black…MYstory

I saw something last week that really ticked me off.  Some of the People for the Ethical Treament of Animals (PETA) decided that the best way to protest the American Kennel Club (AKC) at the Westminster Dog Show was to dress up in Klan uniforms.

Their point — to liken the AKC to the KKK.

As a black person, I am tired PETA likening the struggles and treatment of black people to that of animals.  If my last sentence sounds like this is not the first time, there is a good reason — it’s not.

Back in 2005, the brilliant minds of PETA decided that, to drive home their concerns of animal cruelty, they should graphically compare it to the lynchings of black people.  Here’s what appeared on Tolerance. org in 2005:

The lifeless bodies of two noosed black men, dangling from trees as a mob of whites sheepishly surveys the scene.

The smoldering corpse of a black man, burned alive atop a pile of wood.

The terrified face of a slave, wearing only a piece of cloth about her waist as a man presses a hot branding iron to her back.

Alone, the images evoke the kind of gut-wrenching horror that makes people want to look away.

But place them alongside photos of slaughtered cows, burning chickens and branded pigs, and for many, they evoke a different emotion — pure outrage.

Such is the juxtaposition of a new PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) exhibit, “Are Animals the New Slaves?”

I’m starting to detect a pattern here.

However, an explanation of this latest campaign really caught my attention:

“Obviously it’s an uncomfortable comparison,” PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said.

But the AKC is trying to create a “master race,” he added. “It’s a very apt comparison.”

Actually, wasn’t it Hitler and the Nazis who were pushing for the creation of a master race?  Either PETA has no concept of history or they know the hell they’d have to pay if they where handing out leaflets on the street dressed in knee-high boots and swastika armbands.

So, I guess dressing as the Klan is a safer move because we, as black folks, don’t say much about this stuff.

However, PETA, you fail again.  You need to learn that, when you want to make your point, try to avoid using black folks to prove it.

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When I listen to President Bush speak, I don’t know who I believe to be less intelligent, him or the people that (s)elected him to the presidency, twice.  He speaks with a sort of detachment that co-mingles diminished mental capacity with depraved indifference.  Nothing illustrated this more than his final press conference yesterday.  I was nearly horrified to hear his answers regarding his and the government’s response to Katrina.  First, when asked what he should have done differently, his response was that he should have landed the plane he was one in a nearby city instead of doing his fly-over photo-op.  Then, I guess, he immediately absolves himself from that by saying that, if he had done so, it would have pulled police away from helping in New Orleans.  Next, he offers the following gem:

You know people say the federal response was slow—don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs—30,000 people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It’s a pretty quick response. Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when I hear people say, ‘The federal response was slow’—what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?

Never mind that Bush stayed on vacation while people died in the streets of a major American city.  Never mind that some 25,000 had to stay in the deplorable conditions of the Superdome (Of course, after hearing what George Bush’s mother, Barbara, had to say about it, I can see where he inherited his depraved indifference).  Let’s not forget that, over 3 years later, New Orleans is still a mess.

Needless to say, listening to this man is a jaw-dropping experience.  I’m not a country music fan but, I think, on Tuesday, I’ll have to crank up some Roy Clark and sing “Thank God and Greyhound you’re gone!”

Rachel Maddow offered some brilliant insight on this very topic.  The video of this is below (thanks to RawStory.com).  Click on the video to play:

 

 Maddow - Bush's Response to Katrina Questions: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Even Fox’s Shepherd Smith thinks “Joe the Plumber” is full of it.  Somehow, they let the fool discuss foreign policy and it quickly became apparent that he doesn’t have a clue.  Be sure to check out the very end of this video to see Smith’s reaction.

Well, I suspect that “Joe” is on his 14th minute of his 15 minutes of fame.

Video below:

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Okay, I think I’ve seen it all, now.  In giving a prayer at a McCain rally,  Rev. Arnold Conrad threatens God by telling God that “your reputation is involved in all that happens in November” because there are those around the world of other religions pulling for Obama (making sure not to forget those scary Muslims) and tells God that “you should guard your own reputation because they’re gonna think their God is bigger than you if it happens…”

So, in other words, saying “God, I am assuming that I know more than you about this world and the politics in it.”

Oh, but Reverend Wright’s the crazy one, huh?

But, don’t take my word for it…watch the video for yourself.

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I guess Georgia Republican Representative Lynn Westmoreland must have caught a plantantation flashback.  In a interverview yesterday, he was comparing vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to Michelle Obama (oddly enough, I didn’t realize Michelle Obama was running for vice president but, I digress) and offered the following:

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity.”

He was then asked to clarify that he said “uppity” and he stated:

“Uppity, yeah.”

Uppity is a word that has often been used to disparage black people who some white folks believed were too proud of themselves or, more often, were perceived to be not acting in “their place” on the racial hierarchy.  In other  words, an “uppity negro” was one who had the audacity to believe that he/she was equal to a white person.

So, to hear someone, particularly a Southern politician who would be well aware of the implications of such a word, using it to describe two black people, leads me to believe that he was using it in the racially-tinged way that it has come to signify.

So, Rep. Westmoreland, from this uppity negro, I present to you the “Middle Finger” award.

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According to the New Yorker magazine, their latest cover is supposed to be a satirical commentary on the right-wing paranoia about Barack Obama. As you can tell from the picture, it went a little overboard (click on the picture for a larger version).

This cartoon shows Barack Obama dressed in full Muslim garb.  Behind him is a photo of Osama bin Laden over the mantleplace and a American flag burning in the fireplace.  It shows him giving a pound to his wife, who is dressed a “black radical”, complete with afro and assault rifle.

