Vision Circle

CBC Foundation, Katrina, Giving Money

I heard about the CBC raising money for the victims of Katrina.

Lately I've been hearing that the CBC has yet to give out any of the funds. For example, read this

According to Marc Morano it would appear at the time bodies (the allegations being black bodies) were floating in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, the Congressional Black Caucus was floating tax-free charitable donation dollars. (See: "Bush-Bashing Black Charity Sits on Katrina Cash," CNS News, Marc Morano, Dec. 22, 2005).

Morano's investigation found the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation not only has not distributed any of the estimated $400,000 it raised for the black victims of hurricane Katrina, but as Patty Rice, spokesman for the CBCF told Morano, "The distribution of the money would not begin until January or February at the earliest." My guess is that unless shamed into doing so, they will not have dispersed one dollar toward the stated urgent need this time next year, but I digress.

This is quite a haul for CBCF, and if one were inclined to question the integrity of a group that proudly comport itself as what could be construed as available to the highest bidder, it could also be seen as quite a con game – one that should be looked into.

I was ready to slam them.

But I went to the CBCF website and read this:

On December 9, 2005, CBCF issued a $290,000 grant to the New Orleans-based Community of Faith for Economic Empowerment (COFFEE). COFFEE is right on the front lines providing crisis assistance to supplement rental payments for dislocated families and emergency food and clothing assistance. They also offer construction and rehabilitation assistance and loss mitigation counseling among other vital services such as, insurance claim filing assistance and foreclosure abatement assistance for those who have been unable to meet their mortgage payments. For more information on COFFEE, visit their website at www.coffee-neworleans.org.

Help me out here? Are people talking out of their behind or did they give up the money is response to critics?

Well, read this

Bush-Bashing Black Charity Sits on Katrina Cash
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 22, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which slammed the Bush administration for its allegedly slow and racially insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to spend any of the estimated $400,000 that it raised for the victims of the Aug. 29 storm.

"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. The Foundation is an offshoot of the Congressional Black Caucus and was founded in 1976.

...

Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a group that monitors charitable giving, was quick to criticize the CBCF.

"It sounds like the CBCF has been stressing the immediacy of the [victims'] needs when they raised the money and yet for some reason when it comes time to dishing it out they can't seem to get organized," Boehm told Cybercast News Service.

:

The author wrote an article near Dec. 22 saying the funds haven't been given. Funds were given on the 9th.

Interesting.

Hatin' On Kwanzaa

This is to the people who write "anti-Kwanzaa" screeds this time of year.

• Kwanzaa is a made up holiday.

  1. Yes, it's made up. Karenga has said that from day one.

  2. Other "made up" celebrations include Mardi Gras, Mother's Day, Valentines Day, and St. Patrick's Day.

• Kwanzaa is not an African celebration.

  Karenga never said it was an African celebration. He said he took parts of different African cultures and created a "harvest festival" like celebration.

• Christians shouldn't celebrate it.

  OH, do you really want to go here?

  1. The birth of Christ, Our Savior, did not likely happen on the 25th of December. It was "created" to overtake the pagen rituals that occured during the time.

  2. How many Christians celebrate Christmas singing about Santa Claus and Rudoloph?

  
  

• It's a separatist event.

  1. I've been to one Kwanzaa celebration. I attended in Philly and Karenga was a speaker. At this point, I'll mention that there were a fair number of whites in attendence, and it wasn't just news reporters.

  2. Many people come from different parts of the country to celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Did you know that there are actually 2 separate Mardi Gras parades happening at the same time? One done by whites, the other by Blacks? Did you know that until 2004, I think, they never even "greeted" each other?

• Most American Blacks have never even been to Africa

  1. Most American whites have never been to Ireland but does that stop them from celebrating St. Patrick's Day?

  2. Most Americans, period, have never left the country.

• Kwanzaa replaces Christmas.

  No, it doesn't. Some "Black churches" even celebrate both.

Take the Kwanzaa hating and step. Ya'll are just spouting nonsense.

