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Volume 3 Issue 6…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… February 18, 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 Yohannes Sharriff Smith

February fourteenth.....

Five days after my date of birth,

WALK-ing the smog-alert

Hovering over the jagged edges of this lonely city

Too busy to hate/hurts my blistered feet.

I recognize the presence of rose peddlers

Balloon sellers and fellas breaking the bank teller.

But, I can't afford to front; so, I tell her next month.

Threatening clouds haunt

the melancholy sky and slowly steal the struggling sun.

I'm screaming pass me the baton

So, I can run in this millennium rat race marathon.

Mis-educated Black male with a case pending trial,

But for now out on bond

Broke as hell and bills due with no income.

Some...times I feel like an island

Standing at the concrete edge.

"I gotta find me an angel..."

My Great Grand Mother rests

Weary bones at the bus stop.

Standing Woman...Warrior..

Weary from sharecropping, cooking, cleaning,

And caring for Caucasian children in a home that doesn't belong to her.

This southern slave ship shit has me pissed.

This rat infested city

Filled with Defiant spirits screaming Reparations!

Sinking seas of concrete people

Patiently awaiting the sign...Revolution!

STOP...SLAVE...WALK...RUN...

FREE...SLAVE...DON'T WALK-

The corner so cool thru

Picasso blue rush hour traffic...

Revolution! Christ is here!...Enter Saints and Sinners-

Black Jesus living in a cardboard box.

Amidst the copper wire, wrapped in plastic,

Encased in glass and behind steel bars...

Churches standing on poverty with security

Guarding empty cars in parking lots,

Protected by electrified fences after dark...

-Enter Saints and Sinners-

Gothic stone sculptured as statuesque

Anglo muses weeping acid rain.

Standing sentinels with drunken Cupid's

Aim resting on a broken wing.

The crucifix awakens, whispering.. hypocrisy!

So, I kneel to pray? Christ is here!

BEWARE of GUARD DOGma!

Laminated religion...you can't touch the scripture.

A plastic wonderland where to feel you need a pill.

You need to kill the pain your numb pain needs to feel

Kill/peel back a cap addicted to fear.

Christ is here!

-Enter Saints and Sinners-

Through the work...Slave...Through the hurt...

Slave through the dirt...

Through the clay of flesh,

City angels sing a gospel...Hallelujah!

Christ is here! So, I check the time...

Trying to find the rhyme, my reason trying to refine

...Rewind...remind...ME...

Who is trying to find the rhyme. Damn, what's that line?

My thoughts drift into the abyss of my mind.

Damn, what's that line, the existence of love and my heart's empty chime?

Valentine's emotional bind

In the middle of Black History... Mystery/My-story. Intuit 2000

by John Burl Smith

Listening to The Circuit Rider, Rev. Burl Lee recant details of lynchings and massacres learned about on trips, connected me to those on his circuit who felt he was their window to the outside world. The "Black Wall Street" massacre in 1921 and Rosewood Fl. in 1923 were particularly gruesome accounts. The Tulsa, Okla. massacre in Greenwood destroyed the economic hub of black commerce in the southwest United States. Whites killed more than 300 African Americans.

Saturday February 5, 2000 eighty years of denial ended when an Oklahoma commission recommended "reparations for survivors of the Greenwood massacre." Mirror images today, the 1920s were boom times America and African Americans made money. Segregation forced blacks into enclaves throughout America. They began amassing wealth and demanding political access. Refusing to yield power like the Serbs, whites used any means necessary to keep blacks down.

The Circuit Rider said the National Guard bombed Greenwood from fighter plains, while children, women and old people ran for cover. Protected by the sheriff and army, whites raped, robbed and murdered for several days. Emblematic of "Black Wall Street," lynching was a national pastime, like the "Super Bowl." White families loaded wagons, packed picnic baskets and traveled miles to see a lynching. They collected body parts and took photographs to display in their homes and commemorate the occasion.

Government officials covered up lynchings and refused to investigate. Today, Georgia's Attorney General, Thurbert E. Baker refuses to investigate a fifty years old lynching of two families in Walton County, Georgia. The sheriff was a member of the lynch party. The Slaughter: An American Atrocity" by Carroll Case reports a massacre of 1,200 black soldiers by whites on a Mississippi Army base in 1943. As with Rosewood and Greenwood, the Army denies its involvement.

