Amnesty International Members:Amnesty International Members:
My name is John Burl Smith, Director of Communication for the Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation. Dedicated to salvaging America's youth, the foundation represents their interest in all relevant forums. This communiqué seeks information regarding an up coming conference Amnesty International is coordinating on police brutality in America in Geneva. Only a small sound byte appeared in the American news media, which contained neither contact information nor dates or specific location. Consequently, we are making an open appeal to Amnesty International for the opportunity to send a delegation to your conference to speak on behalf of American youth in general and young black males in particular.
African Americans are the only people who have been enslaved and never paid one penny in reparation. Subsequently, we have been maintained in a state of semi-slavery. Descendants of African slaves, we have never been granted full rights of citizenship, i.e. justice, freedom, and equality. Therefore, the brutality we suffer today at the hands of the police serves the same purpose as lynching at the beginning of this century.
The Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation has attempted to dialogue with political leaders in the United States, but all requests have fallen on deaf ears. Official responses reflect the attitude of their forebears, justifying the same hypocrisy. America's judicial system is an instrument of brutality, repression, and genocide for young African American males. We have appealed to the United Nations, and the Organization of African Unity to partition the International Court of Justice at The Hague on our behalf. Granting this request will provide an opportunity to voice African Americans grievances, and rebut America's claim of freedom, justice, and equality for all.
Amnesty International's efforts to highlight police brutality in America are exemplary. We commend your organization for representing defenseless people the world over. Without the courage shown by groups such as yours, millions would suffer untold horrors in silence. The Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation's web site archives, The Genocide Chronicles, reveal the urgency we feel in soliciting your support. I will thank you in advance for your kind consideration, and we await your timely response.
Sincerely, John Burl Smith
|
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || The DISH || Chronicles |
|
|
UNITED NATIONS UPDATE!!!!
To The Honorable Kofi Annan: Addendum to Dot's Smith's Study on the Economics of Poverty.
1998 State of the Chasm: Probing Hidden Ache
As the year closes, American economists and the President will offer assessments of America's economic health and ponder the potential for greater progress. Based on mainstream media accounts from news print to interviews broadcast across the American heartland, 1997 is being declared a real American economic success story. From this business-based assessment, some economists and even the President might presume to be in position to prognosticate about 1998. In light of the Asian contagion, domestic economic conditions, international conflict and turmoil, the gurus and political leaders might wish to include in the year-end review and forecast more than stock performance. Certainly, there is a place for capital markets in the economic welfare equation. No one can dispute that the outlook for labor and the market for human capital must be included. A thorough analysis of economic welfare entails the examination of numerous variables, most of which defy quantification. Nevertheless, any realistic analysis incorporates as many factors as possible in forecasting future conditions that resemble reality.
Tackling this awesome task entails looking at welfare variables conspicuously absent in the scripted Hollywood success story Americans are being sold. To say something useful about 1998, variables that scream obvious social pain and ache where mistakes were made and abuse runs rampant must find their way into the national welfare equation. The gurus and political leaders need a new broader perspective to grasp some of the more crucial variables. Because the vast majority of Americans view the economy from the bottom up, it is fitting to employ this perspective in assessing their collective economic health. And, in doing so, we highlight variables that factor reality in statements about the state and prognosis for the coming year. By identifying some of these, the 1998 State of the Chasm sheds light on the compelling variables of juvenile violence, campaign and government spending and foreign policy. These factors share a common thread that is woven into the country's social fabric.
In a country where the efficient employment of hypocrisy is handsomely rewarded, traditional American family values and crime make strange salacious bedfellows. En masse, American Christians embrace the death penalty. Their neighborhood churches seek protection against property crime behind burglar bars and high fences, while maximizing profits. America's most lucrative enterprise manufactures and markets weapons of destruction worldwide. On the domestic front, the industry supplies ample armament to carry out individual acts of violence and mass destruction in American homes, classrooms, on the streets and in factories. Religiously, American society inures its young to violence. Cloaked in family values and armed to the teeth, the carnage is broadcast live each week casting clean-faced teenagers terminating disputes with extreme prejudice. If not juveniles in institutions of learning, then frustrated adults are turning to deadly force to resolve workplace conflicts. "Going Postal" is contagious, spreading rapidly as more than just slang and the board game based on U.S. Postal Service employee-management relations. From domestic violence to hit-and-run road rage, America seems to be coming apart at its seam. Amazingly, televised reaction to the carnage is always the same. As if failing to grasp the most obvious connections is a good thing, Americans interviewed on CNN keep refraining from victim to witness: "This kind of thing just don't happen in Smallville, USA." Obviously, it does and with alarming frequency. America's leaders need to address these microeconomic explosions, and include in 1998's prognosis some remedy for the pent up hate festering in America's bosom waiting to erupt at a moment's notice.
When fourteen year-old Michael Carneal allegedly entered his Paducah, Kentucky high school armed with a small arsenal of five (5) weapons and two (2) sets of earplugs, the initial news report said the recent Lutheran convert believed the school's morning prayer group contained a bunch of hypocrites. True to mainstream news coverup, the alleged gunman's motive for mayhem went unexamined in a media frenzy to air trivial, i.e., interviews with the local district attorneys, police, supposed heroes, a bevy of victims, their families and any willing sidebar witnesses, ad nauseam. Later revelations reinforced the teen's initial comment. Michael Carneal, like so many, was picked on and bullied by others in his public high school. An educated guess would be -- those good Christian girls and boys praying before school every morning gave Michael hell during the school day. This pray and hateful play routine emulates their parents' practice of praying on Sunday and pragmatically laying aside Christian morals and ethics to maximize profits or something seamier the rest of the week. Those good Christians killed during Michael's reign of terror are representative of future American leaders. Starting young, they practice the elitism of superiority and privilege with the full support and backing of the school's faculty and the local community.
Were we to allow reality to intrude, chances are very good that the morning prayer group is not maintained by the teens, but adults behind the scenes. To believe otherwise is to accept the scenario that six (6) year old Jon Benet Ramsey killed herself, carried her dead body to the basement of her family's posh home, and wrote a ransom note. The Ramseys are rich. In America, rich people can coverup anything, and even get away with murder. Like the Ramseys, parents in Paducah are far from innocent. Psychologically, if not physically, Michael did not act alone; his community stood beside him as he repeatedly pulled the trigger. Sadly, truth will never enjoy the light of day; these good Christians will never accept their role in creating Michael Carneal. Paducah is everywhere America; its people pathetically practice denial. Good Christians prefer ignorance, rather than facing the truth and searching for solutions. In reality, young Carneal is as much a victim as the kids he killed and young Jon Benet; they are all victims of a society that preaches one thing and does something else entirely. Society pays for its contradictions. Perhaps, in light of this spate of violence, the most important thing for Americans to contemplate in promoting welfare in 1998 is the eradication of the hypocrisy Carneal sought to erase by terminating his classmates.
Rejecting Carneal's solution of wholesale killing, a great place to start eradicating hypocrisy is campaign financing. To stem the flow and quell the influence of large corporations and their CEO's on America's foreign and domestic politic, campaign finance reform is essential. The Corporate Accountability Project (CAP), Common Cause and Citizens Against Government Waste provide extensive corporate campaign finance information detailing how corporations and their powerful CEOs realize significant returns on their soft money investments. This information is readily available on the World Wide Web; it raises serious questions about the prudence of the Supreme Court tying spending dollars to exercising free speech. Representative democracy took a direct hit; it continues to receive a battering from the shortsightedness of wedding campaign spending to the First Amendment. In such an environment, rich people do ALL the talking. The rich purchase candidates outright that every day citizens can only cast a paper ballot for. Whose interests are served? Review the records of those whose interests are promoted by the U.S. Congress; examine the campaign contributors and connect the dots to beneficiaries of most favorable legislation and government spending in the private sector.
Without reform, the real danger in big money influence peddling is perhaps best expressed in statements attributed to a former American President.
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
(U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (Letter to Col. William F. Elkins) Ref. "The Lincoln Encyclopedia", Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY). According to CAP, the Civil War President was dead on in fearing for the Republic's continued survival. CAP reported that " of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are now global corporations, rather than countries."
Pervasive corporate influence over sovereign governments tends to erode meaningful political participation and systemically demeans representative democracy. Americans are justifiably becoming more cynical with each election and sordid revelation of corruption and abuse of power. Convinced all politicians do it, most Americans just shake their heads and become more apathetic. A recent CNN poll showed President Clinton's popularity among Americans remains high in spite of a concerted Republican effort to make it otherwise. Clinton remains popular because Americans are willing to overlook his "little" shortcomings. Cynically, given America's political quagmire, even soiled, Clinton remains far more attractive than the Conservative Republican alternative.
Because money talks, the U.S. is essentially controlled by the wealthy elite. At least in Clinton, the nation appears to have someone at its helm with a smidgen of conscience when giving tax money to rich people. Imagine if you will the American political landscape had a reconditioned Dole, inner Beltway pundit, resident and contender, become the next plastic President. Clinton's election and re-election were sheer provident. The man's a knight in shining armor, relatively speaking; he should be revered for saving America from itself under the circumstances. As President, in the heroic tradition of Lincoln, not because of his race initiative, but for saving the country from neo-conservatives. Had the private Dole controlled the public one, there would have been no end to the prescription of pain for the average American that august man would have recommended, while simultaneously advocating, approving and appropriating more corporate welfare for drug, tobacco, oil, automobile, healthcare and insurance companies. It would have been a travesty. As it is, Clinton is a relatively minor faux pas on the hallowed Presidency. In the dim light of history, he will rank highly among the great moral and ethical men who held the post before him, like the religious slave owners, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. So, the nation experiences some marginal disgrace by renting out Lincoln's bedroom and burying liars in Arlington National Cemetery. Who gives a sh__? Obviously, America has endured worse. However, Republicans seem bent on emphasizing and exposing every Presidential peccadillo and political indiscretion.
Like the sanctimonious hypocrites in the South following the Civil War, Republicans are plain sore losers needing to vent on Clinton for beating the big spenders at their own dirty game of using soft money to turn political campaign tricks. Only by employing standardized Republican practices was Clinton able to amass a "competitive" campaign warchest. The Republican opposition is sick with hating Clinton for winning and ruining their plan to milk more out of everything. Thanks to Clinton, fewer probes into inner- and outer-space to explore the efficacy of raping the unchartered dimensions of the universe will be launched at taxpayers' expense. Being persona non gratia with those Conservative Republicans endears Clinton to voters, and explains the whacked polls! Americans may be apathetic, but the faithful few still voting are not stupid. Keeping those profit hound conservatives out of the White House is a definite plus for everybody and everything in the universe from microscopic life forms to Bubba!
Even though America lucked out in the '96 Presidential election and acquired a leader with a modicum of conscience, the geyser of corporate welfare continues to spew. Unfortunately, Clinton is reluctant to use line item vetoes to plug the pork pipeline. Information on pork barrel spending grace the Web pages of Arizona's Senator John McCain, one of the few Congressmen advocating abolishing corporate welfare to decrease government spending. Americans can point proudly to McCain as one politician trying to end the federal budget drain. It is not enough! All Americans should examine McCain's pork pages and collectively repudiate those bellying up to the trough. This includes the amalgam of also rans and has beens from former Presidential contenders and other politicians to the virtual armies of corporate lawyers found most often lobbying Congress for dollars to increase the size of the federal budget devoted to corporate slop. More often than not, American Congressmen fork over more tax dollars, shamelessly along campaign contribution lines. In the 1996 Presidential campaign, Republicans received twice the contributions reported by Democrats from big business. The Republican controlled Congress proceeded to slop the hoggish contributors handsomely with legislation and/or direct payments. Common Cause's Report on 1996 Campaign Contributions reveals a moral and ethical vacuum when it comes to dialing for dollars. It is apropos the Speaker and occupants of the White House are the subjects of ethical violations.
Lincoln's scenario fits right in when obvious conflicts of interest are ignored, and politicians and big business are allowed to pursue profits at taxpayers' expense. This robbing the government scenario is played out and goes unfettered at every level of the United States' government. Political racketeering is an ideal compliment to unrestrained federal spending; it must be present to fill the trough for corporate porkers. While spoon feeding the greedy elite, American politicians espouse free markets and a less intrusive government for everyone else. Most Americans by now must be familiar with the Speaker's rhetoric in proposing deep welfare cuts in government spending, which translated into balancing the budget by cutting or eliminating government assistance to welfare mothers and other underprivileged Americans. To capture the real disparity in where cuts were made and abuse runs rampant, the corporate porkers get $104.3 billion to the $14.4 billion or 1% of the budget going to poor people. (Website: Who Gets Welfare? The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing, Inc., 1996).
Speaker Gingrich is the King of Pork Sloppers. His record on Capitol Hill for doling out to the rich is in a word-- remarkable. A legendary slop artist, Gingrich continues to oink less government. A pragmatic man of firm moral conviction, eliminating corporate welfare does not factor into Gingrich's equation for reducing government. The Speaker epitomize those politicians who believe it is acceptable to treat the government budget like a market to be exploited for personal profit. His actions suggest it is acceptable for taxpayers' dollars to line his pockets and enrich CEOs of large corporations in the great American entrepreneurial spirit. Nothing is more ludicrous than the arguments advanced by hypocritical political Newties. Sold out to big business, they continue mouthing senseless jargon about competition, the old "invisible hand" trick and limited government. These for profit politicians do America a grave disservice. Promoting the welfare of America is not their raison d'etre; these elected crooks protect and promote a narrow vested interest. Asininely, propagating unrealistic economic voodoo glosses over the incestuous relationship existing between corporate welfare and government spending. Unburdening taxpayers by removing the yoke of corporate pork will improve America's 1998 economic outlook. In addition, American leaders can stop saying one thing and doing something else. Eradicating this hypocrisy is a must.
If the domestic economic politic can be appropriately characterized as dubious and downright duplicitous, as personified in House Speaker Newt Gingrich, then American foreign policy is the piece de resistance. America's pragmatic business community and its elite enjoy an absolute economic advantage. The many are marginalized to support their luxurious standard of living. On a global scale, America's domestic economic peculiarities are mirrored in it's foreign policy with a similar level of sheer hypocrisy. To allies, trading partners, and potential political conquests, the United States essentially says--"Do as I say, not as I do." America overtly advocates a market economy with little or no government interference, yet American businesses rely heavily on the government's coffer for an array of economic benefits from direct payments to opening and controlling foreign markets. In such an environment, market economy is an oxymoron our political leaders should stop using for fear the rest of the world will come to view Americans as suffering from mad cow disease, rather than merely being swine.
Chief among the free marketeers who need to be stopped from dishing out dastardly doses of advice to Americans and foreign nations is Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and money supply manipulator. Greenspan provides a sterling example of paid henchmen espousing voodoo economics while succumbing to the public tendency to place foot in the mouth trying to make sense of a phoney model. Greenspan is a highly sought after speaker at elite functions. Portions of his recent Economic Club of New York address appeared on CNN and in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution (12-7-97). According to the daily, "Greenspan was optimistic about recovery prospects in Asia, but not unless the leaders in those countries --especially political leaders--reform their systems and allow market, and not political, forces to guide their economies." In the same article, referring to shoddy financial deals, Greenspan believes, "In a market economy, these distortions get worked out as excessive production slows to a halt." In a market economy based on the theory, prices decline inducing producers to decrease production. America consumer prices do not decline to support the notion its economy is market driven, rather than government orchestrated. If his advice is to be believed, the U.S. government should not be bailing out businesses, yet it does. Based on market ideology, its current level of spending is not only obscene, but runs counter to Greenspan's advice for other economies. It is little wonder America's 1997 foreign policy record is best characterized as dangerous, narrow-minded, shortsighted and glaringly hypocritical.
If NAFTA is indicative, America's foreign policy does little to aid the average worker, and ofttimes worsen economic conditions for America's families and working poor. While the U.S. unemployment rate is historically low, the rate does not reflect the true state of economic welfare in America. Far more people crowd the ranks of the poor, homeless, hungry and unemployed than the rate reflects. Not incorporated in this statistic are the underemployed, institutionalized, and discouraged. An objective review of this situation effectively shoots in the foot the foolish notion of rising economic tides lifting all boats. The poor grew poorer, while profits on Wall Street exploded. Too many Americans got ground to dust by stampeding bulls to believe in a tide's boost. America's electorate is apathetic and powerless to effect meaningful political change because the rich do all the talking. Generations of Americans are marginalized to maintain a high standard of living for the elite, creating huge economic disparities. Some refer to the resulting economic gap as the Chasm of Inequality. (See Yohannes Sharriff Smith, T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution, Intuit Publishing Co., 1997).
America's welfare record in other countries is equally impressive. Masquerading as foreign policy, the same formula for economic success employed domestically is exported around the world. Marginalization is the most likely consequence of close encounters with liberal democracy ala American style. U.S. foreign policy aim is to marginalize other nation's natural resources to promote narrow vested interest. This is precisely why U.S. foreign policy lacks direction and cohesion. It is the world's avowed leader, yet it continually intervenes in the global arena to promote big businesses and wealthy folks. America's foreign policy in the Middle East, as personified in Madelyn Albright's failure to corral Israel into honoring its commitments to establishing a lasting peace in the region, just highlights the pitfalls of a fragmented foreign policy based on dollar diplomacy. Instead of shouldering its global responsibility by fostering a steadfast policy to promote international economic welfare, it plays the bully. When the U.S. Nimitz sailed to the Persian Gulf, ostensibly to protect Americans and the free world from weapons of mass destruction, America reiterated its commitment to armed intervention, if necessary, to harvest the regions' oil reserves for its elitist advantage. Employing threats of violence to shore up global confidence in the U.S. dollar is acceptable U.S. foreign policy. Because it has worked in the past, it is deemed a pragmatic approach to U.S. international relations.
Given domestic violent responses to such gross hypocrisy being played out in schools, on streets and in the American workplace, one is forced to question the security consequences of U.S. foreign policy. More important than potential foreign violence, given U.S. military prowess, American employees/consumers do not realize a net benefit from the government's duplicity. In viewing domestic and foreign policy from the bottom up, any benefits gained by America's actions are reaped by the minority elite. While America's electorate appear largely impotent, a growing number of are fighting back; a notable success is their defeat of Fast-track, a trade agreement privilege exercised by Presidents as far back as former President Jimmy Carter, who used his authority in such a way that a cogent case can be made against continuing the practice. From a Presidential perspective, Carter is an object lesson on government pork and fast-track authority. His claim to fame is firmly rooted in the groundnut and U.S. foreign policy in Africa.
Citizens Against Government Waste did a web site reality check on groundnut (peanuts) that is a must read. According to the site, the U.S. Agriculture Department began shelling out the peanut dole back during the Great Depression. The department's boss, Dan Glickman, is not only continuing the long standing subsidy, but is increasing it by 3%. Artificially inflating domestic peanut prices, this corporate welfare provides peanut farmers and landowners an advantage unexplained in the context of market competition. Peanut farmers rack up huge profits selling peanuts at substantially higher than global market prices. In fact, the price support means Americans pay 74.3 percent more than people in the rest of the world for peanuts, based on the $610 government-price subsidy versus the global price of $350 per ton. (Citizens Against Government Waste and Atlanta Journal/Constitution, 12-7-97). So, not only does government pork unfairly benefit wealthy farmers and large agri-businesses like Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), it artificially inflates consumer prices. When the government pays farmers not to produce, it controls supply and guarantees prices, a market economy ceases to exist.
Former President Carter is perhaps best known as Mr. Peanut, and his visit to Africa during his Presidency. Nigeria, a leading exporter of agricultural products before the discovery of oil, became a net importer of groundnut, one of its chief agriculture exports under Carter. Fast-track negotiations derailed Nigeria's peanut production for years. Feathering the nest of a peanut farmer, America hamstrung Nigeria's agricultural sector under the guise of aiding its industrial development. Carter-style fast-track helped destroy the Nigerian economy, but his coffers grew, as did his global share of the peanut market. This is a prime example of the type of duplicity that enriches former Presidents and other politicians building financial dynasties on the backs of the many. Sabotaging Nigeria's agricultural sector did not lower American consumer peanut prices. Because no one in Congress is screaming about farmers and big agri-business, like former President Jimmy Carter and ADM, getting filthy rich at the public's expense, derailing fast-authority is a feather in the cap of consumers. One can only hope Carter is sated with his little rope a dope Ali maneuver against Nigeria and American peanut consumers. Maybe an expensive library to pay homage to his prowess and a Georgia-based dynasty makes honesty and integrity acceptable sacrifices for a place at the pork trough. On the other hand, maybe his zeal for building homes for the homeless and poor is a real guilty conscience penitence for raping so many. Carter is after all a Democrat; they do tend to show some humanity. However, despite Madelyn Albright's assurances from Clinton to the African nations she recently visited that America does not seek to marginalize Africa, history advises and provides ample evidence to the contrary. Africans would do well to be leery of Madelyn's duplicitous overtures of cooperation and offers of assistance.
Preservers of the status quo will be quick to dismiss its duplicity claiming the greater good of creating jobs for Americans justifies lying even to its own citizens. Its tradition of domestic and international rape does not translate into more jobs and an increase in American economic welfare. With business and government collusion, consumer prices rarely decline. Instead, payroll costs are reduced by laying off large numbers of workers, using temporary agencies, part-time employment, outsourcing and privatizing to prevent any squeeze on profits. Huge multinationals do not adhere to any competitive economic model. These industrial giants are monopolies wielding awesome economic and political power. Prices are not allowed to fall, businesses are not allowed to fail, instead people get laid off. Greenspan is recommending other nations, pursue a similar path by allowing these multinationals freer reign and influence over their economies, as a condition of IMF assistance. Translation: More pain for the average man around the globe.
Under Republican guidance and Democratic acquiescence, America reinvented government by reducing its workforce, using big business' play book for trimming payrolls. It "balanced" the budget by decreasing benefits to individuals. America's economy should now be efficient, pared to the bare bones to protect profits. Now, along comes the Asian economic flu. For Americans residing at the bottom of the Chasm, already outsourced and dismissed from America's economic welfare equation, even a flu shot will not prevent the body aches, chills and cold from the virus we are certain to contract. By ending welfare to business, America could balance the budget in one year with enough surplus to impact the federal deficit, and provide a modest tax cut to the working poor and middle class. If economic conditions continue to deteriorate, Clinton will need some stimulus package to prevent the economy from the brink of a depression. Any stimulus employed must include honesty and integrity among elected representatives. A moral high ground accompanied by appropriate actions should lead to less government intervention. Ending domestic and foreign policy hypocrisy is the best possible remedy for assuring America's socio-political and economic health. It could conceivably lead to reductions in the cost of practically everything American's consume --improving the overall standard of living. Even those making minimum wage at the bottom of America's Chasm of Inequality benefit from less government. With less of this type government spending in private sector, even the poor can afford to eat Carter's peanuts. And, by eradicating hypocrisy, America could arrest the growing tendency among its citizens to "Go Postal" to resolve conflicts. While this behavior is expected in a country pieced together with the moral and ethical baling wires of pragmatic Christian values and Wild West lawlessness, the country can not afford to revert to its glory days. The rest of the world is unwilling to play America native to rich folks' claim to a manifested destiny. After all, this is the dawn of a new millennium.
Consumer Fraud Alert Boycotted Places & Things:
TAP, Carey Paul Ford, Denny's, Winn-Dixie, Rich's, Eddie Bauer, Texaco, Nike, Wachovia, IRS, AVIS Rentacar, Walmart, Pharmaceutical companies, White Psychiatrists and other legal drug pushers like the Defense Department, ARC, Atlanta City Government, the Georgia State Flag, New York City, Wannabees and Jigaboos, hair salons, fast food restaurants, Santa Claus, Meat like Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas hams and hot dogs, fake Christmas trees, Contract with America, privatization, Fast-track, NAFTA, neo-slave masters like Norrell and other temporary agencies, automobile insurance companies, unscrupulous automobile mechanics, Precision Tune, churches with fences, government subsidies, Greenspan's addresses, paid Newties like the Speaker of the House, Mississippi Lotts, and other weapons of mass destruction.....DotBack || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Second Class Humans Worst Than Welfare!
The major problem with policy made in the heat of frenzy, like no parole, in no consideration is given to collateral damage or fallout. An excellent example is a state law going into effect 1-198 which fines inmates who break prison rules. Fines are assessed for minor offices as ALoose shirttails, stepping off a sidewalk, not keeping control of their tempers, little actions they take and things they say,@ according to Thomas County Sheriff Carlton Powell. He explained the logic behind the policy further; "it's a hardship to families that will make the family, because families are the people who are hurt.@ Feeling the pain of having a loved one incarcerated in Georgia=s prison, expressed her frustration this way. AThere=s a lot of people in there where their families cannot afford to send them money. Some whose husband is serving ten (10) tears for burglary at Telfair State Prison in Helena, who have to send money from part-time jobs.@
The way the system works is Money for inmates must come from families and friends, Because the Georgia Constitution prohibits paying prisoners to work. Inmates are allowed to set up accounts for the receipt of funds, they are not allowed to have cash on their person. These fund are for stamps, snacks, and personal hygiene items, and prisoners must pay $5 to per visit to the infirmary, as well as other charges.@ According to Teresa Nelson, AThe Civil liberties Union feels A these fines pose legal problems ( First Amendment rights base on being wards of the state) for Georgia, if the Corrections Department does not adopt more humane and objective policies for settling allegations of rule violations. When a prison is charged with breaking a rule, his case is heard by a prison guard, there is a chain of appeals, beginning with the warden.@
The bottom line is about 54,000 inmates were found guilty last year, amounting to 75 or 80 percent of those charged. Mrs. Moon=s assessment is ANobody=s found innocent down there. Nobody.@ Georgia=s prison system will collect approximately $216,000 in fines a year. Fines are deposited in the states treasury.@ This policy goes back to the retribution attitude Ronald Regan brought to government which expresses a vindictive and insensitive policy toward rehabilitation.
