Dr. Boyce: Racially-Derogatory Obama Pics Found on U. Kentucky Campus

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World 

It turns out that pictures were found on the University of Kentucky campus with derogatory language aimed at President Barack Obama.  Police are investigating the incident, and a professor said he found one of the pictures hanging in the College of Law of all places.  If the police find out who put out the signs, they could be charged with third-degree criminal mischief.

As an alum of The University of Kentucky, the incident doesn’t surprise me.  When I was a student there in the 1990s, there were a multitude of racially-charged incidents.  In fact, I feared for my life with all the death threats I would receive after writing articles in the campus newspaper (someone even warned me that they spoke heavily of me at a local klan rally).  The school’s racial hostility was a great training ground for years later, when I would get death threats from Fox News viewers after sparring with Sean Hannity on television.

Click to read.

Republicans Cut References to Slavery Out of the Constitution: How Quaint

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action 

With the new Republican-led Congress comes the excited arrival of Birthers, Tea Partiers and other strange characters who are seeking to undermine the political stability of our great nation. The week ended with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, with the sheriff of the town implying that racial animosity and divisive rhetoric of the Right Wing played a role in creating the atmosphere where a political leader was shot in the face and a little girl was killed.
The language of the Tea Party has consisted mostly of thinly-veiled animosity thrust toward the black man in the Oval Office who doesn’t seem to know his place. The idea of "taking back America" and "returning America to its roots," can be translated to saying that America isn’t a country that’s supposed to be run by that " hoity-toity, high fallutin, black guy with the Muslim name."
So, what better way to celebrate new-found Republican power than to read the United States Constitution out loud in the chambers of Congress? Sure, we might bore the heck out of a few lawmakers and waste a day that could be spent doing something productive, but why aim for substance when symbolism is a far better marketing tool?

Click to read.

Did Racism Play a Role in the Shooting of the Congresswoman?

 

 

Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik says anger, hatred and bigotry are getting out of hand in this country.  If you read between the lines, you can see that the sheriff is trying to say that racism may have been part of the reason that Giffords was shot.  Perhaps the Republicans will reconsider their rhetoric, since lives are being put in danger by their consistent commitment to capitalizing off the racial hatred of our country.

Dr Boyce Watkins: The “OJ Simpsonization” of Tiger Woods: Could it Possibly Happen?

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University 

Tiger Woods is a black athlete. He isn’t "Caublinasian," mixed or any other ethnicity. He is, officially, a black man – especially after being reduced to being an adulterer who sleeps with porn stars. At least that’s what guests on the Joy Behar Show seem to think.

During a recent episode, a guest on the show, Karith Foster, was asked what she thought about Tiger’s recent indiscretions. In response to the question, the comedian said (without cracking a smile) that Tiger is "acting like a black athlete now."

I was shocked to hear these words come out of the mouth of any person, let alone an African-American woman. Dr. Deborah Stroman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the first person to bring the comments to my attention. She and I both agreed that the statement was an outrageous, irresponsible choice of words, and the host should have challenged her immediately. But Foster’s comments might be telling, given that she once relegated herself to being the token black sidekick of a man (Don Imus) famous for referring to black women as "nappy headed hoes." Foster was fired not too long after being hired, which reminds us of the complications that come from making deals with the devil just to keep a job in media.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with Ms. Foster’s remarks. I also found it quite ironic that no one went out of their way to compare Woods with other black men when he was the clean cut soldier boy with the billion dollar smile. At that time, he was considered the exception to the rule, something that all of America could easily embrace. Some have decided to associate the "black male" side of Tiger with the seedy character who has emerged over the past two weeks. Such comparisons are insulting to good black men everywhere. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that not every American shares the opinion of Karith Foster.

Let’s be clear, Tiger Woods is not seedy, nor is he perfect. In reality, he is simply human. The problem is that we were all led to believe that he was super human, so the Tiger we are seeing today appears sub-human. Tiger Woods was the original Barack Obama, a man who injected hope into the psyches of sports fans everywhere, as we were all inspired to see a man with a brown face whipping the greatest golfers in history. Even to this day, Tiger is usually the only man of color on the golf course, and he is almost always the most dominant.

