A couple of days back, I talked about how the Dems would cave in to Bush to give him a bill that gives him the “blank check” for the war that they said they would not give him.

Well, Keith Olbermann gave what I consider his best commentary so far and this time it was aimed squarely at the Dems. In it, he talks about how the Democrats did not follow through on the very thing that they were elected to do — to end the war. So, thanks to Keith Olbermann for telling the truth and a big “Middle Finger Award” to the Democratic leadership.

 

 Olberman On Democratice Cave-in: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 24% [?]

I have a lot of respect for many of the people of the Congressional Black Caucus. However, I flat out disagree with their partnering with Fox News to televise their presidential debates. Fox News is nothing if not hostile to the perspectives and concerns of black folks and any efforts by black folks that would seek to legitimize Fox News as a real news agency are suspect, at best.

So, now the CBC is urging Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards to reconsider their decision to skip these debates. But, honestly, why would these candidates even consider dealing with Fox News. In the past, Fox pundits have tried to associate Obama with “radical Islam” and, by extension, terrorism. Hillary Clinton has been all but labeled the anti-Christ by Fox and John Edwards has seen Fox hosts accuse him of seeking to benefit from his wife having cancer.

So, why bother?

The CBC says that it will be controlling the format and Fox will only televise it. But, isn’t there post-debate commentary? Also, won’t the footage belong to Fox so that its pundits can slice and dice it how they feel, without context?

But, most importantly, why deal with Fox News when they have shown that they don’t believe that there are two sides to a story. Dealing with them is like petting a scorpion and being surprised if you get stung. You already know what your dealing with so, you’d just be asking for it.

I think the CBC sponsoring presidential debates is a great idea. In this case, though, this is more about the company they keep than the CBC themselves.

Popularity: 37% [?]

The word “eugenics”, at its Greek root, means “good genes”. The idea is to create a society where human physical and mental defects no longer exist. To some, in passing, this may sound like a noble idea. But, often, the words belie the actions needed to achieve such a goal. Even more importantly, it needs to be asked “who determines what a defect is?”

If you ascribe to what certain folks in the eugenics movement believe, such “defects” could include poverty and ethnicity.

We all know about the Tuskeegee Experiment, in which black men, who had contracted syphillis, were allowed to go untreated for the purpose of determining what the long-term impacts of the disease were. All the while, these men were told that they were receiving treatment when, instead, they received placebos.

However, medical racism and classism did not stop there. The supporters of eugenics, for more than forty years, carried out programs of sterilization on populations they considered unworthy. This was not just a couple of crackpots carrying out a scheme. Some 30 states across the country had eugenics laws on the books. Also, this is not some ancient history. For example, in North Carolina, this practice was carried out from 1929 to 1974. Most of the victims were poor women.

Imagine a young girl whose transgression was being an unwed mother. Now, because of this, some group decides that she doesn’t pass the class, color or morality test so, they decide that, after delivering her baby, she should be sterilized. This is what happened to Elaine Riddick. Her story was far from unusual. North Carolina sterilized more than 7600 women, men and children. In only 500 cases is it clear that the patient knew what was happening to them. More than 60% of those sterilized were black women and girls.

North Carolina is just one of five states to have issued formal apologies for this practice and our federal government, just like with most atrocities against people of color, has not acknowledged, much less apologized, for its complicity in this practice.

So, when people ask why black folks have issues with trusting those in the field of medicine, they should keep stories like this one in the backs of their minds.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Pictured to the right is the human spine. I suggest the Democrats refer to the chart to see what one looks like. Not too long ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vowed “no blank check” for Bush on the war. Well, today, Bush was handed a blank check. After all the tough talk, the Dems sent Bush a bill without any accountability for Iraq. So, Bush gets the war funding he wants without having to be answerable to the people and no pesky oversight from Congress stopping him.

Of course, everyone is waiting on some magic September date in hopes that the Republicans will join in with them in supporting an exit. Well, I am certainly glad that they are some comfortable waiting while more people die. Lord knows I wouldn’t want them or the Iraqi Parliament ruining their summer vacation plans!

So, anybody else up for a real third party?

Popularity: 22% [?]

I know that stories like this one are far from new but, nonetheless, I am always taken aback by how blatant racism can be. Jena, Louisiana is one such place. Here’s a place where housing discrimination is practiced pretty openly, where the “good jobs” are reserved for whites and where black poverty and white affluence are most sharply contrasted.

It is here where four black boys find themselves facing sentences that could see them as middle-aged men before they get out. Did they kill or maim someone. No, they are accused a beating up a white boy.

Let’s backtrack. Who knows when all the tensions started? Maybe it was when white students hung nooses from a tree to protest black students having the temerity to sit the school courtyard tree that had traditionally been for whites only. Really, who knows? But, last November, things had begun to boil over and race fights between teenagers broke out. A few days later, tensions boiled over and, allegedly, a white student was beaten up by six black students.

However, what should have been assault and battery charges on the teens were instead labeled as “conspiracy to commit second-degree murder”. Now, some might say, how do you know that the beating didn’t warrant these charges. Well, the victim, Justin Barker seemed to be faring well:

Barker spent the evening of the assault at the local Baptist church, where he was seen by friends to be ‘his usual smiling self’.

Now, is this the sign of someone who was supposedly beaten harshly enough to justify an attempted murder charge?

