Volume 4 Issue 14…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race… April 13, 2001

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. The DISH © 2001

Recent world events portend military escalation, nuclear shields and war as the mostly likely scenario for the new millennium. Railing against American institutionalized racism, bigotry, sexism and homophobia, Yohannes is a tiny voice of truth crying in the wilderness for peace, love and understanding. America has never apologized for slavery or massacres (Rosewood and Greenwood) nor Manifest Destiny (The Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee) and will never ‘apologize’ for the death of a "Chinaman." Yohannes asks the world to remember Mumia Abu-Jamal and victims of the "War on Drugs." America uses drug policy as a military weapon in its genocidal war against slave descendants.

Extending his cry with Poets for Peace, Yohannes and AHOP (African House of Poetry) will host an international poetry reading at ESP (Experimental Spoken-word Performances) Wednesday, April 18, 2001. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared 2001 a Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. The Secretary-General’s declaration addressed diversity and the need "for people of different cultures and traditions to get to know each other better, whether they live on opposite sides of the world or on the same street." Representing the Atlanta Vibe in this world plea for peace and a reduction in world hostility, Yohannes invites poets around the world to raise their voices for humanity. Poets reading at this event can include their work in an international anthology. Ratsack, an Auzzie from down under will bring an over the top message about a "Crackatalized" world. Yohannes will perform pieces from his upcoming book Red Clay Diary.

AHOP is located 840 Ralph David Abernathy Rd. in the West End. RSVP Yohannes via voice at 404-241-5942 or e-mail icim@bellsouth.net. Come out and add your voice to millions in a prayer for peace through understanding. Go to http://www.dialoguepoetry.org/or http//:www.un.org/Dialogue/background.html for more information about this worldwide effort.

If you missed the final round of the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia on Sunday, April 8, 2001, you missed an exciting 18 holes of golf. More important, you missed twenty-five years old Tiger Woods make sports history.

Displaying skill and an uncanny mental toughness, Woods prevailed over a field of golf’s finest players on a golf course known as one of the most challenging. Kudos to Woods on an impressive victory! Not only did Tiger win his second Masters’ green jacket with Sunday’s victory he now holds the titles to all four (4) of golf’s most prestigious tournaments.

While the controversy surrounding whether or not to call Tiger’s feat a slam rages, Woods will go down in history as the golfer of the ages. On the back nine at Augusta, he took the sport to a whole new level. Kudos to Tiger on golf’s first grand slam!

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is a Renaissance man. When asked what comments he wished to share with his adoring fans, he said, "I had a poem about spring break, but I forget the words."

Disgruntled says: If Freaknik, Atlanta's unique brand of black college spring break, is truly dead, then we must give Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell credit. He did what he was told. He killed and buried it by discouraging black children from coming to the Mecca to party.

Disgruntled wants to know: Annually, Congressman John Lewis re-enacts Bloody Sunday, his infamous attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a black march for voting rights. The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed after Lewis and others were beaten senseless. Election 2000 made a mockery of their sacrifice. How many more times must Lewis cross that bridge before he realizes black inequality is the law of the land?

Disgruntled feels: If Bush gives the Chinese an apology for spying, it will set a precedent. The country has apologized for little over the course of its existence. Far worse than the German holocaust, the country refuses to apologize for its more than four hundred years of slavery and institutionalized racism.

by John Burl Smith

Over the past two weeks, the world has witnessed American's one-mind media at its despicable best. Worst than "yellow journalism" during the early 1900s, it has continued a relentless assault on victims who harmed only themselves. Why lambaste a man who is destroying only himself? Not being a major felon does not stop drive-by shootings from media pundits or talking heads blasting away from shadowy blinds. Even everyday fast gun reporters snipe from ivory towers, cyber fortifications and editorial dark alleys. A fallen idol, he is stoned daily for possessing clay feet. Convicted by the press for not living up to their deification, the man is skewered like a lamb. Denied a platform to tell his story, he is painted "public enemy" number one. Sounds like I am talking about Bill Clinton, don't go there, I am not!

