black…MYstory

The mayor of Los Alamitos, CA, Dean Grose, got a big kick out of a picture of a watermelon patch growing in front of the White House, with a caption reading “No Easter egg hunt this year”.  In fact, he was so amused by it that he sent it to, as he termed it, “a small group of friends.”

One of those “friends”, Keyanus Price, who is a local businesswoman and volunteers for the city, was not amused.  In fact, she publicly chided the mayor for it.  At first, Grose, a man in his 60’s, attempted to say he was unaware of the stereotype about black people and watermelons, which leaves one to ask then, what amused him so about the picture.

However, now, the mayor admits that his actions were in such poor taste that they have affected his ability to lead.  As a result, he will resign effective March 2.

For a small city of 12,000 people, the Mayor has made Los Alamitos famous for all the wrong reasons.

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A few weeks ago, I shared a story about 3 men who went on a racist rampage that included beating a black teen with a metal pipe and police baton and hitting a white man, who they mistook for a black man, with a car, leaving him in a coma for 2 months. Their motive — anger over Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency.

Well, to keep the hate going, last week, three men were indicted for setting a black church ablaze on November 5,2008 because Barack Obama had won. The men, Benjamin Haskell, 22, Michael Jacques, 24, and Thomas Gleason, 21, stand accused of setting fire to the predomininately-black Macedonia Church of God in Springfield, Mass.

If convicted, the men each face up to 10 years in prison.

In related news, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to report that Barack Obama’s election as President has not ended racism.

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According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there have been more than 200 hate-related incidents across the U.S. since Barack Obama was elected president — a number unseen in modern presidential elections.

What’s being seen is everything from web postings, to cross-burnings to even murder coming from  members of hate groups.

Certain hate groups are seeing record traffic on their web sites and a large increase of inquiries into their organization by interested individuals.

The simple point is that we knew that this was coming.  Despite what some want to believe, we are not in a “post-racial America”.  I truly hope that we get there some day but, unfortunately, today is not that day.  We need to be honest enough to say that this is what we are dealing with and confront it appropriately.

In the meantime, I am keeping my antennae up, lest I be caught slippin’.

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Given the heated election season we have just had, I am sure that emotions are still running high on both sides and the rhetoric is still flying back and forth.  So, with that being said, I am sure that some Obama supporters are crossing lines, too.  But, what I am bothered about is when adults attack kids for being excited about what they are seeing in this election. It especially bothers me when that person is a teacher.

A teacher’s aide has been suspended without pay for some comments the aide made to a student who was expressing joy at the Obama victory.  Allegedly, the student said things like:

“Obama would be killed,” “the flag would be changed to the KFC flag,” and “the national anthem would be changed to ‘Movin’ on Up’ (the theme song of ‘The Jeffersons’).”

The student was also told by the aide that her beliefs were wrong and that her kids would be “screwed up” because Obama would be president.

With any luck, this person will not be allowed in classroom again.

A video of a news segment on this story is below:

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This e-mail was sent to me from one of our Volunteers in the Temple Terrace office. If you think it can help us win this election please pass it on. This election is now in our hands everyone can make a difference.
Thanks
Dave

This was the message that appeared at the top of an email sent by the Hillsoborough County GOP chair in Tampa, FL. It seems innocent enough, right?  But, it was the rest of the email that’s the problem.

It cites “the threat.”  What is the threat?  It’s things like “CARLOADS OF BLACK OBAMA SUPPORTERS COMING FROM THE INNER CITY TO CAST THEIR VOTES FOR OBAMA. THIS IS THEIR CHANCE TO GET A BLACK PRESIDENT AND THEY SEEM TO CARE LITTLE THAT HE IS AT MINIMUM, SOCIALIST, AND PROBABLY MARXIST IN HIS CORE BELIEFS. AFTER ALL, HE IS BLACK–NO EXPERIENCE OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS–BUT HE IS BLACK.“  (Sorry for all the caps but, this is how this passage appeared in the email)

Yes, the marauding hordes of black coming to exercise their constitutional right to vote should be treated as a threat to our American way of life.

Needless to say, it was seen as the racism it is and now Storck is in the hotseat. Storck claims he did not read the email before he forwarded it ( I guess the 20+-point font being used in it didn’t grab his attention) and is saying that he does not agree with the sentiments expressed in the email.  However, the Hillsborough Commissioner, Kevin White, and Curtis Stokes, an African American Republican and head of the Tampa NAACP chapter, are calling for Storck’s resignation.

Storck sent out the email to some 400 Republican supporters.  Given what we’ve seen from Republicans, racist tactics like this are of little surprise.  However, it should serve to remind them why they have so few minority party members.

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The picture you see here is of Ashley Todd being “perp-walked” out in front of the media after confessing that she made up a story about being robbed at an ATM by a “six-foot-four black man” who she said also beat, fondled and carved a backwards “B” in her face after he robbed her because he saw a McCain campaign sticker on her car.

Today, we know that this was all a lie but one that many right-wing bloggers and Fox News were all too willing to hype up.

