Media, right-wing, police fan racial flames on Gates arrest

Who is fanning the flames on race and police in the wake of the arrest of esteemed historian and professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.? To read all the headlines and hear all the bloviators -- its President Obama, its Gates himself or its Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. But it's never the media, never the Rush Limbaughs and never the police.

There was a lot of righteous outrage when Harvard's Gates was arrested -- and then relief when subsequently the charges were dropped. But even in the early hours of the news of Gates' arrest the media -- quoting the arresting officers report -- portrayed Mr. Gates as out of control and yelling.

Who wouldn't be just a wee bit upset after a long flight from China to come home and find your door unopenable. And then police showing up on your steps -- and perhaps -- rude themselves.

"Skip" Gates -- IMHO -- is a brilliant man who has dedicated his life to bringing to life the American experience as experienced by Black Americans. he is the WEB Du Bois of our times. A people's scholar and intellectual. Anyone who has seen his PBS shows tracking the geneaology of famous African Americans as a doorway for us all to walk through and understand history and its real time impact knows what an American treasure this person is.

Yet -- its anyone who agrees or raises their voice to the possibility of racial profiling and the link of this esteemed professor to the everyday occurance of thousands of African Americans -- and others -- in the hands of those who think they ARE the law, instead of just color-blindly enforcing the law who are stirring the racial pot. Not anyone who may be perpetrating racism. No.

Some police officer association spokesperson took offense not at President Obama's use of the word "stupidly" but at his linking the Gates outrageous arrest to the history of racial profiling! He demanded an apology for that! Come on. It's like the proverbial -- give em an inch they take a mile. Ok maybe stupidly wasn't the best word -- but you cannot fault the president for bringing up facts of life.

It's the opponents of the president -- and of equality and justice -- that have seized the moment to frame this discussion. It's past time to reframe it with truth.

Al Sharpton's response to al-Qaeda

Recently, the second in charge of the notorious terror network al-Qaeda denounced Barack Obama as a "house slave." Here is what Rev. Al Sharpton had to say:

"The statements made by Al Qaeda regarding President-Elect Barack Obama are racist and denigrating to Americans, particularly African Americans. President-Elect Obama is doing the bidding of all people of good will around the world. . Terrorists who indiscriminately killed Americans of all colors and economic status on September 11th, can not try to exploit the racial divide in this country for their own destructive purposes. Americans must be united with our President to stamp out terrorism and racism of any stripe." [emphasis added]

Reverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network

Trumka’s Straight Talk on Race Helped Win Blue Collar Union Vote

Kudos from Daily Kos to AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. Always good for labor to get recognition outside the labor movement.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/07/kudos-to-afl-cio-secretary-treasurer-trumka/

Obama landslide

Florida! This is a major development that will need and get much study. Virginia, likely North Carolina - the reactionary "Southern strategy" has crumbled. As Obama said in his acceptance speech: E Pluribus Unum - out of many, one - and with a new and important meaning: a kind of wonderful unity came to the fore today to defeat the forces of ignorance, racism and reaction, but not just that - to move ahead on a progressive agenda. Now comes the struggle to bring that agenda to life.

Mine workers talk race in Virginia

Go mineworkers!

http://www.truthout.org/100608L

STORY LEADS --- HEY anyone interested??

OK -- Why hasn't the major media picked up on this tidbit,

"Palin associates with political party whose founder said, 'I have no use for America or her damned institutions.'"

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7531/

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13641/

And here is an update on Troopergate: Todd to testify!!!

Imagine if Michelle was supposed to testify in some investigation of Barack!!! What a field day the major media and the far-right would have. But here it's just a footnote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4958DM20081007

Confront racism, leader tells union

This just in from Gary Hicks in Boston...Right on! Labor is really taking this head on and getting a good response to it.


