Your Black Politics: White Liberals Mad At Obama For Being Obama

White Liberals Scold Obama… But Come Off Cynical & Hypocritical
By: Tolu Olorunda
Reprinted From Dissident Voice

In the wake of President-Elect Obama’s recent cabinet-appointments, many white liberals have taken it upon themselves to release pent-up aggression at a man they thought was the “progressive” candidate he had earlier claimed to be.. As they saw it, Obama had “betrayed” the loyalty that earned him victory. As a sort of catharsis, railing Obama’s reputation over the coals of indignation could make them feel better about their decision to elect a man who promised virtually nothing (of substance) in his bid for the presidency. White liberals, especially, have had to learn so much, in the last 1 month, about the man whose political dirty-laundry was never hidden from the public to begin with.

In a highly predictable move, they have sought to bash everything Obama, or Obama-like, and couch their frustration in the ‘eloquence,’ and ‘con-artistry’ of Obama. Spare me the misplaced aggravation. [...]

Whilst Black progressives sought to rip the mask off of Barack Obama, in an attempt to unveil his true identity, we were deemed ‘Obama-haters,’ whose egos sought to stifle the chances of a Black man making history. [...]

Full Article At Your Black Politics

Your Black Education: Book Review of “Reggie Wakes Up”

Book Review of “Reggie Wakes Up”
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

“Under the FUBU is a guru, that’s untapped…”

-Hip-Hop artist, Common, The 6th Sense.

With the recent victory of President-Elect Obama, many have speculated a change of attitude in young black men, vis-à-vis the thirst for educational prowess. Whilst this prediction does seem, by all measures, accurately reflective of the lingering emotion within Black circles, some have suggested the need for a handbook of sorts, as necessary in guiding Black students, male and female, toward a more promising future. Of such is Zekita Tucker, a St. Louis author and publisher, whose advocacy for Black students builds on the legacies established by W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Janice Hale, etc. Zekita Tucker, of fame “Don’t Call Me Nigga ,” has a new book out titled, “Reggie Wakes Up .”

Reggie Wakes Up is a blueprint for teachers and students alike – with an emphasis on public schools. [...]

Meant for ages 8 and up, Reggie Wakes Up takes a hard look into the public school system, and its effects on the psyche of Black students [...]

More At Your Black Education

Your Black News: Wal-Mart Shoppers Give Jdimytai Damour The Death Penalty

Wal-Mart Shoppers Give Jdimytai Damour The Death Penalty
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

Even for the strong-willed, it takes a level of soul-numbness to digest the eye-witness accounts of shoppers whose uncontrollable greed ended the life of Jdimytai Damour.

While many have remained shocked at the level of apathy directed at the 34-year old Jamaican native’s fragile soul, various anti-consumerism advocates have kindly outlined the inevitability of this tragic incident, following years of programming through relentless advertisements, by Wal-Mart and co. [...]

The actions of the Valley Stream shoppers are appalling, but also inevitable, in our television-controlled realm of existence. A TV-raised generation is illimitably susceptible to the felicities of temporary pleasure, and satisfaction [...]

More At Your Black News

Your Black Life: Race Matters MORE in the ‘Age of Obama’

Race Matters MORE in the ‘Age of Obama’
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be misled. Race still matters, even in the age of a bi-racial president. In fact, I submit that Race matters more at this transitional period in our multi-cultural society. The presidential campaign of President-Elect Obama sought to vehemently sweep Race-consciousness under the rug, but little did they know, that this stubborn, inextricable faction of our existence would not surrender without a fight. [...]

Without Obama’s permission, Race resurrected itself early on in the 2008 presidential campaign. It began when White journalists first took it upon themselves to question Obama’s blackness. [...] Shortly after, the “gotcha media” would find some legitimate dirt that could reduce Obama to a sheer spectacle. Unbeknownst to 60% of Black folks, they had, all their lives, committed a crime worthy of the death penalty: attended a Black church which advocated self-love, self-control, self-respect, and self-help [...]

