Vision Circle

Africatown pt. 2

I asked what the difference was between Africatown and Chinatown. There are several important differences.

But Cobb recognized one of the significant ones.

I am reminded of a talk between King and Stokely Carmichael. Carmichael had just introduced the term "black power" into the American lexicon, with controversial results. King didn't like the phrase, though he agreed with the content. Carmichael asked King why couldn't black people have power, like other ethnic groups.

King's answer?

Politics @ Work

I don't do politics at work. Work is not the place for it. When it's raised, I keep my mouth shut and listen to people go back and forth.

This silly season I've noticed a marked increase in the amount of political discussion in the workplace.

I've also noticed the increase in sarcastic comments as a result.

More Black "Us" vs. "Them" Silliness

I wasn't going to go here.
Really.

But comments to blog entries by
dcthornton and Black Republicans don’t really want to go down this path.

Black GOP’ers claim that Blacks are emotionally tied to the Democrat party.

That’s a fair comment.

Black GOP’ers say that Blacks need to examine politics in a non-emotional way.

That’s a fair comment even if idealistic. The reality is politics is emotional.

Now they start with the plantation stuff?

Ya’ll don’t want to go down that path. Especially when there are Black GOP’ers whose words can come back to haunt them.

Think I’m kidding? Do this search in Google. Use the quotes. It’s one search.

“shannon reeves” “window dressing”

When you get the results, use the cached copy to get to the Contra Costa Times article.

Here’s a quote:

“Black Republicans are expected to provide window dressing and cover to prove that this is not a racist party, yet our own leadership continues to act otherwise,” party Secretary Shannon Reeves wrote in an e-mail to party board members.

This is a URL I have, but I don't know how long it's valid.

Haiti Ramblings

60K to go to hurricane relief

Haiti is a national interest for U.S. because of drug running. Yet, the U.S. supports a new Haiti government which has strong drug ties and human rights violations.

The Bahamas used to be the rum running spot. Later, it was drug running, using the same rum running paths and hideouts. Because of anti-drug efforts, the U.S. helped out the Bahamas. The U.S. still helps out that country. Now, The Bahamas is off-shore financial haven.

The U.S. pressured Caribbean countries to not let Aristide into their country after he fled the coup. There is good reason to question the U.S.'s hand in what happened. The Caribbean countries basically told the U.S. no.

Now, during this crisis, the U.S. gives Haiti $60K in relief funds. Is this payback?

$60K?

Damn.

Some people need to learn to cast a ballot better pt. 3

Now with all of that said, a couple of more points:

1. In the post that started this, I did talk about "future voting scandals" perhaps in the same way that Florida has future felons on their list.

Given Jimmy Carter's statements about Florida, the closeness of this election, and the unwillingness of the current Administration (and Congress) to fully fund the actions needed to protect and secure the right to vote, I expect the problems with this election to be severe. Severe enough that if Bush wins there will not only be calls that he is illegitimate (which won't be different from what happened in 2000), but there may be more than mass protests.

2. It DOES behoove us to prepare.

I support civic education. So I do think that teaching folks how to use ballots would be a good way to spend loot. But what I think is more important are statewide initiatives designed tactically to protect and secure our vote, and if that isn't possible to restrict the vote of our political opponents. I haven't thought much about this last point, but I know it is possible.

Some people need to know how to cast a ballot pt. 2

To my mind there are a few forms of vote tampering.

There are your heavy handed tactics. These tactics in the modern era happen infrequently, largely because of the Voting Rights Act. But I'd suspect that when they are used, they are used against relatively powerless populations--populations without the education, or the money, to understand and use their rights. I imagine that when my colleague talks about people needing to learn how to cast ballots he is assuming that the majority of people hit by vote tampering fit within this category. "Police" going through poor neighborhoods warning citizens that they will be arrested if they cast a vote and they are found to have warrants, fliers telling folks they can vote on Saturday if they are unable to vote today, police barriers, etc. are all examples of heavy handed tactics.

But there are a variety of methods that can either stop people from even casting a ballot in the first place...or that will neuter the value of that vote.

Some folks need to cast a ballot better

One of my erstwhile colleagues made this comment after I wrote about UPCOMING voter scandals. He understood that there were a number of people placed on the felon list, but also notes that "some people need to learn how to use a ballot."

I'd like to go backwards a bit.

Approximately fifty years ago, it was customary to browse through political science journals and see little to nothing about black people's political attitudes or their voting behavior. In fact, when this information DID appear, it was always belittling. Black people don't care about politics. Black people don't have any political attitudes.

If you would've pressed these scholars up to prove their propositions...they would've pointed to one thing--black voting patterns.

What's the problem with this scenario? Black people couldn't vote.

Now to be technical, this isn't really true. Some black people could vote. But if out of a county with 90 black adults, only 2 got to vote, there are only two possible explanations. Either they didn't vote because they didn't want to...or they didn't vote because they couldn't.

Fast forward.

Now what my erstwhile colleague would have us believe is that a significant number of black citizens are so clueless that they just don't know how to cast a ballot. I disagree with this.

But whatever the case, the next entry will talk about why this misses the point.

Roy Jones

I'm surprised that no one has written more about Roy Jones going down. It's times like this that I wish Ralph Wiley was still around. Jones needs to hang them up. Don't think he will because it's hard for us to acknowledge when the body won't do what the mind wants it to.

It's particularly hard for someone who for so long has been one of the best ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET at what he does.

I think I gained an adult appreciation for excellence sometime in the mid-nineties. Part of it was related to Jordan's comeback--even though I wasn't a big Jordan fan the first go around. A big part of it was related to my increased dissection of my own game (basketball). And other random and sundry bits and pieces (you ever played a full 82 game season on nba live? if it's hard as hell to get up for the clippers in the virtual world imagine how hard it would be to get up for them in real life and STILL drop 30 and 10?).

So even though I wasn't a big boxing fan, I admired what Roy Jones was able to do. I don't ever think I'll be able to do anything in my arena like Jones did when he played a pro basketball game in the afternoon, then defended his crown in the evening.

The Black Slate

The most recent edition of The Black Slate deals with what you won't hear in the debates. Of course there's a whole LOT you won't hear about in the debates...but I focus on one particular health plan that Bush isn't finding much room for though there is bi-partisan support for it. I thought about focusing on the voting scandals, or the upcoming voting scandals. I suspect I'll be harping on it and policy differences as we get a bit closer to the election.

Ramblings On Affirmative Action

I guess it's my turn up on the game called "Lets Discuss Affirmative Action!" My turn in the mix comes from a blog entry made by LaShawn.

Generally, the "discussion" about affirmative action centers around statistics "showing" that those who are benefitted by affirmative action are not worthy.
Or, the "discussion" can also center around the perception that Blacks' self-esteem is some how damaged. Or, the "discussion" centers around how whites perceive Blacks to be incompetant.

I'll try to address those issues, but I'll do so by gathering previous comments that I've made. I've added more to some of the initial comments.

My ramblings start here.