It will be interesting to see how the world processes Tiger’s recent mistakes. It is not inconceivable that Tiger could be "OJ Simpsonized" by this incident, especially if additional dirt is leaked to the public. If you recall, OJ was also an athlete who’d been given permission to spend a significant amount of time with white women before the murder took place. After his trial, however, he was considered to be the most morally depleted man in America.

 

Click to read.

Sometimes You’re Wrong Even When You’re Right

By Wilmer Leon

On Thursday July 16, 2009 after returning from a trip to China, Harvard University scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. had difficulty opening the front door of the home he leases from Harvard.  After he and his driver struggled with the front door Dr. Gates gained entry through the back door of the home, shut off the alarm, opened the front door, and the driver left.

According to Cambridge Police Department Incident Report #9005127, a neighbor called the police and reported a possible breaking and entering at the residence. The woman “…observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch…”  Her suspicions were aroused when, “…she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.”  The uniformed police officer went to the front door, saw Dr. Gates standing in the foyer and asked him to step out onto the porch.  Dr. Gates refused.

According to the Incident Report, after identifying himself as Sgt. Crowly and explaining that he was “investigating a report of a break-in in progress” at the residence, Dr. Gates opened the front door and stated, “why, because I’m a black man in America?”  After supplying the officer with Harvard University identification, the officer radioed for Harvard University Police.

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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 Brothers: Dr. Boyce Watkins: Lessons Jim Brown Has Taught Me

Why I love The Great Jim Brown

By: Dr. Boyce Watkins

Founder – YourBlackWorld.com

http://www.BoyceWatkins.net

I got a phone call today. I get a lot of calls from “observers” (translation: supporters and haterologists), and I appreciate every single one of them. However, being as busy as I am, I usually don’t have time to call anyone back. I call my mama back and if my daughter would call me, she would be at the top of my list. I also call my grandmother. That’s enough to fill the free time at airports or on the way to the office. [...]

On this day, I had some free time. I was driving to the office and I had a message from a woman named Karen. Karen’s family is full of Syracuse alumni. Honestly, most calls and emails I get from Syracuse alumni are not all that favorable. [...]

But Karen was worth the investment because she was super duper cool. It also turned out that Karen is the daughter of the greatest alumnus in Syracuse University history, the great Jim Brown.

Jim was not amazing for what he did on the field. Yes, he had super human strength and was such an outstanding athlete that they changed the rules to find ways to stop him. But that doesn’t impress me, for black men have always possessed amazing athletic ability. [...]

What impressed the HELL out of me was Jim Brown’s COURAGE. That is what left his mark on the university, and that is what will leave his mark on the world [...]

More At The Boyce Blog

Your Black News Headlines: 12/18/2008

Rwandan Genocide Organizer To Be Sentenced Shortly

Aretha Franklin To Perform At Obama Inauguration

Gabrielle Union Leads Fight Against Breast Cancer

Study: Racism Costs Black Workers Thousands

U.S. Diplomat: Russia Plans To Test Obama

Racist State E-mails Circulate In Alaska

‘Thousands Enslaved In Darfur

Your Black News: George Bush’s New Neighborhood Segregated Until 2000?

As President Bush prepares to move into his new Dallas home at the end of his term, neighborhood residents worry about having him close by. [...]

But the exclusive Dallas community the Bush family will soon join has a troubled history of its own.

Until 2000, the neighborhood association’s covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants.

Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads: “Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant.” [...]

The neighborhood is home to many famous people, including former presidential candidate Ross Perot and Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner [...]

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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 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 News: Israel To Boycott U.N. Forum On Racism

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday that Israel had made a final decision not to participate in a U.N. forum on racism and urged other countries to boycott what she termed an “anti-Israel tribunal.”

The United Nations said it regretted the decision.