However, in this, there is potential blowback for McCain.  According to TPM Election Central, a local reporter caught the attack story on the Drudge Report and called the campaign for comment and the Pennsylvania communications director for the McCain campaign was all too ready to play politics with the story.  The communications director went on to push a story out there that seemed to be even more wild than what Ashley Todd had been saying.  For example, this spokesperson allegedly told the reporter that the attacker said to Ashley Todd, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

Furthermore, it was allegedly this communications director that put out the story that the “B” on her face stood for Barack.

So, now that it’s been proven to be a hoax, the McCain spokesperson is now backpeddling, saying that the reporters got it wrong.  But, if you listen to a couple of clips, one from NBC news and another from Countdown with Keith Olbermann, you’ll hear that it was the campaign pushing out aspects of the story that the police had clearly stated were unconfirmed.

So, it looks like some in the McCain camp are willing to resurrect the ghost of Willie Horton to try to win an election.

Videos Below:

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Last week, I shared with you a story about Marvin Jackson.  Mr. Jackson is suing his former employer, defense contractor Northrop Grumman, saying they fired him after he complained when a co-worker referred to him as his “n*gga”.

Since that time, Mr. Jackson has emailed me and, in one of his emails, he sheds some more light on this incident.  If things are as he alleges, and I have no reason to doubt him, this is a saddening peek into the ugly side of corporate America.

Mr. Jackson has kindly agreed to allow me to reproduce that email below:

Dear Mr. Smith,

My name is Marvin Jackson. I want to THANK YOU for posting my story, this means a great deal to me. However,it was Northrop Grumman who shamefully defended this white co-worker. They [Northrop Grumman] defended the co-worker by saying, he was in his mid twenties, and I was a loner who didn’t interact with engineers or technicians. They [Northrop Grumman] went on to say that the co-worker never called me Nigger, but Nigga, as if thats any better. They[Northrop Grumman] said this was all in a teasing manner, and that the co-worker was from New Jersey and would address his friends in this manner. My message to Northrop Grumman is guess what, this isn’t New Jersey, its the workplace, and furthermore, I’m nobody’s Nigger or Nigga.

Regards,

Marvin Jackson

Let’s hope that this story does not die with a brief segment on American Morning. Stories like this one deserve more light because, sadly, incidents like this are not as isolated as we would like to believe.

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Marvin Jackson is nobody’s “n*gger”.  Right now, defense contracting firm Northrop Grumman is finding this out.

Jackson says he was fired after complaining that a co-worker referred to him by than name.  According to Jackson, a white co-worker came up to him and said, “What’s up, my n*gger.”  Jackson told CNN that this person was no friend of his and that he and his real friends don’t use that word with each other.

Jackson went on to say that the co-worker tried to justify his comments by saying that he was using it as a term of endearment.

Let me guess…somebody’s going to blame hip-hop for this.

The video appears below, courtesy of Raw Story.

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Well, here we go.

It looks like the right is trying to test the waters to see how far they can go with racial innuendo and attacks on Barack Obama.

The latest test balloon comes from conservative activist Grover Norquist.  In comments he gave to the Washington Times, Norquist described Barack Obama as “John Kerry with a tan” in attacking Obama’s economic policy.

It appears that the right wants to make sure, in case no one’s noticed, that Barack Obama is still black.

It just seems that the right can’t avoid the color reference.

Like I stated, I believe this is just a test balloon.  Should this be allowed to pass, we can expect much more overt racial attacks.

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Paula Abeles is one of those Hillary Clinton supporters who, in the wake of her losing the nomination to Barack Obama, has decided to switch her vote to McCain.

Such switches were, by no means, unheard of — anecdotally, I have seen many instances of people professing the same switch on various blogs I have read. For those who chose not to vote for Obama, their rationales for doing so range from his perceived lack of experience all the way to continued hard feelings over how they believe their candidate was treated.

However, let’s also be honest enough to say that there are some people who switched their support because they couldn’t see themselves supporting a black man for president.

I believe Paula Abeles to fit in this category.

We might not remember her name but, we might remember what happened a few years back. There was to be a meeting of the Monticello Association, which was a gathering of descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Well, as we know, because of Jefferson’s relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, some of those descendants are also black.

Abeles and her husband Nat, the former president of the association, enacted a campaign to block the black descendants of Jefferson from attending the gathering. This included her pretending to be a 67-year-old black woman while participating in an online Yahoo! group of Hemings descendants, in efforts to discourage their attendance. In response to her actions, Abeles offered the following:

“It might have been somewhat unethical.

…

It might have been childish, but I really think I was working in the best interest of the majority of the family members to make the reunion a calm and civilized gathering.”

In other words, we couldn’t have all those “uncivilized” negroes mingling with us “civilized” white folk.

To be fair, I consider this person, he likely beliefs and her past behaviors to be no reflection on Hillary Clinton. I simply don’t believe that, of her former supporters who are now supporting McCain, all of them do so out of a sisterly spirit. Some do so based on serious racial prejudices.

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