More At Your Black Life

Your Black Life: The Case Of Jamie & Gladys Scott: Justice Denied

The State of Mississippi versus Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott: My First Encounter with Justice Denied

By: Nancy R. Lockhart, M.J.

http://www.freewebs.com/nlockha/index.htm

Originally Appeared In Black Commentator

While driving the moving truck from South Carolina to Chicago, Illinois in July of 2005, many things ran across my mind as I took the solo trip. I pondered receiving the Master of Jurisprudence degree from Loyola University School of Law and later a career as a governmental regulatory compliance manager. It never dawned on me that I would receive a brutal education in social justice; an education that would prove to be more valuable than sheepskin from any institution. This would become an education that re-directed every thought flowing as I drove that big truck from South Carolina. I left Chicago with the Master of Jurisprudence and absolutely no desire to follow my original dreams.

I secured a position as a Community Services Consultant with Rainbow/PUSH Coalition while completing my studies. I will never forget the frigid, Chicago morning when I opened a letter from Mrs. Evelyn Rasco, a mother and widow. She told the story of her daughters, and said she had written Rainbow/PUSH for 11 years, without a response. She redirected her strategy this time and wrote Congressman Jackson in a plea to get the letter to his father’s (Rev. Jackson) office. The letter was hand delivered [...]

Read More

Your Black Politics: Is Barack Obama Wrestling With Self-Hatred?

Black Rage, Barack’s Redemption
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

After much deliberation, I’m convinced that President-Elect Obama’s disturbing perspective of the African-American community is not motivated by malice or cowardice, but simply a result of his upbringing. In other words, his distinctly condescending attacks on Black consciousness are merely a product of the overwhelming, disproportionate influence his White mother and White grandparents had on him. In contrast, Michelle Obama, raised by Black parents and nurtured in the womb of Black America, is prone to persuade a more empathetic view of the African-American community. It is virtually impossible for Barack Obama to have emerged from the loving arms of a woman who, “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe,” and not have inherited some of such Negrophobia, which has cast dark shadows on Black male psyche. In Just Walk on By, Author, Brent Staples wrote of the degree of “lethality nighttime pedestrians” attribute to certain Black males who fit the kinds of cringe-worthy stereotypes which Obama’s grandmother (God rest her soul) must have expressed constantly. The impact of this on the young Barry cannot be overlooked [...]

More At Your Black Politics

Your Black Education: Is Dumb The New Smart?

Stupid American Videos or “Is Our Children Learning?”
By: Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD
Reprinted From Black Commentator

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country – to say nothing of what does on in the rest of the world – and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told.

- James Baldwin, Nothing Personal.

Viewing these videos gave me an excuse for spending time on You Tube. It’s about culture, I said to myself. In fact, it is about the American culture. Since so many Americans have never read Whitman or Hemingway or Morrison. Many have limited knowledge of Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, or Sitting Bull. Since most don’t read and have never read a novel and others can’t tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Of the 158 countries in the United Nations, writers Morris Berman, the U.S. ranks “forty-ninth in literacy.” 60 percent of the American adult population “has never read a book of any kind, and only 6 percent reads as much as one book a year, where a book is defined to include Harlequin romances and self-help manuals.” Berman’s research also discovered that 120 Americans are illiterate or “read at no better than a fifth-grade level.” It’s no wonder that most American citizens can’t tell the difference between thinking and non-thinking.

For most Americans, American culture is McDonald or Nike [...]

Full Article At Your Black Education

Your Black Politics: Barack Obama: The Test Of Black CommUNITY

Barack Obama: The Test of Black CommUNITY
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

“But we must understand that we are now at a stage of struggle for a People’s Democracy… The mass support of Obama by the national Afro-American movement, especially its progressive sector, will reinvigorate our struggle… We must enter into that mainstream struggle & make our own demands, utilize the pressure of our needs & our numbers. We are almost 50 million people with the 16th GNP in the world… almost 600 Billion dollars a year. We have the muscle and the money. We need to make our move.”

-Renowned Poet and Activist, Amiri Baraka, in a speech earlier this year.

The Black CommUNITY has laid its bed and must now lie in it. To be sure, this author is not particularly pleased with the 95% level of unconditional support from the Black CommUNITY, vis-à-vis Obama’s presidential bid. Nevertheless, Obama’s unpredictable popularity within the Black CommUNITY is a testament to an often glossed over, deep-seated desire/potential for divine unity of the Black CommUNITY. Obama’s candidacy, thankfully, buttressed this reality in unequivocal terms. Many have privately joked, over the past week, about the seeming impossibility of the Black CommUNITY agreeing on any specific agenda, let alone a political one. Some have quipped that the last time such unprecedented levels of support was rendered in favor of anything, O.J. Simpson was on trial for double murder. The comedic value of such statement notwithstanding, its veracity is unquestionable. Having rallied around this man, with unwavering support, let there be no more excuses for our disunity, or inability to remain unified around the ultimate cause: Total liberation.