This attitude is reflected clearly in Georgia. AInmates must pay to replace any prison property damaged, medical expenses if they are hurt, and expenses associated with lawsuits they file. If an inmate does not have funds at the time of their fine, prison officials simply wait until they receive money from home, and then collect the fines. This reporter is flabbergasted at such a policy. This policy amounts to crucial and unusual punishment, not to mention holding families hostage to a neo-slavery system base on retribution. A question, which has gone unanswered in all of the interviews, is AWhat if an inmate does not have anyone on the outside, how are the fines handled at release. If such inmates can avoid paying their fines, this amounts to disparity treatment.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
January 13, 1999
Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton
First Lady of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D. C. 20500
Madam:
The present political climate seems to have produced a sense of urgency in planning and communicating the President's legislative agenda for 1999. On the face of it, one might think circumstances are against us, and desperate measures are required. To the contrary, a unique opportunity presents itself. The only possible drawback in the present environment is a lack of aggressiveness in pursuing ways to implement effective strategies, while Congressional Republicans are boiling in their own stew.
Advantages accrue when the opposition is caught without an exit strategy and cannot extract itself from a quagmire. It is agreed that Republicans are so bounded up with impeachment, they are unable to mount a formidable challenge to any initiative. Their lack of a relevant national agenda leaves them without a consensus on new programs. Therefore, they are without any focus on how to proceed. Finally, their intense partisanship has produced a very negative image in the minds of citizens, resulting in their diminished credibility.
Republicans are oblivious to dark clouds presenting ominous threats. Their current fascination diverts attention away from the crisis among our youth. Young people face a dire future when comparing society's understanding of what really goes on in their lives. Institutions have changed. They no longer respond to young people. The prevailing opinion is that young people must change to fit the institution. What society teaches youth is it does not have time for or patience with young people who make mistakes. Congress rejects these issues as indicators of a youth crisis, instead labeling many behaviors as criminal. America's young people deserve better.
Executive authority in the Constitution provides the President with the power to move the nation forward, even though he is saddled with the present Congress. By aggressively using Executive Orders (EO), the President can begin initiatives and implement pilot projects, which will gather support when funding is acquired from Congress. The idea is to develop an approach that prevents Republicans from nullifying the President's agenda through inaction. This strategy will make Republicans regret time spent bogged down with impeachment.
Below are three (3) areas, which are ideal for testing these strategies.
1) Issue an Executive Order establishing a commission to develop ways of improving participation in the democratic process. Trends reflecting participation levels for all groups are dismal. Even more disheartening are those for young Americans. Trust in political institutions has eroded precipitously during the nineteen hundreds. Belief in the system as an avenue for change is less than in the 1930s. Unchecked by 2010, a minority of American voters will be exercising all the political power; the remainder will be spectators. Such a national effort may help young citizens regain trust in the power of the vote, and increase confidence that participation in the democratic process will improve their future.
2) A commission to study the changing dynamics within the American family is desperately needed. All concepts relating to the family were passed down as functions in agrarian societies, or developed during the industrial revolution. Today, the structure, roles and character of the American family are undergoing tremendous change. The definition of what constitutes family is an unclear apparition of ghost generations. Conversely, society has not recognized the profound demand this reality place on the political or economic chic of America. Childcare, healthcare, education, retirement and work place issues affecting family cohesion are only a few concerns weighing heavily on young people who see the old model as an inadequate paradigm. Who will take the lead in working out these issues?
3) A council to study the impact of the current approach to juvenile justice on society. This question is inexorably bounded to the value a society places on it youth. Perceived difference based on a narrow religious constituency determines deviant behavior. Such subjective judgements play a major role in allocating resources to the young. Does rehabilitation play a role in society's demand for proper behavior, or should society simply give up on youth when it locks them away? Can we as a society afford to create a criminal class of young without fear for the adult criminals it produces? Does our society have any responsibility for the conditions young people face? Whose children will be safe, if we leave our grand children such a society?
Madam, I am convinced, looking at your work saving America's historic treasures, you would set a splendid example for the nation, if you chaired a commission. These issues are vital to the future of freedom in the world. Now, more so than ever before, you and your family know how easy it is to lose the protection of liberty. Historically, the President will be judged by what he does, not by what is said about him. Our task is to keep the dream alive!
Sincerely, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
We Never Learn !!!
Aspiring politician Linda Schrenko, Georgia Board of Education Superintendent, bemoaned her predicament last week in an AJC article (2-12-99), State school chief seeks new allies in government. Feeling shut out of the new educational agenda, Schrenko fired off a letter to Governor Roy Barnes Wednesday. Although, she complained of excessive partisanship affecting education, her statement appeared to be an exist strategy out of her November 3rd declaration not to seek re-election after her 2002 term expires. Apparently, Schrenko noticed what everyone else has. Specifically, Republicans have lost credibility, and will be desperately seeking candidates without strong right wing religious conservative ties. Therefore, she wants to remain in play.
Elementary here is Georgia's children are suffering while professional politicians turn their future into a political football. Schrenko appears more concerned about her political career than our children performance level. Voluminous statistics reflecting the dismal performance of Georgia's students was discussed in A Chasm of Inequality @ (The DISH 2-12-99). Six hundred fifty-two schools failing state standards, and nationally, Georgia ranks at the bottom of performance standards. However, the superintendent offers only more discipline and a threat to run for a third term. Obviously, the majority of students affected by her disastrous tenure are black. Prompting the question, A Does Ms Schrenko reflect arcane southern attitudes about education in general, and educated blacks in particular?" Back in the day when whites exercised absolute power, segregationists viewed the function of government as rewarding whites, and punishing blacks.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
President Bill Clinton's African initiative, America's present effort to bring its foreign policy in line with its global grandiloquence, represents the potential to redefine human relations in America. Certainly, all who hope to begin this new millennium with world peace as the ultimate goal applaud Mr. Clinton's initiative. Humanity prays the brutality and carnage exhibited during previous millenniums will fade from human personality as time from our lives. However, with global peace as the objective, those viewing the African initiative process from the outside involuntary cannot help shuddering at the prospect of another top-down program of government solutions. Inclusion is essential to global peace, though by no means guaranteed in a trickled down process. To insure the President's initiative is an inclusive arrangement, African Americans require direct access to and impact on strategy and deployment efforts, beginning with the enabling phase of whatever eventuates. By committing to certain levels of participation and management for both sides of the Atlantic, Africa and African Americans are part of the resulting structure. At a minimum, this is required to ensure this initiative promotes world peace, and not suffer the fate of its predecessors.
Passing the laser scanner of history over negative aspects of America's foreign policy is not the intent of this report. However, it does present an historic perspective on the reasons African Americans and Africans do not enjoy the same type of relationship other ethnic groups enjoy with their homelands. In addition, it proposes an alternative to the status quo. Principally, this discourse reflects the difficulties encountered during the ill-fated African adventure of Dedrick "Teddy" Withers. Withers' lessons learned and earned the hard way are more than commentary. His attempts to establish relations with Africa began in 1974, shortly after his election to the Tennessee General Assembly. Posthumously recognizing Rep. Withers brings his African efforts full circle. For many southern African Americans, Rep. Withers' initiative maps the landscape for African trade; his experiences provide cogent reflections. Dedrick passed away in 1996. During his brief lifetime, he revered Pan-Africanism, viewing it as the only viable strategy for African American survival. African roots grow deeply in Rep. Withers' family. He is the son of Ernest C. Withers, Sr., one of the first eight (8) African Americans to integrate the Memphis, Tennessee police department in 1948. Teddy established a similar precedent when he was elected the youngest legislator in the history of Tennessee in 1974; his grassroots campaign was the first truly successful effort of its kind in Memphis.
Following his election, Rep. Withers= team of supporters developed a strategic plan to address poverty and depravation in the black community. His team included Richard L. Kirksey, Jr., founder of Big Brothers Jr. Achievers, Amy Evans, legislative coordinator, Dot M. Smith, welfare economist, Vincent Taylor and Michael A. Hitchings, youth representatives, and psychologist, John B. Smith. While the implementation and coordination of the plan remain questionable, its intellectual underpinnings are sound. Indeed, one can assess the current African initiative by employing the socioeconomic and political groundwork provided in the research and writings of Dot M. Smith. Among her treatises are: The Strategic Significance of the Southern African Region: The Thrust for Dominance, Recession and Unemployment: A Retrospective Analysis of the Economic Welfare Loss, and Automation and Technological Unemployment. The Withers= strategic plan contained two major objectives. First, it advanced a set of national goals for addressing problems prevalent in the African American community via reparations and the establishment of mutually beneficial trade relations with the African continent. Second, it identified short and long term strategies to support grassroots level implementation of those goals. The national agenda, AThe Minority Report,@ was prepared for the 1974 Democratic Party=s Mid-Term Convention in Kansas City. Rep. Withers presented it to several discussion groups. Attendees included then Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, now deceased Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, and the only African American Presidential candidate to be placed in nomination at a Democratic convention, the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm.
Rep. Withers proposed utilizing the United Nations as a springboard for reaching the continent through individual ambassadors. Dating back before Marcus Garvey, the State Department has adhered to a policy of resistance to African American efforts to establish independent relationships with Africa. This policy and the attitude fostering it exiled one of America=s greatest statesmen, Pan-Africanism protagonist, Dr. Paul Robeson. Roadblocks and a glaring lack of support from the federal government sabotaged Rep. Withers= initiative. The State=s antagonist tactics blocked access to virtually all trading arenas except one. Dominating African trade then, as it does today, Rep. Withers= efforts were reduced to dealing solely with agribusiness exports. This discriminatory system and the hostile business environment in which African Americans must operate lie at the heart of the Withers= initiative failure.
In spite of adamant State opposition, Rep. Withers= efforts provided a tiny portal to the outside world for Memphians desperate to connect with their roots. Rep. Withers= African trade experiences with white companies is a lesson in Africa Hustle 101. After a series of introductory meetings with different groups representing various interests, wining and dining, and a junket or two, it was time to do business. With no assistance from the State Department, Rep. Withers was a very little fish in a very big pond. One can always tell when sharks are in the water. Lots of pearly whites are exposed, while the entourage gets smaller and smaller. The finale for Rep. Withers= project came like musical chairs. Everyone originally assigned to the project were replaced; everything came crashing down. Withers= strategic plan fell victim to the same set of unwritten guidelines that have governed African Americans since their arrival on America=s shores as slaves. These were the first African exports imported to work in the southern agribusiness. The Withers= experience is vintage American; it is widely understood that any African American unwilling to play the face man is cut out entirely. This is African American Hustle 101.
ICIM does not oppose President Clinton=s effort on behalf of Sub-Saharan Africa. Everyone acknowledges this region=s dire needs. The objective is increasing the scope of what can be accomplished with the same economic effort, if conceptual adjustments are made. Presently, everyone is focusing on what is being done for Africa. All considerations are directed toward operations on the ground there. Lost in the shuffle are considerations for activities taking place on this side of the Atlantic. Realizing the huge profits from this deal requires American workers. Through this report, ICIM, Inc.=s Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation envisions a means of satisfying all interests in a less competitive win-win environment, while accomplishing the major objectives of increased trade and global peace.
As previously stated, had the federal government acted as an earnest broker for Rep. Withers and others, we would enjoy independent relations with Africa, hence eliminating the need for the present exercise. That not being the case, African Americans are in the same position as Africans, needing assistance. This major drawback, observed in previous projects, is evident in the current exercise. Like drought, the absence of venture capital locks African Americans into sharecropper arrangements. With no control over crucial capital resources, the seeds of these efforts fell on barren soil. In Withers= case, his inability to maintain close contact with key players spelled doom for his project. Because old contacts were continually replaced with new ones, he was forced into the untenable position of always starting over, going from one financier to another with similar results. Withers found himself going in circles, trapped in the catch 22 that has caged African Americans since the beginning of slavery.
If viewed from the proper perspective, the present African initiative can serve as a means of addressing claims of reparations or as a form of affirmative action, and would not affect any existing contracts or job status. America will never have a better opportunity to structure a situation where African Americans can form the foundation of what will be built. Most of what will become African trade has yet to be created. The infrastructure necessary has not gone to the architects. The necessary communication networks are not programmed. The essential dockside support systems, as well as, regional distribution channels are not even being discussed. If most African Americans were to take part in some business endeavor involving African trade, this would not satisfy half of the total demand of Africa. Undertaking the present initiative from this perspective will make President Clinton=s initiative the greatest achievement of an American President since the Civil War. Done properly, leaders today can leave future generations a legacy of true peace and prosperity.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
It=s Been a Long Time Coming, But I Know, Change Is Going to Come!
This article=s title is from a blues ballad by Sam Cook. Performed during the late 1950's, it is a heart wrenching confessional bemoaning the pains, trails and tribulations of life, while offering the elixir of hope, reeking of slavery=s legacy. As participants in the first National Summit on Africa held at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia, May 6-10,1998, America and the world experienced Sam=s prophecy in all it celestial splendor. Affectionately know as "Mr. Cool," during his life, Sam demonstrated that even if one does not possess great skills, one can make great efforts. If one is imaginative, innovative, and trusts his/her intuition, he/she can soar. Learning to bin notes, the southern "compare trouvere" created such melodious crescendos. He was proclaimed the pied piper of soul.
Unfortunately to some, what attendee received during the summit was nothing more than a song and dance. Given the harmony displayed by Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich crooning along, skeptics feel no good can come of this. However, this reporter was immensely gratified at the site of so many people gathered to discuss problems confronting the motherland. For Africa, Sam=s lyrics, AIt=s been too hard living but I=m afraid to die,@ is a true notation of Africa=s swan song since colonialism. Conversely, in the United States of America, the wins of change are blowing the summit=s African symphony in the right direction.
DISH will provide an overview of the summit and its implications in a subsequent issue. This article simply communicates basic ideas behind the current effort. First, the National Summit on Africa is working to create a public forum to debate issues, plan strategy, and implement initiatives which impact Africa positively. Memories and emotions reminiscent of the civil rights movement were triggered by the comradery. Contrary to those days of blood and degradation however, this was an international gathering of imminent personalities such as President Mwelimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania now retired, Minister Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira of Zimbabwe, the Honorable Jack Kemp, Dr. Della McMillian, University of Florida, The Executive Director of CFA, the irrepressible Mel P. Foote, U S Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, and President Henri Konan Bedie, of Cote d=Ivoire among many others. The spiritual leader of the summit, Ambassador Andrew Young serves as one of the co-chairs, set the tone of the summit, AAfrica does matter.@
Ambassador Young granted DISH an interview during the summit. It was one of his renowned strolling talks between his many meetings during the five day summit. The Ambassador and this reporter faced some bitter truths during this brief conversation. Responding to a comment regarding a comparison of the civil rights movement and the significance of the summit, he waxed stoically. AYes it is true, African Americans have needed a spark since the death of Dr. King. His death knocked us off balance; it was like being stopped in mid stride. And yes, it was a devastating blow. We knew it could happen, but no one was prepared for the reality.@ As he spoke, he voiced a shared observation. AI made bad decisions, but we all did. No one could have fore seen what was about to happen and the impact it would have on everyone and everything.@ This reporter remembers the pain, turmoil, confusion, and recriminations. It was like Rome after Julius Caesar. The emperor=s crown lay in the gutter for whomever desired to pick it up. Ambassador Young sounded the refrain of hope for change beginning this article. AWith this summit all of us get a second chance to get it right. Hundred of the thousands of individuals around the world have mobilized to place Africa on the front burner of international concerns. When this process is completed, Africans and African Americans will never again struggle to tap into the consciousness of the world. At the close of this National Summit on Africa in November 1999, linkages established will allow African Americans and others of like minds to speak with one voice. That will truly be the fulfillment of Dr. King=s dream.@
Ambassador Young, like Sam Cook, is deeply rooted in the gospel which provided both with an abiding fate in the possibility of change not only in the individual, but in his circumstances. Although not a crooner, as either of these dynamic gentlemen, nevertheless, this reporter enthusiastically adds his voice to the growing chorus harmonizing mother Africa=s significance. Many take this need for granted, but it is as Ambassador Young says AAfrica does matters!@
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Children of Fear Watching Falling Stars With a Poet
by John B. Smith
On June 1-3, 1998, the Georgia Council on Child Abuse held its 14th annual Training Symposium at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia to drive home AThe Power of Prevention.@ Jill Breland of GCCA spoke about the symposium=s purpose. AGCCA presents this conference each year as a training session for professional and lay persons working on behalf of children. Our goal is to provide information about trends, techniques, and state of the art developments in the area of child abuse.@ Gatherings, such as this, allow groups and individuals to present new, innovative and creative approaches to child abuse prevention. In addition to reporting on the symposium, The DISH=s editorial staff wanted to share with participants ICIM, Inc.=s commitment to youth, a series of programs developed through its research initiatives. These programs are conducted through the Richard L. Kirksey Memorial Foundation.
ICIM=s commitment to youth concept is centered around T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution. This article=s title appropriately comes from the book=s Lesson Three. In this lesson, author Yohannes Sharriff Smith, like most young people today, found himself trapped by life=s circumstances without any real choices. Overwhelmed by expectations, feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, life turned a murky ash gray. The thought AI will never get it right, and even if I do, it will not be good enough@ hovered like El Nino. Waylaid by the pressure cooker of immaturity, rational thoughts lost respect, and wacked-out schemes seemed lucid. Desperation became his constant companion. Suddenly, the once mild mannered young man enrolls in the cult of us versus them, or me versus the world.
How could a young person come to feel this way? What kind of trouble - meaning crime - did he get himself into in order to feel so desperate? T.H.I.N.C. answers these questions and shares Yohannes= lessons of living and learning. T.H.I.N.C. provides a lifeline for other young people; it is a beacon of hope for those struggling to find clarity, and wishing to reduce the space separating humans - maybe not enough to touch, but no longer like ships in the night.
It is clear from interviews at the symposium with Lindy Smith of Parent and Children Together from Decatur, Alabama, Jason Woods of Bibb County DFACS/CPS from Macon, Marcia Wilson of Richmond County DFACS from Augusta, and others, America=s dilemma is young people and adults see the problem fundamentally differently. Consequently, what adults propose as solutions, young people ignore or reject out right. Concerns young people feel and believe are theirs by right, adults trample at will. Adults feel the problems are not enough discipline and youth church attendance. Whereas, youth are convinced too much discipline is the problem. Furthermore, they feel one gets church everywhere, at school, on the radio and TV; it even knocks at the door.
Unscientific though it may be, this survey identifies the chasm dividing young and old in this society. The fraying of social cohesion is the El Corazon of this matter; it is a language everyone understands. Denying the facts will not change the reality of Springfield, Pearl, Paducah, Jonesboro, and others. In these wars, all sides lose. What will the survivors reap as spoils? Will they be harvested by some opportunistic dictator?
Children of Fear Watching Falling Stars with a Poet metaphorically represents the desperate battle human being=s fight trying to hold onto cherished beliefs in the face of totally disconfirming information. At some point, one must cease questioning reality and begin to examine one=s beliefs. America believes children are either inherently evil and cannot be saved, or that they are works in progress and can be improved. America is again at an important crossroads. It must reaffirm its commitment to justice, fairness, freedom of expression, and equality for all. The shame of slavery was not just in what it did to Africans, but what it did to the American psyche in order to justify slavery=s existence. Once a nation accepts discriminating against any of its members, the rights of all are in peril. "The wages of sin is death." If India can Pak-its-stan with an Armageddon road show, everyone can party until doomsday!
Cherokee County, Georgia is keeping a 13-year-old boy locked up until his trial for allegedly threatening classmates and teachers. Adults threaten others daily, and nothing is done. Salem=s witch-hunting is alive and well in Georgia. Where is the Civil Liberties Union?
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Cloud of Suspicion !!
The current Republican strategy is a thinly veiled make over of the southern plantation system during the antebellum south. Until the 1960s, the instrument of southern political power was segregation. As during slavery, segregationists used the cloud suspicion to isolate blacks. This pincer-wedge maneuver was designed to keep white women from viewing slaves sympathetically, while forcing them to support slavery, and accept domination by white men. Projected larger than life, efforts to impeach the President were hatched with this same strategy in mind. Southern conservative religious zealots must break the bond created by the civil rights movement between blacks and white women. These forces have always been an antithetical to any gains made by this group during the intervening years.
The wedge in the Republicans strategy is dividing women on the issue of sexual harassment, and reproductive freedom. Women would be pincered as a political voice, a cloud of suspicion grows as to what women concerns to support. Injecting the cloud of suspicion was developed to perfection during slavery, and was the reagent in maintaining the wedge between slaves and white women. The psychology underlying the cloud was, A All niggers lie, you know that. Name one you can trust.@ At that point, one could not persist without drawing suspicion upon one self. Trapped, white women went along, and accepted domination.
Women being divided and encircled is the bases of male dominance. Tragedies awaiting women are mirrored in the suffering of women in Walton County Georgia over fifty years ago. Women of Walton County were trapped in a system of domination so complete, they saw each other as the enemy. Gangs of white men terrorized, raped, and lynched black men who spoke up, represented the law. The most notorious event was the murder of two black couples at Moore=s Ford in 1948. As during slavery, white women accepted domination, and looked the other way while their husbands raped black women as a matter of policy. The cloud of suspicion makes one conscious of being a woman, black, gay, liberal, therefore you can become a target.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Dialogue On Race: The Urban Crisis!!
Western Man views himself as the hand which turns the universal clock, rather than one of the many gears which help keep the hands moving. Unlike time, human beings are emotionally laden, ruled by individual passion. Pressed to the wall and forced to respond, inconsistency becomes our true nature. The hand of time rasps unemotionally man=s role in the universal cycle. That distillation titrates human events, reflect the true worth of ones life in history=s mirror.
Historians describe the 1960s and 70s as a crisis period for America=s cities. Accordingly, they were deemed expendable. Opposing segregation drenched the United States Constitution in the blood of black children, and flowed into a second Civil War. Segregationists prevent blacks from gaining political power and controlled their economic development. Racist southern Democrats, Dixiecrats as they were known, represented the party will. FDR=s ANew Deal@ entrenched Dixiecrats and silicified the South.
The Supreme Court=s decision in Brown v Board of Education and subsequent edict Aall deliberate speed,@ inflamed white passions. Whites were committed to segregation forever. Pursuant to that goal, whites elected demigods advocating interposition, nullification, states rights, even secession. A crisis mentality developed reflecting their double bind. Impaled on the crucifix of racism, and feeding their racist impulses, whites elected politicians espoused the most outrageous racist policies. Conversely, those elected were not motivated by civic concerns. Gratuitously, these hooded politicians served a plethora of economic interests.
For instance, Atlanta, Georgia, AThe Black Mecca,@ adopted the limited participation model. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.=s assassination prompted Mayor Ivan Allen to give blacks political control, but whites maintained the purse strings. He integrated some neighborhoods and schools. Allen conceded a few high profile jobs, and Atlanta became an equal opportunity employer. Considering the time and the meager experience blacks possessed, accepting this deal seemed a very enlighten approach.
Under the guise of AThe Urban Crisis,@ Dixiecrats organized white resistance using bank red lining, closing off home sells in white communities to blacks, establishing segregated schools in churches, and facilitating white flight. The idea was to destroy the urban tax base, and drain inner cities of resources. Whites overriding concerns were blocking civil rights advances, and controlling black economic development. Dixiecrat backroom deals created quasi-legislative bodies which subsumed all responsibility for economic development in areas where blacks gained political power. Dixiecrats maintained control through boards and commissions like the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. This legacy lives on today in the Atlanta Regional Commission, local Arts Councils, Atlanta Empowerment Zone Committee, The Atlanta Project, and Central Atlanta Project, etc. Capturing government funds ear marked for urban areas, or serving as gatekeepers and conduits through which request for funding must be submitted, these overarching boards and commissions occupy strategic positions. Funneling resources to benefit white inner-city enclaves, such commissions are catch basins, the embodiment of Ataxation without representation@ for blacks.
Although white politicians scrimmaged for control of local resources, everyone agreed on segregation, until Dr. King=s assassination. Changing public perceptions of segregation and those espousing it, forced accommodation. Dixiecrats acknowledged segregation=s wrongs, and adopted the Ivan Allen model, appeasing blacks.
