Volume 4 Issue 31…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…August 10, 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

By John Burl Smith

A few months ago, the Live Poets Society, Abyss and Cocktails and MoorEpics brought together the best spoken word artists in the ATL Vibe to compete for four spots on a team to represent Atlanta in the National Poetry Slam August 1-5, 2001 in Seattle, Washington. This was truly audacious, when we consider the time line for solving major budgetary, product, supply and logistical issues.

Sister Poets Embracing Altruistic Kinship (S.P.E.A.K.) Kimotion, Voluptuous and Sunshyne were joined by Nicole Edmond and Gloria Few as fund-raisers, while Aquiyl Thomas helped build the team. GA Me (Georgia Me), Alexis, Malik and Yohannes emerged as the MoorEpics Slam Team with Bonnie and Don Carlos as alternates. With the guidance of Rod Holliman of Lionheart Studios, these dreamers produced a CD titled MoorEpics Slam Team 2001, which they debuted in Seattle. On July 31, 2001, their dream took wings and the newest force on the spoken word scene landed in the Emerald City.

Putting this gamble into perspective, most of the 65 teams were veteran poets who won lower rounds getting to Seattle. Getting past the first round was a victory for this rookie team, performing together less than three months. "Representing Atlanta to the fullest," they dropped into the championship like commandos. Spitting biting emotional rough-edged up-front-in-your-face flame throwing dialectics, they seared Seattle's consciousness.

Granting an early morning interview back in Atlanta, Yohannes said, "First, the MoorEpics Slam Team gives mad props and much love to our wonderful fans for their great support, without them we would not have made it to Seattle. Next, we give love to Live Poets, Abyss and Cocktails and MoorEpics poetry spot for the opportunity to compete against the best academic poets in America, while representing Atlanta in Seattle.

Asked, "Is there a future for the team?" Yohannes said, "Most def! We realized that once outside the "dirty South," at first, even blacks sometimes shy away from subjects like slavery, lynching, 3/5 Compromise, death penalty, racial profiling, etc., but when you cross the Mississippi River and start dropping explosively emotional truths like those in our poetry, people tighten up. Completely blown away, white people start squirming, and their eyes glaze over. Probably for them, their sensibilities are traumatized. Some whites find it difficult to accept our performance as poetry and that is reflected in the scores. Winning prizes is not our ultimate goal. We want to show the world that without a doubt, we are the best team of spoken word artists on the scene. And, to prove it, we challenge any team, anywhere that believes otherwise to a battle. You think you're bad, step up to the mic and prove it!"

To experience "the battle in Seattle," join the team August 16, 2001 performing in the Poets for Peace "International Speak Out." They will be helping Rep. Cynthia McKinney educate people about racism in America and the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance (WCAR) at MoorEpics 221 Mitchell St. Pick up their new CD MoorEpics Slam Team 2001. Contact icim@bellsouth.net for more. John 2001

Comments for the Bat Cave

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is a public school student. When asked for his comments, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro remarked, "Well school starts next Monday and that is too soon."

by John Burl Smith

William Wallace, a heroic figure, inspired men to risk all for an ideal: freedom. The movie Braveheart, a war epic for most, was for me, a psychological drama. It depicted the full array of subconscious forces motivating human behavior. I became an urban psychologist because I wanted to understand slave descendants' behavior.

Popularized by Sigmund Freud, the subconscious is that nether region of the mind where psychologists relegate underlining motives that they cannot identify or understand. Due to Homo sapiens' complex mental structure, humans must have a mechanism, which represents and stores complex phenomena, such as dissonant information, until it can be integrated into conscious thought. An aspect of avoidance, doublethink is the paradox of holding two contradictory thoughts at the same without recognizing the contradiction.

Avoidance enables humans to think one way, while simultaneously behaving just the opposite. Artfully presented as human drama, for Dot and many others this lesson was lost in the blood and killing. Thus, they missed the enduring power of love that at times reached beyond the grave. Nor did they witness the well of pride that deepened as dominated people responded to true leadership. The most overpowering emotion displayed was greed. Greed is one of those motives forever banished to the outback of human consciousness.