On at least three key issues, the world will need the assistance of the Black CommUNITY to emerge victorious:

Find Out At Your Black Politics

Your Black Power: Will He (President Obama) Stand Up For The Righteous Cause?

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

In light of Sen. Obama’s historic win on Tuesday night, certain perspectives must be taken into consideration in order to avoid being taken for a 4 year ride, which provides nothing, having promised NOTHING! In the long and winded 20-month battle for a seat at the table of presidency, Sen. Obama has often conducted himself with an unimpeachable level of dignity, grace and humility. Nevertheless, there have been times when the Good Senator has fallen short of those ranks. In fact, he has, throughout the course of his presidential bid, played the 90% hand that fed, clothed, nurtured and made him: The Black Community. Whilst many Black progressives seem quite comfortable with being snubbed – in exchange for a Black presidency – not every card-carrying member of the Black Community appreciates the Illinois Senator’s disposition on the issue of Race. They are fully aware of the tightrope which needs to be walked for a Black man to transport himself to the pedestal of history, but many see a tension between overt opportunism and the potential for a progressive Black president. In my humble judgment, there are ten issues of concern to the Black Community on which Sen. Obama has failed woefully in the course of his political career and this historic campaign:

More At Your Black Power

Your Black Politics: If Harriet Tubman Were President — Dr. Lenore Daniels

If Harriet Tubman Were President

By: Dr. Lenore Daniels

If Harriet Tubman were elected president of the United States, the Underground Railroad would become a modern-day institution in which the “wretched of the earth” here in the U.S. would be gathered together to rise from beneath the heels of their enslavers.  These citizens would form local committees to review what is best in the U.S. Constitution as well as review the Iroquois Constitution and the Black Panther education and food distribution programs. Freedom would take on a new meaning and the word “reform” would be removed from the lexicon of all languages.  “Economically poor,” “liberal,” democrat,” “republican,” “fundamental Christian,” and “conservative” would not represent anyone.  And we would come up with a flag that would represent all the people and not be used to intimidate those of us who still do not feel welcomed.

[...]

If Martin Luther King were president, funding for wars would cease. Troops would return home.  A new institution to train and/or re-educate negotiators and mediators would recognize the importance of a culturally/globally literate neighbor-consultant in the world [...]

Read More

Your Black News: White Journalists Blow Race Coverage: A Review

White Journalists Blow Race Coverage: A Review

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

The stage theatrics performed by the corporate press in analyzing the dynamics of Race vis-à-vis Sen. Obama, has been abysmal, at best. To put it bluntly, they suck. When Barack “Hussein” Obama, a Black man, initially announced his bid for the presidency, it was clear that the predominantly White media was unprepared, to say the least, in tackling the indomitable beast of RACE. The first revelation of this reality came, early 2007, when White pundits began asking the question: “Is Barack Obama Black enough?” It took an unprecedented level of effrontery for the grossly unenlightened conglomerate of White journalists to pose such a question, but, to paraphrase Sinatra, they did it their way.

Before long, the same group of overfed self-congratulators would declare, with such temerity, the dawn of a “post-racial” era. Considering the ground-work of “post-racialism,” it came as no surprise when the White, New York Times columnist, Matt Bai, declared Obama’s candidacy to be “the end of Black politics.” Upon Bai’s preposterous assertion, numerous Black bloggers/Writers asked a simple question: What the heck is going on? Unfortunately, their reluctance to curtail mass media’s long-tradition of re-defining race-discourse had begun to bear fruit [...]

Full Article At Your Black News

Your Black News: Ashley Todd: A Counter-Argument to “Post-Racialism”

Ashley Todd: A Counter-Argument to “Post-Racialism”

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the 2008 Presidential race is the constant assertion of the notion of a “post-racial” period, while juxtaposed with an endless torrent of refuting occurrences. Last week, Ashley Todd, a Pittsburgh McCain worker, reported a compelling story of being “robbed at an ATM at the corner of Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street in the Bloomfield area around 9 p.m. Wednesday after leaving a Republican phone bank.” To avoid misleading the local police station, Todd was quick to comment that her purported attacker was a “dark-skinned African-American man about 6’4″,” who “stole $60 from her and became enraged after seeing a bumper sticker supporting Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain on her car.”