Antithetically, Republicans were quick to recognize that racial hatred was stronger than party loyalty. Opportunistically, Republicans saw civil rights gains as the opening needed to crack the solid south. Desperate for power, Republican fiends fanned flames fueling fanatics fighting for financial favors from farmers. They opposed busing, open housing, full and fair employment, affirmative action, women, gays, and all remedy proposed to alleviate suffering and inequalities blacks endured. Groveling in the outhouse of deception like opossums, Republicans recruited well known Dixiecrats like Sen. John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and Jesse Helm to lead the attack on civil rights. Simultaneously, the likes of Thad Cochran, Newt Gingrich, and Trent Lott were elevated, and the southern axis took control of the Republican Party.
A
The Urban Crisis,@ became the AContract With America,@ something on which whites could unite. Newt Gingrich and the Republicans dressed their wolf in sheep=s clothing, and took control of Congress in 1994. Today, the hand of time turns America=s face back to the looking class. Newt and his boys want to take America back to AReaganomics,@ and the social policies of the 1950s. Rapping themselves in the veil of Caesar=s wife, they hope to drive the President of The United States of America from office by branding him a liar. Not speaking candidly about sex is no worst hypocrisy than selling tax cuts, and AThe Contract With America.@as reform. This bogus document is a ATrojan horse@ designed to disguise the Christian Coalition=s rise to power. No matter what Newt and the Republicans claim time has revealed the truth, and anyone looking in the mirror recognize the Jackals they are!Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
By John Burl Smith
It is amazing when one considers the amount of knowledge which can be assimilated in a relatively short time frame. However, an even more startling realization is that human beings are capable of retaining esoteric information in memory, and associating it unpredictably with seemingly unrelated situations in very generalized and speculative ways. The fruit of this consideration bears out claims, that some totally new dynamics were at work in last week=s midterm elections. Retrospectively, sometimes a portal to the future provides a reflection from the past which reveals its relevance to the present.
For instance, on April 4, 1968, the Invaders meet with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Loraine Motel to discuss tactical support for the sanitation workers striker, and their march. Dr. King laid out his strategy for Memphis, and implored us to join the APoor Peoples March@ to Washington D. C. later that summer. He envisioned the Invaders spearheading an effort to link black power groups across America into a support network. Black militant groups were needed to supply field workers to help organize and mobilize for the APoor Peoples Campaign.@
Years later, in 1977, while taking a political science course at Shelby State Community College in Memphis, taught by long time west Tennessee Democratic strategist John Spence, the significance of Dr. King=s APoor Peoples Campaign@ blossomed. Professor Spence=s lectures examined the dynamics of power relationships. Basically, the balance of power model developed during the cold war, as applied to a by-polar verses Multi-polar world framed the parameters. The antithetical balance of power paradigm dictated an American foreign and domestic policy status quo steeped in a by-polar world.
Multi-polar dynamics was the goal Dr. King envisioned for the APoor Peoples Campaign.@ His strategy was to build coalitions among blacks, poor whites, native Americans, Hispanics, women, labor, and other groups mired in poverty. He planned to galvanize them around welfare, political, and economic rights. Dr. King hoped to change the relationship between this class and the powers that be. He theorized, by bring large numbers of poor together in Washington D.C., these constituencies would not only offer a show of force, but engage one another face-to-face on an individual level. Dr. King believed, such dynamic interactions would debunk the balance of power theory which pitted these groups one against the other to maintain political and economic power in America.
That assassins= bullet not only cut down a mighty tree, it left the fruit rotting in the field. The Invaders commitment to Dr. King=s strategy of a multi-polar world required forging a totally new ideological and methodological approach. The Invaders needed a completely new philosophy to determine true needs, and a totally new psychology for satisfying those needs. Like a horticulturist worst nightmare, the seeds of today=s new political dynamics germinated in rock hard ground, however, the soil was fertile. As Dr. King=s strategy predicted, the symbiotic relationships developed during the APoor Peoples Campaign@ matured allowing issues such as welfare, political, and economic needs to be pursued as coalition goals. This shift mitigated other narrowly focused competing interest. Hence the new political dynamics.
A recent movie AThe Long Kiss Goodnight,@ presents a surreal relationship between Gena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. In caricature, their relationship reflects America=s political and economic dilemma, while pointing out the difficulty in changing cold war dynamics. Under such circumstances, as Dr. King saw it, alone one will never succeed. So, it is with these intrepid heros. The need to commit to one another fortified the demand to commit to something greater than themselves, if they hoped to foil their well funded and very powerful adversary. In very real terms, the last election proved it is possible for such a diverse coalition to commit to something greater than self-interest. The true test of consolidating political power is whether or not they can commit to each other, so that all groups share power equally?
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Juvenile Justice: A Myth
Although Correction Crop of America does not have a contract with the state of Georgia, it plans to build a $45 million facility in McRae. Set to open by February 2000, this prison will be within a few miles of two other prisons in Telfair County. The problem is that no one in state government has even signed off on the project. No need assessment has been conducted, or bid request solicited. This is purely private enterprise.
CCA=s VP Peggy Lawrence, after admitting her company has no contract to build the 1,500 bed facility, stated ACCA does not build speculative prisons. That is not our business. We don=t always do it with a signed document, but we do it with ... a good assurance that those beds will be used. Telfair County Commission Chairman Chester Swain while talking about negotiations that began two weeks ago said, AThis thing is moving so fast. I=ve told you everything I can tell you. We were needing something in the county for some employment. This supposedly will employ between 350 and 400 people.@ The DISH=s concern is that counties like Telfair are becoming more and more dependent on prisons to provide jobs. For instance, even though there are four state prisons in the counties surrounding Telfair, local officials want more. They reason A the jobs boost the local economy.@
State Corrections Commissioner Wayne Garner responded AWe have not had any negotiations with them, period, about these facilities.@ But Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry Coleman, who represents Telfair says AThe talks have progressed to the point where CCA has said it will charge the state the same $44.95 to $48.10 per inmate per diem that it charges at its other two prisons in Georgia. Governor Roy Barnes, who seems lukewarm on the project feels, AWe=ve used a mixture of public and private, and I think it=s an appropriate thing to use a mixture,@
Reporting on this story Rhonda Cook, AJC (12-9-98) revealed a CCA run prison in Ohio had five dangerous inmates escape. It was reported by the U. S. Department of Justice the medium-security prison was housing high security inmates from Washington in its Youngtown facility. Among other things CCA accepted inmates even though the Youngtown prison was not ready for occupancy. Furthermore, security was flawed and guards were not well-trained.
Although the Governor, who is from south Georgia, supports a mix, The DISH believes this whole concept needs to be reevaluated. When a state or county becomes dependent on incarcerating citizens as a means of reducing unemployment and boost its economy, citizens are at risk. Southerners have not forgotten the infamous chain gangs, and how counties used prisoners as a part of the local economy. The rights of black and poor whites were violated to feed this monstrous system. Housing prisoners is big business today. Wall Street is in the prison business, therefore justice takes a back seat.
What does America=s approach to incarcerating the young say about us as people? In our quest to turn a profit from the misery of those trapped at the bottom of the social and economic ladder, we now prey on children. State Governments will not provide rehabilitation for inmates. Private companies do not provide rehabilitation. Under present circumstances, prisoners have become a product. With the state and private industry competing for the same product, what is the incentive in giving probation or parole. Keeping people locked up has risen to the level of an economic asset. Shades of slavery!!!
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Genocide By Assumption!
For police and white communities, the assumption is while pursuing truth and justice, law enforcement protects people and serve communities. The converse is true in African American communities. Police operate with a threat mentality which assumes, ABlacks have done or will do something against the law.@ Therefore, whites are ready to respond to the black threat.
Aggressive pursuit policies make black Americans targets of law enforcement. A badge is a licence to kill. Consequently, African Americans are gunned down, as though they live in Dodge City one hundred years ago.
The genocidal aspect of law enforcement is rooted in racism, because the instution of justice functions to deny African Americans equal justice. Atlanta Journal Constitution (2-13-99) reported crime lab problems. GBI Director Milton Nix was forced to admit Aevidence reported by scientist could not be verified.@ Lab workers were, Amishandling or losing evidence, even filing false reports suggesting test were conducted when they were not.@ Coweta Judicial Circuit Prosecutor Pete Skandalakis, blamed it all on, Athe Lab is overworked, underfunded and undermanned. It=s not surprising that some of the scientists may have cut corners.@ However, since most drug evidence is tainted, and the vast majority of young black men in jail are there on drug charges, it seems police and prosecutors have simply made up drug charges lock black people up.
The clearest example of why law enforcement poses such a threat to black people is Amadou Diallo. Inexplicably, this 22-years old unarmed black man was shot to death in the doorway of his New York City apartment building. AI thought he had a gun.@ were the officers response. Give these four officers any test, and they would never respond in the same way, at the same time to the same incident. For African Americans the absurdity of in this tradegy is that whites feel sufficient justification to murder African Americans on snap judgements. American police have never killed a white person under such circumstances. Remember Tyisha Miller. America is guilty of genocide.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Letter to Mississippi Governor
December 2, 1998
The Honorable Kirt Fordice
Governor, State of Mississippi
P O Box 139, Jackson, Mississippi
Sir:
Two Weeks ago, November 14, 1998 Yohannes Sharriff Smith, author of T.H.I.N.C.(Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution was in your state for a performance in Columbus. The Dismukes family was celebrating the return of their prodigal Robert. Tour manager for the ABrothers Unlimited Band, ACaptain Black brings his considerable experience to Yohannes= road show. This stop over gave Yohannes an opportunity to hang out and vibe with some extreme young brothers and sisters while rocking a righteous message of personal responsibility.
The downside of this visit slammed us like a wraith from the 1930s. Yohannes asked about performing for the kids at a local shelter for troubled youth and orphans: the Palmer Home. He was taken aback by a young sister=s jolting revelation, AThey want let you in that place. They do not admit black kids. They ain=t never let no black kids live there. I don=t believe they have any black employees.@ Inquiring further, several adults confirmed the astute young sister=s shocking statement. Currently, it is politically correct to speak of how far Mississippi has come in dealing with its racial problems, and how the state is apart of the new South. In reality, black people in Columbus have not experienced this change. Prime facile evidence indicates, there are certainly plenty of qualified young blacks to fill any vacancy at the Palmer Home as guest or clients.
For any vestige of segregation to remaining in 1998, only belies how committed the state is to the separate but equal philosophy blacks have endured since Reconstruction ended. Charity is the truest expression of love, and knows no color. In Luke 18:16 Jesus Christ said ASuffer little children come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.@ If Mississippi is still apart of the United States of America, how can your state care for white children and allow black children to live on the streets?
Republicans are touting the Bushsonian politics emerging in the South, as the road to the white house in 2000. This so called compassionate conservatism seems to be all show and no dough. On the stump, it is easy to proclaim a new frontier in race relations, but something else entirely to bring about real change. Republicans took over Governors= mansions using the same tact as Republicans in Congress. Even though Republicans governors have done little to change the everyday existence of black and poor people, the media is heralding junior as savior. An objective glance shows Texas as a state which house=s children in the same prisons as adults, and which showed absolutely no compassion for Carla Faye Tucker. Do Americans want a President willing to executed human beings, simply to make political points with conservatives by showing he is tough on crime? The question here is, can we trust his finger on the nuclear trigger?
It is true, governors are closer to the people, therefore they have a great impact on their daily lives. Consequently, a lack of gubernatorial vigilance has perpetuated institutionalized racism. The trap root of segregation drew its nourishment through the state being the enforcement agency. The State of Mississippi was an active participant in denying blacks constitutional rights, and in its fight to preserve segregation, it never dismantled its enforcement apparatus. It has not put the effort and resources into ending segregation, it put into enforcing it.
Today, the same denial continues. Justice demands all vestiges of defacto segregation be rooted out immediately, starting with the Palmer Home. Citizen action in Georgia brought about a federal investigation of its juvenile justice system. That investigation uncovered many of the same horror story parents and friends say inmates are experiencing in Mississippi. African Americans have paid taxes as white Mississippians, and demand the same benefits and protections. Whether the new Republican slogan rings hollow, or true, African Americans judge performance daily. The Bushsonains will have to ante up or follow Newt. I await your timely response regarding the resolution of this unfair and unequal situation.
Thank you. John Burl Smith
cc: Ronnie Musgrove, Lt. Governor
Trent Lott, Majority Leader
Charles L. Cabbage, Black Organizing Project
Rep. James Clyburn, Congressional Black Caucus
Linda Garmon, ABC News
Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General
Donna Shalala, Secretary Health and Human Services
Vincent E. Taylor, Platium Mortage
Brother Jibril LaGrant, Marcus Garvey Collaborative Institute
Rep. Bob Livingston, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Rep. Maxine Waters, Congressional Black Cascus
Lee Jasper, Jubilee 2000
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
On Wednesday, December 9, 1998, Franklin Zimring announced the startling finding of their two-year study of juvenile crime statistics. As the author of the study, Prof. Zimring concluded that tougher laws aimed at youthful lawbreakers are based on Adeeply flawed analyses of juvenile violence statistics.@ Following up on that statement, Dr. Zimring explained AWe=re not any more violent than we were 10 to 20 years ago. We=re just paying more attention to the violence. What The MacArthur Foundation wants the American people to understand is that AA change in how police report juvenile crimes, particularly assault and aggravated assault, has resulted in an artificial crime wave. What you find out about aggravated assault and assault since the mid-1980s, quite independent of whether youth behavior has been changing, police behavior has been changing significantly.@ The inference is that Apolice have been reducing the threshold of what constitutes assault and aggravated assault, reflecting the apparent increase in crime.@
Zimring et al reported ASince 1980 arrest rates for ages 13-17 showed no significant trend for rape and robbery, and have actually gone down since about 1993. Homicide arrest rates for ages 13-17 showed a sharp increase during the interval from 1984 to 1992, then fell by a third by 1996. In 1997 the decrease was 16 percent.
To prepare for the imagined storm of juvenile violence, states like Georgia pasted laws lowering the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults. As of June 30, 1998, 2,300 youthful offenders have been subject to this law (Senate Bill 440). Young people have been pencil whipped into lower and stricter categories of criminality. Hence the need for more prisons.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Dialogue on Race: Downbeating The Rails!!
The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) offers an excellent example of how the Republican southern axis obscure their backroom deals on boards and commissions through control of local politics. Siphoning off funds previously mandated to eradicate poverty and develop inner-cities, these good-o-boys engineered white flight. Fueled by the elixir of local control, tax cuts moved the process even faster. Buttressed by their AContract With America,@ Republicans transferred wealth from the lowest 70% of the population to the richest 30%, taxation without representation.
The Christian Coalition soared to power demanding lesser and smaller government which citizens wanted off their backs. Republicans went hydrophobic over big government, and regulations they claimed intruded on free market capitalism.
Today, The Atlanta Regional Commission is composing a real show stopper. It hopes to swoon the public by building a rail line between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Its purpose is to relieve traffic associated with Hartsfield International Airport, and reduce air pollution. A real sour note for most, ARC=s new tune about trains, is a song and dance reminiscent of AShowboat.@
Listening to ARC=s sonata, one is convinced the urban crisis clamor was a round lullaby which put everyone to sleep. Members are harmonizing to developers= siren song of progress. Hi-tech words, but the same old rap and rhyme melody. No hip hopper, ARC Director Harry West Abeat boxed A his way to a very high note. @This $15 billion project will offset the surge in mileage driven by residents in the 10 counties region.@ ARC=s production claims not only to reduce sprawl, AIt will relieve traffic congestion, and address air quality problems.@
Universally, Republicans decry FDR=s ANew Deal@ as pork, big government run amok. Were FDR to return and observe Republicans reincarnated as Zigfield, he would claim them like a proud papa. In an interview with Kelly Simmons(AJC), the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich added lyrics to ARC=s beat, @In signing on to this project for a high speed rail system between Chattanooga and metro Atlanta, $ 7.5 to $10 million will be included in the Interstate Surface Transportation Efficiency Act funding this spring. This region needs some alternative transportation options. Under a long range plan a high-speed rail eventually extending to Charlotte and Tampa from Atlanta, and to Knoxville and Nashville from Chattanooga would do that.@
A public works program by any other name is still a public works program. Does the Speaker envision steam rolling a bigger majority to Washington on AThe Chattanooga Choo-Choo?@ Is engineer Gingrich laying tracks for the AGreat Locomotive Race@ to the White House? Looking at this project, are the valentines in Newt=s bulldawg eyes a clear signal his disdain for big government has turned to puppy love? FDR must be blushing. They used to tar and feather scalawags, and ride them out of town on a rail, today they ride rapid rails to the White House.
DISH conservatively estimates this project will cost upwards of $22 billion. The Speaker=s basso profundo bravado for this mastodonic public works project produced crescendos among developers, but not in the polls. For years, ARC shifted resources from urban to suburban areas in this region. Southwest and northwest Atlanta, as well as south DeKalb County have never realized the bright promises of civil rights. Like a James Brown refrain, fewer and fewer dollars trickle down. Continuing this trend, ARC proposed developments in Cobb, North Fulton, and counties north of Atlanta. Although not a member of the ARC, Atlanta=s Mayor, ignobly ham-boning in the wings, must crooned in with a heart throbbing $2.5 billion. But, Atlanta will not receive a single development over the life of the twenty year project.. With no black employees, all ARC=s board members except one are white. A true sleeper, he is comfortable at the back of the pack. No member represents the interests of blacks and minorities. No commissioner raises issues of ensuring access, openness, equity, and fairness for poor people.
The ARC crows like minstrels presenting its plan as if it is a pretty little pony everyone loves. But from this reporter=s perspective, twenty years on the tracks, this little pony will have grown into a humongous ATrojan horse.@ ARC=s foot-in-the-door technique aims to hoodwink the public into grub staking these high rolling supply siders in their backroom crap shoot. The trick in this off track schemes is to get the public in the hold before they recognize this pig as pork. Otherwise, presto perfecto, like a hedge fund, these Afast Eddies@ can put the ARC=s feed bag on their nag as often as they please.
Although paragons of little government and free market capitalism, it rings clear, Newt and his Christian coalition choir have gotten that old time religion and see the light, shades of David Stockman. It seems aboard Newt=s redeye special, high rolling supply siders will ride the rails back to the snake oil and revival days of voodoo economics. Hallelujah, Newt and the southern axis chorus embracing such old fashion liberal environmental concerns as clean air, suburban sprawl, and mass transit is a metamorphosis!!
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Roots Of Jonesboro
Wednesday, March 18, 1998,Woman In Film Atlanta along with TAPA presented a panel discussion entitled AThe State of The Georgia Film Industry@ Forum at the Center Stage Theater. The panel, a diverse upper middle group from the industry, took a A Where are we now, and where can we go from here?@ approach to Atlanta=s stagnant film and entertainment dilemma. Everyone seen to sleepwalked arriving at the realization, everyone=s brain is on hold in regards to what to do for AA Reversal of Fortunes.@ Such a story would be a great hit for Atlanta, if the story could find a great leading man to carry a nebulous plot, and weak cast, but a great location. What=s wrong with this picture is no producer. Those on the panel looked else where for answers , while some in the audience felt the answer lie closer to home.
One questioner posed this situation as typical, AAtlanta has a growing community of young, talented, creative, and industrious black performers who have build a vibrant poetry venue, and they are do some real outstanding stuff with nothing. If you want Atlanta to be great for out of town films, you have to make it great for in town performers. This town has anti-youth bent. Young people in Atlanta are presona non grata: check out Freaknik. Atlanta does not view its young people as having anything to offer. In Atlanta, they are expected to reflect only one image or they are shut out of community life. A city can not grow when it will not allow its children free expression. How are they to learn how to make good choices, if they are not allowed to make mistakes. Sexuality is driving this nation insane. I have my sexuality, I grant you the right to yours. Now, less get on with >the morning after.= Who knows if a child will express a gay lifestyle when they reach thirty-five, the age I was when I got married. What really matters is they will have had the opportunity to explore their reality.@
The panel was at a lost for a plan to improve the situation. Everyone wants to help children, but only if they are not on drugs, do not have a record, are not sexually active, no behavioral or emotional problems, and are not gay. Many of these children have no place to go and nothing to do. Some live on the street with no opportunities, and little or no access to community services. All youth are constantly subject to police harassment at every point. This society is at war with it children and the kids fighting back the only way they know how. Although this is a perspective on the film industry, what follows is a tragedy, it not movie.
The article in AWHAT=S TRUMP ?@ (Vol. # 4) entitled A All That Glitters Is Not A Gun!@ began, A Today, Sunday, November Ninth, Nineteen hundred ninety-seven, While millions of Americans gather to praise their creator and renew their commitment to manifest the life of Jesus Christ, I pray for world peace, justice, and compassion. Whites tucked snugly in hauberk suburbia, and blacks huddled chillingly in urban enclaves feel all is well with the world. Even I was settled cozily with coffee and a newspaper, when a thunderbolt of reality crashed through my glass ceiling existence devouring my comfortable darkness.@ I went on to explain that, AA 17 year old African American man was shot by a United States Marshal, while walking down a street in New York City. The US Marshal said he thought the candy the young man was eating was a gun, so he shot the kid.@ This is the same city where a few months earlier, law enforcement officers brutally assaulted an African American man with a plunger, basically because no one was watching they thought cared. Here is where America=s problem begins: In the mind. The fact that a law enforcement agent feels there are some people society accepts as outside of its protection is the problem. This attitude tells policeman that it is alright to express what is going on in their mind as though it is the reality, sets a society up to commit all kinds of inhumanity, not only to children.
I have spent the last thirty years of life working in the field of applied science, specifically urban psychology. The new generation author Yohannes Sharriff Smith in his philosophical treaties, T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution, explores the impact of hypocrisy implied in the stereotypes of contemporary society. His premise is, Aat the base of America=s hypocrisy lies slavery. When a nation builds into its legal system a concept that, base solely on race some people legally deserve more and others are legally less. By birth, such people are undeserving of human concern and compassion. That nation must creates within itself the means to enforce that sentiment. As this fact becomes more and more obvious, a society must make a clean break with its past, or build in systems to maintain the status quo.
Later in that same article I show America=s past has contemporary reflections, AAs iniquitous America plays Picasso, Lyndon Mosley and other black youth are trapped in their fresco reflected against a backdrop of heinous criminals. Broad strokes of light and shadow, paint a young black face as public enemy number one. Today, America is ringing its hands lamenting as Jeremiah over the tragedy in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I picked Cotton in this area, and it shares slavery=s legacy. As with slavery, America will do as Pontius Pilate, wash it hand of the problem by blaming the out of control youth. Another mind game, control is the illusion of power over other and the idea that all people are the same. Consequently, they all can be treated the same when it comes to discipline.
John Locke=s concept of Atabula rosa@ presumes that at birth children have blank personality at birth. Therefore their personality can be created for them. Die hard Freudians will point to studies on repression to show control is the problem. They feel the personality needs to be totally free. Then John Watson introduced behaviorism with his stimulus-response paradigm. His theory gave credence to those who believe slavery did have a lasting impact on the mental and physical development of African Americans. Jean Piaget, French developmentalist, speculated that development does not travel a straight line, suggesting the personality has already begin forming at birth, but humans express certain aspects at different periods. What is different is Psychologists proior to Piaget, dismissed mind as a viable aspect of the human psychi. I share the view that there is a critical period, beginning at birth when touching, caressing, holding, and closeness to other human being creates the initial bonds of love. If a child does not experience the humanity of a care-giver during this period, I believe only a prodigious effort on the part of some caring individual will have a hope of breaking through the wall, the children builds up to protect them from a world that does not care about their pain. Scientists do not understand this phenomenon. Most agree that these children are the ones most likely to have problem forming bonds with other individual and society=s institutions.
The one thing these children share with other children is the pressure to conform. The problem is that these children respond to such pressure as a provocation, and they are prong to over react to what most would consider relatively minor events. They expect rejection and the world accommodates them. These children are not America=s problem, they are just a symptom. The problem is that children are born and grow up, yet do not become attached to people or society. The tap root here is hypocrisy. It lies at the heart of a society where people fighting to save unborn children, demand the death penalty for fourteen year oldes, and bomb places where people who disagree with them gather.
There is an illness afoot in America which demands more control over children lives. Zero tolerance, curfews, dress codes, policies against hugging and touching, random searches, and driving restrictions all serve to rob our children of a sense of self. AWhy can=t we do like everyone else.@ America is demanding its child be as rational in their decision making and behavior as adults. Think for a moment, when you were eleven, if you had to think as clear as your parents, whom you believed were the smartest people you knew. How would you have handled that? How would you have avoided jail? Going back John Locke when children were looked upon as little grown-ups, people thought children should be seen and not heard. This is not unlike to day; they can be seen and heard , but it is felt, they just do not have anything worth listening to.