"The Outcasts of Poker Flats" in this sorry tale is Darryl Strawberry. For those prone to snap judgements, Darryl is a man who squandered the rewards of "It's a Wonderful Life," while disappointing thousands of adoring fans. The reality is, the tragedy is Darryl's, the lost is his family's and his pain is shared by all that know the horrors of addiction. Not to put too fine a point on the racial thing, being black did not help.

A similar scenario played out for Robert Downey, Jr., a gifted actor with tremendous potential. Downey has given some out standing performances in such movies as Home for the Holiday, Short Cuts, Chaplin and for those who like happy endings Heart and Souls. Not getting involved with drugs (alcohol, prescription medicine, caffeine, nicotine, etc.) is impossible in America. The problem is the law, courts and media set a double standard depending on the person and the drug being consumed.

For engaging in essentially, the same behavior as Darryl and Downey, President-select George W. Bush, Jr. continues to get a bye from the same people who castigate these men as drug addicts/criminals. Addiction is a compulsive behavior with abusive results toward one's self. Such behavior cannot be driven away like demons or punished like witchcraft. Addition has a psychological component that maintains the behavior. Such facts were known in the1960s.

Americans slip in and out of their moral indignation like putting on new suits. The "War on Drugs" has always attacked the victim of this scourge. For most, addiction is not a political decision, it is a physical condition. It is an inherited predisposition that increases an individual's propensity toward addiction. In America, it is the environment that provides opportunities, and institutional drug maintenance programs that reinforce drug-taking behavior. This behavior is an economic boom for American businesses such as pharmaceutical companies and the "prison for profit" industry. Darryl and Downey are currency demanded as offerings by the high priests of mediadome. John 2001

All across America, African Americans are getting flimflammed into thinking they have become eligible to receive reparations. The con artists are hitting the unschooled up for about $50 bucks each with the promise of a reparations check. This is pathetic. Like predatory lending, those responsible are probably part of some reputable establishment. Some white organization is behind this scheme and using blacks as fronts, just the way Atlanta Empowerment Zone and affirmative action programs work. Do not get beat out of your hard-earned dollars chasing the reparations scam. It could cost you more than $50. IRS is levying $500 fines against those who file a claim. Reparation is still an urban legend.

by Ed Sebesta

Neo-Confederates are angry with Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore. A Republican governor and head of the Republican National Committee, Gilmore has the credibility to change the way we deal with the Confederacy and how we remember the Civil War. Like Nixon going to China, a conservative is changing how the Civil War is remembered.

Gilmore makes Georgia Democrats look pathetic with their April Confederate Heritage month resolution. Virginia and Georgia's resolutions are at http://www.thedigitaldominion.com/press/news2001/cwrm0320.cfm and http://www2.state.ga.us/Legis/2001_02/fulltext/sr343.htm, respectively. There are differences.

Gilmore's resolution declared April "Month in Remembrance of the Sacrifices and Honor of All Virginians Who Served in the Civil War. Whereas, our generation's recognition of this historical era necessarily acknowledges that the practice of slavery was an affront to man's natural dignity, deprived African-Americans of their God-given inalienable rights, degraded the human spirit and is abhorred and condemned by Virginians, and likewise that had there been no slavery there would have been no war." In addition, Gilmore commemorated Sgt. William H Carney of the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteers, a son of Norfolk who fled slavery to become the first African-American soldier to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor at the siege of Fort Wagner. Gilmore's resolution celebrates other Union troops from Virginia.

In contrast, the Senate in Georgia issued its resolution declaring April Confederate History Month. Barnes gave a rebel yell and said, "Georgia's schools are to provide instruction on the Confederacy and the purposes and goals of the Confederate States of America." The resolution also calls for the flying of Georgia's Confederate flag.

Barnes is worried about ruffling the feathers of his Confederate brethren. Gilmore ruffles them and takes the neo-Confederate heat. Need more, see http://www.templeofdemocracy.com.

News You Use

As Millions for Mumia plan a series of demonstrations across the country for May 12, 2001, aimed at freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, and ending the death penalty, it is apropos to revisit the American criminal justice system. Beyond the damning statistics compiled by the U.S. Justice Department, Human Rights Watch and others, the preliminary report of the Grassroots Investigative Project (GIP) nails the coffin shut on disparities in American criminal justice.