The New Yorker defended its cover, saying that its readers would understand that it was meant as satire.

No offense but, most people aren’t going to read The New Yorker.  Instead, this picture is going to do all the talking.  I could just see blogs and message boards lit up with titles such as, “The Real Barack Obama” or “Even the liberal New Yorker knows the truth about Obama”.  Sadly, the the people that were smart enough to actually read The New Yorker were did not need such a visual representation.  They are probably keenly aware of these smears.  I believe that this publication did this to stir controversy and try to seel more magazines.

Both the Obama and the McCain campaigns refererred to this as “tasteless” and I agree.

If The New Yorker was hoping to offer a satirical look into this paranoia, their efforts fell quite short.

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As I shared with you yesterday, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta made a very tasteless joke about “knocking off” Presidential candidate Barack Obama when she said the following:

…”and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama ….well both if we could “…

There must have been some heat on her because, on Fox News, she apologized both yesterday and today.  However, at least in the “apology” I heard, she did not specifically apologize to Senator Obama, the person she actually spoke of knocking off.

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Apparently, references to shooting and assassinations in regards to Senator Obama seem to be okay, whether they be in a joking (and unfunny) manner like Mike Huckabee did or in the veiled manner of Hillary Clinton.  Political assassination is not the stuff to talk about in a flip way, much less a joking way.

Enter Liz Trotta.

According to her bio on Foxnews.com, Liz Trotta is…“the former New York bureau chief of The Washington Times and is a contributor for FOX News Channel.

…

Trotta has worked for Hillman Periodicals; Inter-Catholic Press Agency; Long Island Press; Chicago Tribune; Newsday; NBC and CBS. She has taught Journalism at Stern College of Yeshiva University.

The winner of three Emmy awards and two Overseas Press Club awards, Trotta is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.”

Apparently, she is also just another right-wing tool.

In referencing the flap over Hillary Clinton’s evoking the RFK assassination as her rationale for staying in the race, Trotta brings to us this gem:

…”and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama ….well both if we could “…

Yes, she joked about knocking off Obama while a guest on a national “news” network.  I guess this is par for the course in Republican World.  If you can’t win on the issues, appeal to the hate in people.

The video is below:

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You know how Republican Congress members like to invoke 9/11?  Well, here’s one invocation that I think they might want to take back.

California Rep. Darrell Issa, in expressing his opposition to extending benefits for first responders.  You remember them right?  These were the people that actually rushed into danger at Ground Zero to save people, scores of whom actually sacrificed their lives to do so.  Now, Issa is opposing actually doing something to help those first responders who survived that day but are still dealing with health issues from the toxic dust they breathed in and the families of those who lost their lives.

However, if his opposition is not offensive enough, you have to read the way in which he expressed his opposition.  Read this account of what was said:

During a hearing this week about legislation to extend victims’ benefits, Issa, a Republican, described the attacks on the World Trade Center as “a fire that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it. It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft and residue of the material used to build this building.”

He questioned “why the firefighters who went there and everyone in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus, quite frankly, this being primarily a state consideration.”

Issa went on to say that he could not vote for additional compensation money for New York “if I can’t see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens which, quite frankly, includes any urban terrorist. It doesn’t have to be somebody from al-Qaida. It can be somebody who decides they don’t like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities.”

So, out of hand, Issa makes the 9/11 attacks appear like some air traffic accident.  And, even when he does get around to acknowledging this as an attack, he is basically saying that, if another terrorist attack occurs, Congress should tell the people, “you’re on your own.”

Issa’s statements have draw criticism from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in New York.  I am just waiting for the pundits and commentators to make a firestorm out of this as they did with Jeremiah Wright’s comments.

Something tells me that I shouldn’t hold my breath.

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I’ll tell you straight-up, — and you can call me what you want — every black man is not my brother. If you hurt women and/or children, I don’t claim you.

Kelvin “Bird” Tillie, in no uncertain terms, is a coward, bully and no brother of mine.

Alexis Goggins is a 7-year-old first grader in Detroit and, in my heart and mind, a hero. Her mother, Selietha Parker, had broken up with Tillie six months ago. However, I wish she would have had better taste in men. This four-time felon couldn’t handle rejection so, on a night when Parker had to call a girlfriend to pick her and her child up when their heat went out, Tillie lay in wait for her outside of her house. At gunpoint, he kidnaps the two women and the child.

They stop at a gas station where Tillie forces the driver to get gas. The driver, Aisha Ford, calls 911 (who first hangs up on her then, during her second calls, tells her they have no units to send). Ford stalls for time, waiting for police to arrive and then tells Tillie that the $5 he gave her for gas would not be enough and goes back into the station to purchase more gas. The attendant sees that she is distraught and Ford informs him of what is happening. The attendant calls 911 and, as he is calling, shots are fired inside the vehicle.

The mother is shot in the head and arm and, before he could shoot again, Alexis puts her body between the mother and the shooter, begging him not to shoot her mother. Without hesitation, Tillie shoots the 7-year-old girl six times. Police finally arrived and arrested Tillie at the scene. He is facing charges of “kidnapping, assault with intent to murder, child abuse, felony firearms and habitual criminal charges.”

Alexis was taken to Detroit’s Children’s Hospital with wounds to her eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm. She was in critical condition but expected to survive.

Needless to say, I have strong feelings about what should happen to Tillie but, as a responsible adult, I’ll save those for private converation.

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