Baby boomers are the problem today. They are the most self indulgent and aggrandizing group of hypocrites to ever have inhaled Marijuana. These parents are the same people who made defying the establishment a rite of passage, and free love a matter of First Amendment protection. Nothing was too sacred that letting it all hangout was ill-reverent. The children today grew up observed their parent, and listening to them justify them doing everything they thought they felt like, under the heading of Aself expression.@ Now, they are all born again Christians, guilt ridden about all the funning and fornicating. Free love and getting high was only a couple of sins they enjoyed back when they were kids. They have become the inquisition for today=s youth. What adults do not seem to grasp is that young children are growing up convinced that this society does not care about them as individuals or as a group. The attitude of most on the Christian right is that, our way is the only way, and everyone else must live and believe as we do. Christian are using young people in the public schools to insinuate themselves and their believe on the other children in school. Those children are being used to browbeat other children into accepting their right to regulate their behavior. The children running these Christian group are rewarded and facilitated by school administrators. They are allowed to ride roughshod over the children who are unwilling to put on a public show about believing in God. Children today must put on a public demonstration of their commitment to church and the practices of church to share in activities in school. Those children who do not go along with Christian clubs or groups are pushed to the fringes of school society and ridiculed or bullied until they submit.
Michael Corneal confessed as much in his statement when he was first arrested, but no one would listen. Now he is crazy. The crisis in America=s schools is the same as the one in it cities. Hypocrisy about what is being done, and why it is being done drives the current madness. The attack on young children is aimed at poor children because these have very little if any protection. Children of the well to do are always given the benefit of the doubt, as the Chattahoochee High community showed a few weeks ago. This White upper middle class community decided it was alright to steal from Wal-Mart as long as their children said they thought they were getting the merchandise at a discount. Apparently, Wal-Mart felt the same way because no one was arrested or fired. None of these children=s names or faces were ever shown in the media. Were these poor children, whole neighborhoods would have been rounded up, stripped searched in the gym, and carted off to jail in paddy wagons with the news cameras rolling. From this reporter=s position it not my desire anyone go to jail, because jail teaches the wrong lesson about a childish and foolish act. Being stupid is not a crime, if it was, America would be a penitentiary. America=s hypocrisy is pretending black and poor children would have been treated just like these upper middle class white kids. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Sunday before Andre Burgess was shot,@ The Cleveland Plain Dealer brought clearly into focus the image reflecting the face of crime in America. This still frame presents the most powerful depiction of the face of the enemy, presenting a collage of images all wearing black faces. From America=s prospective, Donzell Lewis, black fourteen (14) years old, whose face covers the entire front page, leaves no doubt who the enemy is.@ The shame of such acts as the one in Jonesboro is, although no black youth were involved, the face of crime get painted even blacker.
Not only this panel of movie makers are confronted, and haunted by these images, but the nation must agonize over AWhere are we going from here with this.@
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
by John Burl Smith
Two recently reports and a proposed lawsuit affirmed theories of a chasm of inequality for African Americans. Approaching 2000, the picture is grim; it suggests conditions not much different than slavery and segregation will persist into the new millennium..
One report, published by the Council for School Performance at Georgia State University, stated A652 schools failing on state report cards.@ Their data show 5.5 percent are consistently low-performers scoring below average in every major category for three years in a row. Funded by the Georgia Legislature in 1993, this watchdog group would not name the 98 elementary, 111 middle and 43 high schools where students consistently scored below national norms, including graduation exams, and attendance. Next, failure rates among African Americans applying for teacher certifications reflect the same performance flaws, according to Peggy Torrey of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. ATeachers of all races tend to have lower expectations for black students in elementary and secondary school. Black students taking standardized test perform worse when they feel anxious about representing their race.@ She concluded, AThe overwhelmingly white female teaching corps in elementary schools do not relate to black children nor do these children relate to them in ways that make learning relevant and exciting.@ This gets at the feedback loop for failure rates among blacks trying to become teachers.@
Finally, Matthew Glavin, President of the Southern Legal Foundation, demanded that DeKalb County Board of Education dismantle its Minority to Majority (M-to-M) transfer program or face litigation. M-to-M allows black students to attend white schools. Glavin, claiming to speak for white parents, is opposed to the program because it is based on race. Virtually all the 4,297 students enrolled in the program are black. DeKalb=s enrollment is approximately 76.3 percent black, and 12.5 percent white. These numbers reflect America=s dilemma and beg the question: How does one justify 12.5 percent enjoying all benefits at the expense of 76.3 percent?
Schools, students and those trying to become teachers are failing. This feedback loop cuts deep mental groves, like ropes or lashes. Given such impressive documentation, one must concede blacks lag behind whites in all standardized learning and performance categories. These reports shows that fifty years after Brown v The Board of Education blacks perform as though segregation never ended. More important, they show how successfully the Republican Supreme Court has been at denying equal access.
Findings by Dot M. Smith show stable disparities between blacks and whites. Smith terms her paradigm AChasm of Inequality.@ It demonstrates that since slavery, institutionalized racism is the only variable that explains the stable socioeconomic and political disparities between blacks and whites. It predicts blacks, as a whole, will score less than whites in all relevant welfare measures from income to unemployment.
Smith=s chasm of income inequality allows one to quantify the affects of slavery and segregation, which heretofore has represented a major hurdle in establishing claims of institutionalized racism. Medium family income represents socioeconomic factors such as community status, educational level, career, college, lifetime earnings and retirement.
Smith=s model captures the dynamics of institutionalized racism. It helps explain disparities of achievement between white and black schools. Historically, reading and math have been associated with negative consequences for blacks since slavery. This further explains race differences on standardized tests.
Fair minded people would never suggest blacks achieved equality, nor that blacks are genetically inferior to whites, or bear the mark of Khan to explain such disparities. Institutionalized racism impacts every single aspect of African American life and limits advancement as individuals and as a group. Therefore, the persistent differences, shown in Fig. 1 for income, are a function of some societal mechanism, rather than chance.
Indeed, this feedback loop assures blacks remain trapped in the chasm of inequality today as during slavery.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Ribbon in the Sky!!
With a huanting melody, and placid serenity, Stevie Wonder=s A Ribbon in the Sky@target=s hearts. Revealing a painful reality, everyone has not been touch by grace, Stevie tugs at our sensibilities. Channelling empathy and compassion into positive actions, such events heighten our connectivity. One of the world=s most prolific song writers, ALittle@ Stevie Wonder crashed the scene in the early 1963s with AFingerstips, Part 2@. Stevie never observed man=s inhumanity to man, although his music clairvoyantly exhibits the agony of humanity=s pain. ARibbon in the Sky@ muses an unending prayer for love, peace, and justice, comforts one should not have to purchised with ones life. His lyrics over the years echo the theme, ADiminishing one human being diminishes us all!@
The Bill of Rights to the Constitution provides a sanctuary, granting every citizen the right to feel Asecure in one=s person and in one=s home.@ That pledge guarantee citizens freedom of expression in private acts, preferences, and orientation. However, the problem is social norms dictate acceptable behavior, and stigmatize all others. Matthew Shepard=s tragic death reminds humanity of America=s failed promise, and challenges each citizen to examine their attitudes about long held beliefs which support the violence consuming this nation. Like obiting satellites, Americans are forced to levitate the image of a free America, and Matthew=s world.
Such hypocritical mind-sets finds acceptance as an article of faith in some sanctimonious hallowed halls. This hypophysis test true, considering school shootings, decapitations like G. P. Johnson and the brother in Texas, and Carla Fay Tucker. Like bleeding hearts, communities are quick to express horror at such acts. Conversely, they disavow any connection the act has to core values of their community. Americans mentally compartmentalize these occurrances. They view them from a linear perspective. Consequently, their core values are unaffected, because for them, it is an isolated incident. Simultaneously, subcocscious forces wall off the memory from the conscious mind. Segmenting events in this manner prevents dissonant thoughts from overflowing, generating contradictory impulses, and contaminating core values.
Viewing the world through linear secularism, one misses the connection between such human tragedies as Matthew Shepard and community rejection. In this case, the individuals comitting this horrific act were acceptable community members before their egregious actions. Where as, Matthew Shepard was always treated as an outsider, and considered beyond the pale of human kindness. Weighing less than 105 pounds and under five feet two inches tall in high school, everyone picked on, or pushed him around, even females. The Neanderthals committing this atrocity were tolerated in high school, and allowed to get away with harassing students like Matthew. Typically, complaints are dismissed or minimized as Aboys just clowning around, not really meaning any harm anyone.@ Sympathetically characterized as misguided youth, such predators are welcomed into churches, universities, professional groups, boy scouts, what ever the community has to offer. On the other hand, Metthew was shut out of community life, and shunned by many of the same people bearing tributes to his memory.
Lost in this violance is the reality, Matthew Shedard was Michael Corneal, before Michael picked up a gun. Conversely, the members of that prayer group are the two brutes five or ten years down the line. Through positive responses, their communities taught them, their attitudes toward, gays, abortion, blacks, Arabs, espanics, and other minorities reflect community values. Like lynchings in the south, communities coverup their true ugliness. Community members can not allow themselves to see their roll in setting the table for such cannablism. As with reparations for African Americans, denying responsibility is the code of silence binding Paducah and Jonesboro, Walton County Georgia and Jasper County Texas, with Laramie and the world. This mind-set cages a community, reminiscent of Germany during Adolf Hitler=s rise to power.
A
There are none so blind as he who will not see.@ Stevie Wonder saw clearly the need for real love among human beings, and tried to bring people closer with his penetrating lyrics. ARibbon in the Sky@ ties us to Matthew Shepard like nails in the cross tied Christ to our sins. Since we Aknow not the day nor the hour@ the Master will return, Matthew could have been Jesus Christ!Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
September 12, 1998
The Honorable Max Cleland, Senator
United States Senate Office Building
Government Affairs Committee
Washington, D. C. 20510-3521
Sir:
In receiving another form letter from your office, I am extremely disappointed. As you know, I too am a disabled Vietnam era veteran, whose family is in dire straits. My original request for assistance regarded an employment problem precipitated by the manner in which the United States Postal Service (here after known as the Agency) interpreted The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). For a family without financial resources to retain a lawyer, your inquiry was crucial to my defense, because all evidence presented by the Agency was obtained as a result of its denial of my request for FMLA (sick leave). These form letter responses from your office did not unveil the Agency=s current policy regarding how Postal Service Supervisors are trained to receive, consider, act on, and monitor employee requests for FMLA. Moreover, the Agency did not set forth any procedure during my hearing outlining employee options, if a request is denied. Finally, the Agency failed to show how it insures employee request for FMLA are acted upon timely, treated fairly, and with the seriousness such requests deserve. The Agency would not provide this information, nor did it present such background information as a part of its prima facie evidence to support it charges.
Sir, when Congress passed the Act, families across America breathed a collective sigh of relief. The most pressing problem facing working families today is, how to balance the demands of jobs and family. In America, both parents working is the norm. Caring for children is no longer a wife=s job. Conversely, employers have not adjusted their attitudes toward the changing roles in families and the need for flexible work schedules. Although child care demands run far ahead of other concerns for young families, health care needs top the list for most mature families. Employees in the over forty (40) age group not only have changing health needs, knowledge about the nature and seriousness of their condition often change faster than they can adjust. The major concern for this group is employer expectations based on previous performance levels. Employers refuse to recognize the relevance of aging factors to performance. Confusion, frustration, and depression mounts for such employees, as they are forced to accept reduced capacities while demands remain constant.
FMLA reduced anxiety for all workers, because it offered the promise of job security, if they took time away from the job for individual and/or family concerns. The Postal Service=s present interpretation of the Act represents an ominous sign, and is onerous for working families. If allowed to stand, their action guts FMLA, and fly=s in the face of congressional intent. As you were informed previously, the present dilemma began with a call-in request for leave (FMLA) which was granted. Subsequently, FMLA was denied, but sick leave was granted instead. S ick leave abruptly canceled, and I was placed on AWOL. The Agency terminated me because it said AI disregarded an Agency directive to return to work.@ Their records show I followed Postal Service procedure and the law in making my request for leave. Like thousands of working families, my family=s concern is, if an employee follows the law as set forth in 29 U.S.C. Section 2611 et seq., but still gets fired, what good is the law? The whole idea was to protect employees and their families from just such a situation.
Senator, Congress must investigate how U S Code Public Law 103-3 is being implemented throughout the Federal Government. A hearing into this matter will provide guidance in drafting further guidelines to underscore Congress=s intent that American workers have the right to take time they feel necessary away from the job for serious health and family needs without fear of losing their jobs. Thank You!
Sincerely, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Prelude To Assassination!!!
The month of Jaunrary marks the brith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose impact changed the world in unimaginable ways. Talking personally with him less than an hour before his assassination, changed my life=s direction. The Invaders meet earlier that day with Dr. King, and I had come away unconvenced that people around him would accept the role outlined for us. Charles L.Cabbage meet Dr. King in Atlanta while work with draft resisters, and SNCC, wanted to try one last time for a better commitment. Although, he was in Memphis to assist the striking sanitation workers, Dr. King was struggling to hold the plan which gave his dream from together.
The APoor People=s Campaign@ was to be his vehicle. His dynamic vision began with African Americans, and extended to organizing women, native Americans, Hispanics, poor whites, labor, youth, and other minorities into a political force. He theorized that such an alliance would give him national reach and broaden the civil rights movement beyond being a southern struggle. Tactally, Dr. King believed pointing this human juggernaut toward Washington, D. C. would demonstrate his affective use of mass action. The APoor People=s Campaign@ was to be a field exercise, while allowing participants opportunities to deal with each other on a needs bases.
As a believer in Malcolm X=s philosophy Aby any means necessary,@ I saw Dr. King as tactally obsolete. Before that day, I had always been AA Face in The Crowd.@ I saw Dr. King much like I saw the people who brought him to Memphis, not to be trusted. Those so called leaders had tried to sell the striking sanitation workers out on at lease two occasions. Unlikly heros, the lowest of the low, daily suffered the indignity of riding the bus smelling like the garbage they collected, because black workers had no showers. These were fathers, brothers, and sons, we knew some by name. The Invaders were committed to helping some old men whose stand had inspired the community, not in joining a national movement.
Dr. King envisioned the Invaders playing the role of ground troop needed to establish networks with other black power groups. He understood the local leadership struggle, but challenged my motives. He looked me in the eyes, placing one hand on my knee, and said, ANobody elected you, so who are you working for? Black folks need young people willing to lead. I offer you that opportunity.@ Sometimes, I think I still feel the his grip.
At that moment, I had no idea that twenty minute conversation foreshadowed a real conversion, because Dr. King was nobody special to me. But in that last encounter something real passed between us. In a touch, he left with me a vision of the world less personal, more inclusive. His untimely death did not allow us to develop the APoor People=s Campaign,@ but many of it=s veterans remain in the field, believing whole heartedly, if we continue to cultivate the seeds, his dream will grow.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
March 16, 1999
The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20050
Honorable Sir:
Crime is certainly a grave concern for most Americans. Proposed actions to deal with Alowering the crime rate and to Araise the levels of trust and cooperation between the police and communities they serve@ are very worthwhile goals. It is even more comforting to know your administration supports Abetter training and better education@ for police. Also, your proposal pushes police and community partnerships Ain fighting crime,@ as well as Adiversity@ throughout law enforcement. However, this proposal=s response to policemen most African Americans consider wild west gunslingers with itchy trigger fingers masquerading as lawmen is woefully inadequate. African American distrust of police goes far deeper than this cosmetic public relations gesture would suggest. It is related to whites fundamental disregard for black human rights and a denial of black civil rights that has existed since the end of slavery.
The most obvious problem with this proposal is it directs all resources to enforcement. No recognition, nor consideration, is given to prevention and rehabilitation. Refried beans are delicious, but rehashed hash makes one sick of the stomach. The record shows the old southern strategy of beat the nigger back, lock up the those who complain and kill the ones left@ exacerbates conditions.
Advanced by Renault Robinson, founder of the Chicago Afro- American Police Association, ACommunity Police@ was a novel concept in the mid 1960's. J. Edger Hoover adopted the concept to cover his domestic counter intelligence program known as Co-Intel Pro which he implemented in the black community after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The FBI used Co-Intel Pro to destabilize black power groups by assassinating their leaders. Under cover of "community policing," officers went into black neighborhoods to undermined young black leaders, while claiming to help the community.
In Memphis, Tennessee during the summer of 1968, a black power group known as the Invaders conducted a freedom school for youths at 1310 Florida Street. The program addressed the root causes of poverty through education, improving living conditions, health and nutrition workshops, establishing black businesses, and developing community-based grass roots organization. Tension between the community and police increased in proportion to group=s exercise of economic and political rights.
Through Co-Intel Pro, Hoover=s FBI conducted several operations to undermined the Invaders and shut down the school. After imprisoning several members, yours truly included, the Memphis Police Department, community policing forces moved into our building and began running our program. ACommunity Policing@ lasted only long enough to break down community organization. Today, the Florida and Triggs neighborhood, like the rest of this section of South Memphis, is still mired in poverty.
An enlightened Rhode scholar, Mr. President you must be aware that the roots of democracy are eaten away by poverty=s minions, i.e., crime, violence, exploitation, discrimination, and abuse. History, research and common sense tells us the wisest course includes prevention and rehabilitation. Years of building jails have not stop uneducated, penniless, deprived, and powerless children from taking up a life of crime. Report after report has concluded that expectation of punishment, nor derivation of reward will deter a hungry animal from something it has learned to desire more. In other words, learned behavior must be unlearned. Moreover, antidotal evidence supports the notion that disparities between haves and have-nots drive crime rates.
Honorable sir, your initiation of the dialogue on race gave hope to millions of Americans. Their anticipation was that America would finally come to grips with its original sin. However, African Americans were gravely disappointed when your voice fell silent in the face of impeachment. It is truly a sad day when China can point to America=s huge prison population to counter charges of human rights violations. Largely supportive of Democrats in Congress and the White House, African Americans now wonder if their support has gone for naught. Caving in under pressure from the military-industrial complex by unleashing the Pentagon was disheartening enough, but to try and out Atough on crime@ George W. Bush, Jr., by giving into the law enforcement and prison lobby, leaves blacks twisting in the wind.
African Americans are presently experiencing conditions reminiscent of the 1950s and 60s under Dixiecrats. If America will not address reparations for African Americans, at least you, Mr. President, should be committed to eradicating the root causes of poverty. Having the largest prison population in the world entering the new millennium is an ignoble legacy of indifference. Spending 1.3 billion for more police in the face of crushing poverty, while enjoying a robust economy, sentences one third of the next generation to life in the criminal underclass.
Respectfully, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
May 18, 1998
The Honorable Max Cleland, Senator
United States Senate
75 Spring Street, SW, Suite 1700
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3309
Honorable Sir:
It is indeed gratifying to have a public official who, not only answers a call, but responds with relevant action. Although not yet successful, your aid in this matter has served to rekindle hope that fairness and justice for working class Americans may yet be possible. The Postal Service responded in its usual form letter fashion, while attempting to elude the real issue addressed by FMLA. The question does the U S Postal Service have a written policy that it trains its employee to follow when employees request FMLA? If so, what is that policy? Next, were the supervisor=s actions in this case consistent with that policy or was there some other system at work in my particular case? Such information should be available to you, since supervisors are given classes several times a year, specifically to communicate policy on FMLA.
Senator, the U S Portal Service has kept out of the court record this information, because it contradicts sworn testimony. As long as the U S Postal Service does not have to produce its policy on FMLA, it cannot be held accountable for not faithfully executing the law as Congress intended. Congress may not fully realize how important the rights granted workers under FMLA. Therefore, it may not know how hard employers are working to gut this legislation before the ink is dry on the paper. When Congress passed and the President signed the Family Medical Leave Act, it lifted the burden of choosing between family and job. The problem is employers have not conceded the point, and the irony is the federal government is leading the way in button- hooking the law. Consequently Senator, I ask again, is the FMLA worth the paper on which it is written? The workers of America needs to know if they can depend on an act of Congress.
Thank you for your much need assistance.
Sincerely, John Burel Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
RE T.H.I.N.C.
May marks the end of Intuit Creative Ideas Manifested, Inc.(ICIM)=s first year as a business. This article revisits our beginnings as a prophetic reflection of its founder Yohannes Sharriff Smith. T.H.I.N.C.(Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): Chrysalis Of Evolution is a philosophical trek of a naive freshman through AOld South@ Georgia Southern University. Yohannes=s epic journey is an object lesson for young people struggling to find clarity and direction in the free fall world of maturation. It also serves as a portal for adults who desire a different perspective on how young people perceive and define their world. His emergence from a period of depression and suicidal considerations serves to confirm for young people, ANo matter how desperate the situation may seem at the time, you can survive it. You have value, and you are important to insuring that the next generation will not suffer needlessly.@
Presented in five steps, in five lessons, T.H.I.N.C. facilitates the efforts of young people struggling to construct an effective approach to life. A philosophy of living and learning, Yohannes hopes his experiences serve as a starting point for young people who wish to developed their humane sensibilities. If nothing else, T.H.I.N.C. provides young people with relevant information about their world, at a time when it can actually do the individual some good. There is an appeal on the back of the cover which begins, AParents: You should read this book, because your children are.@ In light of the crisis American society is facing, parents must learn to communicate children or they will become their adversaries. What has a year taught us about the chasm between adults and children in America?
Compassion and empathy are two characteristics which reflect the real nature of a society. One=s ability to connect and identify with the pain, shame and blame some young people suffer is a true measure of our humanity. Their struggle becomes a societal prism focusing or refracting its concerns as a people. Although, young men and young women are equally victims, young women face a double-edged sword. As Shantela Smith, nineteen daughter of Brooksville, Mississippi=s Mayor, not only are they denied access to society=s bounty, they are denied control over their own bodies. The whole question of individual privacy for young women has been over shadowed by what parents feel is their right to pry into what should be their child=s personal life, if they are going to have one.
Ultimately, the denial of freedom of expression is at the heart of this stupid war adults are waging against children. Andre Burgess, a seventeen (17) year-old soccer star was shot while walking down a New York City street eating a candy bar. A U S Marshall shot the young man. The Marshall said, he thought the candy was a gun. Attorney General Janett Reno feels the shooting was justified, and has thus far refused to issue a report of her investigation. Black youth no longer have the right to eat candy in public for fear some adult with a gun has declared open season and can be shot without warning.
Infanticide has been taken to new heights by baby boomers who are riddled with guilt and sanctimoniousness. Research reveals youth in America exist in a state of desperation much like the period before Freud=s work on personality. He found, repression forces the imagination to invent ways of expressing its deep-seated desires whether the individual is aware or not. As with women during the 1800's, much of the behavior exhibited by young people is a response to their repressive environment. Case in point, in November, 1997, Nathaniel Jamal Abraham, age eleven (11) became the youngest American to be tried for his life. He, along with Donnell Lewis, Lyndon Desired Morley, and Willie B. joined a growing list of Black youth being lynched in America=s courtrooms. Does this reflect America=s compassion?
Duplicitous and hypocritical messages communicated to young people by today=s paragons of virtue is strangely reflective of the ATitanic.@ These former Marijuana smoking, free loving hippies, turned conservative born-a-again Christians are demanding severe consequences for behaviors which were rewarded following the 1960's. Viewing ATitanic@ as reflecting America=s decadence and greed afloat on a sea of trouble, Pearl, Paducah, Jonesboro, and Springfield seems like bubbles on the surface, foreshadowing the eventual emergence of an iceberg, whose tip is still below the waterline. When one considers that kids today are far more intelligent than boomers were at their age, and enjoy far more access to all kinds of technology, it seems a fatal mistake for adults to be on the attack.
First, kids do not trust adults. Adult use their power to deprive children of their rights. Institutions do not respond to what kids fill are their needs. Finally, government is the club adult=s use to punish children when children exercise their rights. With this mind set, why should children identify with social norms. Even more disturbing however, is the prospect of this generation inheriting the reigns of government, and using their power as it is currently being used against them on older people. What lessons are really being taught here?
DISHES joins a growing national chorus calling for a summit on America=s youth. Adults should unilaterally declare a cease fire. The armistice should include a moratorium on seeking the death penalty for children. America and its children must T.H.I.N.C., and pull back from the brink. $%#@+/-=?
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Confederate soldiers nearly defeated Union troops during the Civil War, because they fought with an unspoken motto ANever Retreat.@ Facing overwhelming odds, they advanced against immured gun fire. From their perspective, retreat was the action of cowards. Today a new breed populates the South. They are neo-pragmatic conservatives, former segregationists turned Republicans, who are pushing a color blind society as a means of eliminating affirmative action. This new breed has stood the ANever Retreat@motto on it head.
Segregation ended sometime around 1970 for most, but its vestiges live on in bodies like County Commissions, School Boards, Recreation Authorities, Regional Commissions and so forth. The significance of such vestiges lies in the word retreat. The Civil Rights Bill of 1965 was the death knell of segregation. It forced segregationists to developed channels to circumvent desegregation efforts. DeKalb County, Georgia is a prime example of the slippery slope of integration. The AJC 2-21-1998 and again on 4-23-1998 reported the DeKalb County Board of Education and DeKalb County Commission both violated the state=s open meetings law by holding off-site rendezvous, thereby avoiding public scrutiny while discussing County business. Retreating is the new tactic white politicians utilize to facilitate defacto-segregation. Rencontres, like these, disguise clandestine gatherings to plan ways to siphon revenue out of black communities into white ones.