Descriptions of mass murders in Kosovo, Rwanda and Nazi Germany mirror America for African Americans. Settlements in the Rosewood and Greenwood massacres document African American claims of genocide. Hundreds of African American communities were attacked and thousands died during the 1920s alone. Property was taken, bank accounts stolen and all of it made legal by government actions.

America cannot be trusted to tell the truth about its ethnic cleansing. Slobodan Milosevic is no different from Bill Clinton justifying what white Americans have done to slaves' descendants. Clearly, if the United Nations investigate these two admitted massacres as crimes against humanity, it will conclude American genocide. African Americans want to know about all the massacres, including Co-In-Tel-Pro. The Confederate flag still flies in America. John 2000

Charles White III

Some time in the latter half of 1999, around November or early December, the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) ran a well-written letter by one Charles White III. This same letter to the editor was reported to have appeared in the Emory University campus newsletter. Charles' letter sparked a great deal of reader response and heightened awareness about the Confederate flag debate raging on Emory's campus, where Charles attended and where the Confederate flag flew over the Kappa Alpha fraternity house.

The flag's removal is a tribute to Charles White III, who succinctly explained why members of an enlightened institution such as Emory should object to the prominent display of such a divisive symbol. We all owe Charles a debt of gratitude for his enlightenment. We owe it to his parents to say a special thank you for the wonderful gift of their son - Charles White III. Moreover, we wish to extend our condolences on his abrupt passage. Charles White III died in a bizarre automobile accident on December 17, 1999. His gift lives on in the hearts and minds of those he awakened.

Disgruntled wants to know: Denial of slavery is such a rabid American pastime, one might well believe it never existed. With all the sons and daughters of the Confederacy claiming their ancestors never owned slaves, who is the progeny of slave ownership?

Disgruntled says: Libby Dole ought to be livid for letting media pundits and hubby talk her out of running against an "invincible" G.W. Bush, his money and the Republican Party's leadership.

Disgruntled feels: G.W. is a $60 million lemon!

John Burl Smith

Journeying from total segregation, major league sports present a picture of progressive change. Microcosm of society, the mind set supporting such an outrageous policy winks at John Rocker. Today's version, racial profiling preserves white privilege, as did segregation. Owners view African Americans as players/products, not managers and certainly not owners. African Americans face the steepest learning curve to succeed and the lowest tolerance threshold when not meeting expectations. Many potential black managers were excellent players, but they do not fit the profile for the boardroom.

Breeding grounds for major league sports, college campuses reinforce stereotypes and attitudes of the profile: "African Americans are less intelligent than whites." Black athletes are mis-educated, surrounded by white opportunists, isolated from their community and made to feel their athletic talents are all they have to offer. Adding insult to injury, they are flimflammed into believing they really need the commercial image to be a man, when in reality, like us, they are slaves.

NFL Charities raise millions and write off millions more claiming community service. Rather then charity, we get chummy commercials or athletes signing autographs for starry eyed kids. Next, its policy of inclusion is a farce. The NFL Experience during Super Bowl week was a "color free zone." Vendors such as Coke, RCA, Wilson, Campbell Soup, Disney, Foot Locker, the Video game industry and the lot were "lily white," not even the obligatory black. The Atlanta Olympic playbook NFL style, black street vendors were shut out of the money altogether. Coming to Georgia and not raising its voice against injustice and racism, the NFL embraced Georgia's Confederate heritage of racial profiling, exploiting the black community and institutionalized racism.

Major league sports reflect America's slave master mentality. Owners recycle retreads or hire untried white boys because they feel, "They will grow to the job." The NFL and all major sports reflect John Rocker's disdain for blacks and other minorities, but they want to win. One day the slaves will leave the plantation. John 2000

Phantom Scribbler

Coping: Formula for Genocide

"Lifting Voices" by P.M. Peterman, (BET Weekend Magazine February 2000), paid tribute to the poetic genius of James Weldon Johnson, creator of the Negro National Anthem- Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing. In addition to reminding us of the song's poetic beauty and the sense of hope it brings downtrodden people, Peterman reminded us that much remains to be done. The task is all the more daunting when those educating our children are ignorant of their history and do not understand the nature of the black man's dilemma.