The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in Geneva in April, is a follow-up to a 2001 summit in Durban, South Africa on the same issues.

Israel and the United States walked out of the first conference in protest over draft texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state — language that was later dropped.

In a speech to visiting U.S. Jewish leaders, Livni said she announced last February that Israel would not participate in the 2009 meeting unless it was clear it would not be used “as a platform for further anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic” activity.

She said documents prepared for next year’s forum showed it was “turning once again into an anti-Israeli tribunal, singling out and delegitimizing the State of Israel.”

As a result, she said: “I decided that Israel will not participate and will not legitimize the Durban-2 conference.”

“We call upon the international community not to participate in this conference, which seeks to legitimize hatred and extremism under the banner of the fight against racism,” Livni added [...]

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Your Black Gospel: Black Church Burned Down On Election Night

SPRINGFIELD, MA — (OfficialWire) — 11/09/08 — The fire that destroyed a church under construction in Springfield, Mass., was arson, law enforcement officials say.

State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said the fire that destroyed the Macedonian Church of God in Christ was intentionally set Wednesday, but there was no conclusive evidence the arson was a hate crime, the Boston Globe reported Sunday.

The church’s congregation is primarily black and the fire was set the day after Barack Obama was elected U.S. president, the Globe noted.

Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett said all efforts would be taken to ensure those responsible for the blaze were apprehended.

“We know it’s arson. We know it’s a very serious crime and we’re going to do everything we can to identify the perpetrator and to prosecute that person or persons responsible,” Bennett said.

The Globe said the church construction project was nearly 75 percent complete when the fire occurred.

From Official Wire

Your Black World Headlines: 11/18/2008

Annual SOBWC To Focus On Moving Forward

A U Demands Role In World Financial Reform

Racist Goes On Shooting Spree In South Africa

Jesse Jackson Asks For ‘Substance’ From Obama

Sean Levert’s Family Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Your Black Life: Is Obama The Hallmark Of Equality?

Stand-up comedian, Erin Jackson, has an interesting take on the recent turn of events:

Your Black News: Obama Victory Spurs Hundreds Of Hate Crimes

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been “hundreds” of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: “I hope Obama gets assassinated.” That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law’s front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear [...]

More At Your Black News

Your Black Life: How To Accept It’s A Post-Racial Society

How to Accept It’s a Post-Racial Society (a.k.a., How You Can Learn to Stop Making Excuses, Throw Away All Your Race Cards and Accept We Are Living in a Post-Racial Society)

By: Dom Apollon

If you’re like me, you justifiably shed tears at the incredible symbolic power unleashed this week when Americans chose Barack Hussein Obama to be our 44th president. Moreover, his victory speech rightfully reminded us after eight years in the Bush wilderness that indeed “our union can be perfected.” That there is genuine “hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow,” and the progress we can make for our children in the next 100 years of American history.

I must admit, though, by the next day I felt rather daunted by the enormity of that task. So I was relieved to discover through the searingly insightful analysis provided recently by some conservatives that, as far as continued progress in racial justice is concerned, we are finally off the hook. [...]

Our country, according to Jonathan Kay of the National Post, “has finally become a fundamentally post-racial society,” where in fact, Laura Hollis tells us at townhall.com, “racism is dead.”

But if you are still mired in white guilt, or are one of those stubborn “race-obsessed” types… don’t fret.

I’m developing a handy guide to help you navigate the new world that awaits you at the stroke of noon on January 20, 2009 [...]

More At Your Black Life

Your Black News: Lawsuit Claims Election-Night Hate-Crime By Chicago Police

CHICAGO (AP) — A lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that while a huge Chicago crowd celebrated the election of the first black U.S. president, some white city police officers committed hate crimes against a black family cheering Barack Obama’s victory from home.

The federal lawsuit claims several officers discharged pepper spray on members of a family celebrating Obama’s win outside their home on the city’s West Side last week.

After some of the family members fled into the home, the armed officers knocked down the door and shouted profanity-laced racial insults before leaving, according to the suit.