Commissioner Jackie Scott took the point in defending their surreptitious tete-tete as attorney-client privilege. In her mind, an attorney=s presence allowed her and Commissioners Elaine Boyer, Gale Walldorff, and Judy Yates to lock the public out. These Commissioners are all white and always support projects benefiting rich Whites in north DeKalb, although some represent the south end of the county. Porter Sanford, the only black commissioner on the board was present, but said nothing about the public=s right to know.
The DeKalb County School Board is organized in the same manner, and the at-large positions give the predominately white north end a majority vote in any situation. DISH asked commission and board members why such expensive off site huddles are necessary. Pres. Michael Usdan of the institute for Educational Leadership said AIt=s useful to get away from posturing and the politics of public meetings, and discuss the pros and cons of issues.@ Newton County and Buford City school boards used state staff development funds that must be used for training. Clayton County spent $ 6,440.86 on such a perk. This is where block-grants are headed and is also why white politicians demand block grants. Retreats sound very innocent, but when one looks at the funds expended for weekend junkets, one can understand why taxpayers always come up short. Conversely, these boards and commissions cannot find the funds to get black children out of portable trailers. DeKalb=s Stephen High is a new school which has had students taking classes in trailers since it opened in 1997. As always, the explanation is no money.
Retreat, whether military or the kind being used by local governing bodies, is a coward=s way out. Hiding from one=s real responsibility and oath of office as well as one=s constitutional charge cannot change the stripes of this scramble to the rear. The real issue here is segregation and white=s efforts to maintain it. Segregation was never dismantled. It simply adapted to the constraints of not being able to openly deny access and legally discriminate against Blacks. An obvious truth is retreats are where the last vestiges of the Ku Klux Klan meet without hoods, and plot to violate citizens= rights. These retreats are like church on Sunday morning. Blacks and whites meet separately supposedly for the same purpose. But, in the words of Loy Harrison A Whites go to church to get together on how to keep blacks in their place.@ Loy was one of thirty white men at the Moore=s Ford lynching in Walton County, Georgia. Stone Mountain, DeKalb County was the home of the Ku Klux Klan, until it found a more receptive residence, Newt=s Marietta, Cobb County. One never respects opponents who only show you their backside. If these nowadays sons and daughters of the Confederacy had been the ones facing the Union, the Civil War would not have lasted an afternoon. As long as citizens of DeKalb County elect politicians who retreat, rather than face up to the changing demands and complexion of DeKalb=s electorate, the county will continue to run from its past.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
January 22, 1998
Senator Jim Leach, Chairman
Senate Banking Committee
523 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D C 20510
Sir:
After listening to the debate on the senate floor regarding Holocaust victims, I was over come by the compassion expressed, the generosity extended, and the spend money to provide for people Americans had no hand in committing genocide against. The hypocrisy exhibited is contrasted with the day Senators spoke on an apology to African Americans for the horrors suffered at the hands of your ancestors. To a man, everyone of you have personally benefited from years of deny African Americans equal rights, so whites could have more, but not one of you feel the same compassion for people you personally wronged. For the record again, I present how African Americans view the situation. The following is a reprint published during Yohannes Sharriff Smith's, the author of T.H.I.N.C.(Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution, Atlanta Mayor's campaign. America owes us, the decedents of African slaves
Malcolm's Shadow: Are We Not All Human Kind?
By John Burel Smith
While surfing the net, I came across an interesting news tidbit out of Washington, DC. It seems the halls of Congress are overflowing with love, benevolence, empathy, and righteous indignation over Germany's recalcitrant attitude, insensitive offers, and general bad manners in not having compensated Holocaust victims from the former Soviet-bloc. This situation provoked the ire of the President, and eighty-two (82) Senators. In a show of bipartisan bravado, they joined forces urging Germany to pay pensions to long-neglected Holocaust survivors. Declaring, "it is unfair to ignore them while compensating former Nazi." The exuberance of these American statesmen did not stop there. Their letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl dated August 1, 1997, amounts to a diplomatic broadside. Point man, Senator Christopher J. Dodd's torpedo scored a direct hit to Germany's soft underbelly. "The German government must not deny them this right while rewarding those who have committed heinous crimes." The aim of this "wolfpack" was to sink the point, "We find it distressing that your government has refused to provide any meaningful compensation to this forgotten group of holocaust survivors. We hope you will address this matter with the utmost speed, so these remaining survivors of mankind's darkest hour are able to live out their final years with some measure of comfort and dignity. This is too important and too moral an issue to ignore. Germany can't fully put World War II behind it until the government addresses this." End quote.
One can just see ol' Senata' Dodd running beside "The Duke" blasting their way onto the beach in defense of freedom and the dignity of the individual. As an African American, my problem with this picture is the hypocrisy reflected by the Senator and his colleagues' lack of compassion, empathy, benevolence, and indignation toward injustice when the victims are African Americans. How can the affirmative action flip-flopping "welfare to workfare"Clinton administration and eighty-two (82) Senators feel so passionately about the rights of Russian citizens, our enemies a few years ago? Conversely, for the descendants of people their parents enslaved for 400 years, not the slightest bit of remorse; Americans' commitment to enslaving human beings was only tempered by a bloody war. The system of forced bondage was dismantled, but the philosophy and psychology lives on today in America. Something is badly askew; some of these 82 concerned Senators have already publicly declared they "see no reason why America should apologize to African Americans for anything." In taking the German government to task, "The German government must not deny them this right", if these Senators were serious in their defense of those denied justice, how can they continue to turn a deaf ear to African Americans' claims for reparations?
This situation graphically illustrates the saliency of El Hajj Malik Shabazz's (Malcolm X) legacy. His theory is that African Americans will never be treated with justice and equality, as long as we allowed White Americans to determine our value. Moreover, until we are fully compensated as the descendants of African slaves, our value can never be known. Therefore, for proper adjudication, African Americans must submit their claims to the International Court of Justice at The Hague, The Netherlands. This procedure would impose an impartial arbiter, forcing America to defend her treatment of African Americans in an international forum. Malcolm X developed the blueprint and Yohannes Sharriff Smith, the author of T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution, has published the statistical and socio-economic model which explains the historical data. All information pertaining to this case is referenced in his book. Malcolm's economic treatise and call for reparations caused his death, but the strategy is sound and necessary. America still refuses to recognize that African Americans deserve the same consideration as other human beings.
EXHIBIT A. In their statement, the Senate lambasted the German government for ignoring the moral issues and referred to the Holocaust as mankind's darkest hour. I strenuously object to that asinine assertion by those bellicose paragons of virtue presiding in the United States Senate. Reviewing history, no other activity in human existence was so benighted and utterly devoid of compassion as the slave trade. During this "dark age," Africans were indiscriminately kidnapped or killed to feed America's insatiable appetite for free labor. Conservatively, it is estimated that over sixty (60) million Africans died crossing the middle passage. This number does not represent those family members who died after reaching America, or those who died fighting to remain free. Africa is the only continent farmed by Europeans for free labor in such a dastardly fashion. It is this commodity perception of African Americans which drives the American philosophy toward and psychology about people of color.
Once on American soil, times darkened considerably. Slavery was outlawed. But, like the hundreds of Christians academies set up during the 1960's all over America to maintain segregated educational facilities, Americans set up breeding plantations to keep a steady supply of slave labor flowing. Breeding plantations lasted until 1808, fifty-five years after the importation of slaves was banded. If hope had not been darkened enough, with just the stroke of a pin, African slaves were simply turned loose. Without any adjustment period, these formal slaves had to compete immediately against white men, who had always been free. As quickly as it began, the glimmer of freedom was smothered by state mandated Jim crow segregation, wanton lynchings, and a nightly reign of terror that lasted until 1968.
EXHIBIT B. The Law is the major reason African Americans have had such a difficult time improving their status in America, and this fact can be traced to the United States Supreme Court's legalizing slavery. The court's negative impact continued to shackle the descendants of slaves even after slaves were freed. Specifically, the court allowed southern states to discriminate against African Americans, solely on the basis of race. Therefore, the U S Supreme Court bares the blame for the continued degrading and dehumanizing racist conditions African Americans endure.
EXHIBIT C. The United States Supreme Court has actively endeavored to use the law to undermined the legal standing of African Americans, consider The Missouri Comprise and Dred Scott. Recalcitrant and racist on most occasions, the court was determined to turned back the clock on affirmative action in order to maintain African Americans in a state less than that of other citizens. In 1978, the Bakke opinion began to erode affirmative action. Like the Reconstruction Act, the Freedmen Bureau, and War on Poverty, affirmative action was proposed to address the debt owed for slavery and segregation. The Supreme Court, acting like George Wallace standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama, worked diligently to throttle African American progress. Adarand vs. Pena was a complete retreat from the posture of the Warren court of the 1950's and 60's which recognized America's debt to the descendants of African slaves. Reversing its previous stand, the court held affirmative action was discriminatory because it impacted white men adversely. This legal legerdemain hornswoggled African Americans because this case did not represent an effort to redress historical grievances resulting from slavery and segregation. Without consideration for right, or justice, and at the expense of the law, the Supreme Court helped majority will trample minority rights.
EXHIBIT D. The Supreme Court made it nearly impossible for the descendants of African slaves to demand redress based on our history. Though we are discriminated against, the remedy can not deny a white man an opportunity. These justices tried to obscure the fact that the United States government denied "them this right while rewarding those who committed heinous crimes." during slavery and segregation. As interpreted by the court, reversed discrimination, as with Jim Crow at the end of slavery, forced African Americans to compete in a game where White men always begin with a twenty (20) points run up. If discrimination is wrong today it was wrong in Plessy vs. Ferguson, establishing "separate, but equal" as the law of the land. Therefore, African Americans are owed redress and compensation because this nation's highest court legalized slavery and segregation. By providing legal justification for states to discriminate, and treat African Americans as second class citizens, the Supreme Court took an active role in the strategy to keep African Americans in a semi-slave status.
History will serve as the character witness for all sides. Surprisingly, the word dignity was tossed about rather pristinely by a bunch of gold diggers, who must check the latest pole to know from which lobbyist to take money. Nevertheless, I see clearly a parallel between the German government's responses to the Holocaust survivors, and the responses of the United States government to African Americans' claims for reparations. Whether Jews during the Nazi reign of madness, Bosnians during Serbia's ethnic cleansing, the A N C under apartheid in South Africa, Arab youth facing Israeli guns in occupied areas, or African Americans in the United States, genocide is at the heart of such a hideous nightmare. If one consults an anthropologist worth his salt, he will tell you African Americans exhibit behavior characteristics consistent with people surviving genocide, and continuing to exist amidst the people committing the atrocity. Even more characteristically, White Americans behave according to the profile of people committing genocide when confronted by their victims. They become an entire nation in denial, like Germany, retreating into the last refuge of hoaxers.
Consider this, there are people in Germany today, who refuse to accept the Holocaust as an actual event. They insist invariably that it was all just a hoax concocted by the media. To wit, there are White Americans, who believe slavery was like a missionary sabbatical for savages enrolled in a cultural exchange program. Most White Americans trying to ease their conscience about slavery, insist they are not racist, and should not have to pay for something they had nothing to do with. The German people felt the very same way about the Holocaust, but the United States and its Allies reasoned: The German people should have stopped the madness. Consequently, the nation bears the responsibility. Ipso facto, if Germany is guilty of genocide and liable for reparations, the United States is equally as guilty, and should put up or shut up. The United States of America " can't fully put slavery behind it until the government addresses this."
Summarily, the German people should recognize the following discussion. Symptoms of genocide in America abound, G.P. Johnson's fiery demise, brother Abner Louima in New York City violated in police custody, and the young brother shot by police in Boston while it was being video taped. These young African American males represent the target of choice in this war of genocide. African Americans ask, if a nation incarcerates the majority of the community's young viral males, while killing another large portion of them, flooding their community with drugs, and use unemployment and underemployment to control medium family income, how can welfare and subsistence living produce anything other than what exists? One can predict that the majority of the population in such a community will be malnourished, health care problems proliferate with high sells in alcohol, tobacco, and other drug products. Sequentially, high crime, frustration, and desperation yield violence as a natural outcome of American existence. America has arrived at the same place as Germany in 1939. The Germans choose to begin constructing ovens for Jews. Presently, America is constructing hundreds of prisons. Will the ovens be next? America, as idealized in textbooks, would pay the debt owed for reparations to African Americans. But, signatories of the Contract With America know this as Malcolm's shadow falls long: young African Americans "will not go quietly into that goodnight."
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
October 8, 1997
Dr. Robert Franklin, President
Interdenominational Theological Center
671 Beckwith, SW
Atlanta, GA 30314
Sir:
My name is John Burel Smith, I am coordinator for Information Cultural Initiatives Committee, a grassroots organization dedicated to the survival of the African American family. After reading Gayle White's article about your arrival in Atlanta, and your comments about the Promise Keepers in an article by Laurie Goodstein, I concluded if we could open a dialogue on the concerns you voiced, positive achievements should result. My hope is that your presence in Atlanta signals a real change in the status quo, and the arrival of someone possessing real concern for our children. Many of these young people live on the fringes of society, disconnected from the institutions other young people are accessing to build community ties. Without such connections, the social fabric frays, and discontent grows into revolutionary fervor. Leaders today are in the exact spot as their fathers, but then they were on the other side. Will the former fighters against the status quo, now become its ardent defenders? Will they turn a dispassionate ear to the cries our children utter? In this regard, and without the aid of the public media, I wish to share my concerns with you.
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines genocide as "The deliberate planned and systematic destruction or annihilation of a racial, political, or cultural group." For many, leveling such a charge against America is so preposterous that the thought is instantly dismissed before an image forms. Now think, how easy accepting what is generally known about segregation is today. The intrepid Ida B. Wells relentlessly reported its horrors of lynching, denial of rights, lawlessness, state supported racism, black and white signs not to mention the economic exploitation. But, you say such things do not happen in America anymore. We have laws. People have rights. Besides, we have the Constitution that protects us all. It is this kind of unquestioning attitude, and blind loyalty the German people gave the Nazi, while cheerfully taking their places on the assembly line in the Nazi Death Camp industry. What happened in Germany when Hitler came to power was a business decision. The country was in a depression, and the Jews had the assets which if liquidated could get Germany back on its feet. Therefore, an entire industry grew up around robbing Jews of their wealth, and eliminating the witnesses at the same time. This industry paid for the military might Germany used to intimidate Europe. Therefore, viewing America in the same light as Nazi Germany is too dissonant a picture for most Americans to recognize.
During Hitler's raise to power, the international community debated the threat of Nazism and Fascism. The" wolf at the door" syndrome dominated considerations. There were two (2) diametrically opposed camps which split Europe at a time when unity was the only course to avoid war. Winston Churchill personified those who believed such tyranny must be stopped in the yard if possible, but at the door by all means. The other side believed it was possible to satisfy a greedy bully's appetite, therefore you can invite him in to dinner. Quivering in their boots, Europeans believed their living terror was not too exorbitant a price for survival. Their position is known as the "Policy of Appeasement."
Pragmatic realism is a basic component of the psychology of appeasement. Pragmatism justifies surrendering any precept, value or fundament principle to survive. Acquiescence spared German and European pragmatist at the expense of neighbors, friends, family members, even spouses and children. They pursued appeasement in the face of reports detailing Nazi atrocities and genocide. Presently, western civilization remains in denial regarding their aid to the Nazi by not moving forcefully to halt the slaughter before over six (6) million Jews died. The fear of facing the bully was so great, their belief in Christ, nor their love of freedom, could overcome their suppression of the truth before their eyes. I ponder the instant when tyranny knocks at one's door and there is no one to speak up, no one left to sacrifice, and money does not matter, what sustains one? Whose face does one see reflected in the eyes of those appeased?
America remembers such erstwhile lamentations while watching the late late late show with the "Duke" winning WWII in ninety minutes. As with the German people, Americans want to believe the rosy picture painted by their leaders, who will not admit the truth about multinationals and the military industrial complex. African Americans today live the insidious nightmare of the Jews, not the hero, and we know all to well the seedy side of America. We were the tragic figure when white Americans agreed that African Americans were the reason the country was undergoing economic problems during the late 1970's. The Supreme Court changed the laws by reinterpreting the Constitution, preventing African Americans from using the law to protect their rights. This was the way it began in Germany, and once the Jews lost access to legal protection, the Nazi simply denied their claims of genocide. Next for African Americans, Republican sponsored laws, regulations, and policies supposedly enacted for the general population, are enforced disproportionately against African Americans. This fact has become a grave concern. Ominous signs indicate an industry has grown up in America which feeds on African Americans, especially the young.
Like AIDS and physteria, it has the ability to mimic an existing structure, therefore it has developed practically unnoticed. It is the security industry. As an arm of the military industrial complex, the security industry has quietly grown into one of the power lobbies in this nation. It has been the catalysis in the crime hysteria engulfing the country. Aided by the media, the psychology is to make everyone so paranoid Americans will go along with anything that supposedly reduces crime. When most people think about the security industry, they imagine alarms, rent-a-cop guards, hi-tech personal gadgets, even armored cars, but its new manifestations began in the Halls of Congress, reached into judges' chambers, and stretched all the way down to the local policeman riding the streets of urban communities. The gripping reality is that its tentacles caressed state capitals into privatizing prisons. Texas, the launching pad of George Bush, Jr. for President, leads the nation in privatizing prisons. For African Americans this completed the cycle-- our children have become cannon fodder in a genocidal war conducted by the security industry. Juxtaposing the Nazi fiendish scheme to get money and the privatization of prisons in America sends shivers across the African American community, like the cries of Abner Louima. The significance of the U. S. Supreme Court's decision on traffic stops, the shrill call for stricter law enforcement, the constant drumming for longer sentences, and the draconian attitude toward young Americans in general and African Americans in particular, have ushered in dark times. The justification for decimating the present generation is the "lawlessness" of the young. Every generation goes through the process of haphazardly wondering, seeking meaning and identity. However, this is the first generation facing mass incarceration in adult prison to thwart their search. Incarcerated without any hope for rehabilitation, most of these young African Americans were juveniles with drug offenses at the time of their arrest. Somewhere along the way the standard changed, " if it is an adult crime, you do adult time." This society is punishing young African Americans for learning the lesson it worked so hard to teach: "You are not a part of us, we have no responsibility toward you." Once an individual cognizes this lesson, they will respond with an equal and opposite reaction. Conservatives have achieved their goal of creating an adversary mind set between young African Americans and the public in order to justify feeding them to the security industry.
People of color the world over have struggled under the boot of genocide . What the world must cognize is that we here in America, like the Jews, have suffered this same yoke of genocide for over four hundred (400) years. Appeasement reflects real consequences for African Americans, because it dictates making concessions as one's primary strategy for survival. The lash wrote its commandments on the raw backs of slaves, cutting an indelible grove into their psychic. The devastating affect of this policy on a people and a nation can be clearly examined by considering the legacy of slavery on African Americans. Surviving over two hundred sixty (260) years of bond slavery imbedded appeasement as the operative strategy for African Americans, because compliance and concessions are the cornerstone of the slave master philosophy. The brutal inhumane treatment required to make a slave fosters an attitude of total compliant submission, and produces a desperate desire to oblige the exigent caprice of whites. This syndrome, Condition Subordinate Psychology (CSP), is introduced in T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis Of Evolution, a book by Yohannes Sharriff Smith. CSP, a mental condition, represents the sum total of what happened to us psychologically, and refers to an abnormal mind set as compared to what our state would have been if our independent will had not been perverted. This is a point white Americans refuse to accept, in order to avoid responsibility for the centuries old rage festering in the minds of young African Americans. The descendants of African slaves were never untrained to behave, feel, think or respond according to subliminal messages seared into their psychic during slavery, thereby setting us up as unwilling culprits victimizing ourselves a century later. This led me to conclude that maybe deeply imbedded codes or subtle clues over time have produced unique behavioral patterns which may determine our responses. Furthermore, these characteristics are believed to be consistent, persistent, and stable. If this is the case such a neuropsychic system could to a great extent determine which stimuli will be perceived. Until some effort is made to establish just what are the affects of slavery on learning, everyone will continue assuming slavery had no real accumulative affect on African Americans. Does slavery affect retention rates when environmental conditions are perceived as hostile, firing defensive mechanisms which trigger a stress reaction during learning situations, such as reading? In the laboratory, studies involving operant conditioning have shown that subjects can be taught through aversive stimulation to avoid situations they craved. To recapitulate, the mind can be taught to avoid something as enriching as reading, because of the shear terror associated with it. This last point is crucial when one remembers for a slave learning to read was punishable by death. In other words, with what we know about how the mind works during suppression and avoidance, and how the subconscious impacts our conscious reality, there could be a whole array of mental mechanisms at work when African Americans learn which are absent when whites learn, because they were never slaves.
As a psychologist, I can state unequivocally there are three (3) gross variables which are most important in directing one's growth and development. First the response of the environment to the individual, next, the attitudes the individual develops as a result of that response, and lastly, the intuitive sense of benevolence engendered by one's encounters with the environment. These variables interact to determine the level of connection, commitment and trust the individual feels towards the society. This is basically what is known as learning. The process is affected by many environmental forces. Research on those who abuse their spouse or children can make this picture even clearer in regards to how these avoidance mechanisms or traits may have persisted over generations. Studies involving abused spouses and children, as well as, alcoholism and smoking show that if you want to know who will abuse their spouse, children, alcohol, or smoke look at their childhood. If they were abused, or grew up around alcoholism, or smokers, the likelihood is they will be abusive or smoke. It seems such victims learn very subtle clues and responses which are so defuse, the individual is totally unaware of what is controlling their behavior. My contention is that something like this process took place during slavery involving learning and other higher intellectual functioning due to the fear avoidance associated with it and the negative re-enforcement for not learning. Therefore, according to the literature, successive generations could have re-enforced such avoidance traits by transmitting subtle clues relating to stress and anxiety in a learning situation.
This morass impels African Americans on the crucifix of appeasement to sacrifice the future of our children to make more money and maintain the illusion of status. Like Newt Gingrich and the Promise Keepers, some African Americans are so pragmatic they can think just like white people. These uncle Toms jettison any value, principle, or relationship for self survival. The pragmatic Republicans find such comfort in their "Contract With America" because it avoids the preeminent testing of truth. It is simply a Trojan horse. A case in point is the school vouchers plan to pay for private school tuition. Supposedly, the idea is to allow inner city families choice in educating their children, thereby escaping failing public schools. The operative statement here is "failing public schools." If public schools are supported by taxes, how is it possible for some to be failing and others to be succeeding, unless there is a question of discrimination. Since more Americans attend public than private schools, the demand is to bring public schools up to the level of private schools. Once that field is leveled, then choice will exist between public and private, and vouchers will not represent an effort to trap African American children in inferior schools. Rural schools are a side note; they have always lagged behind in facilities and resources. What private school will these children attend? Conservatives are being disingenuous once again. The bottom line is, if taxes and resources were allocated fairly, pervasive patterns of historical discrimination would not exist. Consequently, Republicans would not be attempting to button hook the Constitution while winking at right and fairness.
The destruction of our youth by those aiding the security industry prison take overs is the most putrefied example of appeasement in the African American community. African Americans have been targeted as a ready resource to feed this growing industry. Their selection is a telling reflection of how America feels about our children. Questions arise with acts like the one at Pearl High School in Jackson, Mississippi. Why did this happen? What got into that young man? Is there something psychological going on? Typically, Americans go into denial when things happen which disturb them, this avoids mental pain, but it does not allow them opportunities to deal with implications of their role in the tragedy. This is why the German people were able to avoid conscious knowledge of how they aided Nazi killing over six (6) million Jews. Part and parcel to their denial is a willingness to understand and connect with the victim, but their response to the perpetrator is based on race. In contrast, two (2) African American teens were involved in an altercation at a high school in DeKalb County, and the death of one of the young men resulted. There was an immediate hue and cry for this young man's head from the legal profession. There was none of the compassion or empathic questions about psychological disturbance. For them it was cut and dry, it was an adult crime he should do adult time. These two (2) situations are both tragic, and the loss of any life should be mourned by all, but the American public has an attitude of vengeance which makes killing acceptable. Killing is glorified in movies, and elevated to the level of a constitutional right in light of the Supreme Court's decision on the death penalty. My moribund lament is that conservatives will use these incidents to crackdown even harder on our children, while expressing compassion for theirs.