Confront racism, leader tells union
Issue shadows campaign for Obama, Haynes contends

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff September 2, 2008

The state's top union leader, concerned that some white voters will not vote for Barack Obama because he is black, issued an impassioned plea to union members yesterday to confront racism on the campaign trail.
Speaking to politicians and pipefitters alike, Massachusetts AFL-CIO president Robert Haynes brought the audience to its feet at the Greater Boston Central Labor Council's annual Labor Day breakfast. He surprised many union members by delivering an unusually direct speech on the sensitive issue of racism, echoing concerns from other union leaders nationwide.
"Barack Obama's skin color isn't what matters in this election," Haynes told more than 350 people who gathered for bacon and eggs at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. "I'll be damned, and I know you'll be damned, if I let racism . . . scare this country into voting for John McCain." Haynes followed US Senator John Kerry, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and union leaders who also urged workers to vote and campaign for Obama, citing the urgency of the election and the fact that Democrats have lost the last two presidential contests.
Only Haynes raised the issue of racism directly.
Haynes said he decided to confront racism head-on because he had been hearing racist comments about Obama - some subtle, some overt - in restaurants and mechanics' garages across Massachusetts. Recently on the Cape, for instance, an elderly man busing tables suggested that he would not vote for Obama and referred to black colleagues as "those people." In another case, he said, car mechanics who normally voted Democrat said they would not support Obama because he is black.
Haynes said he gave his speech because he wanted to give union members something to say in response to racism on the campaign trail. Yesterday, he told union members they could emphasize the economy and workers' rights. They could point out that black union members have been voting for white Democrats for president all their lives.
When all else fails, he said, make voters see the shame in racism.
"You've got to look them dead in the eye," he said. "Can you imagine telling your kid in this day and age that you're not going to vote for someone because of the color of their skin?"
Nationally, other union leaders have raised concerns about racism hurting Obama among working-class white people. The national AFL-CIO endorsed Obama in June and launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to urge people to vote for him.
Making the point is crucial now, Haynes said, as dozens of union members flock to New Hampshire and other swing states to campaign for Obama. Massachusetts unions could have a key influence on New Hampshire voters, he said; about 10,000 of New Hampshire's 40,000 union members work in Massachusetts.
Haynes said he had never given such a speech before - even when Deval Patrick, Massachusetts' first black governor, was running for the seat.
Haynes's speech inspired many in the crowd.
"I don't think racism should be the point of the election," said Arthur Johnson, a 52-year-old security guard from Revere who is white.
Lauren Jacobs, organizing director of the Local SEIU 615, said union members who are campaigning in New Hampshire are emphasizing the issues that Obama shares with all voters. Obama is the son of a single mother, she said, and he struggled to put himself through college, something that resonates with voters.
"People really connect with this guy," she said.
Haynes said racism was prevalent everywhere, not just in the unions, although he did not think that most voters were racist. Still, he said he decided to make it a major issue because even a small number rejecting Obama because of his race could hurt his chances.
"We can't afford to have this guy lose the presidency because of unspoken truths," he said afterward. Haynes represents 400,000 union members in Massachusetts.
After the speech, union members, white and black, approached Haynes to shake his hand, slap him on the shoulder, and thank him for his speech.
David Eastmond of Boston, an iron worker for more than 30 years, said he hoped union leaders would share the speech across the United States.
"As an African American, I've been voting . . . for white presidents all my life," he said. "When the tables are turned, we've got a good candidate. Why can't we vote for him?"

On Hillary supporters and PUMA

The media is going crazy over the Hillary Clinton supporters vs. reality -- meaning that Barack Obama is going to be nominated. Here's my take on it.

I was at a Denver event celebrating the 88 years since women won the vote. The place was packed with older and younger women either in Denver for the DNC or supporters who live in Colorado. I talked to staunch Hillary supporters but the overwhelming majority of the hundreds and hundreds of women who were there were behind Barack Obama.

Yet the women I did talk to who were Hillary delegates -- from Ohio and Kentucky, both Clinton states -- were pretty adamant: They weren't happy about the pending Obama nomination and they weren't going out of their way to work for him.

All these women were white.

In one conversation the women from Ohio claimed that Hillary had brought out the Republicans and Independents in their rock red county and now these voters are going to McCain.

A former New Yorker, turned Coloradan who was a member of the Colorado State Assembly overhearing this conversation, interjected with a New York-Western attitude, "I don't believe it."

This shook these Buckeyes up and they said they were really going to work for Obama but they didn't think he'd win Ohio. "I don't believe it" this seasoned Coloradan elected official said.

Then a boisterous group of women from Kentucky wearing "Pitch Mitch" paraphanalia walked in. Knowing that Republican Mitch McConnell is in trouble for his Senate seat, I wanted to talk to them.