The eight plaintiffs include Niger Arnold, 31, of Chicago, and her four children, who had been visiting relatives at the home.

“Chicago looked very good on national TV that night. For many people, it was the beginning of a new era in America,” attorney Gregory Kulis said. “Obviously, some Chicago police thought otherwise.”

The lawsuit, which seeks $50,000 in damages, claims use of excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, battery, and a hate crime. It cites only the unnamed officers and does not name the Chicago Police Department.

A separate lawsuit filed last week by Kulis claims Christina Ballard and Cornelius Voss, who are black, were driving home in Chicago with family members on election night when white officers in unmarked cars drove alongside the vehicle.

That lawsuit alleges that after some of the children cheered for Obama through the open car windows, the officers discharged pepper spray and yelled “white power” and the N-word [...]

More At The Associated Press

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 Scholar: Hope and Wisdom — By Shannon Joyce Prince

Hope and Wisdom

By: Shannon Joyce Prince

Remember back seven years ago to the aftermath of September 11^th, when the world was divided into the good and the axis of evil, those who had democracy and those whose envy of it drove them to murderous fundamentalism? Remember the charge of the extreme right – that anybody who didn’t support the ‘War on Terror’ or didn’t show the appropriate level of ambivalence towards Islam or Middle Easterners, or paused to quibble over whether or not “enemy countries” had weapons of mass destruction, was unpatriotic and insufficiently American? Remember how the left, the middle, and the moderate right took issue with that kind of Manichean thinking while the war hawks said it didn’t matter if those who were leading us to war were honest or which Middle Eastern country we bombed, because we were representing the concepts of freedom and democracy, thus the nitty-gritty about reality and truth weren’t important?

I’ve been stunned to hear that same kind of rhetoric from the left. Either you support President-elect Obama or you’re a too cool for school revolutionary snob, a Gloomy Gus, or someone too idealistic, unrealistic, or cynical to be pragmatic or useful [...]

More At Your Black Scholar

Your Black Power: ABC’s ‘Life on Mars’ Rewrites Black History

ABC’s ‘Life on Mars’ Rewrites Black History

By: Tolu Olorunda

Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

In approximately 42 minutes, Life on Mars, a new ABC TV series, sought to do the impossible: Rewrite Black history. On Nov. 6^th, ABC broadcast an episode called, Things to Do in New York When You Think You’re Dead. The premise of this particular episode was centered on emerging racial tensions within Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods, following the death of a 9-year old Black girl -believed to have been murdered by a Puerto Rican man. This watered-down version of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing was, I presume, intended to promoted dialogue around issues of inter-racial fellowship. Unfortunately, such megalomaniac decisions by big-media companies have only, historically, intensified the problem. It’s like MSNBC claiming its exploitation of incarcerated inmates in the Lockdown series is only a means to an end of educating younger people of the dangerous and horrific conditions of prison life. Or worse, BET intimating that its obsession with the American Gangster series is a way of informing young Black and Brown kids of the history and peril of gang deathstyle. In short, such inference is devoid of logic [...]

Full Article At Your Black Power

Your Black Education: Mississippi Students Banned From Speaking About Obama

PEARL, MS (WLBT) – Teachers are prohibiting students from talking about President-Elect Barack Obama.  WLBT’s newsroom has been flooded by calls and emails from angry parents in several cities.  These parents say their children were threatened with suspension if they said Obama’s name or wore clothing that supports him. [...]

“It’s like they’ve taken their rights way,” said Natalie Taylor.  She decided not to show her face because she is afraid of retaliation against her son who attends Pearl Junior High School.

“He told me he was warned by one of the teachers before school started that he could not mention the name because he would get in trouble,” said Taylor. [...]

“Racism at its best, that’s really what it is,” said Paula Loften of Magee.  She has two children in the Simpson County School District in Magee.  She is angry that students are not allowed to wear any clothing that supports the new President-Elect.