Freud postulated that subconscious mechanisms erect barriers to keep motives like greed isolated from everyday thought. Humans create elaborate fantasies to hide these realities from themselves. At their worst, they are called neuroses or psychoses. Freud theorized such mechanisms require massive amounts of psychic energy to keep such motives buried in one's subconscious.

In Braveheart, "Long Shanks," the king, represented the Christian world in this battle of good vs. evil. Personifying today's world, the good guys behaved like the anti-Christ. Conversely, real heroes are painted as anarchists, like protestors and others fighting for freedom, justice and equality at the G-8 Summit. Religious leaders today are like "Long Shanks" in his final days. After building his dynasty on hatred, murder, rape, treachery, exploitation and greed, in the end he refuses the comfort of the Homo sapiens soul. In old age, he clings greedily to lifelong hatreds. He withers, burning his last ounces of psychic energy wrecking pain and destruction.

Although, William Wallace died young, beheaded as an outlaw, his spirit lived. For believers, sometimes longevity is God's way of allowing humans to punish themselves by withholding death as long as they refuse to submit to truth! Tormented by demons, sometimes death is the reward. John 2001

Disgruntled feels: While black people see things differently, based on our different experiences in different regions, we agree that ending racism is necessary to improve the black human condition.

Disgruntled wants to know: If the agenda includes slavery and reparations or Zionism, the US will boycott WCAR. Will the world allow its most powerful racist to dictate the agenda and wreck the conference?

Disgruntled says: After six months in office, Dubya takes a month-long vacation. Average employees get one week off after a year on the job. Two weeks is the max. New federal employees earn leave at the rate of four hours per pay period. After six months, they can take six days off. Bush's month-long vacation so soon shows he is out of touch with average Americans.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), urged Negroes to use passive resistance to improve their condition. SCLC's campaign began in Birmingham, Alabama. King felt that, "If Alabama could be cracked, the direction of the entire nonviolent movement ...could take a significant turn."

King advised Negroes to meet "physical force with an even stronger force, namely soul force." The SCLC boycott of Birmingham businesses got the city's leaders' attention. Though federal courts later upheld the Negro right to engage in nonviolent protest in Birmingham and elsewhere, Dr. King was imprisoned. Adding insult to injury, a group of eight Birmingham clergymen accused King of being an "outside agitator." King's letter from the Birmingham jail is filled with irony. First and foremost, there is the irony of his cry for freedom and equality in the world's greatest 'democracy,' the United States of America. Second, he had to convince his fellow black clergymen of the need to fight against the injustice suffered by black people.

by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "Wait." But, when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find you tongue twisted as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement part that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking, "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are), and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentment; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. (Source: The Negro in American History Volume 1: Black Americans 1928-1968 edited by Adler, Van Doren and Ducas)

by Dot

Economic welfare loss exists wherever there is institutionalized racism (IR). Elsewhere, we have said Z = IR, where Z measures the income loss experienced by the victims of institutionalized racism. In the United States Z's value is controlled by law, it is the 3/5 Compromise of Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution. Z can be calculated collectively and individually. Using my Social Security record, below is a conservative estimate of the welfare loss experienced by yours truly.

According to my Social Security (SS) record, I began paying SS taxes on wages earned in 1968. Born to sharecroppers, I worked for pennies in cotton and soybean fields in Arkansas and Mississippi. These jobs do not appear on my SS record. In 1968, I worked in a Walgreen's Drug Store restaurant as a waitress. My employer had previously refused to serve black patrons. According to my SS record dated August 2000, the last year worked was 1999. From 1968-1999, the black/white median income ratio varied along the narrow interval of .5 to .65. It averaged 60%.

To compute the value of Z, we use the individual wage and the black to white family median income ratio for a given year. For example, in 1968 my Social Security wages were $111.00, the income ratio that year was .60. Blacks received 60% of what whites received in wage income (x = .60y). Dividing wages received (x =$111) by .60, gives us y = $185 making Z (y-x) = $74. Our formula here is y-z = x. By law x (the value of black labor) is expressed as a fraction of y (white labor). The 60% average ratio reflects the 3/5 Compromise in Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution.