Well I got an earful. "Obama missed a great opportunity when he didn't pick Hillary for vice president. It could have united the party." On and on they told me how upset they still are. How unappreciated they felt. How they weren't into working for an Obama election. "Now don't get me wrong. I've been a Democrat all my life." But they were putting their all into "Pitching Mitch."

"Do you know anything about this lawsuit to prevent Obama from becoming the nominee?" I asked. The woman's face lit up. "Yeah," she blurted out. "The lawsuit was filed for a temporary restraining order but the judge denied it." Then her face changed. And she said, "No, I'm not a part of it." And our animated conversation came to an end.

I was really pondering this phenomena. Could there be women that felt so strongly about a woman president, and Hillary herself, that they are so hurt that they can't really "move on?"

I was feeling a bit foreign from these Hillary feminists. How could they not be worried about a John McCain election? How could they not be working their butts off to prevent McCain, who has a terrible record for women's rights -- declaring himself against pay equity and reproductive rights?

Then another woman came up to me and whispered: They are PUMAs.

"What is PUMA?" I asked.

"Party Unity My Ass" she said.

Hmmm, I thought. Then afterwards it dawned on me. It was history repeating. When the women's rights and abolitionist movement clashed in the 1800s it was ugly. What I read was lots of ugly, racist opinions trying to bolster the women's rights cause. The movement was too young and immature to realize you can't use racism, or be influenced by racism, to bolster another struggle for rights. It just doesn't work.

There are all sorts of people in the Democratic Party, including those influenced by racism, or those who don't want to struggle with their friends and neighbors on the issue. So instead of coming to grip with reality and fighting, these women have chosen to drop out or complain. And objectively that means McCain could win and set back women's rights 100 years. Racism does not advance women's rights.

As I heard a progressive congresswoman say to those who weren't happy about John Kerry: Just get over it!

These women are -- I'm estimating -- no more than 20 percent of the Democratic electorate. But in a tight race that's a lot! What could drive the thinking of such voters. I don't think it can be sugar-coated. It's racism. That's what distorts people from voting for their self-interest. I'm so grateful for the labor movement which has decided to take on the issue head on.

There will always be those who look for the easy way out. The non-struggle path. But as Frederick Douglass once said, Power cedes nothing without struggle, it never has and it never will.

So PUMAs -- do you really want four more years of Bush? If not, then struggle.

Good one, Mary Mitchell

From Chicago's own Sun Times columnist...good one from Mary Mitchell.

Latest smear against Obama an abomination
Book exploits racial fears, hate in effort to scare white America
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/1107452,CST-NWS-mitch14.article

McCain and racism

In this election talk, a very small but loud portion of the self-defined left want to pit race vs. gender or paint the Clinton vote as racist, which I do not think it is. Meanwhile McCain gets a pass. What's his stance on racism? women's equality? Considering he has used anti-Asian epithets during his first run for the GOP nomination and was then forced to apologize, the conversation should focus on the bigger picture.

Here's a thoughtful blog on the matter:
http://mixedraceamerica.blogspot.com/2008/03/calling-on-mccain-to-talk-about-race.html

Of Smears & Red Hysteria

Isn’t it amazing how dangerously influential the CPUSA has suddenly become again? As a regular peruser of the insane ramblings of Right-Wing bloggers, I am seeing a huge increase of histrionic entries by the wing-nut 101^st Keyboard Brigade about Barack Obama’s secret commie background. Most entries are just cut and past jobs emanating from the (in)Accuracy In The Media howlings of Cliff Kincaid. Kincaid believes he has become the new Woodward & Bernstein by “uncovering” Obama’s childhood connection to Frank Marshall Davis, the African-American poet and journalist. Davis was a family friend during the period Obama lived in Hawaii. The whole thing is way too tiresome to get into. Google Davis and I’m sure a hard drive could be filled with the links to calls from these wanna be Paul Reveres to defend Americuh from the Red Menace posted all over the Internet.

Suddenly, the CPUSA, once again has “front organizations” and secret “moles” being used to subvert this shining republic. Obama is not being upfront about his commie connections, they write. Another hit piece titled “Barack Obama's communist connections” written by Wes Vernon from a pseudo-patriot web site called Renew America goes into more detail about the dangers of Obama’s past. My point is that these stories are being reposted over and over again. Add these to the pervasive misinformation being planted such as Obama’s a Muslim, he isn’t patriotic or that he downright hates America and it becomes too obvious that Right-Wing America is terrified of Obama. Let’s be truthful, America. The real issue is that Obama is—drum roll please—BLACK! These loons on the Right know that they can’t take the racist low road so they have found something akin to a pair of dirty under shorts to rally around. Instead of a burning cross, these drones have dredged up the old “Red under every bed” chestnut.