For the record: I don't celebrate it. I'm just sick of the silliness the haters go through on trying to shut it down.

"Acting White", One More Time

P6 is throwing down on the false hype of "acting white".

He quotes someone else:

Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.

The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.

Ya'll go visit now. Ya here?

Get French or Die Trying

The rioting in Paris and other French cities has led to a lot of interpretations and comments, most of them irrelevant. Many see the violence as religiously motivated, the inevitable result of unchecked immigration from Muslim countries; for others the rioters are simply acting out of vengeance at being denied their cultural heritage or a fair share in French society. But the reality is that there is nothing particularly Muslim, or even French, about the violence. Rather, we are witnessing the temporary rising up of one small part of a Western underclass culture that reaches from Paris to London to Los Angeles and beyond.

P6 tipped me off to Times Select perpetration with the Brooks piece, interestingly, Olivier Roy had a stronger version of the same in the proletarian section, as well.

"Black" man grows up "white" for 26 years

I got this story from one of my students. A subscription may be required. A few months ago I got into a discussion with science fiction author Steven Barnes on his blog about "race relations." Steve's thing was that blacks had special problems they needed to overcome from discrimination (no disagreement) that led to them having severe cultural and psychological deficits (big disagreement).

Reading this story it is clear that the son has some issues to deal with. But for me the mother's story is even more tragic.

CSPAN DOES Black Conservatives and One Fool

So, while in the hotel room, I decided to give a look at the Black conservative shing ding on CSPAN being moderated by Jesse Lee Peterson.

Here are some thoughts as I watch..

If "white guilt" is a "bad thing", then why is "Black inferiority" not a bad thing?

Listening to CSPAN, I've heard Shelby Steele and LaShawn(?) mention feeling "inferiority" when they saw the images out of New Orleans.

Hmmm....

I Don't See What You See

in reading cnu's response to an earlier post on bennett's comments, i had a thought. it seems that perspective is everything...and the comedy of america are the historical myths of liberty, freedom, obectivity and justice. in any case, i have felt, for the past two decades, that these differences are irreconciliable (at the collective level) and came up with the following:

My Take On Bill Bennett

I don't like doing this, but:

in·fer·ence

1 a the act of passing from one proposition, statement, or judgment
considered as true to another whose truth is believed to follow from
that of the former

im·ply

2 : to involve or indicate by inference, association, or necessary
consequence rather than by direct statement

When I heard Bill Bennet's comments, I heard them in full context.

My take on the matter was to think that if all Black babies were
aborted, some fraction of those Black babies would turn to crime. I
never assumed the statement meant ALL Black babies would become
criminals. And, statistically speaking, I'm right. In fact, most won't be criminals. But for those that would turn to crime, since they wouldn't be around, the crime rate would have to go down.

The same applies if Bennett used whites instead of Blacks or if he said male babies only or if he said if we somehow removed all males between the age of 15-30.

In looking at the responses to Bennett's remarks, there seems to be a
strong thought that states Bennett meant all Black babies aborted
would have been criminals. No where do I see that in Bennett's remarks.

However, going further, it seems to me that Bennett's comments are not what's making the racists feel comfort, it's the replies that confirm the idea that most Blacks are criminals.

Maybe I've missed it, but the fact that most Blacks are NOT criminals, is being lost, to me, with the knee jerk reactions.

That's what is giving comfort to the racists.

Watch Who Gets Dogged

Watch who gets dogged.

Will it be the functionally illiterate single mother, whose family has a high incidence of illiteracy, who was raped when she was 15 and then became wild, she says, because of a loss of self esteem because she was raped?

Or, will it be the drug addict mother, whose family took her child away from her because she was an addict, who, when placed in a dire situation, offered meth to a criminal?

Who? Me a cynic?

Katrina: The Race Aftermath

Right now, one of the things being discussed in the aftermath of Katrina is race.

Well, as usual, it's infantile if you ask me.

But, THIS is what should be watched. This is race in America, 2005: Old-line families plot the future. Note the class issues that are also involved.

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

...

Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.