place at eye-level. Sebesta ignores the fact that for many blacks the SC boycott continues. It is part of the groundswell to remove Confederate symbols from public display.

The groundswell for change is not simply an effort to change the location of a few symbols. We seek to rid Georgia and the nation of the mindset that supports the socioeconomic and political division these symbols represent. So, while we focus attention on changing symbols, there is a more fundamental quest to alter mindsets. With CNN head hunchoes recognizing and addressing the need for change, perhaps it is only a matter of time before politicians gain the intestinal fortitude to join the groundswell.

by Dot

Why is mainstream media not ridiculing the Republican Party's undemocratic line about not including votes not counted by the machines in the totals for President? Any vote not counted stands the one-person one-vote principle of democracy on its head. Only Republican partisans for George Bush, Jr. think it is acceptable to ignore votes not recognized by machine counters. The international community, in which America is held in high esteem as the premier democracy, avidly watches. The republic must give the appearance of democracy to retain any credibility.

Mark my words! If Dubya becomes president without a complete and accurate count of the votes in Florida, America will lose credibility in the international arena. Hiding behind democratic rhetoric, it will be seen as just another banana republic; America will look more the hypocrite than usual in foreign and domestic relations.

With election 2000, America seems destined to repeat lessons the nation should have learned in the last century. Different from the 1870s, instant communication changes the dynamics. People are more aware of the injustices. Everyone knows that not all votes in Florida have been counted. Ordinary people want to know how do we make sure these votes are included in the totals, and what we need to do to make sure this does not happen in the future. America is technologically capable of providing a better system for registering the will of its citizens. Antiquated machinery and antics of election 2000 harken back to tricks used in the 1890s to prevent black people's votes from counting. Today, this is a constitutional crisis.

Researchers under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) will count all the votes in the Florida election. We will know who won. If the person inaugurated is not the person that the final count favors, then democracy suffers under the rush to get this over. We must slow down and proceed with caution. Count all the votes. Otherwise, a cloud forever hangs over the American Presidency.

Anyone who does not see this as a constitutional crisis does not see the historical significance of the precedents being set in the actions undertaken so far by all parties in this election. There is a smoking gun in what went down in Florida; it will not remain cloaked in secrecy. If there is no accurate manual hand count of ballots not recognized by the machine, the controversy will not end.

Aided by the media, Republicans seem committed to assuring this kind of national uncertainty. They discount one-person one-vote in predominantly black precincts. Black votes can be thrown away without fear of any consequence. Some blacks had no idea they could be dismissed so cavalierly. Putting the wrong man in office will only further divide the country. Make democracy real; count all the votes and avoid a protracted constitutional crisis! 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, like Malcolm X, gave their lives in the struggle for equality. Each man articulated his struggle for civil rights, as he understood it in the times in which he lived. Fine spokesmen, black people in growing numbers began to listen and understand their message. Given the rhetoric, it was only a matter of time before everyone realized the source of American inequality. In Martin and Malcolm's times, each spoke of racial equality, which eluded them. Others must continue the struggle to realize their dreams. Only the living can make it happen.

Today, others must build on their legacy to resolve the civil rights issues these men sought to address. We must educate and elevate our concerns. Too often, our efforts to achieve equality are hampered by black people. There are blacks passing, black spokespersons tongue-tied by sponsors and too many others unaware of what is happening speak on our behalf, thereby doing more harm than good to our cause. Case in point is reparations.

Let us be clear: Slave descendants will receive reparations. Two good indications are the Uncle Toms downplaying its significance and the recently revealed reparation scams. Generally, scams indicate there is a perception on the part of some that something is likely true. So, the scam reported by the IRS is good and bad news. It is good news because reparation is a subject of conversation among the people. It is bad news because someone fell for a scam.

For the record, any scheme based on an IRS reparation claim is a scam. Black people will get reparations when there is a revolution in the mindset of the country, and that has just not happened. You, the individual, are ground zero in that struggle. Black people have not won reparations! So, if you fall prey to a reparations scam, it is because you are not doing your part to make it reality. THINC about it!

Back   ||  ICIM Home   ||  THINC  ||  The DISH || 2000 Issues