Appeasement is the black politicians' stock and trade; they have bought into the current crime hysteria pushed by the security industry through the media. A most illuminating example of how the security industry feeds on African Americans trapped in the criminal justice system, and how it expands its customer base can be found in the sunshine state. In a story off the net by Fox Butterfield, it seems Duval County Prosecutor, Harry Shorstein put together a juvenile program which has everyone on both sides of the bars talking. The centerpiece of Shorstein's program is his aggressive use of a state law that gives the Florida prosecutor the most sweeping discretion of any state to try juveniles in adult criminal court. His aggressive stance bagged 494 juveniles in adult court in 1993, the most of any city in America. His latest catch is a 7-year-old, who has been charge with aggravated assault for hitting a female with a brick. The premise of his aggressive approach is what Shorstein calls "pre-emptive strike" locking up young children on simple or minor offenses, claiming this will prevent the commission of multiple crimes in the future. One aspect of the program combines several agency representatives such as police, the school board, the state child protective service organizations, and local hospitals. This group meets with psychologist Melissa Levy to share information about children 6 to 15 who have committed a crime or had trouble in school. Shorstein forces cooperation from parents by issuing warrants for violation of a seldom-used Florida law requiring parents to keep their children in school. Often with TV news cameras going, he arrest parents. Shorstein laughs about his "neat legal trick" because " we don't have the authority to do some of these things." The real caper here is that parents have to sign a contract placing their child under Shorstein's supervision for one year to avoid prosecution. Shorstein believes "three strikes and you're out is the most popular idea in history." Consequently, if the child gets into any trouble again, Shorstein has the parent and the child in tow for more stringent measures.
Prosecutor Shorstein's sobering picture is just another piece of the Reagan and Bush administration's plan to allow the military to take an active role in civil law enforcement. This plan, another Trojan horse, began with the signing of a secret National Security Decision Directive officially designating the drug problem as a "national security issue" and authorizing an even greater role in the drug war for the U. S. military. My first objection is to the obvious civil rights as well as constitutional issues raised by Shorstein's discriminatory and racist use of state laws, and the subjective value laden evaluation system employed to select clients. With psychologist Levy, child protective services, and the school board all weighing in on Shorstein's side, who is looking after the interest of the children? The real issue raised by this situation is the process by which the military industrial complex, through its access, controls public policy when the public has no say in military policy. This situation goes to the heart of campaign financing, and why a vote has little if any power as long as money controls the political process. Programs such as this one illustrate how the pragmatic politics of Newt and Conservative right with its Promise Keepers work their insidious will without any regard for right or the Constitution.
Sir, America's attitude toward killing makes possible the Timothy McVeighs of the world. I was there in Memphis. We meet that day in the upper room before the crucifixion. I saw the blood, so pure, but still, it could not cleanse this nation of its sin of slavery, nor purify it of racism. This time, we must build a cadre dedicated to catching the flag without it ever touching ground. I feel such an understanding should enable us to open a serious dialogue regarding those problems I have outlined here. Such a working relationship will add real depth to the outreach effort in Atlanta. So, I welcome you to the fray. I am not a tele-evangelist, nor do I purport to preach, but this sermon taught by my great grandfather Rev. Burel Lee captures the lesson I wish to convey to the Colin and Kevin Powells of the world, who verbally fight the battle of African American survival. I challenge them to read Matthew Chapter 4. This chapter is the most instructive, and it outlines what one need know in order to live the life of Christ. His life was not about going to heaven, but living it in this world twenty-four (24) seven (7). The words in this chapter which holds the most significance for me are: "Man does not live by bread alone." Jesus went into the temple and chased the money changers out, and chastised the pharisees for their public displays. Accepting Christ as lord and saviour is easy, living it, is its manifestation. Go with grace.
Thank You, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
December 10, 1997
The Honorable Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim
Secretary-General, Organization Of African Unity
P. O. Box 3243
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Brother:
African Americans stand before a door barred by history, and slammed shut by the middle passage. The rape of the African continent cut connections to our homeland which has not been glimpsed in four hundred (400) years. Standing like the "Wall of Jericho, slavery's legacy denies us as pure manifestations of the same father. Stigmatized by such a Judas mark, the ravages of slavery created an estranged family only now capable of sealing the breech. Today the reality is: We are the Amistad! Like captives, this intrepid crew is adrift on a timeless sea of degradation, searching the horizon for a beacon to bring us to port. Castaways here in America, African Americans are treated like pirate ships, refused ports of entry. For centuries, we have "stood at the door and knocked. Asking that we be allowed to pass within and receive the water of life." As Jeremiah: 34: we are a voice crying in the wildness, the muse of the prodigal.
On behalf of African brothers and sisters marooned in America, we are applying for membership in the Organization of African Unity. Destitute, our state of mind reflect the nation we represent. This makes our status very different from other African nations that have land on which to stand. We have only history and principles on which to stand. Torn from mother Africa's bosom, we are victims of Christianity, tribalism, colonialism, slavery and legal segregation. The world became our oppressors.
Enslaved Africans were black gold, more valuable than oil today. Our ancestors were cheep fuel driving the engine of the world economy for over three (3) hundred years. The western world=s economic system robbed Africans of their freedom in order to build grand European cities with cheep labor, as well as America's military industrial might. However, while making the world rich, we have been forced to live in abject poverty, and relegated to the fringes of economic life in America. By joining the OAU, our hope is to become a part of the international community, gain some respect and recognition as a people.
African Americans are afforded a unique perspective and can provide a view of the world heretofore unsolicited. As the first rays of the dawning millennium gleams clear, we stand as selvedge deeply engrossed in retrospective analysis, pondering the prospect of our future mirroring our past. Hanging in the balance is the answer to whether or not this generation will squander its energy fighting the centuries' old battles homo sapiens have heaped upon dispossessed of humanity.
Fifty years hence historians will view this period as an "Antithetical Model." Philosophically, this model is identified with the policy of containment, better known as the Cold War. Containment is very significant to the situation facing Africa today. Everyone is familiar with this history. Following both World Wars, Africa was promised her nations would be given their freedom, if they fought on the side of western powers or remained neutral. At the end of WWI, as with WWII, Africa was divvied up among European nations that continued unabashed colonialism.
Unopposed until the early 1950's colonialism ran amok. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a man before his time, but in the case of Africa on time, was like the "Lion of Judah" for equatorial Africa. He developed a strategy which gained independence for most dominant tribes. Dr. Nkrumah fashioned the philosophy of Pan-Africanism into a workable diplomatic tool, thereby elevating the struggle for African independence. A decade later, his example was emulated by El Hajj Malik El Shabazzn, as he fashioned black nationalism in America. The aim of Pan-Africanism was to reduced the reliance on tribalism as a means of governing. More important, he envisioned Africa as a federation of independent states, wholly sovereign with each giving up that degree of sovereignty which makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Dr. Nkrumah realized through this process African statesmen could view the continent as a cohesive whole, rather than fragmented tribal possessions.
The true wisdom of his vision is evident when one examines how Europeans annihilated whole nations of humanity in North and South America. Although out numbered, Europeans never fought all the native American nations at the same time. Tribes saw traditional enemies as a greater threat than the white man. Therefore, tribe after tribe stood by and allowed the Europeans to literally wipe them out a tribe at a time. Dr. Nkrumah believed, if such a federation as the OAU could be forged, African statesmen could form a united front to deal with Europe and the United States. Maintaining such a precarious balance required a counter weight. Audaciously resolute and with the savoir faire of a swashbuckler, Dr. Nkrumah lived on the edge between two(2) antagonist determined to devour one another. Dr. Nkrumah's challenge was to buttress the needs and consideration for those caught in the middle.
From this point onward, the Policy of Containment wrought devastation to the fragile emerging nations of Africa. Antithetically, the Cold War is an umbrella term used to describe a whole host of initiatives on the part of the United Stares including propping up dictatorships, financing and spearheading coup d'etats, assassinations, and counter- revolutions, just to name a few of its dastardly deeds. The most infamous, and notorious outrage from this period was the assassination of President Patrice Lamuba of the Congo. The United States and Belgium concocted a subterfuge involving a communist take over in his country to justify sending in mercenaries. The pincer destablized the Congolese government, and the CIA killed Pres. Lamuba. Once the legitimate government was destroyed, they installed a lackey puppet, and continued to rape the Congo and its people. This scenario repeated itself all over Africa, and in places like Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. The CIA using the antithetical charge of "communist sympathizers" to declared war on the black power movement in the America after the death of Dr. King. Making the charge was sufficient for the CIA removed any constitutional protection, international law, or religious conviction as a human rights issue. The CIA's de-stabilization strategy produced the turmoil that embroils the continent of Africa today.
The OAU flowered as Dr. Nkrumah's diplomatic skills reach there zenith, and it became a force the colonial powers had to reckon with. As you know, the United States and the colonial powers withdrew support from the Pan-African movement when the OAU would not serve as a surrogate for their interests in Africa. CIA agents seeded the world press with accusations of communist influence in the OAU. Dr. Nkrumah's only hope of saving his struggling movement was turning to Russia. Not a hero in this tragedy by any means, Russia, Cuba, Libya provided the only alternative and assistance in Africa=s wars of liberation. At that point, Africa was like a bone in a dog fight; it had no say in the outcome. Today, we have inherited the results of that madness. We can not undo the past; we can only plan for the future. Africans are in a far better situation now, compared to what Dr. Nkrumah faced when he began. We are more intelligent about our circumstances. We possess greater expertise in more areas, and technology has reconfigured today's world.
Technology today is like the six gun in the American west during the 1800. It equalized men in ways never before imagined. A man was measured by how fast and well he could use his gun. The law was what could be enforced with a gun. Accordingly, we are at the precipice in the rebirth of Dr. Nkrumah's dream of Pan-Africanism. African Americans want to be a part of that future. African Americans clearly see our future tied to mother Africa. Becoming members of the OAU would not only benefit African Americans, but Africa would be the beneficiary of entrepreneurship, marketing, and distribution expertise needed to exploit American markets. What we in America need is to become familiar with African exports, because we have the markets, and a huge demand for African merchandise.
My son, Yohannes Sharriff Smith, author of T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution, has attempted to initiate a cultural exchange program between Africa and America. In addition to being a writer, he is an accomplished poet. His performance is a dramatic interpretation of his poetry in the style of Paul Robeson. Yohannes has written the United States Department of State to acquire assistance in setting up a two month tour during the summer of 1998. He anticipates bringing a troop of young African Americans artists and performers to Africa. His desire is to establish a forum to provide opportunities for interaction between estranged brothers and sisters. To date, the State Department has not responded to his request for information about clearances and planning an itinerary. This is a very important effort towards our goal of reestablishing family bonds, thereby coming full circle in our four (400) year long odyssey. It is our sincerest hope that the OAU understands, we are traveling toward the same goal along diverging paths. This cultural exchange between young Africans and the descendants of African slaves can intertwine their experiences so that our story becomes one. We appreciate any assistance you can provide in this family matter. Yohannes' program will not function as a go between nor as a set up man for the State Department, neither are we missionaries for a church. We are emissaries in the tradition of those statesmen mentioned above. When speaking on behalf of humanity, these statesmen understood the magnitude of one's actions, and the impact of what is said publicly. These statesmen were not televanglists nor magicians, they simply spoke to the needs of humanity. We thank you for your interest, and await your response to this desperate plea!!!
Solidarity Forever, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
July 15, 1998
Ms Anita Taylor
Supervisor, Inmate Accounting
Shelby County Penal Farm
Memphis, TN 38134
Madam,
I am Director of Lifeline Connections, a nonprofit out reach program conducted by The Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation. Lifeline's concept is rehabilitation base. Therefore, we regard all inmates as part of the human family, and with in the pale of human kindness. Our supporters and customers share this common bond through written and verbal communications. This"Hands Across The Wall" approach is designed to maintain connections with the community by building positive links between supportive individuals, and community resources responsible for services needed. The lack of access to community member incarcerated in your institution is why I am writing you.
I received a package from you in December returning articles mailed to Michael A. Hitchings an inmate there. I have several problems with your actions, the lease of which is concerns about first amendment rights. First, all of the contents in the original package were not returned, or given to Michael. Neither, Michael, nor I were advised about the specifics of the discussion to deny access. Secondly, I have not been able to discover why the information returned was not delivered to Michael. Thirdly, the other concern is over the material not delivered nor returned. These two items are a book T.H.I.N.C.(Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution by Yohannes Sharriff Smith, and one of this T-shirts from his campaign for Mayor of Atlanta. I have no idea why Michael could not receive his T-shirt. The book presents a different situation. For it to be refused someone had to read it. Intellectually, an honest reviewer presents their critic, and etiquette requires I be provided with a copy in case there are some erroneous claims. When I was an inmate there in 1971, we received such articles with only pornographic restrictions, and T.H.I.N.C. is certainly not porn!!!
I have already relayed all first amendment concerns to Attorney General Jent Reno( see attachment). I will be await your response to the items raised here. I will appreciate your timely attention to this matter.
Thank You, John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Poverty in America 1996
Report of Grassroots Economic Advisors
As the voluminous statistics contained in the 1996 Census Bureau Report on Poverty attest, there are numerous economic measures. In the worst of economic times given this vast array of figures and sophisticated statistical analysis, one is sure to discover something positive to say about changes in welfare over the period under examination. The President and his erudite economic advisers did precisely that in announcing the publication of the 1996 Census Bureau poverty and income data. Because they are buried beneath a ton of numeric garbage, sifting through the rubble to answer cogent questions about the national economic welfare and its distribution becomes an exercise in futility. Given the growing complexity of the data, and its sheer volume, one can easily understand why so much head scratching and countless ahs peppered the answers provided in the press conference. Sperling and Yellen, the presidential economic gurus, are not alone among those unclear about the dynamics of the American economy. Despite their confusion, Americans generally rely on a personal barometer of economic welfare. And, Americans in growing numbers are finding real barometric declines in the areas that define economic welfare. For too many Americans, particularly African Americans, the answer to the question are you better off today than a year or ten years ago is a resounding no!
Because the vast majority of Americans measure welfare in terms of family income, median family income is perhaps the single most important measure of economic welfare. While there was a nominal increase in median household income from 1995 to 1996, little progress has been made in the historical disparities between whites and other minorities; these continued uninfluenced by the national economic prosperity. Along demographic lines, whites enjoyed a nominal median family income increase of $511.00 and blacks $428.00. Traditionally, black family median income has fluctuated between the narrow band of .5 and .65 that of whites. In simplistic terms, since wages make up the greatest share of family income, it can be said that black human capital is valued at roughly three-fifths of white human capital in the labor market even during the best of economic times. That evaluation of black human capital dates back to the Missouri or Three-Fifths Compromise, a legacy of American slavery.
For 1996, white median family income stood at $38,787.00; the black and Hispanic median family incomes were $23,482.00 and $24,906.00, respectively for the year. In keeping with our historic tradition of income disparity, the black median family income continued to reside in its narrow band, i.e., .5 to .65. The difference between the economic welfare of whites and blacks in this country, in terms of median family income, has not been impacted by the current cycle of economic prosperity. This readily measurable difference in economic welfare is termed the Chasm of Inequality by Yohannes Sharriff Smith in his book T.H.I.N.C.: The Chrysalis of Evolution. The author concludes that discrimination is the unexplained and unmeasurable factor that defies rational analysis and makes the Chasm stable over every phase of cyclical economic fluctuations from depression to prosperity and everything in between.
The newly published Census Bureau Report on Poverty merely validates the stability of the Chasm of Inequality in America. Essentially, we remain two societies. And, given the questionable economic policies and practices that color the American economic and political landscape, we will continue to remain two separate and grossly unequal societies.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Letter to the Editor:
From the desk of Dot Smith
November 24, 1997
I could not agree more with Jim Wooten's "Evasive Action is Destructive," regarding the handling of the Piscataway case. Making the case moot by paying off the plaintiff, considered a smart move on the part of proponents of preferences, prevents a case they believe is not the best case scenario for this important issue facing our nation. I agree with their assessment--this was not a strong case for arguing quotas and preferences. Mr. Wooten seems to suggest the court battle should have been enjoined regardless just so the court can make a decision on the issue once and for all. Keeping the case out of the hands of the highest court of the land undermines the role of that august establishment in defining democracy ala the U.S. Constitution. I agree a case should be heard by the Supreme Court to lay to rest the controversy surrounding affirmative action. Notice I used the term affirmative action, not quotas or preferences, the code words used to stir the blood of opponents of affirmative action and conservative sentiment in the U.S.
Wooten's article failed, as both sides of the debate, to frame the underlying problem posed for affirmative action in this particular case, and affirmative action in general. These are the points I wish to highlight:
(1) The qualifications of the teachers in the Piscataway case are not equal. Only in the United States where the labor market historically devalues black human capital will we find a master's degree equal in economic value to a couple of years' experience. No one seems willing to explore the glaring dichotomy in human capital valuation and the pivotal role it plays in the need for affirmative action.
(2) The black teacher in this case belongs to a group historically discriminated against. To suggest there was no need to correct for past discrimination in this case is to ignore slavery and its impact on human capital valuation in the U.S. labor market. More important, it turns a blind eye and deaf ear to the real reason this nation turned to affirmation action in the first place. The problems confronting this country necessitating affirmative action have not changed. African Americans still suffer from racial discrimination in employment and opportunities for economic development that is based on the value placed on slave labor historically. Examine the facts, African American human capital is still valued at three-fifths that of whites, hence the stable historic economic welfare gap between whites and blacks in America. Affirmative action is the reparations African Americans would have received in an otherwise civilized society. As inadequate as affirmative action has been, it is better than nothing for righting the original wrong and bringing some equality to the market for human capital and opportunities for economic development.
(3) Until this country faces up to the despicable act that lay as its economic and moral foundation, we will continue confusing the issues and offering solutions that act as unsterile bandages over a fatal wound. Alexis de Toqueville would probably say, "I warned you!"
Dot Smith, Economist
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
January 13, 1998
The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Honorable Sir:
Responding to your call for a national dialogue on race, I submitted a copy of Yohannes Sharriff Smith's book, T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis Of Evolution. The whole question regarding our slave legacy is represented in T.H.I.N.C. Although your response indicated our views would be considered, follow up plans clarifying our role have not materialized. To date, we have not been provided access as others expressing opinions. Previous gatherings ignored a major position African Americans consider paramount in this dialogue: Reparations. African Americans embrace reparation as compensation for debts owed decedents of slaves and for years of segregation. Discussing America's dilemma in terms of reparations sets the stage for progress on an intractable problem. We categorically dismiss affirmative action as minutia, and not an attempt to resolve debts accrued as slaves and injuries suffered during segregation. Recapitulating, affirmative action efforts are crumbs from a Thanksgiving feast, far too mild a remedy to cauterize the putrid ulcer of slavery and segregation. Oozing long past gangrene, my aim is to lay bear this festering canker. Reparations brings closure and best serves our interest by giving us control over assets our ancestors accrued as slaves and then taken away during segregation.
Mr. President for dialogues to yield fruit, men must speak directly with candor and simplicity. Placing all cards on the table and my gloves there also, you and I can bear knuckles. Rev. Burel Lee, my great grandfather taught a lesson about aggression. He would say, " Son within the bounds of integrity, do all you can to avoid a fight, but once you know it is unavoidable, get ready for the fight." I have adhered to his admonition as a rigor when engaged in negotiations or political endeavors. From T.H.I.N.C., you are familiar with Jeremiah: 34, and its sobering assessment of America's dilemma. Project Soldier stands as the worst case scenario, laying bare America's festering wound too sensitive to amputate.
Heat's white glare tempers steel, but to know this truth, one must face the fire. Slavery, the undying root of African American debasement locked us in a life and death struggle for survival. An object lesson, the life of Umar al-Mukhtar, our Man Of The Century teaches us about commitment. The Lion of the Desert, standing before the noose, taught a people to resist no matter what the cost. The Sanusi Saikh's plea for help while commanding forces fighting the Italo-Sanusi War found the world watching in deafening silence. Fighting Fascism for twenty years, Bedouins suffered a fate worst than Jews in Germany. The reality check today is Libya, and Libyans care no more for the world than it did for them and Umar al-Mukhtar.
For those finding reparations a difficult concept to grasp, my family's legacy remained unchanged eighty years out of slavery. My antidotal record supports scientific data presented in Smith's T.H.I.N.C. Born in 1943, a month after Pearl Harbor, life as a fifth generation sharecropper awaited me like a steel cage. Beginning with Burel and Laura Lee through my grandparents Eddie and Ada Wilson, I was born last to my dirt poor sharecropping parents Tommy and Willie May Smith. My father rescued us from the isolated desperation of farm life in 1945. He smuggled us out of Mississippi, under cover of darkness. "Night trains," as they were called, were common occurrences during the dark days of segregation. African Americans were not allowed to move freely. Relatives attempting such audacious rolls of the dice were tracked down and dragged back to Mississippi. Others were never heard from again. The law enforced segregation by day; Klan kept us terrorized by night. White men patrolled back roads. Anything could happen, if one was caught out after dark. Escaping farms owing money was a hanging offense, but poverty drives men to risk all for their families.
Penniless, confused and frightened like immigrants at Ellis Island, we arrived in Memphis afraid someone may be on our trail. Our house was a rat infested lean-to with walls that could not keep out freezing winter wind. Seven of us, two adults and five children, lived in this two roomed cracker box. Located next to an Illinois Central switching yard, locomotives spat soot and smoke twenty-four hours a day. A resilient spirit, Mother was our strength. She held our family together when welfare was not an option. My father joined W.C. Handy's parade bemoaning the "Blues " a few years after arriving in Memphis. Nevertheless, Mother was determined to loosen poverty's grip on her children's future. Like thousands who lived their entire lives on farms, mother was unfamiliar with the sophisticated treachery bated to ensnare women, desperately struggling to feed their children. In a city like Memphis during the late forty's, women were gobbled up like sweet treats, and spat out like pits. Undaunted, Mother persevered leaving home before dawn and returning after dark. Courting disaster daily, she walked to and from work six days a week. Her credo: "There is no time for despair, there is always something you can do."
Otis Gray came into our lives and cast an obtuse angle softening life's jagged swipe. Daddy Otis, a new farther for a young man of eleven, deflected some of maturation's acicular edge with his broad frame or a fore arm in passing. I believe for the first time in our lives, we all felt real comfort having someone so powerful on our side for once. Otis and Willie May were married in 1954. Daddy Otis became the ninth resident in our three roomed shot gun housing two families.
One day in 1954 my fifth grade teacher declared, " We won!" She told us some guy named Brown had beat somebody called Plessey. " All Negroes are free!!" she screamed. Then beaming with pride, she proclaimed, " White folks can not stop us from going to white schools anymore or doing anything." We all cheered! Brown v Board of Education ended Plessey v Ferguson's "separate but equal," doctrine. Segregation was the law of the land. Plessey legalized African American second class status. It mandated African Americans were violating laws when exercising rights constitutionally granted. I remember watching Little Rock on television in 1957. Conversely, when I graduated in 1962, I recall wondering why I was never allowed to attend white schools?
Discharged in May 1966 from military service, civil rights battles left blood in streets all over America. I committed to black power, after watching cops with billy clubs, water hoses, and dogs attack children. Then came Birmingham, an explosion that rocked everyone's cradle. Like a catalyst, striking sanitation workers in late 1967 focused African Americans consciousness on Memphis. A shrill cry from the chasm of inequality shivered through the community.
Intrepid teenagers became shock troops marching for equality and respect. "The Invaders" a group I organized, joined striking garbage men, who were only asking to be treated as human beings. They wanted their rights respected and protected. Rather than treat black men like other city workers, white leaders in Memphis preferred turmoil. Once The Invaders joined striking sanitation workers, tactics changed. Gaining recognition for striking sanitation workers became interwoven with community needs and goals. Successful conclusion to strike activities would force a change in leadership. Treatment of garbage workers and city recalcitrance symbolized white attitudes toward blacks in general. Changing character in community support and strikers identification with The Invaders resulted in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taking over leadership of the strike. Dr. King did not understand, nor was he informed of the tug-of-war between civil rights supporters and The Invaders. Dr. King's ill-fated march and sanitation workers both were hostages of preachers desperately trying to hold on to their leadership status.
The Invaders used real aggressive tactics. Non- allied, we were true wild cards, free to pursue community interest without concern for disturbing traditional power blocs. We hit the city anywhere it hurt. The more city leaders screamed, the harder we hit. We marched, took over meetings, packed city council chambers, turned out schools, attacked convoys of garbage trucks escorted by police, and when we were arrested, we flooded jails. Fighting a real guerrilla campaign, our aggressive tactics were too outrageous for preachers controlling strike strategy. Ignoring guidelines barring strike activities without approval, The Invaders pressed the issue. Everything hit the fan. Strike leaders and Preachers negotiated an end to the strike without sanitation workers voting on the deal. Strikers got wind of the sellout, and asked us to help. Disguised as sanitation workers, we disrupted the meeting preventing a vote.
Deaths of Medgar Evers, El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, Otis Redding and Whitney Young were devastating, but the assassination of Dr. King stopped us cold. America grew tired of civil rights and blacks demanding justice, equality, and human rights. Whites in America went on the offensive opposing busing, open housing, full and fair employment. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, used Co-Intel-Pro, a domestic counter-insurgency program in a war on black power. Co-Intel-Pro was designed to destabilize, or destroy black power organizations and murder individuals. Black power spokesmen fell under the cross hairs; bulls' eyes were painted on their backs. Young African Americans fighting for basic human rights were discredited using blacks hired by the Federal government. These provocateurs created an environment where murdering those who believed in black power was acceptable.