Since the average is .60 over the course of my SS work history, I added all my Social Security earnings and found x = $408,662, dividing by .60 yields a y = $681,103, which means z = $272, 441. Notice this z amount is based solely on the income I paid Social Security taxes on which makes this estimate of z very conservative. It is more conservative still since I used the average ratio, because most years the white to black family median income and the per capita income ratios were less than .60. But, I will take my conservative estimate of z. I want my reparations! Only black fools think America owes blacks nothing! (Vol. 5 No 34)

In an Inside Politics interview with CNN's Judy Woodruff, Secretary of State Colin Powell responded to questions on the upcoming World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). Question from Woodruff: "Another UN-related matter, this upcoming international conference on racism in Durban, South Africa. At this point, as you know, the Administration has threatened to boycott that conference unless certain language with regard to Zionism and reparations for slavery are included. We know the US is working now with other nations to change the language. Are you confident that the language will be removed?"

Powell responded, "I am not confident yet. I want to go to that conference. The US wants to be represented at that conference. It is an important conference. It should be a forward-looking conference. But we should not allow the conference to be sidetracked to deal with a contemporary political issue that is of concern to some members of the conference, and really isn't directly related to the purpose of the conference. And therefore, we are hoping to find language that will deal with the problem of slavery and deal with the other problems with respect to Israel. Because we do want to go to the conference. It's not threatening to boycott; the answer is, let's fix this so that the conference will serve its intended purpose, and the United States wants to be there."

Woodruff stated, "There are African-American members of Congress who are saying just the fact that the Administration is threatening to boycott says-- and I'm quoting Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney-- "Perhaps indicative that the Bush White House is full of latent racists."

Powell replied, "This kind of absurd language is not helpful to the public dialogue. It has nothing to do with the Administration being racist. That is an unfortunate statement on Congresswoman McKinney's part. We are trying to create an environment so the conference will be successful. It is an important conference, and therefore, it should stick to the purpose of the conference and not go off into political issues that one particular segment of attendees feels really strongly about, because it will detract from the work of the conference. And so what we are trying to do is to create a solid atmosphere to make it a successful conference. And so I just have to categorically disagree with Congresswoman McKinney's characterization."

An island native, Powell's heritage is not burdened with American slavery. Casting aspersions on McKinney's quite accurate characterization of Bush did not endear him with average black Americans. A member of a privileged class, Powell is out of touch with average black African Americans, just as the Bush Administration is out of touch with average Americans. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is a product of the average black experience. Being a mouthpiece for an illegitimate presidency does not lend Powell much credibility and even less as he defends a racist.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush promised to appoint judges to the courts that strictly construct the Constitution. If this is not racist, nothing is. The case law for these judges is the most racist and divisive in American jurisprudence. Strict construction leaves Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution intact. Bush is as much a racist as his relative, former President Richard Nixon. Bush labeled himself a racist.

Powell knew Bush was a racist when Bush supported flying the Confederate flag and promised to maintain those "traditional family values" by insuring a judicial system that strictly interprets the Constitution. In its Initial Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the US admitted racism still exists within its boarders. Someone please inform Powell that racism exists in America. He is a hypocrite for pretending his CEO, Resident Bush, is not a racist, when Bush prides himself on being one. Powell should be warned that millennium Toms are quickly shunned. Like Justice Clarence Thomas, blacks are beginning to see Powell as another black blazing hypocrite drowning us in denial.

Once the world's most admired business, Coke's sales and profits are down. Some 6,000 employees lost their jobs. According to the Crumpled Coke Can story, the layoffs will make room for the army of attorneys Coke will need when its consumers learn Diet Coke contains the poison commonly called aspartame or Nutra-Sweet. Coke knows it is selling poison!

Diet Coke is addictive, and its diet ingredient, aspartame, kills the unborn, mimics MS, erases memory and blinds. According to scientists in a study on monkeys, aspartame has a casualty rate of 86%. For better health, kick the Diet Coke aspartame habit!

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