Educators teaching our children to accept less as a way to "cope with racial discrimination, " open the door to institutionalized racism. A professor at Bethune-Cookman College, Dr. Rebecca Steele advice "to cope" is synonymous to acceptance. "The struggle continues in one way or the other. And it will continue. We just have to teach our children how to cope with it - and know that education is the key." How does one cope with inequality? More education does not change the formula for evaluating black labor in the marketplace for goods and services. For those who believe "all men are created equal," coping strategies for accepting less require double-think, which leads to higher suicide rates, depression, heart attacks and other health-related problems disproportionately experienced by African Americans. We should be railing against racism, rather than teaching our children how to accept it. Racism must be destroyed or we become its genocidal victims. Coping strategies do not imply revolution, which is what is needed to make equality an American reality, a conscious revolution of individuals who believe in the noble principles that led to the end of British rule in America. When individuals refuse to participate in an unequal system and actively work to change the attitudes that foster it, a revolution will happen. Until then, an African American mind set with acceptance as a coping strategy results in being valued as less. BET-type media should not give credence to or promote "coping strategies" to help maintain the status quo, because it fosters a conditioned subordinate psychology among African Americans.

News You Use

Profiles in Genocide

One does not cope with genocide, the systematic destruction of the black man. When police can summarily execute her children like the unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, how does a mother cope? With 19 of the 41 shots hitting him from head to toe, Diallo died in his New York apartment doorway. This is a modern-day lynching. Here are some others that have not received national coverage. Cornell Young, Jr., a black off-duty Providence, R.I. policeman dressed in street clothes, was killed by fellow police officers while attempting to assist them in apprehending a suspect. With gun drawn, Young came to the white officers' rescue only to be ordered to put down his weapon. Failing to respond promptly, he was shot several times and died at the scene. A black man has no rights that racial profiling does not violate. Blacks are seen as criminals based solely on skin color and punished accordingly. This is the majority mind-set in America, whether it concerns sports, education or the criminal justice system. All blacks must understand there is no "right suit" to cover their skin to prevent them from becoming the next racial profiling victim.

Aged 28, Snapper Mitchell died January 19, 2000, shot by Atlanta narcotics officers. According to police, they saw him take something from his pocket and discard it, then jump on a bike, which he ditched to hop a fence. Allegedly, prior clearing the fence, Mitchell turned with a gun and pointed it at the officers chasing him. The officers shot, killing Mitchell. Of course, the gun found at the scene could have been a drop gun; it was stolen. The LAPD scandal should open some eyes to the excuses and outright lies cops devise to justify taking black lives. Arrested last summer on charges of drug possession and carrying a weapon, Atlanta police justified slaying Mitchell as a drug seller. Did his crime warrant the death penalty?

John F. Brown died January 5, 2000. Atlanta police responded to a call alleging trespassing at a run-down rooming house. Officer J.K. Crenshaw chased Brown, after observing him jump from a window of the building. According to several eyewitnesses at the scene, Crenshaw beat Brown to death with his flashlight. Crenshaw claimed he only used his fists, but the examiner's preliminary report suggested blows sustained by Brown were consistent with a blunt instrument, rather than a fist. The medical examiner's final report listed the cause of death as "cocaine use and exertion."

By Dot Smith

Given all this great nation has achieved, America remains a "work in progress" (AWIP). It has yet to provide all Americans those things Americans prize most, i.e., freedom, justice and equality. Though unrealized domestic dreams, the country fights abroad to make these elusive principles reality. To disguise its duplicity, America's mainstream media expose kinks in other economic systems, while its own is a "sacred cow." For international consumption, we pretend the cow is perfect and is, therefore, no longer a work in progress, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Like Alan Keyes, candidate for the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination, most Americans erroneously believe the nation's founders based the US Constitution on the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Some say slavery never happened. Denial runs rampant. The lactose intolerant among us want to believe dairy products are not toxic to our bodies, but the gas and bloating provide too much evidence to the contrary, cautioning them against viewing dairy as safe for consumption. Likewise, we must be honest about the founding fathers' decision to lay America's foundation on such bittersweet contradictions as slavery and freedom. They went from espousing equality, freedom and justices to codifying the Great Compromise, the antithesis of these noble principles. The hypocritical mind-set that made it possible to accept the contradiction inherent in the 3/5ths Compromise thrives in America's marketplace for goods and services today. The fact that South Carolina blacks have no say so in who is chosen to run for president on the Democratic Party ticket is testament to its longevity. Linear secularism is the John Rocker psyche that drives America's socioeconomic and political system. It is the institutionalized racism mind-set making America a land of bittersweet contradictions.

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