The United States government wiped out leaders of black power using intimidation, infiltration, subversion, and murders like those of Donny Delaney, Mark Clark, Fred Hampton, Mark Essex, Elton Hayes, Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. and Donny Hathaway. Co-Intel-Pro literally destroyed young leadership potential in the black community. The government's underlining strategy, attacking young black leaders was designed to replace disgraced or assassinated ones with blacks working as spies and henchmen for Co-Intel-Pro.
Everyone has a story, and I am no exception. This is my bottom line personal Co-Intel-Pro legal lynching. High school students attempting to get black history taught, black books in schools, and supporting striking sanitation workers were singled out and disciplined. Memphis Board of Education took a very harsh stance against students active during the strike, and retaliated with suspensions. Students attending George Washington Carver High, my Alma mater, attempted to negotiate returning to school. Principal R. B. Thompson called in the police. Feeling betrayed, students pulled fire alarms and pelted police with rocks and bottles. Arrested on the scene, a midnight session of Tennessee's legislature passed several laws on which to indict me the next morning. I was held responsible for actions of students arrested and identified as Invaders. An all white jury found me guilty. I maxed 5 years behind "The Wall" in Nashville. This is our history!!!
Most Americans believe questions casting doubt on America's future were answered with Adarand v Pena. Further they are convinced the Supreme Court rightly dealt affirmative action a killing blow. Brown v Board of Education's "all deliberate speed" produced affirmative action. Adarand did not involve a class action against government, like segregated schools as in Brown. Setting forth a remedy to mitigate affects of Plessey v Ferguson "separate but equal," Brown recognized that governments, federal, state, and local legalized denying African Americans their rights. Under such circumstances, governments are liable. Therefore, they were ordered by the court to provide reparations or make up for denying blacks their rights before Brown. "All deliberate speed" resulted when offending governments would not move faster to correct wrongs.( open housing, busing, full, fair employment etc..). The answer to my question in 1962.
Affect of remedies on individuals involving court imposed sanctions, affirmative action, can not be used to justify abrogating a class action. In Adarand, the court arm wrestled its way to a stricter interpretation of Brown without actually hearing arguments pursuant to Brown. Efforts to remedy Plessey have become the same as Plessey. Adarand button-hooked the constitution as the court backs away from its own edict "all deliberate speed." In an atmosphere of smoke and mirrors, the court obscured real issues addressed in Brown which grew out of Plessey v Ferguson: state mandated racial exclusion of African Americans. Affirmative action resulted from court edicts remedying federal, state, and municipal mandated bias. In its haste to turn back the clock on civil rights, the Supreme Court's radical interpretation ignores "equal protection" as well as "due process" as constitutional restraints on rights of the majority. This ruling stands Brown v Board of Education on its head, and reestablishes Plessey v Ferguson's "separate but equal" as law of the land. Such an absurd interpretation not only does this nation a disservice by obscuring real issues, it emasculates the Fourteenth Amendment's "equal protection" clause. This is white power. When they do not like the results, they simply change games.
Our position is timeless. Our reality is immutable. Centuries assessed and evaluated under the " Three Fifths Compromise,"and a door barred by slavery strips bear all pretenses. It is not what the opinion in Adarand v Pena says or does in itself, but what is being justified which carries force of law. Plessey v Ferguson did not mandate sharecropping, "Night trains," chain gangs, lynching, and the like. What it did was to create an environment where denying blacks access, and depriving them of their civil rights became a function of government. The Supreme Court sets a very dangerous precedent here. Using this back door method to abrogate legal standing of a landmark decision without allowing debate on merits, supplants that decision. There are vast differences between legalized terror experienced under Plessey v Ferguson and what whites are experiencing under affirmative action. If it is possible to hammer lock the constitution in this manner, there by changing legal standing, Americans have neither liberty, nor freedom. Conjuring up constitutional authority in order to justify denying African Americans constitutional rights other Americans exercise freely is pernicious tyranny of the majority. This brings America back to Plessey v Ferguson, "The Three Fifths Compromise," the dark days of segregation, and the worst case scenario Project Soldier.
Historically, attitudes project African Americans as threats. As with Plessey, today government feels it is its responsibility to subdue hostile potential of African Americans. Published reports indicate this attitude motivates the U S Marine Corp. Spokesman, Tim Jones," the Marine Corp is convinced the battlefield of the future will be in urban centers, and the Corp wants to try out new tactics and technology in an environment as close to the real world as possible." General Charles Krulak, Marine commandant, speaking on operation " Urban Warrior " said "Several cities on the East Coast and at least one on the West Coast will be considered. If plans proceed, at least one exercise could be held this summer. Cities are the breeding grounds for ethnic clashes and other social ills that can mushroom into larger conflicts." The United States Marine Corp is going to hold urban war games in the streets of America to learn how to kill African Americans better. I believe city police are going overboard as it is. It is open season on young African American males twenty four seven. Police do not need any competition. This psychology pictures African Americans as the threat, people to be controlled. City police occupy our neighborhoods as though they are war zones. Intelligence demands this approach be reconsidered.
As participants in your dialogue on race, paramount is a lack of responsiveness to inquiries for assistance and information requested. For instance, I wrote Attorney General Janet Reno, requesting an official inquiry regarding the shooting of Andre Burgess in New York City by a United States Marshall. All we are asking is an explanation of how did such a thing happen, who is responsible, and their disposition? Also, we have attempted to communicate with the State Department regarding assistance with planning a proposed trip to Africa set for this summer. As with Att .Gen. Reno, there has not been an acknowledgment from the State Department confirming receipt of the letter. My question is does this lack of a response indicate the level of interest we can anticipate?
Consideration of an African American, or someone less conservative to Direct The National Endowment for the Arts or The National Endowment for the Humanities, could have made a real statement. As it is, giving conservatives the NEA and NEH rewards them for trying to destroy these programs. These nominations are viewed as short sighted. Concerns are these nominees hail from hallowed halls in "country music"and America's last bastion of the" stars and bars." Even sons and daughters of the confederacy will agree Nashville and Oxford have never been headliners on the" welcome all tour" for black arts. I ask, in what way will either of these appointments improve African American access? Previous directors treated NEA and NEH resources like they belong to white folks.
Reparations frames any dialogue aimed at a permanent solution, so we stand ready. America supports the concept of reparation for Jews, Japanese, Cubans, Bosnians, and Chinese. African Americans have suffered far greater and far longer than any people living. The world recognizes the justice in our claim, and with your dialogue on race, it seems you recognize clearly the need for justice, also. On behalf of ICIM, Inc., I offer a standing invitation to visit us, if your sensibilities will allow. You will see first hand what young African Americans have to offer the world and the new millennium. Today, we are asking America to allow us to pass within and drink the water of life. Tomorrow, a thirsty man will know only his needs. Compassion is discarded first by a thirsty man! Remember al-Mukhtar and today's Libya. Thank You!!
Sincerely, John B. Smith,
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Hypocrisy's Farewell To Latrell Sprewell!!
In the fleeting hours of a fading eve, I entered the familiar garden.
Sinking beneath the horizon, Sun struggled to eye me as I gasped, ' Utopia!'
My senses, brought to life by a fresh breath of air.
I found myself surrounded by intoxicating perfumes,
wondrous hues, and hypnotic sounds.
These lines begin a poem by Yohannes Sharriff Smith, the author of T.H.I.N.C. (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis of Evolution. Fruit conceptualizes Adam's dilemma in the garden. Viewing him as a human being, Yohannes brings human implications to bear on the decision making process. Adam is confronted with the true nature of his brutish basal instinctual cravings. Totally unprepared to exercise choice at this level of independence without the constraints of an overbearing parental figure to command slavish obedience to orthodoxy, Adam does the human thing. Yohannes' revelation is empathic toward Adam whose personification condemns man without affording him opportunities for vicarious learning or sufficient object lessons which teach the desired behavior. Adam is doomed to live life at the level he entered. However, he is judged as though he has had proper images on which to base his decision making.
With my face painted innocent, this ignorant thief
longed to steal beauty's truth, as my illicit passage
across this virgin earth hissed, "Deception".
Moving through the lush under brush, I was welcomed by thorns,
but the heat piercing that ache, grew euphoric as my eyes
be held an ethereal sight. The sun bled a crimson sky,
to frame exquisitely my life's only mystery. There.. so ripe, so ready.
So shapely was this curvaceous form, expressing a rich captivating color,
so powerful and intense, seducing all who dared to gaze upon it.
Adam could not resist what lay before him. What could serve as a source of strength, or as a deterrent? All the social indicators serve to reward greedy satisfaction purchased with the currency of pleasure. In Adam's case, although there is a higher moral authority, its presence is defuse and only becomes relevant after the fact. The problem with this moral force is it's always a day late and a dollar short. Like discrimination against African Americans, after the fact everyone regrets the incident, but are silent when African Americans raise the issue. These same authority figures refuse to give credence or consideration to our complaints. African Americans, like Adam, are trapped in a system which produces what it teaches, and rewards the opposite when blacks are involved.
In a tortured hesitance, I spent an eternity praying silently for a savior.
Yet, I kneeled alone. One with all that experience breath.
My existence suddenly alive with a single question:
"Had fate brought me here to feel this rub,
to live the passionate fear of choice?"
Wrapped in the flood of this emerging nubile awareness,
reason betrayed my heart with poisoned intentions,
as this naked freedom crossed the threshold of night.
Who is Latrell Sprewell? He is a man, the descendent of an African slave. Like his ancestors, he has been degraded, abused, misused, exploited, and oppressed by white men ever since he came into this world. No one has ever really listened to him. No one has ever sought his opinion about anything that mattered to him as a man. Latrell, as million of African American men, is the victim on all accounts. His life is simply another in a series of reactions to what white people do. White men represent the most powerful force in the life of a black man. The painful reality is Africans were kidnapped by white men, and packed like sardines into ships crossing the Middle Passage. Adding insult to injury, Africans were bred like cattle, siring babies for white men to exploit. For over one hundred and fifty years African slaves endured Bosnian type ethnic cleansing. White men have always represented the power of life and death. When someone exercises this kind of totality over one's life, no interchange is without major implications.
The reality of Latrell Sprewell epitomizes America's refusal to accept responsibility for the original sin of slavery. America, unlike Adam, has come to this place several times before and on each occasion it refused to repent. Be admonished America, penetrance recapitulates unclean hands; sins of the father wed descendants to a fate which can only be eluded through penitence. The thought that Latrell may have returned to the scene with a weapon reflects the guilty conscience from behind which white men deal with African American men. Justifiably, African American men harbor centuries of hatered, blame, pain, and shame heaped on us by white men. Therefore, hostility, and mayhem is not outside the realm of real possibility, when African American men perceive hostility on the part of white men.
By John Burl Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
We exist in one of the darkest periods in history. We, African American youth, have entered the time when all will turn against us and seek our death. Many of us labor under the illusion that slavery ended with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. If you are an intelligent individual, you are aware that the perpetuation of America's system of slavery required Whites possess an immoral pragmatic perception. Even the paragons of White history, like Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves and sired illegitimate Black babies. The descendant of these racist hypocritical unscrupulous monsters, in their air of indignant superiority, refuse to even apologize for the atrocities perpetrated by their foreparents in the pursuit of manifest destiny. White's concept of status is intrinsicly bound to how well they oppress African Americans. The willingness to use any extreme measure available to maintain this twisted system demonstrates the level of commitment expended protecting White's massa status. This syndrome I dubbed, Liner Secularism. Liner Secularism is purely exemplified by the contemporary overseers, like Newt Ginrich and his contract with America. Our speaker of the house sights 1965 as the year that America change for the worse. The reformation public policy resulting from the rise of Black Power and 60's social revolution is in the direct conflict with Newt vision for America's future. He and his constituents are diligently working to rollback any advances minorities have gained during the intervening years. A move mirroring the withdrawal of troops from the south, and subsequent reign of terror and retaliation of Whites on the Black populous following Reconstruction.
Newt and his contemporaries endeavor to plunge America into a Black hole emulating the period of Jim Crow. Newt's demonic master, the military industrial complex, delivers is commandments for the almighty dollar. A global market where Whites, with the omnipotence of Greek God's, rape the world with impunity. A White America for Whites is what screams in between the lines of the Contract with America. Programs enacted by legislation as half assed attempts to dodge the issue of reparations, like Affirmative Action, have been the first casualties in this war of genocide. Hear me young people! Whites must answer for the sin of slavery. Like Macbeth, they want desperately to wash the blood from their hands. Not to repent, but to forget. They intend to wipe our people from the face of the earth, hoping to avoid the reprecusions of their actions.
By Yohannes Sharriff Smith
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
All That Glitters Is Not A Gun!
To The Honorable Kofi Annan: Addendum to Dot Smith's Study on the Economics of Poverty
Today, Sunday, November Ninth, Nineteen hundred ninety-seven, while millions of Americans gather to praise their creator and renew their commitment to manifest the life of Jesus Christ, I pray for world peace, justice, and compassion. Whites tucked snugly in hauberk suburbia, and blacks huddled chillingly in urban enclaves feel all is well with the world. Even I was settled cozily with coffee and a newspaper, when a thunderbolt of reality crashed through my glass ceiling existence devouring my comfortable darkness. The Atlanta Journal/ Constitution reported a federal marshal shot a teenager, while walking down a NEW YORK CITY street. Reportedly, the U S Marshall shot the teenager in response to a glittering flash in the teenager's hand which the officer believed to be a gun. It turns out the young African American was eating a candy bar wrapped in silver paper. Before you laugh, thinking I am spoofing you, on Saturday at Jamaica Hospital, Andre Burgess, a high school soccer star, recuperated with a bullet wound in his leg.
Andre, seventeen (17), represents the high end of the target scale for African American Youth. While iniquitous America plays Picasso, Lyndon Mosley and other black youth are trapped in this fresco reflecting them against a backdrop of heinous criminals. Broad strokes of light and shadow paint a young black face as public enemy number one. Media, patrons of the security industry, projects the national hysteria through its camera obscura. Last Sunday's Cleveland Plain Dealer brought clearly into focus the image reflecting the face of crime in America. This still frame presents the most powerful depiction of the face of the enemy, representing a collage of images all wearing black faces. From America's prospective, Donzell Lewis, fourteen (14), whose face covers the entire front page, leaves no doubt who the enemy is. Therefore, our youth become live targets for any red-blooded patriot who wishes to help defend America against crime. Everyday Americans can declare open season on African American young men, like the Israelis' whose government justifies the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian youth.
As with the Nazi terror, the sinister aspect of the national hysteria is all kinds of dastardly deeds are disguised as random events, but have more serious implications. Underground sources reveal that there are groups of soccer parents interested in advancing their children's career for the next Olympics, and will stop at nothing. Consequently, a leg wound for Andre is a very small price to pay. Andre may have been a fine smooth cut, polishing off a thin flaw increasing the sparkle from an otherwise perfect jewel. It was clearly a plot!
Looking at my young grandson, Trevius, I lament the irony and absurdity of life for the decedents of African slaves reflected in America's cubic art. Bending and contouring reality to the degree that any African American, young or otherwise, is in dire straights on the streets of America, as well as in their homes. Such hideous animations demand Trevius be the man of super hero prowess living in his imagination. Lyndon Mosley languishing in the DeKalb County jail, as other black youth, deserves to be corrected for his unwittingly stupid action. However, the acts of these young people should not place them beyond the pale of human compassion. This U S agent's action provides further proof America, like Serbia, is conducting a war of genocide against AFRICAN AMERICANS!!!
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
by John Burel Smith
The car turned onto the dirt and gravel driveway; groups of people worked frantically, cutting small trees and underbrush, reminiscent of my youthful days clearing backwash land for spring planting with my grandfather. Framing the angelic backdrop to this pastoral mise-'en-scene, the staple of the small white wooden frame church glistened in the noon sunshine. Locked fast in my mind were fleeting glimpses of Thanksgiving spreads on the grounds of my deceased grandmother's United Methodist Church in Quitman County, Mississippi. Feelings of someone tugging at my hand penetrated my erstwhile mental meandering. A glowing white face greeted us, my wife Dot, my son Yohannes, my grandson Travius and I. With bubbling southern hospitality, Jane Ferriss, secretary for the Moore's Ford Memorial Committee, introduced herself, while telling us how delighted they were we came. As we exchanged greetings, clouds covered the sun shadowing the moment, like an ominous warning reminding me of the reason for the hour long drive.
The scene is Perry Baptist Church in Morgan County, Georgia; their cemetery holds the bullet riddled bodies of four African Americans and a fetus who were lynched half a century ago. We came from all over metro Atlanta in response to a call for help from the members of the church and the Moore's Ford Memorial Committee. They needed assistance in clearing the burial ground in order to locate the graves of the victims of that horrendous lynching. Abhorrently, all Americans should remember the gruesome details of Clinton Adams' tearful account of witnessing a mob of about thirty (30) white men repeatedly shooting two men, and two women, one of whom was pregnant. The coroner described the corpses as containing an "uncountable amount of bullets holes."
This horrible ordeal began when Loy Harrison bailed Roger Malcom out of jail the afternoon of the lynching. Talking with some of the grandmothers present, the real story began to unfold. These elderly women spoke of incidents which rendered young African American women totally venerable, even in their own homes. According to one seventy-one (71) year old great grandmother, "There are some black women living here today, who could tell you about being assaulted by certain white farmers, woman still living in Walton County today. Some of our men would stay out in the fields, afraid to go to the house, because they were afraid of what they would find, and they couldn't do anything about it." Robert Malcom tried to change that. And, in trying to protect his family, Malcom realized the truth of "A Time To Kill". He attempted to do what everyone today stridently accuse African American men of not doing and died in the process. We are not all dead beat dads, some have always stood before the grave.
Malcom was in jail for stabbing Barney Hester, who neighbors say was assaulting his wife at will. Robert Malcom was a tenant farmer living on the Hester's land; Roger's wife, Dorothy, was only twenty (20) years old at the time. The day of the murders, Dorothy Malcom's pregnant wife, a family friend and WWII hero George Dorsey, and his wife, Mae Murray Dorsey, accompanied Loy Harrison to the jail. They were in the car driven by Harrison when a group of armed white men waiting for him rendezvoused on the bridge at Moore's Ford. There, at that moment, the Constitution ran red with blood as four hundred years of genocide came full circle. Tyranny suffocates the spirit and blights all beauty leaving the individual trapped in a world where morning depression is the high point of each day.
Pulling at the stubborn vines, shrubs, weeds, and underbrush, desperately searching for signs of grave markers in the three (3) acre cemetery, we appeared like prospectors searching for Georgia gold. Unfortunately, although we cleared away mounds of debris, it is like the stain of this horrendous crime, one day of work does not have a great impact. Community members present pledged to continue to work on their goals of clearing the cemetery, finding all of the graves, placing proper memorials on each grave, and creating a living monument. Each Saturday until the gravesite is completely restored, the committee members promised to meet at 8:00 AM to completed the task began today, Saturday, November 1, 1997. The Committee's hope is to provide a living monument through a scholarship fund. Brother Kirkyn Dixon extended an invitation to all who wished to uncover the truth and help in the efforts to heal the community. "The deaths which occurred here over fifty (50) years ago lives on in all the dark places, hiding like a boogie man, caging those who avoid the light of truth."
This is not the story of "murder most foul," nor does it represent the irony of a hero, who survived the hellish terror of war in defense of America, but she would not protect him, because on returning home, he died at the hands of those he fought to protect. No, this is not even, an inditement against those who stood quietly by , like the German people while the Nazi killed six (6) million Jews. Although these are all worthy subplots in microcosm, this is the story of America, the denial of rights and the denial of truth. The story of all African American women is reflected here in the lives of the women of Walton County. Their strength and beauty shines through like the Mississippi sun, brilliantly masking the pain, shame, and blame. Holding their heads high, they faced white women who knew their husbands were raping them at will, but said nothing then and will do nothing now.
The shame of Walton County, Georgia is the shame of America. For just as the wives of Walton County knew, everyone in America knows its legacy of atrocities against African Americans. It should remind whites who say, they have done nothing to hurt or discriminate against African Americans, yet remain silent while Newt and Lott leads the conservative charge behind their Contract With America. When this atrocity happened, the outcry spurred President Truman to send in the FBI. After hanging out with the good ole' boys, they reported no one would talk. Given what we know about the J. Edgar Hoover sired agency, it is little wonder the F.B.I. found their way back to Washington, if they were searching for the culprits. There are hundreds of white public officials, like George Wallace, built their careers on the backs of African Americans. Race baiting and spouting racism at their private meetings with The Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey, Jesse Helms, and Thad Cochran, just to name a few, conduct what are equivalent to modern day cross burnings all across America. These closet racists are the southern axis, model for upstarts like Georgia's gubernatorial candidate Mike Bowers, who like his predecessor Lester Maddox, is attempting to build his candidacy on the backs of African Americans by attacking affirmative action. There is no doubt that conservative Republicans are working daily to ring down the curtain on African American advances. However, they are not the problem; the problem, as in Walton County, is those who know what these people are doing, and will not oppose them. The German people today can not purge themselves of the sin of turning their backs on Jews when their voices would have mattered. America, you can not deny what is happening in your bedrooms. You can not appease a greedy bully; the individual dies a thousand deaths, as Robert Malcom, until that day when life means less than death. After all, what is pride in the face of desperation?
For information call Rich Rusk at (706) 769-0988 or (770) 267-1024.
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || DISH || Top of Page || Chronicles
Case Study: A Worker's Story
My name is John Burel Smith. I am a disabled Vietnam-era veteran, and Supervisor Distribution Operation (SDO) at the Atlanta Airmail Center (AMC). I have been an employee for nearly fifteen (15) years, and a supervisor for ten (10) of those years. During this time, my personnel file has been spotless, in terms of negative reports, or serious reprimand. Attendance records, while not spotless, show no absences without leave (AWOL), some unscheduled leave taken, but all annual leave utilized according to regulations. Surprisingly, I learned in July, I was placed in a non- pay (AWOL) status, while on sick leave. Preceding that, I called and requested sick leave on the seventh (7) of July. Therefore, I assumed I would be on sick leave until my situation improved, because I have approximately seven hundred (700) hours of sick leave and two hundred hours of annual leave. Plus, all employees have access to the Family Medical Leave Act. According to federal law, there is no logical reason to deny me access to FMLA.
Putting this situation into perspective is not easy, and accordingly, I am not sure just what set these events in motion. As a supervisor, I have witnessed such scenes between management and employees play themselves out regularly. I have been instructed on numerous occasions to place employees in non- pay status for what seemed to me were vindictive and personal reasons. I believe, my situation is analogous, and I am a victim of a vendetta conducted by acting Manager Distribution Operations (MDO) Ryan Spencer, and/or his managers. Therefore, I formally charge acting MDO Ryan Spencer, Plant Manager (PM) Chris Oronzio, Regional Postmaster (ADM) Robert Sheehan, VP of Area Operations, Southeast Area David C. Bakke, and Postmaster General (PG) Marvin Runyon with disparate treatment, harassment, discrimination, intimidation, and retaliation. Forthwith, I submit this deposition to the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, Atlanta District, United States Postal Service.
Abruptly stopping my pay, acting MDO Spencer left my family without financial resources, just as I entered a two (2) month therapy regime. My family and I agreed, once begun, I would complete the regime in spite of outside matters. However, the next week, I was informed later, someone purporting to be acting MDO Spencer attempted to contact me at my home via the telephone. Subsequently, I received a certified letter instructing me to return to work immediately, or I would be terminated. On my behalf, my son sent acting MDO Spencer a letter informing him that I was unavailable to return to work at that point. I was in therapy, and he would be informed as soon as my situation changed. Nonetheless, I received a second letter reiterating his demand that I return to work immediately, provide acceptable documentation or be terminated from the Postal Service. With my pay stopped, and confusion about my employment status, my family contacted me. Reluctantly, I ended my therapy at that point. I wrote acting MDO Spencer a letter. As previously discussed, I reiterated, I was in therapy and would inform him as soon as my situation changed. Furthermore, I questioned his concern for my health, given his behavior in this matter. He did not change my pay status, nor did he authorize FMLA.
Acting MDO Spencer's attempts to force me to return to work before I improved destroyed my therapy regime. I could not complete the process, nor could I determine if the regime helped. Breaking therapy as I did, ultimately weakens one's resolve. Even if one is successful, it will take longer to reach resolution. Over and above the extra expense, the individual ends up plowing the same ground twice. From a therapeutic vantage point, dredging the same area, one could probe too deeply, before even scratching the surface in related areas. This disconnect cause current events to be introduced into therapy. When this occurs, those events interact with events already in the subconscious producing a schism separating contiguous events. Consequently, beginning therapy again within two (2) months may have robbed me of any hope of successful recovery. Such interference can produce a kind of transference tying MDO Spencer's stressful actions to events already in my psyche. The tragedy for me is that any hostility there transfers also. In such cases, the resolution may be unattainable, because it has become connected to stress provoking signals which were not constituents of the problem at the beginning of therapy. This type of transference occurs often in psychological therapy, and therapists know very little about its real implications or the long term affects. To understand my concern over the potentially dangerous position I will be in once I return to work, one must envision the intimidating environment, and oppressive culture permeating the U S Postal Service. How would I know the appropriate reaction or what is really going on in situations involving acting MDO Spencer? What will give me the ability to reduce stress and tension? Will I have to rely on mediation or third party intervention when there is a disagreement? Here, I wish to convey what I have learned about management in my fifteen (15) year longitudinal study about how it operates, in general, and my conclusions on how it is practiced in the U S Postal Service, specifically.