The bizarre story took an unusual twist when Ashley Todd told Pittsburgh police that her “dark-skinned” bandit made sure to carve “a ‘B’ in her cheek,” when he noticed the McCain sticker on her car. From the onset, this mystery was suspicious at best. Nevertheless, John McCain and Sarah Palin swiftly conducted personal phone calls with the victim: Ashley Todd. Even Sen. Obama’s camp would not risk being charged with condoning this reported act of bestiality. In a released statement, the campaign stated: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.” Damn. Tawana Brawley must be feeling pretty disgusted at this point [...]

More At Your Black News

Your Black Politics: Shame On John Lewis… For Backing Down

Shame on John Lewis… for Backing down: Black Leadership in Peril
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

Why would a seasoned boxer back down from a fight he’s most familiar with? And why would a Civil Rights Icon apologize for condemning unarmed bigotry: INTIMIDATION! Late last week, Georgia Congressman, Rep. John Lewis, attacked the McCain camp for its unabashed authorization of the pejorative rants at McCain/Palin rallies against Democratic rival, Sen. Obama. Rep. Lewis was unfettered in characterizing the McCain campaign’s response to its supporters’ rants as, “shocking and beyond the pale.” Brief reminder: The McCain/Palin rallies had contained crowd-screams of “treason,” “terrorist,” “off with his head,” “bomb Obama,” “kill him,” “traitor,” etc. In reaction to the toxic level of racial hostility being stoked, Rep. Lewis spoke out candidly about the eerie similarity between McCain/Palin rallies and the racial atmosphere of the Jim-Crow Sixties:

“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights.” Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

This sobering caution by the Civil Rights Icon was meant to temper the rising heights of vitriol being spewed at Sen. McCain’s Klan rallies. Unfortunately, Rep. Lewis would, soon after, demonstrate why most self-appointed Black leaders have a deficit of – what The Hon. Min. Louis Farrakhan once called – “testicular fortitude.”

Full Article At Your Black Politics

Your Black Scholar: Blacks, Banking, CRA And The Right Wing

Blacks, Banking, CRA and the Right Wing
By: Lloyd Wynn

While Blacks have many individual superstars in diverse segments of our society, one of the fundamental weaknesses as a group is too many blind-spots when it comes to the economy. Those blind-spots, in part, will explain the disturbing trend of Blacks parroting rhetoric without considering its origin or veracity. To label the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) the villain in the subprime mortgage market’s collapse is to demonstrate a lack of understanding about the flow of the money and its destination.

[...]

UCLA Law Professor, Stephen Bainbridge commented that, “[s]ome of my fellow conservatives are not only embarrassing themselves during the financial crisis, they’re embarrassing the rest of us who share that label”. Moreover, Blacks would not make irresponsible statements such as “the CRA is a cancer on the American economic system” or the absolutely ridiculous claim that the CRA caused the Savings and Loan crisis and lastly, if we were properly informed, the propaganda would not gain enough traction to convince the public of this inalterable reality: Republicans and Wall Street let the bull run wild and he destroyed everything in the china shop [...]

Full Article At Your Black Scholar

Your Black Life: Sister, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Women In The Media

Sister, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Women in the Media
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

Who can argue with prophetic leader and political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal’s assessment that “Black women are the most disfavored of all the nation’s women?” Only a fool would. Black Women, historically, have had to endure the horror of living in a world that screams hatred from its four corners. Like piercing swords drilling a hole into one’s soul, many Black Women are subjected daily to inhumane attacks from the left, right, front, and back angles of society.

[...]

In addition to coming to grips with the rampant racism exhibited in many White feminist organizations, financially-disempowered Black Women also face the firey scorn of well-to-do Black Women who hypocritically blame them for the criminal conditions in which they exist. With such precedent, I ask again, who can argue with prophetic leader and political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal’s assessment that “Black women are the most disfavored of all the nation’s women?”