“One student was sent home to change because she had on a Barack Obama T-shirt and on the back it said “yes we can,” said Loten [...]

More At Your Black Education

Your Black World Headlines: 11/11/2008

Italy’s P.M Calls Obama ‘Suntanned’

Malaria Vaccine Trial Begins In Africa

Death Toll Rises In Haiti School Collapse

Obama Victory Energizes White Supremacists

Blood Pressure Disparity Kills 8,000 Blacks Annually

T-Mac Set To Premier Documentary On Darfur Genocide

Iowa Man Sentenced To 10 Years For Running Over Black Boy

Your Black Life: Rampant Racism In LGBT Community Comes To Light

You could see this coming, and this is what I’m talking about when you ignore the elephant in the room. Rod McCullom of Rod 2.0 blogs reports on the escalation of the “blame the blacks” meme that has been swirling about the blogosphere and the MSM.

A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night’s marriage equality rally in Los Angeles. Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice.

It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple…me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them.

The backlash is upon us, and it’s going to get uglier unless our organizations step forward and say something. The desire to scapegoat blacks for Prop 8′s defeat has exposed the now not-so-latent racism in our movement [...]

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Your Black News: Secret Service: Sarah Palin Stoked Racial Hate

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.

Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”

More At Your Black News

Your Black News: Rev. Jeremiah Wright Speaks Out Following Obama Victory

MILFORD — As protesters outside held a giant American flag and yelled words like “traitor” and “racist,” the Rev. Jeremiah Wright discussed his views on race and Christianity before an audience of hundreds Thursday night in Kingdom Life Christian Church.

Wright, President-elect Barack Obama’s former pastor, whose racially and politically charged remarks in sermons propelled him to notoriety in March, was invited to a forum on the Bible, race and American history by the Rev. John C. Rankin, an evangelical scholar and head of the Hartford-based Theological Education Institute.

A soft-spoken Wright, retired senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, told the diverse crowd his controversial remarks were taken out of context as media sound bites.

“They could care less what I preach,” he said in response to a question. “Their intention was to use me as a weapon of mass destruction to destroy that man’s candidacy. “¦ Perceptions of me are based on 10 seconds.”

The spotlight fell Wright when ABC News reported a review of dozens of his sermons found repeated denunciations of the U.S. and lists of its injustices to blacks and other minorities [...]

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Your Black Politics: The Obama ’08 Phenomenon — Lessons Learned

The Obama ’08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned?
By: BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“This generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like.”

Without question, the nation has experienced an election of historical significance, for reasons that go beyond the obvious “first Black” aspect of race. This has also been the most-hyped presidential campaign in U.S. history, if for no other reason than the simple fact that every presidential campaign is more hyped than the last, since hype is what corporate media sells. But what has the experience taught us?

We have learned that a large and decisive national minority of whites can be persuaded to vote for a certain kind of Black man for president if that Black man possesses the following characteristics:

Find Out At Your Black Politics

Your Black Life: Wall Street Journal Says Racism Is A “Myth”

The voting booths hadn’t even cooled down from last night’s historic election, before the Wall Street Journal exploited the moment by not only suggesting that “racism as a barrier to achievement” will no longer exist now that a black man has been elected, but by actually declaring that these barriers were a “myth” in the first place. I guess it took a stubborn stronghold of white, male, corporate privilege, where black achievement is the exception, not the rule, to make such a claim.

Obama’s achievements are indeed an American achievement and all those who were able to vote their dreams and not their fears reveal the very best instincts of this country’s citizenry. But let’s not forget the popular “real America” theme that Sarah Palin drilled home to her party faithful, a creepy, divisive, and yes, racist, maneuver that tried to paint Barack as a bogey man that threatened “American” values [...]

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Your Black Scholar: President Elect Obama – America’s Struggle in Context

President Elect Obama – America’s Struggle in Context

By: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

With the election of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, Americans have taken a giant leap forward. It has taken this country 219 years to elect its first African-American president (George Washington was elected in 1789). It is imperative that this historic moment always be viewed within its proper historic context.