According to GIP at www.quixote.org "the administration of the death penalty in the United States is plagued by injustice. The proof is refutable; individuals are sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. While some are exonerated and released, others are likely being executed."

This report highlights 16 executions in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia in the face of exculpatory evidence and rights violations. In all of these cases, the state and federal courts had every opportunity to interrupt the process and determine whether the original conviction was wrong, but they failed to do so. These cases are a part of an alarming trend in the administration of justice in the U.S. in which the courts overwhelmingly favor efficiency and rigid procedural rules over justice and constitutional protection. This trend has created a system of arbitrary justice and has left a trail of arbitrary executions in its wake.

Illinois Governor Ryan announced a moratorium on executions in Illinois in January 2000 just days after the state's thirteenth death row inmate was exonerated. In so doing, Illinois became the first state to suspend executions. Ryan declared "I cannot support a system, which, in its administration, has proven to be so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life." It is time to free Mumia and end the death penalty. Send comments to ejusa@quixote.org

ICIM Boycotted People, Places and Things: The death penalty, Texas, Mississippi catfish farms, AT&T, Confederate emblems, milk, meat, Trent Lott and other weapons of mass destruction. For a complete listing, see Consumer Alert.

By-products of lynching, black Americans are their own worst enemies. Slave programming can be seen in today’s black Americans. There are the field hands, the working stiffs afraid to do anything except work. There are the house niggers who are so inured of the system they basically work to insure its continued existence. These are today’s so-called black leaders and those middle-class minded blacks who think they have ‘made it.’ The few who do not fit either of these categories are like Neo in the movie, The Matrix. Like a splinter in their minds, they know the 3/5ths Compromise makes them slaves in American institutionalized racism.

The problem slave mindsets pose can be seen in Georgia. We worked hard to make lawmakers aware of the need to remove the Confederate battle emblem from Georgia’s state flag. Once we got their attention, house niggers, excuse me, ‘black leaders’ showed up to ‘represent’ us. Thanks to their leadership, Georgia now has a state law, which enshrines confederate heritage. More important, the confederate battle emblem is still on the state flag.

To add insult to injury, the blacks that led this bit of treachery are being trumpeted as heroes. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)/Women are giving Rep. Tyrone Brooks, Calvin Smyre and Charlie Walker trophies for selling out the black community in its efforts to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag. The role blacks played in the flag compromise shows these 'black leaders' lack the gravitas to represent our best interests or they work to perpetuate the status quo. In either case, their actions prove detrimental to the welfare of the black community.

The compromise orchestrated by Roy Barnes and sold to Brooks and company did the black community a grave disservice, because it keeps the divisive symbol in the flag and honors the Confederacy. Conscious blacks know the confederate emblem symbolizes white supremacy; we should not have to live under racist symbols. Blah the SCLC/Women for legitimizing their treachery. These men did nothing for the black community to trumpet! Pretending otherwise confuses our young people. No trumpets for house niggers!

In the historical Dred Scott (1857) Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that only two classes of individuals enjoyed U.S. citizenship: (1) white persons born in the U. S. as descendants of ''persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States and (2) those who, having been ''born outside the dominions of the United States,'' had migrated thereto and been naturalized therein. He further ruled states could confer citizenship upon anyone in their midst, but they could not make the recipient of such status a citizen of the United States. The ''Negro,'' or ''African race,'' according to Taney, was ineligible to attain United States citizenship, either from a State or by virtue of birth in the United States, even as a free man descended from a Negro residing as a free man in one of the States at the date of ratification of the Constitution.

The 14^th states, "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, Representatives 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."

Did the 14^th Amendment (1868) repeal Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution and make black Americans whole persons/full citizens, rather than ‘3/5ths of others.’ A strict construction of the U.S. Constitution shows the amendment did not. In fact, the language of the amendment neither uses the word ‘repeal’, nor does it make reference to ‘others’ (blacks). Instead, the amendment identifies individuals the federal government will allow to be held in human bondage.

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