Full Article At Your Black Life

Your Black Brothers: Brother, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Men In The Media

Brother, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Men in the Media
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

On October 15th, Comedy Central is slated to premier a “satirical fake news show” called, Chocolate News. David Alan Grier, most famous for his many characters in the ‘90s hit sketch comedy series In Living Color, will be the host. The show is reported to be a cultural spin-off of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, but judging from the released trailers, Comedy Central is aiming for a much different objective. The scene is an all too familiar one. The trailers feature Grier, like past Black comics before him, dressed up in feminine outfits, yelling at the top of his voice, acting erratically, and operating in an incoherent shuffle. It is as though this long national nightmare, of which President Ford spoke, is far from over.

In early 2005, Chappelle’s Show, Comedy Central’s most popular series at the time, received a set-back from production because Dave Chappelle, star of the show, had come to a sobering conclusion that he did not wish for his soul to be purchased at the price of corporate America’s offer. As the legend tells itself, Dave Chappelle turned down $50 million – the allotted price for the third season – and escaped to South Africa for a “spiritual retreat.” Comedy Central, uneasy about the kind of message being sent to Black boys and girls across the globe, initially spun Chappelle’s departure into a battle with the flu, but subsequently reoriented it to suggest a meltdown of insanity and eccentricity.

Dave Chappelle, upon a return to The States, informed TV icon Oprah Winfrey, that he was motivated to halt production of his ultra successful show because it had grown increasingly “socially irresponsible.” In response to the growing concern from within the Black Community, vis-à-vis his many overtly stereotypical sketches, Chappelle remarked that he didn’t want “black people to be disappointed in me for putting that [message] out there. … It’s a complete moral dilemma.” What an unusual and unprecedented act of solidarity and candor…

Click To Read Full Article

Your Black Scholar: Beyond $700 Billion – By Lloyd Wynn

Beyond $700 Billion

By: Lloyd Wynn

Imagine a patient visiting her physician for an annual checkup and is informed she has cancer. While in her physician’s office, she has a heart attack and now the physician must attend to the patient’s immediate health concern (the heart attack). That is the situation the Administration must confront. The $700 billion request by the Administration will address the heart attack but not the cancer which some experts think has metastasized.

Last week when the Administration made its case before key leaders from Congress and the two presidential candidates, it was revealed credit markets were frozen and interbank lending had ceased. If we are to believe the Administration, famine, pestilence and locusts will plague us for the next 15 years if Congress does not approve their $700 billion request.

Well on Monday, Congress refused to approve the $700 billion plan. The rejection was not along party lines as 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed the plan, but the ensuing finger-pointing surely turned partisan. The republican leadership (Reps. Boehner and Blount) quickly assailed the speech of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D. CA, given during the debate prior to the vote, as the cataclysmic event which alienated many of the 133 Republicans. I can think of many reasons to run Speaker Pelosi out of town on rails but that speech was not one of them…

Read More At Your Black Scholar

Your Black Politics: “First Black President” Confronts Reality: Will Black Folks Follow Suit?

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

“I tell you this much, it’s up to every one of you/

Learn from the past or the future will punish you/

Power flows to those who remember/”

- Hip-Hop artist and philosopher, Canibus, in his 2002 album, Mic Club: The Curriculum.

Perhaps at this very moment, Grand-Author, Toni Morrison, is recanting her 1998 words, suggesting that Bill Clinton was the embodiment of the “first black president,” because he displayed “almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” For what good is it to be an esteemed culture critic, and have the memories of an ill-conceived statement lurking behind your every mention and declaration. But upon a moments’ reflection, Ms. Morrison is merely a mirror-image of the heartfelt conviction of millions of Black folks who, having being mesmerized by the allure of a president who went the extra mile in rendering unfulfillable promises, had become emotionally overdosed and dwarfed by political immaturity. One thing is for certain however: 99% of the Black population which believed Bill “Bubba” Clinton to be the first black president holds no such sentiment anymore. With Barack Obama’s emergence as the new Messiah, most of those Black voters have little need for the “counterfeit” Black president, when the possibility of a “real” Black president is more tangible than ever before…

Read Full Article At Your Black Politics

Your Black Politics: The Slow-Witted Beast: Mass Media Sings the Devil’s Tune

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

“Unenlightened mass media has served as a covert propaganda machine for white supremacist thought, skillfully manipulating representations to convey to black folks and everyone else the notion, however false, that black life is horrible, that black people are the enemy, dangerous to themselves and others.”