Should these youths be punished? If they beat up a boy, they should be seeing some time in a juvenile facility. Maybe several months to a year or two, at most. But, what we are talking about is the possibility that these boys could get 30-50 years in prison, if convicted.

What this also means is that for poor black kids, bail on an attempted murder charge is too high so, they languish in prison awaiting their fate.

I have always said that the rules only seem to apply if you’re black (or brown). This is just another example of why I believe this.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Since the crack boom of the 80’s the “war on drugs” has created too many black casualties. This was due to the terrible “mandatory minimum sentencing” laws that grew out of this war. The mandatory minimum stated that anyone in possession of 5 grams of crack (less than 1/5 of an ounce) would get the same 5-year sentence as someone who was in caught in possession of 5oo grams of cocaine (more than 1 pound). This meant that a drug user/addict could be doing hard time for being an addict. There are people who have actually killed other people that have served less time than this.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Sentencing Commission urged Congress to repeal these sentencing guidelines in regards to crack cocaine. They, instead, want to see the amount increased to fall more in line with quantities likely to be held by major drug traffickers.

I don’t like drug dealers, period. I am a person who has family/friends in jail for drug dealing. But, 5 grams of crack does not a dealer make. We need to make sure that we are working to get addicts treatment, not jail time. Mandatory minimums make such discretion impossible.

Popularity: 21% [?]

The one thing that I did credit Bush for was that, despite my disagreement with their policies, his cabinet did (at least in appearance) more reflect the various ethnicities of America. You saw the first African American Secretary of State (Colin Powell) and the first African American woman Secretary of State (Condoleeza Rice) and the first Latino Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales). He also had other minority advisors/cabinet members.

I think that this is a criterion that we should include in how we pick a President (however, I do think that we need to look at the character of the minority appointees, as well). We should expect any President to have people around him/her that reflect America’s diversity.

So, we see today that the top two Democratic contenders also have the most diverse staffs. Both the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have women and people of color in top key positions. These include positions as high as campaign manager, policy adviser, media adviser, field director, finance director, etc.

Conversely, when one looks at the top 3 Republican candidates, Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney, have no key advisers who are black. Mitt Romney does have a media adviser of Cuban descent and John McCain’s deputy communications director is Hispanic . No, at least, they do have women who fill some of these top roles. But, overwhelmingly, these Republican candidates have white men running their campaigns. This may say a great deal about the value they place on reaching out to diverse populations.

I don’t have religious test for the candidates I support but, I do have cultural tests. In a country that is about 1/3 minority, the fact that candidate doesn’t seriously consider diversity in their staffing decisions tells me that they don’t seriously want my vote.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Is Bank of America offering equal opportunity to its black brokers? Five black current and former employees of the corporation are suing it for discrimination. They allege that Bank of America teams black bankers and brokers together and assigns them to predominately minority, low-wealth neighborhoods. These employees also allege that, conversely, high-net worth clients are steered to white employees.

The employees said that, when they complained, they were told that clients are more “comfortable” dealing with people of their own race. In other words, “our rich, white clients wouldn’t be comfortable doing business with blacks.”

I imagine that BOA is far from being the only bank being accused of this practice but, I would definitely be interested to see how this turns out and how it will affect how other banks do business.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Maybe it’s just me but, when I think of rapper who might be considered dangerous or a threat, the name P. Diddy just doesn’t come to mind.

However, in the run-up to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York Sean “P. Diddy” Combs was one of several rappers/singers who were put under surveillance by the NYPD.

In addition to Combs, rappers such as Jay-Z and LL Cool J were also under surveillance. Want to hear something even more bizarre? Alicia Keys even made the list.

This was revealed after the New York Civil Liberties Union released 600 pages of previously-classified documents obtained by the NYCLU as a result of their suit against the city on behalf of demonstrators who were arrested around the time of the convention.

So, how did the rappers come under scrutiny? Well, they had the temerity to attend a rally held by the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, which looks to do such things as to get more people registered to vote and to encourage them to become more politically-active. So, in a twist of irony, rappers find themselves under police scrutiny for doing something that is not just legal but, also, positive and civic-minded.

This is just another example of how our civil liberties are being trampled. There definitely needs to be a change in the political climate of this country. Let’s just say, for me, January 2009 can’t come quickly enough.

Popularity: 24% [?]

In a previous post (see: How low have recruitment standards gone?), I shared how the Army is issuing a record number of “moral waivers” to allow recruits that would have never been admitted in the past. This includes overlooking criminal records and drug histories. This also meant overlooking recruits with ties to white supremacist organizations.

There’s also another type of recruit that the Army is letting in — gang members.I had heard tell of this a couple of years back in stories I read about street gang grafitti showing up in Iraq. At the time, I thought it was a bad idea just because you had thousands of gang members being given training on how to better use weapons. Today, I believe this idea to be worse due to a reason I had not considered — gangs are now recruiting their fellow soldiers and extending the reaches of their gangs worldwide.

This means we have Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings and white supremacist able to recruit from military ranks. Even more dangerous is the fact that the highly-organized Gangster Disciples, a 100,000-strong gang based in Chicago, have infiltrated the Army most thoroughly. In a study of just three Army bases, the Department of Defense identified 300 active gang members.

Here’s another number for you to chew on. Experts believe that as many as 20,000 soldiers on active duty have sworn alliegance to a gang.

Popularity: 39% [?]