[...]

As I think about President-elect Obama’s defeat of Senator John McCain and bask in the comfort of this historic event, I must also fear its backlash. History tells us that white supremacy dies hard in America and its proponents will not take America’s victory lying down.

I think back to 1908 and Jack Johnson’s defeat of Tommy Burns to become the first African-American boxing heavyweight champion of the world. This led to the search for the “Great White Hope,” James Jackson Jefferies. Before Johnson fought Jefferies on July 4, 1910, the crowd chanted, “Kill the nigger.” Johnson’s defeat of Jefferies ignited numerous incidents of white violence against African-Americans. It set off some of the worst racial violence in American history [...]

Full Article At Your Black Scholar

Your Black Scholar: The Illusion of Post-Racial America

The Illusion of Post-Racial America

By: Aman Gill

An Obama Victory Would be a Milestone, but Could Stall Struggles Against Racism

It’s increasingly popular to argue that the fuel for unrest has disappeared because the problem of racism has receded into America’s past. This idea has long held sway on the right, but, paradoxically, it’s taken Barack Obama’s candidacy to elevate this persistent right-wing myth into conventional wisdom.

CIVIL RIGHTS UNFULFILLED
“The history he [Obama] needs to know is the history he rejects,” says Lenore Daniels, editorial board member of the Black Commentator, a weekly online magazine. “He rejects the whole Black Power movement: ‘Just the civil rights were fine, we’ll leave it at that, there was progress.’ [But] the Black Power movement is still relevant. That was a movement talking about economic equality, where King left off.”

[...]

Obama’s view of a united, post-racial America is in the tradition of how the political establishment – Democrat and Republican – responded to heightened militancy [...]

Full Article At Your Black Scholar

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 Politics: Many Blacks Remain Sceptical Of Obama On Race

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Despite Barack Obama’s message of change and hope, fears persist in the black community about what his election as president could mean for the legacy of racism in America.

Namely, that it might mean nothing at all.

“America is still one of the most segregated countries by race and by class in the industrialized world,” said Dedrick Muhammad, research associate at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, a think tank for social justice.

Muhammad pointed to research showing that black Americans remain far behind the rest of the country economically, with median wealth one-tenth of that in white America, and one in three black children born into poverty.

Like most black Americans, Muhammad supports Obama’s historic bid to become America’s first black president.

However, he said the Illinois senator’s campaign tactic of largely avoiding discussion of race in his campaign has “driven me crazy.”

“What saddens me today is that we don’t talk about black-white inequality,” he said. “I see in Obama a winning strategy, but it is sad to me.”

For the 47-year-old son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father to gain the lead he currently holds over his Republican rival John McCain, Obama has had to tip-toe around any potential racial controversy, analysts say [...]

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Your Black Scholar: Why Wright Happens — By Debra Dickerson

Why Wright Happens

By: Debra Dickerson

How come white folks can consort with racists but blacks can’t? Not that I’m conceding that Rev. Wright is a racist. But let’s stick to the point.

Jonathan Stein’s post gives me the perfect opportunity to kvetch about something that’s been driving me crazy about the attacks on Obama via Wright.

Stein’s right that vicious ads like this one will give a great many cover to vote against Obama. But here’s the thing: What about the racists and loonies who helped raise most of us? My father was bitter beyond belief about white racism, even though he had white friends and volunteered to fight in WWII. I can separate his horrific life experiences (Jim Crow sharecropper) out from my own (post-Civil Rights Movement) world view, as do most other Americans. When the elders got together and ranted and raved about the white man, I didn’t go upstairs, write a formal denunciation, and secede from my family. I considered the source and was grateful to have been born later. How dare you demand that we have no complaints? Church, and to a lesser and more troubling extent, certain forms of rap ‘music’, are places we go for catharsis. And catharsis ain’t usually a pretty sight [...]