I have no idea whether Obama ever had Communist or Socialist leanings. Maybe he was what I like to call a “college Socialist.” I’ve seen it over and over again. College students get involved in socialist and communist parties while in school but as soon as they graduate and land a great paying job, all thoughts of Marx are forgotten. Let us hope that Obama has maintained some of the advice from Frank Marshall Davis.

I am reminded of the “When I give bread to a poor man they call me a saint. When I ask why he is poor they call me a communist” quote. Displaying social responsibility and fighting for social justice has become the new communism for the Right. How could it not? We live in a country where greed and decadence is rewarded and viewed as a sign of success. If you are poor, you are garbage not worth the time to market to. I’m an up from the dirt Prole and proud of it. Capitalism DID make me one of its grave-diggers in waiting.

My father was a janitor and my mother cleaned houses and motels. I grew up living with class prejudice. I lived in a ramshackle house with no hot water, a coal furnace, an outhouse and a party line telephone. My clothes never failed to get me ridiculed at school. What has this to do with my original rant? I think we should be screaming from rooftops that we are Communists and proud of it. We must illustrate why we are Communists. Why do we believe what we do? We have forgotten that communist work is not just an intellectual concept promoted by those who sit in offices or college classrooms. We must remember that the real work is down at the street level. We must become community activists. This is where the people learn what we are. The wing-nuts use words to label us. We should use action to define ourselves.

How about a numerical estimate of the casualties of Capitalism? The Right loves to toss around the “100 million victims of Communism” claim.

We should be blogging to counter the Right. We need to better explain to the masses what our program consists of. We need to dispel the idea that our Party wishes to turn Amerika into a Stalinist gulag. How much longer shall we allow the mistakes of the past to be used against us with an uneducated public? We need to organize more aggressively as was done in the early years. I suggest a serious summer seminar on how to talk to people about our ideas and how to counter our critics.

I hope this wasn't too long and boring. I have a tendency to ramble.

Sean Bell's murderers "disciplined"

The cops who killed Sean Bell and shot a couple of his friends for no apparent reason--other than that the cops were trigger happy and that the New York Police Department still hasn't rid itself of its decades old racism--were recently "disciplined." The discipline, according to the N.Y. Post, "could lead to loss-of-pay, suspension or dismissal."

Maybe some of them will get "dismissed"?!

These cops kill an innocent man, on his wedding day, outside of a nightclub, shoot up another two people, spray the whole area down with 50 bullets--shooting so wildly that a bullet ended up in someone's apartment, and another ended up on a train platform a football field away--and the worst the NYPD can do is maybe dismiss them?

I've worked at a lot of different places. A guy was dismissed, canned, fired--whatever you want to call it--at a factory because he was late returning from his break, and some of the wafer-things that we produced were ruined. But for the NYPD, killing an innocent Black man apparently isn't even an offense that is definitely cause for dismissal. It's infuriating, but, no surprise, as this is a long pattern with the New York City police department.

But people are fighting, moreso than in previous cases, and that's an encouraging sign. Black, white, Latino, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish--The fight goes on, united.

Here's a statement from Rev. Al Sharpton on the NYPD's announcement that they would discipline the cops involved:

In light of reports that the New York Police Department has given internal disciplinary charges to eight of the officers in the Sean Bell case, I feel it is a step in right direction. However, we at National Action Network call upon Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to follow the lead of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey who fired four police yesterday, demoted one sergeant, and disciplined others, without going through a long internal procedure. They had the right as does the New York Police Department to terminate people that violate police policy. I strongly believe that the Police Commissioner should fire the officers in the Sean Bell case pursuant to civil service laws. I might add that there was not a fatality in the case in Philadelphia like there was in New York and the City still acted quickly and unequivocally on an incident that was just two weeks ago. This is the kind of aggressive and no nonsense attitude we must have with policing in other parts of the country. There must be no tolerance for crime but also no tolerance for police misconduct and the New York Police Department must send a strong firm signal that that is the case as we have seen in Philadelphia.

Reverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network