With eyes glazed over, I, like hundreds of young idealistic Americans during the fifties, bathed in ocular pools of patriotic images painted by the "Duke" in his exploits blasting "Nips" and "Krauts" in defense of God and Mankind. Hypnotized by his heroic glow, I, along with hundreds of my fellow colporteurs, volunteered and became a part of America's efforts in Vietnam which left Lady Liberty sad. The Jimi Hendrix Experience could not "Wait Until Tomorrow" for "Long Hot Summer Nights" of "Purple Haze" and "Wild Thing." The blast of his piercing rings did not drown sounds of cash registers singing "Ain't No Need of Going Home, Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone." Back in the world, returning Vietnam veterans, reminiscent of slaves after the Civil War, had to compete against the clean cut image of those who stayed home with none of the psychological baggage of a war gone mad. Like everything in America , we are throw-away-veterans, refuse of a society refusing to remember its heritage. Cast aside like so many empty beer cans, America had no recycling plan for its bedraggled veterans. Marvin Gay's "What's Going On" kept everyone yearning to return to the land of the big "PX," Home, as we knew it, faded like the rocket's red glare at fourth of July evening waterfront concerts. Once on American terra firma, Vietnam veterans became embroiled in a domestic war where our brothers and sisters were taking casualties on a daily. This culture shock caused a mental schism so whacked that drugs and suicide became our rosaries on good days. How were we expected to cope, let alone compete? Consequently, today Vietnam veterans living "The Inner City Blues" fill mental wards, prisons, the ranks of the working poor, unemployed and homeless draftees in the war defending the right of the rich to live in a fashion befitting kings. We all feel so proud of America on Veterans Day, don't we?
Luckily, I got a job. Beginning my career with the U S Postal Service was a real opportunity to apply what I learned in school. This was not a skills test, it was what I did for a living. This was different from what I had been doing as a graduate student at the University of Memphis. As a psychologist, I simply wanted to do research. There was so much to learn, so many aspects of African American life unexplored. I felt like Christopher Columbus, or an astronaut taking the first step on the moon looking at the myriad problems crying so loudly for solutions. However, my family depended on me to provide for it. Precipitously, life has a way of imposing reality upon the most resistant of mankind. My family was maturing, and the demands my young children exerted penetrated deeply, pulling me back into the reality of fatherhood. Consequently, I approached working for the U S Postal Service with the same enthusiasm I bring to any endeavor. I became a manager in 1987. Psychologically, that gave me a view of human interchange from another level, while having to follow the same rules as every other employee.
Management theory in America developed from what was learned during slavery about getting reluctant individuals to work, and the practices applied in "sweat shops" during the 1800's. Drawing their philosophical and psychological underpinnings from Theory X, the vast majority of modern management systems function according to a mind-set that views employees in the same manner as the slave master. Viewing employees as lazy docile individuals who shirk responsibility and avoid work, casts the line supervisor in the role of a whip-carrying, hobnail boot wearing storm trooper. Employers, as slave masters, prefer this type. They believe employees must be driven, stood over, spied on, checked behind, and in general, herded like cattle. Employee motives are totally distrusted. Management feels employees want something for nothing. Present day psychology, as with slave masters, expresses management policies through a whole array of autocratic and draconian procedures. Punitive in nature, this environment disguises it intent behind the disciplinary process. Hence, the door is opened to all kind of abuses, such as disparate treatment, harassment, discrimination, intimidation, and retaliation, all under the guise of discipline.
Theory X presents overwhelming ethical and moral consideration for those who buy into this psychology. Management atavism reflects a disingenuous nature when dealing with employees and the public alike. Mailer's play "All My Sons" poignantly illustrates this duplicitous antebellum attitude. Greed is viewed as a necessary evil in the "dirty business" of making money. A holdover from the 1800's, the corrupting influence of slavery's insidious "double think" leaches the value system of compassion as a prerequisite for doing well in business and industry. Such a depraved value system yields a class, like plantation owners, or cynical pragmatic barons wielding power like a child with a gun. Thus, to survive this "sweat shop" slave system, employees must genuflect while supplicating themselves in gratitude for having a job on which to suffer abuse.
African Americans are victimized in this fashion, and have been since being kidnapped, brought here in chains, and forced to endure the most degrading, dehumanizing and demoralizing system ever devised by men. This is our legacy, the excruciating pain of surviving our slave heritage. The mind-set I refer to in this deposition is a part of a syndrome postulated by new generation poet, author, producer, and entrepreneur Yohannes Sharriff Smith in his book, T.H.I.N.C.: (Teaching Humanity In New Consciousness): The Chrysalis Of Evolution. Terming its symptomatology "linear secularism (LiSe), Smith advanced the notion that this syndrome is unique to white Americans, especially those residing in corporate enclaves. Viewing decedents of African slaves as expendable renewable economic assets, these autocratic Americans maintain a slave master's perception of African Americans. Mentally relegating us to a status less than that of whites, this perception allows them to devalue the contributions of African Americans. The fact that we were once owned by their ancestors has propagated this malignant precursor's genesis, sustaining whites perception of African Americans as unfit to drink from the wellspring of human kind. LiSe is intrinsically bound to and deeply rooted in how white Americans view themselves. Moreover, it supports their concept of social, economic, and political status.
LiSe, the mind-set of white Americans postulated here, is a throwback to slavery, and it has a counterpart in the mental make-up of African Americans. Smith referred to the slave mentality as conditioned subordinate psychology (CSP). This thought pattern reflects the victim mind-set seared into our psyche by the lash during slavery. It is characterized by a total willingness to submit to authority. CSP coerces African Americans into subordinating their values in order to ingratiate themselves to whites. Concurrently, African Americans are driven by a desperate desire to oblige the exigent caprice of their former owners. Living under colonialism and slavery fostered a psychology where ethics, principles, and relationships are all justifiable sacrifices to insure individual survival. The controlling factor in this syndrome is related to how African Americans draw their sense of self-worth from identifying with the values, goals, and behaviors exhibited by their former slave masters. Smith's dissertation shows how the psychology of management, LiSe and CSP, lock together like nucleotide aggregating a generalized set of attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors into what I describe here as Theory X. It is not that anyone pre-meditatively sets out to become a racist, spouse abuser, alcoholic, addict or smoker, but it is the maintenance clues transmitted from the environment which reward those who express such attitudes and perpetuate such behaviors.
This may seem a very harsh even unfair assessment to some, but when one considers that until management changes its Neanderthal slave master approach to motivate workers, the model fits. Research today reveals that the employees of the twenty-first(21) century are very different from their counterparts at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Individually, these computer age employees are more vocal, more demanding, less motivated to accept verbal abuse, and less dedicated to companies less dedicated to them. Today, contrary to the perception of most turn of the century managers, employees are intelligent. Their modern programming indicate they understand managers are not motivated by concerns for their interest. Furthermore, regardless of what is said, they comprehend clearly they are on their own, if they or their agent is not vigilant. Needless to say, the Postal Service, a prime example of management in America, spends millions of dollars annually on superficial public relations campaigns to program employees to believe they are a part of decision making and are valued. While on the other hand, management winks at its strategy of actively violating the employees' national agreement to enhance the company's bottom line. If union activities violated the agreement nationally, costing the Postal Service millions, a company case seeking penalties would be heard.
Specifically in my case, the arrival of ADM Sheehan, another in a succession of revolving door replacements in that position, marked the beginning of the dark times. Although the AMC ran smoothly enough to post award winning performances in pervious years, ADM Sheehan coached it from first to worst in one season. He made it clear, regardless of the outcome, he was replacing PM Sliver after the Christmas season. ADM Sheehan left no doubt, he was apposed to the management style of PM Sliver. My understanding is, he thought PM Sliver's style was too employee oriented. Examples were: Mr. Sliver relied too heavily on empowered employees and not enough on direct supervision, also to Sheehan's chagrin, Sliver insisted employees be trained and treated with dignity. Most important, Mike Sliver did not use the grievance process to gut the national agreement. Such independence for some is like Vietnam veterans returning home, the culture shock is capable of sending most conservatives into a fatal episode of the bends. This juxtaposed PM Sliver's style against ADM Sheehan's "kick'em in the butt, or beat'em over the head which ever works, just get results with what I give you, and don't whine" approach.
ADM Sheehan, head of the new team, produced one of AMC's poorest performances during a Christmas season in recent years. Conversely, it was also the first season the AMC plant manager was not allowed a free hand to run his plant without calls from the press box. Consequently, the AMC could not operate with its usual coordination, due to front office interference. ADM Sheehan, who never spent a Christmas season coaching "trench warfare with hand-to-hand combat" procedures developed over the years, had all the answers. Like a Monday morning quarterback, he scrambled through last season's rush, second guessing everything and everyone. Refusing to recognize that AMC procedures were third and long measures developed like a "sixth sense"to offset whimsical brainstorms of ADM's like him. Sheehan was oblivious to blind-side inadequacies which could not handle the heavy rush, such as staffing, equipment, floor space, and logistics. Throwing up "Hail Marys," like Slinging Sammy Vaugh, Sheehan compounded these problems necessitating reliance on even larger taxi squads of new totally untrained temporary employees and unlimited overtime as the backup plan. Simultaneously, from the luxury boxes, Sheehan still insisted everything run as smoothly as a two (2) minute drill. Managers facing such a mine field of hazards, while making decisions on the fly, can ill afford the restricting lock step synchronization PM Sliver was saddled with last year, unless he is being setup to fail. And, fail he did!
Off the bench as a rookie backup, PM Chris Oronzio exploded on the scene tersely announcing, "I am not here to make friends". Further, "I am not happy with anything or anyone." He concluded with, "I am going to change minds and people." Like most new slave masters, Mike Sliver's replacement, Oronzio managed as though he was Mike Ditka down by twenty points with five (5) minutes to go, and the kicking team is in the locker room asleep. Following the play book of RP Sheehan, PM Oronzio had to have his own staff. He wasted no time informing us that he was going to pursue what amounted to an active attrition policy of "bringing in new people." His first play was to sack MDO Bonnie Dunnaville, a career starter of over twenty-five (25) years. He rudely and summarily placed her on the second team. Abruptly exiled to the eastern building, once SDO Ryan Spencer arrived, Bonnie languished in the Siberia of the AMC.
This is when my nightmare began. My predicament reflects how some employees, for whatever reason, end up on the target side of their managers, and the vindictive manner they can wield power to crush an unfavored employee. Amidst an AMC shake-up, following the debacle of last Christmas season, SDO Spencer arrived, like the player to be named later. From the beginning, it was down and give me twenty (20); there is a new monster on this midway. Line supervisors previously allowed a free hand managing their units were now given marching orders like a sport's ticker. Acting MDO Spencer came in like a blocking back subbing for the quarterback. Haranguing about line supervisors not being tough enough on employees, acting MDO Spencer demanded draconian measures in dealing with discipline and annual and sick leave requests. Line supervisors were ordered to physically sign or initial all instructions; they were subjected to discipline, if they did not and/ or if an employee failed to follow those instructions. The threat was always there. Line supervisors were forced to review and initial every job announcement posted in the Atlanta District, even though one was not interested in applying for another position. Any psychologist worth his salt will tell you that working in such an oppressive, insensitive, authoritarian, and rigid environment produces unnecessary stress and tension, as well as belligerent attitudes toward one's job and coworkers. This is not a healthy environment. One has only to remember the many incidents of carnage and mayhem Postal employees inflected upon one another in order to grasp my point. I began exhibiting symptoms serious enough to bring concern.
I have been receiving treatment for a condition which is seriously aggravated by stress. When I returned from sick leave around the last of May, I talked to acting MDO Spencer. Within the bounds of propriety, I shared my concerns about my health. After returning to my duties, I learned that another detail had come up while I was out, and again it had been given to SDO Bonnie Cottone. SDO Cottone and I arrived at the AMC the same week. Her assignment and mine resulted from the last reduction in force (RIF). While our seniority as supervisors were similar, shortly after we started our assignment, she began receiving opportunities to learn and perform in capacities other than as SDO. This fact was highlighted when all SDOs were given the opportunity to become literate in a Windows environment by then PM Sliver. Unlike SDO Cottone, the rest of the SDO's had problems getting time at the computer terminal. For most, the barely familiar skill quickly faded, because we were expected to always be on the work room floor to "watch your people."
I decided this had gone on long enough. I brought the matter before acting MDO Spencer by inquiring about the detail. Specifically, I wanted to know: Was there a detail? Who made the decision to place SDO Cottone on it? How long was the detail? Finally, was anyone else given consideration for the position? His answers were: Yes there was a detail, he made the decision, the detail was indefinite, and no, he did not consider anyone else for the detail. I must admit, I was astonished he readily confessed to not even thinking another SDO deserved an opportunity to receive training. So, I put the question directly: Why did you not consider me? He stated," I needed someone who knew about computers, besides you were out sick and I needed someone whom I can trust to be at work." I thought this very strange because he had complained in my presence that " SDO Cottone has lots of unscheduled absences." So I knew my leave record was far better than Cottone's. Rather than spar, I asked, if he knew whether I had any computer experience. He admitted he did not. Apparently, it did not matter!
I wanted to clarify whether or not acting MDO Spencer comprehended the gravity of the situation. Cautiously, I laid out what I perceived to be an all too familiar pattern in the U S Postal Service. First, SDO Cottone had been virtually the only SDO to receive any opportunities for special training and details since we arrived at the AMC. Further, it seems over time, SDO Cottone built a very impressive resume. Accordingly, when a promotion becomes available, Cottone will seem as if she is the only one who is interested in self-improvement. Aghast, Spencer could not believe I could draw such a conclusion. "I am doing something for everyone," he fired back in amazement. Ticking off what MDO Spencer viewed as a very even handed approach, he stated," I gave Bo Ellis a gift certificate for a free dinner. And, didn't I give you a chance to go to school for a week?" I pointed out that a chicken dinner, nor a week of school could be considered grounds for promotion, when competing against Cottone's astral resume. As for the week of school, when it was offered, I suggested he send SDO Clifford Mosley. As it was, Mosley had not received a single trip to school for management training. I, as well as Cottone, had been to school several times. His response, "Let me worry about Mosley, if you don't want to go, I will go myself." I wanted Spencer to understand he was not providing equal opportunity by submitting my name for school. The Postal Service was responsible, and the week of training was routine and not comparable to the indefinite detail given SDO Cottone.
I wish to highlight a very common practice of Postal Service management in situations where a favored employee is given advancement opportunities. To wit, this detail given SDO Cottone did not have a written description, nor did it have any line supervisory responsibilities. However, it did have a flexible reporting time, and the position is to be made a permanent staffing slot, once the new AMC is brought online. In other words, SDO Cottone was making up the job as she went along. In all fairness, I suggested since the position was of an indefinite duration, he should rotate the assignment. This procedure would allow everyone to benefit from the experience, and build points for promotion. Spencer rejected this idea on the grounds, "It was my discretion, I made the decision and I am not going to change my mind." He refused to correct the inequity, saying "I had nothing to do with what happened before I arrived." As far as he was concerned, "that was the past, you would do better thinking about your future." A veiled threat from my position.
This is the same point the United States Supreme Court over looked in its decision outlawing affirmative action, that is, once an employer is presented with an allegation of discrimination, the management official has been placed on notice, and becomes liable. The other legal principle the court seems to have forgotten is that, whether knowingly or unknowingly an individual must never be allowed to profit from ill-gotten gain. Ipso facto, not changing his decision allows SDO Cottone to benefit from an opportunity she would not have received, were it not for racial discrimination. Violating some SDOs' rights by denying them opportunities in order that Cottone receive the valued experience is a return to the de facto segregation days of the early sixties. Such arbitrarily capricious behavior advances Cottone at their expense. Qualifying as a minority, white women fracture the pool of possible opportunity for African American men. Conversely, like chameleons, once on the job, white women join the good ol' boys taking full advantage of being white. Exercising unusual flexibility, white women change identification when they see the advantage of a possible promotion, or choice assignment, presto change-o, they become a minority again. African American men never possessed such magical flexibility. More often than not, black men are co-axed, because the descendants of African slaves provided the category for white women to climb the corporate ladder over the backs of blacks. Adding insult to injury, these ingrates are the most vocal in support of ending affirmative action, the reparation never provided slave descendants.
The insidious and incestuous relationship from slavery and segregation was consummated once again when white women were added to the category of minority along with black women and black men. Our situations are not analogous. Rather than dealing with the discriminatory and unjust manner white men have historically treated white women, white men dump them on the backs of black men. Much in the manner white women were used during segregation to justify lynching black men to set examples, white women sealed their tacit agreement with the devil. This relationship has always constituted a glass ceiling for African American men, because white women act as a buffer to block the advancement of African Americans. Conversely, African American women have always suffered the fate of "The Women of Walton County."
My case epitomizes this point. The detail given SDO Cottone anticipated two (2) regular staffing slots. Given that SDO Cattone has the most experience, she will get one of the positions, because she will probably draft the position description. In addition to being the only one given an opportunity to be detailed into the position, she is a minority and a woman. This satisfies two (2) criteria. Now white men must be represented to avoid a charge of reversed discrimination. Under the present Supreme Court, the law has been satisfied, right? No one has been discriminated against, right? WRONG! This outcome is most likely in my case given the data. As a result, I am locked into my present line supervisor level where I have been for ten (10) years, and where I will most likely retire. This process is the major mechanism for controlling African American median family income, thus maintaining the disparities Smith identifies in the Chasm of Inequality. Consequently, as an African American my family will be relegated to a lower standard of living, while Cottone's family will enjoy superior lifetime earnings and a living standard two times higher than mine.
The descendants of African slaves place this type of denial of opportunity at the heart of our demand for reparations. In the face of this type of blatant discrimination, how will African Americans ever close the Chasm of Inequality whites created during slavery? African Americans have yet to be compensated for our ancestors' servitude, building up wealth for the descendants of their slave masters to enjoy. No one wants to look at the past where the advantage of being white was originally accrued. I am the descendent of an African slave, not a minority. No other people have this legacy. Therefore we are special, and we deserve to be treated special. Our slave foreparents earned this for their progeny working for free. Whites built up wealth for over one hundred (100) years before the first formal slave was paid the first penny. This is the problem in levelling the American economic playing field.
There are two (2) other possible scenarios which qualify as good fits using this model. First, the possibility that the U S Postal Service is engaged in the same active attrition policy to purge African Americans from management as Blacks In Government (BIG) charged the IRS. Next, there is the vindictive attitude of Postmaster General Marvin Runyon relating to the USPS' adamant refusal to deal in good faith with African Americans. The most disturbing implications in this ordeal are related to the possibility the U S Postal Service is pursuing an active attrition policy to purge African Americans from the ranks of management, and the Postal Service altogether. Over the last three (3) years, there is no question the number of African Americans demoted from management back to the clerk craft or fired on the spot has increased significantly. Craft employees fall victim to this "Venus fly trap" far more frequently than supervisors. Generally, it seems the USPS' strategy is to reverse advances made through affirmative action within the Postal Service through disciplinary action. The preferred situation is pitting African Americans against African Americans. As in my particular case, the attempt was made to give the impression that by speaking up for my rights, I would in some way foster the image African Americans do not cooperate.
In April, I wrote PG Runyon regarding a stamp purchase I was very unhappy with. Also, in that letter, I attempted to reopen discussions with the Postal Service about payment of a debt it owed me. I submitted a suggestion the Postal Service used for which I never received compensation. This suggestion was worth over $100,000.00. In its reply, the Postal Service refused to acknowledge the debt. My letter was an attempt to communicate many of the observations I present here. The significance of this suggestion is that it is a program which creates a framework to resolve such issues as these, if implemented properly. There seems to be a perception on the part of the Postal Service which is, if a matter involves African Americans, and it is not a crisis," don't bother." This general insensitivity seems to permeate all interactions between the Postal Service and African Americans. In other words, African Americans should be seen, but not heard.
PG Marvin Runyon personifies American management, and serves as an object lesson for those working to create a better model, or envision the picture of employee subsistence reflecting a living wage. The Postal Service's refusal to settle its debt is not the debilitating factor, nor was the demand for me to return to work before I was ready. The linchpin is the total lack of compassion managers show employees, as though they are something to be subdued, much in the manner businessmen view the environment. My assessment of the challenge facing the Postal Service and all modern management systems is to change the work culture. This make over will generate the energy to drive management to come into the twentieth (20th) century, before the world moves into the twenty-first (21st). Management needs to change its approach to motivating people, as opposed to slaves. Surrendering their "sweat shop" mentality frees the mind of management to develop a new psychology capable of redefining the relationship between management and employees. America has never conducted a national dialogue on labor policy. As I stated at the outset, what we have now is the relic of a hodge-podge. Labor policy has never been approached as an instrument to serve the interest of those who labor, as apposed to those who hire labor. How does America envision labor conditions in the new millennium? What role does government and management believe unions should play in such a debate? Will labor unions have a pivotal role in the new millennium mix? More important, will this trilogy serve to facilitate or circumvent the growth of humanity?
Summarily, my case in microcosm represents any worker in any business or industry in any country on the planet. Contrary to prevailing opinion regarding such factors as skill training, educational attaintment, community service, political involvement, this study shows even aggressiveness in these areas do not control career advancement in the American economy. This researcher's investigation supports the conjecture that in situations comparing level of success between whites and blacks, success is operationalized as final promotion attained. One can readily determine which of any two (2) prospective employees will end their careers at a higher level. If one knows the race of the employees, one can predict which will attain the higher level, based on the Smith paradigm. White employees, in general, fare better than their black counterparts. According to this model of black human capital, the white employee will, in general, enjoy a standard of living at least twice that of the black employee. (T.H.I.N.C.: The Chrysalis of Evolution, Intuit Publishing Co., 1997)
This longitudinal study replicates the results published by Dot Smith. Her study on Psycho-Econometrics: Enslavement of the Mind (Intuit Publishing, ) showed this model can be utilized to look at median family incomes and unemployment rates along demographic lines to assess the appropriateness of resource allocation and redistribution. Her work is an extension of the preliminary findings presented by Yohannes Sharriff Smith in T.H.I.N.C. complete with an in depth discussion of the statistics. My replication proves these results can be generalized to study questions involving race as a factor in median family income and employment. As a variable in the allocation of resources and public funding, race occupies a dominant role. Consequently, by using this model the historical data provides an effectiveness test for public policies designed to eradicate the legacy of slavery, and historical discrimination as a means of increasing equal opportunities.
Further applications of this model can yield useful information in such areas as empowerment and enterprise zone funding, educational resource allocation, and other community services as a means of judging equity and fairness. The bottom line here is that because race is such a prominent variable in American society, this analysis is straight forward. On the question of validity, this model satisfies all significant categories relating to factors, concurrent, life-situation performances, criterion, and content validity. This test yields a power function reliable enough to project future trends in any number of social, political, and economic variables. Finally, this replication supports and extends the original conclusion in Smith, 1997 which is race bias accounts for the difference reflected in the Chasm of Inequality between whites and the decedents of African slaves. I rest my case.
America needs to follow the leadership of France, and initiate a dialogue on changing while improving the whole concept of the work week. The concept of a thirty-six hour work week for forty hours of pay should be the floor in this dialogue. This would improve the quality of life for families by providing workers three (3) days off for the same rate of pay. Such a change would reduce a tremendous demand on family budgets for child care. Simultaneously, parents will be freed up with a week day off to visit schools, make doctors and denial appointments, real quality down time. Three (3) days off will impact business and industry favorably in terms of fewer unscheduled absences, healthier employees, and greater productivity from happier employees.
Leadership + 36 for 40 x family = stability.
The U.S. Postal Service refused to supply employee demographics allowing for a statistical analysis of employee trends within the Service.
Consumer Fraud Alert Boycotted Places & Things: Carey Paul Ford, Denny's, New York City, Winn-Dixie, Rich's, Eddie Bauer, Texaco, Nike, Wachovia, IRS, Atlanta City Government, the Georgia State Flag, Wannabees and Jigaboos, hair salons, fast food restaurants, Santa Claus, Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas hams and trees, Meat, Contract with America, privatization, Fast-track, NAFTA, and slave masters, Norrell, automobile insurance companies, unscrupulous automobile mechanics, Precision Tune and churches with fences.......
A Case Study: A Worker's Story
Commissioned by:
Richard L. Kirksey, Jr. Memorial Foundation
Prepared by:
John Burel Smith, BA
University of Memphis
In recognition of:
Lyndon Deshard Mosley, Dekalb County, Georgia
Andre' Burgess, New York, New York
Donzell Lewis, Cleveland, Ohio
Michael "Little B" Lewis, Atlanta, Georgia
Nathaniel Jamal Abraham, Pontiac, Michigan
Intuit Publishing Company
An Intuit Creative Idea Manifested
Published November l1, 1997
Back || ICIM Home || THINC || The DISH || Top of Page