Full Article At Your Black Scholar

Your Black Politics: Bob Beckel’s Racist Tirade Against Charles Barkley

In an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown, Monday night, NBA legend, Charles Barkley, mentioned that racism was still an integral part of U.S. political life. Surprisingly, FOX News wasn’t to happy about it, and talk-show host, Sean Hannity, made much hoopla about it on his show last night. “Liberal Commentator,” Bob Beckel, was featured as a guest to provide some analysis on Barkley’s charge. Beckel responded saying, “I would rather take the words of a drunk on the corner down here on politics than Charles Barkley’s… He’s a great basketball player, but he ought to stay there. That’s exactly right. And not wander into our neighborhood, you know.” What does Beckel mean by “our neighborhood?” Perhaps, in Beckle and FOX News’s minds, Black athletes can only function one-dimensionally. This might explain why politically-conscious athletes like Etan Thomas have become increasingly marginalized in mainstream athleticism:

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Your Black World Headlines: 10/30/2008

Haitians Flee Dominican Republic In Wake Of Violence

Rebel Fighting In Congo Causes Massive Migration

Obama Effigy Hung In University of Kentucky

Black Heart Patients Treated Unequally

Weapon Found In Hudson Murders

Marion Jones Appears On ‘Oprah’

Your Black News: White Liberal Racists Enticed By Obama — Glen Ford

Pandering to Racists

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

With unseemly haste, the corporate media consensus seems to have rushed to the conclusion that the so-called “Bradley Effect” is a myth; that white covert racism will not be a significant factor on November 4, and that the polls are accurately reflecting a looming landslide for Barack Obama.

[...]

Those who attempt to discredit the Bradley Effect are, in reality, seeking to declare racism in America a non-issue, unworthy of further attention. They have seized on Barack Obama’s campaign as proof that Black agitation is outdated and even harmful to the national interest.

Obama has encouraged whites to believe that, once he is in the White House, Black complaints about racism in public life can be deemed irrelevant; that the long debate over white skin privilege and entrenched institutional racism will be over. The most shameless proponent of this baseless notion is Frank Rich, a supposedly liberal columnist for the New York Times [...]

Read & Listen To The Full Commentary: Your Black News

Your Black Life: Black Female Critic Of Tim Wise Speaks Out

Word to the Wise (Tim Wise, that is)

By: Shannon Joyce Prince

In writing to condemn an attitude held by a white anti-racist activist I respect, I must begin with the words of William Lloyd Garrison, another white activist who is his intellectual antecedent.  Garrison said, “Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.”  Tim Wise is clearly a great and good man and one of the nation’s foremost anti-racist activists, yet his recent blog post “This is how fascism comes: reflections on the cost of silence” reveals not only a powerful lack of discernment but also an intolerably ugly hatefulness.

[...]

To cruelly mock those whose way of life is different from your own and to ascribe to such people all the failings of American society is hateful and unacceptable – particularly from someone who considers himself liberal and progressive [...]

Full Article At Your Black Life

To Read Tim Wise’s (Quite Crass) Response: Click Here

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 Life: Black Man Lynched In Texas?

PARIS, Texas (FinalCall.com) – When the body of a 24-year-old Black man in Paris, Texas was discovered in the middle of a busy road, law enforcement declared the case a hit and run by an unidentified driver.

Now this small racially-divided town’s worst fears are brewing, with evidence pointing towards two White men who picked up Brandon Clelland in their Dodge truck before he was found mutilated and dismembered in September.

Forensics performed by the Texas Rangers found blood from Mr. McClelland and other DNA evidence on the undercarriage of the truck which has the victim’s family calling the death a “Jasper-style” lynching. The term is a reference to the murder of a Black man in Jasper, Texas in 1998.

“The tied my son to that truck and drugged him until his body parts were detached,” said Jacqueline McClelland, the victim’s mother in an interview with The Final Call. “His body was so destroyed that it could not even be embalmed by the funeral home. This is a hate crime. I don’t want the death penalty for these killers because that would be too quick. I want them to suffer for life in jail without parole since I will never have my son back.”