- Acclaimed Scholar, bell hooks, in her highly enriching 2002 book, Rock My Soul : Black People and Self-Esteem.

The “slow-witted beast” is a phrase borrowed from a recent lecture given by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, in which he sat down a few corporate journalists and told the brutal and honest truth to their faces. Calling the mainstream press a “brutish, slow-witted beast,” Stewart chastised them for the “false sense of urgency they create, the sense that everything is breaking news.” The Comedy Central host also seemed to be displeased with the level of adulteration that has become normative within the cable news beltway. He said, “The 24-hour networks are now driving the narratives and everyone else is playing catch-up.” No doubt this cry from the hyper-wealthy, White-Jewish comedian is but a mere reflection of the dissatisfaction and discontent most Black, Brown, Red and Yellow peoples around the world have expressed for decades. Peoples of culture/color around the globe have suffered the sting of unfiltered dishonesty, distortion and deformation by the affluent media empires. At the crossroad of a black man rising to the highest pedestal in political platform, journalists of culture/color still remain underrepresented in Washington. It is as though the corporate press has neither the intellect, nor the moral fortitude, to see how grossly illogical it is to host panels of White men/women over the age of fifty, whose attempt – rather pathetic – to “understand” Barack Obama never exceeds the thinking capacity of a fifth grader.

The 2008 Presidential race, particularly with the emergence of Barack Obama, has exposed many, otherwise hidden, insightful details about the media’s laziness and self-obsession. NPR co-host, Brooke Gladstone, affirmed this notion in a recent appearance on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal…

Click To Read Full Article

Your Black Politics: Organizing the Community: Understanding The GOP’s Fear

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”

- Republican V.P. Nominee, Sarah Palin, in her acceptance speech at the RNC.

“On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? He worked – I said – I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume. He worked as a community organizer.“

- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani giving Keynote Address at the RNC.

When the enemy of the state is community organizing, it is sufficient to acknowledge that the world as we know it is, indeed, coming to an end. To arrive at such a conclusion, one would have to deliberately skip over the Public Enemies of the 21st century – corrupt government, predatory mortgage lenders, failing schools, poverty, imperialism, neo-colonialism, drug-trafficking, inequality – and claim that the oppositional forces of good are the Taliban equivalent in the war against “domestic terrorism.” Terrorism, described as “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes,” is clearly more in sync with the two big-name political parties’ attempt to cage dissent (at their pricy conventions), than the very factors which try to make the world safer for the most vulnerable. The unadulterated buffoonery of the GOP was unmasked last week, as their effort to give community-organizing a bad rep fell flat on its face – just as their lame attempt to be re-branded as the party of “change…”

Click to read full article

Your Black Politics: Hillary Clinton, White Greed, and the Rage of White Female Racism

“… When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don’t believe it was put on. I really believe that she just always thought, ‘This is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white. And this is mine. I just got to get up and step into the plate…’ Then out of nowhere came, hey, I’m Barack Obama. And she said, ‘Oh damn, where did you come from? I’m white. I’m entitled. There’s a black man stealing my show.’”

-The Rev. Father Michael Pfleger on Hillary Clinton

“For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama’s defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama’s sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women… Your whiteness is showing.”

-Tim Wise on Hillary Clinton’s white allegiant female supporters who oppose Obama.

It was quite a scene to behold at the DNC last week: White Women in their 50s, letting the world (or at least whoever cared to listen) know just why Barack Obama would not get their votes. No matter what he did or didn’t do, they made it explicitly clear that Sen. Obama would never have their support. They staged incoherent protests in the name of their cause: putting Hillary Clinton on the ballot for nomination. It wasn’t until Hillary Clinton posed a timely question to them – in her Tuesday night speech – that they began to see the virtue of not voting McCain. In a highly self-promoting speech, Sen. Clinton paused to query her anxious fans and supporters, “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” The truth Hillary is much aware of is that a majority of that faction was indeed in the campaign for the sole reason of voting for her. Not for a woman, not for a white woman, but for a “Hillary Clinton type of woman”: white, elitist, rich and powerful.

When Barack Obama embarked on the prestigious journey of selecting a V.P, Sen. Clinton supporters all-but-informed him, that if he dared pick a female as his running mate, they would muster up whatever muscle amassable, and destroy his campaign…

Click to read full article