The Lamar County District Attorney has decided race is not a factor in the death of Mr. McClelland because he was friends with alleged assailants Shannon Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley. Both men are 27-years-old.

Angry family members and community activists, however, are demanding a thorough investigation into a possible hate crime they say parallels the lynching of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas, which is several hours south of Paris [...]

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Your Black World Headlines: 10/23/2008

ANC Breakaway Party Gaining Momentum In South Africa

27 Million People Engaged In Modern Day Slavery

Racist Incidents Intensify Ahead Of Election

African Leaders To Form Single Market

Lyfe Jennings Arrested In Georgia

Katt Williams A Diva?

Your Black Politics: The Flames Of Hatred

The Flames Of Hatred
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com

We’ve heard it all: the chants, rants, gestures, signs and vitriol-imbued remarks at recent McCain/Palin rallies. As Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, prepares to make a landfall appearance in Indianapolis on Friday, how will Hoosiers conduct themselves? It would be a shame if the reported chants of “terrorist,” “traitor,” “off with his head,” “bomb Obama,” “kill him,” — all vocalized at McCain/Palin rallies within the last week and a half — are repeated, or worse, built upon.

It is no secret that Sen. McCain, his campaign, and Gov. Palin have, within the past couple of weeks, helped stoke the flames of racial-hostility with their unethical swipes at Sen. Obama. “Negative” ads are fair game in a contested election, but charges of terrorism-enabling is beyond the pale — especially when baseless. The politics of smearing one’s opponent clearly outdates the political rise of both presidential candidates, but never in history has a presidential contender accused his opponent of aiding and abetting domestic terrorism. It is inexplicable and morally reprehensible [...]

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Your Black Politics: The Law Of The Jungle – By Fidel Castro

The Law of the Jungle

By: FIDEL CASTRO

Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God [...]

Racism is deeply-rooted in the United States where the mind of millions of people can hardly reconcile with the notion that a black man, with his wife and children could live in the White House, which is precisely called White.

It´s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same destiny as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who only a few decades ago dreamed of justice and equality. He is in the habit of looking at his adversary with serenity and of smiling at the dialectic predicament of an opponent gazing into space.

The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who likes to enhance his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he did not know any Mathematics; it can thus be assumed that he knew less of the complicated economic science.

The truth is his adversary surpasses him in cleverness and composure.

Something McCain has aplenty is age, and his health condition is not safe.

I am bringing up these data to indicate that eventually -if anything went wrong with the candidate´s health, in case he is elected- the lady of the riffle, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska could become President of the United States. It can be noticed that she does not know a thing [...]

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Your Black Sports: The Express Path to Racial Equality

The Express Path to Racial Equality

By Dr. Boyce Watkins

www.BoyceWatkins.com

“The Express” is a new film featuring the great Ernie Davis, one of the most amazing college athletes in American History and the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. He was also a football player for Syracuse University, the campus on which I teach.

I watched the trailer for the film with pride, feeling good about this man and what he accomplished. I saw all the ads, the banners around campus, the website pictures and other excitement as the city prepared for the film’s premiere. I then had a couple of thoughts.

First, I thought about the residual impact of historical racism. Most of the time, when liberal universities talk about racism, the context is one in which racism is something that happened “back then”, and “we are all better now”. The conversation is one of (relatively justifiable) celebration for just how far our nation has come in the fight for social justice.

What is most ironic about this analysis is that it forgets one important fact: the past is not something that existed once and then disappeared. The past is all around us. The present and past CANNOT be disconnected because the present is created by the past, and the past consistently manifests itself in the social infrastructure of our institutions. For example, in the days of Ernie Davis (not that long ago), African Americans were rarely allowed onto my campus (along with many others) and were certainly not allowed to be part of the decision-making bodies of these campuses. This led to a skewed inter-generational transfer of power that reflects itself in the vast degree of (in Georgetown University scholar Christopher Metzler’s words) “academic imperialism” that we see today. If you take a tour of most campuses, you see that there are few Black faces on the faculty, almost none of them tenured…

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